Exclusive: Renewable energy from rivers and lakes could replace gas in homes

A revolutionary system using water-sourced heat pumps is being tested on a new development

JANE MERRICK 

 

 

Sunday 23 March 2014

Millions of homes across the UK could be heated using a carbon-free 

 technology that draws energy from rivers and lakes in a 

revolutionary system that could reduce household bills by 20 per cent.

The Energy Secretary, Ed Davey, has described the development as "game changing" in relation to Britain's need for renewable energy against the backdrop of insecurity in Russia, which supplies much of Europe's gas, and the political row at home over soaring fuel bills.

In the first system of its kind in the UK, a heat pump in the Thames will provide hot water for radiators, showers and taps in nearly 150 homes and a 140-room hotel and conference centre in south London, saving 500 tons of carbon emissions from being released every year into the atmosphere.

Mr Davey has asked officials at the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) to draw up a nationwide map showing where renewable heat can be drawn from water to explore the potential of heat pumps. In theory, any body of water, including tidal rivers as well as standing water such as reservoirs and lakes, can be used as long as they are in the open and heated by the Sun. The Government has a target of 4.5 million heat pumps across Britain, although some will be using heat from air as well as water. David MacKay, the chief scientific adviser to Decc and professor of engineering at Cambridge University, has described a combination of heat pumps and low carbon electricity as the future of building heating.

Water-source heat pumps have been used on an individual domestic level and are popular in Japan and Scandinavia, but have not been developed on a larger scale and have not generated sufficiently hot water for everyday use. For the first time, scientists at Mitsubishi and Mike Spenser-Morris, a local developer and director of the Zero Carbon Partnership, have created a system that can generate 45C heat and can be used on a wider scale for mass housing developments.

The development is at Kingston Heights in Richmond Park in south London – a neighbouring constituency to Mr Davey's own – where Tory MP Zac Goldsmith has campaigned for greater use of environmentally friendly energy. The first residents will move in at the end of this month and benefit from the zero-carbon technology, with savings on their heating bills of up to 20 per cent

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INDIAN DREAMS Vs REALITY: THRUST TOWARDS SOLAR ENERGY IS THE RIGHT STEP FOR ENERGY SECURITY OPTION FOR ONE AND ALL
 Energy security through clean energy is much more than the necessity for mankind. In fact looking at the problems associated with all fuel based energy options, namely the global warming and health hazards, quest for clean energy has become the need of the hour to save our mother earth and its occupants. In this kind of a scenario and the finite quantum of all fuel resources one fails to understand as to why thrust towards clean renewable energy sources is languishing. 

Out of all clean renewable sources, solar energy occupies the pride of place for its large scale availability at almost all the places on our globe and above all the source is eternal and will last till humanity lives. The amount of energy falling on our globe is of the order of 174000 TWatts, a magnitude best understood by the fact that 1 hour of solar rays' energy is more than what mankind uses in a year. When this energy is responsible for lifting water from surface of sea to fall back down on the high mountains, drives ocean currents from tropics to poles, spins winds from pole to pole and power the green engine of life with guaranteed absolute safety, why it cannot be depended upon to provide energy security to all mankind on our globe. The powerful and mighty of this globe, the men who take pride in changing the fortunes of mankind certainly owe an explanation to the same mankind for guiding it to the brink of self destruction through their vested and motivated interests by resorting to all kind of energy security approaches likely to result in annihilation of life.

We Have the Renewable Energy We Need to Power the World—So What's Stopping Us?

A leading researcher says we have enough wind and solar to power the world. Are we willing to do what's necessary to transform our society?

Photo Credit: PhotographyByMK/ Shutterstock.com

November 8, 2013  |  

 

 

 

 

The environment is one bad news story after another. The Pacific Ocean is warming at a rate faster than anything seen in the last 10,000 years and we may have the warmest Arctic in the last 120,000 years. We’re told to brace for more and worse droughts, floods, heat waves, and storms. Coastal communities may disappear from rising seas, entire island nations are going under. If that all weren’t bad enough, there is a global wine shortage.

The bright side is that we aren’t being blindsided by an unknown enemy: Our relentless burning of fossil fuels is the big thing pushing us toward the brink. So it would figure that a solution to get us out of this mess would be pretty obvious.

That’s why it’s great that there are people like Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University. While it is one thing to say we want to stop burning fossil fuels, Jacobson (and a team of researchers) are telling us how to do it.

