Hydrovolts welcomes Dan Stevenson to our engineering team. Dan is a participant of South Seattle Community College’s GreenLight Internship Program which partners with the Manufacturing Industrial Council http://www.micouncil.org
Alaska has enormous quantities of untapped or under-utilized
energy resources, including some of the highest concentrations of fossil and
renewable energy resources on earth. In addition to vast oil and natural gas
resources, primarily located on the North Slope and in Cook Inlet, the state has
proven coal reserves that rank as the fourth-largest fossil energy resource in
the world. Nature also bestowed significant undeveloped geothermal resources in
the volcanic art of the Aleutian Islands, abundant untapped hydropower, wind,
and biomass resources, and the majority of the tidal and wave power potential in
the United States.
Yet rural communities throughout Alaska are chronically burdened with
economy-stifling high energy costs. When oil prices spiked to $144 per barrel in
July 2008 before plummeting to under $50 per barrel by December 2008, many
Alaska villages where winter fuel must be purchased before fall freeze-up
suffered a severe shock and extraordinary economic hardship. For those
communities, there was no potential relief until the following spring.
While no year since has been as bad, Rex Wilhelm, president and CEO of Alaska
Commercial Co., said his company, which owns and operates grocery and general
merchandise stores in at 27 rural Alaska communities, keeps a close watch on oil
prices.
“We’re very conscious of the price of oil and the dependence on it in our
markets,” Wilhelm said. “We purchase fuel from the local vendor like everyone
else.”
Alaska Commercial Co. also pays fuel surcharge on the goods shipped to its
stores when oil prices are high. “We’ve had some relief in recent weeks, but
with oil at $90 per barrel, it’s still very high on the freight rates,” Wilhelm
said. High energy prices affect everything in rural Alaska, he added.
Investments in energy savings
In recent years, the Alaska Energy
Authority, the Denali Commission and the Alaska Center for Energy and Power have
spearheaded a mammoth investment of millions of dollars into everything from
upgrades of bulk fuel storage tanks to renewable and emerging energy research
projects. Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell signed into law a $2.8 billion capital budget
in June that includes $1 billion for energy projects.
Along with the efforts of a wide variety of private sector stakeholders and
even schoolchildren, these initiatives are paying off as rural communities
report energy cost savings, ranging up to 30 percent.
This is good news because the State of Alaska has a goal of deriving half its
power from renewable energy sources by 2025.
But it is the “low-hanging fruit” of energy efficiency programs such as
weatherization and heating system upgrades that is making the biggest strides in
cutting rural heating and fuel bills, said Denali Daniels, senior program
manager of the Denali Commission’s energy program. Parnell earmarked a total of
$101.5 million for weatherization and home energy rebates in the FY12 capital
budget.
“It’s a question of how do we get the biggest bang for our buck,” she said.
Thus the Commission focuses mainly on project planning and design rather than
construction.
“We’d rather spend $50,000 for a planning grant on a project that doesn’t
move forward than spend $5 million on construction of a plant that shouldn’t
have ever been built,” Daniels said.
Currently, the Energy Authority’s Alternative Energy and Energy Efficiency
program manages and funds more than 125 projects and initiatives totaling $188
million in state and federal funding. The projects seek to lower the cost of
power and heat to Alaska communities, while maintaining system safety and
reliability.
Private initiatives pay off
NANA Regional Corporation, the Alaska
Native regional corporation for Northwest Alaska, is working to solve Alaska’s
rural energy puzzle through partnerships with regional, state and federal
entities on a variety of renewable energy projects, including hydropower, wind,
biomass and alternative fuels development.
“We are actively engaged with our regional partners as well, like the
Northwest
Arctic Borough, Kotzebue Electric Authority and Alaska Village Electric
Cooperative on wind development in the communities of Deering, Buckland,
Noorvik, Kivalina, Kotzebue and the communities of the Upper Kobuk,” said NANA
spokeswoman Shelly Wozniak.
Beginning in August, NANA, in conjunction with RurAL CAP, is implementing the
highly regarded Energy Wise Program. The program engages rural Alaska
communities in behavior change practices resulting in energy efficiency and
energy conservation.
In FY 2010, Energy Wise was responsible for reducing electrical and
home-heating costs for residents in 32 Alaska villages, and for training 160
rural Alaskans who were employed for 6-8 weeks. The program also conducted
energy fairs in 32 communities; provided energy use assessments, education and
low-cost, efficiency upgrades for 2,000 homes; and educated 7,500 rural Alaskans
on energy efficiency and energy conservation strategies.
