DOE Announces Up To $3 Million to Administer Superior Energy Performance Program

Posted on January 27, 2012 by admin

The Department of Energy (DOE) has announced up to $3 million to help American manufacturers leverage energy efficiency as a path to increased competitiveness. Provided by the Advanced Manufacturing Office and the Building Technologies Program, the funding will support a Program Administrator whose role will be to promote and operate the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) – accredited Superior Energy Performance (SEP) program. Once launched, SEP will provide a clear roadmap to help industrial and commercial facilities achieve continual improvements in energy efficiency. The program also promises to tackle a potential barrier to otherwise profitable energy efficiency investments by providing a transparent, globally accepted system for companies to validate improvements in their energy performance.

The SEP program, expected to be launched toward the end of this year, constitutes a key component of DOE’s efforts to foster a culture of energy efficiency throughout American manufacturing as one of the pivotal ingredients for a robust clean energy economy. The SEP Program Administrator (SEP-PA) will be responsible for launching and overseeing the program during its initial stages with primary responsibility for developing a business model that will allow SEP to become a fee-based, self-sufficient program within three years of the award so it can operate without the need for financial assistance from the Federal government.

The SEP Program is intended to address several fundamental energy management challenges that today hinder greater adoption of energy efficiency opportunities within both the commercial and industrial sectors. These challenges include lack of awareness of the energy efficiency opportunities that exist, lack of understanding on how to implement improvements, lack of consistent business models to evaluate the competitive strength of opportunities, and lack of management commitment to manage energy use as an integral part of their operations. There are currently 35 companies in 20 states addressing these challenges by participating in SEP industrial demonstration projects. Eight SEP commercial pilot facilities have also been established to test the SEP Program elements and overall scheme.

In order to meet SEP criteria, companies must: 1) implement and conform to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 50001 energy management system standard, and 2) achieve defined levels of improvement in their energy intensity performance. DOE will be working with a Peer Review Committee consisting of the U.S. Council for Energy Efficient Manufacturing and other industry and commercial stakeholders for input to assist with the operation of the program. The Committee will review the performance of the SEP-PA to determine if adequate progress is being achieved toward program goals and will provide additional direction as needed to keep the program on a path to success. Among the goals against which it will be evaluated, in addition to standing SEP up with a self-sustaining business model through user certification fees, the SEP-PA will be expected to actively promote and market the program to help it become widely recognized and respected.

The funding is expected to be awarded to at least one entity over a period of up to three years subject to an annual performance review to determine if acceptable progress is being made toward meeting program goals and deliverables. Eligible applicants for this funding opportunity include U.S. domestic entities or consortia composed of: 1) academic institutions; and 2) non-profit [except 501(c)(4) non-profits] and for-profit private entities.

For more information and application requirements for this Funding Opportunity Announcement, please visit the Funding Opportunity Exchange website. Letters of Intent in connection with this opportunity are due February 21, 2012. Applications will be accepted through 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time on March 21, 2012. DOE anticipates notifying applicants selected for awards by May 2012 and making awards by June 2012.

Learn more about how DOE’s Advanced Manufacturing Office is working to identify, explore, develop, demonstrate, and deploy new, energy-efficient processes and materials technologies that can help U.S. manufacturers secure a competitive advantage in the global economy.

DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy invests in clean energy technologies that strengthen the economy, protect the environment, and reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil.

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Solar surge drives record clean energy investment in 2011

Posted on January 26, 2012 by admin

London and New York, 12 January 2012 – Global investment in clean energy reached a new record of $260bn in 2011, up 5% on 2010 and almost five times the total of $53.6bn in 2004. Investment in solar far outstripped that in wind, and perhaps of most note, US clean energy investment moved back ahead of China for the first time since 2008, according to the latest authoritative data from analysis company Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Last year also saw the one trillionth dollar invested in clean energy globally since the company started compiling data in 2004.

