Metals Tech

A sprawling new field of solar panels draped atop an 80-acre, capped Annapolis landfill has started generating both clean energy and fresh income for the city, officials said at the plant’s ceremonial opening Tuesday.

“This is going to be a tremendous source of clean, renewable energy for years to come,” Mayor Gavin Buckley told a small gathering at the site.

With 55,000 solar panels, the facility is one of the largest solar projects built on a capped landfill in the country, generating enough energy to power 2,500 homes, city officials said.

Developers said the retired city landfill, just north of Defense Highway, offered them unique advantages for a solar field. The property has no tree cover and significant elevation, and it was not being used for anything else.

The company that built the project, a London-based firm called Building Energy, is leasing the property from the city for about $150,000 a year, according to their head of business development, Silvia Alborghetti. Building Energy spent about $30 million to develop the field, which involved placing the solar panels on top of heavy concrete blocks rather than sinking anchors into the landfill and risking piercing the liners that provide a barrier from contamination.

The solar field first hooked up to the power grid in June after eight months of construction. But the project took years of planning and approvals. Former Mayor Ellen Moyer said she first began discussions on the project after a 2003 blackout cut power to 55 million people in the U.S. and Canada.

“We were looking for ways to rely less on the grid,” said Moyer, who attended the ceremonial opening Tuesday. “The city was a pioneer.”

The city, Anne Arundel County and the Anne Arundel Board of Education all committed to purchasing energy from the solar field developer. Annapolis officials said purchasing the solar power is expected to reduce the city’s electric bill by more than $100,000 a year. Annapolis currently pays 10.07 cents per kilowatt hour. The new rate with the solar plant will be 7.85 cents per kilowatt hour, said David Jarrell, the city’s public works director.

As part of the agreement to develop the power plant, the company agreed to spend up to $3 million to connect the solar park to a nearby Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. substation.

State officials said the solar field will help Maryland electric service providers meet the state requirement that they obtain 25 percent of power from renewable sources by the year 2020. Using a closed landfill was “a great use of land,” said Mary Beth Tung, director of the Maryland Energy Administration.

“It can be hard to turn good prime farmland over to solar, but here, you can’t really do anything else with it,” Tung said. “It’s a big open field that’s going to just sit there.”

There are 274 renewable energy developments on contaminated lands, landfills, and mine sites around the country, according to numbers gathered by the Environmental Protection Agency. The Annapolis facility is one of four in Maryland – there are two small facilities near Hagerstown and one in Ellicott City.

Buckley said he hopes this will be one of many renewable energy projects the city pursues.

“It sends a statement about who we are as a city,” he said.

Bekezela Mlambo rushes around her home, preparing to take a bath before work. She’s already late, but her morning routine used to take even longer.

“I am glad I decided to put a solar water heater in my house,” she says. “Before that, I would have to warm my water on the stove using a watering can, and that takes time.”

Before Mlambo installed a solar water heater in her home, she found herself using not only more time, but more electricity. Sometimes, she’d boil water on her stove and forget about it or decide to bathe later, and then she’d have to light the stove again.

“Regularly switching on and off the stove wastes electricity, especially when one is using prepaid electricity,” she says.

In Zimbabwe, customers use prepaid electricity by buying credit ahead of their usage. If customers run out of credit by using more electricity than they paid for, the power shuts off.

Since this payment model was introduced in 2012, residents have become more concerned with their energy use at home; Mlambo is one of the Zimbabweans who have started using solar power to reduce their energy bills.

Use of solar power in homes is growing little by little across Zimbabwe: The 1998 National Energy Survey by the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority found that some 80,000 rural households used home solar systems, but that number has grown to an estimated 113,000 systems, according to a 2016 report by the International Renewable Energy Agency. And Bulawayo businesses that sell solar panels say their sales are increasing, too.

Solar energy is simple: Panels trap rays of sunlight that are converted into energy for electricity. This kind of energy is efficient, too – solar water heaters reduce energy consumption by 40 percent, says Tobias Mudzingwa, an engineer with the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority.

