Unfortunately, there’s very little evidence that cleaner energy technology will take hold without mandates and incentives. Suppliers and consumers are comfortable with the status-quo of fossil fuel dependency when the alternative would mean a large upfront cost. The near-sighted vision prevails that places more importance on next quarter’s bottom line over long-term cost savings with an investment in more efficient operations and energy choice.
Where the true cost of energy is factored in, including environmental impacts, then there is progress. Slapping fines on emissions or taxing high-emission fuels provides the necessary incentive to make better choices for the long term.
It’s hard to fathom how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce can make claims that mandates and incentives “distort the market,” when they provide an across-the-board incentive for more efficient operations and provide real business opportunity for countless suppliers and service companies. When all companies share the burden, then the move to more efficient operations stands to stimulate the markets while driving down operations cost.
It’s the nature of shared burdens that makes good business sense here, as no one company or region is singled out with higher burdens, thus evening the playing field for all to make the necessary changes. In businesses where change would harm operations, they can choose to pay fines or transfer their impact through such mechanisms as cap and trade. The choice is up to the business, with options that stand to benefit all.
While in the U.S. the states have set standards for a certain percentage of renewable energy by a specific date (20% by 2020 in Colorado where I live), it makes the most sense to have a national standard. The push for energy companies to buy energy from consumers greatly stimulates the local market with solar and wind installers working with home owners and driving down the cost of these alternatives due the increasing demand.
Mandates and incentives on energy have far-reaching positive impacts — mitigating global warming, saving individuals and corporations money by reducing energy costs, and increasing global security by reducing the reliance on foreign oil. Let’s bring on more mandates and incentives for quicker green rewards.
There is little doubt that energy related issues are dominating much of the sustainable future discussion today. On one side of that equation a large number of people think that more awareness, education and discussion is the way forward. Alternatively, others consider legislation as a driver toward action and bringing about the changes that would create a sustainable energy future. Which is it?
While it appears that energy related issues have suddenly arrived front and center on the world stage, the truth is that they have been on the stage for a long time. What has changed more quickly is the recognition that to enable a sustainable energy future will require some smooth footwork, clever thinking and prudent planning.
Climate change aside, there are significant and important reasons to be thinking about energy more than ever. Non-renewable resources are decreasing as consumption grows, cost of exploration and production can be prohibitive or uneconomical and transport of energy may be unreliable, impossible or simply not a viable option. Add in the views of climate change and the need to embark upon changes multiplies, grows and becomes more oriented to the near future, rather than the distant future.
But what is the best and most effective method for building capacity towards a sustainable future for energy? I am not sure we have all the answers yet, and, depending upon who one listens to, we are either closer or further from the realisation. Either way, the need to act is a requirement and the need to involve people in the future changes is an important step.
One option would be to initiate government action and simply quantify, qualify and regulate the change. This would have the effect of imposing the solution, create an environment where capacity might not be able to measure up to the legislation and simply disorient the energy market with higher costs at a time when creative solutions appear to be the answer.
The second alternative involves education and this approach would engage people into the energy debate, helping them to understand the issues of production, sustainability and the economic correlation of choices. Some people say a solution likely lies in the middle somewhere, although one could easily argue that we don’t know enough about energy sustainability to create either option effectively and knowledgeably.
It is hard to argue against involving people into the energy debate. They can participate through elements of the energy equation susch as efficiency whereby their choices on products, services and solutions become more or less ‘green.’ It appears, to me at least, that we have not connected the dots for people about the total costs of ownership – of energy – and how those evolve.
Producing solar energy at the north pole is not likely to be as lucrative as producing solar energy near Spain or Florida or Manila, for example. Dams are not often present in deserts and moving oil and gas in pipelines under water can be costly. There is a geographical basis for considering energy supply and demand, and there are locations where certain types of energy are more in abundance than others. All of these factors impact economics. Would you prefer these options legislated or revealed through education? What we don’t know can be costly.
But we need to stop beating around the bush and meet the energy supply and demand question directly. Perhaps looking at the equation as being polar opposite is not the way to go. Instead, we need to begin thinking of these options on a continuum, one that can adapt and workable dependent upon requirements, regional issues and while pursuing national and international strategies.