Jacobson was recently on the “David Letterman Show,” where he proclaimed that we have enough wind and solar to power the world.

Three reasons Germans are killing it on renewable energy

By John Farrell on 24 October 2013

CleanTechnica

Germany is racing past 20% renewable energy on its electricity grid, but news stories stridently warn that this new wind and solar power is costing “billions.” But often left out (or buried far from the lede) is the overwhelming popularity of the country’s relentless focus on energy change (energiewende).

How can a supposedly expensive effort to clean up the energy supply be so popular?

1. It’s about the cost, not the price

Most news stories focus on the cost of electricity in Germany, which has some of the highest rates per kilowatt-hour in the world.  But they don’t note that the average German electricity bill – about $100 a month – is the same as for most Americans.  Germans are much more efficient users of energy than most, so they can afford higher rates without having higher bills.  (Note to self: check out options for energy efficiency).

2. It’s about vision

Germany doesn’t just have an incremental approach to renewable energy, but a commitment supported by 84 percent of residents to get to 100% renewable energy “as quickly as possible.”  A few U.S. states have renewable energy visions (e.g. 33% by 2020, 25% by 2025) that approach Germany’s, but they’re mired in the notion that despite enormous savings to society in terms of health and environmental benefits, renewable energy shouldn’t cost any more today than conventional, dirty energy on the utility bill.  Germans have taken the long view (about energy security, price volatility, etc).

3. It’s about ownership 

I lied in #1.  Support for Germany’s renewable energy quest isn’t about cost of energy, but about the opportunity to own a slice of the energy system.  Millions of Germans are building their retirement nest egg by individually or collectively owning a share of wind and solar power plants supplying clean energy to their communities. Nearly half of the country’s 63,000 megawatts of wind and solar power is owned locally, and these energy owners care as much about the persistence of renewable energy they own as they do about the energy bill they pay. Not only do these German energy owners reduce their own net cost of energy, every dollar diverted from a distant multinational utility company multiplies throughout their local economy.

The dark forces lined up against renewables in Australia

By Giles Parkinson on 24 October 2013

The Australian renewables industry is under no illusion about the extent of the forces lined up against it following the election of a highly conservative Coalition government in Canberra.

The antipathy to renewables in large sections of the Coalition is deep set, as it is among some of the highly influential and ultra-conservative think tanks such as the Institute of Public Affairs, and various industry lobby groups.

But even battle-weary supporters of solar and wind energy – and those firmly in the middle of the road –  were taken aback by an extraordinary tirade against renewable energy delivered in Sydney on Wednesday by Burchell Wilson, a senior economist at the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

ACCI is one of the most visible and influential lobby groups in Canberra, and its opposition to climate policy, carbon pricing, and renewables incentives, is well known. Still, no-one was quite ready for the “venomous rant” – as one observor described it – against the renewable energy target that Wilson delivered to the Eastern Australian Energy Outlook Conference.

Wilson’s approach was not atypical of the sort of rhetoric we have come used to hearing from conservative energy ministers – be they state of federal – and the incumbent utilities, who are threatened by the rise of renewables, and their cheerleaders in the conservative think tanks.

The trick for these people is to ignore the benefits of renewables – increased investment, more jobs, lowering emissions, delivering a  faster transition to low carbon economy, solar delivering cheaper alternative to homes and businesses – and instead paint a doomsday scenario.

There was no mention of the massive influence of network costs, or the $1 billion in annual subsidies paid to support the delivery of fossil fuel generation to customers in WA and Queensland. Instead, the focus is on inflated “abatement costs” using out of date technology prices, warnings about rising energy costs, collapsing industries and economies, and all the things that only a “green ideologue” would think were good.

Then you throw in hyperbole – the renewable energy target  was “crazy”, “an ugly baby”, and “bad policy” that could only be justified by an “ideological predeliction towards renewable energy.”

Six Myths About Renewable Energy, and Seven Answers

America's Power Plan 
September 26, 2013 

Keith Johnson, writing recently in the Wall Street Journal, does a commendably even-handed job laying out “Six Myths About Renewable Energy.”  

Citing the rapid progress renewables have made in recent years, he concludes that “Many of the debating points we hear today are based on outdated facts and assumptions that don't hold up anymore.”

Of the six myths he covers, it is Myth #2 — “Renewables Can Replace All Fossil Fuels” — that is especially salient.  While it is possible to have high levels of renewables, he notes it would be “a long, tough slog.”  

