Buildings With Integrated Wind Generation

Beyond Turbines

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 ~ Here comes another unusual-looking building, the Strawscraper, which employs a hair-like covering which the wind ruffles to produce electricity:

The system utilizes Piezoelectric technology, which turns movement into electricity that can be stored for later use. The hair’s tiny movement is safe for birds and humans and isn’t noisy like traditional turbines can be. But Strawscraper isn’t all about the brains, it also has the beauty. The hair covering the building creates the illusion of movement, giving the normally static city skyline the illusion of motion.

While London's Strata Tower is still "expected" to generate perhaps 8% of the building's energy needs, after three years there is as yet no indication of the actual power produced. Perhaps sensibly, a power estimate is not being offered for the Strawscraper.

My prediction? It looks a lot like a scratching post, so beware giant predatory Siamese cats.

Pterofin

Renewable Energy Using Biomimicry

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 ~ My friend Wally Kempkey has been working very hard on this for many years.



Not only is it incredibly cool and creative, the concept is very well-suited to slow currents. Faster currents can be harnessed by conventional turbines like those made by Hydrovolts and others, but such currents are comparatively rare. Slower currents can be found all over the world in watercourses both natural and man-made. While the power generated can be small, the Pterofin device would provide huge value in off-grid developing world locations for water pumping or trickle-charging batteries.

Want a scale model for your desk? Give some love on Kickstarter.

The Unlikely Opposition to Energy Independence

Tied to the Grid

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 ~ Ironically, aspirations of being (partly) off-grid are thwarted by the grid itself.

Even if the progress to national energy independence is halting, and frustrated by barely-concealed Big Oil interests at every turn, still we can each act locally, right? Each of us as individuals can buy plug-in electric vehicles, retrofit homes with energy efficiency measures, and install solar panels on roofs. Can't we?

Sure. But it turns out that these don't confer the independence one might imagine.

Take solar panels, for example. When Superstorm* Sandy savaged the US Northeast, there were doubtless many who thought their preparation installing rooftop solar panels would prove prudent, and reward them with continued electricity and the breadth of common Western comforts it affords.

They were wrong.

Coal and Wind

Blackouts in India

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 ~ As much as 10% of the world's population is without electricity following the second massive grid outage in India this week.

Blame is being spread around among an outdated, rickety grid, a lack of generation capacity, government inefficiency and corruption, a failure to follow agreed-to consumption limits by various states, poor energy pricing that encourages wasteful consumption, and, as one routinely expects from the corporate cheer-leading quarter, supposedly strangling environmental regulations. All of these are true at least in part, but the bigger cause is a failure to plan and build a stronger commitment to renewable energy.

Micro Power Loans

Empowering Communities

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 ~ Hundreds of thousands of people have electricity because of distributed generation from small renewable energy systems financed by micro lending:

The Solar Home System (SHS) dissemination programme in Bangladesh is considered to be one of the most successful of its kind in the world, bringing power to rural areas where grid electricity supply is neither available nor expected in the medium term.

The program started in January 2005 and nearly 350,000 SHSs were installed by the summer 0f 2009, most of which had a rated power output of 50W. Systems came with 3-4 compact flourescent light bulbs. Owners benefit from lighting, especially in their kitchens and courtyards, and also use the systems to charge batteries, power radios, and even run 12V televisions. While statistics are lacking, it appears that some owners are using the power in their small stores and restaurants, boosting their income.

Appropriate Technology

The Past and the Future Merge

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 ~ On SR-26 coming back from Pullman I saw this old windmill, spinning still.

No one's had to refuel it since it was built.

There are modern versions with higher efficiency, sure, but this old windmill has done useful work, at local scale, probably for decades.

It's simple, cost-effective, reliable, low-maintenance, locally scaled and sustainable.

The past and the future are starting to look rather similar.

My 2011 Predictions Revisited

About 2/3 Accurate

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 ~ A year ago I took a stab at predictions for 2011. Seems like I've run out of time waiting for most of them to come to pass, so it's time for a report card, using a scale of 1 (utterly wrong) to 10 (perfectly prescient):

Electricity in the Developing World

Small Scale, Local Generation

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 ~ The need for electricity throughout the developing world is immense and will continue to grow. Unlike in the industrialized countries, much of the developing world does not have large centralized power plants and transmission lines to carry that power to widely-spread users. Nor are they likely to ever have such a system:

Building out the power grid can be prohibitively expensive, which is why in many countries, like Haiti, less than three quarters of the population have grid access. Pike Research’s Clint Wheelock says just for the transmission portion alone it can cost at least $500,000 per mile. And that’s without the distribution portion and any kind of the grid intelligence (smart grid) that is getting all of the investment this year.

