post

Maximizing Wind and Solar Energy: Live Webinar Nov. 5!

The Energy Collective

The Energy Collective


This coming Wednesday, Nov 5th, sees the second installment in the Energy Collective‘s Fall Webinar Series!

Up next:
Wind and Solar Come of Age: Making Renewables Full Partners in Our Energy Future – Wednesday, November 5 @ 1 PM Eastern / 10 AM Pacific, Featuring Scott Sklar of The Stella Group and Tom Raftery of GreenMonk (that’s me!).

Scale, advances in technology, and the rising cost of fossil fuels mean wind turbines and solar panels are no longer novelties. But getting the most out of solar and wind involves more than new installations. In this Webinar, we’ll examine the challenges and opportunities associated with integrating peak-load, distributed power sources in our base-load-expectant society with an electrical infrastructure built for centralized generation. More info here.

And, don’t forget the final Webinar in the Series:
Decarbonization and Nuclear Power? – Thursday, November 13th @ 11 a.m. Eastern/8 a.m. Pacific, Featuring Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers, Dan Yurman of Fuel Cycle Week and Ashton Poole of Morgan Stanley’s Global Power and Utility Group

This controversial energy source appears to promise massive benefits, but also presents some serious obstacles. Our panelists will explore the possibility of a nuclear future in America, discussing the costs of adding new nuclear plants, the potential impact of carbon pricing, and whether NIMBY politics and regulatory barriers can be overcome. More info here

post

The financial markets might be in trouble but renewables are seeing boom times!

renewable energy

Photo Credit pseudorlaya

A couple of interesting announcements were made in Ireland in the last week.

On the 8th of Oct., Eirgrid, the Irish grid operator launched their Grid25 strategy (pdf warning). In the strategy document they announced they are spending €4 billion reinforcing the Irish distribution grid in the expectation of a 60% rise in electricity usage.

The Irish Environment Minister, John Gormley in his Carbon Budget announced that the Irish government is going to target that 40% of electricity consumed in Ireland would be from renewable sources by 2020. This is an increase over the previously stated, already ambitious target, of 33% from renewables.

Ireland had an average electrical demand of 3.2GW in 2007. A 60% increase means an average consumption of 5GW by 2025 and an average of 4.5GW in 2020. This is the date the government has set as its target of 40% from renewables.

40% of 4.5GW means that Ireland will average 1.8GW from renewables in 2020. Assuming that this will come from wind (there is no other viable renewable energy source in Ireland), this will require 5.4GW of installed wind capacity.

Ireland currently has 1GW of installed wind capacity so to hit the target it needs 4.4GW of wind farms to be built.

That’s 366MW per annum or just over 1MW every day until 2020! A 1MW wind turbine would be a significant structure costing in excess of €1m.

So the Irish government has set as a target the sourcing of 1MW extra from wind energy every day for the next 12 years?

I also spotted today that StrategyEye in their new quarterly report are reporting that investment in the Cleantech sector is up 50% this quarter, compared to the first quarter of 2008.

The financial markets might be in trouble but renewables are definitely seeing boom times!

post

GreenMonk Interview with Rob Bernard, Microsoft’s Chief Environmental Strategist

I talked to Microsoft’s Chief Environmental Strategist, Rob Bernard the other day. We discussed how large organisations can reduce their environmental footprint, using Microsoft’s own example; we discussed how Microsoft software is helping other companies reduce their carbon footprint and we discussed how Microsoft people and products are helping research into Climate Change.

post

Is micro (home) generation of electricity good for the environment?

Home solar
Photo Credit benefit of hindsight

Microgeneration, the generation of electricity by home owners, is becoming increasingly common, especially with the cost of energy going up and the cost of wind turbines and photovoltaic panels for the home falling.

The majority of people deploying these solutions are doing so to 1) lower their home energy bills and 2) to help the environment.

What if I told you that often installing microgeneration equipment does not help the environment?

Bear with me while I try to explain. This is complex, counter-intuitive and I am not the world’s best communicator!

Grid operators have problems integrating renewable energy sources onto the grid right now because they are a variable source of supply. Couple that with the variability of demand and your grid starts to become increasingly unstable.

By far the most economic renewable energy source currently is wind but wind energy’s supply curve is often almost completely out of phase with demand (wind blows stronger at night when there is least demand for energy).

