Green Energy

Building a new generation of windpower infrastructure across key economies in Asia could add up to a bonanza for European firms, in a rare instance where state-owned Chinese companies find themselves on the back foot.

Offshore wind-farm construction projects, already on the drawing boards in South Korea, Japan and Taiwan among others Asian economies, are likely to be dominated by foreign engineering firms, which have a lead in terms of skills and project experience, according to the Asia Wind Energy Association.

China’s state-owned energy firms, recognised as juggernauts in green energy, seem unable to acquire the foreign expertise needed to scale up for work in neighbouring countries.

Edgare Kerkwijk, managing director at of renewable energy investment firm Asia Green Capital in Singapore, says while the mainland has a big offshore engineering industry, it is geared towards serving the oil and gas sector and does not have the capacity to meet the needs of the rest of Asia.
In some instances, such as Taiwan, which has an ambitious plan to increase the amount of energy from green sources, the mainland’s state-owned firms are finding themselves blocked from bidding on projects because of politics.

“There are a lot of offshore wind-tower installation vessels in [mainland] China which can be used in Taiwan … but now we see a number of vessels being sent from Europe to Taiwan,” Kerkwijk told the Post at the sidelines of a renewable energy conference in Hong Kong last week.
Moreover, European firms could find that they become more competitive as their volume of work in Asia picks up.

John Mankins has spent his professional life working on novel ideas that could transform the way humans use technology in space, solar power among them. But Mankins’ interplanetary musings went beyond the way solar is already used to power satellites and the International Space Station. During a 25-year career at NASA and CalTech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, he devised multiple concepts to extend the use of solar in space, among them a solar-powered interplanetary transport vehicle and a space-based power system.

It’s that second idea, in particular, that had Mankins’ attention while holding top research positions at NASA during the 1990s and 2000s, including overseeing the $800 million Exploration Systems Research and Technology group. Mankins — who now runs his own private aerospace firm, Artemis Innovation Management Solutions — had the task of figuring out whether there was a way to deliver electricity to the planet by beaming it from space. It’s an idea that could fundamentally reshape the idea of the utility business — and give control over it, on a global scale, to whichever world power gets there first.

“If you can dramatically lower the cost of space solar, you can take over most of the energy market of the world, ” said Mark Hopkins, a member of the National Space Society board of directors and former Rand Corp. executive.

Mankins got close to seeing the idea make it into reality, with support from the Bush White House and Congress in the 2000s, and positive reviews from the National Academy of Sciences and a national security unit within the Department of Defense. But the program never took flight, for a variety of reasons. So when the news recently broke that the idea — abandoned decades ago by NASA — was coming back to life with a big push from government, it was cause for excitement. But it isn’t NASA finally backing the idea. It’s the Chinese government.

The space race heats up

China’s ambitions in space rival that of the United States. Its two main objectives were originally human spaceflight (accomplished in 2003) and a permanent Chinese space station, which is coming closer to reality — it announced in early March that a manned space station similar to ISS is now on schedule for 2022, earlier than expected.

As the two geopolitical foes increasingly turn their attention to a technological and military race beyond the earth’s atmosphere, space-based solar power projects are an overlooked, often criticized idea. But with China recently announcing that within the next decade it expects to finish the high voltage power transmission and wireless energy tests that would be needed for a space-based solar power system, the concept is likely to get renewed attention.

All of the plans in the space race have potential implications for a new military build-out in space of increasing relevance to the world’s powers. The Trump administration formalized plans in February for a branch of U.S. military known as the Space Force. The solar power station plans being contemplated by China include the launch of small- to medium-sized solar power projects in the stratosphere to generate electricity between 2021 and 2025, followed by a space-based solar power station that can generate at least a megawatt of electricity in 2030, and a commercial-scale solar power plant in space by 2050.

