Results: Calendar of Events
December 30, 2010
By Patti Epler of Alaska Dispatch: Five Alaska utilities are finally doing themselves what the Legislature and at least one former governor couldn’t get them to do — join together in a cooperative entity that could substantially reduce costs and provide seamless power generation for hundreds of thousands of customers in the Railbelt.
The Alaska Railbelt Cooperative Transmission and Energy Company or ARCTEC is the new version of GRETC, the Greater Railbelt Energy and Transmission Corp. that died in the Legislature earlier this year.
ARCTEC is moving forward without Anchorage Municipal Light and Power, but the Railbelt’s five other utilities have signed on. They include Chugach Electric Association, Matanuska Electric Association, Homer Electric Association, Golden Valley Electric Association in Fairbanks and the Seward municipal electric department. Individual utilities are naming representatives to the ARCTEC board which is slated to hold its first meeting Jan. 7.
Joe Griffith, general manager of the Matanuska Electric Association, calls ARCTEC “GRETC lite” but says the utilities have long had a need to join together to achieve efficiencies and buying power, for instance when it comes to negotiating with natural gas suppliers for electric generation.
Griffith envisions a day, still years off, when Railbelt utilities would be combined into a single power company, and customers would receive service from a single regional provider. Read more
December 28, 2010
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL of the New York Times: KIPTUSURI, Kenya — For Sara Ruto, the desperate yearning for electricity began last year with the purchase of her first cellphone, a lifeline for receiving small money transfers, contacting relatives in the city or checking chicken prices at the nearest market.
Charging the phone was no simple matter in this farming village far from Kenya’s electric grid.
Every week, Ms. Ruto walked two miles to hire a motorcycle taxi for the three-hour ride to Mogotio, the nearest town with electricity. There, she dropped off her cellphone at a store that recharges phones for 30 cents. Yet the service was in such demand that she had to leave it behind for three full days before returning.
That wearying routine ended in February when the family sold some animals to buy a small Chinese-made solar power system for about $80. Now balanced precariously atop their tin roof, a lone solar panel provides enough electricity to charge the phone and run four bright overhead lights with switches.
“My main motivation was the phone, but this has changed so many other things,” Ms. Ruto said on a recent evening as she relaxed on a bench in the mud-walled shack she shares with her husband and six children. Read more
December 23, 2010
NATURAL GAS: 2011 about a billion cubic feet short of the need.
From the Petroleum News: Enstar Natural Gas Co. as of the end of this year no longer will have firm contracts to receive all the gas it expects to need for its home and business customers in Southcentral Alaska.That’s the first time the company has ever been short in that way, said Enstar spokesman John Sims.
And it’s significant for local residents, because Enstar has 95 percent of the space heating market in Southcentral Alaska.
The amount of Enstar’s forecast gas need for 2011 that is not under firm contract is not large, Sims said, about 1 billion cubic feet out of a total of more than 30 billion cubic feet.
By 2012 that unmet need — forecast gas not under firm contract — will be about 1.5 billion cubic feet. The unmet need is larger in 2013, about 10 percent of supply needed. Enstar has options to purchase extra gas from Cook Inlet producers if its forecasts are right, Sims said.
But Enstar is not sure what the costs will be for gas in excess of firm commitments, he said. There is a ceiling in most of Enstar’s contracts for excess gas, but Sims said Enstar doesn’t anticipate that the cost will be that high. Read more
December 22, 2010
By Patti Epler of Alaska Dispatch: Don’t bank on a big natural gas line from the North Slope for another 25 years, a new federal forecast predicts. The U.S. Energy Information Administration earlier this month concludes the price of gas won’t be high enough to make construction economical until about 2035. Reliance on shale gas and renewable energy sources are more likely the way of the near future, the report suggests.
But Larry Persily, Alaska’s federal pipeline coordinator, downplayed the significance of the agency’s annual projection saying it’s just that — a projection that doesn’t take into account a number of important factors.
“It’s unsettling to look at that I’ll admit,” Persily said, adding that he’s also seen numerous other projections that put North Slope gas feasible as soon as 2020.