All too often we use the ruler of climate change as the sole goal for inacting energy change. There are some very positive reasons for pursuing wind, solar, geothermal and other sources of reneable energy – in addition to – oil, coal and gas, for example. Renewable energies are like Google advertising. Everyone can advert and get a little back. Similarly, everyone can produce some energy, feed it into a grid and then get some back too.
We need more people understanding how they can get some back, and that involves educating them to costs of production, consumption, exploration and development.
Once this equation is understand and balanced, then sustainability can flourish and energy exploration, production and consumption can coexist within a framework that supports people, jobs, government, business and employment, but also grows to include more research and further sustainable development.
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Jeff Thurston is editor of V1 Energy magazine and V1 Magazine for Vector1 Media. He is based in Berlin.
Today’s electronic devices suck power even when they’re turned off. From televisions, to DVD players, to computers, to chargers, they’re all drawing power from the outlet even when you’re not using them. Those little LED’s and stand-by modes draw trickles of energy called “phantom power” that can add up to 5 percent of household energy use and about $200 a year on average.
The factor that compounds the problem is the number of devices that we own has also exploded exponentially from three per household in 1980 to more than 25 today (according the New York Times). With new handheld gadgets cropping up at an almost daily pace, this trend is likely to continue.
So, how do we combat these drains on household electrical efficiency? To start you can begin using power strips and turning off the whole strip when you leave the room. You can also be certain to purchase energy efficient appliances, and unplug things when they’re not in use.
It’s better for all to invest in efficiency, and manufacturers of such devices should also receive a clear message that we’re all interested in more efficient devices. Reducing energy use means reducing emissions, so let’s all exorcise the phantoms in our homes.
RESOURCES
- An online database of products standby energy use from the Federal Energy Management Program at the U.S. Department of Energy.
- Buy electronics with the Energy Star label, see EnergyStar.gov.
The word sustainability is used by many people today. Many companies and individuals are promoting a ‘green’ future and even governments are now tackling the energy equation, from production through to consumption. Some are even developing new policies based on sustainable strategies.
This past week the German Ministry of Environment, for example, indicated that it could achieve a 43% decrease in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, the date set by the Europeans as having special significance. Living in Berlin, Germany, I see the change in energy action all around me. It is in the agricultural fields as greater numbers of wind turbines are spinning around, it is atop the houses with growing numbers of buildings adorned in blue shiny panels.
A trip to a German building and home show is perhaps the single most evident place to find the move to energy efficiency and sustainability in action. Almost everything within the show has an energy angle, pointing out the energy saved, heating gained or lower cost of electrical consumption. The building materials are rated, the construction methods altered to meet energy requirements, and the techniques for construction improved, often made more light-weight and durable.
In simple terms, energy sustainability means that production and consumption match – net zero gain. Yet, we all know that a growing population around the globe is consuming energy at a rapid rate, and not likely to reduce this pattern any time soon. The struggle to meet sustainability either means changing energy types, thereby pursuing those that are more capable of producing more energy per unit than others, or working on the consumption part of the equation and reducing global energy use.
When I consider all that I see around me in terms of a country, which happens to be a leader in terms of the net zero energy pursuit, it really causes me to wonder. The initiatives and their magnitude are large. The country already has some 13,000 turbines spinning in the wind. They seem to be common when traveling now. In some areas, solar panels are on so many roofs that it is near impossible not to see them.
What’s going on here? Germany has half the sun of San Diego, yet 40,000 people work in the German solar industry, which is growing as research continues. A new ‘Hybrid’ power plant north of Berlin recently opened, it combines energy sources into one integrated energy supply – a reflection of the future in its own right.
At the same time, nuclear energy is making a comeback of sorts, evident to the north in Scandinavia mostly, but more often talked about in Germany as well.
The changes are happening. I see them, they are everywhere. Not only are they happening, but they are being measured. The ‘Renewable BootPrint’ as I’ll call it, is the measurement of environmental indicators under the influence of sustainable energy policies involving renewable sources that provides a wealth of maps, data and otherwise important indication of the real changes happening. See them here.
