Category Archives: Renewable Energy

California’s PG&E Takes Grid Energy Storage to the Distribution Substation

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California’s utilities are building a 1.3-gigawatt energy storage system, one piece at a time.

Source: www.greentechmedia.com

>” […] PG&E’s solicitation (PDF) is one of the first rounds from the 74 megawatts of storage projects the utility is set to announce by December. That, in turn, is part of the first procurement round for the state’s 1.3-gigawatt mandate for storage by 2021, which is requiring PG&E, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas & Electric to sign up about 200 megawatts of cost-effective grid storage by year’s end.

[…]

Some of these projects will be aggregating distributed, behind-the-meter batteries to help solve local grid needs. But PG&E’s substation RFO is aimed strictly at utility-owned and -operated battery systems — which makes sense, because PG&E is justifying its cost by showing how much it saves by not building or upgrading new substations.

[…]

PG&E’s cost-benefit calculation for these projects is fairly straightforward — subtract the cost of upgrading the substation from the cost of the battery system. Still, the duty cycle being asked of these energy storage systems (ESS) is pretty severe, according to the RFO:

“[T]his is defined as discharging the ESS from 100% state of charge (SOC) at guaranteed maximum power for the guaranteed discharge duration, then charging it to back to 100% SOC and subsequently discharging it at guaranteed maximum power for half of the guaranteed discharge duration, and finally charging it back to 100% SOC during the course of a single day. The ESS shall be capable of performing the guaranteed site specific duty cycle for up to 365 days per year excluding time for planned maintenance and/or forced outages.”

[…]

Asset or investment deferral of this kind is actually a significant route to market for existing battery-based grid storage systems, with projects around the world allowing stressed-out substations to keep operating for years longer by cushioning the peaks with stored battery power. In fact, PG&E has a 2-megawatt project in Vacaville that’s serving that purpose for a transmission substation.

But the new projects are some of the first targeting the medium- and low-voltage distribution grid, where the rules for batteries are different. California regulators are asking the state’s big utilities to come up with ways to value distributed energy assets — solar panels, batteries, plug-in vehicles, smart thermostats and other grid-edge systems — in their multi-billion-dollar, multi-year distribution grid investment plans.

PG&E didn’t disclose how much investment it’s hoping to defer with these new projects, or how much it planned to pay for them. But the numbers could be significant. In New York City, utility Consolidated Edison is proposing a plan to replace $1 billion in substation upgrades with a mix of energy efficiency, demand response, and distributed energy resources like rooftop solar and energy storage.”<

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Energy Storage Technologies Will Replace Utilities Gas Fired Turbine Peaker Plants

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“Power grids need extra generating capacity to work properly. For example, about 20 percent of New York State’s generation fleet runs less than 250 hours a year. Because they don’t run much, “peaker plants” are by design the cheapest and least efficient fossil generators.”

Source: www.renewableenergyworld.com

>”[…] As has happened with solar PV, the costs for multi-hour energy storage are about to undergo a steep decline over the next 2 to 3 years. This cost trend will disrupt the economic rationale for gas-fired simple cycle combustion turbines (CTs) in favor of flexible zero emissions energy storage. This will be especially true for storage assets owned and operated by vertical utilities and distributed near utility substations.

Simple cycle gas-fired CTs have been a workhorse utility asset for adding new peaker capacity for decades. But times and technologies change, and the power grid’s long love affair with gas-fired CTs is about to be challenged by multi-hour energy storage. Flow batteries that utilize a liquid electrolyte are especially cost-effective because the energy they store can be easily and inexpensively increased just by adding more electrolyte.

CTs cost from $670 per installed kilowatt to more than twice that much for CT’s located in urban areas. But the economics of peaking capacity must also reflect the benefits side of the cost/benefit equation. Distributed storage assets can deliver both regional (transmission) and local (distribution) level energy balancing services using the same storage asset. This means the locational value and capacity use factor for distributed storage can be significantly higher compared to CTs operated on a central station basis.

[…]

The disruptive potential of energy storage as a substitute for simple cycle CTs has been recognized. For example, Arizona Public Service (APS) and the Residential Utility Consumer Office (RUCO) recently filed a proposed settlement which, if approved, would require that at least 10% of any new peaker capacity now being planned as simple cycle combustion turbines would instead need to be energy storage — as long as the storage meets the cost effectiveness and reliability criteria of any CTs being proposed.