NANA is the first private organization to fund a regional rollout of the
Energy Wise Program, committing $860,000 for six communities in the NANA region
in 2011. With the price of fuel climbing, NANA said the Energy Wise Program will
help the Northwest Alaska region conserve energy and save money as its
communities get ready for winter.
To offset its higher energy costs, Alaska Commercial Co. is investing
millions of dollars in lighting and refrigeration equipment upgrades during the
next five years, including spending one-third of its capital budget on new
refrigeration cases.
In addition, the company is rerouting the heat by-product from equipment such
as compressors into its stores to reduce its consumption of heating oil. It also
recently entered a joint venture with the City of McGrath in which the heat
by-product of the community’s power plant is piped into the AC Store next door.
Alaska Commercial also worked hard at improving the flow of goods to its
stores, which factors into its energy costs. This included opening the large
warehouse at the Port of Tacoma in 2010 as a major distribution center which
allows it to buy certain items in bulk and leverage less-costly waterborne
transportation to ship larger quantities of shelf-stable items when rates are
low and pass the savings on to customers.
A number of transportation companies that serve the Alaska market, including
Bowhead Transport Co. and NorthStar Gas, also have invested in new equipment to
improve fleet efficiency and offset the high cost of fuel. NorthStar Gas, for
example, recently purchased a new barge, the “Cuaneq.”
Renewable energy that works
“The challenge for Alaska will be
developing renewable energy systems that can be successfully integrated with
existing diesel systems, because public perceptions aside, fossil fuels such as
natural gas and propane supplies from the North Slope, will remain an important
part of the energy equation for the foreseeable future,” Daniels said.
Among the possibilities, hydroelectric power is exceedingly attractive. It is
the least expensive form of power in Alaska by 15 percent and the least
expensive form of heat by a factor of 3.5 to 1, according to the Alaska Energy
Authority.
Researchers say Southeast has adequate hydroelectric potential to serve all
of its needs for decades to come if an intertie system existed to transport
power to the region’s high-use areas. Without a regional electrical grid,
isolated load centers likely will continue to rely on high-cost diesel
generation to meet immediate needs.
Alaska’s FY12 capital budget provided $28.5 million for a project at Blue
Lake near Sitka and $8 million for one at Whitman Lake near Ketchikan.
Other regions of Alaska also have potential for hydroelectric generation.
A new major hydro project – a dam project on the upper Susitna River won
$65.7 million in state funds in this year’s capital budget, while a project on
Chikuminik Lake in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Region of western Alaska also secured $10
million in state funding.
Among other renewable energy sources, wind is proving to be a viable
opportunity for many small Alaska communities.
Building wind systems is costly, but once in place, the cost of wind is
stable, while diesel fuel prices are volatile, according to University of Alaska
Anchorage. In a preliminary analysis of wind-diesel systems in Alaska, produced
by the Institute for Social and Economic Research, they note that there are
already more than a dozen wind-diesel systems generating electricity in remote
areas of western Alaska, and only three wind systems, in Kotzebue, Wales, and
Saint Paul Island, have been operating for more than a few years. Some 10
projects were under construction in the spring of 2010, while another 23
projects were in feasibility studies or negotiating contracts to begin work.
Alaska Village Electric Cooperative, for example, has about 30 100-kilowatt
wind turbines currently in operation and six more 65-kilowatt units scheduled to
be operational by fall, serving a total13 villages in western Alaska. The cost
of recently built wind systems average about 14 cents per kilowatt-hour, or the
energy-equivalent of diesel priced at about $1.90 a gallon, according to ISER.
Diesel prices reported by many rural utilities in 2009 ranged from $4 to $5 a
gallon.
The U.S. Department of Energy is introducing wind energy to the nation’s
small communities through its “Wind for Schools Program,” an effort that Lynden
Transport, Alaska Marine Lines, Alaska Hovercraft and Lynden Air Cargo is
supporting in Alaska with an offer to provide in-kind assistance to transport
wind turbines and towers to 14 communities in Alaska. For example, Alaska Marine
Lines recently transported the components of a wind turbine to Sitka’s Mt.
Edgecumbe School.
Emerging energy technologies
Researchers at the Alaska Center for
Energy and Power in Fairbanks estimated in 2010 that Alaska’s vast geography
also holds about 40 percent of the country’s potential river energy, and thus,
perfect settings for small-scale hydrokinetic technology – turbines designed to
harness kinetic energy from oceans, bays and rivers. Micro-hydropower systems
usually generate up to 100 kilowatts of electricity and are mostly used by
homeowners and small business owners. Run-of-the- river hydroelectricity is
ideal for streams or rivers with a minimum dry weather flow. Such systems also
could help trim rural Alaska’s dependence on heating oil and diesel fuel.