This long slog is exactly what America’s Power Plan was designed to address.

Johnson cites difficulties in siting, finance, market design and transmission.  America’s Power Plan tapped 150 energy experts to address these issues specifically, plus three more that Johnson doesn’t mention.

America's Power Plan addresses the changes in the power sector being driven by game-changing new technologies, consumer demand for cleaner, more efficient energy, an aging and increasingly obsolete grid, and dramatic reductions in the cost of renewables.

“There's no technical reason renewable energy can't provide 80% of the power in the U.S. by midcentury. But there are a host of challenges that would have to be met first.” 

Technically Feasible

Johnson starts by referring to the landmark study led by the National Renewable Energy Lab,Renewable Electricity Futures, which he accurately describes as finding that “technically, by 2050 the U.S. could get 80% of its electricity from renewable energy and keep the lights on every hour, every day, in every corner of the country.”

The REF study is different from other studies, in that it was the first to grapple with the when-and-where aspects of renewables. 

Going All In with Renewable Energy

Is the goal of using 100 percent renewable energy crazy, idealistic or achievable?

Elisa Wood, Contributing Editor 
September 27, 2013 

After a monster tornado wiped out Greensburg, Kansas in 2007, killing 11 people, the community decided to rebuild with meaning. It set out to become one of the world's greenest communities.

Today the town is among a growing number of jurisdictions that generates all of its electricity from renewable energy.

An aeriel view of Greensburg before (left) and after the tornado (right). Credit: City of Greensburg.

Greensburg achieved a goal that many see as pie-in-the-sky. Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore several years ago drew jeers from his political critics when he proposed that the U.S. go all green within a decade. The jury remains out about the plausibility of a U.S.-size economy functioning with all renewables anytime soon. But Greensburg, with a population of less than 1,000 people, has demonstrated that it can work on a small scale. Others have done the same, among them Güssing, Austria; King Island, Australia; and Naturstrom, Germany.

It's not just cities with the ambition. Eight nations are 100 percent renewable or moving in that direction: Denmark, Iceland, Scotland, Costa Rica, Maldive Islands, Cook Islands, Tuvalu, and Tokelau. Add 42 cities, 49 regions, 8 utilities and 21 organizations, and going 'all green' looks like a bona fide trend.

Times have changed since the mid-2000s when a group that included the late Hermann Scheer, TIME magazine's 'Hero for the Green Century', first explored the idea. The group formed the Renewables 100 Policy Institute, but in the early years found that the concept was too "bleeding edge" for established non-profits, which declined to sign on.

Solar Power: Will Water, Wind, and Solar Power Save Our Electric Grid?

• Samantha Peters
• in
• Politics,
• Energy and Environment
• 5 days ago

 

What a great attraction electricity was as it finally made its debut in the 1901 World’s Fair. After the very first light bulb hit the streets of Saint Louis, how would we know that over 100 years later we would see headlines in our papers of citywide power outages due to overloaded power grids?  

Now, the debate is heating up about whether to spend the money to update our power grids, or allow them to keep deteriorating while we funnel money into renewable energy. Whatever happens, we need to be moving toward a greener American economic system, especially harnessing the resources of wind and solar power. 

Political forums are exploding with debates on energy conservation and going green to save the Earth, and these debates have already been met with some action from the American government.

The Obama administration is doing its part to fuel innovation by shelling out billions of dollars each year in grants for clean energy. In 2011,President Obama approved a $9-billion grant that created over 75,000 jobs. The grant focused largely on building "wind farms" and starting (or completing) photovoltaic projects designed to harness the power of the sun into clean and renewable energy. This was hot on the heels of a series of 2009 grants that utilized stimulus money to award funds to 25 companies for research and development and/or full-blown deployment of everything from wind farms, to solar energy plants or even plants that harnessed the energy of waves. 

The company receiving the most grant money through this series of grants (in 2009) was Pyron Wind Farm LLC, which received a total of approximately $122 million to unveil its high-powered wind turbines in what was previously considered "wasteland" in Texas. For Texas residents, this is good news, as this sort of power could become a major supplier of clean energy in the near future. Texas already gives its residents a choice of energy providers, but within a few years Pyron could show up on texaselectricityproviders.com and other resources designed to help Texas residents decide which power provider works best for them.