The record investment figures for 2011 are particularly striking because they were achieved during a turbulent year for the world economy in general and for the clean energy sector in particular. The industry has suffered severe pressure on the profit margins of manufacturers, a sharp fall in share prices, some notable bankruptcies, cuts in European government subsidy support, and a reduction in the availability of bank finance.

2011 highlights include a 36% surge in total investment in solar technology, to $136.6bn. This was nearly double the $74.9bn investment in wind power, which was down 17% on the previous year. This is not the first time that Bloomberg New Energy Finance has shown total investment in solar out-pacing that in wind (on today’s revised figures for prior years, solar exceeded wind in 2004 and again in 2010), but this is the first time there has been such a huge gap.

Michael Liebreich, chief executive of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said: “The performance of solar is even more remarkable when you consider that the price of photovoltaic modules fell by close to 50% during 2011, and now stands 75% lower than three years ago, in mid-2008. The cost of PV technology has fallen, but the volume of PV sold has increased by a much greater factor as it approached competitiveness with other sources of power.”

A second highlight was the performance of the US in 2011. In 2008, the US was by far the largest single country worldwide in terms of total investment in clean energy, but it was overtaken by China in 2009. China increased its lead in 2010. However in 2011, the US roared ahead once again, with total investment surging to $55.9bn, up 33%; China saw investment rise just 1% to $47.4bn.

Liebreich commented: “The news that the US jumped back into the lead in clean energy investment last year will reassure those who worried that it was falling behind other countries. However before anyone in Washington celebrates too much, the US figure was achieved thanks in large part to support initiatives such as the federal loan guarantee programme and a Treasury grant programme which have now expired. The country’s principal remaining support measure for renewable energy, the Production Tax Credit, is currently also scheduled to fall away at the end of 2012 unless it is extended. There may be a rush to get projects completed in 2012, followed by a slump in investment in 2013 if it expires.”

Europe as a whole saw clean energy investment rise 3% to $100.2bn, with the strongest features being solar installations – both large-scale and distributed – in Germany and Italy, and offshore wind financings in the North Sea. India led the table in terms of growth in investment with a jump of 52% to $10.3bn, while Brazil clocked up a respectable 15% increase to $8.2bn.

The largest single type of investment was the asset finance of utility-scale renewable energy projects. This increased from a revised $138.3bn in 2010, to $145.6bn in 2011. Among the big projects financed in the last quarter of the year were the 288MW Amrumbank West offshore wind farm off Germany for $1.3bn, the 272MW Seigneurie de Beaupre wind farm phases one and two in Canada for $756m, and the 92.5MW Hanas Ningxia Yanchi Gaoshawo solar thermal plant in China, for $354m.

The second-biggest category of investment last year was the finance of distributed renewable power technology, notably rooftop PV. This reached $73.8bn in 2011, up from $60.4bn in 2010 – with Italy and Germany the two countries playing the biggest role as sharply falling solar panel prices increased the returns offered by feed-in tariffs.

Several other categories of investment actually fell slightly during 2011. Corporate research and development in clean energy slipped to $13.2bn last year, from $15.3bn, and government research and development fell to $12.7bn from $16.2bn – due in large part to the fading effect of the “green stimulus” programmes announced by major economies after the 2008 financial crisis.

Public markets fund-raising fell from $14.2bn in 2010 to $11.9bn in 2011 in the face of a dismal performance by sector share prices. The WilderHill New Energy Global Innovation Index, or NEX, which tracks the performance of 97 clean energy shares worldwide, fell 40% in 2011, touching in early October its lowest level since 2003. The main reason for this share price retreat was severe pressure on wind and solar manufacturers, caused by falling prices, over-capacity, and competition from Asia. One of the biggest public markets equity raisings in the fourth quarter was a $215m initial public offering by Chinese solar company Sungrow Power. The market also displayed an enduring appetite for next-generation biofuel companies.

Venture capital and private equity investment saw a modest increase of 4% in 2011 to $8.9bn. Two of the largest deals of the fourth quarter were a $133m equity raising for US high-end plug-in hybrid vehicle manufacturer Fisker Automotive and a $130m round for US thin-film photovoltaic module maker Stion Corporation.

