ProLogis, a warehouse and distribution company, is building a 2.4 megawatt solar power project on the roofs of seven warehouses in Portland, Oregon.
This is the second rooftop solar project built by Prologis and Portland General Electric (PGE), the local utility. Together, the two projects will generate 3.5 MW of solar energy.
There's more. ProLogis has solar power projects installed or under construction on 27 other buildings in France, Germany, Japan, Spain and the United States. The installations cover more than 8.1 million square feet (755,000 square meters) of roof space and will produce 13.5 MWs of electricity.
ProLogis says that it has another 450 million square feet (42 million square meters) of roof space available for solar installations on industrial buildings in the United States, Europe and Asia.
So could this be the start of something really big?
That depends as much on regulatory and financial environments as it does on natural environments.
Oregon and the European nations where ProLogis is building solar projects have regulatory and financial frameworks that make these projects possible. For example, the Oregon Renewable Energy Act mandates that the largest utilities in the State must deliver 25 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2025. To meet the mandates, Oregon utilities will require about 1,500 megawatts of renewable energy by 2025.
Oregon also has a feed-in tariff that allows renewable energy to be sold back to the grid. In the ProLogis project, all the generated power will feed directly into PGE's electrical system to serve its customers.
Oregon's incentives for promoting renewable energy include an extensive menu of financial incentives including tax credits, production incentives, and loans for renewable energy, on top of federal incentives.
Oregon's regulatory structure and financial incentives have created new business opportunities for everyone involved in the ProLogis project. PGE formed a joint venture with US Bank to own and operate the system and to secure state and federal solar tax credits to help finance the project. In addition to receiving rent payments, ProLogis established its own Renewable Energy group to procure new business, manage installations and provide development management services.
ProLogis hopes this will turn into an extension of its global distribution and logistics business. "Our program is unique because we have dedicated resources across the globe," says Drew Torbin, vice president of renewable energy for ProLogis. He adds that ProLogis has "the construction management experience and local relationships to get solar installations on the fast-track to completion."
John Howley
Orlando, Florida
Showing posts with label distributed generation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label distributed generation. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Windmills on Office Buildings?
Solar panels on office buildings and homes have become almost commonplace. But windmills?That is what SC Johnson is doing at its corporate headquarters in Racine, Wisconsin. The company has launched a wind energy pilot program with the installation of three new wind turbines. The objectives are to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and raise awareness that renewable energy is not just for factories, but also office buildings in urban settings.
The three wind turbines are located on the roof of one of the seven buildings on SC Johnson's international headquarters campus, which has an approximate eight block radius and where more than 1,300 employees work. The wind turbines are expected to be fully functioning by the end of the month. Once fully operational, the turbines will be connected to the company's electrical distribution system. The output they generate will power a small portion of the company's campus.
Admittedly, this is a test project and it is difficult to project how many computers, machines and other basic office resources can be powered by renewable energy. "While we are not sure how much alternative energy these turbines will produce, we expect to have clear, consistent results within a year," said Johnson. "This pilot program will help provide useful information on ways we can develop more sustainable solutions for our campus."
The turbines are expected to be fully installed and connected in late January and will be monitored closely throughout the year. Depending on the impact of the turbine's energy output, it is possible the company will extend the project to additional local SC Johnson facilities.
This is not SC Johnson's first foray into sustainable energy. Its largest global factory, based in Racine, Wisconsin, is partially powered with cogeneration using methane gas from a local public landfill. The company's Bay City, Michigan plant is powered with wind energy, reducing the annual purchase of coal-fired electricity by nearly half. In Indonesia, waste palm shells are burned as a substitute for fuel, using 80 percent less diesel fuel, and in Mijdrecht, The Netherlands, the company's largest European manufacturing facility is operated by an 80 meter-tall wind turbine which is expected to eliminate 3,900 tons of carbon dioxide annually.
Through these efforts, approximately 36 percent of SC Johnson's total electricity usage worldwide came from renewable energy. The company cut GHG emissions at its worldwide factories by 27 percent during the last eight years, including all its United States operations by 17 percent since 2005. These reductions -- achieved three full years ahead of the company's 2011 target -- are the equivalent of taking approximately 11,100 U.S. cars off the road for one year.
