Next bright ideas in energy to be showcased in Chicago

Posted on 03/12/2013 by Kari Lydersen

The complicated, multi-faceted and lucrative mosaic that is the American clean energy economy includes some of the world’s largest corporations as well as up-and-coming entrepreneurs. And those small-scale efforts are just as crucial to developing technologies and companies that could be the next big thing in clean energy.

The Clean Energy Challenge in Chicago is among a growing number of clean energy competitions that help startup companies and young entrepreneurs refine and launch their ideas and innovations. The third annual Clean Energy Challenge, hosted by the Clean Energy Trust, takes place in Chicago April 4. →

Can the grid handle distributed renewable energy?

Posted on 03/05/2013 by Dan Ferber

“Smart” switches on power lines can help regulate a two-way flow of electricity. (Photo via Department of Energy)

As solar panels and electric cars catch on among consumers, managing the grid becomes an increasingly vexing challenge for utilities.

To keep track of these and other distributed energy resources, utilities are installing ever more smart meters and other monitoring equipment. They now need to track far more data from far-flung locations just to reliably keep the power on.

The challenge is not insurmountable, but going forward the electric power industry will need new technology and new business and regulatory models, three experts said last week at the annual conference of the Advanced Research Projects Agency—Energy (ARPA-E). →

Commentary: Wisconsin legislature weighs nuclear option for renewables

Posted on 03/04/2013 by guest contributor

Michael Vickerman, program and policy director of RENEW Wisconsin.

By Michael Vickerman

Only in Wisconsin will you find lawmakers who treat renewable energy as though it were radioactive.

A legislator from Brown County, Rep. Andre Jacque, has introduced a bill (AB 34) to incorporate nuclear energy within Wisconsin’s 14-year-old renewable electricity standard.

The bill defines the terms under which utilities could apply the output from in-state nuclear power plants toward their existing 10 percent requirement, which would be renamed the Advanced and Renewable Portfolio Standard (ARPS). Right now, Wisconsin has three operating nuclear reactors at two locations five miles apart along Lake Michigan.

Two of the three nuclear power stations–Point Beach units 1 and 2–are located within Rep. Jacque’s district. The adjoining district contains the other nuclear unit , the 560-MW Kewaunee Nuclear Power Plant owned by Dominion Resources, a Virginia-based utility holding company. Late in 2012, Dominion announced that it would shut down and decommission Kewaunee this spring, while cutting the plant’s 650-person workforce in half. →

As economics shift, wind developers see the light on solar power

Posted on 02/25/2013 by Dan Haugen

A farm in Ontario, where the owner opted for solar panels over wind turbines. (Photo by spanginator via Creative Commons)

Wind energy companies are getting into the solar game.

An ongoing lull in wind projects and falling solar panel prices has wind companies looking to add solar projects to their portfolios.

In the U.S., 2013 is projected to be a lost year for the wind industry, which added more than 13 gigawatts of capacity in 2012 but could do as little as 3 gigawatts this year in the aftermath of the latest uncertainty over the federal wind production tax credit.

Meanwhile, solar is surging. Duke Energy President Gregory Wolf recently predicted that U.S. solar installations could surpass new wind additions this year for the first time ever.

So instead of sitting on their turbines, wind developers are diversifying, hiring solar experts and broadening their portfolios to include photovoltaics.

“I don’t know of a wind company that isn’t at least looking at solar,” says Shanelle Evens Montana, a legislative and regulatory affairs associate for EDF Renewable Energy.

The trend extends throughout the supply chain, from consultants to construction and engineering firms. Some companies are even dropping the word “wind” from their names. →

Report: Lack of consistent policy holding back clean energy industry

Posted on 01/24/2013 by Dan Ferber

Workers assemble a wind turbine blade at a factory in Grand Forks, North Dakota, in 2006. (Photo by tuey via Creative Commons)

The Midwest has the potential for a thriving clean energy industry, but only if coherent policies are enacted at the state and federal level, clean-energy experts say.

Experts on the Midwestern clean-energy sector say the region stands to benefit because of its research universities, strong supply chains and a high level of manufacturing know-how.

But whether it does or not depends largely on policy-makers.

According to a report issued last week by Pew Charitable Trusts, hurdles to an expanded U.S. clean-energy sector include a lack of a national clean-energy standard and longstanding tax breaks for oil, gas and coal producers. Unless these and other issues are addressed, they could lead to billions of dollars of economic activity moving overseas, the analysis concluded.

“The Midwest looks to me like a great place for clean energy,” said Phyllis Cuttino, director of Pew’s Clean Energy Program. But, she added, clean-energy leaders in the Midwest and nationwide “all said the same thing: The thing that makes it really hard for us is that we can’t plan.”

These conclusions come from two lines of investigation Pew undertook to prepare the report. They commissioned a detailed analysis of clean-energy trends by Pike Research, industry analysts who specialize in global clean-technology markets. Pew also conducted five regional roundtables of clean-energy business leaders, including researchers, manufacturers, companies deploying solar and biomass, and investors, as well as one national roundtable, all to get the industry’s take on how current policy was affecting them, and which policy changes would help. →

Q&A: Can renewables alone (with storage) power the grid?

