Posts Tagged ‘hydropower’
Utilities squeeze Ohio River for more energy
>> Greenwire
The push to develop the Ohio River is a sign of the truce between industry and environmentalists after decades of fighting over hydropower.
Report: Hydro emissions can rival those of natural gas
The Seven Sisters Dam in Manitoba. (Photo by Miss Barabanov via Creative Commons)
As states grapple with the question of whether to count hydropower as renewable energy, a recent report says dams can emit greenhouse gases at a rate far greater than wind and solar, and can nearly reach those of natural gas combined-cycle plants in their first years of operation.
Cambridge, Mass.-based Synapse Energy Economics, Inc. found that large scale hydropower using reservoirs have lifecycle emissions, as measured over a 100 year span, in excess of wind, solar, and run-of-the-river hydro. Reservoirs in northern climates can add substantially to GHG emissions if they cover land that is filled with boreal forests that serve as carbon sinks.
Commissioned by the Conservation Law Foundation, “Hydropower Greenhouse Gas Emissions: State of the Research” does not suggest hydropower pollutes more than traditional fossil sources such as coal, natural gas or diesel. But in the short term the GHG emissions from hydro – in at least three of the first 10 years of operation – exceed those of a natural gas combined-cycle plant, said Christophe G. Courchesne, staff attorney for the CLF’s Concord, N.H. office.
“In the short term, hydro is less impressive than had been assumed,” he said. “There are more short-term impacts in new projects than we expected.”
Synapse collected data from recent scientific research looking at hydro’s impact, much of it conducted in Canada, which receives a greater percentage of electricity – 59 percent – from hydro than all but two other countries.
Reservoirs are the main culprit behind high GHG emissions, which are especially intense in a plant’s first decade. A study of a Hydro-Quebec’s Eastmain 1 facility and reservoir, which produces 480 MW, found that newly flooded areas increase emissions due to the decomposition of organic material, he said.
Over the lifecycle of a large hydro plant – about 100 years – GHG emissions are still more per megawatt hour than wind, solar, nuclear and run-of-the-river hydro, the report claims.
Because flooding for dams takes out forest reserves “you eliminate a lot of carbon sinks” that absorb pollution, added Courchesne.
An imprecise science
However, there’s little consensus on hydropower’s climate impact, and both reports concede the science on some of the issues is relatively new, and novel.
In a response to the report published on the CLF website, Alain Tremblay, environmental advisor for Hydro-Quebec Production, said GHG emissions from 60 different generating stations differ greatly. Hydropower emissions are similar to those from wind power, one quarter of photovoltaic facilities, 40 times less than a gas-fired plant and 100 times less than a coal-fired one, he wrote.
The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions – formerly the Pew Center on Global Climate Change – wrote in a summary of data on hydro that its GHG emissions were less than energy from biomass and solar and about the same as emissions from wind, nuclear, and geothermal plants. The research cited, however, was more than a decade old.
The CLF’s report comes with political implications. The organization has been a vocal opponent of Northern Pass, a $1 billion proposal to build transmission lines from Hydro-Quebec’s operations to New England along a route in New Hampshire.
But it’s not the only report published recently to look at hydro’s impact. Edmonton-based Global Forest Watch Canada released in January a large, in-depth study that showed Canada reports just one figure for the GHG impact of hydro to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and it tends to be low.
“Those numbers are relatively low within the scientific range of possibility,” said Peter Lee, executive director. “What we learned is that there is a range of possible emissions and within that range it’s probably a lot higher than governments are reporting.”
For example, Environment Canada, a government agency, estimates the country’s hydropower plants emit 1.5 megatons annually for reporting purposes. The Global Forest Watch report suggests that may be as high as 17 megatons, and as low as 0.2 megatons.
“Our understanding of the cumulative watershed impacts of large dams is still poor,” the report says.
The CLF hopes the reports and other efforts will bring into question the claims of Northern Pass supporters who see Canadian hydro as a green alternative. Courchesne also fears Canadian hydro could stymie the growth of other renewable energy sources in New England, especially wind and solar. Locally, the Minnesota Legislature has debated whether to allow utilities to use Canadian hydro for the state’s RPS while Wisconsin allows it.