[…]

Lower cost solar PV and its rising penetration in all market segments will have a profoundly disruptive effect on utility operations and the utility cost-of-service business model. This has already started to happen. Storage offers a way for utilities to replace lost revenues premised on margins from kilowatt-hour energy sales by placing energy storage into the rate based and earning low-risk regulated returns.”<

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Grid Parity Is Accelerating the US Solar Revolution

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“Solar PV installations in the U.S. increased an impressive 485% from 2010 to 2013, and by early 2014, there were more than 480,000 systems in the country. That’s 13,400 MW, enough to power about 2.4 million typical American homes.”

 

Source: www.pvsolarreport.com

>” […] You can definitely see a correlation between electricity price and amount of solar installed, though there are exceptions. Kansas, for example, has fairly high grid prices but little solar — a testament to the fact that good policy is also a key ingredient in promoting solar. And Alaska is not exactly highly populated. For the most part, though, solar is flourishing in states with high electricity rates.

In some states like California, already one of the most expensive places for electricity in the country, residential rates will soon be going up further. Customers in the PG&E service area are looking at a 3.8% increase in electricity bills. Overall, electricity prices in the U.S. have been rising rapidly. According to the Energy Information Administration, in the first half of 2014, U.S. retail residential electricity prices went up 3.2% from the same period last year — the highest year-over-year growth since 2009. […]

The fact is, solar and other renewables just keep getting cheaper. We’ve noticed a number of stories debating this recently, many in reaction to an Economist article on how expensive wind and solar really are. But as Amory Lovins points out, the reality is that renewables are getting cheaper all the time, regardless of anyone’s arguments.

What does this mean? It means that grid parity is coming sooner than you might think […]”<

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Solar Energy Storage Added to Eight California Schools

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Burton School District, in the heart of California’s sun-drenched San Joaquin Valley, will also house combined solar and energy storage systems[…]

Source: www.pvsolarreport.com

>”In the commercial sector, the cost of energy storage is now low enough that businesses are finding it a useful addition to solar. Generally, businesses’ peak energy consumption is when electricity is most expensive, which makes energy storage especially useful.

As the cost of energy storage continues to decline, large solar companies have been integrating it into their product offerings to complement a solar system. […]

The district will install solar and DemandLogic to generate and store its own clean, renewable electricity at eight schools. This will be the largest combined solar and energy storage installation SolarCity has undertaken to date. It will allow the district schools to reduce energy costs by using stored electricity to lower peak demand.

SolarCity will install the district’s solar systems and battery storage at eight elementary and middle schools, as well as additional solar generation at a district office. The solar installations will total more than 1.4 MW of capacity, with storage providing an additional 360 kW (720 kWh) of power to reduce peak demand. The new solar systems are expected to save the district more than $1 million over the life of the contracts, and the DemandLogic battery storage systems could save thousands more on demand charges each year.

[…]

The new SolarCity systems are expected to generate 2,300 MWh of solar energy annually, and enough over the life of the contract to power more than 4,000 homes for a year. The solar systems will also offset over 43 million pounds of carbon dioxide and save more than 203 million gallons of water, an especially important environmental benefit in the drought-stricken valley. The entire storage project is expected to be completed by May 2015.”<

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Electric Vehicle Market – Nissan Tests “Demand Response” Energy Management System

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Nissan is assessing the potential of electric vehicles in energy management systems. […]  is participating in the “demand response” energy supply and demand system testing together with businesses and government authorities in Japan.

Source: green.autoblog.com

>”[…]  Demand response is a strategy to make power grids more efficient by modifying consumers’ power consumption in consideration of available energy supply. Since the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011 the supply and demand of electricity during peak use hours in Japan has drawn attention. Under the demand response scheme, power companies request aggregators* to use energy conservation measures, and they are compensated for the electricity that they save.

Usually when energy-saving is requested consumers may respond by moderating their use of air conditioning and lighting. However, by using the storage capacity of electric vehicles and Vehicle to Home (V2H) systems, consumers can reduce their use of power at peak times without turning off lights and appliances. This is particularly useful in commercial establishments where it is difficult to turn power off to save electricity.