I realised a while back that my mind is way beyond the climate change debate. The obvious is obvious to me. The pursuit of sustainable energy, en force, is a veritable gold mine of activity in research, education, sales, scientific study and exports. By simply pursuing it, with a vengeance, climate change will be significantly mitigated, significantly – although I am not sure about net zero given population growth.
Energy Sustainability is looking more like something that runs through the entire economy. Something that is dynamic and connects different people and objects locally, but whose relationship changes instantly at times, and slower at others. It seems like it is more readily measured now than before, and monitoring it will get easier, not harder – if we clue into it and make the effort, assigning the resources and focusing on the job of doing.
The part that is not yet understood as well, is how people will behave while living in a society where objects around them ‘think’ with energy mindsets.
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Jeff Thurston is editor of V1 Energy Magazine and V1 Magazine. He is based in Berlin and responsible for Europe, Middle East and Africa for Vector1 Media.
Increasingly large corporations are taking a strong look at their energy use, not just to be greener, but to drive down energy expenses. The rising cost of energy has created the incentive to look for greater efficiency. Harnessing real-time sensors in your facility or campus can provide dramatic cost savings that quickly repay this investment.
The next wave of wireless IP-addressable temperature and control sensors are making a big impact. With these wireless devices, there’s very little installation hassle or cost. The system is designed, sensors are put in place, and immediately an organization has a much better understanding of their facility’s energy use.
On the system side, the centralized analysis tools reveal energy baselines so that you can begin to make adjustments in your energy use. The ability to view and control energy use reveals a whole new level of facility maintenance opportunities. For instance, the benefits of switching to compact fluorescent lighting becomes quickly apparent with viewable energy savings.
Patterns of energy use over time also become apparent. Because energy costs rise based on peak demands, the astute facility manager can discern these patterns and adjust demands by staggering the use of high-energy appliances, and dramatically draw down their energy bills. Instead of an early-morning ramp up of all systems, perhaps there are opportunities to run things at night or to run machines at slower speeds and volumes over longer periods of time.
The cost savings can easily equal 15 percent of a yearly utility bill. While that cost savings may not sound like much in the context of a home owner, consider the energy costs of such facilities as a complex manufacturing plant, a hotel, or a large retail outlet. A 15-percent savings in those contexts could easily measure in the millions of dollars.
These sensors and energy analytics tools should usher in a whole new business model for facility maintenance. Instead of just incentive pay tied to facility upkeep measures, facility managers should be given incentives for how efficiently they run their facility. Given the right incentives, owner/operators may be quite pleasantly surprised by how efficiently their operations can run.
There’s growing sentiment in the United States that countries across the world are getting the jump on renewable energy innovation. Thomas L. Friedman of the New York Times has written repeatedly of the need to go green, and he warns in a recent column that China’s decision to go green should be seen as, “The New Sputnik“. There’s also a recent column in the San Francisco Chronicle that extols that the “U.S. Must Take the Lead In Renewable Energy.” While the sense of urgency is compelling in light of energy’s role in climate change, what else is at stake regarding this new global competition for renewable energy dominance?
Economics of Innovation
America has long been on the global forefront of innovation, leading the way in developing automobiles, electricity, computers, and information technology. While a great deal of early renewable energy innovation took place here in the 1970’s during that oil crisis, the world has largely passed us by in developing renewable energy technologies and harnessing clean power.
There’s a pride of innovation here as well as the distinct potential for China’s large-scale renewable production efforts to make it become the number one global economy. America has largely gone from a producing to a consuming nation, which works when the technology that we buy is owned by U.S. companies, but manufactured elsewhere. Without American companies innovating in the renewable energy sector we stand to suffer a large economic impact as global change continues to force us to go green.
Energy Independence
The fossil fuel dependence in the United States is largely blamed as the impetus for our involvement in the conflicts in the Middle East. This dependence on foreign oil leads to dramatic economic imbalances when oil prices spike, harming the viability of a number of oil-dependent businesses.
The global security implications of this dependence has spurred the U.S. military to make sweeping commitments to renewable energy to power their bases. It’s interesting that the Pentagon has embraced renewable energy far in advance of our political leaders.