“There has been an active movement to qualify these projects (for RPS),” Courchesne said. “But we believe there is no justification for qualifying large-scale hydropower for RPS treatment. The RPS statute was meant to incentivize new technologies and not economically mature technologies that are viable without subsidy. That’s where large hydro is.”
DOE report touts hydro potential of Ohio, Mississippi rivers
>> CleanTechnica
The Department of Energy estimates that adding generators to existing dams could add an estimated 12 GW of hydropower capacity, an increase of roughly 15 percent.
Canadian hydro producers eye growing U.S. market
>> Midwest Energy News
Transmission towers near the Seven Sisters Dam in Manitoba. (Photo by Miss Barabanov via Creative Commons)
March 15, 2012
By Frank Jossi
Electricity produced by Canadian dams is finding a growing market in the Upper Midwest as energy providers seek out new low-carbon electricity sources.
Two Midwest utilities – Minnesota Power and Wisconsin Public Service – have signed contracts within the past six months with Manitoba Hydro for a total of 350 megawatts.
Xcel Energy, Minnesota’s largest utility, also has a long-standing relationship with Manitoba Hydro for 850 MW and inked a deal for 125 MW last year. In 2010, Minnesota received 14 percent of its electricity – mostly hydropower – from Canada, while Wisconsin imported 3.4 percent, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
“We’ve had a long history of selling energy into the Minnesota and Wisconsin markets,” said Glenn Schneider, public affairs manager for Manitoba Hydro. “We’ve had agreements before. For three or four years now Wisconsin has been looking for a big and renewable source of power that has a low carbon impact and meet the state’s renewable targets. In Wisconsin they don’t have a lot of options.”
Meanwhile, Minnesota Power’s decision came down to offering “a really low cost and carbon free energy resource” to several mines currently open and proposed for the Iron Range, said spokeswoman Amy Rutledge.
Rutledge said the arrangement calls for a new 500 kilovolt transmission line from Winnipeg to a substation in northern Minnesota’s Iron Range and a 345 kV line to Duluth, where the power could be sold into Wisconsin and the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator (MISO) market.
The cost of the first leg would be shared between the two utilities, Manitoba Hydro and Minnesota Power, while the line to Duluth would be a partnership between Minnesota Power and American Transmission Co. Rutledge said Minnesota Power would share the costs of building both lines, which together will cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Minnesota Power plans to bank energy, via pumped hydro storage in Manitoba, produced by its Bison Wind Farm in North Dakota during times of low demand at night. During the day it would get back electricity dependent on need.
The Manitoba advantage
The U.S. is Manitoba Hydro’s premier market. Eighty-four percent of its exports are to the U.S., mostly to the Midwest, with the rest going to adjacent Canadian provinces.
Export purchases peaked in 2006, when high rivers and big demand lead to $827 million in net revenues from exports, in sharp contrast to last year’s $398 million take.
The company has major agreements with seven U.S. utilities – the biggest being an ongoing $1.7 billion contract with Xcel Energy, followed by Minnesota Power, WPS (which has an existing 108 MW agreement) and Great River Energy (which trades 150 MW on a seasonal basis).
Manitoba Hydro expects to add $4 billion in revenues annually after 2020, when the new purchases kick in.
In order to meet growing demands in the export market, the provincial government announced last year the construction of the 695 MW, $5.6 billion Keeyask Generating Station in partnership with four tribes.
The reason? Midwest power contracts, according to the provincial government’s own press release on the project.
Schneider said the company has other potential hydro projects in the offing, including the Conawapa Generating Station, which will be double Keeyask’s capacity and open in 2024. Keeyask is a result of a government requirement to add a new supply of electricity by 2019, he said, but it will produce more power than the Manitoba can absorb.
Manitoba’s provincial government has just one coal plant left, with plans to retire it soon, and has publicly stated it wants to become the one of the most sustainable energy providers in North America, according to the government’s 2008 Beyond Kyoto report.
MISO declined to comment for this article, but its spokeswoman, Jennifer Lay, said the organization is working on a report on the impact and opportunities of Canadian energy.