“The dramatically stated interest on the part of the Chinese will do a lot to engender interest,” Mankins said. “Around a decade ago the Chinese started working seriously on this, and about five years ago they started coming to international meetings. Before that, they were in the dark. Now they are coming out of the shadows and talking much more openly about this.” He added, “There is absolutely progress from the Chinese at this point. This is not posturing; this is a real plan from serious organizations with revered scientists in China. They have a perfectly good technical plan, and they can do it by 2030,” Mankins said, describing a small-scale solar power project producing megawatts of electricity, but not a commercial-scale project able to produce gigawatts needed to compete with utilities.

A space-based solar power station would capture the sun’s energy that never makes it to the planet and use laser beams to send the energy back to Earth to meet energy demand needs. China said in a recent announcement about the project that a big advantage of space-based solar power is its ability to offer energy supply on a constant basis and with greater intensity than terrestrial solar farms.

One of the issues with renewable-energy projects like solar and wind power plants are their intermittency — that refers to the fact that the sun isn’t shining and the wind is not blowing 24-hours a day, limiting the periods of time during which these projects can be a source of power generation.

Space-based solar would not only offer a solution to intermittency, but also delivery. Today, utility power generation is regional, if not local, but electricity generated in space and near the equator could be beamed almost anywhere across the globe, except for the poles. “You could beam electricity from Canada to the Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of South America from a satellite at equator,” Mankins said. Roughly one billion people live in the Americas.

Hopkins said the current Chinese view is, “We want to be major dominant power in space solar power by 2050. This has the potential to really turn the geopolitics in our favor if we are a leader, so let’s look at it seriously.” Meanwhile, the U.S. says, “Are you kidding? Let’s worry about something else.”

New life for a ‘losing proposition’

The idea of collecting solar power in space was popularized by science fiction author Isaac Asimov in 1941 in a short story that envisioned space stations that could transport energy from the sun to other planets with microwave beams. In 1968, Asimov’s vision was brought closer to reality when an American aerospace engineer named Peter Glaser wrote the first formal proposal for a solar-based system in space. After experimenting in the 1970s with transporting solar power, Glaser was able to land a contract with NASA to fund research. However, the project suffered with changes in federal administrations and it was not until 1999 that NASA’s solar power exploratory research and technology program jumped back in to study the issue.

In the end “NASA didn’t want to do it,” Mankins said. But a lot has changed, especially relating to the cost equation and rapid advances in technologies like robotics.

A NASA spokeswoman said it is not currently studying space-based solar power for use on Earth. It is exploring several advanced power and energy technologies to enable long-duration human exploration of the Moon and Mars, such as its Kilopower project, a small, lightweight nuclear fission system that could power future outposts on the Moon to support astronauts, rovers and surface operations. Next year, this project is expected to transition from ground-based testing to an in-space demonstration mission.

Historically, the cost of rocket launches and the weight that would be required for a project of this scale, made the idea of space-based solar unfeasible. There are scientists who still hold that view today.

“The energy, mass and cost budgets involved show that this is a losing proposition, not just now but perhaps for centuries to come,” said Olivier L de Weck, a professor of Aeronautics, Astronautics and Engineering Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “The energy we need to put in to launch the mass required for the SBSP [spaced-based solar power] station is so enormous that we may never recoup it.”

Mankins said this view is becoming quickly outdated due to a dramatic lowering of rocket launch costs through efforts funded by billionaires including Tesla founder Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin. Meanwhile, developments in robotics and modular-manufacturing — being able to produce many small modular pieces to make a whole rather than one huge piece of equipment — could lead to cost-effective ways to construct these projects in orbit without having to build a multi-billion-dollar factory in space. He referenced a major review conducted by the federal government in 1981 that when looked at in today’s dollars would have cost up to $1 trillion to deliver the first kilowatt/hour of solar from space. “The whole program was killed in the U.S.,” he said.

Now the studies conducted on feasibility are decades old and simply no longer relevant to the discussion, Mankins said. “Whenever a gray-haired senior scientist tells you something can be done, they are almost certainly right. When they tell you it can’t be done, he or she may very well be wrong,” he said, referencing an adage by science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke from his famous “three laws.”