The more renewables that are brought onto the grid, the greater an issue this becomes with grid operators having to shut down production from wind farms in times of oversupply! Bear in mind also that there has to be enough generation capacity from non-wind sources (oil, gas, coal, nuclear, etc.) to pick up the slack on days when the wind doesn’t blow.

In times of oversupply from renewables, it would be far preferable to be ramping up consumption of energy using moveable loads, rather than shutting down production from renewables.

Now consider the home-owner who has deployed their own wind turbine. At times when the wind is blowing this home-owner is generating power thereby reducing their demand just when there is an oversupply on the grid! And if they have a net metering agreement with their utility, they further exacerbate the problem by pumping extra electricity into the grid, just when it isn’t required!

Conversely, on calm days, when extra energy is most needed, micro-generation contributes nothing.

There are two main problems:
1. There are no economic energy storage technologies currently available – though this situation is evolving rapidly with the ramping up of investment into battery research by the transportation industry in particular and
2. Real-time pricing data for electricity generation are not exposed to the consumer – if they were, and automated demand response mechanisms were put in place, you would see a radical shift in the energy consumption curve (people would consume energy when it was cheaper – i.e. when it is abundant).

If these two nuts were cracked i.e. economic energy storage mechanisms were available and real-time pricing data were exposed, micro-generators could generate energy when the wind blows, store it and then profitably sell it back to the grid when demand increases, or the wind drops.

For now though, while microgeneration may be beneficial in reducing your energy bills, it is of no benefit to the environment.

Note that I didn’t address CHP in this post because I was trying to keep things simple! CHP can be beneficial, as can any microgeneration, if the production of energy increases in line with the price of electricity.

As the price of electricity goes up, so too does its carbon footprint. If you consume electricity when it is cheap, you are facilitating the greater penetration of renewables onto the grid. If, as a micro-generator, you can produce clean power when electricity is expensive, then you are helping the environment.

UPDATE: Just to clarify, I fundamentally believe microgeneration is a good thing. However, given the current antiquated state of the grid in many countries, the disconnect between generation and demand profiles for wind particularly, and the lack of decent energy storage technologies, the environmental benefits of microgeneration are far from straightforward. This will change as energy storage options improve and demand response mechanisms and smart grids are deployed.

post

Google and GE joining forces on clean energy

In the above video Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO, Google interviews Jeffrey Immelt, Chairman and CEO, GE.

The reason Google and GE were talking? Google and GE jointly announced the other day that they are coming together “to help develop tomorrow’s power generation, transmission and distribution — known as the “smart grid” — and its interface with next generation electric transportation”.

From the release:

The existing U.S. infrastructure has not kept pace with the digital economy and the hundreds of technology opportunities that are ready for market. In fact, the way we generate and distribute electricity today is essentially the same as when Thomas Edison built the first power plant well over one hundred years ago. Americans should have the choice to drive more fuel efficient cars – or even electric cars – and manage their home energy use to reduce costs, and buy power from cleaner sources, or even generate their own power for sale to the grid.

We all receive an electricity bill once a month that encourages little except prompt payment. What if, instead, we had access to real-time information about home energy use? What if our flat screen TVs, electronic equipment, lights and appliances were programmed to automatically adjust to save money and cut energy use? What if we could push a button and switch the source of our homes’ electricity from fossil fuels to renewable energy? What if the car sitting in our garage ran on electricity – the equivalent of $1 per gallon gasoline – and was programmed to charge at night when electricity is cheapest?

This is spectacular news! GE are the largest player in the power industry in the US. Their product line covers every aspect of power generation, transmission, distribution and consumption. And GE have an enviable record in renewables. They are the largest manufacturer of wind turbines globally having purchased Enron’s wind business out of bankruptcy for $300m and turned that into an asset generating between $7-$8bn in 2008!

Google get Demand Response. Coming from an Internet background as they do, they know all about the read/write web, p2p and publish and subscribe mechanisms – these are going to be the cornerstone of Electricity 2.0 as espoused by Eric Schmidt and Google in their release, and by me as I write about them regularly on this blog!

In fact, I am giving a talk at the Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin on Oct 23rd entitled “Electricity 2.0 – Using The Lessons Of the Web To Improve Our Energy Networks” – this builds on the Keynote I gave there last year on using demand response to reduce our carbon footprint.

post

Any questions for Strato Director Rene Wienholtz?