2011 was characterized by significant volatility in levels of activity, with big variations in the amount of investment in each quarter. The most buoyant period by far was the third quarter, when asset finance alone reached $47.8bn, helped by a rush of projects taking advantage of the US federal loan guarantee programme that expired at the end of September. In the following quarter, asset finance worldwide fell 28% to $34.3bn. This reflected a combination of the fact that the US loan guarantee was no longer available, and the impact of the euro area sovereign debt crisis on bank lending to renewable energy projects.

Liebreich commented: “Overall, 2011 was a far better year for the clean energy industry than the press coverage would lead one to believe. Remember that for every equipment company operating at thin or negative margins, there is an installer who is getting a good deal. 2012 looks like being another challenging year, with the European financial crisis continuing to fester, and the supply chain working its way out of some fearsome over-capacity. But rumours of the death of clean energy have been greatly exaggerated. We will be seeing a new generation of technology starting to hit the market, and we are expecting important announcements by some of the biggest energy and engineering companies in the world as they take advantage of current market conditions to establish themselves in the sector.”

The third-largest sector for investment in 2011 after solar and wind was energy-smart technologies, including smart grid, power storage, efficiency and advanced transport. This area saw total investment of $19.2bn, the bulk of it in corporate R&D and venture capital and private equity raisings. This was however down 17% on 2010 levels.

Among the smaller renewable energy sectors in 2011, biofuels saw total investment edge up from $8.6bn to $9bn, biomass and waste-to-energy suffered an 18% setback to $10.8bn, geothermal slipped from $3.2bn to $2.8bn, marine marked time at $0.3bn, and small hydro fell 25% to $3bn.

For further information:
Angus McCrone
Bloomberg New Energy Finance
+44 203 216 4795
amccrone1@bloomberg.net

To Read More From Bloomberg and Download the Full Report, Click Here.

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Ten Years of Texas Electric Utility Deregulation

Posted on January 25, 2012 by admin

Texas has the oldest and most successful deregulated electricity marketplace in the U.S.

A decade ago, deregulation was rolled out by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) in the wake of California’s $45 billion partial deregulation fiasco.

By 2008, 80 percent of Texas registered voters favored a competitive electricity market, and, by 2010, 55 percent of residential customers had selected a competitive retail electricity provider or product. In 2011, for the fifth consecutive year, an independent authority named the Texas market the best in the country.

More importantly, renewable energy in Texas grew from one percent in 2002 to over 8.5 percent in 2011. Wind grew ten times over, from 2.6 million megawatt-hours to 26 million megawatt-hours, and, with over 10,000 megawatts of installed capacity, Texas led all states (and would be fifth in the world if it secedes). It created nearly 10,000 direct wind industry jobs in the process.

“A disproportionate amount of the wind that has been built in the U.S. has been built in those places that have market structures,” American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) Transmission Policy Manager Michael Goggin explained. “Markets provide a uniform, fair-price signal for all of the energy resources. Markets also tend to come with grid operating procedures that make the grid more efficient for all users and reduce the discrimination that wind plants are sometimes faced with.”

A good market design like ERCOT’s, Goggin said, includes “fast sub-hourly generator dispatch, fast transmission scheduling, wind energy forecasting, and ancillary services markets to efficiently provide flexibility. And markets tend to be large balancing areas, which are a lot more efficient for accommodating variability.”

The benefits, Goggin added, “are really quite staggering.” Grid operator studies put consumer savings and other returns from electricity markets “in the hundreds of millions of dollars per year,” he said.

ERCOT’s initial rules and standards, according to ERCOT CEO Trip Doggett, were the product of “thousands of hours of meetings and mark-up sessions” involving market participants and consumer representatives.

“On January 1, 2002, ERCOT launched the competitive retail electric market — on time and on budget — allowing individuals and corporations in most cities (approximately 74 percent of the ERCOT load) to choose power suppliers,” recounted Doggett. In the intervening 10 years, ERCOT has “evolved from a small organization responsible for ensuring a reliable electric grid to the entity that facilitates a market capable of responding to the opportunities of 21st-century innovations” and economic pressures.

