WA State Homeowners' Payments at Stake in Olympia Solar Debate

BY CHRISTOPHER DUNAGAN
MARCH 22, 2015

Rooftop solar panels at Naches Heights vineyard in Yakima, Wash. Credit: Flickr/donireewalker.

Gov. Jay Inslee and Washington solar advocates are pushing to rescue a state program that provides cash payments to homeowners who install solar equipment.

With an end to the program looming, Inslee says action is needed now. But a legislative remedy is languishing in a House committee where the chairman is struggling to gain consensus from a variety of interests — including electric utilities that have been wielding their massive political clout.

At issue is whether – and how much – state taxpayers should continue to subsidize adoption of solar that is currently costing taxpayers $4.2 million a year.

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Solar industry officials in Washington see this as a moment of opportunity. The cost of solar is lower than ever. They hope business will take off if the state payments are extended. But representatives of out-of-state leasing companies criticize the House bill for failing to ensure that utilities will keep paying market rates for solar power generated by home-based systems.

Lobbyists for electric utilities also see opportunity. And they have considerable lobbying clout. Long leery of solar’s potential impact on their business model, some utilities are seeking changes. They want to levy a new charge on solar customers to offset the cost of maintaining power lines and related equipment used to move power to and from their homes.

In a legislative session headlined by climate change debate, a failure to reach consensus on the solar legislation (HB 2045) would mark yet another failed legislative effort to deal with the threat.

State payments to homeowners and others who install rooftop solar are not scheduled to end until 2020, but officials fear that as fewer and fewer years of payments are available, consumers will be less and less likely to go solar.

“From the governor’s perspective, this is the year to get something done,” said Keith Phillips, who advises Gov. Jay Inslee on climate and energy issues. “We have been working on this a long time.”

Even before getting out of committee, the legislation by Rep. Jeff Morris, D-Mount Vernon, has stirred fierce opposition, with one national solar activist claiming the bill would make Washington the “most anti-solar state in the country.”

The legislation’s sponsor is aware of the strong emotions in play. “I was joking the other day,” Morris said, “and I called it the solar wars.”

Washington lags behind in solar

Despite offering some of the most generous incentives in the nation to install rooftop solar, Washington has never become a solar leader. Seattle, unlike Portland, doesn’t even make the list of the nation’s top 20 solar cities.

A huge impediment has been upfront costs. State law prohibits incentives to homeowners who lease solar equipment. Now the Legislature is poised to allow leasing companies to enter the market, as they have in California and other states, and to grant them incentives as well.

Under current law, if a homeowner buys solar equipment this year, the owner will receive only five years of state reimbursements before the program expires in 2020. That compares to 15 years of payments for a purchaser who started in 2005, when the incentive program began. However, prices were higher then: the cost for a typical 4-kilowatt system installed today is about $12,000, compared to about $28,000 in 2008, said Jeremy Smithson of Solar Installers of Washington, a statewide trade association.

The reimbursements, calculated on the number of kilowatt hours generated each year, can be total up to $5,000 per year for large systems.

Some 6,500 solar units in Washington state are enrolled in the incentive program. In 2014 alone, solar electric generation increased by 25 percent, according to Washington State University Energy Program.

But this growth of solar has been taking a bite out of the state budget, with incentive payouts of $99,000 in fiscal year 2008 rising to $4.2 million in 2014.

Some legislators would like to end the incentive program, keeping the money raised through a state utility tax for other programs. The governor and many other legislators would like to see more clean-energy installations but with fewer state dollars going to each one.

“It’s also time to modernize this program, but we don’t have a particular prescription at this point,” Phillips said, speaking for the governor.

Other issues to be decided by lawmakers — with a promise for expanding solar installations — include extending the incentive program to encompass leasing companies, electric utilities and larger commercial solar operations.

Utilities want electrical-grid payments

Some electrical utilities are pushing back against what could become a massive expansion in solar energy.

Utilities in Washington and across the country, especially smaller ones, fear that when solar energy becomes a significant contributor of electricity, it could cause power fluctuations on the electrical grid. These fluctuations, which can damage sensitive electronic equipment, would be most noticeable during sunrise and sunset and during sudden changes in weather.