Top 12 RenewEconomy articles of the year

By Giles Parkinson on 14 December 2012

So here we go, too. Here’s a list of the top 12 – the most popular stories that appeared onRenewEconomy since its launch in January, 2012. Some of them you may have missed.It’s THAT time of year, when media outlets get all self-indulgent and are absolutely convinced that their readers want nothing better than to be reminded of what was important, and popular, over the last 12 months.

We hope you enjoy, and we thank all of the 227,000 people that have visited this site this year for your interest, your readership, and your continuing support.

1. Why generators are terrified of solar 

This story “went off”, as the saying goes. Notable for this graph below, showing the massive bite taken out of energy market revenues in Germany in the middle of the day by rooftop solar. Nothing demonstrated quite so graphically how solar PV in such high penetration changes the game of the energy market. The German government and industry are now reviewing the way the market is structured, considering new incentives to ensure that dispatchable generation remains on-line.

2. More wind energy myths debunked: Madigan claims put to the test

We have been very fortunate to be able to share with you Mike Barnard’s forensic demolition of the outlandish claims of the anti-wind lobby. DLP Senator John Madigan managed to get a Senate inquiry into wind noise. Barnard looked at Madigan’s position on wind energy and found 10 whoppers in 364 words – a better strike rate than even Max Rheese.

3. Zero cost solar: Will this be Gillard’s secret election weapon?

The first sign that solar leasing products would be introduced into Australia, and the potential for rooftop solar – available to even wider demographic – could influence the political narrative in an Australia obsessed with the price of electricity. This has been borne out by Campbell Newman’s solar tap-dance, and huge interest on where solar will be felt in federal electorates.

Renewable Germany: The very model of the new energy order

By Amory Lovins on 18 April 2013

Germany has doubled the renewable share of its total electricity consumption in the past six years to 23% in 2012. It forecasts nearly a redoubling by 2025, well ahead of the 50% target for 2030, and closing in on official goals of 65% in 2040 and 80% in 2050. Some areas are moving faster: in 2010, four German states were 43–52% windpowered for the whole year. And at times in spring 2012, half of all German electricity was renewable, nearing Spain’s 61% record set in April 2012.While the examples of Japan, China, and India show the promise of rapidly emerging energy economies built on efficiency and renewables, Germany—the world’s number four economy and Europe’s number one—has lately provided an impressive model of what a well-organized industrial society can achieve. To be sure, it’s not yet the world champion among countries with limited hydroelectricity: Denmark passed 40% renewable electricity in 2011 en route to a target of 100% by 2050, and Portugal, albeit with more hydropower, raised its renewable electricity fraction from 17% to 45% just during 2005–10 (while the U.S., though backed by a legacy of big hydro, crawled from 9% to 10%), reaching 70% in the rainy and windy first quarter of 2013. But these economies are not industrial giants like Germany, which remains the best disproof of claims that highly industrialized countries, let alone cold and cloudy ones, can do little with renewables.

Efficiency and Renewables Bolster Post-Fukushima Germany

To underscore the remarkable German case, let’s review what happened in 2011, right after Fukushima. The Bundestag—led by the most conservative and pro-nuclear party, with no party dissenting—overwhelmingly voted to close eight of the country’s nuclear plants immediately and the other nine by 2022. (In a double U-turn, a nuclear phase-out agreed in 2000 was first slowed and then reinstated; nuclear output has actually been falling since 2006.) Skeptics said this abrupt shutdown of 41% of nuclear output would make the lights go out, the economy crash, carbon emissions and electricity prices soar, and Germany need to import nuclear power from France. But none of that happened.

In fact, in 2011 the German economy grew three percent and remained Europe’s strongest, buoyed by a world-class renewables industry with 382,000 jobs (about 222,000 of them added since 2004, with net employment and net stimulus both positive). Chancellor Merkel won her bet that it would be smarter to spend energy money on German engineers, manufacturers, and installers than to send it to the Russian natural gas behemoth Gazprom. Germany’s lights stayed on. The nuclear shutdown was entirely displaced by year-end, three-fifths due to renewable growth. Do the math: simply repeating 2011’s renewable installations for three additional years, through 2014, would thus displace Germany’s entire pre-Fukushima nuclear output. Meanwhile, efficiency gains—plus a mild winter—cut total German energy use by 5.3%, electricity consumption by 1.4%, and carbon emissions by 2.8%. Wholesale electricity prices fell 10–15%. Germany remained a net exporter of electricity, and during a February 2012 cold snap, even exported nearly 3 GW to power-starved France, which remains a net importer of German electricity.

