QUICK NEWS, 2-2: DEFINING MOMENT; BIGS DO NEW ENERGY R&D; EVEN BETTER WIND; UTILITY’S NEIGHBORHOOD SUN

DEFINING MOMENT
Can Evergreen Solar Be Our Sputnik Moment?
Clint Wilder, February 1, 2011 (Clean Edge)

"…This year’s defining event…came from the private sector. But it has clear policy and political implications, speaks volumes about current trends in the industry, and poses deep questions for the future of the U.S. clean-energy economy. It was the January 12 announcement of Evergreen Solar’s plan to shutter its Massachusetts solar PV plant and move production to China, costing the jobs of more than 800 U.S. employees.

"The outsourcing of U.S. manufacturing jobs to China is obviously nothing new, but Evergreen’s move, coming from a U.S. solar industry pioneer that received generous state government incentives, has been widely viewed as a significant U.S. policy failure. And it speaks to a much larger issue: the lack of a long-term, comprehensive U.S. plan for energy supply, job creation, and global economic competitiveness…"

click to enlarge

"…[John Hofmeister, former Shell Oil president and author of Why We Hate the Oil Companies, has proposed] a permanent federal Energy Resources Board, modeled on the Federal Reserve, that would include public officials and corporate representatives of both energy providers and big energy users like banks, airlines, and FedEx/UPS (and I would nominate Google)…[It] would set parameters of energy supply and policy for periods of one to 10, 10 to 25, and 25 to 50 years…[T]he Fed, established by President Woodrow Wilson in 1913 after a series of financial panics, helped remove monetary policy from the vagaries of our two- and four-year election cycles…

"Hofmeister also called the roughly $80 billion to date in ARPA-E loan guarantees to clean-energy companies ‘a frittering number.’ Considering that a single Chinese company, Jinko Solar, received a five-year, $7.6 billion line of credit from the state-owned Bank of China in late January, he has a good point…Since China turned its turbo-charged, government-directed economic growth engine to clean tech a few years ago, it has surged to No. 1 in the world in installed wind energy (adding 16 new gigawatts of capacity in 2010, compared to 5 GW of new wind in the U.S.) and to No. 1 in solar PV production…"

click to enlarge

"In his State of the Union address, President Obama said that the competitive challenges being posed by China, India, South Korea, and other nations should be ‘our generation’s Sputnik moment.’ To meet that challenge, he called for an end to oil industry subsidies (I agree) and a target of 80 percent clean electricity for the U.S. by 2035 (a great goal, but tempered by the inclusion of clean coal, nuclear, and natural gas…

"The original Sputnik moment in 1957…led to the creation of NASA, the Apollo program, and the U.S. moon landing in 1969…Today’s threat is an economic one, as Evergreen Solar’s outsourcing of PV production and many other examples have shown. Obama played up both opportunity and threat in his next-day visit to high-efficiency lighting manufacturer…Can the opportunity to be the world’s No. 1 clean-tech economy deliver the same inspiration as a moon landing? In a nation that’s much more politically divided (and different in countless other ways) than it was half a century ago, it’s a tall order. But our economic future, and our nation’s pride, may depend on it."


BIGS DO NEW ENERGY R&D
GE, NRG Energy, ConocoPhilips create green investment firm
January 28, 2011 (Restructuring Today)

"GE, NRG Energy and ConocoPhilips…[have formed] a financial partnership to promote emerging and innovative energy technologies. The three committed $300 million in capital to the new joint venture, Energy Technology Ventures, to fund about 30 venture- and growth-stage firms over the next four years…"

"The joint venture marks the first foray of NRG and ConocoPhilip into corporate venture investment. GE has been quite active in the field with various subsidiaries."

click thru to the website

"Energy Technology Ventures will focus on renewable power generation, smart grid, energy efficiency, oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear energy, emissions controls, water and the biofuels sector. Its main markets will be North America, Europe and Israel."

click thru to the website

"The first three investments have already been picked: Alta Devices works on solar photovoltaic technology, Ciris Energy on cleaner coal and CoolPlanetBioFuels on non-food biofuels.