Advocates of solar power say such concerns about disruptions of the power grid are largely a myth, since solar power can actually help balance the load in many cases. Where problems do occur, however, technical solutions are available, they say.

The wrath of many utilities has been particularly focused on net metering, a popular incentive program approved in Washington and most other states that can make it harder for utilities to recover the cost of maintaining power lines and related equipment.

Net metering essentially allows consumers with solar power installations to sell excess power back to the grid at retail prices. In a true net-metering installation, the homeowner can watch the electric meter run backward when the system is producing more energy than what is needed to serve the home at any given instant. If the meter runs backward more than forward over the course of a year, then the system has produced more energy than has been consumed. Consequently, the homeowner pays nothing for electricity.

In addition to lower utility bills, Washington solar consumers also get cash payments through their utility company from the state.

To qualify for Washington state’s cash incentive program, most solar homes have separate production and consumption meters, since the incentive paid is based on the power actually produced. Most utilities have a base fee that everyone pays plus a consumption fee for electricity used. Typically, the base fee does not pay the full cost of maintaining power lines and substations, utility officials argue. So when a customer with solar comes out with a “net zero” bill, he or she is not paying enough for a system that works like a near-perfect battery, said Dave Warren, director of energy services for the Washington Public Utility District Association.

Everyone agrees that a few solar installations generating power for a full-size utility makes little difference, Warren said, but at some point solar energy can become a disruptive force, creating additional costs for the system. In California, he said, General Electric has been forced to redesign some gas turbines to respond more quickly to load changes resulting from shifts in the contribution from solar energy.

Morris, one of the original advocates of net metering, said he remains committed to the concept in his bill this year.  Because of utilities’ initial fears, current law allows a utility to stop offering net metering to new customers when the total generation from solar power reaches 0.5 percent of the utility’s peak demand, as recorded in 1996.

“Some of the most credible studies show that you won’t see a huge impact on the distribution system until it gets up around 10 percent,” Morris said. “I just tell people that because the whole system is so complex, it is easy to oversimplify. The cost-shifting issue is a myth, because the way people pay for electricity has a tremendous amount of cost-shifting built into it.”

Morris opposes a proposal from some utilities to charge solar users a flat fee.

Morris’ bill would offer lower annual cash incentives than what solar users receive under the current law, but it would extend the payment period out 10 years from the date of installation. As in the current law, it would provide additional financial incentives for equipment manufactured in Washington state. Final numbers are being worked out. Unless extended by future legislation, equipment installed after 2020 would not be eligible for the 10 years of incentives.

Morris’ bill would also call on utilities to plan 10 or 20 years ahead and figure out how they will manage the growth of alternative energy. If they do the planning, the bill outlines options other than net metering that would be open to them.

“This is the gateway for them to get to other methodologies to manage for solar before it comes online,” he said. “They don’t need to wait until they reach one-half percent. If they do this, they will see that they can leave net metering the way it is.”

Morris said utilities need to embrace solar power and make it work on localized grids to reduce the cost of massive transmission lines. If they respond, they can survive the changing energy market. If they don’t, their customers might look for ways to get off the grid. New battery technology, for example, could leave electrical utilities following in the footsteps of hard-wired phone companies.

Leasing companies want certainty

The bill would also open the door to state-funded cash incentives for utilities and businesses that install solar equipment. Leasing companies also would be allowed to claim an incentive, according to Morris, but it might be just half as much as equipment owned by a homeowner. His rationale is that leasing companies have access to federal tax credits and special financing arrangements because of their size.

“Rooftop solar leasing is the best way to go solar,” declared Bryan Miller, co-chair of The Alliance for Solar Choice, which represents some of the largest leasing firms in the country. “It is not even a close decision for most people.”

In California, which far outpaces every other state in solar energy, leasing has been the dominant method of getting solar up on the rooftops. Miller insists that leasing companies are not likely to operate in Washington state as long as net metering remains on the chopping block. 

“We are not focused on the incentives,” he said, suggesting that a long-term commitment for net metering is the key to leasing arrangements.

Miller’s solar alliance is leading a letter-writing campaign in opposition to Morris’ bill, saying it would end net metering and deprive Washington of a strong clean-energy market. An online petition connected to the campaign asserts that Morris’s bill “would eliminate a homeowner’s right to produce clean energy, making Washington the most anti-solar state in the country.”

