Renewable Energy: Week of June 15-21, 2009

Renewable Energy:  Week in Review

As the weeks go by, tabulating the most interesting renewable energy news and stories is becoming almost overwhelming.  So much going in all over the world that it is very hard to keep up.  This is actually very heartwarming.  Activity means progress!  Despite the differing opinions between developed  and emerging countries (i.e. American footprint versus emerging countries wanting more), it is nice to see that almost all countries are very pro-active in their renewable energy efforts. 

The following are highlights for the week June 15-21, 2009 in renewable energy.

Technology

Renewable Energy’s Gridlock Problem
...hurdles facing renewable energy, transmission usually gets the most attention...everybody agreed transmission was the key to renewable-energy development...

The Next Solar Frontier: Distributed Inverter Architecture
...advocates of distributed architecture say that the central inverter has two primary shortcomings... the weakest panel in each string eliminates the benefits of better functioning panels...

Renewable Energy Used to Make Drinking Water From Air Humidity
...The saline solution then gets sucked up into an elevated tank by a vacuum. Solar energy heats the solution, which is thinned by the water it has absorbed...

High-Altitude Winds Hold Sky-High Promise for Meeting Electricity Needs
...You’ve heard of commercial wind turbines in farm fields, offshore turbines on the water, even small wind turbines on the rooftops of homes, but high-altitude winds are also being studied as a potential energy source...

Using solar power for making ice
(India) ...students of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, have undertaken an experimental project to make ice using solar power...

Trends

Positive News for Minnesota Wind Energy Industry
...The prospect of renewable energy from wind holds great possibility for Minnesotans, especially in terms of economic benefits from locally-generated wind profits and job creation...

Europe Looks to Africa for Solar Power
... European project known as Desertec ... aims to harvest the sun’s energy — using a method known as concentrating solar power, or C.S.P. — from the vast North African desert and deliver it as electricity, via high-voltage transmission lines, to markets in Europe....

As wind power grows, a push to tear down dams
...rise of wind farms in the Pacific Northwest is seen by some as an opportunity to help save the wild salmon, by removing dams that have impeded their spawning...

Electric Power Monthly
.... Conventional hydroelectric power provided 6.5 percent of the total, while other renewables (biomass, geothermal, solar, and wind) and other miscellaneous energy sources generated the remaining 3.9 percent of electric power ...

Government and Legislation

Air Force Seeking Biomass Plant on Texas Base
..The Air Force is seeking proposals from private contractors to fund, design, construct, operate, and maintain the biomass energy plant.  Feedstocks will be municipal solid waste and/or biomass...

Government Requests for Solar Systems
...Numerous federal agencies are actively seeking services and materials related to solar power...

General Services Adminstration Requests Proposals for Renewable Energy Certificates
...U.S. General Services Administration ("GSA") has issued a request for proposal for renewable energy certificates ("RECs") for GSA Regions and other federal agencies...

Net-Zero Energy Commercial Building
...Department of Energy ("DOE") expects to establish net-zero energy performance for all U.S. commercial buildings by 2050. DOE  has issued a funding opportunity announcement...

Nebraska Passes Legislation Governing Wind Leases
...legislature recently passed a bill amending existing state law governing wind easements, wind options, or wind leases or lease options entered into in the state for the purpose of wind energy development...

Taiwan enacts renewable energy law
...passed the Renewable Energy Development Statute, covering renewable energies including solar, biomass, geothermal, oceanic, wind, hydraulic and hydrogen. The statute will come into force as soon as November 2009...


Senate Committee Approves Broad Energy Package
...Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted 15-8 to approve a sweeping energy bill today after months of work, sending the measure to the Senate floor...

Anger as green energy Bill on backburner
(Australia) POWER generation companies yesterday slammed the shelving of the expanded Renewable Energy Target Bill until at least August...

Government To Guarantee Loans For Nuclear Power Plants
...The U.S. Energy Department is planning to award $18.5 billion in loan guarantees for the construction of new nuclear power plants to four utilities...

Wind power pushed
...Massachusetts is searching for every blustery nook and cranny it can find, from the tops of former dumps to a vast military reservation, as it whips up its push for wind energy production...

Clever Financing Gets California Back On Track
...California ... implementing a tax-credit bond program specifically designed to fund renewable energy projects...

Renewable energy use to be made mandatory for SEZs
(New Delhi)...The government is considering a regulation to make use of renewable energy mandatory for special economic zones (SEZ) to save on traditional fuel like coal and diesel...

Business

Satcon Selected for Largest Solar Energy Rooftop Installation in the Southeast United States
Satcon ... has installed four 250 kilowatt (kW) PowerGate® Plus inverters at the Orange County Convention Center (OCCC), the largest solar rooftop installation in the southeast

UK firm invests P5.6B in biomass plants
...UK-firm Global Green Power will invest more than 5 billion pesos in building three biomass power plants in Panay, Nueva Ecija and Pangasinan...

Yingli Green Energy Secures Sales Contracts in China Market
...Yingli Green Energy has signed an off-grid PV system sales agreement with the Shanxi subsidiary of China Mobile...

AEP Adds Solar to Renewable Portfolio
...American Electric Power.... has signed a long-term power purchase agreement to purchase all the output of a 10.08-megawatt (MW) solar energy facility to be built in Ohio...

