The 10 MW Tower in Dubai is quite a renewable energy machine. The skyscraper is pumping out 10 times the amount of energy it needs and is exporting power to the surrounding neighborhood.
Studied Impact, the architects behind the 10 MW Tower, note that the tower has three energy producing systems: a horizontal axis wind turbine, a concentrated solar power armature and an updraft tower.
via Dubai tower exporting 10 times more renewable energy than needed – SmartPlanet.
The electric power system in the U.S. is dirty, antiquated, stupid, unstable, and a security nightmare. After years of discussion and debate, consensus now holds that the generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure will need hundreds of billions in new investment to reduce emissions, improve reliability, minimize waste and inefficiency, improve security, and facilitate the integration of wind, solar and other emerging alternative energy technologies. Commonly cited capital spending estimates range from $200 billion globally by 2015 to $2 trillion overall. In his November 2008 report, “The Sixth Industrial Revolution: The Coming of Cleantech,” Merrill Lynch strategist Steven Millunovich observed that cleantech markets will dwarf IT to the tune of two orders of magnitude. While there’s plenty of room to debate how the future will unfold, there’s little question that we’re watching the emergence of an investment mega-trend that will endure for decades.
via Will Surging Smart Grid Investments Result in Surging Electric Prices? | Alternative Energy Stocks.
Since Texas was the USA energy capitol of the 20th century, it is not surprising to see Texas lead the USA to more renewable fuel production uses. There are areas in West Texas that receive high amounts of sunshine and high wind activity. To harness these bountiful, inexpensive and renewable energy sources, the Texas State legislature passed legislation that created competitive renewable energy zones (crez) to research and develop wind and sun power. Just 5 of these zones will double the USA wind power capacity. Combine this with the solar power these CREZ could harness and transmit to Texas urban areas, energy self sufficiency becomes less a dream and more a reachable and attainable goal for the foreseeable future.
via NewsWire – Farouk Shami “improving the Texas electric grid is key to our new energy economy”.
The Business Spectator has a look at some of Google’s initiatives to transform the way we produce energy – Google’s search for smart power.
Most people expect there to be a transformation of the energy industry, but what if it turns out to be a total revolution?
Most talk focuses on a possible move to distributed rather than centralised power supplies, the introduction of smart grids and the replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energy supplies such as wind, solar, marine and geothermal.
Have you ever wondered what’s inside one of those gigantic wind turbines? Ever wondered how it works? First Wind, a North American wind energy company, has put together a video doing just that (and sent it to the Smart Energy Blog to share with our readers). Find out how wind energy works.
Click here to see the video on First Wind’s website.
They also have a great 360-degree visual from the top of one of these wind turbines overlooking the Maine countryside. Beautiful.
Thanks First Wind and Captains of Industry for the videos!
Examine a utility’s load curve over the course of a week and the trace looks like a roller-coaster. Demand for electric power peaks about 5 pm each day and declines to a low at about 2 am. Look closer and you see demand changing almost by the second. So there are two problems here that befuddle electric companies. One comes from having to deal with the large changes in demand as it grows and slackens throughout a 24 hour period.
Distributed ICT [information and communication technologies] will organize distributed energies. Renewables like wind, solar, geothermal and biomass are found in some proportion everywhere, in people’s backyards. As people begin to harvest these renewable energies they can share electricity peer-to-peer across an internet-like smart energy grid that extends across nations and even continents. We see buildings as the new power plants. Buildings are the number one source of C02 emmissions, but they might also be the solution if they can harness renewables to produce their own energy on site. People will also need new energy storage technologies like hydrogen. The EU has committed 8 billion Euros to hydrogen storage technologies. Those technologies will give us dependable distributed energy.
Building a smart energy grid will empower consumers with information and tools to control their energy bills while providing a platform for wind, solar and geothermal energy to reach more families. $3.4 billion in grants have been awarded to small businesses, utilities, manufacturers and towns to fund smart energy grid projects that will support tens of thousands of jobs and benefit consumers in 49 states.
The Recovery Act not only invests in our communities, it reshapes how we travel between them. Investing $16 billion in high speed rail and mass transit projects will not only create jobs, it will reduce the amount of oil we import and minimize traffic congestion by taking cars off the highway.
A passing cloud can be curtains for a solar-electric system, suddenly cutting generation dramatically. Production shoots back up as soon as the cloud is past. Then it ends at sundown, only to resume at dawn. Wind energy is also intermittent.
Electric utilities can accommodate these fluctuations in modest amounts, but adding lots of distributed solar generation on rooftops and in backyards could complicate a system designed to keep electrical current flowing steadily.
via California Project to Demonstrate Use of Batteries to Store Solar, Wind Power.
Carl Borgquist’s vision started with a whiteboard and a marker in his hands.
Five years later, the president of the Bozeman-based Grasslands Renewable Energy still flourishes a marker and sketches on the whiteboard to illustrate his plan for wind power in the Northern Plains.
Technology available today can be employed to create viable, sustainable, smart cities. That will be the message that Bob Gilligan, vice president–transmission and distribution for GE Energy Services, will deliver to delegates at the Chatham House conference, “The Future of Cities.”
via GE Smart Grid Technologies Build Sustainable 21st Century Cities – MarketWatch.
Here’s an odd possibility: parts of the so-called “smart grid” could actually make the nation’s electricity infrastructure less reliable.
As the grid has evolved in recent years, much attention has been focused on its “edges,” where power companies generate electricity and where people consume it. The result: Early deployments of advanced power meters and home-operated energy management systems, and an increasing number of wind and solar power sources, which often need to be backed up by coal and natural gas plants.
It is a criticism frequently leveled at those promoting wind or solar power as an alternative to fossil fuels: what happens when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine?
Well, now there is a smart answer, at least in Europe — we’ll simply and instantly switch to another source of clean, green power.
via Getting connected: Europe’s green energy ’supergrid’ – CNN.com.
Atlantic coast offshore wind power initiatives were until recently limited to one or two, and the resource wasn’t taken seriously as part of the Smart Grid renewable energy effort. Now five of the nine East Coast states are working toward offshore wind projects. While National Grid has negotiated to buy offshore wind power from at least one proposed project, other utilities might look at this buildup in interest a wake-up call.
via Smart Grid: Smart Grid Renewables: Virginia Gets Aggressive About Wind.
As momentum builds for making power grids smarter, so too is the need to harness and integrate more renewable energy sources on a large scale for utilities. One way in which that is happening at GE is by sharing the technological advances being made in two key renewable sources — wind and solar. As science blog Earth2Tech recently described the work: “Solar, like wind, is intermittent — power from the sun fluctuates when clouds pass overhead and wind doesn’t blow consistently. Now General Electric, which has been a major player in helping to integrate wind into the world’s power grids, wants to do the same for solar.”
via Smart grid wind technologies breeze into solar | Business News.
WP Cumulus Flash tag cloud by Roy Tanck and Luke Morton requires Flash Player 9 or better.