NANA is engaged in micro-hydro and run-of-river hydropower pre-engineering
development efforts that have potential in Shungnak, Kobuk and Ambler.
Federal regulators are reviewing plans for a submerged, in-river power
turbine near Nenana in a pilot project that energy researchers and the developer
think could help rural Alaska communities. Two other small in-river turbines are
being tested near the Interior communities of Ruby and Eagle.
Among other emerging energy technologies currently being studied in rural
Alaska include energy storage batteries and solar hot water systems by Kotzebue
Electric Association; a wood pellet-fired boiler by Sealaska Corp at its
headquarters in Juneau, Organic Rankine cycle waste heat recovery by the Tanana
Chiefs Conference; high penetration hybrid power system by the University of
Alaska Fairbanks; psychrophiles (cold-weather-loving microbes) for generating
heating gas by the Cordova Electric Cooperative; seawater heat pump system by
the Alaska SeaLife Center; wind-diesel hybrid power system (controls and
communication) in Wales, Alaska by Kotzebue Electric Association, and Nenana
hydrokinetic project by Ocean Renewable Power Co/UAF.
Source: http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/890051509.shtml
Alaska has enormous quantities of untapped or under-utilized
energy resources, including some of the highest concentrations of fossil and
renewable energy resources on earth. In addition to vast oil and natural gas
resources, primarily located on the North Slope and in Cook Inlet, the state has
proven coal reserves that rank as the fourth-largest fossil energy resource in
the world. Nature also bestowed significant undeveloped geothermal resources in
the volcanic art of the Aleutian Islands, abundant untapped hydropower, wind,
and biomass resources, and the majority of the tidal and wave power potential in
the United States.
Yet rural communities throughout Alaska are chronically burdened with
economy-stifling high energy costs. When oil prices spiked to $144 per barrel in
July 2008 before plummeting to under $50 per barrel by December 2008, many
Alaska villages where winter fuel must be purchased before fall freeze-up
suffered a severe shock and extraordinary economic hardship. For those
communities, there was no potential relief until the following spring.
While no year since has been as bad, Rex Wilhelm, president and CEO of Alaska
Commercial Co., said his company, which owns and operates grocery and general
merchandise stores in at 27 rural Alaska communities, keeps a close watch on oil
prices.
“We’re very conscious of the price of oil and the dependence on it in our
markets,” Wilhelm said. “We purchase fuel from the local vendor like everyone
else.”
Alaska Commercial Co. also pays fuel surcharge on the goods shipped to its
stores when oil prices are high. “We’ve had some relief in recent weeks, but
with oil at $90 per barrel, it’s still very high on the freight rates,” Wilhelm
said. High energy prices affect everything in rural Alaska, he added.
Investments in energy savings
In recent years, the Alaska Energy
Authority, the Denali Commission and the Alaska Center for Energy and Power have
spearheaded a mammoth investment of millions of dollars into everything from
upgrades of bulk fuel storage tanks to renewable and emerging energy research
projects. Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell signed into law a $2.8 billion capital budget
in June that includes $1 billion for energy projects.
Along with the efforts of a wide variety of private sector stakeholders and
even schoolchildren, these initiatives are paying off as rural communities
report energy cost savings, ranging up to 30 percent.
This is good news because the State of Alaska has a goal of deriving half its
power from renewable energy sources by 2025.
But it is the “low-hanging fruit” of energy efficiency programs such as
weatherization and heating system upgrades that is making the biggest strides in
cutting rural heating and fuel bills, said Denali Daniels, senior program
manager of the Denali Commission’s energy program. Parnell earmarked a total of
$101.5 million for weatherization and home energy rebates in the FY12 capital
budget.
“It’s a question of how do we get the biggest bang for our buck,” she said.
Thus the Commission focuses mainly on project planning and design rather than
construction.
“We’d rather spend $50,000 for a planning grant on a project that doesn’t
move forward than spend $5 million on construction of a plant that shouldn’t
have ever been built,” Daniels said.
Currently, the Energy Authority’s Alternative Energy and Energy Efficiency
program manages and funds more than 125 projects and initiatives totaling $188
million in state and federal funding. The projects seek to lower the cost of
power and heat to Alaska communities, while maintaining system safety and
reliability.
Private initiatives pay off
NANA Regional Corporation, the Alaska
Native regional corporation for Northwest Alaska, is working to solve Alaska’s
rural energy puzzle through partnerships with regional, state and federal
entities on a variety of renewable energy projects, including hydropower, wind,
biomass and alternative fuels development.