John Howley
Orlando, Florida
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
New Jersey Getting 12 More Megawatts of Grid-Connected Solar Power
New Jersey’s largest regulated gas and electric utility is adding 12 megawatts of grid-connected solar energy. PSE&G hopes to start construction at its sites in Edison, Hamilton, Linden and Trenton this spring, with projects completed this summer and fall.
The four ground-mounted solar farms will be among the largest to be developed in New Jersey, with the Hamilton project being the largest in the state and the project in Linden the second largest. All four sites will utilize crystalline solar panel technology and have monitoring and communications functionality.
Together, the four projects will add 48,000 solar panels on 38.2 acres of property. They will produce enough energy to power about 1,300 homes and eliminate some 6,700 tons of CO2 emissions, the equivalent of removing nearly 1,200 cars from the road for one year.
The State of New Jersey has become a leader in solar energy installations in the last few years, installing more than 100 MW of solar energy, making it second only to California in terms of the amount of solar capacity installed.
"We're moving ahead with clean energy projects that will put people to work, installing tens of thousands of solar panels that will help the environment and stimulate the economy," said Ralph LaRossa, president and COO of PSE&G.
The latest projects are part of PSE&G's Solar 4 All program, which was approved by state regulators in July. The program involves a total of $515 million investment in 80 megawatts of solar, creating green jobs and nearly doubling the size of New Jersey's installed solar capacity.
The four ground-mounted solar farms will be among the largest to be developed in New Jersey, with the Hamilton project being the largest in the state and the project in Linden the second largest. All four sites will utilize crystalline solar panel technology and have monitoring and communications functionality.
Together, the four projects will add 48,000 solar panels on 38.2 acres of property. They will produce enough energy to power about 1,300 homes and eliminate some 6,700 tons of CO2 emissions, the equivalent of removing nearly 1,200 cars from the road for one year.
The State of New Jersey has become a leader in solar energy installations in the last few years, installing more than 100 MW of solar energy, making it second only to California in terms of the amount of solar capacity installed.
"We're moving ahead with clean energy projects that will put people to work, installing tens of thousands of solar panels that will help the environment and stimulate the economy," said Ralph LaRossa, president and COO of PSE&G.
The latest projects are part of PSE&G's Solar 4 All program, which was approved by state regulators in July. The program involves a total of $515 million investment in 80 megawatts of solar, creating green jobs and nearly doubling the size of New Jersey's installed solar capacity.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
More Important Than Copenhagen
I told you so.
Four months ago, I predicted that, "Those looking for simple solutions to climate change will be very disappointed by the absence of firm emission reduction targets in Copenhagen later this year. . . . But at the same time, [the US and China] will pursue a second path of cooperation towards achievable solutions with or without an agreement on targets." See US and China Forge a New Path on Climate Change.
That is exactly what the US and China did in Copenhagen yesterday.
Why? Because nothing this important and this complicated ever gets resolved by a committee.
Consider for a moment the race to put a man on the moon. Thomas Friedman and others have said that this should be our model for the Green energy revolution.
I agree. But we did not get to the moon by holding international conventions and listening to dictators and despots like Iran's Ahmadinejad, Zimbabwe's Mugabe, and Venezuela's Chavez lecture us on the evil nature of our plans to be the first to put a man on the moon. Nor did we wait until we could reach the lowest common denominator consensus with Russia, China and 180 other nations on how and when to put a man on the moon.
If we had followed the path of seeking international consensus before we went to the moon, then we probably never would have achieved the goal.
So, now that we have gotten Copenhagen out of our system, let's get down to the serious work of pursuing the Green energy revolution the old fashioned way. With vigorous competition among nations to be the most energy efficient and energy independent economies in the world.
Walmart has given us a good first step. The company has sent out a Sustainability Index survey to 100,000 of its suppliers. The survey asks each supplier to provide information about their carbon footprint, energy and water usage, plans and goals to reduce their carbon footprint, energy consumption and water usage, and other factors that affect the sustainability of their operations. For now, Walmart will review this data internally. But it plans in later stages to release the data to consumers and possibly even disclose a ranking of individual products based on a Sustainability Index for the product and the company that manufactured it.
If you were a factory owner in China, what would provide a better incentive for you to reduce your carbon footprint and use of energy and water? (a) An international treaty that committed China to nation-wide carbon reduction targets over a 20 or 30 year period? Or (b) a Walmart Sustainability Index that made your products unsellable to the world's largest retailer unless you reduced your own company's carbon footprint and use of energy and water?
