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By Paul, May 20, 2010 10:44 pm

Today a guest post from Jack Lundee…

21st century green initiatives are sparking life in today’s economy. Particularly, there have been a few major investments in renewable energy technologies that have positively influenced the stock market. In recent news, ProLogis, a leading global provider of distribution facilities has made a tremendous investment in solar rooftop implementation in Southern California. This is one of many enormous green investments following Earth Day 2010, but what type of impact is this really having on our planet and economy?

Totaling 11.1 megawatts, the master agreement between SCE (Southern California Edison) and ProLogis has positively influenced the company’s stock (PLD 12.18, +1.05, +9.39%). ProLogis is able to provide such power through the direct installation of over 45 million square feet of rooftop panels that will effectively power the entire facility. With ProLogis’ enormous facilities and flat roof structure, the project is considered to be “multi-phase,” and will be a progressive installations beginning with nearly 2.5 million square feet. VP of renewable energy for ProLogis states “Our partnership with SCE works well for both parties – we have flat, available roof space and local construction management expertise in place to support the growth of SCE’s renewable energy program.” This is one such example of how electric companies are working with larger organizations to promote sustainability and renewable energy. This is in fact true on a residential level as well; there are a number of instances where a larger home or community of homes directly supplements these energy powerhouses with energy via solar panels.

The exploration and expansion of these technologies has also been a great catalyst for green collar jobs. Field by motivated assistant and creator Doug Band, The CGI (Clinton Global Initiative) has invested funds into renewable energies with “The Energy Efficiency Opportunity Fund” (Sept 25 2009). This was more or less a fund to all the financing of large projects like implementing LEED standards in older buildings. The fund has been focusing on low-income areas to promote the creation of such jobs. ProLogis green sector has also facilitated new job openings and allowed the company to grow tremendously.

Although, renewable energy groups like ProLogis and The CGI aren’t the only types of technology firms that are making a huge impact. Search giant Google recently made their biggest renewable energy investment in history. With projects beginning back in 2007 (Clean-tech fray), Google has made it their duty to pursue such sustainability and renewable energy efforts. On May 3rd a press release went out stating Google’s 38.8 million dollar investment in two North Dakota wind farms. “On Friday we made our first direct investment in a utility-scale renewable energy project — two wind farms that generate 169.5 megawatts of power, enough to power more than 55,000 homes.” Rick Needeham, (Google’s Green Business Operations Manager), wrote within that Google is greatly interested in discovering new opportunities to invest in renewable energy projects that really ”push the envelope.” With enough energy to power nearly 55,000 homes, Google is making a tremendous impact on sustainability for our planet.

ProLogis currently maintains solar projects on 32 buildings throughout France, Germany, Japan, Spain and the United States. The installation envelops greater than 10.6 million square feet (984,800 square meters) of roof space and totals 24.6 MW (Megawatts). With Google’s acquisition of wind turbines in North Dakota, they are able to produce nearly 170 MW of power. Combined, this is a whopping 194.6 MW of clean energy, driven to both business and residential. With lessened maintenance costs and new job openings, these investments are major players in the welfare of our economy as well. It’s with efforts from both energy and non-energy groups that we begin to see hope for the future of our planet.

Jack Lundee – Follower of all things green and progressive.

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By Paul, May 11, 2010 11:33 am

There’s a lot of buzz around green growth or low-carbon growth (which is a subset of green growth). But is there a cost-benefit?

Green growth is an evolving concept so it’s still not entirely clear. It’s well-accepted by most economists, however, that it is more cost-effective to tackle environmental problems early instead of allowing them to accumulate. One study, for example, found that a 20-year delay in climate change mitigation actions would result in an increase in GDP losses of about 140%. The same study showed that committing to a modest abatement effort in the short-term could substantially reduce the cost of delayed action.

That’s the cost side, but what about the revenue side? Here the evidence is less clear. According to the OECD, however, markets for low-carbon energy products are likely to be worth $500 billion per year by 2050. Moreover, innovation in this sector could generate productivity gains throughout the entire economy.

Green is also good for government coffers. An OECD analysis shows that if all industrialised countries were to cut their emissions by 20% by 2020 relative to 1990 levels, and this was done via taxes or emission trading systems with full permit auctioning – the proceeds generated in 2020 could be as high as 2.5% of GDP. Governments could also save by removing distorting energy subsidies for fossil fuels which currently cost $250 billion per year.

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By Paul, January 29, 2010 2:30 pm

I attended a meeting of the Agoria Renewable Energy Club (www.agoria.be) yesterday evening.

Alain De Cat from Siemens gave an interesting presentation about our energy mix choices. One of his points was that in addition to developing RE, we need to make conventional energy more efficient. He pointed out that Aeon is rolling out coal-fired power plants that are 50% efficient. Apparently, the newest coal-fired power plants in Europe are about 45% efficient (and older ones are being de-commissioned) while the average efficiency of coal-fired power plants in China is still only 23%.

De Cat was pretty skeptical about Desertec and CSP in general. He definitely has a point because it takes a lot of water to clean the panels. If I understood him correctly, he claimed that if the panels are not cleaned they lose 10% of their efficiency.

There were also interesting presentations by Cenaero (www.cenaero.be), a research institute that is applying its know-how in aeronautics simulation to the renewable sector,  Comet Traitements (www.cometsambre.be), a waste management company that wants to produce a fuel and use co-generation to produce energy, and Triphase (www.triphase.com), a spin-off of the Katholieke University of Leuven that provides power electronics for things like motor drives, power grid control and induction heating.