“We are actively engaged with our regional partners as well, like the
Northwest
Arctic Borough, Kotzebue Electric Authority and Alaska Village Electric
Cooperative on wind development in the communities of Deering, Buckland,
Noorvik, Kivalina, Kotzebue and the communities of the Upper Kobuk,” said NANA
spokeswoman Shelly Wozniak.
Beginning in August, NANA, in conjunction with RurAL CAP, is implementing the
highly regarded Energy Wise Program. The program engages rural Alaska
communities in behavior change practices resulting in energy efficiency and
energy conservation.
In FY 2010, Energy Wise was responsible for reducing electrical and
home-heating costs for residents in 32 Alaska villages, and for training 160
rural Alaskans who were employed for 6-8 weeks. The program also conducted
energy fairs in 32 communities; provided energy use assessments, education and
low-cost, efficiency upgrades for 2,000 homes; and educated 7,500 rural Alaskans
on energy efficiency and energy conservation strategies.
NANA is the first private organization to fund a regional rollout of the
Energy Wise Program, committing $860,000 for six communities in the NANA region
in 2011. With the price of fuel climbing, NANA said the Energy Wise Program will
help the Northwest Alaska region conserve energy and save money as its
communities get ready for winter.
To offset its higher energy costs, Alaska Commercial Co. is investing
millions of dollars in lighting and refrigeration equipment upgrades during the
next five years, including spending one-third of its capital budget on new
refrigeration cases.
In addition, the company is rerouting the heat by-product from equipment such
as compressors into its stores to reduce its consumption of heating oil. It also
recently entered a joint venture with the City of McGrath in which the heat
by-product of the community’s power plant is piped into the AC Store next door.
Alaska Commercial also worked hard at improving the flow of goods to its
stores, which factors into its energy costs. This included opening the large
warehouse at the Port of Tacoma in 2010 as a major distribution center which
allows it to buy certain items in bulk and leverage less-costly waterborne
transportation to ship larger quantities of shelf-stable items when rates are
low and pass the savings on to customers.
A number of transportation companies that serve the Alaska market, including
Bowhead Transport Co. and NorthStar Gas, also have invested in new equipment to
improve fleet efficiency and offset the high cost of fuel. NorthStar Gas, for
example, recently purchased a new barge, the “Cuaneq.”
Renewable energy that works
“The challenge for Alaska will be
developing renewable energy systems that can be successfully integrated with
existing diesel systems, because public perceptions aside, fossil fuels such as
natural gas and propane supplies from the North Slope, will remain an important
part of the energy equation for the foreseeable future,” Daniels said.
Among the possibilities, hydroelectric power is exceedingly attractive. It is
the least expensive form of power in Alaska by 15 percent and the least
expensive form of heat by a factor of 3.5 to 1, according to the Alaska Energy
Authority.
Researchers say Southeast has adequate hydroelectric potential to serve all
of its needs for decades to come if an intertie system existed to transport
power to the region’s high-use areas. Without a regional electrical grid,
isolated load centers likely will continue to rely on high-cost diesel
generation to meet immediate needs.
Alaska’s FY12 capital budget provided $28.5 million for a project at Blue
Lake near Sitka and $8 million for one at Whitman Lake near Ketchikan.
Other regions of Alaska also have potential for hydroelectric generation.
A new major hydro project – a dam project on the upper Susitna River won
$65.7 million in state funds in this year’s capital budget, while a project on
Chikuminik Lake in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Region of western Alaska also secured $10
million in state funding.
Among other renewable energy sources, wind is proving to be a viable
opportunity for many small Alaska communities.
Building wind systems is costly, but once in place, the cost of wind is
stable, while diesel fuel prices are volatile, according to University of Alaska
Anchorage. In a preliminary analysis of wind-diesel systems in Alaska, produced
by the Institute for Social and Economic Research, they note that there are
already more than a dozen wind-diesel systems generating electricity in remote
areas of western Alaska, and only three wind systems, in Kotzebue, Wales, and
Saint Paul Island, have been operating for more than a few years. Some 10
projects were under construction in the spring of 2010, while another 23
projects were in feasibility studies or negotiating contracts to begin work.
Alaska Village Electric Cooperative, for example, has about 30 100-kilowatt
wind turbines currently in operation and six more 65-kilowatt units scheduled to
be operational by fall, serving a total13 villages in western Alaska. The cost
of recently built wind systems average about 14 cents per kilowatt-hour, or the
energy-equivalent of diesel priced at about $1.90 a gallon, according to ISER.
Diesel prices reported by many rural utilities in 2009 ranged from $4 to $5 a
gallon.
