Green Energy

Vietnam, says Minh Koi Le, leader of Southeast Asia analysis for Rystad Energy, is an example of what a country with stable leadership — albeit in a one-party state — can achieve with vision and long-term policy. A country that had zero renewable projects in 2016, now has a pipeline of 40 solar projects alone, with a combined capacity of 2.5 GW at various stages of development in 2019.

“A lot of Asian countries are like that, in the sense that you don’t see the Prime Minister changing, and that’s an advantage because they have a vision and it’s not going to change,” says Le.

The Southeast Asian section of the Rystad Energy RenewableCube kicks off with data on 1000 utility-scale solar and wind assets with a total pipeline of 55 GW across Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines and Indonesia.

Vietnam, says Le, is bursting with solar largely due to a revision of the country’s Power Development Plan (PDP) in 2016, which shifted significant future capacity from coal to solar.

With a population of around 92 million, Vietnam’s energy needs are expected to triple in the next 10-15 years. It had been heavily reliant on locally mined coal to meet its requirements, but, “In the mid-2010s,” says Le, “Vietnam, which had traditionally been a big exporter of coal became an importer of coal for power generation, which was obviously not good for its economy. Hydro was also getting saturated, therefore the government wanted to improve the energy mix with renewables.”

Under Version 7 of its PDP, the Vietnamese Government planned to have around 12 GW of solar contributions to the grid by 2030. In 2017 it seeded a boom by setting a feed-in tariff (FIT) under which the state-owned Electricity Vietnam (EVN) would buy solar energy at a rate of 9.35 US cents per kWh, which is about AU$130 per MWh. “Compared to what we get in Australia, that’s almost double,” says Le.

There is no quota on developments eligible for the FIT which is set for a period of 20 years, although applications for the FIT will close at the end of June 2019.

“This begins to explain why we’ve seen this massive wave of projects coming online in Vietnam,” says Le.

In Fayette County, Catherine Miller knows firsthand that, while wind turbines are touted by many as a source of local revenue and clean energy, they aren’t loved by all Iowans.

Miller, Fayette County’s planning and zoning administrator, had a front-row seat to the three-year battle that began in 2015 over Optimum Renewable LLC’s application for three wind turbines near the community of Fairbank.

Despite being approved for construction that year by the county, a legal fight — one that saw the city of Fairbank and a group of area residents file separate lawsuits against the development — broke out over whether the county’s more than 40-year-old zoning ordinance allowed for wind turbine development. In mid-2018, the turbines were ordered to be torn down by a district judge. They were dismantled late last year.

With Fayette County already home to more than a dozen turbines, built years earlier in 2011-12 near the small town of Hawkeye, Miller said she was surprised to see such fervent opposition to the Optimum project.

“I would think it would be very unusual for a city to sue a county, or vice versa. To my knowledge, we’ve never had a city sue the county,” Miller said. “Nobody spoke for it, everybody was against it.”

The scenario that played out in Fayette County was rare for Iowa, which is home to hundreds of wind turbines. With that wind generation industry anticipated to grow by close to 50 percent in the coming years, some state agencies encourage local entities to prepare for the inevitable growth by creating ordinances governing the development of wind turbines.

Creating an ordinance

In Fayette County, the lack of a specific wind turbine ordinance played a crucial role in the battle over Optimum’s turbines.

During early discussions over the project, the county’s Board of Adjustment considered a special-use permit for the project, which would have provided the county additional control over the project’s parameters.

However, a lawyer representing Optimum and the attorney Fayette County uses for zoning matters agreed the turbines were considered an allowed use under the current ordinance as energy transmission structures and the project was greenlit.

“The Board of Adjustment at that point didn’t run that through a special use. It was determined by the attorneys that it was an allowed use, so we had to let it go,” Miller said.

The project was challenged soon after, and last year the Iowa Supreme Court upheld District Court Judge John Bauercamper’s 2016 ruling that turbines are defined as electric generation, not transmission.

While the turbines were dismantled in late 2018, a special committee was formed years earlier in 2015 to address the county’s then-ongoing fight over the wind turbines and to prevent future confusion.

By mid-2016, a wind turbine ordinance had been created. Of the included setbacks, wind turbines cannot be built within a mile of city limits unless a written agreement is signed by the city and county.

“People wanted this addressed immediately, if not sooner,” Miller recalled, adding that the county has not received an application for wind turbine development since the Optimum project.

Pre-empting wind growth

Iowa’s wind industry represents more than a third of the state’s energy generation — more than 7,300 megawatts.

And it’s expected to grow, said Kerri Johannsen, energy program director with the Iowa Environmental Council. Nearly 2,600 megawatts are under construction and another roughly 1,800 megawatts are in the stage of advanced development.

“With the schedules currently underway and the projects that already have been approved, we’re heading toward 10,000 megawatts by 2020,” Johannsen said.

By the end of 2017, close to half the state’s 99 counties were home to utility-scale wind turbines or have such projects in active development. The Iowa Environmental Council reports that about half of Iowa’s counties also have adopted some type of wind turbine ordinance.

Johannsen said the council researched 18 existing county ordinances across the state to develop a tool of best practices for county supervisors and planners.

“Anybody who works in this space and is maybe looking at their first or second wind project in the county …, they’re deciding to adopt an ordinance because some issues have arisen that they want to address with the people in the county,” Johannsen said.

Establishing setbacks — a certain distance from property lines, non-participating landowners or occupied homes — are recommended for safety, to address concerns of ice throw or turbine malfunctions. Setbacks also can address concerns raised by neighboring residents about sound, she said.

In addition to setbacks, Johannsen said the council also encourages counties to enact a clear and well-defined application process for wind developers, with the county Board of Supervisors making the final decision to add a level of accountability.

In addition to the council, Iowa’s Center for Rural Affairs last year created a Wind Energy Ordinances guide, also geared to county government officials.

Lu Nelson, policy program associate with the Center for Rural Affairs, said the guide was created to help counties less familiar with Iowa’s wind industry, particularly smaller counties with fewer resources dedicated to crafting new ordinances.

“They’re mostly focused on getting community input, using good peer-reviewed research to inform the rationale behind the ordinance and really just taking the time to put into play standards that will be well balanced and will serve the community well,” Nelson said.

Both Johannsen and Nelson said one of the biggest factors in crafting an ordinance is creating an open process to collect public comments and concerns.

“I think if I could ever give just one recommendation when it comes to wind energy is that early and regular public participation and outreach is absolutely key. And it’s because it’s new, it’s different and change is difficult,” Nelson said. “I think that’s the real key when it comes to zoning. You’re just trying to find that balance between one landowner’s use and other landowner’s use, and that’s what’s really key here is striking that balance.”

Finding that balance while crafting an ordinance, rather than at the point of a turbine application, helps reduce the emotion and ambiguity surrounding a project, Johannsen said.

“That kind of a process really leads to a more peaceful coexistence. They can see the economic benefits that they get from wind, while making sure they’re taking care of the issues that tend to come up,” she said.

Some can be ‘very opposed’

As one of the state’s two largest energy utilities, Alliant Energy has been one of the state’s biggest investors in wind development.

The utility operates just shy of 300 megawatts of wind power in the state. Another 470 megawatts are expected to come online by the end of March, and an additional 530 megawatts are in the planning phase.

While Alliant’s projects have been limited to a handful of large-scale wind farms, Ben Lipari, director of resource development with Alliant, said it’s inevitable that projects expand into counties less familiar with turbines.

“You’re going to have some landowners that are very welcoming to the opportunity to have turbines and other project infrastructure located on the land, and you’ll have other landowners that, frankly, can be very opposed,” Lipari said.

One selling point to wind turbines is the tax revenue they generate.

“Wind farms in Iowa get taxed locally. The property tax payments for that project go directly to that local county and are split up among school districts and cities,” said Alliant spokesman Justin Foss.

Foss said by 2028, Alliant will have paid around $18 million a year in property taxes in the counties that are home to the utility’s wind turbines. The utility is projected to deliver about $670 million in taxes over the next 40 years, he added.

In Fayette County, the 15 wind turbines standing near Hawkeye, built by Bethel Wind Energy, pumped out more than $217,000 in property tax revenue in 2017, according to a report in the Fayette County Newspapers.

Alliant’s Lipari said public meetings can help answer questions and address residents’ concerns.