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By admin, January 26, 2010 1:11 pm

According to a study by Deutsche Bank, green technologies are “the investment opportunity of our lifetime”. The study found that companies specialising in energy efficiency and renewable energy outperformed peers across the wider global economy last year and expected more to come in 2010.

According to the report, since the 2009 low in global stocks, indices showed that energy efficiency stocks had risen 126 percent and clean energy and technology by 88 percent compared with wider global stocks’ 70 percent.

“That is why we believe institutional investors should be shifting their asset allocation towards climate change [sic],” the report says.

Despite the failure of the Copenhagen Conference, the report is bullish about actions being taken at the national and local levels.

True enough: while national leaders haggle, local communities and individual companies are already ushering in the low-carbon economy.

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By Paul, October 23, 2009 1:24 pm

I attended a solar event at IMEC, near Leuven, Belgium. IMEC is the largest research institute in Europe in the fields of microelectronics and nanotechnology.

In his presentation Jef Poortmans, director of IMEC’s solar program, made some interesting points including:

• to keep CO2 below 550 ppm nearly 1 GW of carbon-neutral energy sources will have to be installed everyday thru 2050, for a total of 15 TW.
• relying on nuclear would require the construction of 1 plant every 2 days for the next 30 years.
• hydroelectricity could only provide less than 0.5 TW
• geothermal could provide at most 12 TW
• remaining exploitable wind resource amounts to 2-4 TW (not sure if this includes offshore)

In contrast, there is 165,000 TW of free solar power!

Poortmans also presented slides based on European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA) data that showed that grid parity can be reached in some European countries as early as 2012 and in most European countries by 2020. His slide of price evolution clearly showed the 20% learning curve effect. Prices are expected to drop to 2.5 euros per Wp as cumulative shipments reach 10,000 MWp this year.

Another interesting data point was that the average family in Flanders (in the northern part of Belgium) can cover their entire electricity needs with just 35-40 m2 of solar panels!

Johan Nijs, CEO of Photovoltech, also gave an interesting presentation. According to the data he presented, Luxembourg is actually #4 and Belgium is #5 in Europe (after Spain and Germany) when it comes to PV power per inhabitant.

Another interesting point is that apparently the Spanish government has reduced its support for the solar industry. As a result the Spanish market is expected to “yo-yo”, declining after huge growth in 2008 (this may also partlybe a result of the crisis). As Nijs noted, the industry requires stable public policy over several years in order to smoothly develop.

The only things I missed from the presentations were a discussion of application in, for example, new building materials, and a discussion of other solar technologies (such as concentrated solar power).

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By Paul, October 19, 2009 9:23 am

The US government has turned the production tax credit into direct grant money that can cover 30 percent of a wind project’s cost, and the Department of Energy and the Department of the Treasury have already approved more than $1 billion in grants.

Iberdrola Renewables has received nearly $550 million (!) in grant money for eight projects this year. And the money is disbursed quickly: First Wind, a developer based in Boston, received their grant money only three weeks after filing their application.

Another government program has yet to get off the ground, however. The Department of Energy is supposed to issue loan guarantees for renewable energy projects, but just one has been issued so far. Still, give the Feds some credit!

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By Paul, October 16, 2009 8:22 am

The race is on to produce biofuels from waste. Costkata, has a pilot plant in Pennsylvania where they convert wood waste into biofuel for about 26 cents a liter. For each ton of pine chips, the plant produces 100 gallons (about 380 liters) of ethanol. Many people in the industry believe that the economics will work at that yield.

This company has major backers including General Motors, legendary VC Vinod Khosla and the Blackstone Group. Another biofuel company, Iogen, is backed by Royal Dutch Shell. All this innovation suggests that biofuels from waste products will go mainstream within the next few years. It also means that markets for waste will develop. To put it simply, garbage will become valuable!

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By Paul, September 24, 2009 4:18 pm

Some say that Desertec – the ambitious plan to generate power in the Sahara Desert and transmit it to Europe – is a mirage. Whether the project is technically feasible or not is, to me, beside the point. More important is that it will not ensure Europe’s energy security, and potentially could even endanger it.

While I am not against large-scale power generation, I believe that the real “power” of solar is that it is scalable. For this reason it can be ubiquitous and local. I wonder what the world would look like if communities, neighborhoods and ordinary citizens could generate – and share – their own power?

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By Paul, June 23, 2009 8:04 am

Photovoltaic power could meet up to 12% of Europe’s electricity demand by 2020 if a favourable policy framework (e.g. feedin tariffs) were established to support it in the coming years, according to a new study by the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA). Moreover, in some parts of Europe, e.g. southern Italy and large parts of Spain, solar will already be competitive by next year.

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By Paul, June 10, 2009 7:58 am

It looks like the energy internet may finally be on its way…This so-called “smart grid” was proposed by visionaries such as Jeremy Rifkin (check out his site: www.foet.org. He has a very compelling vision and is also a very nice guy – I interviewed him for an article a while back) years ago.

This is what the Associated Press recently had to say about it:

“…Home thermostats and individual appliances that adjust automatically based on the cost of power, and water heaters that can draw power from a neighbor’s rooftop solar panel. They see a time when, on a scorching hot day, a plug-in hybrid electric car charges one minute and a few moments later sends electricity back into the grid to help avert a brownout.”

“Also coming are utilities that get instant feedback on a transformer outage or shift easily among energy sources from wind turbines to coal-burning power plants and back to the turbines when the wind begins to blow again.”

“And, from miles away, power companies will peer into homes and businesses, then automatically lower thermostats or adjust power use, depending on demand and prearranged agreements.”

According to Bob Gilligan, a VP at GE, “It’s the marriage of information technology and automation technology with the existing electricity network. This is the energy Internet.”