Forget Copenhagen. We need barriers to entry that will make it difficult for producers around the world to sell their products unless they are made using non-polluting energy sources and sustainable manufacturing practices.
We also need to alter the economics of energy at home. Yes, solar and wind are more expensive than most carbon-emitting alternatives right now. But only because those carbon-emitting alternatives do not pay the full cost of their pollution. If we make coal and oil companies include in their pricing the cost of eliminating their products' emissions (either with cap and trade or a carbon tax), then solar, wind and other non-emitting alternatives would seem very inexpensive by comparison.
Lastly, we need to use government funding and regulations to promote sustainable energy based on the long-term benefits -- just as we did when we used government funds to finance space exploration.
Imagine, for example, if all new construction and renovations in the US had to be "net zero" in terms of direct and indirect carbon emissions. By "net zero" I mean that the amount of energy used by a facility from non-carbon-emitting sources like solar and wind is equal to or exceeds the amount of energy from carbon-emitting sources. This could be accomplished by a combination of building codes requiring higher levels of efficiency in buildings (which many local governments are already imposing) and subsidies for investments in solar, wind and other non-carbon-emitting energy sources.
Yes, this would cost us in the short term. But think for a moment about the competitive advantage this would give us in the longer term. What if five or ten years from now our factories used highly efficient buildings that required less energy, and that energy was supplied by solar and wind plants that had ZERO fuel costs. Our factories would have a tremendous competitive advantage over factories in China and elsewhere that continued to use power generated by coal and petroleum fuels.
I hear all those out there who say that climate issues are different because they transcend borders. But space travel transcended borders too. And we did not succeed with space travel by waiting for everyone to agree. We went out and did it.
John Howley
Woodbridge, New Jersey
Four months ago, I predicted that, "Those looking for simple solutions to climate change will be very disappointed by the absence of firm emission reduction targets in Copenhagen later this year. . . . But at the same time, [the US and China] will pursue a second path of cooperation towards achievable solutions with or without an agreement on targets." See US and China Forge a New Path on Climate Change.
That is exactly what the US and China did in Copenhagen yesterday.
Why? Because nothing this important and this complicated ever gets resolved by a committee.
Consider for a moment the race to put a man on the moon. Thomas Friedman and others have said that this should be our model for the Green energy revolution.
I agree. But we did not get to the moon by holding international conventions and listening to dictators and despots like Iran's Ahmadinejad, Zimbabwe's Mugabe, and Venezuela's Chavez lecture us on the evil nature of our plans to be the first to put a man on the moon. Nor did we wait until we could reach the lowest common denominator consensus with Russia, China and 180 other nations on how and when to put a man on the moon.
If we had followed the path of seeking international consensus before we went to the moon, then we probably never would have achieved the goal.
So, now that we have gotten Copenhagen out of our system, let's get down to the serious work of pursuing the Green energy revolution the old fashioned way. With vigorous competition among nations to be the most energy efficient and energy independent economies in the world.
Walmart has given us a good first step. The company has sent out a Sustainability Index survey to 100,000 of its suppliers. The survey asks each supplier to provide information about their carbon footprint, energy and water usage, plans and goals to reduce their carbon footprint, energy consumption and water usage, and other factors that affect the sustainability of their operations. For now, Walmart will review this data internally. But it plans in later stages to release the data to consumers and possibly even disclose a ranking of individual products based on a Sustainability Index for the product and the company that manufactured it.
If you were a factory owner in China, what would provide a better incentive for you to reduce your carbon footprint and use of energy and water? (a) An international treaty that committed China to nation-wide carbon reduction targets over a 20 or 30 year period? Or (b) a Walmart Sustainability Index that made your products unsellable to the world's largest retailer unless you reduced your own company's carbon footprint and use of energy and water?
Forget Copenhagen. We need barriers to entry that will make it difficult for producers around the world to sell their products unless they are made using non-polluting energy sources and sustainable manufacturing practices.
We also need to alter the economics of energy at home. Yes, solar and wind are more expensive than most carbon-emitting alternatives right now. But only because those carbon-emitting alternatives do not pay the full cost of their pollution. If we make coal and oil companies include in their pricing the cost of eliminating their products' emissions (either with cap and trade or a carbon tax), then solar, wind and other non-emitting alternatives would seem very inexpensive by comparison.
Lastly, we need to use government funding and regulations to promote sustainable energy based on the long-term benefits -- just as we did when we used government funds to finance space exploration.
