The new technology could be attractive in land-rich areas, and it may also have some application for introducing sustainable energy to more densely developed areas, since its use of high efficiency solar cells enables it to pack more generating capacity into less space.  It also may prompt some new exploration of the opportunity to double up solar energy generation with other operations, such as fish farming.

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John Rowe, Exelon CEO, said yesterday that climate change legislation is an urgent issue. At the same time, he announced that the nation’s largest utility would not be renewing its membership with the US Chamber of Commerce because of the Chamber of Commerce’s opposition to climate legislation.

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Tested on the California/Nevada border, the Ecotricity Greenbird broke the land speed record for wind-powered vehicles.  The Greenbird clocked in at a top speed of 126.4 mph and maintained a speed of 126.2 mph for three seconds.  The previous record was 116mph.

The Greenbird is a collaboration between Ecotricity and engineer Richard Jenkins.  Ecotricity is an independent green electricity company based in the UK founded and owned by entrepreneur Dale
Vince.  Jenkins is the founder of the Windjet project and has a wide range of skills in engineering, design, piloting, and construction experience.  Both sides are innovative, experienced, and have a passion for wind energy as a solution for transportation and utilities.

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• » See also: Learn about the ROI of solar energy
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What is a smart grid?  According to the US Department of Energy:

Grid 2030 vision (PDF 1.1 MB) calls for the construction of a 21st century electric system that connects everyone to abundant, affordable, clean, efficient, and reliable electric power anytime, anywhere. We can achieve this through a smart grid, which would integrate advanced functions into the nation’s electric grid to enhance reliability, efficiency, and security, and would also contribute to the climate change strategic goal of reducing carbon emissions. These advancements will be achieved by modernizing the electric grid with information-age technologies, such as microprocessors, communications, advanced computing, and information technologies.

President Obama has funded smart grid technologies in the Economic Stimulus Package, and there is no doubt that a large amount of power is wasted with our current grid system; however, would it be better to invest in renewable energy now?  Off-Grid explains:

The greedy and slothful companies are in fact motivated by billions of economic stimulus dollars being handed out. The stimulus money could be used more effectively installing renewable power and microgrids in local communities. Harvesting extra efficiency from the national grid could postpone the next power plant, but so could introducing widespread household-level renewables.  Installing micro-grids everywhere  would cut down on the losses made in transmission.

The current national grid system is inefficient. Large amounts of power is lost in transmission and generating stations.  Off-Grid reports:

Transmission and distribution lines are imperfect conductors, with over 10% of power lost as heat. If these so-called line losses were reduced by a tenth on the distribution system alone, the power saved would equal all the wind generation installed in the U.S. in 2006, according to the industry’s Electric Power Research Institute, or EPRI. That’s 2,454 megawatts, or approximately the equivalent of three typical coal-fired power plants.

Why haven’t the utility companies already implemented smart grid technologies using their own profits?  The answer is because they are motivated by money, and there has been no incentive to do so until Obama’s stimulus package came along. The European Union faces another problem from its aging grid system.  According to a report from Europe’s leading science academies, the EU will not be able to distribute the renewable energy (20% of all energy) they have committed to build by 2020.  In fact, problems with the EU grid could appear as soon as 2011.  A solution is to create off-grid and micro-grid supplies for small communities rather than overhaul the entire grid system.  Off-Grid explains:

Scandinavian countries potentially have excess capacity in hydroelectric plants that could, ideally, be sold to places such as Germany. If agreements can be made with north African countries, solar power collected in the Sahara desert could be transported up into southern Europe. “In order to do that, you need to design the transmission system so it can cope with the large power flows through existing countries’ networks [but] Italy’s transmission system is not designed for that, nor is Spain’s.”

Distributing energy efficiently is important no matter the source, but we need to invest in alternative energy now.  Creating micro grids that use renewable energy seems like the logical first step while the larger grid infrastructure system is improved.

Image:  US Department of Energy

The occurrence of another battle between Russia and Ukraine over gas and the resulting restriction and even cutting off of supplies to some parts of Europe should give us cause for wider concern, even if the dispute, as seems likely, will be resolved in a matter of a week or so.

Britain currently derives only about 2% of its gas supplies from Russia, but as we all know, natural gas supplies from the North Sea are dwindling. Central Asia has gas supplies and pipelines are being built, but not only are we obviously talking about a fossil fuel here, we are also talking about our continuing reliance on energy supplies from other parts of the world, which may not be or remain friendly to us. At least one recent study, by Deloitte, indicates that even the oil industry is realising that things have to change to focus on renewables and it is becoming recognised that energy security is a serious concern.

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As a part of the national action plan on climate change the Indian government has obligated the power utilities to buy 5 percent of their grid purchase from renewable energy sources from 2009-10 onwards. The power companies are required to achieve this minimum standard by 2009-10 after which it will be increased by one percent every year for ten years.

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Greenbox is working on giving us web-based tools to evaluate our energy usage in the home, and to understand that usage in greater context with those around us, too. Users can also use that information to pinpoint savings opportunities and to understand our footprints on the planet.

Greenbox offers this food for thought:

“If 30% of us reduced our electricity usage by 20%, we would save over $8 billion per year on our energy bills, reduce emissions by 105 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year and avoid $10 billion in construction of new power plants. This is the equivalent of 35 coal fired power plants operating 24 hours per day.

To find out about Greenbox in your area, click here.