The U.S. Department of Energy is introducing wind energy to the nation’s
small communities through its “Wind for Schools Program,” an effort that Lynden
Transport, Alaska Marine Lines, Alaska Hovercraft and Lynden Air Cargo is
supporting in Alaska with an offer to provide in-kind assistance to transport
wind turbines and towers to 14 communities in Alaska. For example, Alaska Marine
Lines recently transported the components of a wind turbine to Sitka’s Mt.
Edgecumbe School.
Emerging energy technologies
Researchers at the Alaska Center for
Energy and Power in Fairbanks estimated in 2010 that Alaska’s vast geography
also holds about 40 percent of the country’s potential river energy, and thus,
perfect settings for small-scale hydrokinetic technology – turbines designed to
harness kinetic energy from oceans, bays and rivers. Micro-hydropower systems
usually generate up to 100 kilowatts of electricity and are mostly used by
homeowners and small business owners. Run-of-the- river hydroelectricity is
ideal for streams or rivers with a minimum dry weather flow. Such systems also
could help trim rural Alaska’s dependence on heating oil and diesel fuel.
NANA is engaged in micro-hydro and run-of-river hydropower pre-engineering
development efforts that have potential in Shungnak, Kobuk and Ambler.
Federal regulators are reviewing plans for a submerged, in-river power
turbine near Nenana in a pilot project that energy researchers and the developer
think could help rural Alaska communities. Two other small in-river turbines are
being tested near the Interior communities of Ruby and Eagle.
Among other emerging energy technologies currently being studied in rural
Alaska include energy storage batteries and solar hot water systems by Kotzebue
Electric Association; a wood pellet-fired boiler by Sealaska Corp at its
headquarters in Juneau, Organic Rankine cycle waste heat recovery by the Tanana
Chiefs Conference; high penetration hybrid power system by the University of
Alaska Fairbanks; psychrophiles (cold-weather-loving microbes) for generating
heating gas by the Cordova Electric Cooperative; seawater heat pump system by
the Alaska SeaLife Center; wind-diesel hybrid power system (controls and
communication) in Wales, Alaska by Kotzebue Electric Association, and Nenana
hydrokinetic project by Ocean Renewable Power Co/UAF.
Source: http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/890051509.shtml
Centre for Environment and Development (CED) Chairman V.K. Damodaran said here on Thursday that the State, home to 44 rivers, lagoons and backwaters, had immense potential in tapping hydrokinetic energy, an emerging clean energy resource that harnesses energy from natural flowing water.
Delivering the keynote address on ‘Review of energy and environment at global, national and State level’ at the seventh Kerala Environment Congress, Prof. Damodaran said the State could improve its green energy potential focussing on small hydro power projects, solar energy, and biomass fuel and by enforcing energy efficiency labelling.
He said India had green energy power generation potential of around 85,000 MW. The projected figure for green energy power generation in the country for this decade was 35,000 MW.
Generating awareness, creating regulatory framework, capacity building, and energy audit were some of the main aspects for improving energy efficiency.
Decentralisation of energy sources, diversification of sources, and lesser dependence on fossil fuel were the key to achieving energy and environment security, he said.
In his paper ‘Bioenergy- the green energy alternative’, head of Kerala Agriculture University Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Pattambi, P. Shaji James said energy conversion of waste and biomass was inevitable to provide clean energy.
Mr. James pointed out that bioenergy was likely to play a major role in future energy development strategies.
H.N. Chanakya of the Centre for Sustainable Technologies, IISc Bangalore, presented a paper on ‘Biomethanation of waste to energy- emerging trends and overcoming environmental challenges’.
N.T. Nair, chief editor ofExecutive Knowledge Lines, discussed the advantages of cloud computing as an energy saving option in the IT sector in his paper ‘Energy use in information technology sector’.
On behalf of A. Muhammed Sahil of W2E Project and Systems, Kochi, Prof. Damodaran presented a paper ‘Waste disposal and energy recovery for remote locations’.
‘Energy consumption in transport sector and its effect on climate’ by NATPAC scientist Kalaiyarasan; ‘Forest-water energy linkages in the context of Kerala’ by Water Institute, Coimbatore, director E.J. James; and ‘Development through energy efficiency’ by R. Harikumar of the Energy Management Centre were the other papers presented at the Environment Science Congress on Thursday.
Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-kerala/article2398867.ece
Last summer, we wrote about the progress of a novel hydrokinetic river turbine on the Yukon River. This low-head, in-stream hydrokinetic turbine (pictured below) was thought to be the first of its kind placed into commercial operation – a pretty cool designation for the remote towns of Eagle and Eagle Village. However, with 44,000 miles of coastline and some of the largest tidal ranges in the world, Alaska’s largest hydrokinetic resources may be in its oceans, not its rivers.