The bill does not eliminate a homeowner’s right to produce solar power, but it would change how the owner is reimbursed.

Morris disputes the leasing companies’ assertions. He says leasing companies will enter the Washington market, and some may even be formed by investor-owned utilities operating in this state. Other utilities might outright own and operate equipment on people’s homes and pay them for the privilege, he said.

At the request of the governor, Rep. Jake Fey, D-Tacoma, who works as director of the Washington State University Energy Program, met with a variety of people involved in solar energy through the summer and fall. From those discussions, Fey submitted legislation early in the session. Since then, the Fey bill has gone nowhere.

Morris, who chairs the key House Technology and Economic Development Committee, has kept the focus on his own bill as he struggles to gain consensus among representatives of public and private utilities, solar-installation companies and clean-energy advocates. Morris said he hopes to move his bill out of committee within the next week or so. Even if his bill gets through the House, it could be killed in the Republican-controlled Senate if utilities are largely opposed, he acknowledged.

“We are in constant negotiations,” Morris said. “We have to get 80 percent of the stakeholders on board, and it is so easy for people to confuse the issues. Unless we get 80 percent, we can’t get this through the Legislature.”

Washington State regulators adopt new rules for energy conservation, renewables

By Rita R. Robison

State regulators approved new rules Friday on how investor-owned utilities conserve energy and purchase renewables, which they said clarifies standards in the state’s Energy Independence Act.

The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission amended its rules for regulated utilities on energy conservation and purchasing renewable energy such as wind, upgraded hydro-power, or solar, consistent with recent legislative changes to the act.

The amended rules address conservation reporting requirements, renewable energy purchases, and facilitating the expansion of weatherization-assistance programs to help low-income customers with energy efficiency upgrade costs.

The act, approved by Washington voters in 2006, directs large electric utilities in the state to look at all cost-effective energy conservation and purchase renewable energy.

In 2014, the commission determined that the state’s three investor-owned electric companies are in compliance with the state conservation and renewable energy requirements.

For more information for boomer consumers, see The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide .

Oil Can’t Compete With Renewables, Says National Bank of Abu Dhabi

                    BY ECOWATCH – MARCH 5, 2015

Returns on fossil fuel investments aren’t keeping up with solar and wind, and are less likely to do so in the future, says bank report

By Anastasia Pantsios

You wouldn't expect a bank in the oil-rich Middle East to be touting the future of renewable energy over that of oil. But that’s just what the National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) is doing with its new report, “Financing the Future of Energy: The opportunity for the Gulf’s financial services sector.”

Photo by Alejandro FloresDespite the recent plunge in oil prices, the report says that energy demand will be more efficiently filled by renewables, offering more reliable and lucrative investment opportunities than oil.

Aimed primarily at investors and focusing on financial performance and potential, the report found that fossil fuels just weren’t keeping up with solar and wind, and were less likely to do so in the future, even if oil prices dropped much lower than they are now.

“It provides insights into how that community might engage with public and private sector stakeholders to create a more energy efficient economy, turning the aspirations of the region into a reality that will attract the attention of the rest of the world and unlock significant financial opportunities,” says the report’s introduction.

Energy demand is expected to triple in the next 15 years in the rapidly growing Persian Gulf region — already the biggest energy consumer per capita in the world — a demand far outstripping the current supply. Yet, despite the recent plunge in oil prices, the report says that that demand will be more efficiently filled by renewables, offering more reliable and lucrative investment opportunities than oil.

“Some of the report’s findings may surprise you, as they did me,” writes NBAD CEO Alex Thursby in the report’s introduction. “For example, renewable energy technologies are far further advanced than many may believe: solar photovoltaic (PV) and on-shore wind have a track record of successful deployment, and costs have fallen dramatically in the past few years. In many parts of the world, indeed, they are now competitive with hydrocarbon energy sources. Already, more than half of the investment in new electricity generation worldwide is in renewables. Potentially, the gains to be made from focusing on energy efficiency are as great as the benefits of increasing generation. Together, these help us to reframe how we think about the prospects for energy in the region.”

