Why Solar Power Needs to Get Better:

Elon Musk

9 Experts on the Improvements Solar Technology Needs Today - Interesting Engineering

Solar is just one of many sustainable energies that could lead the way to a green power revolution. Though solar power is becoming more and more viable every day, there are still issues to overcome before entire countries can depend on the sun as a source of energy.
If we're to finally phase out fossil fuels for good, solar power needs to get better. Here are just some of the issues that experts are trying to address in the fight to make the world a greener place.

1. Elon Musk: Solar Power Needs to be Integrated
Elon Musk's vision of a solar-powered future doesn't stop at solar panels on roofs - he wants entire integrated systems to dominate homes and businesses all over the world. He imagines a future where solar roofing tiles feed into power walls, which in turn power electric cars.
Speaking in 2016, Musk said, "The key is it needs to be beautiful, affordable and seamlessly integrated." His point is clear - if solar power is to become a dominant power source, there has to be integrated infrastructure both privately and publicly to support that generation of energy. Read More

Energy Efficiency Simply Makes Sense

What simple tool offers the entire world an extended energy supply, increased energy security, lower carbon emissions, cleaner air and extra time to mitigate climate change? Energy efficiency. What’s more, higher efficiency can avoid infrastructure investment, cut energy bills, improve health, increase competitiveness and enhance consumer welfare — all while more than paying for itself.

Maria van der Hoeven - IEA

The challenge is getting governments, industry and citizens to take the first steps towards making these savings in energy and money.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has long spearheaded a global move toward improved energy efficiency policy and technology in buildings, appliances, transport and industry, as well as end-use applications such as lighting. That’s because the core of our mandate is energy security — the uninterrupted availability of energy at an affordable price. Greater efficiency is a principal way to strengthen that security: it reduces reliance on energy supply, especially imports, for economic growth; mitigates threats to energy security from climate change; and lessens the global economy’s exposure to disruptions in fossil fuel supply.

In short, energy efficiency makes sense.

In 2006, the IEA presented to the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations its 25 energy efficiency recommendations, which identify best practice and policy approaches to realize the full potential of energy efficiency for our member countries. Every two years, the Agency reports on the gains made by member countries, and today we are working with a growing number of international organizations, including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Asian Development Bank and the German sustainable development cooperation services provider GIZ.

The opportunities of this “invisible fuel” are many and rich. More than half of the potential savings in industry and a whopping 80 percent of opportunities in the buildings sector worldwide remain untouched. The 25 recommendations, if adopted fully by all 28 IEA members, would save $1 trillion in annual energy costs as well as deliver incalculable security benefits in terms of energy supply and environmental protection.

Achieving even a small fraction of those gains does not require new technological breakthroughs or ruinous capital outlays: the know-how exists, and the investments generate positive returns in fuel savings and increased economic growth. What is required is foresight, patience, changed habits and the removal of the barriers to implementation of measures that are economically viable. For instance, as the World Energy Outlook 2012 demonstrates, investing less than $12 trillion in more energy-efficient technologies would not only quickly pay for itself through reduced energy costs, it would also increase cumulative economic output to 2035 by $18 trillion worldwide.

While current efforts come nowhere close to realizing the full benefits that efficiency offers, some countries are taking big steps forward. Members of the European Union have pledged to cut energy demand by 20 percent by 2020, while Japan plans to trim its electricity consumption 10 percent by 2030. China is committed to reducing the amount of energy needed for each unit of gross domestic product by 16 percent in the next two years. The United States has leaped to the forefront in transportation efficiency standards with new fuel economy rules that could more than double vehicle fuel consumption.

Such transitions entail challenges for policy, and experience shows that government and the private sector must work together to achieve the sustainability goals that societies demand, learning what works and what does not, and following the right path to optimal deployment of technology. Looking forward, energy efficiency will play a vital role in the transition to the secure and sustainable energy future that we all seek. The most secure energy is the barrel or megawatt we never have to use.

Maria van der Hoeven is the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, an autonomous organization which works to ensure reliable, affordable and clean energy for its 28 member countries and beyond. This commentary appeared first this month in IEA Energy, the Agency’s journal.