Persily said key factors that could influence the price of natural gas that have not been taken into account include tightening of federal rules that restrict greenhouse gas emissions. Those restrictions would tend to spur a move toward the use of more natural gas and away from coal or oil.
He noted there also may be restrictions on shale gas production that could give a boost to natural gas.
“If you assume the status quo, then that’s what you end up with,” he said of the report.
Meanwhile, in Alaska two projects are continuing to work on possible tentative contracts with potential North Slope gas customers. The Alaska Pipeline Project, a joint venture of TransCanada and Exxon Mobil, is being supported by the state under the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act. Gov. Sean Parnell has asked for $160 million in his budget proposal to continue helping the AGIA project in FY 2012. Read more
December 22, 2010
By JUSTIN GILLIS of the New York Times:
Two gray machines sit inside a pair of utilitarian buildings here, sniffing the fresh breezes that blow across thousands of miles of ocean.
They make no noise. But once an hour, they spit out a number, and for decades, it has been rising relentlessly.
The first machine of this type was installed on Mauna Loa in the 1950s at the behest of Charles David Keeling, a scientist from San Diego. His resulting discovery, of the increasing level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, transformed the scientific understanding of humanity’s relationship with the earth. A graph of his findings is inscribed on a wall in Washington as one of the great achievements of modern science.
Yet, five years after Dr. Keeling’s death, his discovery is a focus not of celebration but of conflict. It has become the touchstone of a worldwide political debate over global warming.
When Dr. Keeling, as a young researcher, became the first person in the world to develop an accurate technique for measuring carbon dioxide in the air, the amount he discovered was 310 parts per million. That means every million pints of air, for example, contained 310 pints of carbon dioxide.
By 2005, the year he died, the number had risen to 380 parts per million. Sometime in the next few years it is expected to pass 400. Without stronger action to limit emissions, the number could pass 560 before the end of the century, double what it was before the Industrial Revolution. Read more
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/22/science/earth/22carbon.html?_r=1&emc=eta1
December 20, 2010
More on the Alaska Wind for Schools program here
By ROSEMARY SHINOHARA at Anchorage Daily News: For those in breezy parts of Anchorage, there’s finally an opportunity to put brisk, unpleasant winds to good use. Pieces are falling into place that will let residents and businesses generate some of their own energy with a wind turbine, and cut their power bills.
In East Anchorage, Begich Middle School, led by applied technology teacher Scott McKim, wants to be among the first to take advantage of the new, greener climate for wind power here. The school just won School Board approval to install a turbine on its campus as part of a federal program to teach about renewable energy. It will generate enough power to run up to eight computers, says McKim, and should make a noticeable dent in the school’s electric bills. But its main purpose is educational.
On the Hillside, Paradise Valley resident Doug Lowry has been waiting for local government and utilities to catch up to the national trend for one-house turbines.
“My wife and I looked into a wind turbine about 1 1/2 years ago,” said Lowry. A renewable energy company surveyed their property at the top of Goldenview and said it was plenty windy. “But the municipality would not allow them at that time.”
With four children and a 4,800-square-foot house, Lowry’s electric bill is about $400 a month. He says a federal tax credit will subsidize 40 percent of the installation costs, helping to make it cost effective. “I’m going to get it going now.”
He is also interested in a wind turbine for his company, Professional Legal Copy, which is in the Port of Anchorage area.
ONE TURBINE PER LOT
Statewide rules to make individual wind turbines fit into utility systems went into effect last summer, and Chugach Electric Association, which serves most of Anchorage, right away set up its own plan for crediting customers who actually create enough of their own power to send some to the system, said a Chugach official. A proposal by the city-owned Municipal Light & Power to do the same is pending before the Regulatory Commission of Alaska.
The Anchorage Assembly in August passed a law that allows one wind turbine per residential lot, and set the rules for them and for larger turbines in heavy industrial areas.
Mostly, wind power wouldn’t be the first choice of renewable energy in Anchorage, say experts at alternative energy companies. There’s not enough of it. Solar power makes more sense most places in the city, said Kirk Garoutte of Susitna Energy, with a Midtown office and two wind turbines up mostly for demonstration.
“The Bush is our biggest clientele,” said Garoutte. “Midtown isn’t that good.”