Experts estimate that the wave power potential of southern Alaska’s coast alone is nearly 1,250 terawatt-hours (TWh) per year – about 300 times the state’s annual electricity demand. Development of these resources in Alaska is likely to be economically feasible in only a few sites, however, and Cook Inlet, the 180-mile stretch of water that connects Anchorage to the Gulf of Alaska, is at the top of that list for its tidal-power possibilities.
The Alaska Energy Authority, a public corporation dedicated to reducing the cost of energy in Alaska, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have announced an agreement to conduct a baseline assessment of tidal hydrokinetic energy potential in Cook Inlet. According to Brighterenergy.org, NOAA will measure and model the inlet’s water levels and three dimensional current, salinity and temperature fields over several years to identify locations within the inlet with the highest potential for hydrokinetic energy generation.
The study is not the first of its kind in the area. According to the Renewable Energy Alaska Project, Ocean Renewable Power Company (ORPC) obtained a permit to develop a demonstration tidal project in Cook Inlet in 2008. In its own feasibility study, ORPC says it found that Cook Inlet has the second highest tidal range in North America. The company plans to begin building a commercial hydrokinetic power plant in 2012.
Source: http://www.earthtechling.com/2011/08/alaskas-tides-scouted-for-clean-energy/
For Douglas Meffert, those attempting to harness the water power of the Mississippi River aren’t just scientists and engineers; they’re visionaries who could transform the way power grids operate in the Southeast, and perhaps other areas of the United States.
Meffert, a professor of bioenvironmental research at Tulane University, said that with his work, he’s carrying on the mission of the late professor William Mouton, a revered New Orleans structural engineer, to end the southeastern United States’ reliance on fossil-fuel energy from the Gulf of Mexico. The trick will be to perfect hydrokinetic energy — a renewable energy source generated by underwater turbines set in motion by the flow of rivers, ocean currents, waves or tides.
“Think about the Mississippi River Basin as a large energy grid,” said Meffert. “Now we’re depending on [power] plants to bring energy into [the] region, but instead we could think of the water systems in our region as the grid itself.”
Meffert’s long-term vision is to turn the region from a consumer of fossil fuels into a producer of renewable energy and, one day, an exporter of that energy. He has started on this path as the director of RiverSphere, a Tulane University research center that will study the environmental and technical features of river turbines.
But there are a number of challenges that Meffert’s work, and every other hydrokinetic project in the country, must overcome before this becomes a viable source of energy. Funding is scarce, turbines keep breaking and projects may be putting ecosystems at risk. Meanwhile, competition from other countries and the need for more clean, domestically produced energy keep rising.
There are also the long-term concerns about how this type of hydro energy would cope with droughts, flooding or more extreme weather events exacerbated by climate change.
These issues are what Meffert and his team, but also researchers at a number of private companies, are hoping to solve. If they are successful, U.S.-made hydrokinetic projects could be providing a stable source of energy from rivers, channels and oceans around the country and the world.
The nonprofit Electric Power Research Institute, whose members represent 90 percent of the nation’s utilities, has estimated that in the United States alone, new hydrokinetic technologies could provide an increase in generation capacity of 3,000 megawatts by 2025. Another study found hydrokinetic energy could supply 10 percent of America’s electricity needs.
“Some industry estimates say the potential for lower-flow hydro energy could equal or exceed the existing energy production from hydropower from dams, while at the same time having a much less significant impact on the environment because you’re not destroying and flooding entire ecosystems,” said Meffert. “You’re adding projects to river and tidal systems that already exist.”
Water, water, everywhere but not nearly enough funding
The RiverSphere project, which is currently over 8.5 acres of empty riverside property, is a year behind schedule, said Meffert. While the project received a $3 million grant from the Economic Development Administration to construct the center, funding provided by the city of New Orleans under Mayor Ray Nagin was withdrawn last year. Meffert is now looking to fill that void with another source of non-federal funding before the foundations can be laid.
In May, the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources passed legislation in support of the nascent hydro energy industry, allocating up to $75 million in funding for all tidal, wave, ocean thermal and river-based projects (ClimateWire, May 27). But although legislation is moving forward, many companies and research facilities are currently required to match federal investments with private funding.
“It’s a challenge to raise that non-federal match because the economic return on that investment isn’t in the three- to five-year range; it’s in the five- to 20-year range,” said Meffert. In the meantime, up to 50 research jobs and potentially hundreds of manufacturing jobs are on hold while the RiverSphere project waits for additional backing.
Managers at Free Flow Power (FFP), a renewable energy company focused on hydropower, are all too familiar with this problem.