Among the report’s surprising findings are that fossil fuels are already uncompetitive with solar in terms of price, and that would be true even if oil fell as low as $10 a barrel. And with the supply of fossil fuels finite and increasingly difficult to extract, the bank believes that almost all future investments will be in renewables.

“Prices have fallen dramatically in the past few years: solar PV falling by 80 percent in six years, and on-shore wind by 40 percent,” it says. “The speed of this shift towards grid parity with fossil fuels means that, in many instances, perceptions of the role of renewables in the energy mix have not caught up with reality.”

It also points out that some of the objections to renewables—for instance, the intermittency of wind and sunshine—are being overcome as the development of storage technologies picks up steam. It suggests that such technologies present excellent investment opportunities.

“There has been an historic concern that renewables are an unreliable option, because the wind blows only intermittently and the sun does not shine all the time, but that is proving to be less of an issue,” the report says. “Developments in storage technologies are progressing rapidly, and in the next few years utility-scale solutions will be deployed that further minimize concern around what was until recently seen as a major inhibitor to the uptake of renewable generation.”

It also suggested that investment opportunities would exist in developing countries such as Kenya as their middle class grew and they looked to escape the volatility of oil prices and control their energy supply locally.

“When we look to the future, it is very clear that renewables will be an established part of the global energy mix,” writes Thursby. “Governments around the world, including the Gulf region, are setting out their ambitions for decarbonizing their economies, and the global debate about energy has never been more intense.”

Low-Cost Solar In 7 Days, Not 180 Days

Via cleantechnica.com
March 5th, 2015 by Tina Casey 

Now that rooftop solar installations are becoming commonplace, shouldn't they be as quick and simple to install as, say, a new home furnace? That’s the question that will be put to rest by the US Energy Department, which has just launched the new “Race to 7-Day Solar Prize.” Cash prizes totaling $10 million are at stake, and to ice the cake, the winning team will most likely be the one that comes up with a low-cost solar solution.

The Road To Low-Cost Solar

We’re linking low-cost solar energy to the 7-Day Solar  concept because according to the Energy Department, it is not unusual for solar customers to wait 180 days or more between inking a deal and actually seeing it up and running.

That delay can pile on administrative costs and other “soft costs” of solar energy. The last time we checked, soft costs accounted for more than 60 percent of the cost of a typical solar installation, so the road to low-cost solar has to be hacked through that obstacle.

Here’s a nifty infographic from the Energy Department to illustrate what we’re up against:

Since the typical solar installation results in lower electricity costs, let’s also add the frustration factor of seeing your money go down the drain in needless utility expenses, with your solar panels collecting dust in some warehouse when they could be churning out clean power on your roof.

Here’s how the Energy Department sees it on a national level:

To put it in perspective, if every solar project deployed in the U.S. this year was forced to wait one extra day before connecting to the grid, it would result in a loss of $4 million worth of electricity.

A Collaborative Solution

The 7-Day Solar prize comes under President Obama’s 2011 SunShot initiative, which aims to make solar as least as cheap and ubiquitous as fossil fuels. The initiative is heavy on cutting edge technology to improve solar cell efficiency  while reducing the cost of manufacturingsolar cells, and it is also tackling these pesky soft costs from a wide variety of angles.

The 7-Day Solar prize is geared toward getting all solar players to collaborate, including government agencies, solar companies and other businesses, nonprofits, utilities, and community stakeholders.

That’s going to take a while so don’t hold your breath just yet. The 7-Day Solar schedule  calls for up to 20 teams to be ready for action this September, and then they have 18 months to implement their solutions. The winners will be decided in March 2017 based on a point system.

There are two parts to the contest. The “seven” in the 7-Day Solar name is for the part dealing with small solar systems of up to 100 kilowatts. The winning team will have to show their stuff at scale by building a total of at least 10 megawatts.

The other part is for large systems of up to 1 megawatt, with a time goal of seven weeks and a total goal of 15 megawatts.

If all goes well, in a couple of years we taxpayers can all give ourselves a group hug for bringing low-cost solar to thousands if not millions of properties across the US, because SunShot is putting up seed money to help support the teams.

So, if you have any ideas, get cracking. Letters of intent are expected by March 22 and you can get all the details here  (tell them CleanTechnica sent you).

