Green Energy

As Puerto Rico rebuilds after Hurricane Maria, an organization called Casa Pueblo has sought to spearhead a fight for energy independence.

Based in the small, mountainous town of Adjuntas, Casa Pueblo is a community center that’s been running on solar energy since 1999. It powers a radio station, industrial coffee grinders to make and sell their own coffee, medicinal refrigerators, and a small movie theatre. After the devastation of Hurricane Maria, Casa Pueblo was crucial in meeting the town’s energy needs when most of the island plunged into darkness. Residents were able to store perishable food in their refrigerators, plug respirators and charge their phones.

Federal officials estimate it will cost over $29 billion for an overhaul of Puerto Rico’s power grid to prepare the island for the next major storm. But Casa Pueblo is providing a model as Puerto Ricans look to solar energy to be pivotal in guarding against future blackouts. The Puerto Rican government recently pledged to transform its power grid to rely entirely on renewable energy by 2050. Casa Pueblo is being featured in a new National Geographic documentary called “From Paris to Pittsburgh” that chronicles the effects of climate change in the United States and how Americans are responding.

Arturo Massol Deya, the associate director of Casa Pueblo and a professor at the University of Puerto Rico, joins the program to share the state of solar energy in Puerto Rico.

Clean, renewable energy is said to be the way of the future and, parts of Northwest Florida are already on board.

This year marks a milestone for Gulf Power’s solar fields being fully operational.

There are nearly 370,000 thousand of these solar panels right here at this field and total of 1.5 million in Northwest Florida.

“We are out here at Eglin. This actually produces about 30 mega watts of power which can power about almost about 4500 home annually,” explained Rick DelaHaya, Gulf Power, Media Relations.

The solar field built on the Eglin Air Force Base Reserve, is just one of the three solar fields run by Gulf Power. When they first “flipped the switch” in 2017, the goal was for all three fields to produce 120 mega watts to power 18,000 homes annually.
“…and they have reached that capacity all three fields so we are really excited that we have..are able to deliver on what our expectations were,” shared Kimberly Blair, Gulf Power, Media Relations.

Here’s how they works: As the sun shines, the rays hit these solar panels. The solar panels collect the sun’s energy then, send it to the inverter and the inverter, converts the D.C. or direct current energy to A.C. or alternating currents. Next, it gets sent to the sub station. At the sub station, the energy is ramped it and put onto the grid in order to the homes.

“These are just like what you see on the top of a calculator. That powers your calculators, just on a bigger scale,” described Jeff Rogers, Gulf Power, Spokesman.

The humming noise that comes from the inverter and solar panels, is essentially a good thing and means, the solar energy is being harnessed.

“That’s magic. Yeah, that’s the sun that’s converting the suns energy into something that we use,” said Rogers.

When you put all three combined solar fields together, it’s one of the largest solar fields in Florida.

“To put it bluntly, you know, the sky is wide open for more panels and more renewable resources. And, this is just the beginning,” shared DelaHaya.

Gulf power says this is the way of the future. They plan to continue their exploration for natural resources to provide clean safe

A new report from research and consultancy firm Wood Mackenzie predicts more than 680 GW of new wind power capacity to come online globally over the next decade.

Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables recently upgraded its “Global Wind Power Market Outlook Update: Q4 2018” by 2% compared to the outlook it published in the third quarter. Most upgrades occur in the medium term, with a boost in annual capacity additions in 2020-2023 by an average of 2.7 GW.

The U.S. specifically has received an upgraded quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) outlook, the report says.

By the end of 2027, U.S. installed offshore capacity is expected to total approximately 10 GW, according to the report. (Currently, only the 30 MW Block Island offshore wind project is operational in the U.S.) This 10 GW of capacity represents 15% of all new U.S. capacity over the 10-year outlook, says Wood Mackenzie.

“Attractive price signals are expected to motivate an increase in state-level procurement activity from both pioneering states, such as Massachusetts and New York, as well as new entrants over the long term, such as California and Delaware,” says Luke Lewandowski, Wood Mackenzie’s director of Americas power and renewables research, as well as lead author of the report.

Further, for the U.S. onshore sector, policy commitments in California and industry confidence in exploiting lower-value levels of the production tax credit justify a modest upgrade in this sector, the report says. Cost-out gains and higher production expectations from new turbine technology boost prospects for workable project economics under the phased-down incentive.

In all of the Americas, election results in Brazil, Mexico and Quebec, Canada, may impact the wind power outlook in these markets, according to the report. Conservative wins in Brazil and Canada threaten the prospects for wind power development in the long term. The impact of a more liberal administration in Mexico is unclear, but the new government will need to address a balance between development and indigenous interests for the outlook to be fulfilled, says Wood Mackenzie.

In Europe, the maturation of the offshore sector continues to be a strong driver of wind in the region, the report notes.

“With 16 GW of offshore wind power capacity installed in Europe by the end of 2018 and more than 47 GW expected to come online in the region from 2018 to 2027, the European offshore sector continues to be a focal point of growth for the wind power industry,” says Lewandowski.

Several of the key upgrades analyzed in Wood Mackenzie’s update highlight an indirect consequence of Europe’s offshore success: announced and expected commitments from emerging offshore wind power markets.

Lewandowski says, “The European offshore wind power experience has encouraged governments in other regions to support offshore wind to comply with carbon-reduction strategies and renewable energy targets, as well as more firmly secure domestic power supply.”

Recent favorable announcements from the governments of Japan and South Korea have resulted in a more than 1.5 GW upgrade QoQ, according to the report. By the end of the 10-year outlook, this support will yield an installed offshore base of more than 2 GW in each country. The firm notes this is a significant rate of growth, considering that neither country has more than 100 MW of offshore wind power capacity installed today.

Countries in Scandinavia – namely, Sweden, Norway and Finland – represent the most significant changes to Wood Mackenzie’s onshore wind power outlook this quarter. Increasingly competitive cost levels and an expectation for higher power prices across Europe have triggered a flurry of project investment announcements and power off-take commitments in the sub-region, specifically from the increasingly important corporate and industrial sector. With a more than 5 GW upgrade QoQ, these three countries will account for 15% of new onshore capacity installed in Europe over the next 10 years, according to Wood Mackenzie.

As for global wind turbine order intake, firm offshore turbine order intake in China through three quarters comprised about 25% of order intake in the market, indicating the increasing importance of the offshore sector to the local industry. Although the 10-year outlook for China’s offshore sector remains unchanged QoQ, the strong turbine order activity in 2018 confirms China’s rising position as the leading global market in the offshore sector, as it will account for nearly a third of new offshore capacity added globally from 2018 to 2027.

Global order intake capacity increased 28% year-over-year in the third quarter. Although the Chinese market continues to drive firm turbine order volume, there are plenty of encouraging signs from other regions, particularly in Africa.

In addition, the share of order intake capacity from the offshore sector grows as demand proliferates globally.

Lastly, although not all order announcements include a specific project location, the assumption is that a large share is destined to fulfill safe harbor orders in the U.S. market ahead of tax credit expiration.

The nation will get more of its electricity from wind and solar power next year and less from coal, the Energy Department reported.

Combined, wind and solar generated electricity is expected to provide about 11 percent of electricity next year, up from 10 percent this year. Electricity generation from coal will provide about 26 percent of power next year, compared to 28 percent this year.

The share of electricity generated by natural gas, nuclear power and hydropower will remain about the same next year, with natural gas-fired

power plants providing about 35 percent of electricity, nuclear creating about 19 percent and hydropower generating about 7 percent.

The biggest growth area is solar generation, which is expected to generate 303,000 megawatts a day next year, a 13 percent increase over this year. A megawatt is enough to power about 200 Texas homes on a hot summer day.

The solar industry is producing more power as the industry installs tracking systems that follow the path of the sun across the sky, according to the Energy Department.

The group behind the long term policy tool of choice for many, the DSIRE renewable and efficiency policy database, is now offering biweekly legislative and regulatory tracking, data products, and webinars related to solar energy, grid modernization, and electric vehicles across the USA.

The energy industry is a 50 state affair, and sometimes far greater when we consider that many states have many different electric utilities with their own nuances. Navigating this complexity demands on the ground experience, and that experience gets old fast as the laws change as quickly as we get tired of politicians.

In light of this dance, the group behind the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency (DSIRE) at the Clean Energy Technology Center at North Carolina State University is launching DSIREInsight. The biweekly subscription service says that “all relevant bills and regulatory proceedings are covered – not just the highlights”.

This analysis has already come out in the quarterly “50 States Reports” reports covering solar (Q3’18 executive summary pdf), grid modernization (pdf) and electric vehicles (pdf).

Between the three topics covered, solar above had 157 unique actions, grid modernization 276, and electric cars 211 – totaling 644 policy actions in Q3’2018.

The two main sets of rules looked at were directly related to compensation received by those who install and own solar power systems. The top solar developments noted in Q3 by the DSIRE team included Kansas approving a minimum demand charge for residential solar customers, Michigan utilities proposing a new set of distributed generation customer tariffs, and the net metering cap being met in Duke’s service areas in South Carolina early in Q3, which the utility later agreed to extend to March 2019.

The grid modernization report noted that many states are analyzing metrics to apply to utilities, and some utilities approved performance incentives for utilities – for instance Rhode Island is paying based on capacity savings, and Massachusetts based on electric vehicle charging site developments.

One program pointed out was the Massachusetts Clean Peak Standard, whose purpose is to push retail electricity suppliers to provide customers with clean electricity during defined ‘clean peak periods’, at less than $0.005/kWh averaged across annual usage. One potential pathway being discussed by the Department of Energy Resources was coupling energy storage with already existing solar power plants.