Imagine, for example, if all new construction and renovations in the US had to be "net zero" in terms of direct and indirect carbon emissions. By "net zero" I mean that the amount of energy used by a facility from non-carbon-emitting sources like solar and wind is equal to or exceeds the amount of energy from carbon-emitting sources. This could be accomplished by a combination of building codes requiring higher levels of efficiency in buildings (which many local governments are already imposing) and subsidies for investments in solar, wind and other non-carbon-emitting energy sources.
Yes, this would cost us in the short term. But think for a moment about the competitive advantage this would give us in the longer term. What if five or ten years from now our factories used highly efficient buildings that required less energy, and that energy was supplied by solar and wind plants that had ZERO fuel costs. Our factories would have a tremendous competitive advantage over factories in China and elsewhere that continued to use power generated by coal and petroleum fuels.
I hear all those out there who say that climate issues are different because they transcend borders. But space travel transcended borders too. And we did not succeed with space travel by waiting for everyone to agree. We went out and did it.
John Howley
Woodbridge, New Jersey
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Distributed Generation? Try Distributed Storage.
One of the hot topics in renewable energy is "distributed generation." If every home and business would install some solar panels or small wind turbines to generate their own electricity, then any excess electricity could be sold back to the grid. Build enough small solar photovoltaic systems and windmills, the theory goes, and we won't have to build as many coal-fired power plants.
Those who support this concept make analogies to the internet, where the computing power and brainpower of numerous individuals and their personal computers can be harnessed via distributed computing and wikis and social networks into something really big and powerful.
Will the same concept work with “distributed generation” of electricity?
Not exactly.
Asa an energy efficiency measure, putting solar panels and wind turbines on individual facilities is a very good idea. It will reduce the need for that facility to draw power from the grid. But for large scale production of electricity and selling back to the grid, distributed generation does not provide the quality control and economies of scale necessary for the efficient generation and distribution of electricity. Let’s look at those two issues:
Power Quality. The internet works by allowing everyone to post whatever information they want, without any initial filter on quality. That won't work on the electric grid.
An efficient power distribution system requires that power quality (voltage, harmonics, etc.) be maintained at all times. That is difficult enough to accomplish with highly variable generation sources such as wind and solar. Every time the wind dies down or clouds start to cover the solar panels in one geographic area, the grid would have to find power elsewhere to maintain adequate voltage levels. That is a very difficult and complicated task when you are dealing with large wind and solar farms. It is even more difficult when the wind and solar power is being supplied by thousands, or tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of different sources, each with its own variations in power quality.
Economies of Scale. Building small windmills and solar photovoltaic arrays is not very cost efficient. The number of workers required per megawatt -- and the gasoline they will use going from one site to another -- makes this a very inefficient process. And what about maintenance? Can we really afford a renewable energy system that requires maintenance crews to take care of generation capacity that is located at hundreds or thousands of different locations?
Does that mean our electric power systems will continue to be centralized? Yes, but only on the generation side. On the storage side, distributed networks may offer an excellent solution to the problem of matching generation with demand.
The biggest inefficiency in our current electric power system is caused by the need to build excess generation capacity to meet peak demand. Many electric utilities have generators that are used less than 40% of the time. They exist solely to provide extra power when it is needed -- like from 7 am to 7 pm when every office building has its lights, computers, fax machines and HVAC systems turned on. And on that very hot August day when everyone turns on their incredibly inefficient window air-conditioning units at the same time.
Power companies must build enough generating capacity to handle the highest possible peak demand for electricity. When we operate substantially below peak capacity (like, almost every night of the year), that peak capacity goes wasted.
The real problem is not generation, but storage. If we could use that generating capacity at night and store the electricity for the next day, then we would have a truly efficient system.
Fran Lamparello, my good friend and business partner, sees the future of energy storage by looking at the past. Fran has spent his entire working life in different aspects of the energy industry, from designing building controls systems to running a home heating oil distribution business. He envisions a time in the near future when the electric utilities will address energy storage the same way the home heating oil industry did. At the customer's home or business.
By putting storage tanks at each customer's home or business, the oil companies turned their customers into a "distributed storage" network. It was a very efficient system. The distributor could buy home heating fuel during the off season when prices were low, and then store it until the winter. The distributor did not have to pay for storage of large fuel inventories because it could store that inventory at the customer's home or business. Properly sized, an oil tank at the home or business also reduced the number of trips that had to be made to deliver fuel to the customer.