Anywhere along the coast in Anchorage is better, he said.
CIRI HELPS OUT
At Begich Middle School, producing energy is a secondary goal. And the wind turbine project is one of a string of projects McKim has had a hand in that are about sustaining ourselves. A greenhouse and a composting operation are others.
McKim said a parent, Jim Jager of Cook Inlet Region Inc., helped develop the wind turbine idea. Cook Inlet Region has proposed building a wind farm on Fire Island that would supply about 4 percent of the Railbelt’s electricity.
CIRI will contribute to the Begich wind turbine, Jager said. McKim said it is estimated to cost about $20,000 and the school is hoping for donated labor and equipment.
Begich Middle School is participating in the federal Department of Energy’s Wind for Schools program, which gives grants to an Anchorage-based non-profit group, Renewable Energy Alaska Project and to the University of Alaska’s Center for Energy and Power to support the schools that are interested.
Stephanie Nowers, communications director for REAP, said more than 20 schools in Alaska have signed up for the Wind for Schools project, though not all of them will actually install wind turbines. Some will simply use the wind energy classroom lessons.
Sherrod Elementary in Palmer and the Juneau Coast Guard station, which works with area schools, have turbines. One was being installed last week at the Coast Guard facility in Sitka, that will be available for Mt. Edgecumbe High students next door to use in studies. Another is planned for the Mat-Su College campus near Palmer.
HANDS-ON IN CLASSROOM
Alaska is one of 11 states in the project, which is aimed at introducing wind power to rural communities, and introducing young people to the science and technology of wind turbines. Read more
December 18, 2010
From the U.S. Department of Energy: Washington, DC – Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced today that more than $38 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is being awarded to 4 states to support energy efficiency and conservation activities. Under DOE’s Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) program, these states – Alaska, Kansas, Utah and West Virginia – will implement programs that lower energy use, reduce carbon pollution, and create green jobs locally.
“This funding will allow states across the country to make major investments in energy solutions that will strengthen America’s economy and create jobs at the local level,” said Secretary Chu. “It will also promote some of the cheapest, cleanest and most reliable energy technologies we have – energy efficiency and conservation – which can be deployed immediately. Local communities can now make strategic investments to help meet the nation’s long term clean energy and climate goals.”
Today’s awards to the State Energy Offices will be used to support state-level energy efficiency priorities, along with funding local conservation projects in smaller cities and counties. At least 60 percent of each state’s award will be passed through to local cities and counties not eligible for direct EECBG awards from the Department of Energy. The EECBG Program was funded for the first time by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and provides formula grants to states, cities, counties, territories and federally-recognized Indian tribes nationwide to implement energy efficiency projects locally.
Projects eligible for support include the development of an energy efficiency and conservation strategy, energy efficiency audits and retrofits, transportation programs, the creation of financial incentive programs for energy efficiency improvements, the development and implementation of advanced building codes and inspections, and installation of renewable energy technologies on municipal buildings.
Transparency and accountability are important priorities for the EECBG program and all Recovery Act projects. All grantees have specific measures they must take before spending the full amount of awarded funding, such as ensuring oversight and transparency, submitting a conservation strategy to the Department of Energy, and complying with environmental regulations.
Throughout the program’s implementation, DOE will provide strong oversight at the local, state, and tribal level, while emphasizing the need to quickly award funds to help create new jobs and stimulate local economies. Communities will be required to report regularly to DOE on the progress they have made toward successfully completing projects and reaching program goals.
For a full list of awards to date, visit the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grants Program.
DOE announced today that the following states are receiving their state-level EECBG awards:
ALASKA – $9,593,500 awarded
Alaska will use its Recovery Act EECBG funding to implement energy efficiency and renewable energy projects in local communities across the state, including energy audits and building retrofits, transportation efficiency programs, and installations of renewable energy technologies on government buildings. The Alaska Housing Finance Corporation will work in coordination with the Alaska Energy Authority to administer the funding, including competitively passing a majority of the state’s funding onto local cities and counties.
Promoting efficiency in local communities is particularly important in Alaska, which faces very high electricity and heating costs, and has more than 180 villages that are only accessible by water or air and have to operate independent, stand alone electric grids. Under the EECBG program, community-owned facilities, city offices, health clinics and other buildings will be able to access funding for building retrofits and other efficiency projects, which will reduce energy consumption and save money for rural Alaskans.