Follow me on Twitter  and Google+ .

Image Credit (cropped and full-sized): Courtesy of US Department of Energy.

New York Just Showed Every Other State How to Do Solar Right

Posted by Tim McDonnell on Friday, March 6, 2015  

“This is as exciting as the Public Service Commission gets.”

Jose Campos/ZUMA

New York wants to get serious about solar power. The state has a goal to cut its greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, and it’s already among the nation’s solar leaders. New York ranks ninth overall for total installed solar, and in 2013 alone it added enough to power more than 10,000 homes.

While that’s great news for solar companies and environmentalists, it’s a bit of a problem for electric utilities. Until recently, the business model of electric companies hadn’t changed much since it was created a century ago. (The country’s first electric grid was strung up by Thomas Edison in Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the 1880s, and some parts of it continued to operate into the 2000s.) Utilities have depended on a steady growth in demand to stay ahead of the massive investments required to build power plants and the electric grid. But now, that tradition is crumbling—thanks to the crazy growth of rooftop solar and other alternative energy sources and some big advances in energy efficiency that have caused the overall demand for electricity to stop growing. Meanwhile, utilities in New York are also required to buy the excess power from solar buildings that produce more than they need—a policy called “net metering”.

But here’s the thing: Even the most ardent climate hawks agree that we can’t afford for utilities to go out of business altogether. Someone needs to maintain and manage the grid. Hardly any solar homes are actually “off the grid,” since they still depend on power lines to soak up their excess electricity during sunny afternoons and deliver power at night. In fact, net metering is a key factor in making solar economically viable to homeowners.

The question of how to aggressively slash carbon emissions without completely undermining the power sector (and simultaneously raising the risk of blackouts and skyrocketing electric bills) is one of the big existential questions that climate-savvy lawmakers are now trying to figure out. And last week in New York, they took a huge step forward.

Under a new order from the state’s Public Service Commission, utility companies will soon be barred from owning “distributed” power systems—that means rooftop solar, small wind turbines, and basically anything else that isn’t a big power plant. (There are some rare exceptions built into the order, notably for giant low-income apartment buildings in New York City that small solar companies aren’t well-equipped to serve.)

“By restricting utilities from owning local power generation and other energy resources, customers will benefit from a more competitive market, with utilities working and partnering with other companies and service providers,” the commission said in a statement.

The move is part of a larger package of energy reforms in the state, aimed at setting up the kind of futuristic power system that experts think will be needed to combat global warming. The first step came in 2007, when the state adopted “decoupling,” a market design in which a utility’s revenue is based not on how much power it sells, but on how many customers it serves. (Remember that in most states utilities have their income stream heavily regulated by the state in exchange for having a monopoly.) That change removed the incentive for utilities to actively block rooftop solar and energy-saving technology, because lost sales no longer translate to lost income. But because utilities could still make money by recouping the cost of big infrastructure projects through increases to their customers’ bills, they had an incentive to build expensive stuff like power plants and big transmission hubs even if demand could be better met with efficiency and renewables.

Now, under New York’s most recent reform, a utility’s revenue will instead be based on how efficiently and effectively it distributes power, so-called “performance-based rates.” This, finally, provides the incentive utilities need to make decisions that jibe with the state’s climate goals, because it will be to their advantage to make use of distributed energy systems.

But there’s a catch, one that had clean energy advocates in the state worried. If utilities were allowed to buy their own solar systems, they would be able to leverage their government-granted monopoly to muscle-out smaller companies. This could limit consumer options, drive up prices, and stifle innovation. That, in turn, could put a freeze on consumers’ interest in solar and ultimately slow down the rate at which it is adopted. But if small companies are allowed in, then the energy market starts to look more like markets for normal goods, where customer choice drives technological advances and pushes down prices.

“New York’s approach to limit utility ownership balances the desire for more solar with the desire to have competitive markets that we expect to continue to bring down the costs of solar,” said Anne Reynolds, director of the Alliance for Clean Energy New York.

The upshot is that solar in New York will be allowed to thrive without being squeezed out by incumbent giants like Con Edison and National Grid.

“This is as exciting as the Public Service Commission gets,” said Raya Salter, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council in New York who worked with state regulators on the plan. “These are bold, aggressive changes.”