ERCOT’s most recent “comprehensive market redesign,” Doggett noted, enabled “locational marginal pricing for generation at more than 8,000 nodes” and added “a day-ahead energy and ancillary services co-optimized market.” The redesign instituted more “efficiency and incentives to invest in the right places.”

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chair Jon Wellinghoff, Doggett pointed out, called ERCOT’s $34-billion market and 335,000-gigawatt-hour marketplace “the most robust retail competition anywhere in the country.”

The average electricity rate for ERCOT’s 1,150 generators, movers, buyers, sellers and consumers, according to Doggett, is $0.10 per kilowatt-hour.

“ERCOT has led the field in wind development,” noted Doggett, adding, “We are learning how to successfully manage increased wind integration. We developed the first-of-its-kind wind-ramp forecasting tool to help operators prepare for large and sudden changes in wind production. Our current wind record is 7,400 megawatts, which occurred at 3:06 pm on Oct. 7, 2011, accounting for 15.2 percent of the load at the time. In 2011, 8.5 percent of our energy came from wind generation.”

Green Mountain Energy Company (GMEC) was one of the first U.S. electricity retailers, one of the first into the ERCOT marketplace and the first to sell renewable energy to Texas residential and commercial customers.

Retail competition has allowed Texans to choose their electricity provider and their preferred source of electricity, explained GMEC’s Helen Brauner. “In Dallas, there may be 30 different rates and all different flavors now.” Some, she said, just sell system power. “We sell green power.”

GMEC was created by Vermont utility Green Mountain Power “to change the way power is made through consumer choice.” Escaping their first effort in California’s deregulation disaster, GMEC turned to ERCOT.

“We could see it was promoting competition,” Brauner said. GMEC moved its headquarters from Vermont to Texas. “What we thought would happen has happened,” Brauner said. “A lot more people understand now, and I think we had a hand in it, that electricity and pollution are connected.”

“Texas has derived immense value from diversifying its energy portfolio,” AWEA’s Goggin said. “Just five years ago it was much more dependent on natural gas [... and] was a lot more susceptible to the natural gas price volatility that does major harm to consumers.”

More significantly, Goggin said, “Twice in 2011, wind power was instrumental in keeping the lights on in the state.” In February, because of unusually cold conditions, “8,000 megawatts of conventional fossil plants went down and wind was producing above expectations, at about 3,500 megawatts.” And in August, Goggin added, “the state also had power shortages when it was unusually hot and they had some conventional plants that weren’t producing as expected but wind was there producing well above expectations.”

Read More From Herman K. Trabish at GreenTech Media

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The (Solar) Light at the End of the Tunnel

Posted on January 24, 2012 by admin

A consultant for the Defense Department reports that introducing solar installations on nine military bases in the Mojave and Colorado Desert could generate 7,000 megawatts of power.

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Getty Images: President Obama toured the nation’s largest photovoltaic array at Nellis Air Force Base in 2009 with Col. Howard Belote, center, and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, right.

Depending on which yardstick you prefer, that amounts to the output of seven average nuclear plants or six large coal-fired plants. It would also amount to 25 percent of the renewable energy that California will require its utilities to produce by 2015, according to the 13 authors of the report, prepared by the consultancy ICF International.

The report says that electricity generated annually from such solar installations would be equivalent to two-thirds of what the Department of Defense consumes nationwide each year.

Perhaps as much to the point, the report also notes that the military could earn as much as $100 million annually from such solar installations, from rental payments to discounts on power. “Private developers can tap the solar potential with no capital investment required from the D.O.D.,” it adds.

What is more, full development of this solar capability would mean avoiding emissions of millions of tons of greenhouse gases and other pollutants, the report said.

One of the bases mentioned in the report, Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, already boasts the largest photovoltaic array in the nation, a five-year-old 14-megawatt project.