Alaska will put its remaining EECBG funds toward a variety of initiatives, including an energy efficiency public education program, energy data management, waste heat capture projects from power plants in rural communities, and the establishment of a Technical Energy Advisory Group. Overall, these Recovery Act-funded projects will lead to substantial energy and cost savings, and create or save more than 75 green jobs statewide.
KANSAS – $9,593,500 awarded
Kansas will use its Recovery Act EECBG funds to implement a range of energy efficiency and renewable energy initiatives in both the public and private sector, including building retrofits, direct incentives for renewable energy projects, and support for local government energy managers. These projects will reduce energy consumption, limit carbon pollution, and create hundreds of jobs statewide.
Recovery Act funding will provide direct grants to cities and counties to encourage broader participation in the state’s existing Facility Conservation Improvement Program (FCIP), which helps local governments implement energy performance contracts with energy service companies. The state will also encourage local communities to install alternative energy generating systems (wind, solar, fuel cell or bio-based), by offering competitive grants for up to 25 percent of the cost. These grants will leverage private sector investments and are expected to support more than $11 million in new renewable energy projects. With the remaining Recovery Act funds, the state will allow local units of governments to compete for funding to hire energy managers.
UTAH – $9,593,500 awarded
Utah will use its Recovery Act EECBG funds to improve energy efficiency and reduce total energy use and fossil fuel emissions in communities throughout the state. Utah will direct all of its State Energy Program funding to local city and county governments that did not receive direct EECBG grants from the Department of Energy. Awards will be based upon a competitive process that will choose a wide variety of projects focused on meeting community needs for energy efficiency, conservation, and job creation.
The Utah State Energy Office will administer this program, awarding funds in two general areas. First, grants to local cities and counties to develop community and building energy efficiency strategies, monitoring and reporting mechanisms, and innovative policies that will promote energy efficiency and conservation. Second, funding will support the implementation of a range of efficiency initiatives, including energy efficiency retrofits, installing on-site renewable energy technologies for existing buildings, replacing traffic signals and street lights with energy efficient lighting, and other energy efficiency improvements. Utah’s Recovery Act-funded projects will lead to substantial energy and cost savings and will create nearly 100 jobs statewide.
WEST VIRGINIA – $9,593,500 awarded
West Virginia will use its Recovery Act EECBG funding to empower local governments and communities with the knowledge and resources they need to improve building energy efficiency. Through its Local Government Grant Program (LGGP), the West Virginia Department of Energy will work with the state’s eleven regional planning and development councils to coordinate and distribute nearly $9 million for local energy retrofit projects.
EECBG funding will also support local training and education initiatives. The West Virginia University Industrial Assessment Center, which has significant experience advising business and industry, will help local city and county governments in understanding energy efficiency measures, and their costs and benefits.
Additionally, the state’s Building Energy Collaborative will use EECBG funds to work with local stakeholders – including contractors, realtors, building inspectors, product suppliers, and city and county officials – to determine how to most effectively implement and enforce building codes.
December 18, 2010
From KTUU: The Alaska Energy Authority wants to encourage energy innovations, even if it means some of the projects might fail. The state is willing to spend millions on the chance that an experiment will pay off.
The idea is to try something new — to innovate ideas through research or experimentation.“We need to be looking for projects that are going to bring more energy choices to Alaskans,” said Neil McMahon.
Energy innovators say a lot of great ideas fall into what they call the “valley of death,” where businesses just don’t have the money to start up an expensive technology project.That’s where the emerging energy technology fund comes in.
“We are looking for projects that can be commercially viable within five years. These are technologies that are not ready for prime time right now necessarily, but which may hold a lot of promise later on,” said Peter Crimp, deputy director of alternative energy.
The advisory committee for the fund laid down the ground rules for applicants to help it pick the projects most likely to succeed. $5 million in grant money will go toward the projects, which could be similar to something that worked in the Lower 48 or maybe something completely new.