Meeting renewable standards
In general the appeal for American utilities is that Manitoba Hydro offers reliable, low cost and low-carbon energy, although there’s dispute over whether hydropower should be included in state renewable standards. Minnesota’s law currently excludes large hydro projects, Wisconsin added out-of-state hydropower into the state’s RPS last year.
Green energy advocates object to Canadian hydro’s inclusion because it potentially diminishes the creation of domestically produced renewable technology.
Michael Vickerman, executive director of RENEW Wisconsin, argued against the Wisconsin bill, saying the inclusion would likely “crowd out opportunities for utility-scale renewable energy development opportunities” (RENEW Wisconsin is a member of RE-AMP, which funds Midwest Energy News).
Some Wisconsin hydro firms also tried to stop the Legislature from allowing Canadian hydro in, saying it hurts their business.
A bill in the Minnesota legislature would change the state’s renewable standard to include large hydropower, but for Minnesota Power, such a change isn’t necessary.
“This is a really low cost, carbon-free energy resource for our customers,” said Rutledge. “We don’t need to change the law to meet the Minnesota Renewable Energy Standards because we’re doing that through low-cost wind.”
Xcel Energy representatives say the company is on track to reach RPS goals by 2025, but it has advocated in the past for the allowing Canadian hydro to count toward renewable credits.
State officials have no complaints about Canadian power so far, at least. Mike Rothman, Minnesota’s Commerce commissioner, called the recent agreements “of importance” to the state’s energy mix and suggests they won’t be the last.
“We are aware of interest on the part of Manitoba Hydro and Minnesota utilities to extend and possibly expand this trading relationship,” he wrote in an email.
A growing industry
Wisconsin and Minnesota aren’t the only states buying Canadian hydro. The New England market has had a long, established relationship with Hydro-Quebec, the largest exporter of electricity in Canada, according to Jacob Springer, president of the Canadian Hydropower Association in Ottawa.
Manitoba Hydro is the second-largest energy trading partner with the United States, he said, and an active market among U.S. and Canadian utilities exists on the West Coast, too. Hydro-Quebec’s website reports 8 percent of sales are to the U.S., but those purchases represent 32 percent of the company’s net income.
The numbers are expected to grow as Hydro-Quebec lobbies with New Hampshire power officials to share construction of the 1,200 MW Northern Pass transmission project that would serve the New England market. The company would potentially provide power for a large, privately funded transmission project to bring Canadian power to New York City.
In 2009 Hydro-Quebec announced $10.4 billion in new hydro plants, and $7.8 billion in transmission lines, both indicators not of explosive domestic growth but rather a large and willing international partner to the south.
Canada, said Springer, has everything hydro needs – water, fast moving rivers, a legacy of involvement in hydropower.
Springer says the country has potential to add 163,000 MW of hydropower – which would more than double its current generating capacity from all sources combined.
“We have the third largest amount of surface water in the world,” he said. “We have a lot of rivers, we have a lot naturally attractive options, a lot of sites due to topography were attractive. Stretch that over the second largest land mass in the world and you’d expect there’d be a lot of opportunities.”
St. Paul journalist Frank Jossi writes about politics, business, energy and the environment. His website is www.jossi.biz.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that a bill to add large hydro to Minnesota’s renewable energy standard hasn’t been heard at the legislature. It was recently discussed before a Senate committee.
This work by Midwest Energy News is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.
Renewable or not? How states count hydropower
North Dakota's Garrison Dam has a nameplate capacity of 583 MW. (Photo via Army Corps of Engineers)
When is hydropower a renewable energy source?
The answer, at least from a policy perspective, depends on the state.
How hydropower is counted toward renewable electricity standards varies from state to state perhaps more than any other type of generation.
More than 30 states have passed renewable electricity standards, which require utilities to generate a percentage of their power from renewable sources.
Every state counts some hydropower, but the fine print is far from uniform.
In the Midwest, for example:
•Iowa and Minnesota allow utilities to count electricity from small hydropower facilities only. Iowa doesn’t define small, while Minnesota sets the upper limit at 100 megawatts.