Without more federal leadership in the shift to go green, Americans will be surpassed by other countries, regions and companies. Energy technology is the next great emerging market, and no country can afford to lag in innovation.
Electricity was first harnessed successfully in the “Golden Age of Invention” by Thomas Edison and a number of innovative peers. This age of invention saw the creation and proliferation of the automobile and a great many other devices, largely of a mechanical nature, to improve the quality of everyday life.
Since that time, mechanical skills have flagged as we’ve put more energy into software and system development in our current Information Age. The rise of the Internet has led smart minds on a frenzy of software invention that have dramatically changed our outlook on the world. One could certainly equate the impacts of the “Age of Invention” with today’s “Age of Information” in terms of life-changing developments brought about by human innovation.
The world is now faced with global change that is largely brought about by the way that we live upon the planet. This change demands that we consume fewer fossil fuels, turning to cleaner fuels to reduce our impacts on our planet. There are abundant opportunities to harness free and available energy from our Earth systems with little environmental impact. In this coming age that’s focused on our survival on the planet, we’ll need a strong focus on mechanical solutions along with a broader and deeper understanding of the balance of life on our planet.
The challenges that we face from climate change will need to bring together the brightest mechanical and system-oriented minds, striking a balance between efficient machinery and tools to monitor, maintain and balance energy creation with the minimum of environmental impacts. It will be necessary to unleash a tsunami of creativity and innovation in order to address these overwhelming challenges.
Our mechanical minds have a broad range of challenges to address in order to efficiently harness hydro, biomass, wind, solar, wave and geothermal power. We need new machinery to transform these sources into clean and efficient energy sources at all scales.
The sharp minds that have been honed on software and systems design need to create new tools and systems to monitor our Earth from a granular to global scale. At this point we know that our impacts have pushed our planet into a climate crisis, but we’re just beginning to understand how we got there, and we’ll need far better monitoring and analysis to be able to reverse the course.
We’ve seen what great minds can accomplish when sparked by a flurry of innovation. The momentum is now growing to train our young people to address these issues that are of critical importance. Thankfully, we have an exciting foundation of mechanical and software innovation to build upon. We’ll all need to collaborate to bring the best of both to the problems ahead.
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Matt Ball is editor of V1 Energy and V1 Magazine for the Americas and Asia Pacific.
There are a slew of government incentives to subsidize renewable energy development. These incentives go a long way toward making the investment in renewable energy a practical choice. It can be hard to justify an investment when the math might indicate a 10 to 20 year timeline to receive a return on that investment, but incentives drive those return times down with a more practical ‘big picture’ perspective.
The savings from renewable energy include environmental costs, security costs and economic costs. However, in a down economy it’s tough to pull together funds for capital improvements that have long-term returns, especially when the costs for traditional fossil fuel energy sources are low due to complex market forces. Governments have a big role to play toward encouraging capital expenditure on renewables that factor in the long-term benefits that make these choices very beneficial for our global sustainability.
Aggressive Targets
There are increasingly high targets for percentage of renewable energy being passed into law on both federal and regional levels. The government of Australia just passed a target of 20% contribution to electricity production from renewables by 2020, which matches the aggressive goal set by the European Union. The United States doesn’t have a federal mandate, but many states have a goal of 15 to 20 percent renewable energy by 2020.
These aggressive goals create a considerable market for renewable energy action that likely wouldn’t have come about without established targets. The targets provide a sense of urgency and mandate movements from energy providers and large energy consumers.
Taxes Now and Future
Several local entities waive the sales tax on any solar hardware sales for home-based systems. Savings of three to six percent can add up considerably when a whole-home system cost reaches into the tens of thousands of doallars. Similarly, for utility-scale plants the value of the plants are often assessed at a much lower level of property tax than comparable traditional energy plants.
Carbon tax and trade is a growing possibility for power companies and large energy consumers. The incentive to make renewable energy choices now, in order to avoid carbon taxes in the future, is growing. Where carbon cap and trade schemes already exist, there are increasing incentives for companies to drive down their emissions in order to sell their credits for polluting less. Here, the threat of future taxes on emissions provides a powerful incentive for large greenhouse gas emitters to make a change.