Source: Triplepundit.com and Greenbox

The company has created a battery control-management system, that when paired with a lithium ion battery, can store up to 20 kilowatt-hours. The system can then deliver a full 4,000 discharge cycles.

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More and more utility companies in Georgia are turning to biomass calling it a clean, renewable resource. Oglethorpe Power Corporation in Tucker, GA is planning three 100 megawatt biomass-fueled power plants. Back in April, Georgia Power sought approval from the Georgia Public Service Commission to convert a coal-fueled power plant to biomass. Utilities are touting biomass power as a renewable, environmentally friendly alternative to coal.

Biomass is sort of a catch-all term for biological material that can be used as fuel or for industrial production. The term often refers to plant matter grown to generate electricity or produce biofuel, but it also includes plant or animal matter used for production of fibers, chemicals, or heat. Georgia’s utility companies are interested in biomass as a renewable alternative to coal.

Biomass Benefits
According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), biomass has a number of benefits. The first, and most obvious, is a reduced dependence on fossil fuels. If companies use sustainable sources for the plant matter required to produce biomass power, the ecological impact is far less than its petroleum-based counterparts. Many biomass plants use the byproducts from paper and lumber production. Rather than allowing things like sawdust and wood chips head straight to the waste stream, biomass plants convert these materials into energy.

The NREL page also mentions that “the use of biomass energy has the potential to greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” However, this last benefit can vary hugely between power plants.

The Ifs
Burning organic matter for fuel produces greenhouse gases - nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide - and particulates. The amount and types of emissions depend upon what sort of matter the plant uses and on how it operates. If the trees burned to produce biofuel are replaced with new plantings in a closed growing cycle, these new trees recycle the carbon into the new growth.

Sourcing is another variable when it comes to producing biomass power. If a company uses byproducts from manufacturing, such as pulp from paper mills or sawdust from the lumber industry, they actually help divert waste that would have probably ended up in landfills. In this case, the process helps prevent the organic matter from producing methane, another greenhouse gas. However, companies harvesting new timber and growing agricultural products for fuel use up vast amounts of energy for collection, transportation, processing, and storage.

The Bottom Line
Biomass Power’s ecological impacts seem a bit variable. Unfortunately, Georgia Power’s page on renewable energy investments does not give many specifics on how they’re handling things like sustainable harvesting. Oglethorpe Power does a bit better, giving details on current and future plans to reduce their plants’ carbon and nitrogen oxide emissions. Their press release about the new biomass plants also outlines the wood’s sources, such as wood residue from manufacturing. So is biomass really a green energy source? I think it can be, if the companies producing the power are transparent in their processes. What do you think?

The Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA) has outlined four easy steps to a thirty fold increase in the size of the US solar power industry between 2009 and 2016, leading to over $230 billion worth of investment and the creation of 440,000 permanent jobs.

The influential industry group laid out the plans at this week’s Solar Power International conference in San Diego. The four key recommendations to achieve this goal are as follows:

1. Utility Ownership of Solar Power Projects

“The utility and solar industries must collaborate to find program structures, such as utility ownership of distributed photovoltaics, that provide a winning scenario for both industries, as well as for customers at large. The solar industry can utilize this new market segment as a buffer until home and small business owners are back on more solid economic footing.”

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PMRL is a subsidiary company of Sherrit International, the largest producer of thermal coal in Canada (about 90% of total Canadian coal production volume). Additionally, 90% of Sherrit’s coal is sold to nearby power plants located at what are called the “mine-mouth”. Norit on the other hand, is the world’s largest manufacturer of activated carbon and has been in the industry for over 80 years.

It’s fairly obvious why it makes sense for a joint venture building an activated carbon production plant between these two companies, but why build an this type of plant now?

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This is a guest post by Claire Fawcett, a former resident of Philadelphia who now works for a non-profit in Oakland, California.

Some envision environmentalists as wealthy, Burkenstock-clad radicals who have no awareness of the “real” issues affecting the average American.  Though this stereotype is inaccurate, it is promoted by environmentally unfriendly politicians to ostracize the green movement. Thus, the majority of the population is left feeling that it doesn’t possess the passion, the time, or the money to participate in preservation.

Luckily for those of us who proclaim ourselves environmentalists, more and more non-profits in Philadelphia are pitching conservation from a different angle to people who may not immediately consider themselves green. The Energy Coordinating Agency, the Partnership CDC, the Enterprise Center, and other community based organizations promote environmental initiatives through proving that conservation isn’t only friendly to the environment but also helps to fight poverty.

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Image courtesy of Dschwen at Wikimedia Commons

Categories include: Total number of participants, participation rate, total green power sales to program participants and the lowest price premium charged for using renewable resources.

These green power options for utility customers may be stimulating growth in the renewable energy sector. In 2005, utilities’ green power sales increased 30 percent from the previous year. Nationwide, about 500,000 people are taking advantage of these programs. That’s a 10 percent increase from 2005. Blair Swezey, an analyst at NREL, told Renewable Energy Access: "Higher prices for conventional energy sources, as well as increasing environmental concerns, are focusing greater attention on renewable energy options."

Austin Energy has the highest sales of its green power program, which includes wind power and landfill gas. Austin Energy also charges the lowest premium for new, customer-driven green power. Xcel Energy has the largest number of customers participating, and the City of Palo Alto Utilities has the highest participation rate.

See all the rankings and results here.

Renewable Energy Access
U.S. Department of Energy: Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy