Green Energy

A maritime climate with wind, sun and waves and an island surrounded by shallow seas with a high tidal range makes the UK probably the best-placed country in the world to take advantage of renewable energy.

Britain is already a world leader in offshore wind but has been reluctant to invest in other promising technologies. Underwater sea turbines in particular, wave power and various forms of tidal barrage have failed to be given the political support needed to get them into the mainstream.

In some cases the government is actively discouraging renewables – the onshore wind industry and now solar power. Instead, taxpayer’s money and executive powers are being used to back nuclear power and fracking for gas. With scientists warning that we only have a 12-year window to save the planet from exceeding a dangerous 1.5C increase in temperature neither of these technologies is going to help avoid that threat.

There is still time to make a significant contribution to reducing carbon emissions because the renewables that most suit our climate have already been developed and can be installed rapidly. These, plus new battery technology and multiple novel ways of balancing supply and demand including biogas and hydrogen production, make this energy revolution possible. All that is needed is political will.

 

Cheap, reliable and hard to hijack, the sun could be an ideal energy source in many war zones and disaster areas, prompting aid agencies to consider ditching costly fuel for solar power.

While the technology has not advanced far enough to make a full swap viable, some solar projects are already underway in the field and aid workers expect many more to follow.

“It’s very easy to exploit the fuel chain and it happens in a number of big emergencies. It’s too easy to nick. There’s a lot of bad practice around making money out of fuel,” said Andy Bastable, head of Oxfam’s water and sanitation projects.

Traditional fuel can be used as a weapon, hijacked by militants, sold on the black market, or must be flown vast distances to reach off-grid relief camps, increasing costs and volatility for the hard-pressed aid sector.

And the sun shines in most areas where they work.

“In 90 percent of cases, we are acting in places where there is abundant solar supply,” said Per-Erik Eriksson, an engineer with medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

“To avoid logistical challenges and over time, to save costs, (solar energy) would certainly be a very good solution in most of our projects,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Renewable energy sources, such as solar power, are key to reducing climate-changing emissions and keeping the earth’s temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

A report this week by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said renewable energy would need to supply 70-85 percent of electricity by 2050 to stay within a 1.5C limit, compared with about 25 percent now.

VOLATILE

For engineer Talal Kanaan, rolling out nearly 500 solar panels to power hospitals in war-battered Syria last year was the logical way to keep the country’s health system running.

“We didn’t want to put solar for the sake of it because it’s ‘cool’ or environmentally friendly,” said Kanaan, founder of Syria Solar, part of the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations (UOSSM), a coalition of medical groups.

“The role of solar was to increase the resilience of the health system,” he said in a phone interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Syria’s electrical grid has taken a big hit after seven years of war with infrastructure destroyed, leaving hospitals relying on diesel generators and at the mercy of fuel shortages.

“The costs and the availability of fuel is volatile. That’s the problem: the source of it is coming from an area that is in conflict or across the firing line,” said Kanaan.

He said fuel could easily be used as a weapon of war, referring to 2015 when Islamic State militants hijacked oil fields in northern Syria, which drove up diesel prices and paralyzed hospitals, ambulances and rescue services.

In contrast, Syria Solar says if there was an outage, its solar system can fully power an intensive care unit, operating rooms and emergency departments for up to 24 hours without diesel, which is 20 to 30 percent of the hospital’s energy cost.

The group said it also saves about 7,000 liters of diesel per month and cuts about 200 tonnes of carbon each year.

Using grant money, Kanaan said he hopes to deploy electric ambulances next year, and remotely connect people in Syria with overseas doctors through online services like Skype, which would be powered by the existing solar energy system.

SOLAR SOLUTION?

MSF’s Eriksson said there was a dire need to use solar in emergencies, especially in rural areas that are not connected to the grid. Eriksson, who has worked in remote parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo on renewable energy projects, said delivering fuel was often the hardest and most expensive part.

“In some projects, we even fly in fuel and that’s really tough and costly. But it’s been the only alternative and that’s why we do it,” he said in a phone interview.

Many aid groups told the Thomson Reuters Foundation they already run some solar energy projects, but admit that a complete switch to cleaner energy could take years.

Humanitarian agencies still largely depend on diesel generators, said Alain Oppliger, a sustainable development adviser at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

“Renewable energy sources such as solar panels take time to be installed. When you require energy immediately in an emergency, then fuel-powered generators are still the best option,” said Oppliger in emailed comments.

Many locals in the community already know how to use traditional fuel-powered generators, but implementing solar energy would need specialized knowledge, aid agencies said.

FINAL FRONTIER

But one of the biggest hurdles is storing excess renewable energy in large enough batteries, several aid agencies said.

“Battery technology hasn’t moved much at all – it’s the final frontier,” said Oxfam’s Bastable. “If they can come up with some kind of innovation around how to store the energy better, then renewables become a lot more attractive.”

Batteries have long held the promise of solving the intermittent nature of renewables such as wind and solar.

Pairing big batteries with renewable energy boosts reliability without creating carbon emissions, and more homes and businesses are looking to batteries for backup power and to capture excess energy to use when the sun is not shining.

MSF’s Eriksson was confident technology would trickle down.

“Prices (for solar technology) are coming down quite rapidly but it’s still a few years away, which is why it might be more difficult in the emergency context,” said Eriksson. “But I really strongly believe that we will see a stronger movement (toward renewable energy) over the coming, say, five years.”