•Illinois, Michigan, and Missouri don’t count hydroelectricity from facilities that require the construction of new dams or significant expansion of existing ones.
•Ohio will let utilities count hydroelectricity only from facilities that are not detrimental for fish, wildlife, water quality or “cultural resources.”
•North Dakota counts all hydropower in its renewable electricity standard.
•In July 2011, Wisconsin added new hydropower restrictions to its renewable standard. Utilities can only start counting hydroelectricity from large facilities after 2015.
One reason renewable policies place qualifications on hydroelectric facilities is that most of them were already built when states started discussing the policies. Counting all available hydro would significantly water down the impact in some places.
“The whole point of a [renewable standard] is to increase the amount of renewable energy in a state,” says Kyle Aarons, a solutions fellow with the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. “Since hydropower has been around for over 100 years in some areas, if they counted all hydro their targets would have to be unrealistically high or they wouldn’t actually be encouraging any new renewables from coming online.”
Utilities didn’t need new incentives to build hydropower facilities, Aarons said. They had already been investing in hydropower for reasons other than its renewable qualities.
That was the situation in Minnesota as lawmakers were working on the state’s renewable policy in 2007. Canada’s Manitoba Hydro is a major power supplier to the state’s utilities, and it was preparing for a major expansion at the time.
“We wanted to see Minnesota develop its own resources rather than have a standard that would allow Minnesota utilities to meet it simply by buying hydropower from a major development,” says State Rep. Bill Hilty, DFL-Finlayson, one of the bill’s main authors.
The environmental impact of the Manitoba Hydro project was also of concern, says Hilty. It’s an issue that’s come up elsewhere, too, as states drafted their renewable policies, says Rupak Thapaliya, national coordinator for the Hydropower Reform Coalition.
“Hydroelectric is not always clean,” says Thapaliya. “Some states tend to be very protective of the ecosystems and they are hesitant to qualify hydro because first of all it’s not as clean as say, solar.”
A project’s size, however, is a poor measure of its environmental impact, says Thapaliya. That’s why the Hydropower Reform Coalition advocates for an approach more along the lines of Ohio, which specifically addresses environmental impact, rather than Iowa or Minnesota, which simply cap the size of facilities that are counted.
Organizations such as the Low Impact Hydropower Institute and American Rivers issue certification to hydroelectric facilities that meet environmental guidelines. Pennsylvania requires hydro to have that certification in order to be counted in renewable portfolios.
The National Hydropower Association doesn’t believe that’s necessary.
“Any hydro project that gets built today or that gets relicensed has to meet all of the federal and state environmental laws that are on the books,” says Jeff Leahey, the associations’ government affairs director.
When Congress was discussing a national renewable standard, the hydropower association supported a measure that wouldn’t have counted hydro as renewable but also wouldn’t have counted it in utilities’ non-renewable portfolios either.
A utility that hypothetically drew 50 percent of its power from hydro and was required to generate 25 percent from renewables would base the calculation only on the other half of its portfolio that didn’t come from hydro, lessening the burden.
A more aggressive clean energy policy, such as the 80 percent by 2035 target that President Obama has proposed, would need hydro to succeed, says Leahey:
“We don’t think you can get to the amount of clean energy generation that policy makers are calling for unless you include hydro.”
How Hydro Counts Towards States’ Renewable Goals
Click on the markers to see how states count hydropower in their renewable electricity standards.
View State Renewable Portfolio Standards & Hydropower in a larger map
Source: Hydropower Reform Coalition
An earlier version of this story omitted North Dakota among states that count all forms of hydropower in their renewable standards.
Hooray for hydropower?
While Congress debates cutting support for wind and solar energy, a new bill from members of the House Energy Committee proposes spending $5 million to study the potential of expanding hydropower in the U.S.
HB 3680, introduced by Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), notes that only 3 percent of the nearly 80,000 dams in the U.S. generate electricity. The bill claims that by 2025, we could build an additional 60,000 MW of new hydropower generation, creating 700,000 jobs in the process.
About 7 percent of electricity in the U.S. is generated from hydropower, and Rep. McMorris Rodgers’ home state of Washington already gets nearly 70 percent of its electricity from big dams like the Grand Coulee. It’s a less significant energy source in the Midwest, accounting for less than 2 percent of the mix in most states. South Dakota is the outlier, getting more than half its electricity from hydro.
