According to U.S. figures, up to 80% of peak electricity demand comes from buildings. So designing them to be energy efficient, with their own generation (e.g. rooftop solar), storage, and load-flexibility – and making it a cost effective industry standard – would be a game changer. It’ll make the grid more resilient, and take pressure off utilities investing in expanding the underlying infrastructure. Sneha Ayyagari and Matt Jungclaus at Rocky … [Read more...]
Archives for November 2019
Fossil fuel politics is changing: Big Oil, automakers split on Trump lowering standards
Cara Daggett at Virginia Tech has noticed a positive change in corporate support for the Transition. In the past, Big Oil and automakers would have opposed any limits to business-as-usual. But today, major oil companies, including BP and Royal Dutch Shell, are opposing U.S. President Trump’s intention to further deregulate methane emissions. That’s because they’ve invested heavily in natural gas as a bridge fuel for a clean future, which would … [Read more...]
An independent Global Energy Forecast to 2050 v the IEA’s WEO 2019
Schalk Cloete has completed his own 5-part independent Global Energy Forecast to 2050 to compare with this year’s IEA World Energy Outlook, published mid-November. Underpinning all his predictions is his bet that the world will adopt tech-neutral policies (i.e. not backing any one technology over another, like a very high carbon tax) in 2030: in his opinion it will be the best way to accelerate the transition to meet the Paris goals as the 1.5°C … [Read more...]
Better grid integration beats coal plant ramping to reduce wind, solar curtailment
Wind and solar curtailment is worst where these renewables are poorly integrated into the grid. The further their energy can reach the more regions they can service, thus minimising curtailment. If they don’t reach far, local coal plants must ramp down - but only if they’ve been retrofitted to be able to do so. It’s a problem faced by many countries: spend money on the retrofits or the integration? Writing for the Regulatory Assistance Project … [Read more...]
Grid switchgear uses SF6, the world’s most potent greenhouse gas. How do we regulate it?
Sulphur Hexafluoride (SF6) is described as the world’s worst greenhouse gas. It’s 23,500 times more potent than CO2. Global annual emissions are 8,100 tonnes, equivalent to the CO2 emissions of 100m cars. It has an atmospheric lifetime of over 1,000 years and its installed base is expected to grow by 75% by 2030. 80% of all SF6 is used in gas insulated switchgear, a vital component of the grid (isolating and protecting different sections), so … [Read more...]
Decarbonising industry: how much policy-driven adoption is needed to let the market take over
Decarbonising industry is one of the world’s greatest challenges. The costs, today, are huge and therefore the technology adoption required has hardly started. But several technologies already exist. Gbemi Oluleye at Imperial College (UK) explains the first step is to measure the market size for each sub-sector, then estimate how much policy-driven adoption is required to achieve the cost reductions that make the change viable. After that, no … [Read more...]
California fires and blackouts: would non-profit utilities be more reliable, safer, cheaper?
The wildfires in California ignited by poorly maintained transmission lines have themselves ignited a debate about whether the guilty - and now bankrupt - energy utility PG&E (the largest in the state) should now become publicly owned. That in turn has led Severin Borenstein at the Energy Institute at Haas to consider the pros and cons of public v private in this vital activity. The first thing to note is that electricity transmission and … [Read more...]
Rolls Royce wants innovative financing for its first-of-a-kind nuclear SMRs
Rolls Royce has made nuclear reactors for decades, small enough to fit inside nuclear submarines. It’s now adapting that expertise for the grid. Dan Yurman runs through the details of the firm's plans, including a look at its first-of-a-kind 440MW technology. Regulatory timescales will be kept short by developing the small modular reactors (SMRs) at existing licensed nuclear sites – with Cumbria and Wales its main targets. Importantly, an … [Read more...]
Midwest U.S. grid operator MISO: modelling for a clean energy future
Planning can’t be easy for a grid operator. Take MISO which operates one of the world’s largest energy markets. They’re responsible for integration and bulk transmission across the central U.S., but decisions on the actual future energy mix and demand are being made elsewhere: by state governments, utilities and consumers big and small. Given the amounts invested in infrastructure and the lead times involved, no one will thank MISO if their … [Read more...]
Behaviour Change: measuring complex mobility options to make cities smarter
How do you factor future behaviour change into transport, housing, workplace and energy infrastructure planning? Clearly, future plans based on past behaviour will end up being wrong. And metrics that tell us which behaviour is most efficient can point us in better directions. We won’t find the answer until we start measuring it. That’s why the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is leading a collaboration of U.S. government and academia … [Read more...]
An independent Global Energy Forecast to 2050 (part 5 of 5): Electric cars
Schalk Cloete has completed his own 5-part independent Global Energy Forecast to 2050, to compare with this year’s IEA World Energy Outlook, published this week. Underpinning all his predictions is his bet that the world will adopt tech-neutral policies (i.e. not backing any one technology over another) in 2030 as the best and only way to accelerate the transition to meet the 2050 goals. Given that, he sees the traditional fossil fuel ICE’s share … [Read more...]
IEA’s WEO 2019 scenarios won’t hit the Paris targets, again. It must start telling us what will
As always, the energy world is abuzz with reactions to the IEA’s annual World Energy Outlook, published yesterday. As always, it’s getting plenty of criticism from those who say it lacks ambition, and in doing so will again get quoted to justify support for continued reliance on fossil fuels, explains Kelly Trout at Oil Change International. The IEA’s most ambitious pathway, the Sustainable Development Scenario (SDS), gives a 66% chance of … [Read more...]
Electricity pricing: shifting costs on to households that can afford it
Utilities need to invest in the future, and the Transition needs to be paid for by their customers. The less painful that is to each customer, the more publicly acceptable it will be. Maximilian Auffhammer at the Energy Institute at Haas explains how electricity pricing usually combines a fixed monthly charge with a block rate price (the charge for each additional unit of energy). Here he reviews a new report that scrutinises how different firms … [Read more...]
Aviation’s multiple challenges: from renewable fuels to non-CO2 emissions
Barely the first steps towards climate-neutral aviation have been made. High energy density renewable fuels are needed, and at scale. But even as they become available, hard-to-abate industries will be queuing up to buy them first. And then there’s reducing the "non-CO2 effects" that, according to Germany's environment agency (UBA), can harm the climate twice as much as direct CO2 emissions: condensation trails, particles and other greenhouse … [Read more...]
10 Carbon Capture methods compared: costs, scalability, permanence, cleanness
We need to understand carbon capture, storage and utilisation (CCUS) better. To do so, this article looks at 10 methods and estimates how much CO2 each will take out of the atmosphere by 2050, and the cost per tonne. In their list the authors, Ella Adlen and Cameron Hepburn at the University of Oxford, cover the industrial (e.g. CO2-EOR, synfuels) to the biological (e.g. forestry, soil carbon sequestration). They say there are six that can be … [Read more...]