Zimbabwe is uniquely positioned to take advantage of solar energy, because the country receives an average of 3,000 hours of sunshine per year. That natural energy resource could address a larger problem – according to a 2017 renewable energy report by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency, Zimbabwe’s electricity grid is “in a poor state,” and the country has to import power from neighboring Mozambique and South Africa. In rural areas, only an average of 21 percent of people have access to electricity at all.

In 2015, the government launched a solar energy campaign with the aim of cutting residential power usage by 40 percent. Installing solar water heaters in homes could be a means to that end. According to a 2012 energy policy paper by the Ministry of Energy and Power Development, there are 250,000 to 300,000 geysers – water heaters – in households in Zimbabwe; switching those geysers to solar would save hundreds of megawatts of electricity.

Solar geysers would spare the country from paying more for the power imported from neighboring countries, says Simon Khaya Moyo, the minister of energy and power development.

For now, power usage is going solar household by household. Residents who use solar in their homes say the initial costs of installation are quite expensive, but the long-term benefits outweigh the costs.

Mlambo says she had her solar water heater installed for about $350. One of the best things about it, she says, is that she doesn’t have to wait for the water to heat up.

Solar panels cost between $50 and $150, depending on size, says Reuben Nyathi, a salesman at a local shop called The Real Solar.

“Business in the urban area has improved,” Nyathi says. “Initially, most of our customers were from the rural areas, but we now have clients in urban areas.”

Mirriam Sibanda, a resident of the Cowdray Park suburb, has been using solar power for her lights, television and radio, as well as for bathing water.

Sibanda says she used to pay around $60 a month for electricity, but with solar she pays $20.

Homes of the future will increasingly be built with sustainability in mind; California will require solar panels on all new homes by 2020. But exactly what that solar power might look like may surprise you.

The bulky tack-on solar panels will be something of the past, and companies like Tesla, Sistine Solar, and Forward Labs are introducing sleeker, low-profile designs that cleverly blend into, if not actually serve as, the roofing of the house.

One of the most interesting designs we’ve been following is the SmartFlower. Originally an Austrian company but now based in Boston, Massachusetts, the SmartFlower is a portable, adjustable petal system that tracks the sun’s path throughout the day.

When the sun rises in the morning, the SmartFlower automatically unfolds and begins producing energy by setting its petals at a ninety-degree angle. The flower goes “back to sleep” into a folding position at night or whenever high winds make it unsafe to operate.

It does all of this autonomously through GPS-based dual axis tracking. It also boasts a cooling and cleaning system that brushes the back of each panel every time the unit folds and unfolds. Because the SmartFlower is always at an optimal angle to the sun, it can generate 40 percent more energy production than traditional solar.

The SmartFlower is a kinetic all-in-one system, with the inverter, monitor, and batteries housed in the cabinet of the unit. This means that the solar system can be delivered, assembled, and installed in just a few hours. Even better, the SmartFlower can be installed in any open space and you can draw power off of it just by plugging in.

The original SmartFlower base model is a fully integrated photovoltaic system meant for residential use that comes in eight different colors. The SmartFlower is also electric vehicle-compatible thanks to easy integration with external EV charging stations. A larger model—the SmartFlower Plus—offers an integrated battery storage system that lets you store solar energy for when you need it.

Years ago the SmartFlower was just a design that looked cool. Now it’s been installed throughout the U.S. in a handful of houses, as well at the Detroit Zoo, Virginia Wesleyan University, and Mary Baldwin University.

The City Council expanded Portsmouth’s solar energy system exemption, in hopes of encouraging more people to install solar arrays or systems.

Councilor Nancy Pearson described the expanded solar exemption as a “win-win.”

“This is a win for the city, it’s a win for the residents, it’s a win for the people who weren’t able to apply before and most of all … it is encouraging a more expansive use of renewable energies, which is what we all want,” Pearson said during last week’s City Council meeting.

The city’s new solar energy system exemption removes what had been a $25,000 cap on the amount of the exemption a homeowner could receive and eliminates a five-year limit on the exemption.

The council voted 7-1 at last week’s meeting to expand the solar exemption, with Councilor Rick Becksted casting the lone vote against it. City Councilor Ned Raynolds did not attend last week’s meeting.

When some councilors questioned if the new expanded exemption would increase a homeowner’s taxes if they added a new solar system, City Manager John Bohenko stressed repeatedly that it would not.