 

© 2014

New Publication - The Power of Transformation -- Wind, Sun and the Economics of Flexible Power Systems

The Power of Transformation -- Wind, Sun and the Economics of Flexible Power Systems, 238 pages, ISBN PRINT 978-92-64-20802-5 / WEB 978-92-64-20803-2, paper €100, PDF €80 (2014)

Type: Studies
Subject: Climate Change ; Electricity ; Renewable Energy; Energy Security

Wind power and solar photovoltaics (PV) are crucial to meeting future energy needs while decarbonising the power sector. Deployment of both technologies has expanded rapidly in recent years, one of the few bright spots in an otherwise bleak picture of clean energy progress. However, the inherent variability of wind power and solar PV raises unique and pressing questions. Can power systems remain reliable and cost-effective while supporting high shares of variable renewable energy (VRE)? And if so, how?

Based on a thorough review of the integration challenge, this publication
- gauges the economic significance of VRE integration impacts
- highlights the need for a system-wide approach to integrating high shares of VRE
- recommends how to achieve a cost-effective transformation of the power system.

This book summarises the results of the third phase of the Grid Integration of VRE (GIVAR) project, undertaken by the IEA over the past two years. It is rooted in a set of seven case studies, comprising 15 countries on four continents. It deepens the technical analysis of previous IEA work and lays out an analytical framework for understanding the economics of VRE integration impacts. Based on detailed modelling, the impact of high shares of VRE on total system costs is analysed. In addition, the four flexible resources which are available to facilitate VRE integration – generation, grid infrastructure, storage and demand side integration – are assessed in terms of their technical performance and cost-effectiveness. More

Table of Contents

Summary

 

© 2014

Bladeless, funnel-based wind turbine claims huge efficiency gains

As governments all over the globe continue inching towardrenewable energy sources, there continue to be a few sticking points. One company out of Minnesota claims to have a new wind power generation technology that can alleviate most of the world’s concerns. SheerWind says its Invelox system can operate in a wider variety of conditions and is up to 600% more efficient than traditional wind turbines.

Those large wind turbines you’re used to see dotting the skyline in rural areas rely on fairly swift winds to function. Invelox can generate power from winds as gentle as 1-2 MPH. It does this by capturing passing breezes in large scoops at the top of its 40-50 foot tower. The wind is funneled down toward the ground through an increasingly narrow space. When the air is compressed, it speeds up and is used to power a small turbine generator.

The claim that Invelox is six-times more efficient than a turbine is more than a little shocking, so SheerWind is trying to prove its case, but it’s currently doing so with internal testing (so keep that in mind). The company tested its turbine both with and without the Invelox cowling. When it compared the values over time, that works out to energy production improvements anywhere from 81-660%. The average was 314%, but it should be noted this is actually the advantage SheerWind’s turbine gets from being inside the Invelox system. It’s not quite a comparison with “real” wind power turbines.

Fuzzy math aside, the company says it has been able to produce wind power at a cost of $750 per kilowatt, including installation. This brings it in-line with the final cost of energy from natural gas and hydropower. The energy industry is all about value, so if the Invelox technology is legit, it’s going to be huge. Invelox takes up much less space than traditional windmills, and it poses little to no risk to birds or curious children. More

 

Unlocking Renewable Potential in the Caribbean

Bethesda, Maryland -- Caribbean nations face an uncertain energy future. With an energy infrastructure designed in the era of low-priced and abundant oil, many of these nations depend almost entirely on petroleum to supply their electricity demands. With oil prices hovering between $90 and $110 a barrel and projected to rise, island nations reliant on heavy fuel oil for their electrical generation are being hard hit.

“The U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) are almost 100 percent dependent on imported fuel,” says Adam Warren of the National Renewable Energy Laboratories (NREL). According to Bill Scanlon of NREL, in the USVI, electricity prices average US$0.35/kWh and are four to five times higher than prices paid in the continental U.S. Furthermore, there is a significant amount of price volatility; prices reached a peak of $0.50/kWh during 2008, according to Scanlon. Such electricity prices are crippling to USVI residents, who have an average annual household income of $22,000. The USVI are not alone. The islands of St. Kitts and Nevis are also fully dependent on petroleum imports for their electric supply and also suffer from high, volatile electricity rates. Even the larger islands struggle with high electricity prices. Puerto Rico uses petroleum to generate nearly 70 percent of its power, leading to electricity prices which are twice those of the U.S. mainland.