The bill also includes a provision to study the potential of closed-loop pumped hydro storage projects.
While 80,000 dams sounds like a lot of untapped energy potential, as reporter Frank Jossi learned back in June, most of those dams are small, low volume and not at present economically viable to be tapped for energy. As of this summer, developers had applications on the table for an additional 321 MW of capacity on existing dams and locks throughout the upper Mississippi River system, doubling the river’s current energy capacity, but still a far cry from 60,000.
And pumped-hydro storage also has limited potential. Federal regulators have issued permits for 32,000 MW worth of pumped-hydro projects nationwide, but cost-effectiveness again remains a challenge.
In a news release announcing the bill, Michigan Rep. Fred Upton calls hydropower an important part of an “all of the above” energy strategy.
“Hydropower is renewable, reliable, and affordable, and the potential for this domestic resource is great. The increased development of hydropower will spur the creation of hundreds of thousands of American jobs and help us to meet our country’s growing energy demands.”
Cleveland company sees energy potential in Great Lakes waves
>> Great Lakes Echo
Diagram via nPower
Cross-posted from the Great Lakes Echo
By Brian Bienkowski
Great Lakes waves drive surfboards, kayaks and swimmers. Now they may soon power your computer, television and lights.
The nPower Wave Energy Converter, developed by Cleveland-based Tremont Electric, LLC, moves a magnet and induction coil by each other to generate pulses of current. The company proposes to drop converters into anchored buoys in Lake Erie and let the waves bounce them around.
The movement would generate power and route it back to the power grid on land.
The converters emit none of the carbon that contributes to climate change. That’s in contrast to the carbon emitted by the coal that generates approximately 90 percent of Ohio’s energy, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
“With the converter, we’re not trying to push the bounds of new technology,” said Aaron LeMieux inventor of the wave converter and founder and CEO of Tremont Electric. “The converter takes power from things that move, and we get power onshore through a cable system … same as offshore wind turbine farms.”
Converting wave movement to energy is a new field. There are projects in the oceans using similar technology, but Tremont Electric is partnering with researchers to see if it will work in the Great Lakes.
The first research step is to see how dense the waves are and determine how much energy they could produce, said Ethan Kubatko, assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering and geodetic science at Ohio State University.
Kubatko will also explore if parts of the lake are better suited for wave energy. He doesn’t know of any similar projects in the Great Lakes and wouldn’t guess whether or not the technology may be successful.
The wave converter is a scaled-up version of the company’s personal generator that bounces around in a purse or pocket to produce energy. It powers up electronic devices like cell phones.
But the wave converters are the size of a car and will need to be conspicuously placed in “farms” to generate energy.
LeMieux estimates the farms will take up the area of a “couple of football fields.” He expects six converters per acre. In the ocean, each converter could power around 20 homes, he said. But with less wave density in the Great Lakes, the power generated would be lower.
Offshore wind farms are criticized for ruining the beauty of lakes and their surroundings. LeMieux acknowledges this may be a hurdle with the converters.
“Anytime you deal with the public there’s potential for backlash,” LeMieux said. “But we feel like we’re in a good place where we’ve mitigated a lot of negatives.”
View-seeking residents aside, anglers may not like giant buoy farms in the water either. LeMieux said they “expect but haven’t proved” the buoys could be artificial reefs that improve fishing.
Those engaged in Ohio’s alternative energy landscape said Tremont might face challenges.
“There’s a whole host of issues when you go out into the lake,” said Bill Spratley, executive director of Green Energy Ohio.
Spratley’s experience has been with offshore wind projects, and he points to public opinion and the regulating and permit structure as the two biggest hurdles.
“But buoys are much smaller than wind turbines,” Spratley said. “You may eliminate some of the aesthetic concerns.”
LeMieux thinks Lake Erie is perfect to test the wave energy converters.
“It’s close … it’s state, not federal waters,” LeMieux said. “We don’t have large sea mammals. No one wants to be the company to bounce a buoy off a sea mammal’s head.”
