Smart Grid Blog

This year has marked the first year in several that wind installation in the U.S. is on the decline. The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) reported in July in that only 700 megawatts (MW) of wind energy were added in the second quarter of this year. This is down 57 percent from 2008 and 71 percent from 2009 levels. One of the reasons cited for the decline is a lack of investor confidence in the long-term viability of the industry. This could be overcome, in part, by the passage of a federal Renewable Electricity Standard (RES).

via Midwest Wind Summit Focuses on Policy, Infrastructure & Smart Grid – Domestic Fuel.

Germany aims to have one million electric vehicles — powered by energy from renewable sources -on the road by 2020. And, within ten years, the German environment ministry expects “green electricity” to make up 30 percent of all power consumed. Arithmetically speaking, it would be possible to achieve CO2-neutral electromobility. But, in reality, it is a difficult goal to attain. As more and more solar and wind energy is incorporated in the power grid, the proportion of electricity that cannot be controlled by simply pressing a button is on the increase. In addition, there is a growing risk that the rising number of electric vehicles will trigger extreme surges in demand during rush hour.

via Charging Up Electric Car Batteries in Environmentally-Friendly Way | Technology Magazine Daily.

Consumers Energy is quietly getting into the wind farm business.

Unlike the loud and contentious public argument over a proposal for wind turbines in Lake Michigan, hardly an objection has been raised to Consumers Energy’s development of its $250 million Lake Winds Energy Park in southern Mason County.

via Consumers Energy quietly enters the wind farm business | MLive.com.

The Bonneville Power Administration and Mason County Public Utility District Number 3 announced today that they are partnering on a smart grid pilot project to help manage the electricity grid and use wind power more effectively.

The project address two fundamental bottlenecks in the power grid; congestion during times of high power use and the imbalance created when more wind-powered energy is being generated than is being used.

via 100 Mason County Homes to Get “Smart” Power – Local News – KBKW Newsroom -.

Oregon’s power grid will need to be improved in the coming years as more wind and solar power comes online. The U.S. Department of Energy will help that happen with a $178 million project to test smart grid technologies in five Northwestern states, including Oregon.

via $178M project to test smart grid technology « Daily Journal of Commerce – Building and Construction News in Portland, Oregon and the Pacific Northwest.

Ever since Don Quixote tilted at wind mills, warfare and renewable energy have had a rough relationship.

It’s tough to erect wind turbines or solar panels when the enemy keeps blowing things up.

Still, Lt. Col. Brian Stevens of the Texas Army National Guard is determined to try.

Stevens leads a group of 66 soldiers who want to help bring sustainable agriculture and renewable energy to rural Afghanistan.

via NREL: News Feature – Renewable Energy at Work in War Zones.

Preliminary results of a test project in Minnesota for large-scale battery storage of wind energy – and possibly, in the future, solar electricity – show that it works, the multistate electricity company Xcel Energy says.

Several studies are under way in the United States, and more are ongoing in other countries, on using batteries to help integrate the intermittent and variable electricity production from solar and wind installations into the steady current flow of electricity grids.

via Battery Storage of Renewable Energy Looks Promising, Xcel Energy Says.

This fully integrated combination of EV charging station, smart grid connectivity software and solar, renewable energy generation array represents the next, logical evolutionary step in the developing movement to transition a portion of the transportation sector away from traditional fossil fuels and toward cleaner and renewable domestic energy sources, including solar, wind, and geothermal.

via EV-Charge America Unveils Southeast America’s First Level II ‘ J1772 Enabled EV Charging Station System with an Integrated 20kW Solar Carport Array | Earth Times News.

Kahuku Wind Power, the developer of a planned 30 megawatt (MW) wind power plant that is expected to supply electricity to about 7,700 households per year and create over 200 jobs on the island of Oahu, has obtained a $117 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy.

via Kahuku Wind Gets $117M DOE Loan Guarantee.

Here’s the real reason that I think Google entered into a contract earlier this month to buy clean power from a wind farm in Iowa: data centers.

Since the beginning of this year Google has maintained that its plans for Google Energy — a subsidiary that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved in February to be able to buy and sell energy on the whole sale markets — largely has to do with offsetting Google’s carbon footprint. It sounds reasonable. Google has plans to go carbon neutral.

via The Real Reason Google is Buying Wind Power.