“We have had a revolution in robotics, drones and warehouse robots that didn’t exist. Previously, the whole thing had to be built as one huge system, an enormous thing like a aircraft carrier shipyard in space to fabricate one enormous object weighing 10,000 tonnes rather than 10 million small units each weighing a few pounds that can use mass production,” he said. “We no longer need a stupendously huge factory in space and hundreds of astronauts to put it together. The whole world, other than the space program, has moved forward to mass-produced modular network devices. That’s the way you would do it, and it was unthinkable 40 years ago, but suddenly it is physically, technically and economically doable.”

American scientists are tinkering with the idea to this day. A group at the California Institute of Technology claims to have created a prototype that is able to capture and transmit solar energy from space, using light weight tiles, work sponsored by a $17.5 million research agreement with Northrop Grumman. Weight has always been a key issue to resolve because of the cost of rocket launches being based on weight of cargo. Thin film solar panels are lightweight, which reduces launch cost. Though as launch costs come down it may be less of a make-or-break issue. Thin film may also have a structural advantage in space — the lighter weight is no issue in the zero-gravity environment.

Other nations are exploring the concept. In India and in Europe scientists are working on additional concepts for solar based power in space. Japan’s JAXA, an aerospace exploration agency, has been researching how to overcome technological barriers, such as microwave wireless power transmission tech and robotic assembly tech.

The US military has begun exploring the idea

The most important U.S. effort underway today is arguably the one being conducted by the U.S. military, which received $178 million in its current fiscal year to explore space-based solar power.

For the military, space-based solar could solve big issues with delivering power to posts in remote locations, such as in Afghanistan, where getting fuel to a base means driving a truck loaded with flammable gasoline through hostile territory. Solar power beamed from space would also offer bases a new method of powering their operations, recharging the huge battery packs that soldiers carry today because they have so many electronic devices, and could lead to a ramp up in use more electric vehicles. “Anything the military does will push the technology, and CalTech is pushing hard too with the thin film cells, and that work is going well,” Hopkins said.

A Department of Defense spokesman said the DoD routinely conducts research to explore concepts such as space-based solar power, but it did not have details to provide at this time.

One of the concerns that has dogged the concept is the idea that these projects are really clandestine efforts to develop a space-based laser cannon. Mankins said those fears are based in real physics, but not supported by the reality of military equipment monitoring by the world’s powers. High frequency lasers could be concentrated to serve as a weapon, but any equipment with that purpose would be obvious in its construction, and that is construction that is easily monitored from the earth. “If you look at armored vehicles with machine guns versus a Ford F150 pickup, the difference would be discernible from the ground, even if there are some similarities,” Mankins said. “You would see something that looked like a Hubble telescope.”

Risks of solar in space

Hughes said that going into space and intercepting sunlight that would have otherwise gone past the earth can heat up the temperature within our atmosphere, though he added that this effect depend on the size of the solar collector in space.

“If the plan is to capture solar energy in space, that means the total amount of solar energy going into earth goes up, that increases the earth’s temperature,” Hughes said. “Now of course that depends on how much energy is being brought in. It only becomes a problem when the area of the solar connectors in space becomes comparable to the size of earth.”

Mankins said there are significant risks for the planet that need to be considered, including an increase in temperature and unintended consequences for various forms of life. “There is a reason birds like to sit on utility wires.” But it is no different that worries about UV rays, and the concerns are “not known showstoppers.”

He said the length of microwaves being contemplated for these projects do not pose a significant health risk. He also studied the global warming argument in detail and said it is a fact that beaming power from space to the earth will have an impact on surface temperatures. But when you look at how efficient the delivery of solar from space could be versus the addition of more coal-powered, natural gas-fired or diesel power generation, the resulting greenhouse gas emissions are still much lower.

Michael Byers, a professor in the department of political science at University British Columbia Vancouver says the biggest problem for this concept may be a matter of time. Space-based systems might well be possible several decades from now, but Earth-based systems are already catching up to fossil fuels in terms of cost and efficiency. “You can put solar panels just about anywhere. Rooftops are the most obvious location, and in some jurisdictions all new buildings must have solar arrays. Lots of small projects are better than a few big ones, since they provide greater resilience to equipment failures and weather events,” Byers said.