The company commissioned its first full-scale hydrokinetic device in the Mississippi River on June 20 and has been successfully operating the turbine off a pontoon at a Dow Chemical plant in Plaquemine, La. But the pilot project isn’t actually powering anything; rather, it’s allowing researchers to monitor how the turbine is responding to the river environment.
Jon Guidroz, FFP’s director of project development, said that since the experiment is performing above expectations, it should validate the company’s application for additional funding. The project is already funded in part by the Department of Energy’s Advanced Water Power Technologies program. Another DOE-funded venture, and FFP’s ultimate goal, is to install turbines on the river floor.
After four years of preparation, Guidroz says FFP should be ready to achieve full-scale installation by the end of 2013, but that the deadline is contingent on its ability to jump through all the regulatory hoops.
Waiting to take the plunge
FFP has already applied for dozens of licenses, and must now renew 60 of them that have met the three-year expiration date. The company has an additional 45 preliminary permits pending before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). But, like all other American hydrokinetic companies, none of its commercial license applications has been fully approved.
Before issuing a license, FERC has required that FFP complete 11 studies. Some of them will look at the impacts turbines have on aquatic life, navigation, acoustic sounds, archaeology and aquatic vegetation.
The legacy of traditional hydropower projects, specifically large-scale dams, has made the regulatory system for all hydropower projects immensely thorough. To launch a hydrokinetic project, companies have to get approval from FERC, U.S. EPA, DOE, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Army Corps of Engineers.
Bureaucratic speed bumps have spurred FERC to start streamlining the process for hydrokinetic projects, said Meffert. But he was quick to note that “wind energy and solar never had to go through this.”
As a director at a company operating on the Mississippi River, which many feel is a largely untapped renewable resource, Guidroz shares Meffert’s frustration over the delays. But he’s also confident that there will soon be progress.
“You have a large population density and large consumers of electricity going right down the middle of U.S., where you don’t have much wind energy or solar concentration but you have a great hydrokinetic resource,” said Guidrioz. “I think we’re looking at an inevitable opportunity to commercialize.”
Beyond the Mississippi Basin, other companies are making headway in the regulatory process and could see turbines come online as early as next year.
Verdant Power’s Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy (RITE) Project is among the leaders in the implementation of hydrokinetic systems. According to its website, the RITE Project stands as the “the world’s first grid-connected array of tidal turbines.” Unlike river turbines, this project harnesses the ebbs and flows of New York’s East River, which is actually a tidal strait.
While designing underwater turbines is complicated in any conditions, the ocean adds the elements of strong currents and corrosion from the saltwater. Plus, there are concerns over the safety of endangered marine life, such as the killer whale population that hydrokinetic companies have had to worry about off the coast of Washington state.
Heading (slowly) toward commercialization
Verdant Power’s six prototypes tested in the East River encountered some of these problems when strong currents broke off parts of turbine blades. But power was successfully delivered to businesses on Roosevelt Island, launching what the company calls the first grid-connected system of tidal turbines in the world. Indeed, the achievement is significant, because the company sees itself competing on a global scale.
“Right now, it’s a race between the U.S. and the U.K., and in that race, we feel confident that Verdant Power has the lead,” said co-founder and President Trey Taylor.
Verdant is also trying to move into the Chinese market with the sale of its Gen5 turbine. As a member of the Department of Commerce’s Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Advisory Committee, Taylor says it’s the current administration’s goal to double its renewables exports in the next five years. China has taken the lead in wind and solar energy, said Taylor, but hydrokinetic power is an emerging industry that could still be led by the United States.
“We’ve been building relationships and have signed a memorandum of understanding with China’s largest renewable company,” said Taylor. “In future, we could be exporting our rotor blades and other component parts, and that would be a job creator in the U.S. based on a commercially viable operation going on in New York.”
Verdant is still waiting for final approval on a commercial license to start installing its 30-turbine system that could see three turbines in the East River by next year. Others will have to wait longer, although they see that the need for stable sources of future energy is increasing.
“It’s not just an issue of renewable energy; it’s an issue of energy security,” said Meffert regarding the uncertainty of the Southern climate. “We could have a hurricane wipe out our traditional energy grid, yet that river is still flowing. So if we’re tapping into that, we’d be a much more resilient and robust region in terms of our energy facilities.”
“But that’s in the 20-year range, and I’m sick of waiting,” he said. “I just hope I’m alive to see it.”