Posted on 01/11/2013 by Dan Ferber

Willett Kempton at a wind installation in Denmark. (Photo courtesy University of Delaware)

Conventional wisdom among many utilities and analysts says that renewable energy is expensive and unreliable because the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine when electricity demand is highest, and because grid-scale storage is expensive and not ready for prime time.

As a result, many in the electric power industry believe that to power entire regional electrical grids, we must continue to rely on fossil fuels for much of our baseload power.

Last month, Willett Kempton, a renewable energy expert at the University of Delaware, reported a detailed analysis turning conventional wisdom on its head.

Writing in the Journal of Power Sources, a peer-reviewed journal, Kempton and his colleagues reported for the first time that by 2030 the grid could be powered almost entirely using a mix of wind (both on- and off-shore), solar and grid-scale energy storage, and that this grid would be both affordable and reliable. →

In Minnesota, solar tops clean energy agenda

Posted on 01/09/2013 by Dan Haugen

A solar array at a farm in central Minnesota. (Photo by CERTs via Creative Commons)

Correction appended

This could be the year major solar legislation sees the light of day in Minnesota.

A Democratic sweep in November has clean energy advocates optimistic about their causes following two years of legislative control by conservative Republicans.

The top priority on their agenda: a bill that would require Minnesota utilities to generate a tenth of their electricity from solar by the year 2030.

“Our top energy priority is the 10 percent solar standard,” said Steve Morse, executive director of the Minnesota Environmental Partnership, a coalition of more than 75 environmental and conservation groups.

“We have a tremendous untapped resource, and we have the stars aligned to make major headway in ramping up our solar distributed generation here in the state,” Morse said. →

Cloud forecasting could improve outlook for solar power

Posted on 12/19/2012 by Dan Haugen

(Photo by Asian Development Bank via Creative Commons)

The amount of solar power on the Midwest’s electricity grid is minuscule enough that a cloudy day doesn’t cause problems for the system.

As solar makes inroads, though, utilities may eventually need new tools to make sure they can continue providing cheap, steady power when the sun goes behind a cloud.

Several efforts are currently underway to provide the industry with better sunlight forecasts, much like what grid operators currently use for wind power. Earlier this month the U.S. Department of Energy announced $8 million in funding for two projects to improve solar forecasting.

With wind power, accurate wind forecasts let grid operators make early decisions about how much electricity it will need from other, non-wind sources.

Making those calls in advance allows them to avoid running other power plants unnecessarily, and also reduces the odds of having to bid for electricity on expensive spot markets. →

Municipal aggregation: a new direction or the same old thing?

Posted on 12/17/2012 by Kari Lydersen

A row of homes in Cincinnati, Ohio. (Photo by Ian Freimuth via Creative Commons)

In the past two years, scores of communities across the Midwest, particularly in Illinois, have adopted municipal aggregation of their electricity supplies, wherein city officials break with long-standing utilities and decide where to buy cheaper and often cleaner electricity from alternative suppliers on behalf of residents.

Chicago is among the most recent, and with the city’s vast buying power, renewable energy advocates are hoping to use the opportunity to make a significant dent in pollution and carbon emissions.

However, if the experience of another Midwest state is any indicator, whether that actually happens could be difficult to determine.

Ohio was one of the first states to enact legislation allowing municipalities to aggregate, adding the concept to the legislation that deregulated the state’s energy market in 2001. Currently at least 220 Ohio communities have chosen electric aggregation, and 120 have adopted natural gas aggregation, according to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. And in the last two years at least 160 new electric aggregator broker companies have gotten state certification.

Ohio provides an interesting case study in the ways aggregation can play out; especially since it is historically known as a coal state: the fifth-most coal-dependent in the country according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, with a powerful mining industry and 20 major coal-fired power plants (though about half of them are scheduled to close in coming years).

Ohio also symbolizes the way aggregation can be a complicated mix of idealism and pragmatism, of making realistic deals in the present while hoping for more sweeping changes in the future. →

Renewable energy mix in Chicago aggregation plan remains unclear

Posted on 12/13/2012 by Kari Lydersen

(Photo by Josh Koonce via Creative Commons)

CHICAGO — Chicago’s City Council passed an ordinance Wednesday approving municipal aggregation and a contract with Integrys Energy Services to provide the city’s electricity.

Where that electricity will ultimately be sourced from, however, remains unclear.

Aldermen voted 50-0 and heaped praise on the aggregation plan, which the city projects will save households on average $150 by the end of the contract in May 2015.

“We sent a clear message to the country,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel after the vote. “Not only does the vote send a clear message, it made sure families who live paycheck to paycheck will get what suburban residents have been getting for a while – savings on their utility bills .”

The contract with Integrys will ban electricity from coal-fired generation, which currently provides about 40 percent of the city’s mix. The city has also announced a commitment to renewable energy and energy efficiency investments, though any specific requirements remain to be seen in the contract, which is expected to be finalized within the next few days. →

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