"Alta is working to improve the production economics of advanced materials for high-efficiency, low cost solar energy. Ciris is focused on developing technology to biochemically convert coal to methane at a large scale and low cost."


EVEN BETTER WIND
Making wind turbines smarter
Larry Rulison, January 28, 2011 (Albany Times Union)

"…[Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute] associate professor Miki Amitay and his assistants are trying to build a smarter wind turbine…The research, into small synthetic jets that are built into wind turbine blades, recently won Amitay a $250,000 grant from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority…

"The synthetic jets are small electronic devices built into the wind turbine blades to produce puffs of air. Using sensors, the jets can detect how air is flowing around the turbine blade and how much vibration there is and release the puffs to alter the flow of air around the blade, making it work more efficiently."

click to enlarge

"Amitay and his team of 10 graduate students and 15 undergrads believe that the jets allow the turbine blades [to be smarter and] to last longer and produce more energy by being more aerodynamic and less prone to vibrations…

"Amitay says the technology began as a solution to make better airplane wings and has attracted a lot of attention from the aerospace industry and defense contractors. General Electric Co., a major manufacturer of wind turbines, is also interested in the technology. Amitay was…awarded a $100,000 NYSERDA grant for the project three years ago…[ a $100,000 grant last year]…from the National Science Foundation…[and $220,000 from] the New York State Foundation for Science, Technology and Innovation…"

click to enlarge

"He and his students fill the wind tunnel with smoke and use lasers to examine how air flows over the wind turbine blades…With the jets, the air flow hugs the wind turbine more tightly, making for a more efficient windmill. The need to preserve wind turbine blades becomes even more important as larger wind turbines are built, including offshore machines.

"Amitay won't say when GE and others plan to incorporate the technology, but he says it isn't far off from becoming a reality…"


UTILITY’S NEIGHBORHOOD SUN
Southern California Edison Throws Switch on Seven New Neighborhood Solar Stations; Utility Sees Transformation of Solar Photovoltaic Power Market
February 1, 2011 (Southern California Edison)

"Seven new solar power plants capable of providing electricity for 8,125 average homes are now online for Southern California Edison (SCE) customers…[The] photovoltaic installations, located in Ontario and Redlands, Calif., have a combined peak generating capacity of 12.5 million watts (AC)…[and] bring to 10 the number of SCE neighborhood solar stations.

"Construction of the solar power plants last year created 250 temporary jobs. SCE estimates its entire solar photovoltaic project – 75 to 100 roof- and ground-mount installations – will create up to 1,200 such jobs…"

An SCE-ProLogis rooftop installation (click to enlarge)

"The Ontario installations involved four solar stations on 1.8 million square feet of leased warehouse roofs owned by ProLogis. The 32,950 solar photovoltaic panels SCE has installed in Ontario are capable of generating 5.5 million watts (AC) of power…In Redlands SCE has built three installations, with 34,600 panels spread over 1.5 million square feet of ProLogis warehouse roofs. The panels can generate 7 million watts (AC) of power…

"At the direction of the state utilities commission, SCE expanded its solar photovoltaic program by offering long-term power purchase agreements to independent producers willing to build neighborhood plants. So far, the utility has awarded 29 contracts, which will yield about 43 million watts (AC) of new solar photovoltaic power for SCE customers."

click to enlarge

"In addition, SCE has seen an increase in the number of cost-effective solar photovoltaic energy bids to provide renewable energy to the utility. The winning bids show a significant reduction in the cost of solar photovoltaic. In November, SCE signed 20 such purchase agreements with the potential to produce 239 million watts (AC) of power.

"SCE’s neighborhood solar stations can be brought online quickly once the distribution circuits they are being connected to are prepared to handle the new generator output and voltage controls…One of SCE’s objectives is to study the impact on local grid reliability, so that these distributed energy resources can be interconnected safely. Lessons learned during deployment of SCE’s solar photovoltaic project will be shared with other utilities and the solar industry to foster similar efforts."