“A lot of times there is a lack of education that we can provide — not necessarily dismiss their concerns — but just to be able to have a more constructive dialogue on how we can be responsible with our development, with our placement of that infrastructure, to mitigate effects that they might feel they’d be left with through the operations of the facility,” he said.

Lipari said Alliant officials deploy a set of best practices when entering a new county or project that involves meeting with residents and gathering input.

“There’s quite a bit of effort that goes into it to ensure we understand how they manage their land, what equipment they use, the history of their land,” he said. “I’d say, in general, we’re successful in being able to build general support for the project.”

Lipari said the presence of county zoning ordinances, such as those proposed by the Iowa Environmental Council and Center for Rural Affairs, help the utility better deploy wind in a new county be eliminating some of the ambiguity.

“We are generally supportive of counties having an ordinance in place for us to understand how we can follow a process, because removing that ambiguity does bring some certainty to how we should think about designing the project, and as we’re talking to landowners and the broader community what they can expect,” Lipari said.

Turbines don’t pose a risk to human health: report

When wind turbines are proposed, one of the more common arguments against the structures focuses on concern over sound or negative health effects caused by the constant rotation of massive blades.

However, a joint report released in January of this year by the Iowa Environmental Council, University of Iowa’s Environmental Health Sciences Research Center and not-for-profit organization Iowa Policy Project argues that the sound from wind turbines does not represent a risk to human health.

“There is no scientific evidence that wind turbine noise causes health impacts. In fact, research points to an association with annoyance that can be mitigated through a process that gives people a stake in the project and its benefits. Wind can and should be a win-win for Iowans and the environment,” Kerri Johannsen, energy program director with the Iowa Environmental Council, said in an email.

The report, which pulls research by the Council of Canadian Academies and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, notes the research of a “nocebo effect” to wind turbines.

“When people experience symptoms of compromised health, yet there is not enough evidence to find more than annoyance and no other health effects, it is reasonable to look for other explanations, including confounding factors,” the report states. “Related to the similar-sounding placebo effect, the nocebo effect comes into play, in this case, when people are predisposed to believe they will see health consequences from wind turbines coming into their area.”

With a nocebo effect in mind, David Osterberg, founder of Iowa Policy Project and former Iowa state representative, said it makes it less likely that additional setbacks — boundaries required between development and other properties or occupied structures for safety purposes — will mitigate all neighbors’ concerns.

“If you move them back another 1,000 feet, is that going to help? I don’t think it will,” said Osterberg, professor emeritus with the University of Iowa’s Department of Occupational and Environmental Health. “That may not be enough. I’m sympathetic to local people having something put upon them that they have no control over, but what kind of accommodation is there?”

With no proof of health effects caused by wind turbines, Osterberg said opposition often stems from such annoyance. Some landowners who don’t receive lease payments from wind turbines simply don’t want to look at the structures.

Osterberg said incentives could be provided by wind developers to nearby property owners to reduce pushback.

“The people who are closest to these wind turbines often are farmers who just rented the land to the company, and they’re getting $4,000 or $8,000 a year. Do they have any symptoms? No,” he said. “There is no disease associated with it, there is annoyance, and the annoyance probably cannot be mitigated by what people are asking for, which is a distance.”

Lithium miners have set their eyes on Portugal, a country that doesn’t scream “mining” like other jurisdictions, but which already is Europe’s biggest producer of the commodity, thanks to the surge in popularity of electric vehicles (EVs).

One of those companies is Savannah Resources, currently advancing its Mina do Barroso project in the north of the country, arguably one of the most advanced lithium mining concessions in Europe.

According to company officials, the mine is on track be the continent’s first significant producer of spodumene, a hard-rock form of lithium.

“We’re in a unique position in Europe,” chief executive David Archer tells MINING.com. “Mina do Barroso contains the largest spodumene lithium mineral Resource in Europe at 20.1Mt at 1.04% Li₂O and is akin to the successful Australian spodumene mine developments.”

Archer notes that the project is well served with local infrastructure including the nearby Leixoes port, Portugal’s second largest.

Savannah, which is listed on AIM, the London Stock Exchange’s international market for smaller firms, acquired a 75% interest in Mina do Barroso in May 2017, and has maintained a fast paced development approach since.