Hopkins said price competition from Earth-based utility generation is a real issue, but not an insurmountable one. As prices fall for solar technology on the ground, they fall for solar that would be used in space as well. And space-based solar — because it can beam electricity anywhere in the world — can take advantage of the big price differential in the utility market.

A space-based solar system can target places like Japan or Hawaii, where electricity prices can be four to five times prices in the mainland U.S. and then can move to lower-cost electricity markets later once the solar project has paid for itself. “That’s the military thinking. The money you are sending to remote military bases can pay for the technology later. There is a return on investment in the future that doesn’t require sending the electricity to Los Angeles today.”

But the detractors remains convinced it is an idea that will remain in the world of Asimov’s stories.

“The concept of space solar power is and will remain in the realm of science fiction for a long time, maybe forever. Even if China or any other nation decides to build an SBSP demonstrator, it does not mean that it is a good idea and that it makes economic sense to do so,” L de Weck said.

National Space Society director Hopkins said that kind of thinking — coupled with the U.S. government’s inability to think long-term in its planning — may be the biggest risk of all. He said that current views in the U.S. on the topic tend to fall into one of two camps.

“People in the U.S. tend to look at it as, ‘At least the Chinese are doing it, and if the Chinese are doing it, then we are likely to do it at some point because we don’t want them to lead.’ Others are saying, ‘If they get this right and we don’t, we are in big trouble.’” Hopkins added, “One thing the Chinese are really good at is thinking long-term, unlike U.S. thinking, out 50 years about this stuff. They have no problem thinking like that. When I talk to NASA about anything more than 10 years out, they sort of look up in the air and roll their eyes, and I’m not invited back.”

Madison is poised to take a next big step to address climate change with an initiative that would require $95 million in up-front investments but promises to dramatically reduce emissions and deliver substantial savings over time.

After two years of study, the City Council on Tuesday will consider recommendations from a consultant and the city’s Sustainable Madison Committee on how to achieve 100 percent renewable energy and zero net carbon emissions by 2030 through an array of actions including energy-efficient buildings, solar power and electric buses.

To get to 100 percent renewable energy, all city government energy needs must be met through generation of power from solar panels on city facilities or from clean energy elsewhere by investing in large solar or wind farms. Zero net carbon means slashing the city’s 95,000 tons of annual emissions.

The proposed plan would require a $95 million investment over 12 years and deliver $78 million in cost savings and health and societal benefits of $21 million to $162 million by 2030, according to a report by Navigant Consulting of Chicago. It would reduce total carbon emissions by 426,000 tons by 2030, the report says.

The time is right for ambitious action and investment, said Raj Shukla, chairman of the Sustainable Madison Committee.

“The scenario with climate change is getting much more dire,” he said. “(But) technology to address issues has advanced dramatically.”

Shukla said the city’s actions can help inspire others to make similar moves.

In a 73-page report in November, Navigant offered three scenarios, with other options to achieve the 100 percent renewable energy and zero net carbon emissions goals by 2020 or 2023. Those options would be cheaper, use different strategies and result in smaller paybacks.

The Sustainable Madison Committee recommended the path to achieve 100 percent renewable energy by 2030, which is most closely aligned with the Paris Agreement on climate change, which the United States pulled out of last year. Under the Paris accord, emissions would need to fall by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching net zero by around 2050, the resolution says.

“The scientific community, worldwide, is sounding the alarm that climate change is upon us,” said Jeanne Hoffman, the city’s facilities and sustainability manager.

Taking steps

The city is already moving to address climate change, but not on the scale of the Sustainable Madison plan.

In 2012, the city adopted a broad sustainability plan with an array of ideas. The MadiSun program has helped roughly 100 homeowners and businesses install solar power. Another program trains unemployed and underemployed people to make solar installations. The city has five electric vehicles and secured a grant for 20 more, and the first three electric buses will be delivered in 2020.