Was this just a flash in the pan? No. In 2012 vs. 2011, official data show that these trends broadly persisted.

Germany generated 617 TWh of electricity in 2012, up 0.3% from 2011. Nuclear generation fell below 100 TWh, the lowest in at least two decades. Gas prices spiked above coal, so gas-fired generation fell 13 TWh while coal-fired generation ticked up 14 TWh or 5%—still near modern lows, but boosted by a record 23 TWh of profitable power exports. Renewables added 15 TWh: they rose from 20% of electricity consumption in 2011 to 23% in 2012, passing every rival except brown coal (lignite, expected to recede in 2013). Renewable output has risen by one-third just in the past two years. And though Germany’s mix of solar, wind, biomass, hydro, etc. wouldn’t all run at the same time, its total end-of-2012 renewable generating capacity impressively rivaled the country’s 82 GW peak demand. Driven by renewables’ competition, wholesale electricity prices continued to plummet. Germany’s grid remained the most reliable in Europe. And while real GDP, damped by the Euro crisis, grew just 0.7%, electricity consumption fell 1.3%. Total carbon emissions rose 1.6%, boosted by an unusually cold winter, but emissions from industry plus power stations stayed constant, and weather-adjusted total emissions probably fell.

Renewable energy: The 99.9% solution

By Tim Radford on 22 January 2013

Computer simulation measured the performance of inland and offshore wind farms and photovoltaic cells, backed up by battery and fuel cell storage, under the lowest cost conditions, for a 72 gigawatt grid system (one gigawatt will typically provide power for about 750,000 to a million US households)..A combination of wind and solar power and sophisticated energy storage systems could keep a power grid fully supplied between 90 and 99.9% of the time, at costs comparable with today’s fossil fuel and nuclear mix, according to a new study from Delaware in the United States.

Researchers from the University of Delaware and Delaware Technical Community College will report in the Journal of Power Sources for March 2013 that they tested 28 billion combinations of renewable energy systems and storage, under four years of real load and weather data from a working commercial system.

“These results break the conventional wisdom that renewable energy is too unreliable and expensive,” said Willett Kempton of the University of Delaware, one of the team. “The key is to get the right combination of electricity sources and storage – which we did by an exhaustive search – and to calculate costs correctly.”

Power demand and supply is an engineering headache: demand fluctuates according to hour, day of the week, the weather and the season, while wind power is vulnerable to calm weather and solar power is not supplied at night.

Storage costs are huge, and increase with the need to store for each extra hour. So right now, most electrical generators burn more fossil fuel to meet extra demand.

“The common view is that a high fraction of renewable power generation would be costly and would either often leave us in the dark or require massive electrical storage,” say the researchers.

But they found quite a different result. They tweaked their computer model and varied the conditions where they could: they found that consistent wind power could be obtained if the turbine fields were dispersed at distances greater than 1,000 kilometres.

They exploited not just hydrogen fuel cells and batteries for storage, but also grid-integrated vehicles: electric cars and trucks which when not being driven also served as sources for the grid.

They calculated the cost of renewable electricity generation without subsidies from either state or federal government, and when they made comparisons with fossil power, they factored in the external health and other costs of fossil fuel pollution.

Renewable revolution: declining costs, surging capacity

By Cleantechnica on 25 January 2013

The renewable energy revolution is under way. Renewable power generation now accounts for around 50% of all new power generation capacity installed worldwide.Cleantechnica

The combination of rapid deployment and high learning rates for technology “has produced a virtuous circle that is leading to significant cost declines and is helping fuel a renewable revolution,” according to a new global study of renewable power generation costs in 2012 produced by IRENA, the International Renewable Energy Agency, which announced it is establishing its global headquarters in the United Arab Emirates during last week’s Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week.

“Renewable technologies are now the most economic solution for new capacity in an increasing number of countries and regions,” IRENA concluded upon analyzing the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) among the some 8,000 renewable power projects in its database and related literature.

IRENA: “Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2012: An Overview”

According to the IRENA report authors:

“Where oil-fired generation is the predominant power generation source (e.g. on islands, off-grid and in some countries) a lower-cost renewable solution almost always exists today.

“Renewables are also increasingly the most economic solution for new grid-connected capacity where good resources are available. As the cost of renewable power drops, the scope of economically viable applications will increase even further.”