Fran and I predict that you will see the same type of distributed storage system with electricity. As the efficiency and cost of fuel cells and other storage mechanisms for electricity improve, you will see utilities offering to put that storage mechanism on site at the customer's location. It may be in the form of electric cars as Tom Friedman predicts in his book "Hot, Flat, and Crowded," or it may be in the form of fuel cells.
The real value of the internet model for electricity is not “distributed generation.” It is “distributed storage.” Do not put a solar panel on every roof. Put a hydrogen fuel cell in every backyard or basement! Or an electric car in every garage!
John Howley
Manila, Philippines
Those who support this concept make analogies to the internet, where the computing power and brainpower of numerous individuals and their personal computers can be harnessed via distributed computing and wikis and social networks into something really big and powerful.
Will the same concept work with “distributed generation” of electricity?
Not exactly.
Asa an energy efficiency measure, putting solar panels and wind turbines on individual facilities is a very good idea. It will reduce the need for that facility to draw power from the grid. But for large scale production of electricity and selling back to the grid, distributed generation does not provide the quality control and economies of scale necessary for the efficient generation and distribution of electricity. Let’s look at those two issues:
Power Quality. The internet works by allowing everyone to post whatever information they want, without any initial filter on quality. That won't work on the electric grid.
An efficient power distribution system requires that power quality (voltage, harmonics, etc.) be maintained at all times. That is difficult enough to accomplish with highly variable generation sources such as wind and solar. Every time the wind dies down or clouds start to cover the solar panels in one geographic area, the grid would have to find power elsewhere to maintain adequate voltage levels. That is a very difficult and complicated task when you are dealing with large wind and solar farms. It is even more difficult when the wind and solar power is being supplied by thousands, or tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of different sources, each with its own variations in power quality.
Economies of Scale. Building small windmills and solar photovoltaic arrays is not very cost efficient. The number of workers required per megawatt -- and the gasoline they will use going from one site to another -- makes this a very inefficient process. And what about maintenance? Can we really afford a renewable energy system that requires maintenance crews to take care of generation capacity that is located at hundreds or thousands of different locations?
Does that mean our electric power systems will continue to be centralized? Yes, but only on the generation side. On the storage side, distributed networks may offer an excellent solution to the problem of matching generation with demand.
The biggest inefficiency in our current electric power system is caused by the need to build excess generation capacity to meet peak demand. Many electric utilities have generators that are used less than 40% of the time. They exist solely to provide extra power when it is needed -- like from 7 am to 7 pm when every office building has its lights, computers, fax machines and HVAC systems turned on. And on that very hot August day when everyone turns on their incredibly inefficient window air-conditioning units at the same time.
Power companies must build enough generating capacity to handle the highest possible peak demand for electricity. When we operate substantially below peak capacity (like, almost every night of the year), that peak capacity goes wasted.
The real problem is not generation, but storage. If we could use that generating capacity at night and store the electricity for the next day, then we would have a truly efficient system.
Fran Lamparello, my good friend and business partner, sees the future of energy storage by looking at the past. Fran has spent his entire working life in different aspects of the energy industry, from designing building controls systems to running a home heating oil distribution business. He envisions a time in the near future when the electric utilities will address energy storage the same way the home heating oil industry did. At the customer's home or business.
By putting storage tanks at each customer's home or business, the oil companies turned their customers into a "distributed storage" network. It was a very efficient system. The distributor could buy home heating fuel during the off season when prices were low, and then store it until the winter. The distributor did not have to pay for storage of large fuel inventories because it could store that inventory at the customer's home or business. Properly sized, an oil tank at the home or business also reduced the number of trips that had to be made to deliver fuel to the customer.
Fran and I predict that you will see the same type of distributed storage system with electricity. As the efficiency and cost of fuel cells and other storage mechanisms for electricity improve, you will see utilities offering to put that storage mechanism on site at the customer's location. It may be in the form of electric cars as Tom Friedman predicts in his book "Hot, Flat, and Crowded," or it may be in the form of fuel cells.
The real value of the internet model for electricity is not “distributed generation.” It is “distributed storage.” Do not put a solar panel on every roof. Put a hydrogen fuel cell in every backyard or basement! Or an electric car in every garage!
John Howley
Manila, Philippines
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