The company is currently moving forward with a definitive feasibility study (DFS) led by Primero, an Australian consultancy with deep experience in the lithium field. Archer expects the study to be completed by mid-year.

While much of the recent drilling has been focused on increasing the mineral resource categories for the DFS, the program continues to deliver expansions to the mineralized zone at the Grandao area, extensions in depth at Reservatorio and further encouraging results from the Pinheiro deposit.

Savannah Resources estimates the whole project holds a resource estimate of 20 million tonnes with over 200,000 tonnes contained Li20. Additionally, metallurgical test-work results have produced an “excellent” 6% Li20 low impurity concentrate, which according to Archer is “ideal” for the EV battery industry, further validating the project.

One hiccup is that based on experts’ estimations, it is 2.5 times more expensive to produce lithium extracted from Portugal’s granite rocks than from the brine fields of Chile, which hosts some of the planet’s largest known reserves of the white metal.

“Mina do Barroso is in the lower quartile of spodumene lithium costs internationally and is the best European analogue of the successful Australian producers,” Archer argues. “Australia is now the dominant producer of lithium illustrating the superior competitive position of hard rock producers of lithium, which is preferred for producing lithium hydroxide and has cost advantages over brines,” he says.

Mina do Barroso is set to initially produce 6% Li2O spodumene concentrates destined to China. The open pit mine will also yield a feldspar and quartz co-product to be sold to ceramics industry customers locally and in neighbouring and Spain.

Archer says the company will soon make a decision on developing the mine, for which it has a 30-year mining lease to 2036.

Portugal produces about 11% of the global lithium market, but its output is entirely used to make ceramics and glassware. That’s why Europe relies on lithium imports from Latin America’s “Lithium Triangle,” as well from Australia and China.

An R&D team at Fraunhofer ISE has unveiled a new solar cell stringing machine that can boost cell performance 2% by using electrically conductive adhesives to fix solar cells to a foil substrate in a shingled pattern. The process reduces the number of manufacturing steps that soldering a connective ribbon would require, and imparts more efficient cell performance in several incremental ways.

The new assembly process involves an ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) foil substrate already formed to created minimally shingled rows of cells. Fraunhofer has applied for a patent for the process, terming it SlimLine. “The power output of shingle modules is increased by significantly enhancing the active cell area within the module, decreasing shading and soiling losses, reducing interconnection losses,” the lab says.

The cell stringer machine from Maschinen und Anlagen GmbH applies the electrically conductive adhesive, or ECA, using a screen-printing technique and connects the cells with high precision. “The aesthetics and the high power density will push the shingle technology forward, especially in the automotive industry and for building-integrated applications. European module manufacturers inquire increasingly about application-oriented developments and technology assessments for shingle solar cells,” commented Achim Kraft, the head of Interconnection Technologies at Fraunhofer ISE, in a statement.

While shingled solar cells have been under study for 50 years, this is the first time they are being assembled in a cost-competitive way, Fraunhofer suggests. “Through shingling, the gaps between the cells disappear, maximizing the possible module area used for electricity production and giving the module a homogeneous, aesthetic appearance,” the lab says.

“The higher efficiency of shingle, as compared to conventional, modules is due to the larger active area of the module, and also due to the avoidance of shadow losses caused by conventional surface-mounted cell interconnectors,” the lab says. The resistance losses are also reduced because of the lower current densities in the cell stripes, the lab states.

One cell variation that Fraunhofer is using the adhering process for is bifacial panels, which absorb light both front and back. “To manufacture bifacial shingle solar modules with a high power output, the p-type Silicon shingled Passivated Edge, Emitter and Rear (pSPEER) cell,” was employed.

The pSPEER cells are based on the Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell (PERC) design approach and include a passivated edge, the lab explains. The module design features a combination of series and parallel connections for each cell to significantly reduce losses when parts of the module surface are shaded or soiled, it adds.

A September 2018 paper on shingled cells by a Fraunhofer team lead by researcher Andrew Mondon notes that “manufacturing methods such as SlimLine may decrease total module fabrication costs by allowing very narrow cell overlap. Shingled module concepts offer main advantages in cases where highest power density and good partial shading response is beneficial, where the latter is satisfied best by the matrix layout.” The paper was presented at the 35th European PV Solar Energy Conference in Brussels.

Work is not complete on the new SlimLine adhesive stringing process. Currently the Fraunhofer team is working on optimizing the amount of adhesive used, on the cell design, and on new areas of application.

Support for the Fraunhofer shingle cell work has been supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, within the broader PV-BAT400 solar project.

SunPower also is manufacturing solar cells with shingled orientation. The company is assembling its 19% efficient Performance Series solar panel (P19 or P-Series) for commercial customers in its new Hillsboro, Oregon, factory, leveraging US-made automated stringing equipment.

SunPower’s P19 solar panel architecture “leverages a unique cell interconnect technology developed by a U.S.-based company called Cogenra Solar and funded in part by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) SunShot Initiative,” the company said in a statement. SunPower acquired Cogenra in 2015 and introduced P-Series solar panels that year.

Now made in several geographies, P-Series panels are “currently the most deployed shingled cell solar panels in the world and are highly reliable,” SunPower said. “For the second year running, DNV GL – a global independent energy expert and certification body – has named the P-Series solar panel a top performer in all five DNV GL tests that measured reliability through thermal cycling, damp heat, humidity-freeze, dynamic mechanical load and potential induced degradation,” the company added.

Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund PIF signed a preliminary deal for investments in China’s renewable energy sector during the visit of Crown Prince Mohammed in China, Reuters reports, citing state news agency SPA.

“The MOU will enable PIF to support and develop manufacturing, power generation and emerging technologies over the next ten years,” the original report said.

The news about the renewables investment commitment comes on the heels of another report from the Crown Prince’s visit in China: the signing of a US$10-billion agreement for the construction of a refinery featuring a petrochemicals complex in oil-hungry China.

This deal, in turn, comes after Aramco signed an early commitment to invest US$100 billion in India’s infrastructure and energy industries.

“We want Saudi Aramco to be a household name in India,” Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said as quoted by S&P Global Platts, adding that India was the number-one priority for the Kingdom’s oil giant.

The two visits, to China and India, signal Saudi Arabia’s drive to secure long-term markets for its crude oil but also opportunities to expand its revenue from oil and gas derivatives in line with a strategy to diversify its sources of income and stop being over-reliant on crude oil exports.

However, the Kingdom would have to tread carefully around both India and China which both have close ties with its regional arch-rival Iran. While both China and India have clearly indicated their top priority is security and affordability of crude oil deliveries, geopolitical affiliations are also on the agenda and directly related to this security and affordability of deliveries.

The latest Chinese deal, however, also suggests Saudi Arabia is not going to overlook any opportunity to grow in Asia, even outside fossil fuels. The Kingdom has several ambitious projects planned at home as well, but with China being the leader in renewable energy investment, it makes for a natural target for solar and wind investments for the Saudis.

We wrote about Disney’s plans to install a 50MW solar farm to provide power for its theme parks last year and we now have confirmation that it has brought the new 270-acre solar farm online in Florida. The solar farm is now online and generating power, according to a statement from the company on February 20th.

The new solar farm joins the infamous Mickey-shaped 5MW solar park that Disney installed next to its Epcot center in 2016 and will provide up to 25% of the power used by Disney World. That’s equivalent to powering two of Disney’s theme parks, which is no small feat.

Solar is not a new technology for Disney, with the first solar projects in the company happening in the 1980s, according to Angie Renner, the Environmental Integration Director at Walt Disney World Resort. The more aggressive push into solar is one prong of a company-wide push towards more environmentally-friendly operations.

Renner said that, “We are striving towards three main environmental goals: divert 60 percent of our waste from landfills by 2020, reduce net emissions 50 percent (from 2012 levels) by 2020, and reduce water consumption across the board.”

The company’s new 270-acre solar facility raises the stakes for the company and represents a nearly ten-fold increase in solar production. It is located just outside Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park near Orlando, Florida. The system is comprised of 518,000 solar panels, which would be enough to power 10,000 homes for a year, according to Renner. The power produced is fed into the local electrical grid where it can be used by Disney’s properties.

For millions around the world, Disney represents everything good in the world, so seeing the company take bold steps into a future powered by renewables is exciting. Globally dominant brands taking positive action not only cleans up their own carbon footprint, it sets the bar for what it means to be a world-leading, future-focused brand for 2019 and beyond.