If you are interested in climate change, you’ve probably heard of biochar. It’s basically charcoal, which is produced not through burning, but through heating biomass in the absence of oxygen. It has the amazing fertilizer qualities and when used in this way is actually carbon negative by sequestering carbon in the earth.
The video, produced by Raw Science, shows Dr. Frank Shu, a celebrated astrophysicist and Shaw Prize winner now dedicated to making an impact on climate change. He has developed a process that converts biomass to carbon neutral (or negative) coal that can be enhanced by a molten salt nuclear reaction. Check it out.
According to the latest “Energy Infrastructure Update” report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) Office of Energy Projects, wind energy and solar power combined provided over 70 percent (71.82%) of the 873 megawatts (MW) of new U.S. electrical generating capacity placed into service in November 2014.
Specifically, three wind farms came on line last month, accounting for 333-MW of new generation in service. These included Stella Wind Farm’s 182-MW Panhandle Wind Farm Phase II expansion in Texas and the 150-MW Origin Wind Energy project in Oklahoma. New wind generating capacity this year thus far has more than doubled that for the same period in 2013 (2,525-MW vs. 1,112-MW).
In addition, 14 new “units” of solar came on line for a total of 294-MW of capacity, led by MidAmerican Renewables LLC’s 250-MW Topaz Solar Farms expansion in California.
Just a single new unit of natural gas came on-line last month (Wisconsin Electric Power Co’s 140-MW Valley Power Plant Unit 1 Repowering Project) as well as the first and only coal plant to come into service so far in 2014 (Great River Energy’s 106-MW lignite-fueled Spiritwood Station project in North Dakota).
So, for the ninth time in the past eleven months, renewable energy sources (i.e., biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar, wind) accounted for the majority of new U.S. electrical generation brought into service. Natural gas took the lead in the other two months (April and August).
Of the 10,926-MW of new generating capacity from all sources installed since January 1, 2014, 39 units of wind accounted for 2,525-MW (23.11%), followed by 235 units of solar – 2,203-MW (20.16%), 49 units of biomass – 282-MW (2.58%), 7 units of hydropower – 141-MW (1.29%), and 5 units of geothermal – 32-MW (0.29%). In total, renewables have provided 47.43% of new U.S. electrical generating capacity thus far in 2014.
The balance came from 46 units of natural gas – 5,513-MW (50.46%), 1 unit of coal – 106-MW(0.97%), 1 unit of nuclear – 71-MW (0.65%), 15 units of oil – 47-MW (0.43%), and 6 units of “other” – 7-MW (0.06%). Thus, new capacity from renewable energy sources in 2014 is 49 times that from coal, 73 times that from nuclear, and 110 times that from oil.
Renewable energy sources now account for 16.44% of total installed operating generating capacity in the U.S.: water – 8.43%, wind – 5.42%, biomass – 1.38%, solar – 0.88%, and geothermal steam – 0.33%. Renewable energy capacity is now greater than that of nuclear (9.22%) and oil (3.97%) combined. *
“With only one month left in 2014, it has become a horse race between natural gas and renewable energy as to which will dominate new electrical generation for the year,” noted Ken Bossong, Executive Director of the SUN DAY Campaign. “Regardless of the winner, it is apparent that coal, oil, and nuclear will be left behind in the dust.”
For more information contact Ken Bossong at +1-301-270-6477 x.11
Here’s a great little video if you love seeing wind turbines being installed. This one is huge and getting placed off shore into the North Sea off the coast of Belgium, one of the toughest environments for wind turbines to operate.
According to the latest report from GTM Research the U.S. solar energy storage market will expand rapidly over the next 4-5 years. The report, The Future of Solar-Plus-Storage in the U.S., forecasts the nation to install 318 cumulative megawatts of behind-the-meter solar-plus-storage capacity through 2018.
FIGURE: U.S. Solar-Plus-Storage Annual Market Size Forecast
Between California’s recent mandate for the state to procure 1.3 gigawatts of energy storage for its grid and the announcement of Tesla’s Gigafactory, the energy storage market is nearing a tipping point. Paired with solar, energy storage becomes even more attractive given its ability to take advantage of the 30 percent federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC) in certain situations. It also allows the owner to scale down the size of the system, as opposed to installing a stand-alone system, resulting in lower effective upfront costs.
The report identifies several trends helping solar-plus-storage grow to a billion dollar business in the U.S. including strong solar PV growth, falling battery costs, state incentives, net energy metering (NEM) changes and resiliency needs.
However, significant barriers do remain. While the cost for lithium-ion storage is falling by 20-30 percent annually, the price-point for both lithium-ion and other technologies is still high. Additionally, the report expresses concern about the ability of solar-plus-storage to participate in multiple use cases such as demand response and ancillary services. “Currently only PJM and a handful of other pilot programs allow participation of aggregated solar-plus-storage in wholesale markets or for grid services,” said Senior Energy Storage Analyst and report author Ravi Manghani.
The report provides a detailed state-level forecast, breakdown of the vendor ecosystem, market drivers and barriers, and an economic analysis for residential and non-residential end customers.
By 2018, GTM Research expects that one in ten new commercial solar customer will pair its installation with solar. “The key driver for this growth in commercial solar-plus-storage deployments is attractive end-customer economics,” said Manghani. “In this report, we quantify end-customer economics for three end-customer types across multiple utilities and conclude that for some of those customer-utility combinations, the economics look promising even today.”
Additional Key Findings from the report:
• Behind-the-meter solar-plus-storage in the U.S. will be a 169 MW market in 2018
• The annual market value in dollars will grow from $42 million in 2014 to more than $1 billion by 2018
• California will have the largest market share of solar-plus-storage through 2018, largely due to the fact that it will continue to be the biggest behind-the-meter solar market
• For a typical commercial end customer, solar-plus-storage systems can provide electricity bill savings of 20% to 30%, depending on system size
• Solar-plus-storage penetration for commercial customers is set to grow from 1% in 2014 to 11% by 2018
Throughout 2014, SunPower has invested in integrated technology solutions to help home and business owners manage their cost of energy. According to the company, these moves aim to reinforce SunPower’s evolution to offering Smart Energy solutions for its residential, commercial and utility customers. Recent key activities include:
While none of these investments are as big as Google’s acquisition of Nest earlier this year, this activity by SunPower does send a strong signal that being a vertically integrated solar manufacturer is no longer good enough on it’s own and that comprehensive energy solutions on the customer end will lead to greater success for selling solar energy in the future.