Loans, Grants and Rebates
The use of loans, grants and rebates provide a means to incentivize the installation of renewable energy in homes and businesses. There are a great number of creative solutions that have been devised in order to make these investments attainable and practical for all income levels and business sizes.
There’s a growing movement for the creation of third party leasing agents that cover the full cost of the installation of solar panels on a home, and then charge the homeowner a monthly fee to recoup the install cost. The homeowner gets to use the energy generated by the new system, which draws down their utility bill, and they gradually pay off the capital improvement cost of the new system. Here, the monthly bill can equal the cost of the savings, so it provides a good incentive to help quickly proliferate these systems.
Several municipalities have set up special renewable energy grant programs that help to fund the installation of solar water heaters and photovoltaicarrays for low-income or nonprofit entities. The funding mechanism for these grants are often the taxes that would have been collected from their sale and use. Instead of going into the general tax coffers, these funds are instead funneled into a program fund to be disbursed.
One of the most typical incentives provided by power companies is a rebate program that reimburses the homeowner for grid-connected utility installations. The power companies are often saddled with deadlines to meet a specific target of renewable energy generation, and the cost of creating plants is far more expensive than getting homeowners to install their own systems. The power company gains an ally by providing guidance through the installation process, reimbursing the homeowner after the system is online and performing to a set standard.
Through renewable energy quotas, tax credits, rebates and other incentives, the government is going a long way in spurring renewable energy investments for long term benefits for all.
Models are tools that help researchers to understand energy related processes while also providing policy makers with useful information for decision making. There are different kinds of models and they can be used for different purposes. Some models attempt to gauge the relationship of energy production-consumption to the prevailing price of energy. In other cases, models can be used to generate information about the rate of energy consumption against development for specific regions or groups of regions.
Environmental models might assess potential energy development together with environmental paramters, thereby serving to mitigate impacts, for example. Models can be simple, running quickly and for short periods of time, or they can be used over longer periods of time and incorporate higher levels of complexity with more variables. Digital economy and infrastructure enables greater levels of modelling. Interestingly, in areas where less digital data is possible can result in less modelling, and that impacts the kinds of models that can be used.
Modelling has grown in popularity. That growth is supported through increased knowledge about modeling processes but also attributable to higher levels of computerization, enabling digital infrastructure and policy issues demanding higher levels of accountability. In pactice models are used to understand processes better, and that has major benefits to the energy industry where more information translates into less risk. The implications of accurate modelling are real and can have significant impacts – reducing environmental impacts and to reducing safety risks, for example. But models are used for energy production, consumption and operations.
The United Kingdom recently published information about Energy Systems which is available through the UK Energy Research Centre. When considering energy that agency considers E4 modeling (energy-economic-engineering-environment). The purpose of this approach is toward integrating four factors into the development of overall energy research – a systems approach. This principle closely aligns with urban planning, for example, where multi-dimensional approaches are similarly used within a system structure. The idea here is to develop suitable (and sustainable) energy directions with a view to each of these factors. Clearly, if the production exceeds engineering capabilities then risk results, for example. Alternatively, it does not make much economic sense to impact a landscape that results in expensive consequences to remediate and reclaim. There is a balance to be established, but to achieve such balance, in some locations, or under specific conditions, may require modelling.The models would evaluate several factors so that the appropriate decision can be made.
Models are driven by data. It goes with out saying that models which seek to provide answers based upon little data are less reliable than those models that include more data. Geological information, seismic, sonar, wind and solar data are all useful for driving models. To enable appropriate tidal power energy development requires an understanidng of the tidal and wave conditions of the region where development is being considered. The European Marine Energy Centre has been involved in modelling tidal and wave energy for a considerable period of time.
While most energy related modelling was previously focused upon production of energy alone, today such models are more broadly based and can be found across independent company’s and throughout the energy sector covering business to production to energy transport, for example. The spread of energy related modelling has increased, driven in part by advances in energy technologies that produce data used to quantify processes, but also because of demands originating from policy factors.