To look at it from another angle, Caribbean nations have, according to the World Bank, a per capita GNI of only $8,134, yet the average electricity price is a staggering $0.34/kWh with current data showing even higher prices. This is clearly not a sustainable model, particularly with the predicted demand growth in the next 20 years.

The lack of diversified power generation leaves Caribbean islands vulnerable to commodity market volatility, while the lack of new development leaves islands reliant on outdated, sometimes unreliable power plants. The key to reducing and stabilizing electricity prices on Caribbean islands is therefore to install a diversified and modern electrical generation portfolio. Some would argue that renewable energy systems should not be a part of the energy portfolio until they are cost competitive with fossil fuel generation. The notion that grid parity can or should be used as a benchmark is a fundamentally flawed standard, however. An electrical generation portfolio, similar to a stock portfolio, must be balanced to perform efficiently and without excessive volatility. A balanced energy portfolio can be achieved by carefully choosing both traditional and renewable generation to supply each island’s unique generation profile. While there will always be a place for traditional generation in a country’s power portfolio, the Caribbean islands provide a unique opportunity for renewables. Renewable energy can help to diversify electrical generation while stabilizing electrical prices and supply for islands; however, issues with scale, grid stability, and access to capital have to be overcome.

Scale

Many islands are planning or already have small scale renewable energy installations, including Puerto Rico, Barbados, Jamaica and Grenada. The USVI, which issued a request for proposals for solar photovoltaic (PV) projects at the beginning of 2011, recently announced the awardees that will install the first grid-connected utility scale solar power plants: SunEdison, Lanco, and Toshiba. However, there has yet to be effective large scale diversification of power sources or implementation of renewable energy projects in the Caribbean.

This is partially because many Caribbean islands lack an appropriate, consistent regulatory framework. Efforts are underway to help resolve this issue. The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat’s Caribbean Renewable Energy Development Programme (CREDP) was founded in 1998 by 16 Caribbean nations to remove barriers to the use of renewable energy and thereby foster its development and commercialization throughout the Caribbean. CREDP has assisted with renewable energy policy reform in Jamaica, Barbados, Grenada, St. Kitts, Dominica, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

The larger issue hindering large-scale renewable energy deployments, however, is scale. While Caribbean nations have quite significant renewable energy potential, most have small demand. The deployment of renewable projects at adequate scale will help to both attract international interest and to effectively diversify the energy portfolio. To build up enough scale, therefore, Caribbean islands must cooperate to form larger economic impact zones. Such cooperation has begun with organizations like the Caribbean Electric Utility Services Corporation (CARELIC), among others. Formed in 1989, CARELIC is a regional association of electric utilities comprised of thirty-three utility members from thirty countries in the Caribbean region. Even larger unions must be formed. By establishing cooperative measures, Caribbean utilities can take advantage of cheaper goods, gain access to cheaper capital, and pique the interest of independent power producers (IPPs) and developers worldwide. By creating economies of scale, Caribbean utilities can drive prices down, allowing for efficient investment in each island’s power sector.

Grid Stability

If renewable energy projects are to be built at larger scales and contribute a greater portion of the Caribbean islands’ energy portfolio, grid operators on Caribbean islands must institute measures to support the integration of variable generation sources onto their grids. The majority of island networks are old, with the average diesel generators more than 20 years old. Furthermore, the power supply is relatively inefficient with high system losses. There is a need to identify technical criteria and designs that will allow grid stability to be maintained. Two power issues of particular concern are power output and frequency smoothing.