Sevici
Photo Credit Rock Alien

Despite being Europe’s second largest hosting company, Strato are also carbon neutral!

They didn’t achieve this by purchasing offsets either. Strato did it by:
1) purchasing energy efficient hardware
2) using very precise cooling methodologies
3) using customised software to run its facilities and finally
4) by buying CO2 free energy from NaturEnergie.

Strato’s Executive Director for Information Technology and Innovation is Rene Wienholtz and I will be chatting to him tomorrow morning asking him how a hosting company, typically a massive power sink, can go carbon neutral.

If you have any questions you’d like me to put to Rene in the podcast, either leave them in a comment on this post, or email them to me ([email protected]).

post

Large Hadron Collider? Our priorities are way off!

Leaks
Photo Credit Image Editor

While it is exciting to watch the stories breaking today about the successful startup of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, I have to wonder about the price tag.

The total cost of the LHC is estimated at between €3.2 to €6.4 billion and while that is a wide margin, even if it is closer to the €3.2 billion mark that is still a huge amount of money to spend trying to confirm “the predictions and missing links in the Standard Model of physics”. And that is just the financial cost – the amount of CO2 put into the atmosphere by its build and operation must be staggering.

I would far prefer to see all this money and effort being channelled into renewable research. Imagine how much more advanced wind, solar and wave/tidal energies could be now if scientists had €4b of research grants to work with.

I’m a scientist by training and I don’t for a second underestimate the benefits to mankind of being able to explain how elementary particles acquire properties such as mass but I do think that with our polar ice caps melting and small island nations becoming submerged, our priorities on this one are a little mixed up.

post

Demand response – how to get more wind energy onto the grid

Wind Energy Curtailment

I read a fascinating article in the New York Times yesterday about how the electricity grid in New York can’t always cope with the amount of electricity being produced by the Maple Ridge wind farm and so from time to time the wind farm has to shut down production!

This problem is not unique to New York according to the article:

That is a symptom of a broad national problem. Expansive dreams about renewable energy, like Al Gore’s hope of replacing all fossil fuels in a decade, are bumping up against the reality of a power grid that cannot handle the new demands.

The dirty secret of clean energy is that while generating it is getting easier, moving it to market is not.

This is a problem for the owners/operators of Maple Ridge and similar facilities – how do you get a return on investment if the grid operators can shut you down at a moment’s notice? In fact, how do you get investment in the first place if your income is completely controlled by another company?

Nor is this just an American problem, I heard reports this morning that in the last few days, for the first time ever, Eirgrid (the Irish transmission service operator – grid management company) had curtailed production from Irish wind farms. I contacted Eirgrid’s customer services department and confirmed that this had in fact happened and I will be receiving more information from Eirgrid about this early next week.

Ireland is currently sourcing an average 9% of its energy requirements from wind but has committed to moving to a 33% average from renewables by 2020. If the grid is having difficulties taking in wind energy at 9%, how do they hope to get anywhere near 33%?

Even more insane is the fact that if you are a wind energy producer in Ireland, you have to sign a contract allowing Eirgrid to shut you down up to 17% of the time. Yes, you read that right – at a time when countries are trying to reduce their carbon footprint to comply with Kyoto, the Irish grid operator is dissuading investment in wind energy projects by inserting curtailment clauses and now by going the full hog and shutting down wind farms!

Have Eirgrid not heard of Kyoto? Or CO2 emissions? Or the obvious solution to problems like over capacity from wind – demand response?

The problem Eirgrid have is not an over-supply of energy from wind. It is an over-supply of wind energy when demand for electricity is low (6am on a warm summer weekend morning, for example).

With a proper demand response mechanism in place, if too much electricity is being created by wind, instead of shutting down wind farms and risking future investment in renewables, you simply reduce the price of electricity to the market to stimulate an increase in demand!

The market gets cheaper electricity, from clean sources, investors are less wary of investing in wind so more wind farms are financed, the government stands a better chance of reaching its 33% from renewables by its 2020 target and Eirgrid get a more stable grid (as well as helping the govt reach its target) – win, win, win,win, and win!