Chinese Green Companies are being forced to look at overseas market for Profits as their Domestic Market is being ravaged by fierce price wars.Wind,Solar and even Smart Grid Companies in China compete mainly on price as technology is not the strong point for these companies.Lots of these small companies are promoted through provincial government bodies with massive capital and other subsidies.

via Chinese Solar,Wind and Smart Grid companies face Fierce Price Wars in Domestic Market | Green World Investor.

Investors chasing high returns like to get in early on the next big thing. For some pioneering firms in New Jersey, that means multimillion dollar bets on clean energy.

From Short Hills to Princeton, public and private companies are committing their own capital, or that of large investors, to building wind and solar farms and developing other types of renewable power, as well as smart-grid and energy-storage technologies.

via N.J. firms pouring billions into wind, solar ventures | NJ.com.

Oncor Electric Delivery says smart meters do not have a problem working with solar power, despite what a Plano customer says he was told.

Dan Peterson said an Oncor supervisor told him his smart meter was replaced because of a widespread problem.

“They told me they were replacing all of the smart meters that were attached to solar panel systems or wind turbine systems,” he said. “They were replacing them all in the four-county area because they were not communicating back to the main computer.”

via Oncor: There’s No Solar Power Trouble With Smart Meters | NBC Dallas-Fort Worth.

One of the biggest problems with switching an electric grid over to clean energy is storage. Most clean energy solutions are unreliable over short periods of time – when clouds come out, solar panels don’t produce. If the wind changes direction, or stops, wind turbines don’t produce. However, if the energy could be stored efficiently, then energy companies could produce excess during peak production times and otherwise reserve it for a rainy day… literally.

via Better Place Smart Grid To Solve Storage Issues Preventing A True Clean Grid | Green Prophet.

As General Motors announced Texas availability of the nation’s first plug-in Chevrolet Volts, Oncor affirmed its commitment to make electric car ownership a smart transportation choice

“From our installation of more than a million Smart Meters helping customers curb their electricity usage, to construction of 850 miles of new transmission lines delivering renewable wind power, Oncor leads utilities in making Texas the best place in America to drive plug-in cars,” said Bob Shapard, Oncor’s Chief Executive Officer.

via Oncor Supports GM Electric Cars with Smart Meters and CREZ Lines – Electric Energy Online.

John Doerr, the brilliant and hard-charging venture capitalist, has told me several times that clean tech is still awaiting its “Netscape moment.”

What he means, I think, is that  investors will get excited about start-up companies across a range of so-called clean technologies — solar, wind, biofuels, energy efficiency, green chemistry, lighting — when one of them has an attention-grabbing initial public offering like Netscape’s in 1995 which, by some accounts, set off the Internet investing craze.

via Awaiting clean tech’s “Netscape moment” | The Energy Collective.

Serious discussions about renewable energy usually end up being about energy storage too. Wind and solar power are both intermittent sources of electricity, so if we want to power a significant fraction of our power grids with them, we need a way to store power for windless and cloudy days. The most talked about candidates are batteries, molten salts, pumping water uphill, compressed air, etc. All of this has to do with supply, but what about demand? “Demand response” is very underrated and might play a big role in the future. Read on for details.

via Smart Grid + Demand Response = Underrated Renewable Energy Storage? : TreeHugger.

First the Chinese took over the solar market, providing low-cost manufacturing, quick turnaround, and aggressive expansion.

Then China starting closing in on the wind market, boasting the largest onshore market in the world with plans to add another 30 gigawatts of offshore capacity by 2020. Companies like Goldwind, A-Power Systems (NASDAQ:APWR) and Sinovel have gone from nearly unknowns to major players in a matter of just a few years.

Now it looks like China’s attempting to lock in a piece of the smart grid market too. Although this time, they may not be able to do it without some outside help.

via Will China Control Smart Grid Too? — Seeking Alpha.

Silent Power, the Brainerd-area technology pioneer that designs energy storage systems for solar and wind-power installations, plans to announce next week that it has been selected to partner with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District on a $5.9 million photovoltaic storage pilot project at Anatolia, Calif.

via Minnesota firm to aid California power project | StarTribune.com.

The $3.25 billion transmission project being proposed to unlock 3,000MW of wind energy potential around Montana is to be evaluated by the region’s power marketing administration.

Montana’s Governor Brian Schweitzer said Grasslands Renewable Energy, the developer of the so-called Wind Spirit Project, will take part in further discussions with the Western Area Power Administration, a federal agency that markets and transmits electricity in 15 states from its HQ in Denver, Colorado.

via Developer in talks over $3.25bn Montana wind grid project | BrighterEnergy.org.