As a case study, consider Miyako Island of Okinawa, Japan. This island has a generation profile similar to many Caribbean islands, with a peak demand of 50 MW and 74 MW of gas and diesel power plants supplying the majority of its electricity. The island is promoting a microgrid project, integrating a 4.2 MW wind project and a 4 MW solar PV installation with 4.1 MW of batteries. Miyako Island illustrates the ability of batteries to provide power output and frequency smoothing. The batteries are able to ensure grid stability, helping to limit frequency fluctuations and accommodate varying outputs from the solar and wind projects. Future study on the island will attempt to determine the optimal ratio of variable generation to batteries to maintain grid integrity. More

World Energy Outlook 2012

The global energy map is changing in dramatic fashion, the International Energy Agency said as it launched the 2012 edition of the World Energy Outlook (WEO). The Agency's flagship publication, released today in London, said these changes will recast expectations about the role of different countries, regions and fuels in the global energy system over the coming decades.

“North America is at the forefront of a sweeping transformation in oil and gas production that will affect all regions of the world, yet the potential also exists for a similarly transformative shift in global energy efficiency,” said IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven. “This year’s World Energy Outlook shows that by 2035, we can achieve energy savings equivalent to nearly a fifth of global demand in 2010. In other words, energy efficiency is just as important as unconstrained energy supply, and increased action on efficiency can serve as a unifying energy policy that brings multiple benefits.”

The WEO finds that the extraordinary growth in oil and natural gas output in the United States will mean a sea-change in global energy flows. In the New Policies Scenario, the WEO’s central scenario, the United States becomes a net exporter of natural gas by 2020 and is almost self-sufficient in energy, in net terms, by 2035. North America emerges as a net oil exporter, accelerating the switch in direction of international oil trade, with almost 90% of Middle Eastern oil exports being drawn to Asia by 2035. Links between regional gas markets will strengthen as liquefied natural gas trade becomes more flexible and contract terms evolve. While regional dynamics change, global energy demand will push ever higher, growing by more than one-third to 2035. China, India and the Middle East account for 60% of the growth; demand barely rises in the OECD, but there is a pronounced shift towards gas and renewables.

Fossil fuels will remain dominant in the global energy mix, supported by subsidies that, in 2011, jumped by almost 30% to $523 billion, due mainly to increases in the Middle East and North Africa. Global oil demand grows by 7 mb/d to 2020 and exceeds 99 mb/d in 2035, by which time oil prices reach $125/barrel in real terms (over $215/barrel in nominal terms). A surge in unconventional and deepwater oil boosts non-OPEC supply over the current decade, but the world relies increasingly on OPEC after 2020. Iraq accounts for 45% of the growth in global oil production to 2035 and becomes the second-largest global oil exporter, overtaking Russia.

While the regional picture for natural gas varies, the global outlook over the coming decades looks to be bright, as demand increases by 50% to 5 trillion cubic metres in 2035. Nearly half of the increase in production to 2035 is from unconventional gas, with most of this coming from the United States, Australia and China. Whether demand for coal carries on rising strongly or changes course radically will depend on the strength of policy decisions around lower-emissions energy sources and changes in the price of coal relative to natural gas. In the New Policies Scenario, global coal demand increases by 21% and is heavily focused in China and India.

No more than one-third of proven reserves of fossil fuels can be consumed prior to 2050 if the world is to achieve the 2 °C goal, unless carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology is widely deployed.

Renewables become the world’s second-largest source of power generation by 2015 and close in on coal as the primary source by 2035. However, this rapid increase hinges critically on continued subsidies. In 2011, these subsidies (including for biofuels) amounted to $88 billion, but over the period to 2035 need to amount to $4.8 trillion; over half of this has already been committed to existing projects or is needed to meet 2020 targets. Ambitions for nuclear have been scaled back as countries have reviewed policies following the accident at Fukushima Daiichi, but capacity is still projected to rise, led by China, Korea, India and Russia.

Water is essential to the production of energy, and the energy sector already accounts for 15% of the world’s total water use. Its needs are set to grow, making water an increasingly important criterion for assessing the viability of energy projects. In some regions, water constraints are already affecting the reliability of existing operations and they will introduce additional costs. Expanding power generation and biofuels output underpin an 85% increase in the amount consumed (the volume of water that is not returned to its source after use) through to 2035. More

 

Should We Focus on Energy Efficiency or Energy Supply?