European Airport Group Pledges to Cut CO2 to Zero
...Airport Carbon Accreditation scheme covers about 26 percent of passenger traffic in Europe and includes some of Europe's biggest airports, including Frankfurt, Athens, Dublin, Amsterdam's Schiphol, Italy's Milan Malpensa and Orly in Paris...

Opinion

Why Renewable Energy Certificates Are Not Offsets MAINTAINING CARBONMARKET INTEGRITY
Such commodities include GHG offset credits (offsets), and Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs)1, among others...How these environmental commodities are defined and treated has important consequences...

Renewable Energy Could Contribute to U.S. Electricity Needs, Yet Challenges Remain 

...Renewable energy resources...significant portion of the nation's electricity needs... low CO2-emitting sources for generating electricity will call for enhanced technologies, increased deployment, financial investments...

Efficiency, renewable energy better bets than gambling anew on nuclear power
...a consortium of 25 publicly owned Washington electric utilities — is asking its members to pay for additional research for a proposed nuclear plant that it says could be under construction in 2014...

The Economics of Renewable Energy
($5 fee)  ...Without new storage technologies that can overcome this intermittency, much of the decarbonization of the economy will have to come from nuclear, carbon capture and storage (CCS) and energy efficiency...

Gov. Strickland: Nuclear Energy is NOT Green Energy
...nuclear power plants can't compete in the free market. No insurance company would insure a nuke plant. The Price-Anderson Act makes the government the insurer of nuclear power plants which is a gigantic welfare check...

Solar rebate plan too successful for own good
(Australia)...The Government clearly did not anticipate the spike in demand that prompted it to prematurely terminate direct rebates...

Renewable Energy in the News

I'm trying a new format for Solar Sunday starting this week.  Going forward Solar Sunday will provide a summary of the the week's most interesting renewable energy news stories. By filtering out repeat stories and lower quality / inaccurate sites I hope to offer a useful Sunday service for people wanting to read about renewable energy but not wanting to sort through all of the data available on the web.  I will also add some editorial commentary in future Sunday posts.  Solar Sunday will inevitably evolve and improve with time so please bear with me. 

Thank you,
Steve Auger.

Renewable Energy in the News This Week

USDA opens rural energy applications  Jun 7, 2009 2theadvocate.com	Louisiana’s Rural Development office, part of the U.S.  Department of Agriculture, is seeking farmers and... more
Renewables beat fossil fuels in investment  Jun 7, 2009 Taipei Times	Clean technologies attracted US$140 billion last year,  versus US$110 billion for gas, coal and... more
PG&E harnesses 230 MW solar project from NextLight  June 5, 2009 Cleantech Group LLC	Northern California utility signs third solar contract this year to produce 592 GW-hours of renewable... more
Global clean-energy investment falls 53%  Jun 5, 2009 examiner.com	New global investment in renewable-energy projects  fell 53 percent in the first quarter, an indication... more
In Renewable Energy Legislation, Nuclear Power May Find Exemptions  June 5, 2009 redOrbit	In a law that would mandate utility companies to generate  a certain amount of electricity from renewable... more
Renewable Alternatives  June 5, 2009  KCIInvesting	China ... announced this week that it will spend about  100 billion yuan ($14..6 billion) to more than double... more
Citing budget, Wis. to cut renewable energy fund  June 4, 2009 chicagotribune.com	Gov. Jim Doyle is sacrificing one of his signature programs, a multimillion dollar effort to help...  more
Xcel files energy conservation / solar plan in Minn  Jun 4, 2009 Reuters	Xcel Energy Inc would offer incentives for Minnesota customers who take steps to conserve energy... more

Solar Power Coming of Age

Solar Power Coming of Age

Hi!  I would like to introduce myself.  My name is Steve.  I started the BlogOnSmog website about a year ago, initially blogging on a host of different green topics.  A couple of months ago I decided to recruit more bloggers and introduce different day-of-week topics.  The recruitment has been relatively successful and there are now 5 bloggers here excluding myself. 

While I am searching for two more bloggers to complete the 7-day week, I have decided to fill in the missing two blog days and write the posts for Solar Sunday and Techno Tuesday myself.  Solar Sunday is dedicated to all forms of renewable energy, including but not restricted to:  solar, wind and hydro-electric power.  Techno Tuesday is a blog about green technology.  I expect there will be overlap between the two blogs (as I discuss solar technology for example) but hopefully this will be kept to a minimum.  I'll try to focus on applications on Sundays and details behind the technology on Tuesdays.

I am very excited about the Solar Sunday blog.  The majority of people do not realize that most of the world's energy resources originate from the sun's rays striking the earth.  Some energy is preserved as fossil fuel, while some is usable indirectly as wind, hydro or wave power.  Most of the renewable energy we take advantage of is hydro-electric as seen in the pie chart below.

Source:  Wikipedia Commons

In spite of the distribution of renewable energy projects, I will spend a fair amount of my time blogging about solar power, simply because the technologies and applications are fast coming of age.  Researchers are not only pushing the envelope of light conversion efficiency, they are reducing production costs and matching technologies to specific applications.  Please tune in next week!

Steve Auger
Founder of www.BlogOnSmog.com