The electric vehicle market had much to say about financial benefits, as well utility programs such as the aforementioned Massachusetts EV infrastructure benefit for the electric utility. The report pointed out that of 211 total actions, more than 100 occurred in New Jersey, California, and New York.

The smog in Beijing is so bad it can be hard to see the sun sometimes. That’s true if you’re a resident or tourist, and also if you’re a solar panel. In fact, the country’s record-breaking air pollution means that China’s booming solar sector could be producing more clean energy, and getting much more bang for its buck, if only its skies were cleaner.

In a recent PLOS One study, researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich put numbers to that: If China pushed an aggressive set of policies aimed at curbing air pollution from its fossil fuel-powered sectors down to nearly zero, by 2040 its fleet of photovoltaic solar panels could produce nearly 160 terawatts per year of extra energy. That’s an additional $7 to 10 billion dollars annually—in case the public health benefits aren’t enough incentive.

“China is the world leader in installing solar photovoltaics, and at the same time, it’s the country that is suffering the most from air pollution,” says Mercè Labordena, a renewable energy researcher and lead author on the study. A lot of the country’s air pollution stems from the burning of fossil fuels, namely coal—for which China also happens to be the world’s largest consumer.

The more clutter there is in the sky, the less solar radiation reaches the hungry surface of solar panels. Particles like sulfates can reflect radiation, and others like black carbon absorb it before it reaches the ground. “There’s no question—you get the particulates out of the air, you get more solar,” says Dan Kammen, professor of energy at the University of California, Berkeley.

You also get healthier citizens. Air pollution is tied to breathing difficulties and heart disease, dementia and other cognitive declines. More recently, it’s even been tied to reduced fertility. Past efforts to reduce air pollution have saved millions of lives, and future efforts could save millions more.

While China has taken some strides in addressing its air pollution problem—primarily for the sake of public health—there’s still a lot of room for improvement. In the study, Labordena and her colleagues took a close look at the country’s fossil fuel-based sectors, and asked what would happen if China took the most ambitious policies in curbing air pollution. Such measures include things like upgrading coal power and industrial plants with the very latest pollution-control technologies, and switching from coal to natural gas or propane for residential heating, Labordena says.

Using a climate model, the team simulated how much more sun the country’s solar panels would see if the government implemented these and other measures. Researchers found the impact would be highest in the country’s northern, eastern, and south-central regions, where populations are dense, the skies are hazy, and the bulk of China’s photovoltaic panels are located. If these regions continue to scale up on solar, Labordena explains, “the provinces in this region may benefit the most from cleaning up the air.”

That dirty skies can make a dent in solar productivity in China and elsewhere, is well established, but Labordena’s study is the first to put a dollar figure on the financial benefits of improved solar productivity.

But the solution isn’t exactly cheap: China would have to spend between $50 and $70 billion to curb its air pollution to that extent. The extra cash from thriving solar panels would at least offset 17% of these costs, the researchers estimated. And even smaller reductions in air pollution would benefit the solar industry and public health. “Cleaning the air in China is needed greatly to improve the health of their people—currently, air pollution in China is responsible for about 1.1 [to] 1.6 million premature deaths annually,” Labordena added in an email.

For Kammen, the results illustrate just how badly solar and fossil fuel-driven pollution get along. One of the concerns about China’s solar expansion is that it hasn’t been accompanied by a reduction in its coal sector, he explains. In fact, Chinese coal use this year is estimated to have increased substantially compared to 2017, according to a report published just last week. “We don’t just want to just add some solar, we want to get a replacement process,” he says. “That’s a huge win”—for the sake of solar panels as well as public health.

Limiting the amount of particulate matter streaming out of power plants is only a partial solution, anyway. Not only are such technologies expensive and typically require power to run, but they also don’t curb greenhouse gas emissions. Rather than investing heavily in extending the life of a coal-fired power plant, it might pay off to go 100 percent solar, he adds.

The problem is by no means restricted to China. Photovoltaic panels in major cities like Delhi and Singapore suffer under hazy skies, too, according to a study led by MIT research scientist Ian Marius Peters, who specializes in photovoltaics. In Delhi, for instance, it causes silicon solar panels to see around 12 percent less sun than they would in cleaner air. Nor is the issue limited to fossil fuels. Each region has its own particular blend of particulates in the air, not all of which is of direct human origin. For instance, the air pollution caused by California’s deadly wildfires last month was so extreme that the productivity of solar panels suffered hundreds of miles away in the San Francisco Bay area, Kammen says.

What worries Peters the most is that the financial losses of reduced solar output might drive investors away. “If companies see that they can’t get their revenue out of these systems, that will erode trust in this technology and reduce the amount of solar that you’ll put up,” says Peters, a research scientist at MIT who specializes in photovoltaics.

Nevertheless, Peters hopes that as the world increasingly adopts solar, the panels themselves will eventually trigger a positive feedback loop: The more solar, the cleaner the air will be, and the more energy the panels will generate, the less reliant one becomes on coal, he explains. Ideally, “solar should play a role in actually getting rid of this problem.”