Article Archive for March 2008
The Crown Estate, a British group that holds property rights to the UK’s seabed, has agreed to terms on the SeaGen demonstration tidal stream energy project at Strangford Lough, Northern Ireland. The flagship 1.2-megawatt (MW) SeaGen project, developed by Bristol’s Marine Current Turbines (MCT), will be the first commercial scale, tidal stream system operating anywhere in the world.
NRG Energy, Inc., through its wholly owned subsidiary, Padoma Wind Power LLC, has started construction on the Elbow Creek Wind Project, a 122-megawatt (MW) wind farm near Big Spring, Texas. Early land rights to the project were acquired from Wind Plus Holdings, Inc.
Europe, the U.S. and the rest of the developed world are bringing more and more renewable energy online everyday to offset the use of fossil fuels and the release of greenhouse gases. Many of these projects are grid connected and are generally large in scale. Throughout the developing world on the other hand, fossil fuels are still the means by which most people get their energy. Projects in Cambodia and Costa Rica are trying to change that by showing people that the waste they generate can be used to fuel their homes and businesses.
The international manufacturer of solar modules Trina Solar will be participating as a speaker on the fourth edition of the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Sources conference which will be held from 7th to 10th April in Sofia, Bulgaria.
The Public Utilities Commission of Nevada (the “PUCN”) recently ordered that an investigation be opened into whether renting or leasing renewable generation systems is legal within the electric service territories of public utilities in Nevada. Commission staff (”Staff”) previously filed a petition for an advisory opinion on the issue, contending that renting or leasing renewable generation systems constituted the provision of electricity, a service that only public utilities may provide. Should the PUCN adopt Staff’s position, the decision could significantly curtail the development of distributed solar generation in Nevada.
[Comments fixed.]
The Engineer-Poet recently had a post on The Cogeneration Stopgap at the Oil Drum, which looked at how the combination of cogeneration (generating combined heat and power - CHP - using natural gas) and heat pumps could be used to heat North American homes much more efficiently and extend the life of North America’s dwindling natural gas reserves for a period of time while houses are retrofitted to make them more energy efficient and natural gas use is replaced with electricity. The only example of cogeneration technology touched on in the article was from Climate Energy, whose CHP unit is made by Honda.
An Australian company working in this area called Ceramic Fuel Cells was in the news recently after landing a $240 million deal with Dutch energy company Nuon to supply 50,000 CHP units by 2014. The company still needs to meet a number of commercial requirements set by Nuon - in particular improving the durability of the cells from two years to four.
The company is hoping that production will begin by June 2009 in a new €12.4 million factory in Heinsberg, Germany, which aims to produce 10,000 2 kW units per year. The cells are expected to emit 60% less carbon dioxide than traditional combustion generators. The company is also partnering with Britain’s Powergen, Germany’s EWE and Gaz de France.
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Ceramic Fuel Cells
Ceramic’s fuel cells have been under development for several years, listing on the ASX in 2004 and the AIM shortly after. The company specialises in solid oxide fuel cells, which convert natural gas (and presumably biogas) into power and heat without burning the fuel. The cells convert about 50 per cent of the energy in the fuel to electricity - traditional gas-fired power stations manage around 30 per cent - with another 35 per cent of the potential energy captured as heat from the catalytic process.
The company doesn’t have any plans to market units in Australia in the foreseeable future, preferring to concentrate on the European market due to higher energy prices, specific CHP rebates in Germany, feed-in tariffs and possible carbon credits for trading on the EU emissions trading scheme (set up under the Kyoto protocol).
CHP in Britain
Reuters reported that boilers containing Ceramic’s units could be sold in Britain in 2010 if utility company Powergen orders units this year. The article estimates that fuel cell units for home units will be priced between 1,500 and 2,000 pounds and that larger units priced at over 3,000 pounds will be operated by utility companies. The same report goes on to speculate that because utilities will save so much money by producing electricity using CHP (which they believe is twice as efficient as centralised generation and sending power through the grid), that they expect utilities will eventually start giving next-generation boilers to customers for free, with the units having a 4-5 year payback period.
Powergen has also previously looked at a different micro-CHP approach using Stirling Engines attached to water boilers. I can’t tell what happened to this plan, though the company is assume was the prospective supplier - Disenco - is still marketing a CHP product (although full production isn’t due to begin until this year, which may explain the absence of progress).
Another British CHP company called Ceres Power received an order for 37,500 units from British Gas owner Centrica in January, for delivery from 2011. These units are smaller but cheaper than Ceramic’s units. Carbon Commentary have looked at this unit and claimed the main challenge facing CHP vendors in the UK is a the lack of feed-in tariffs - which would presumably affect Ceramic as much as Ceres.
Bloom Energy
Another company that has received a lot of attention in the fuel cell market is US company Bloom Energy, who are also developing solid oxide fuel cells (though there is some legal argument underway about who actually developed the technology in this case). Bloom Energy
The company is investigating using natural gas and ethanol as fuel for the cells, and most reports speculate the cells will be able to generate 100 kw of power (the company’s web site says absolutely nothing). One report from Business 2.0 claims the company is aiming to sell units for around US$10,000.
Bloom is backed by a number of high profile investors, including the omnipresent Kleiner Perkins Caulfield Byers, and has raised US$100 million in funding. According to Vinod Khosla, the company is currently building a “massive” facility in Mumbai, India.
One possible application for Bloom’s fuel cells is in data centres, with the cells used to eliminate the need for uninterruptible power supplies (UPS’s) and thus (in some cases) the need for additional disaster recovery (DR) facilities.
Japan
Japan has also seen trials of hydrogen fuel cells for CHP, with the hydrogen coming from reformed natural gas. The cells are leased for 1 million yen (US$9,500) for a 10-year period from Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Toyota, Honda and Toshiba are all also working on fuel cells, usually as part of efforts to develop fuel cell vehicles.
The Japanese Government is spending 2.4 billion yen (US$310 million) per year on fuel cell development and plans for 10 million homes (25% of Japanese households) to be powered by fuel cells by 2020.
The Air Car
One last note - a commenter on the “Air Car” articles noted that MDI’s main business seems to be a variable-fuel stationary power supply, so presumably they could be a vendor in this market at some point as well.
Crossposted from Peak Energy
In his second new TV spot of the day ??? this one now playing in Pennsylvania ??? Barack Obama’s campaign releases a 30 second ad that takes a strong stand against Big Oil, saying he ???won???t let them block change anymore.???
My question to you is: Does he have it right? Is this the correct political frame? Is it a winning political frame?
[Hat tip: NY Times Political Blog: "Obama's Big Oil Ad Draws Fire"...go there and fly the TOD flag if you are so inclined.]