Last year, the city began buying renewable energy credits in five solar installations in southwestern Wisconsin, which will help the city meet its 100 percent renewable energy goals and support economic development in that part of the state, Hoffman said.

The city is also installing solar panels on buildings and ensuring new buildings are as energy efficient as possible, she said. The city’s newest Fire Station on the Southeast Side, for example, includes geothermal heating and cooling, and solar panels.

In 2017, Madison became the first city in the state and 25th in North America to set a goal of 100 percent renewable energy and zero net carbon emissions. Six cities have already hit their targets. The council also paid Navigant $250,000 to develop strategies with various timelines to achieve the goal. In January, the Sustainable Madison Committee endorsed the report’s recommendation to achieve the city’s goals by 2030.

In early February, Mayor Paul Soglin and 10 City Council members offered a resolution to accept the recommendations and timeline. The resolution has been approved by five city committees leading to the council’s review on Tuesday.

“We know that the economy is really a subset of the environment,” said Josh Arnold, Navigant’s associate director. “Clean air, clean water is the basis for the quality of life we enjoy in Madison. This is a huge opportunity for the city.”

Pursuing goals

To reach the goal, city operations would need to cut carbon emissions by 55 percent. At least 25 percent of the city’s electricity would need to come from self-generated renewable energy, such as solar panels on buildings. Transportation fuel use such as gasoline or diesel would need to be cut to zero. Investments in carbon offsets, such as solar farms in other places, would make up the remaining 45 percent of the carbon balance.

The city would cut demand through energy efficiencies in buildings and street lights, electric buses and vehicles, and more. To generate 25 percent of its electricity, the city would work with local utilities to implement at least one utility-scale solar project in the area.

All of the scenarios assume Alliant Energy and MG&E have incorporated large-scale solar and wind projects in their power grids to achieve 30 percent renewable energy by 2030. The companies, however, have been pursuing more ambitious goals, Hoffman said.

The estimated $95 million in additional investments include:

• $60 million to move from diesel to 232 electric buses, and changes to the vehicle fleet.
• $16 million for solar installations in the area, plus $5 million for solar installations elsewhere.
• $6 million for building efficiencies, largely through changing to LED lighting.
• $5 million for more efficient LED streetlights.
• $1.5 million to make water pumping more efficient.
• $1.5 million to implement the program and other costs.

The resolution says the spending will be covered by borrowing and require about $928,000 in annual debt payments.

“It’s a matter of changing priorities,” Shukla said of the cost. “We have to make changes in how we allocate resources.”

The city will also look for grants “everyplace we can,” Hoffman added.

Investments would be repaid within 12 years through savings in the cost of fuel, operations and maintenance, while other societal benefits would continue well into the future, the report says.

A flock of fluffy, four-legged field workers has arrived at a local Tucson Electric Power solar array, ensuring the panels can continue producing clean energy for customers.

The flock of about 25 sheep lives and works at the Prairie Fire Solar Array, located near South Kolb and East Valencia roads, keeping weeds trimmed that otherwise could grow high enough to block the sun and inhibit solar power production, TEP said in a news release.

TEP owns and operates the 5-megawatt facility, which was built in 2012 and includes more than 17,600 fixed photovoltaic panels. The array produces enough solar energy to power more than 1,000 homes each year.

Instead of using lawn mowers, sprays or weed trimmers, the sheep will eat vegetation that grows beneath and around the solar panels, providing a cost-effective way to maintain the site while preserving the surrounding environment, TEP said.

The flock is managed by Southwest Lambscaping. The company also manages a flock of sheep at Red Horse Solar, a 51-megawatt solar array near Willcox that also produces power for TEP customers.

Elon Musk recently declared 2019 as the “year of the solar roof.”

The Tesla Inc. chief executive officer may be right — but not in the way he’s expecting. While the automaker tries to ramp up production of its textured glass, solar cell-embedded rooftop tiles, another group of formidable rivals is emerging: roofers.

One of the largest roofing companies in the world has begun offering its own version of a solar roof — essentially panels laid right up against the top of a house and surrounded by shingles. Standard Industries Inc. has received 200 orders for its product so far and expects to ship 2,000 this year, said Martin DeBono, president of the company’s GAF Energy.