The demand response scheme involves assessing the usefulness of energy-saving measures using V2H systems during peak-use periods and analyzing the impact of monetary incentives on business. For example, the testing involves a LEAF and LEAF to Home system which is connected to power a Nissan dealer’s lighting system during regular business hours using stored battery energy. This reduces electricity demand on the power grid. The aggregator is then compensated for the equivalent of the total amount of electricity that is saved. Two or three tests per month will be conducted on designated days for three hours’ each time sometime between 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. from October 2014 through January 2015.

Effective use of renewable energy and improvements in the efficiency of power generation facilities will enable better energy management in the future and help reduce environmental impact. Field tests using EVs’ high-capacity batteries that are being conducted globally are proving their effectiveness in energy management. Additionally, if similar compensation schemes for energy-saving activities were applied to EV owners it could accelerate the wider adoption of EVs and reduce society’s carbon footprint.

Nissan has sold more than 142,000 LEAFs globally since launch. The Nissan LEAF’s power storage capability in its onboard batteries, coupled with the LEAF to Home power supply system, is proving attractive to many customers. As the leader in Zero Emissions, Nissan is promoting the adoption of EVs to help build a zero-emission society in the future. Along with these energy management field tests, Nissan is actively creating new value through the use of EVs’ battery power storage capability and continuing to promote initiatives that will help realize a sustainable low-carbon society.

* Aggregators refers to businesses that coordinate two or more consumers (e.g. plants and offices) and trade with utility companies the total amount of the electricity they have succeeded in curbing.”<

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Asia-Pacific Microgrid Market on ‘threshold of exponential growth’

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According to the report, the market generated revenues of US$84.2 million in 2013 and Frost & Sullivan predicts that by 2020 this will rise almost tenfold to US$814.3 million, forecasting a compound annual growth rate of 38.3%.

Source: www.pv-tech.org

>” […] This growth is expected to come from activity in establishing microgrids for rural electrification in developing countries, and from commercial microgrids in the developed ones. The report cites the examples of Australia and Japan among the developed countries.

Mining operations in remote parts of Australia are one example of reliance on microgrids, powered by on-site generation. This has come traditionally from diesel generators, which are being combined with or replaced by solar-plus-storage. According to several sources the economics for this are already compelling.

Countries with a strong recent history in rural electrification referred to by Frost & Sullivan include Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia. In the example of Indonesia, the country’s utilities are aiming to bring electrification to 90% of the rural population by 2025. In total the report covered the countries of Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Australia.

However, despite this recent activity, the report highlights several barriers that are preventing the market reaching its potential. One such example is the high capital cost of installing microgrids in tandem with energy storage systems.  […]

[…] rising electricity prices in many regions would lead utility companies away from diesel and onto renewables to run their microgrids. It could also encourage “stronger governmental support through favorable regulations, funds and subsidies”, as the use of renewable energy for microgrids would require some forms of energy storage, which are still expensive to install […]

“The utilisation of renewable energy sources, either in standalone off-grid applications or in combination with local micro-grids, is therefore recognised as a potential route for rural farming communities to develop, as well as an opportunity to tackle the health issues associated with kerosene and biomass dependence. For example, the Indian Government aims to replace around 8 million existing diesel fuelled groundwater pumps, used by farmers for irrigation, with solar powered alternatives,” according to Fox. […]”<

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Microgrid Integration with Public Transportation

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Superstorm Sandy crippled much of New Jersey’s critical infrastructure two years ago. Stuck without power at home, many also couldn’t get to work because the operations center for New Jersey Transit flooded, damaging backup power systems, emergency generation, and the computers that control train operations.

Source: theenergycollective.com

>” […] After a highly competitive grant process, NJ Transit last week received $1.3 billion in federal funds to improve the resilience of the state’s transportation system in the event of devastating future storms. The funds include $410 million to develop the NJ TransitGrid into a first-of-its-kind microgrid capable of keeping the power running when the electric grid goes down.

Microgrids are different from traditional electric grids in that they generate electricity on-site or nearby where it’s consumed. They can connect to the larger grid or island themselves and operate independently.

The NJ TransitGrid will not only generate power on-site but will incorporate a range of clean energy technologies such as renewable energy, energy storage, and distributed generation. This microgrid will also allow NJ Transit and Amtrak trains running on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, the country’s busiest train line, to keep operating during an outage.