Rapid Deployment + Fast Rates of Learning = Levelized Cost Reductions

Renewable energy Big Picture: part two by Zachary Shahan

CleanTechnica

Continuing on from Renewable Energy Big Picture: part one, here’s Renewable Energy Big Pic: Part 2. As noted yesterday, this two-post series is basically a presentation I gave to a class of renewable energy graduate students.

German Solar vs US Solar

As noted yesterday, German solar and US solar have both been growing at a fast pace for several years now, and the price of solar in both countries has been dropping steadily. However, looking at the solar power capacity of each country in a relative manner, Germany has over 21 times more solar installed per capita than the US (301.47 MW per million people compared to 13.973 MW per million people).

That’s not the only big difference between US and German solar, though. The price of solar power in the US is also a lot different than the price of solar power in Germany. We had an article back in June noting that installed solar power in Germany was at about $2.44/watt, while it was $4.44/watt in the US. The price of solar in both countries has dropped a bit since then, but the general difference remains.

And the difference exists across all solar power project sizes, as this Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) chart from November’s Tracking the Sun report shows:

So, why is solar so much cheaper in Germany?

A number of people have looked into the matter in a bit of depth. For example,CleanTechnica contributor John Farrell has produced a chart showing by how much the various costs of solar vary in the two countries, as part of his report on the matter, “Cut The Price Of Solar In Half By Cutting Red Tape.” Here’s that chart:

Here’s another chart on the split, this one from Berkeley Lab:

Some comments from Berkeley Lab: “[1] German installers reported average soft costs of $0.62/W in 2011, which is roughly $2.70/W lower than the average soft costs reported by U.S. installers… [2] Customer acquisition costs averaged just $0.07/W in Germany, or roughly $0.60/W lower than in the U.S.”

Soft costs, red tape, acquisition costs — this is where the party’s happening (or not). But now that we’ve nailed down where the price difference is occurring, how about a bit of reflection on why it’s occurring?

One noticeable cause, I think, is simply that Germany has a much more mature market. (Again, it has over 20 times more solar power installed per capita than the US.) As a market matures, competition increases, there are more economies of scale, and costs come down.

The renewable energy Big Picture: part one

By Zachary Shahan on 14 December 2012

As I mentioned in my article covering the latest US Solar Market Insight report, I recently gave a presentation on solar power growth. But the presentation was actually on much, much more than that, as you’ll see in the article below and in the one to follow tomorrow.CleanTechnica

It’s a Small World

Unbeknownst to me until a few months ago, there’s a renewable energy graduate program at a university here in Wrocław (the city where I live). Turns out that at least one of the students currently in the program is a CleanTechnica reader. He noticed that I was living in Wrocław, and decided to reach out to me. We met up at a coffee shop one day to talk solar energy (for several hours), and not long after that I was invited to give a guest lecture to his class.

Knowing that the students were more focused on the science and engineering side of things, I decided to focus my presentation on the solar and wind energy markets and key policy topics. I figured it would also be worth sharing it with you all (with plenty of text added in place of my vocal commentary, and with some chart switcharoos and additions, including a few from the new US Solar Market Insight report, which was released less than an hour after my presentation ended).

So, anyway, that’s the story; let’s get rolling….

Notably, the info below doesn’t even take into account the tremendous health costs of coal and natural gas, which would make them much more expensive “at the register” if actually included in the price.

Solar Power Price Drops

1.5 years ago, GE projected that solar power would be cheaper than fossil fuels (on average) within 5 years. With 3.5 years left, GE’s prediction definitely seems within reach. In fact, GE was putting big money into a solar cell manufacturing plant in Colorado, but in January it pulled the plug on that due to the fast-falling prices of competing solar cells. In other words, solar prices are falling even faster than GE had thought they would (and faster than most analysts and renewable energy followers thought they would).

I’ve shared the following two graphics a few times in the past couple years. They make a rather important point that doesn’t seem to get enough attention: solar power projects go up relatively fast, while nuclear and coal power plants require many more years to get designed, planned, permitted, and built. With nuclear and coal costs rising while solar costs are quickly falling, by the time a new nuclear or coal power plant would be built, its electricity would already be more expensive than electricity from solar (or wind, for that matter):

Solar is cheaper than coal, practically speaking. (To enlarge, hold down ‘ctrl’ or ‘command’ and click the ‘+’ key, or click on the image and then click on the link to the image on the next page — that’s the link that indicates the size of the image.)