But beyond that, the consultants found, another 30,873 acres of military land is suitable for similar solar arrays on land belonging to California bases, like Fort Irwin, an Army base that has already hosted an experiment in “cool roofs” for new base housing; Edwards Air Force Base (whose history was excerpted in Tom Wolfe’s “The Right Stuff”); the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms; and the Naval Air Facility in El Centro, where Prince Harry trained last year.

J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times At Fort Irwin in the Mojave Desert, houses with “cool” reflective roofs reduce energy consumption.

Another 101,000 acres were deemed “likely suitable” or “questionably suitable.”

At least 96 percent of the land on the bases was ruled unsuitable because solar development would interfere with military activities, because the land provides essential habitat to species like the desert tortoise, because of topography like steep slopes, or because construction could harm a cultural resource like a rich archaeological site or an area important to a Native American group.

Even so, the remaining lands, rooftops, parking lots and the like offer rich solar potential for photovoltaic and perhaps concentrated solar facilities if hurdles like transmission capacity could be overcome, the study indicated.

“There are a range of technical, policy and programmatic barriers that can slow or, in some cases, stop solar development,” the report cautions. “Transmission capacity and the management of withdrawn lands are the two most important issues.”

The study’s economic analysis, calculating a 20-year investment return, assumes that all construction would take place in 2015 (allowing for lead-in planning and procurement time) and that the price of photovoltaic arrays will drop 20 percent or so from last year’s levels.

The solar energy installations could also make the military bases less vulnerable to disruptions of the public electricity grid, the report added. Currently the Defense Department relies on individual diesel generators to insure power in the event of a grid interruption, it noted.

As the military bases rely more on secure microgrids to meet energy needs, the authors predict, solar power can play an ever more important role.

Read More From Felicity Barringer at the New York Times

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Pecan Street’s aim: Create path for consumers into smart grid’s future

Posted on January 23, 2012 by admin

Pecan Street Inc., a 3-year-old public-private initiative to make Central Texas an energy technology hub, is preparing to break ground on a $1.5 million, one-of-a-kind lab that will help researchers and companies understand how customers might interact with a “smart” electricity grid of the future.

Construction is expected to begin within a few weeks on a three-story structure near the old Mueller airport tower that will be named for Pike Powers, an Austin lawyer who spearheaded the region’s economic development efforts for decades.

“The lab is a physical realization of what we wanted to do,” said Tom Edgar, a University of Texas professor of chemical engineering and board member with Pecan Street Inc.

The lab joins the clean energy consortium’s ongoing project of collecting power usage data, mostly using wireless technology, from 200 homes near and in the Mueller neighborhood.

Chevrolet is discounting 100 Volts to understand how a concentration of hybrid vehicles will affect an electricity grid.

The lab, however, might better define, at least in the public’s mind, where Pecan Street fits into the pantheon of Austin’s previous research consortiums — MCC and Sematech, which shaped this government town into a technology center recognized around the world.

Pecan Street traces its organizational DNA to those predecessors, mixing public- and private-sector support, with the University of Texas at the heart of it. But beyond that, it is a very different kind of organization.

MCC and Sematech were well-funded national responses to perceived threats to the country’s leadership in computers and semiconductor manufacturing. Pecan Street is more akin to a startup, conceived in an Austin coffee shop, now with a staff of 10 and a $1.1 million operating budget. Although the Pike Powers Commercialization Lab is paid for, Pecan Street hopes to raise another $2 million for additional equipment and operations.

The lab will facilitate consumer research for the so-called electric internet.

Only this “internet” is where the original Internet was in the early 1990s, before Google, Facebook and Amazon became household names that changed how the world searched, socialized and shopped. Of course, the Internet also had its share of false starts and flameouts.

In electricity’s case, the nation’s grid is slowly being digitalized to monitor and manage power usage. It begins with smart meters and thermostats that communicate — the equivalent of dial-up technology for the Internet.

Eventually, customers will be able to buy and sell power as they need it — whether from solar panels or electric-powered cars or other sources. Smart appliances will manage their power needs more efficiently and cheaply.