Environmental Defense Fund joined state and federal stakeholders, such as New Jersey Governor’s Office of Recovery and Rebuilding and the U.S. Department of Energy, in the early stages of NJ TransitGrid planning. EDF also wrote a letter in support of New Jersey’s application for the funds from the Federal Transit Administration.

The $1.3 billion in total federal funds received by NJ Transit will go toward a range of resiliency and restoration projects across the system, including flood protection, drawbridge replacement, train storage and service restoration, and making train controls more resilient. These funds will also be used to fortify critical Amtrak substations.

Serving almost 900,000 passengers daily, NJ Transit is the third largest transit system in the country connecting travelers to the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. An independent microgrid for NJ Transit will prepare the state for future extreme weather events, which are happening more frequently due to climate change. Furthermore, the use of clean energy resources will make this microgrid a less polluting and more efficient operation for New Jersey’s day-to-day needs.”<

 

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UK Renewable Energy Subsidy Underwrites Development

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Energy secretary, Ed Davey, says new subsidy scheme will help underwrite green energy and reduce reliance on imported gas

Source: www.theguardian.com

>”[…] “Solar has been the rising star in the coalition’s renewable energy programme and has been championed recently by the Prime Minister at the UN and by Ministers at conference,” said Paul Barwell, chief executive of the STA.

“Why is the UK government putting this industry’s incredible achievements on solar power at risk? To curtail its growth now is just perverse and unjustified on budgetary grounds – solar has only consumed around 1% of the renewables obligation budget,” he added.

He was supported by Friends of the Earth, whose renewable energy campaigner, Alasdair Cameron, argued the government move would be bad news for jobs, the climate and people wanting to plug into clean power.

“Solar could be cheaper than fossil fuels in just a few years, but it needs a little more help from government to get it there. Failure to invest now will mean a huge missed opportunity for the UK economy,” he said.

The raised budget to £300m has been welcomed by the wider renewable power sector but industry officials said the complex structure and cost would unfairly benefit large utilities at the expense of smaller and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). […]”<

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Combined Heat & Power Drives Biomass Demand

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New analysis from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) forecasts CHP and industrial heat demand are set to drive global bioenergy consumption over the coming decade and more.

Source: www.cospp.com

>”The trend towards modern and industrial uses of biomass is growing rapidly, the report notes, adding that biomass-based steam generation is particularly interesting for the chemical and petrochemical sectors, food and textile sectors, where most production processes operate with steam. Low and medium temperature process steam used in the production processes of these sectors can be provided by boilers or CHP plants. Combusting biogas in CHP plants is another option already pursued in northern European countries, especially in the food sector, where food waste and process residues can be digested anaerobically to produce biogas, IRENA adds. A recent IRENA analysis (2014b) estimated that three quarters of the renewable energy potential in the industry sector is related to biomass-based process heat from CHP plants and boilers. Hence, biomass is the most important technology to increase industrial renewable energy use, they conclude.

In industry, demand is estimated to reach 21 EJ in the REmap 2030, up to three-quarters of which (15 EJ) will be in industrial CHP plants to generate low- and medium-temperature process heat (about two-thirds of the total CHP output). In addition to typical CHP users such as pulp and paper other sectors with potential include the palm-oil or natural rubber production sectors in rapidly developing countries like Malaysia or Indonesia where by-products are combusted in ratherinefficient boilers or only in power producing plants.

As a result, installed thermal CHP capacity would reach about 920 GWth with an additional 105 GWth of stand-alone biomass boilers and gasifiers for process heat generation could be installed worldwide by 2030. This is a growth of more than 70% in industrial biomass-based process heat generation capacity compared to the Reference Case.

Biomass demand for district heating will reach approximately 5 EJ by 2030 while the power sector, including fuel demand for on-site electricity generation in buildings and on-site CHP plants at industry sites, will require approximately another 31 EJ for power generation (resulting in the production of nearly 3,000 TWh per year in 2030, according to IRENA.

The total installed biomass power generation capacity in Remap 2030 reaches 390 GWe. Of this total, around 178 GWe is the power generation capacity component of CHPs installed in the industry and district heating sectors.”<

 

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10 Most Efficient Renewable Energy Devices

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