Solar is cheaper than nuclear power, practically speaking. (To enlarge, hold down ‘ctrl’ or ‘command’ and click the ‘+’ key, or click on the image and then click on the link to the image on the next page — that’s the link that indicates the size of the image.)

In fact, one report from 2010 found that the solar–nuclear crossover occurred a few years ago.

Is District Heating the Way Forward for Renewable Energy?

By Denver Burke
December 17, 2012 

 

Online sources are debating the topic of district heating as an increasingly important means of generating cheap sustainable energy for future generations. What exactly is district heating and why might it help to create an interesting future for the UK and Europe?

What is district heating?

District heating or energy is a heat-generating system that is located and distributed centrally, satisfying residential and commercial heating needs such as hot water and space heating. The heat is often generated via fossil fuel plants, but increasingly these are being replaced by 'greener' methods, such as geothermal heaters, biomass boilers and solar arrays. Nuclear power is a more controversial method.

The benefits of district energy plants is that they have the ability to provide more efficient heating and better control of pollution when compared to local boilers. Research suggests that district heating, when used with combined heat and power, is the cheapest way to cut carbon emissions and produces the lowest carbon footprint. These types of power plants are being developed in Denmark as stores for renewable energies, such as those generated from the wind and sun.

Different types of district energy plants

There are different types of district heat systems and sometimes these are simply heat-only plants. Others are full power-and-heat combined plants, producing electricity as well as heat. These can be very efficient, with the more advanced facilities providing nearly 80% of heat efficiency. Such district heating plants are also being built in Ukraine, Hungary, Slovakia, Switzerland, Brazil and Sweden.

The substations will distribute the generated heat to the customer network via a series of insulated pumps, comprising of feed and return routes. These pipes are usually laid underground and the heat is usually distributed by water or steam. Steam is the less common method used, but it has the advantage of being available for industrial processing at higher temperatures. The heating network of pipes will then be connected to dwellings by heat substations. A system in Norway is currently operating successfully with this method, losing only 10% of thermal energy through its highly efficient distribution system.

RenewableEnergyWorld.com's Top 10 Most Commented Articles of 2012

By Renewable Energy World Editors
December 27, 2012  

 

New Hampshire, USA -- 2012 has been a year filled with controversial topics and interesting advancements from the trade case to the presidential election, and each development spurred heated conversation in those involved in the renewable industry. Check out the top 10 most commented articles on RenewableEnergyWorld.com in 2012 -- don't be shy, lend your own voice to the conversation!

The 10th Most Commented Article of 2012:

Hurricane Sandy Uncovers Strength and Simplicity of Renewable Energy Systems 

by Elisa Wood, Correspondent

Wind and solar are relatively safe forms of energy, a feature that we tend to overlook until a disaster hits like the "superstorm" that disabled New York City's power grid this week.

Unlike fossil fuel plants, they require no combustible fuels to generate electricity.  And there is no danger that they will leak radiation as did the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant following last year’s tsunami in Japan.

Hence, the Northeast’s wind and solar farms evoked little public anxiety this week when Hurricane Sandy hit – unlike the nuclear and fossil fuel infrastructure. Safety officials kept a careful eye on the nuclear power plants and three were shut down in New Jersey and New York. And the smell of natural gas in any flooded areas drew quick attention from those who understood the danger.

The 9th Most Commented Article of 2012:

Foreign Dominance of U.S. Clean Energy Market Spells Trouble for America

by Jennifer Runyon, Managing Editor, RenewableEnergyWorld.com

If you are a small player in the U.S. clean energy market, you are having a harder and harder time finding capital to continue to fund your business, despite that fact that your domestic market is seen as the one with the largest potential for growth. So what do you do? According to Third Way, a political think tank, you look to foreign investors.

In its latest report, Fire Sale: The End of American Ownership of Clean Energy , the self-proclaimed "moderate" organization points out that American investment in clean energy is at an all time low, all the while foreign investment in the new energy economy is increasing. The government has curtailed its investment in the sector. In its report, Third Way points out, “by 2014, federal clean tech investment is expected to drop 75%, from $44.3 billion in 2009 to $11.0 billion.”  The organization expects the government’s dwindling support to lead to decreased private sector support of renewable energy as well. And this lack of support is happening despite the fact that the clean energy industry has been one of the fastest growing industries in the U.S. for the past few years.

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