Since the data created and used in energy modelling is digital, then advances in IT infrastructure have enabled the development of more complex modelling while growing a never ending thirst for more data as demands and expectations prior to decision making grow.The movement of this digital information is important since it connects the producers and users of modelling information in closer collaboration with decision makers. Accordingly, where telecommunications infrastructure supports digital data delivery – and modelling – then higher levels of modelling and the complexity of the modeling increases, particularly where real-time events are occuring and being modelled. We often refer to these as ‘mission critical’ systems and processes and they usually entail higher levels of authentification and security.
In most cases, modelling is uncoupled from live systems. That is, the data is collected, managed and processed for modelling. But the change in modelling over time has meant increasing amounts of real-time modeling. This also leads to a requirement for computing software and processing mechanisms that can integrate data suitable for modelling purposes, often pre-processing the information or processing it in an intermediary fashion prior to connecting to larger processing systems, often located on specialised servers and hardware.
Significant change has taken place in terms of the types of models, their complexity and who can use them. It is not out of the ordinary for competing agencies to be developing models based on similar portions of data derived through a common source. At the same time, these parties may be supplementing that information with individual developed and proprietary information created and collected through their own resources.
At the same time, the rise in tools for use to develop models has resulted in efficiencies that enable more people to operate them. Consequently, it would not be unusual for opposing forces to base their interpretations and goals on different approaches using similar tools.
So what’s the catch? Clearly, investment in data for modeling is important. Today’s tools can yield highly important, often critical results, that might not otherwise be apparent or available. Modelling enables enterprises with the ability to compete more effectively and completely while reducing risk and vulnerability.
Can a model be wrong? Yes, but usually weaker modelling is connected with the wrong types of information being used, or too little data driving the particular model for which specific answers are being sought. It is wise to use models as information sources, and to assign value to them based upon performance over time. But it is worth noting that energy models are increasingly connecting toward governance and consumers. This may be attributable to the fact that energy conservation and efficiency is most closely aligned to energy use and people making better decisions about how they use energy.
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Jeff Thurston is editor of V1 Energy and V1 Magazine in Europe, Middle East and Africa for Vector1 Media.
Energy storage is an increasingly important tool for improving the efficiency of power distribution networks and transportation options. While energy generation is fixed to our means to create it, the demand can fluctuate wildly. Energy storage provides a means to meet the demand and flatten out the need to rapidly generate power on demand.
Utilities Explore Local Storage
Generating power on demand requires a rapid spike in power generation, and the systems in place to meet the quick demand are our least efficient and most expensive options. Using gas-powered generators at an electric utility to quickly meet the demands of users is a much more expensive and wasteful option than simply having energy stored on the grid locally for quick response to that demand.
The Department of Energy has several projects underway to study the effectiveness and efficiency of local energy storage. Utilities are exploring various battery technologies as well as flywheels, supercapacitors, and compressed air or energy stored in water towers to meet storage demands. In each of these technology solutions the storage device is meant to store energy when generation exceeds load, and to discharge energy when loads exceed generation capacity.
Instead of trying to constantly adjust energy generation, storage has proven to be technically viable, cost-effective and an applicable solution to increase the reliability and efficiency of electrical systems. Increasingly, utilities are investing in energy storage as well as smart grid solutions as the investments have a high and almost immediate return by leveling off the need to quickly meet power demands.
Charge for Better Batteries
There are a great deal of research and development dollars going into the discovery of better battery technologies for electric vehicles. The interest to create more efficient storage systems for lighter and longer lasting batteries for electric cars will translate into better batteries for other purposes, including local storage.
Renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power are reliant on intermittent energy sources. In order for these sources to work well when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining they need to incorporate reliable energy storage.
Energy storage is an increasingly important element for more efficient energy transmission and distribution. Research into more efficient means to store energy will result in more efficient and affordable systems, including making renewable and clean energy solutions much more viable.
LINKS
U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Storage
Basic Research Needs for Electrical Energy Storage
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Matt Ball is editor of Americas/Asia Pacific for V1 Energy and V1 Magazine. This column alternates weekly.