It’s direct competition for Tesla, which has until now been the only major game in town when it comes to solar roofs. Industry stalwarts Sunrun Inc. and Vivint Solar Inc. affix panels atop roofs instead. A move by the construction industry into the solar-roof space challenges a business that Tesla has struggled to get off the ground since a high-profile launch in 2016 — and threatens economics across the rooftop industry as solar customers come cheaper for builders already contracted to install roofs.

The way GAF’s DeBono sees the solar opportunity: “Rather than be disrupted, let’s be the disrupter.”

Sunrun and Tesla declined to comment. Vivint didn’t respond to a request for comment.

A Solar Takeoff

GAF isn’t the only roofer expanding in the solar space either. PetersenDean Roofing & Solar started offering panels five years ago, did 9,800 installations in 2018 and is on pace to double that this year, said Steve Huber, the company’s vice president of consumer sales. Building product supplier Saint-Gobain unit CertainTeed began a solar division in 2010.

Their products aren’t all exactly the same. For example, Tesla’s solar rooftop is a customize-able, made-to-order product. GAF makes a one-size-fits-all option that’s ready to install right out of the box. Others affix panels to rooftops with racks and brackets.

Builders are expanding into solar just as the industry is preparing for installations to take off. California is requiring panels on new homes starting next year. That could boost annual installed capacity in the state to almost 1.6 gigawatts in 2020 from about 950 megawatts last year, according to BloombergNEF. Sunrun and Vivint are already lining up partnerships with home-builders in preparation.

“There is potential for solar to be offered by other trade services, including roofers, electricians and home-maintenance professionals,” said Hugh Bromley, a New York-based analyst at BloombergNEF. “Solar in its own right doesn’t need to be its own industry.”

‘Slow Pace’
For its part, Tesla acknowledged in late January that it was continuing to install solar roofs “at a slow pace” as it tries to improve its manufacturing capabilities. On Thursday, Musk said the company is turning its attention to the product now that production of its Model 3 sedan is “going pretty well.”

As for GAF Energy, the company expects to ship about 10 megawatts of solar systems this year in nine U.S. states including California and New York. For comparison, a nuclear reactor generates upwards of 1,000 megawatts.

“We’re a growing startup in a hot space and we’re starting from zero,” DeBono said. “The goal is to make roofers solar people.”

A Swedish miner claims to have cut mining costs by approximately 75% after opting to install solar panels on his home as a measure to keep his business afloat without having to pay high electricity rates or overload his local grid.

In a Reddit post, the miner identified as Candese explained that he decided to purchase and install 78 solar panels at the cost of $100 each. In addition, he bought an optimizer and SolarEdge inverter.

The Swedish miner also revealed that he is considering the possibility of getting a Tesla Powerwall to accumulate energy and mine during the night without the need to connect to the electricity grid. This equipment has a price of about $5000 which would imply sacrificing a good ROI in exchange for the possibility of keeping a continuous mining in case of some blackout.

Candese has a small homemade farm with “a bunch of S9’s.” He is aware that these are not the most efficient machines, but they have generated good profits over the years. He explained that he is contemplating the possibility of upgrading his equipment, but his priority seems to be the investment in an autonomous mining farm, independent of the local electrical service.

In addition, living in a cold country, the miner explained how he solved two other problems: The heat generated by the miners serves to heat his house (saving electricity consumption), and he does not need to invest in refrigeration systems since the good ol’ “mountain cooling keeps a steady 7 degrees all year round” in his basement.

Solar Power: The New Friend of Crypto Miners Around the World?
Candese is not the only one that has used solar energy as a tool to reduce costs. In the same thread, another user identified as BMore_original explained that he got a reduction of “only” 25%. He comments that “Really it all depends on which direction your house faces and how much sun you receive.”

Currently, Sweden is one of the most expensive countries in Europe to mine Bitcoins due to the high cost of its electricity. Data obtained from Eurostat 2018 show that prices have increased by more than 10% during the last decade.