“Throughout the state there’s all sort of different areas that have different challenges. Most of the state to produce electricity. Most areas outside the Railbelt rely on diesel generation, so you have to get diesel to those areas and it’s very expensive,” said Neil McMahon, the emerging energy technology project manager.
The advisory committee says it would like to see ideas for storing energy. The hope is the technology will eventually be tailored to Alaska communities to lower energy costs. AEA expects to begin accepting applications for the grants after the first of the year and will start reviewing them six weeks after that. See the original story here
December 15, 2010
A new study by Pew Charitable Trusts shows that private investments in global clean energy projects could top $2.3 Trillion in 10 years. Most investment will be in Asia but policy plays a key role.
From RenewableEnergyWorld.com: Looking into the next decade for clean energy deployment gives perspective on where an industry is headed and if Pew Charitable Trusts’ recently released report on global clean power is correct, the clean energy industry is looking at incredible growth.
Three scenarios were used to determine how much private investment each technology would garner:
* Business-as-usual (BAU): no change from current policies;
* Copenhagen: policies to implement the pledges made at the 2009 international climate negotiations in Copenhagen and;
* Enhanced clean energy: maximized policies designed to stimulate increased investment and capacity additions.
The overall takeaway from the report is that in any case, the global clean power sector will grow, at a huge rate, in any case. Pew found that in the G-20, total attracted clean power project investment is projected to be:
* BAU: $1.7 trillion by 2020
* Copenhagen: $1.8 trillion by 2020
* Enhanced clean energy: $2.3 trillion by 2020
Asia became the top regional destination for clean power finance this year – with China and India leading the way due to strong clean energy policies, said Pew. By 2020, China, India, Japan and South Korea could account for approximately 40 percent of global clean power project investments.
“Strong and consistent policies in Asia have helped double private investment over the past two years. Asia is now the leading region for clean energy investment, and its lead is set to extend in the near future unless Europe and the U.S. make a step change in their support for the sector,” said Michael Liebreich, CEO of Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
Under all three scenarios, China maintains its global leadership position and has the potential to attract cumulative clean energy asset investments of $620 billion over the next decade. Due to its clean energy policies, India moves up to third place by 2020 under all scenarios after being ranked 10th in 2009. India could realize a 763 percent increase in investment under the enhanced scenario, the largest of all G-20 members.
Europe, an early leader in the global clean energy economy thanks to strong clean energy policies and targets could see investments in clean energy projects total $705 billion over the next decade under the Enhanced clean energy scenario. The United Kingdom and Germany, traditional clean energy powers in Europe, rank in the top five globally of attracted clean power project investments under all three scenarios.
The report found that the United States is among those countries with the most to gain from passing strong clean energy policies. For example, the U.S. has the potential to attract $342 billion in clean power project investments over the next 10 years under the Enhanced clean energy scenario, an increase of $97 billion over the BAU scenario. Read more
December 15, 2010
From the U.S. Department of Energy EERE newsletter: The Philadelphia Eagles recently announced plans to power Lincoln Financial Field with a combination of onsite wind, solar and dual-fuel generated electricity, making it the world’s first major sports stadium to convert to self-generated renewable energy, according to the Eagles.
The franchise has contracted with SolarBlue, a renewable energy and energy conservation company to install the system. The planned design includes approximately eighty 20-foot spiral-shaped wind turbines on the top rim of the stadium; 2,500 solar panels on the stadium’s facade; a 7.6-megawatt (MW) onsite dual-fuel cogeneration plant; and a monitoring and switching technology to operate the system. The completion goal is September 2011.
SolarBlue will invest more than $30 million to build out the project, and will maintain and operate the stadium’s power system for the next 20 years at a fixed percent annual price increase in electricity. The football franchise will save an estimated $60 million in energy costs. The partners also project that Lincoln Financial Field will provide 1.039 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, enabling an estimated four megawatts of excess energy off-peak to be sold back to the local electric grid.
The energy to be generated by on-site renewable sources is comparable to the annual electricity usage of 26,000 homes. Solar Blue estimates that converting the stadium to renewable energy will eliminate CO2 emissions equivalent to that produced by the consumption of 500,000 barrels of oil. That equates to the removal of carbon emissions of 41,000 cars each year. See the SolarBlue press release.