Nor is this issue limited to Ireland and the US. Any countries hoping to increase the penetration of renewable (variable) energy supplies will need to initiate a demand response mechanism to manage the demand, thereby stabilising the system and allowing for even greater uptake of renewable energy.

You can be sure I will be putting this to Bill Vogel, CEO of Trilliant, when I am talking to him next week.

post

Dell claims carbon neutrality 5 months ahead of schedule

In June of this year, Dell re-asserted its aim of becoming the Greenest Technology company on the planet with a post which included nuggets like:

  1. recycled 102 million pounds of IT equipment from customers during 2007, a 20 percent increase over 2006
  2. became the first major computer manufacturer to offer desktop customers Silver 80 PLUS-certified power supplies
  3. the company’s laptops and desktops, already among the industry’s most energy-efficient, are being designed to consume up to 25 percent less energy by 2010 relative to systems offered today and
  4. The company’s carbon intensity (CO2 emissions/revenue) is among the lowest of the Fortune 50 and less than half that of its closest competitor

Then just last week Dell announced that it had met its aim of becoming a carbon neutral company five months ahead of schedule. It did so using a combination of “an aggressive program to improve efficiencies in the company, purchasing green energy directly as well as renewable energy credits and verified emissions reductions” according to Dane Parker, Dell’s Director of Environment, Health, & Safety.

Some have sounded a note of skepticism saying things like:

You have to question whether they have taken all their workers’ commuting into consideration, and the materials (involved) in making a computer, going all the way back to zinc mining

and

Carbon neutrality is a large amount of greenwash. Computer companies should be focusing on the developments made in recent years in the reduction of harmful material inside the computers, and reduction in the power that computers use. With these high claims, companies are setting themselves up to be knocked back down again

And while there is some validity to this, in fairness to Dell, they have implemented a policy that requires their suppliers to report their emissions during quarterly business reviews, so they are pushing this back down the supply chain and it is hard to argue with the fact that Dell’s carbon intensity (CO2 emissions/revenue) is less than half that of its closest competitor.

We need to see a lot more companies following Dell’s lead in this. Having said that, independent verification of the carbon neutral claim by a trusted third party would do away with any lingering doubts about Dell’s commitment to Green once and for all.

[Disclosure – Dell are a GreenMonk client]

post

Energy Demand Management II – the sequel!

SANY0030
Creative Commons License photo credit: owlhere

The post I wrote about energy demand management (EDM) last week certainly stimulated some discussion and got people thinking – always good.

It appears it was a timely post too as I came across two announcements which seem to indicate that the big utilities are looking very seriously at smart grids and EDM.

The first news came out of SAP’s recently formed AMI Lighthouse Council when they announced the integration of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) with Enterprise technology.

The AMI lighthouse consists of SAP, CenterPoint Energy, CLP Power Hong Kong Limited, Consumers Energy, Energy East, Florida Power & Light, Oklahoma Gas & Electric and Public Service Electric & Gas as well as several strategic vendors like eMeter, Itron and OSIsoft.

AMI short for Advanced Metering Infrastructure refers to systems that measure, collect and analyse energy usage, from smart electricity meters on request or on a pre-defined schedule.

From Wikipedia

This infrastructure includes hardware, software, communications, customer associated systems and meter data management software.
The network between the measurement devices and business systems allows collection and distribution of information to customers, suppliers, utility companies and service providers. This enables these businesses to either participate in, or provide, demand response solutions, products and services.

The idea is that the AMI Lighthouse Council are working towards the integration of SAP® solutions with AMI solutions for business processes, including customer relationship and billing and enterprise asset management. All vital to making EDM a reality.

The second announcement which caught my eye is that IBM is working with Country Energy (a utility co. which owns and operates Australia’s largest energy supply network) to develop a smart grid in Australia. From the announcement:

Country Energy is pursuing the Intelligent Network concept to improve reliability, support the growth of renewables like solar and wind, and make energy efficiency simpler for customers.

When you see tech companies like SAP, and IBM betting heavily on the smart grid concept and utilities like Country Energy, CenterPoint Energy and CLP Power Hong Kong Limited coming on board to make it happen you know that smart grids are coming.

This next generation of smart grids will be able to absorb far more energy from unpredictable (destabilising) renewable energy sources without compromising grid stability which is in all our best interests.