The policy puts New York on track for a new way of doing business that many energy wonks now see as inevitable. In the past, the role of electric utilities was to generate power at a few central hubs and bring it to your house; in the near future, their role will be to facilitate the flow of power between countless independent systems.

“We need to plan for a primarily renewable system,” said John Farrell, director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, which advocates for breaking up the old utility model as a key solution to climate change. “We want to pay [utilities] for doing things we want, rather than paying for their return on investment for the things they build.”

So far, the response from utilities has been receptive; a spokesperson for Con Ed said the company looks forward to developing details for how the order will move forward.

The change in New York could become a model for other states, Reynolds said. Regulators in Hawaii are already considering a similar policy.

“Everyone is watching to see what’s happening here,” she said. “It’s really a model of what a utility could be in the future.”

TIM MCDONNELL

Climate Desk Associate Producer

Tim McDonnell is Climate Desk's associate producer. For more of his stories, click here. Follow him on Twitter or send him an email at tmcdonnell [at] motherjones [dot] com. RSS | TWITTER

NEW WORLD RECORD FOR SOLAR PV PANEL POWER OUTPUT ANNOUNCED BY TRINA SOLAR

BY PRESS RELEASE  CHINA, SOLAR PV DECEMBER 31, 2014

Trina Solar's Honey Plus multi-crystalline silicon PV module reached a new power output record of 324.5Wp
Trina Solar Limited, today announced that its State Key Laboratory of PV Science and Technology has set a new world record for power output from a high efficiency multi-crystalline silicon PV module.

Trina Solar’s Honey Plus multi-crystalline silicon PV module reached a new power output record of 324.5Wp, which has been independently certified by TUV Rheinland. This result marks a new world record for a multi-crystalline silicon module composed of 60 high-efficiency Honey Plus multi-crystalline silicon cells (156×156mm2) produced with advanced technologies including back surface passivation and local back surface field, which were developed by Trina Solar and are currently in pilot production.

This further builds on the Company’s recent new world record for its Honey Plus p-type PERC cell which reached an efficiency of 20.76% as independently confirmed by Fraunhofer ISE CalLab in Germany. This result was listed in the “Solar Cell Efficiency Table (Version 45)” in the current issue of Progress in Photovoltaics (source: Prog. Photovolt: Res. Appl. 2015; 23:1–9) and was also recognized as an R&D highlight at the 6th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion (WCPEC-6).

Trina Solar has set four new world records in 2014 for p-type PERC cells and modules. These include new records for large-area (156×156 mm2) p-type silicon substrates of 21.40% for mono-crystalline and 20.76% for multi-crystalline silicon solar cells, as well as new peak power output records for commercial PV modules of 335.2Wp for mono-crystalline and 324.5Wp for multi-crystalline silicon solar cells.

“At the Trina Solar State Key Laboratory of PV Science and Technology (SKL PVST), our focus is on delivering meaningful scientific and technological innovations,” said Dr. Zhiqiang Feng, vice president of Trina Solar and director of the SKL PVST.

"We are proud to have set several new world records for PV cells and modules on large-area substrates in 2014 which have delivered improvements to the efficiency, reliability and cost of crystalline silicon photovoltaic devices. Such R&D breakthroughs continue to demonstrate Trina Solar’s position as the leader in technological innovations in the solar industry and sets base for future mass production of high efficiency products."

Can Carbon Dioxide Replace Steam to Generate Power?

VIA http://www.scientificamerican.com

The U.S. Department of Energy hopes to create a more efficient turbine that uses CO2 to make electricity

March 3, 2015 |By Umair Irfan and ClimateWire

Engineers are looking into replacing steam with supercritical carbon dioxide, a technique that could unlock up to 50 percent greater thermal efficiency using a smaller, cheaper turbine. 
Credit: Michael Spiller/Flickr

Much has changed in the modern electric power plant since Thomas Edison's era, but the parts that actually turn heat into electrons haven't changed since his eureka moments.

Whether burning coal, concentrating sunlight or splitting atoms, most thermal power plants use the energy for the same thing: heating water into steam to drive a turbine. Steam-based generation produces 80 percent of the world's electricity.