“You are talking about the last great grid not digitalized,” said Brewster McCracken, Pecan Street’s executive director. “A whole bunch of companies we’ve never heard of will take advantage of that grid.”

The Obama administration committed $3.4 billion in federal stimulus money toward improving the nation’s electricity grid in 2010, and industry contributions swelled that to $8 billion, according to the White House.

Pecan Street got $10 million in federal money, but Tom Kerber, an energy analyst with Parks Association, a national research firm focused on smart grid issues, said the Austin consortium took a unique approach.

“First, and probably most significantly, is that they are looking at the problem from the consumers’ perspective, working on solutions that enhance their lifestyles,” Kerber said. “Secondly, most other programs are utility-led initiatives. Pecan Street Inc. is a public-private partnership including a wide variety of companies and the University of Texas.”

Edgar, the Pecan Street board member, said the research agenda for the consortium has changed during its brief existence.

“If you had asked me two years ago what I’d be working on, I would have been wrong,” Edgar said.

He said he initially thought Pecan Street would be working more with federal agencies on smart grid issues from a utility’s perspective. He credited McCracken with the emphasis on the private sector and consumers.

Edgar predicted that there will be new avenues of research not yet anticipated. “This project is going to morph into directions we don’t expect,” he said.

The fact that Pecan Street is working on the customer’s side of the smart meter is fundamental to one of its tenets: figuring out how to get utilities, which now make more money as they sell more power, to instead embrace a future where customers use energy more efficiently or even generate their own on their roof, for example.

Answers on how to move utilities in that direction are probably years away. And Pecan Street officials won’t necessarily come up with them. Instead, they might come from UT researchers, a startup firm at the Austin Technology Incubator or one of Pecan Street’s corporate members.

As a lab, Pecan Street wants to be where the New Energy Economy is tested and verified before it goes to market. By extension, McCracken expects many of the innovators to base their companies here. But he said it’s difficult to predict how quickly — or how slowly — the breakthroughs might come. Many experts have suggested it could be a decade or more.

Michael Webber, a UT engineering researcher, applauds the effort.

“Researchers rarely have access to a real-world test lab equipped with high-caliber equipment that is attached and integrated into an actual grid environment,” he said. “This facility will be one of a kind.”

Pecan Street already is collecting massive amounts of consumer data from its 200 volunteer households. The data are crunched using supercomputers at UT.

Edgar credited Pecan Street as a factor in UT winning a $3 million National Science Foundation grant that supports 11 student researchers.

The lab, however, adds a wrinkle.

“With our lab’s advanced testing capabilities, companies can do more than test their solutions in one home,” said Scott Hinson, Pecan Street’s lab director. “They will have the power to simulate any home.”

Isaac Barchas, a co-creator of Pecan Street who also heads the Austin Technology Incubator, said the novel approach is appealing to companies.

“There’s no other place in the world where companies can go and study how human behavior interacts with energy,” Barchas said.

He likened Pecan Street to clinical trials for drug manufacturers. As an independent party, he said, Pecan Street can give its “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval” before a product or service is introduced into the nation’s households.

“If you are in developing an energy business,” Barchas said, “it’s hard to sell your product unless someone they trust says, ‘It’s OK.’”

Barchas said there’s an advantage to including corporate giants such as Sony and Freescale with startups in the mix.

“It puts my entrepreneurs right next to companies that can take their technology global,” he said. “That’s gold.”

lcopelin@statesman.com; 445-3617

Pecan Street Inc.’s partners

Research team members

University of Texas

Environmental Defense Fund

Galvin Electricity Initiative

National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Underwriters Laboratories

Member companies

Best Buy Electronics retailer

Freescale Semiconductor manufacturer

Intel Semiconductor manufacturer

Landis + Gyr Energy management

LG Electronics Consumer electronics

Oncor Electricity retailer

Oracle Computer software

Sony Consumer electronics

SunEdison Solar energy

Texas Gas Service Natural gas retailer

Whirlpool Appliance maker

Read More From Laylan Copelin at the Austin American-Statesman

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