A new study released last week has looked at the implications of switching the focus of mitigating climate change from developing energy supply technologies towards developing energy efficient cars, buildings, and domestic appliances.

The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change shows that twice as much effort is currently being directed towards developing supply technologies such as new power stations than is being directed towards improving the efficiency of end-use technologies.

“About two-thirds of all public innovation efforts are directed toward energy supply technologies,” explained Dr. Charlie Wilson of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia who led the study.

“It is vital that innovations in renewable energy supply continue, but the imbalance in spending needs to be redressed urgently to mitigate climate change. Evidence strongly suggests that energy end-use and efficiency currently stand as the most effective ways to mitigate climate change.”

“Efficiency gets short shrift in both public energy research and development, and in private market investments alike,” said Study co-author Prof Arnulf Grubler, of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and Yale University. “In contrast, improvements in technologies like domestic appliances and more energy-efficient transport are underrepresented given their potential for mitigating climate change.”

The study, led by Dr Wilson in collaboration with an international team of scientists fro Austria and the US, assessed energy technology innovation and quantified the relative emphasis placed on energy supply technology versus the technologies that are using the energy supplied. More

 

 

 

Don’t count on recessions to keep climate change in check

For as long as humanity has relied on fossil fuels, there’s been a tight relationship between economic growth and the carbon-dioxide emissions that are heating the planet. When a country’s economy expands, its energy use and carbon pollution go up, up, up. When a recession strikes, energy use drops and emissions sink back down.

But that relationship has never been perfectly symmetrical, according to a new study in Nature Climate Change by Richard York of the University of Oregon. The uptick in carbon pollution from a given amount of growth tends to be significantly bigger than the drop in carbon output from an equal-sized recession. Essentially, there’s a ratcheting effect, as people get used to a higher-carbon lifestyle and maintain it even during a downturn.

York looked at World Bank data from 150 countries between 1960 and 2008. What he found was that carbon-dioxide emissions tend to rise 0.73 percent for every one percentage point increase in GDP per capita. By contrast, emissions only drop 0.43 percent for every point decline in GDP per capita.

In a lot of ways, that makes sense. York pointed out to LiveScience that after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, many former states saw their economies plummet, with per capita GDP shriveling all the way down to sub-Saharan levels in a few countries. But while their carbon emissions dropped, they didn’t plunge all the way down to sub-Saharan levels as well. That’s because these former Soviet states had already built a lot of infrastructure, such as roads and factories, that didn’t disappear entirely during the recession.

This ratcheting effect can help explain why, after the recent financial crisis, global emissions didn’t drop quite as sharply as many researchers had expected. While the United States has managed to cut its carbon pollution by 7.7 percent since 2006 — thanks to a combination of weak growth, swapping out coal for natural gas, and increased oil efficiency — that hasn’t been true of the world as a whole. Global greenhouse-gas emissions quickly rebounded in 2010 and hit a record high in 2011. More

 

 

How the U.S. Is Getting More Hydropower without Building a Single New Dam

The U.S. has 2,400 hydropower dams, many of which sport out-of-date generating equipment that is, well, generations old.

That’s the bad news. The good news is, it all adds up to the potential for a massive energy efficiency upgrade program that could significantly boost U.S. hydropower generation without the monumental expense and environmental disruption involved in new dam construction. In fact, the first round of hydropower upgrades is already underway at an average cost of less than 4 cents per kilowatt-hour.

A Hydropower Upgrade for Boulder, Colorado

The Boulder Canyon Hydroelectric Facility in Boulder, Colorado is a case in point. Dating all the way back to 1910, the facility just underwent an overhaul that replaced two older turbines with one new energy-efficient unit. The new unit alone can generate 30% more energy than both of the older turbines combined.

The upgrades can also cut the energy required to run hydropower facilities. At Boulder, the $1.18 million project included new transformers, storage tanks, and wiring, along with remote operating equipment. More

 

 

IEA DSM Programme Highlights its Future Role with Respect to Energy Efficiency

3 October 2012: The newsletter of the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Demand-Side Management (DSM) Programme takes a look forward at the energy efficiency emphasis of the IEA in 2013 and points to the ways that the DSM Programme might contribute under this topic focus. The newsletter also features the work of competitive energy services with a review of the expansion of energy service companies in Europe.