GAINES TOWNSHIP – Decreasing costs and increasing interest in solar technology have inspired officials in Gaines to adopt an amendment to the township’s zoning ordinance which has put in place a set of basic regulations designed to govern the use of solar panels.

Trustees adopted the new regulations, which cover the placement and scale of individual solar panels installed by residents, as well as those installed as part of commercial-scale systems, during a board meeting on Oct. 8.

Included in the regulations are definitions for building-mounted solar energy collectors, ground-mounted solar energy collectors and commercial solar energy systems; requirements that those seeking to install solar panels must apply for a permit, receive zoning approval and submit unit renderings and plan details; and other provisions, some of which relate to glare/reflection, physical location and abandonment.

“In essence, if a homeowner or a business wanted to install mounted solar panels in accordance with the general guidelines, they could do so with the issuance of a building permit,” Township Planner Mark Sisson said.

“If they chose to install solar panels in the rear yard, those would be dealt with as a special use permit through the Planning Commission, so that covers the consumer-scale type of solar panel.”

Sisson said the regulations cover basic standards and special use requirements for commercial-scale solar farms, as well, which are allowed to operate in industrial and agricultural zones within the township.

“One example would be a farmer who chooses to lease 10 or 20 or 30 acres to an industry that is in the business of providing solar collection,” he said. “They could do so and that would be dealt with under these provisions. The larger operations would be by special use permit, so there would be a public hearing involving the neighbors and so forth; the basic ones … would be by building permit.”

Building officials will have some discretion as to whether or not solar panels are installed properly, Sisson said, as provided for under the regulations.

The township’s Planning Commission initially reviewed the regulations in August before holding a public hearing in late September and ultimately recommending their approval to the Township Board.

The expansion of wind energy generation in Ireland over the 2000-2020 period had an associated net cost of just €1 per household a year, according to a soon-to-be-published study of the sector.

“Between 2000 and 2020, the net financial cost of wind was €100 million. This is significantly less than the total support costs under the Public Service Obligation [PSO] of €2 billion,” according to Dr Mark Turner, director of Baringa energy consultants who undertook the study.

The projections out to 2020 are based on existing wind capacity.

Dr Turner also told an Irish Wind Energy Association conference in Galway that wind energy over that period had saved 40 million tones of CO2 across the island of Ireland and €2.5 billion on gas burning to generate power.

The benefits were clear when wholesale power prices, savings on capacity payments and avoidance of EU non-compliance costs for not meeting renewable targets were factored in.

IWEA chief executive Dr David Connolly said record levels of wind energy were being delivered at scale in Ireland. So far this year, 27.5 per cent of electricity production in Ireland had come from wind energy. He expected that figure would reach 30 per cent by the end of the year.

The Republic had the cheapest PSO levy applied to electricity bills in Europe, which he said was providing “clean, green energy at minor cost to the consumer”.

He was confident the Irish wind sector could contribute to providing even cheaper electricity, and become “a low-cost energy” provider compared with fossil fuels over the next decade. “If we get this right, the opportunity for rural Ireland is monumental,” he added.

Number one source

Wind energy would be the number one source of electricity in the EU by 2025, said Giles Dickson, chief executive of WindEurope (WE) which represents the EU’s wind sector in Europe. But electricity accounted for only 24 per cent of total energy consumed – with heat (45 per cent) and transport (31 per cent) making up the rest.

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If Europe was going to decarbonise by 2050, he said it would require getting much more renewables into heat and transport; “electrification is the only way”.

He confirmed that WE had recently written to the UK prime minister Theresa May and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker to underline the crucial importance of keeping the UK energy system as closely as possible to the internal EU energy market post Brexit, and not to change the single electricity market (I-SEM) on the island of Ireland.

His understanding was there would be some disruptions to the former but there was a strong sense on both sides that they should be minimised, while the I-SEM would function as normal.

Donal Flavin of the IDA strategic policy unit said FDI companies based in the Republic wanted 100 per cent renewables and were prepared to pay a premium for guaranteed, traceable power from renewable sources, especially in relation to data centres.

Ireland had cheaper electricity than Germany, Spain and Italy but he noted it was more expensive than countries it was competing with for data centres, such as the UK, the Netherlands and Scandinavian countries.

The office of Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the funding decision on Wednesday.

The money will support solar power projects around the state that are designed to ensure energy derived from the sun can be stored for use when demand is greatest. That can reduce the need for other, less environmentally friendly forms of power.

Cuomo has set a goal for the state to generate half of its power from renewable energy sources by 2030.

Across the nation today people were attending solar energy tours, with one happening right here in the Black Hills. These tours are for people to learn more about what the uses are for solar panels, what they can look like on a roof, the different watts, and pricing.

The newest dorm on campus, Bordeaux Hall implemented the solar panels five months ago, supplying 20 percent of the buildings energy. BH plans to expand their solar panels to more roofs on campus, wanting to try to be as resourceful as possible.

“Here on Black Hills State we are really pushing forward for renewable energy sustainability. Everything we could possibly do. We want to be a leader instead of a follower,” says Cory Johnson the energy manager with Black Hills State.

BH is debating on which building to put solar panels on… and they have their eye on the Donald E. Young Sports & Fitness Center as the next possible building.