The permitting process is easier at the state level, LeMieux said. The company will need submerged land leases, which are regulated by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
While Tremont would like to go global with the wave energy converters, the Great Lakes are well suited for kicking off research and development, LeMieux said. And with a state requirement that 12.5 percent of all electricity sold in 2025 comes from renewable energy sources, Ohio may prove a perfect state for the converter-filled buoys.
And with the personal energy generator as a small prototype, wave energy converters are getting attention.
“A few years ago, we were educating legislators,” LeMieux said. “Now we’re getting more traction, and we can put the small scale converter in their hand and they can understand the potential.”
Army Corps under fire over Missouri River floods
>> E&E Daily
House lawmakers took their turn blasting the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers this week for what they said were mistakes managing Missouri River dams through this year’s epic flood, which overtopped levees and inundated communities and farms.
Pumped hydro not a magic bullet for energy storage
By one estimate, we'd need 2,500 of these to provide storage for the nation's electricity needs.
Pumped-hydro energy storage is a century-old technology that’s increasingly being seen as a tool that could help the nation meet its future energy storage needs.
But it’s likely to play a limited role, according to a UC-San Diego physicist.
As we reported today, researchers at the University of Minnesota-Duluth have spent the past year studying whether abandoned mining pits on the state’s Iron Range could be used for pumped-hydro energy storage. The systems work by using cheap or excess electricity to pump water uphill into a higher-elevation lake or reservoir. The energy can be recaptured later by reversing the flow and sending the water through hydro turbines on its way back down to a lower reservoir.
Tom Murphy, an associate professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego, wrote last week in a blog post that pumped-hydro works well in certain locations, but a closer look at the numbers reveals serious practical concerns about its scalability.
As we rely more on intermittent renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, we’re going to need a similar increase in energy storage capacity to avoid blackouts and inefficiencies. Murphy thinks we need “a nation-sized battery” that can store seven days worth of renewables to withstand a worst-case scenario of persistent clouds in the Southwest and lack of wind in the Midwest.
Murphy’s magic number (which he explains in more detail): 336 billion kWh.
Pumped-hydro energy storage is efficient in the sense that energy it stores doesn’t degrade over time and the hydroturbines give back more than 85 percent of the power you spend pumping water uphill. What it lacks, though, is density. “For example,” Murphy writes, “to get the amount of energy stored in a single AA battery, we would have to lift 100 kg (220 lb) 10 m (33 ft) to match it.”
In short: it requires a lot of water.
The existing 22-gigawatts worth of U.S. pumped-hydro facilities only gets us 1 percent of the way toward Murphy’s national battery. Achieving the other 99 percent through pumped-hydro alone would require hundreds if not thousands of projects on a scale never before seen, says Murphy.
One hypothetical option: build 170 large 12-gigawatt pumped-hydro systems, each one larger than the Grand Coulee dam. Another way to get there would be with more than 2,500 smaller, 600-megawatt systems. Even those would stand taller than the Hoover Dam and use 19 million cubic meters of concrete each.
The energy cost of the concrete alone would exceed three years of current U.S. energy consumption, Murphy estimates. And the amount of new surface water created by the projects would equal Lake Erie. Then there’s the question of where that water comes from, he notes.
Murphy admits his calculations rely on some assumptions, and that some people believe his seven-day battery is overkill. But pumped hydro’s limitations remain, he writes:
The fact that just one of the ‘small’ dams considered here has as much concrete as the Three Gorges and Grand Coulee dams combined is humbling. I would be impressed if we made one. I would be astounded if we made 25. And this just gets us to 1 percent of our need (or 7 percent if you still bristle at a 7-day battery).
Let’s be clear that I am not making any claim that large scale storage at the level we need is impossible. But it’s far more daunting than almost anyone realizes.
Photo by Brian Norton via Creative Commons
Some Iowa dams earn their keep through hydroelectric power
>> Cedar Rapids Gazette
Plans to include a hydroelectric component in the rebuilding of the failed Lake Delhi dam on the Maquoketa River follow a successful template established at three other Iowa dams whose owners use hydropower revenue to maintain recreational pools.