Source: http://www.eenews.net/public/climatewire/2011/08/17/1
The small Himalayan nation of Bhutan is especially vulnerable to the impact of climate change, facing glacial lake outburst floods and dramatic shifts in rainfall patterns. Bhutan is nearly unique in the world as a carbon neutral nation, due to its limited industrialization and its dependence on carbon-free hydroelectric power.
But it faces great challenges ahead, including sustainability of hydropower, which participants in this summer’s Bhutan Ride for Climate observed firsthand on their bicycle trek through the mountainous terrain. Youth from Bhutan and the United States cycled 300 kilometers across Bhutan, learning about climate change by speaking with farmers, monks, foresters, conservationists, and other citizens of Bhutan.
The ride ended last month in Thimphu, which will host the Climate Summit for a Living Himalayas in November. Students will offer recommendations to political leaders at the summit based on their experiences. Tshewang Wangchuk, who is a National Geographic/Waitt grantee from Bhutan, organized the ride, which was sponsored by UWICE and the Bhutan Foundation.
After a series of pedaling uphill and coasting downhill, Bhutan Ride for Climate bikers veer off the main highway and onto a dirt road that leads to the village of Rukubji. Thick mud stops the bus and the truck, but the bikes and bikers prevail, dodging cows, chickens, and the stares of a few surprised villagers. Finally, the bikes are piled into the yard of a large farmhouse on the right-hand side of the road. This is not where they were supposed to stay for the night, but they are counting on the well-known hospitality of the Bhutanese. The cyclists have stopped here to learn more about a micro hydropower facility that is powering the estimated eighty houses of this village.
Chhimi Dorji, an engineer with the Bhutan Department of Energy, explains how important hydropower is to Bhutan, and this small village. Hydropower currently supplies 99.5 percent of the electricity in Bhutan. There are four large, major hydropower plants; Basochhu, Chhukha, Kurichhu, and Tala, and more than 25 smaller micro hydro projects in Bhutan like Rukubji. All of these projects are designed as “run of the river,” which means the water is diverted into a channel or tunneled toward turbines and a generator, and then back into the river system. The diverted section can go for as little as a hundred yards-like Rukubji-or on for two to three miles, depending on the site and the river. Small “run of the river” systems have minimal environmental impact compared to conventional large dam projects.
Rukubji has been experiencing daily “brownout” issues- voltage dropping below acceptable limits due to overloading- in the mornings and evenings. The stress on the system has been traced to meal times, when the villagers’ start up their electric rice and curry cookers. If the villagers can spread this usage more evenly throughout the day, then the system could provide more reliable electricity to the community.
Nathan Chase, part of a team of Humboldt State University students that have come to Rukubji to address this problem, explains, “Generally a river is very constant. In the middle of the night, it’s the same flow as it is the middle of the day, as it is at 6PM. So this is the challenge that Rukubji is facing, it’s also the challenge that America is facing, it’s a challenge that Bhutan is facing on the large grid as well. When you have a micro hydro that is producing the same amount of electricity every day, you don’t have the ability to turn up the generation to meet this peak demand.” He continues, “Here in Rukubji, they can’t increase output to meet the demand, they only have one river.”
The Humboldt team is attempting to solve the brownout issue by developing a smart grid for the village by using a device called GridShare. Each house now has a LED indicator light to show “green” for the times in which they can freely use the rice cooker and other appliances, or “red” when voltage is dropping and they should avoid using energy-intensive appliances. The beauty of the system is that at all times there is enough electricity for all households to power light bulbs and other low-intensity appliances. The students have distributed posters explaining to villagers that they can work together to spread out demand by using certain appliances later in the morning or evening. The Humboldt State team’s work at Rukubji is sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s People, Planet and Prosperity Award, which focuses on climate change and sustainable development. During times of low voltage called brownouts, people resort to using firewood for cooking, which is not environment- or health-friendly. The smart grid at Rukubji hopes to curb this unhealthy activity.
For now, the villagers seem happy with the electricity they have, and in typical Bhutanese fashion, the cyclists don’t hear many complaints from them on the brownouts. One villager does express how he worries his children are only interested in moving away, and he’s not sure who will continue the work on his farm.
As far as the impact of climate change on Bhutan’s reliance on hydro power, and this tiny village, Dorji says, “We do take into account that there is climate change happening and one possibility is that it might dry out our water resources.” But for that to happen, he cautions, “for it to dry out, you would first have lots of water coming downstream with all the glaciers melting. We are making every effort to make sure that even such big events such as a big flood, caused by glaciers or a moraine outburst, are taken into account for the design of our future infrastructures. Safety is a high priority to make sure to take care of those surprises in the future.”
Source: http://www.greatenergychallengeblog.com/blog/2011/08/16/micro-hydro-volts-for-a-village-in-bhutan/
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