The newsletter emphasizes emerging technology domains such as smart charging of electric vehicles and the use of heat pumps (for seasonal heat storage and cooling), with figures given for market penetration of both technologies in Austria, Finland, France, the Netherlands and Spain. The newsletter also offers a look forward to a public awareness event of the IEA where the DSM Programme will receive special attention in Arnhem, the Netherlands, for its new work on “The Role of Customers Delivering Effective Smart Grids.”

Predicting that energy efficiency will be the most discussed topic in 2013, the Chair of the DSM Programme, Rob Kool, notes how the programme can deliver energy efficiency in various areas, by combining services with smart grids, creating tools and spreading knowledge on competitive energy services (Task 16), the formation of a new task to help transmission system operators, and investigating behavioural change with respect to energy demand management (Task 24). Kool notes that competitive energy services will remain especially important as the EU moves toward the implementation of its new Energy Efficiency Directive. He cautions, however, that although energy efficiency is garnering increased attention, energy experts should not lose sight of the topics of hydrogen energy and carbon capture and storage, which are currently falling in the interest polls.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) Demand-Side Management (DSM) Programme is a collaboration between 14 countries to develop and promote opportunities for DSM, offering solutions to problems such as energy load management, energy efficiency, strategic energy conservation and related activities. [Publication: DSM Spotlight Newsletter] More

 

New Car Fuel Consumption Could Be Halved, International Energy Agency Claims

The world's new cars could use half as much as much fuel as they do now in 20 years, if current technologies are more widely adopted, according to the International Energy Agency.

In a pair of reports issued Wednesday the agency said with aggressive new policies, the world could stabilize its oil consumption even if the number of vehicles on the road doubles by 2050. Without those policies, cars and trucks would consume twice the amount of oil they do today.

Half the world's oil — about 45 million barrels per day — is used to make the gasoline, diesel and jet fuel needed to drive, ship or fly.

The IEA, an energy security group with 28 oil-importing member countries, suggested a number of policies and technologies that could lead to far less fuel use. Many are already being adopted around the world, but the agency said the pace of change could be accelerated.

IEA pointed to better labeling of fuel economy and carbon dioxide emissions of new cars, and standards that mandate minimum fuel economy levels and limit carbon dioxide emissions. It also suggested taxes or other financial measures that penalize buying gas-guzzlers and reward the purchase of fuel-efficient vehicles.

Last month the Obama Administration finalized regulations that will force automakers to nearly double the average gas mileage of all new cars and trucks they sell in the U.S. by 2025.

Energy industry executives and government forecasters say U.S. gasoline demand peaked in 2006 and will slowly decline because of more fuel efficient cars and trucks and demographic changes. Similar trends are playing out in Western Europe and Japan. But millions of people in the developing economies of China, India and elsewhere are buying cars for the first time and pushing up world oil demand. More

 

How Much Energy Does Excessive Nighttime Lighting Waste?

Americans do squander a lot of electricity keeping things lit up at night while most of us sleep. This light blocks our view of the night sky and stars, creates glare hazards on roads, messes with our circadian sleep-wake rhythms, interrupts the patterns of nocturnal wildlife, and is by and large annoying. It also takes a financial toll: The federally funded National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) reports that poorly-aimed, unshielded outdoor lights waste $2 billion (17 kilowatt-hours) of energy in the U.S. each year.

NOAO has monitored outdoor lighting levels across the U.S. and beyond for the past six years through its GLOBE at Night program whereby citizen-scientists track nearby outdoor lighting levels over a two-week period beginning in late March and submit their observations to NOAO electronically. A simple star map provided by NOAO is all that participants need to track their slice of sky. “All it takes is a few minutes for a family to measure their night sky brightness by noting how many stars are missing from an easy-to-find constellation like Leo (in the northern hemisphere) or Crux (in the southern hemisphere),” says GLOBE at Night project director Connie Walker. “This tells us how much light is directed upwards into the sky.”

Over the last six annual campaigns, participants from 100-plus countries have contributed almost 70,000 measurements, giving project organizers a detailed picture of light pollution globally. Unfortunately, analysis of the data shows that participants have seen brighter skies and fewer stars over time, meaning that light pollution is a growing problem. The free and publicly-accessible data gathered by the project is not only useful for educational purposes but can also help inform planners and policymakers on decisions about increasing public safety, reducing energy consumption and even identifying parks and green spaces that can serve as “sky oases” where city dwellers can appreciate the night sky from a safe, dark place. More

 

Making the Case for Smart Grid to Shave Peak Power

Smart grid technology could shave 15 percent to 20 percent off a utility or region’s peak power demand, according to estimates from the World Energy Council, IBM and others. That adds up to that many fewer fossil-fuel fired power plants a utility or region will have to build over the next few decades or so, which is good for the utility, the customers and the planet.

But how do you measure the value of a power plant never built -- and how do you justify the uncertain returns on the hard costs of deploying the smart grid to make that happen (or, not happen)?

Those are questions that the smart grid industry -- and, importantly, state and federal regulators -- will have to answer if we’re to achieve the peak-shaving potential that the smart grid promises.

“What’s the value of that avoided cost?” John Chevrette, president of management consulting division at big utility technology services firm Black & Veatch, said during a Wednesday press breakfast in San Francisco. “It’s a very debatable point in the industry.”

Chevrette and other Black & Veatch execs were in town to discuss a new report on the global energy outlook and to cover the challenges facing the water and energy industries they serve.

In broad terms, the biggest news in the energy business is the super-cheap price of natural gas, and the expectations of cheap gas for years to come, of course. That’s a challenge to wind and solar power development, but a relief to an industry that can’t build new coal-fired power plants and finds nuclear plants way too expensive and unpopular to build, he noted.

In fact, Black & Veatch predicts that 61,000 megawatts of coal power plants are set to retire between now and 2020, he said. (The U.S. Energy Information Administration says 27 gigawatts, or 27,000 megawatts, will retire over the next five years.) Replacing that will be some solar and wind, but mostly natural gas, Chevrette said, given that nuclear power’s would-be renaissance has stalled amidst economic turmoil and blowback from Japan’s Fukushima disaster -- but there’s still a lot of lost power to make up for.

“The relief valve, in many respects, for these pressures, comes down to the customers,” he said. Pushing energy efficiency, demand response and other programs to get utility customers to use less power will be a critical part of making up for that shortfall.

There’s plenty of real-world evidence of smart grid technologies cutting peak power and improving overall energy efficiency -- and more often as not, it’s been done specifically to avoid building new power plants. More

 

Cluttr dials down data center energy on demand

Data centers don’t have to be powered by a solar farm, or cooled by seawater, to be smart about their energy consumption — often times it’s the far less glamorous choices that can lead to big energy savings. And those are the choices that Belgian startup Cluttr is looking to help data center operators make.

The company, which was one of the LaunchPad finalists for GigaOM Structure last week, has developed software and a service that takes a deep dive into a data center’s energy use and makes it a whole lot smarter. The startup, founded by entrepreneur Frederik Van Hecke when he was studying at the Ghent University, audits an existing facility, provides its Power Waste Reduction (PWR) suite of software, and monitors everything to make sure the facility is reducing its energy use.

The software manages the data center’s power use in real time. When there’s less load on the servers (say it’s the middle of the night), the software dials down the energy use, and when the load turns back up, the software adjusts in real time. The company describes this as enabling “the power consumption to actually scale along with the amount of work being processed.” Silicon Valley startup Power Assurehas developed a similar type of software.

Van Hecke tells me that the amount of energy, and money, that can be saved via the software depends on the type of workloads that the servers do. But generally, Van Hecke says, Cluttr is seeing energy reductions ranging from 20 up to 40 percent — that’s a savings of $300 to $600 per server per year based on European electricity prices, and $115 to $230 per server per year based on U.S. electricity prices, says Van Hecke. The company’s audit tool helps them estimate the potential savings for a customer before actually deploying the solution. More

 

G8 Deaf to Climate Change Warnings by International

When the chief economist for the International Energy Agency (IEA) issues a dire warning, you'd think the world's leaders would sit up and take notice. If this statement by Fatih Birol last week wasn't a dire warning, then I don't know what is: "What I see now with existing investments for plants under construction... we are seeing the door for a 2 degree Celsius target about to be closed and closed forever."

 

A global rise in temperature of 2°C is widely considered to be a threshold beyond which catastrophic climate change is likely to occur; many scientists and governments consider 1.5° a safer bet. And we're talking here about catastrophic with a capital C -- for many communities around the world, climate change has already proved catastrophic.

So how did the leaders of the G8 richest countries respond to this warning at their summit in Camp David last week?

By speaking in platitudes, at best: "Different energy sources have different inherent risks and must be developed in a safe, efficient, and environmentally sustainable manner."

And by missing the point, at worst.

To keep that door to 2°C open, three things need to happen:

More renewables: We need to invest in renewable energy services like there's no tomorrow. (Literally!)

Displace Fossil Fuels: Simply adding more renewables to the mix isn't enough, they need to displace fossil fuels. Global investment in clean energy reached a record-breaking high of $260 billion in 2011. According to the IEA, however, energy demand is expected to rise by a third by 2035. While the share of fossil fuels in the total energy mix will shrink, without a dramatic change of direction our use of these climate-deadly fuels will grow in absolute terms.

Conservation and Efficiency: In addition to adopting policies which create incentives to invest in renewables, and disincentives to invest in fossil fuels (phasing out fossil fuel subsidies to start with), we need to conserve energy wherever possible, and to use energy more efficiently. More

 

White roofs can cool your homes and the planet

White roofs can cool cities

05 February 2010 CITIES can battle the "urban heat island" with paint. Highly reflective white roofs could cool cities by an average of 0.6 °C, according to a global simulation.

Dark city surfaces like roofs and roads absorb and radiate heat, leaving cities up to 3 °C hotter than surrounding areas. A team at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, combined climate models with a simulation of how temperatures are modified by city landscapes.

They found that in a hypothetical world in which cities sported highly reflective white roofs, urban temperatures were on average 0.6 °C cooler than in cities with existing, mostly black roofing materials. In the real world, says lead author Keith Oleson, the benefits might be slightly less as rooftops get covered in dust (Geophysical Research Letters, in press). More >>>

Building an easy answer to climate change

Buildings last for decades, so increasing their green credentials can have a long-term impact on our energy consumption

30 November 2009 - Killer typhoons in Taiwan and China ... a failed monsoon in India ... the United Nations secretary-general pleading for action on climate change, while politicians argue over who will bear the costs.

But, instead of bickering while the planet heats up, policymakers should embrace one of the cheapest ways of cutting the air pollution: by making buildings more efficient.

Surprisingly, buildings account for about one-third of global energy use. Transportation, mostly cars, accounts for roughly another one-third. Factories and mines make up the rest. A lot of attention has gone into making cars and factories more efficient since the first global energy shocks of the 1970s. Yet most buildings are bigger energy hogs than a fleet of SUVs. Given advances in technology in everything from window glass to air conditioners, change can come for no net cost.
The World Business Council for Sustainable Development, which produced a landmark study on the topic, contends that buildings should put back into the system at least as much energy as they take out. The consultancy McKinsey & Company notes that a number of key energy efficiency technologies for buildings offer payback periods of less than a year and could have a dramatic impact on greenhouse-gas emissions.
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Tuesday, 19 May 2009 - Smart meters will play a central role in delivering an energy infrastructure fit for the 21st Century, says Stephen Cunningham. In this week's Green Room, he argues why he believes the technology will help deliver the necessary carbon saving needed to prevent dangerous climate change.

If time waits for no man, climate change is even more ruthless.
Yet people in the UK, along with much of Europe, have been waiting for years for the intentions of government and its increasingly ambitious carbon reduction targets to be reinforced with decisive implementation plans.
Last week, that wait came to an end - at least in the field of energy management.
Industry has finally been given the backing it needs to unlock the potential of "smart metering". More >>>