After more than a century of incremental improvements in the steam cycle, engineers have plucked most of the low-hanging fruit and are chasing diminishing returns, spending millions of dollars for every percentage point of efficiency improvement. These upgrades propagate to other steps in electricity production, allowing power plants to extract more work for a given unit of fuel.

In a fossil fuel-fired generator, this means less carbon dioxide emissions for the same unit of electricity produced. For a solar thermal plant, this results in higher capacity at lower operating costs.

Now engineers are looking into replacing steam with supercritical carbon dioxide, a technique that could unlock up to 50 percent greater thermal efficiency using a smaller, cheaper turbine.

Last month, in a budget briefing and in two different hearings before Congress, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz specifically mentioned the Department of Energy's supercritical carbon dioxide initiatives. The department's 2016 budget request allocates $44 million for research and development on this front, including a 10-megawatt supercritical turbine demonstration system.

A simpler, smaller, cleaner machine
The term "supercritical" describes the state of carbon dioxide above its critical temperature and pressure, 31 degrees Celsius and 73 atmospheres. Under these conditions, carbon dioxide has a density similar to its liquid state and fills containers the way it would as a gas.

Coffee producers are already using supercritical carbon dioxide to extract caffeine from beans. Materials companies are also using it to make plastics and ceramics.

"From a thermodynamic perspective, it's a very good process fluid," said Klaus Brun, machinery director at the Southwest Research Institute, a nonprofit research and development group. "You get a fairly efficient cycle and a reasonable firing temperature."

In its supercritical state, carbon dioxide is nearly twice as dense as steam, resulting in a very high power density. Supercritical carbon dioxide is easier to compress than steam and allows a generator to extract power from a turbine at higher temperatures.

The net result is a simpler turbine that can be 10 times smaller than its steam equivalent. A steam turbine usually has between 10 and 15 rotor stages. A supercritical turbine equivalent would have four.

"We're looking at a turbine rotor shaft with four stages on it that's 4 inches in diameter, 4 feet long and could power 1,000 homes," said Richard Dennis, turbine technology manager at the National Energy Technology Laboratory.

He noted that the idea of a supercritical carbon dioxide power cycle dates back to the 1940s, but steam cycles were already very efficient, well-understood and cheap, creating an uphill slog for a new power block to catch on. In addition, engineers were still finding ways to improve the combustion side of power production, so the need to improve the generation side of the plant wasn't as acute until recently.

Regulations could create an expanding market
Now regulations and climate concerns are forcing power producers to consider ideas like supercritical carbon dioxide.

"In just the closed, indirect cycle, numbers suggest that the thermodynamic efficiency, at similar operating temperatures to a steam cycle, you would see a 3- to 4-percentage-point improvement," Dennis said. With further optimization and better materials, engineers could push performance even higher.

The indirectly heated power block would essentially be a drop-in replacement for a steam power block. Such a device would be a boon for nuclear power stations, concentrating solar farms, geothermal installations, combined heat and power systems, and fossil fuel-fired power plants.

Supercritical turbines would also be an attractive upgrade from steam systems aboard ships and submarines, producing the same power while occupying less space. Because they use carbon dioxide instead of water as their process fluid, these turbines would also work well in drought-stricken areas.

In addition, a supercritical turbine could fit into a directly heated cycle, where a fuel like natural gas burns in the presence of pure oxygen inside the turbine, creating only water and carbon dioxide as waste.

Operators could then remove water and sequester the excess carbon dioxide. "With modest success in the technology management program, these cycles could compete with combined-cycle natural gas turbines and carbon capture and storage," Dennis said. The system could also route waste heat back into the front end of the system, further increasing overall efficiency.

However, the turbine is not the only component of the power block; a supercritical carbon dioxide system still needs heat exchangers, cooling systems and piping, which add to cost and complexity. And carbon dioxide can corrode materials, so engineers will have to redesign much of the plumbing and support hardware from steam systems to account for these problems.

Another concern is that most of the supercritical carbon dioxide systems demonstrated to date were built at kilowatt scales, too small to offer useful lessons for a full-sized version. DOE's pilot proposal would go a long way toward demonstrating the feasibility of supercritical carbon dioxide. "Building a 10-megawatt plant would be a huge, huge step forward," Dennis said.