“The easiest way to think about it is it’s in and out, it’s on then it’s off,” Bohenko said.

For example, if the owner of a $400,000 house added a solar energy system, the assessor’s office would assess that system and add it to the value of the house, Bohenko said. But then the homeowner would receive an exemption for exactly what the assessor valued the new solar system at, Bohenko said.

“The value goes on it and that’s what the exemption is going to be,” he said. “This is really a wash if you will.”

Mayor Jack Blalock said the expanded solar exemption would allow more people to apply for exemptions who had faced a five-year limit under the former exemption.

Councilor Josh Denton, who pushed for the expanded solar exemption, said there will be two public hearings at the Sept. 17 council to create tax exemptions for wind power and wood pellet systems. The wood pellet systems would be used for heating homes only, while wind power can be used for creating electricity, Denton said. There will be public hearings on both resolutions, which would mirror the framework for the expanded solar energy system tax exemption, he added.

WindPlus, a consortium led by EDP Renewables, has signed a firm order with MHI Vestas to provide three V164-8.4 MW turbines for the WindFloat Atlantic project situated near the coast of Northern Portugal.

The 8.4 MW turbines will be the largest and most powerful wind turbines ever installed onto a floating foundation at sea.

“This firm order confirms MHI Vestas’ leadership in floating offshore wind,” said MHI Vestas CEO, Philippe Kavafyan. “Building on our experience with WindPlus and Principle Power Inc. dating back to 2011, we’re particularly pleased that WindFloat Atlantic will feature three of our V164-8.4 MW turbines, the largest and most powerful turbines ever installed onto a floating platform.”

While the project will provide enough wind energy to power 18,000 homes in Portugal, its most noteworthy contribution will be the vast storehouse of learnings taken from innovative installation and commissioning techniques, turbine performance, foundation performance, main component interactions and, ultimately, power production.

“Our experience with the semi-submersible floating foundation thus far gives us great confidence in this project,” said MHI Vestas Chief Technology Officer, Torben Larsen. “With floating technology accelerating towards its full potential, this project will provide many critical insights that will be carried forward into future projects.”

The announcement continues a series of industry firsts involving MHI Vestas, including recent news from Germany where the company announced that Deutsche Bucht will be the first offshore wind park worldwide to test the Mono Bucket foundation structure under commercial operating conditions.

About WindFloat Atlantic:

• Developer: WindPlus
• Turbines: 3 x V164-8.4 MW turbines from MHI Vestas
• Blade tip height: 190 metres
• Foundation: WindFloat (floating, semi-submersible)
• Foundation supplier: Principle Power, Inc.
• Project Capacity: 25 MW
• Location: Portugal, Norte Region
• Distance From Shore: 20 km
• Sea Depth: 100 metres
• Nominal Voltage: 66 kV
• # of homes powered annually: 18,000
• Expected life: 25 years
• Noteworthy fact: Largest and most powerful wind turbines ever operating onto a floating foundation

Motorists driving in the early morning hours this week may notice 21 wind turbine blades being transported from Quonset to Johnston.

Along with a Rhode Island State Police escort, these 200-foot wind turbine blades will travel from the Port of Davisville up Route 4 to I-95 North and to I-295 North to Johnston. Starting on Monday, there will be three trips a day at 1 a.m., 1:30 a.m. and 2 a.m.

Green Development, LLC is in the process of constructing what they are calling the largest onshore wind farm in Rhode Island, which will be comprised of seven turbines on private property near the Central Landfill.

“This is a major step for renewable energy development in Rhode Island,” Mark DePasquale, founder and chairman of Green Development, said in a statement. “There is an enormous amount of planning to get to this stage, but the projects always seem more real when the components begin to arrive. This wind farm will truly benefit Rhode Island by helping to meet our renewable energy goals as well as the Town of Johnston.”

Construction on the 21-megawatt wind farm site has already begun and is expected to be fully operational by the end of this year. The tower portion of the turbines will arrive in October, according to Green Development.

The town of Johnston permitted the project and will receive a total of $140,000 in tax payments over the next 20 years, in addition to $175,000 which Green Development will pay to develop a scholarship fund.

From the base of the tower to the tip of the blade, each turbine will be a little more than 500 feet tall.