Nickel-Metal-Hydride Batteries For Electric Cars? Energy Density Can Rise 10-Fold: Researchers

By John Voelcker
 

Rendering of Tesla battery gigafactory outside Reno, Nevada, Sep 2014

The division is pretty clear: nickel-metal-hydride batteries are for use only in hybrids--at least those from Toyota, which has used more of the batteries than any other maker by far.

Lithium-ion cells, on the other hands, are the only ones with sufficient energy density to be used in the much larger packs of battery-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles.

That's how it's been for most of a decade.

But suppose researchers could radically boost the energy density of old-fashioned nickel-metal-hydride cells?

That might change the equation substantially--and that's exactly what research by chemical supplier BASF aims to do.

In  recent article in Technology Review, author Kevin Bullis dangled the prospect of NiMH cells with as much as 10 times today's energy density--making them practical for use in plug-in cars of all sorts.

The goal is a cost per kilowatt-hour of less than $150, better than even the rumored costs of high-volume commodity-format cells to be produced by Panasonic and Tesla Motors at the Nevada gigafactory now under construction.

The BASF research centers on changes to the microstructure of the nickel-metal electrode, making it more durable and hence requiring less of it to be used for the same power production.

Its researchers have already produced NiMH cells with double the energy density of today's cells, bringing them to 140 watt-hours per kilogram.

That's less than the 230 watt-hours of the best Li-ion cells today, but the lighter weight of those cells is offset by two factors.

The first is that lithium-ion cells degrade over time, at higher rates than do NiMH cells. Accordingly, Li-ion battery packs must include extra cells to offset some of that loss.

Second, NiMH batteries are generally considered to be safer than Li-ion chemistries due to the lack of a liquid electrolyte that can leak or spill in severe accidents.

Lithium-ion battery pack for 2014 Chevrolet Spark EV electric car

The safety measures required to prevent that add weight to the battery pack beyond just that of the more lightweight lithium-ion cells.

Meanwhile, BASF's researchers continue to work to improve the energy density of their experimental cells still further.

They're targeting an ultimate improvement of 10 times the capacity today's nickel-metal-hydride batteries.

While lithium-ion is still widely presumed to be the odds-on favorite for any battery-electric vehicle, the BASF work only underscores the huge efforts in energy-storage research and development across the globe.

Most won't pan out, but inevitably some will--and cars with plugs and their drivers will be the beneficiaries.

India to Quadruple Renewable Capacity to 175 Gigawatts by 2022

VIA http://www.bloomberg.com
byGanesh Nagarajan

(Bloomberg) -- India plans to quadruple its renewable power capacity to 175 gigawatts by 2022 as part of the government’s plan to supply electricity to every household, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said Saturday.

India will seek to add 100 gigawatts of photovoltaic capacity, 60 gigawatts of wind power, 10 gigawatts of biomass and five gigawatts of hydro projects, Jaitley said in New Delhi in his budget speech for the fiscal year beginning April 1.

The goal is likely to be difficult to achieve because it will require a significant increase in installation and the government has signalled it would like to end tax breaks that have been used to spur the introduction of renewable power. In the past, when the government withdrew tax breaks, capacity installation fell.

“These targets look quite ambitious,” said Ashish Sethia, of Bloomberg New Energy Finance in Singapore. At most 4,900 megawatts of renewables have been installed in a “good year,” and to achieve the new target implies the addition of 20,000 megawatts of capacity per year, he said.

Gamesa India, Suzlon Energy Ltd. and Welspun Renewables Energy Pvt. Ltd. are among companies likely to benefit from the increased renewable targets in the second-most populous nation.

“We are confident that renewable energy in India will take off from here and witness exponential growth in the next few years,” Suzlon Chairman Tulsi Tanti said in an e-mailed statement.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set a goal of 24-hour power supply, clean drinking water and a toilet for each household by 2022 when the nation celebrates its 75th year of independence. He is keen to achieve the power supply target using renewables and has been asking state-run companies to invest in clean energy.

About one third of Indian households currently lack electricity.

India’s current installed renewable capacity stands at 34 gigawatts.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ganesh Nagarajan in Chennai atgnagarajan1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sam Nagarajan atsamnagarajan@bloomberg.net Dick Schumacher, Abhay Singh