Wind Up

FERC Sides with Wind Farms Over BPA

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 ~ How much do we need a smart grid?

Last week the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) ruled that the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) cannot use its monopoly power to force wind farm operators to curtail generation, an action the BPA took in response to a surfeit of hydro power this past spring.

At the time, BPA claimed that they had to curtail wind generation to protect salmon populations. Wind producers argued that BPA should have continued to buy all their generation and could have sold the power elsewhere. BPA's decision cost them both crucial revenue and the production tax credits on which their financing, and hence, the overall project viability, depended.

FERC has now largely agreed with the wind farm operators that BPA could have sent the power to California and instead curtailed generation there.

Wind farm owners, including independent developers and utilities who own their own projects, say the problem is about money, not too much electricity.

"The agency has painted this issue as being about fish and physics," said Stefan Bird, senior vice president at PacifiCorp Energy. "It's about discrimination and dollars."

A Steady Wind

Firmer When Further Flung

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~ As many have long suspected, variable renewable energy sources, like wind, can be made more firm through numbers. Adding enough wind turbines and spreading them geographically smooths out the variability of individual wind turbines.

The impact is significant, and the optimized system varies from 15 to 50 percent of capacity, compared to individual turbine variability that's twice as large. Over a longer period (a year), the optimized (combined) system provides significantly more reliable power to the electric grid. It reduces periods of zero output to a few hours per year, effectively zero probability.

Still, it always comes back to the grid. If we cannot reallocate distributed generation from where it is available to where the load is, none of this matters. A better grid is what will truly unlock the promise of renewable energy.

Distributed Generation

Using Globally, Generating Locally

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~ In the developed parts of the world we are all quite familiar with centralized electricity generation. Megawatts of high-voltage electrical power are created by large coal, gas, nuclear, or other installations and sent over the transmission grid to areas of large demand where it is transformed to lower voltage and distributed to individual homes and businesses.

The alternative is distributed or point-of-use energy generation. Water wheels have been used for thousands of years to create mechanical energy for grinding grain, sawing lumber, and pumping water for drinking or irrigation. Windmills have been used similarly. These and other technologies are still in use in much of the developing world today, along with distributed power from less sustainable sources like diesel generators.

The Electric Leaf

An Energy Solution for the Developing World?

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~ Not the Nissan Leaf, but a device for artificial photosynthesis. Scientists at MIT report they have built an artificial leaf that creates electricity out of sunlight and water. A solar cell the size of a playing card could, in "bright" sunlight make enough electricity to power a developing world home using only a gallon of water. Said lead researcher Daniel Nocera:

A practical artificial leaf has been one of the Holy Grails of science for decades. We believe we have done it. The artificial leaf shows particular promise as an inexpensive source of electricity for homes of the poor in developing countries. Our goal is to make each home its own power station. One can envision villages in India and Africa not long from now purchasing an affordable basic power system based on this technology.

The device splits water into its constituent oxygen and hydrogen, which can then power a fuel cell.

UW EIC Winners

3rd Annual Competition Best Yet

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~ It was a great afternoon at the Seattle Center Exhibit Hall for the culmination of the University of Washington's Environmental Innovation Challenge. 17 teams made it to the finals and were scored on their 1-page executive summary, a 2-minute stand-up pitch, the caliber of their exhibit hall demo, and the judges' assessment of the potential impact of their idea.

The first prize winner was Voltaic, maker of modular components for electric vehicle drivetrains, including motor, transmission, braking, and power electronics. The team installed their prototype in a Honda Accord donated from Burien Honda and showed how they could both power the car and brake it by running the motors backwards. Regrettably, we couldn't take it for a real test drive, but I'd sure like to see it out on the track to see what it can really do.

Wireless Electric Vehicles

The Power of the Open Road

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~ What will power our transportation future? The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) has built a prototype magnetic train that runs on an electrical road:

On Tuesday researchers launched an environmentally friendly public transport system using a "recharging road"-- with a vehicle sucking power magnetically from buried electric strips.

The Online Electric Vehicle (OLEV), towing three buses, went into service at an amusement park in southern Seoul. If the prototype proves successful, there are plans to try it out on a bus route in the capital.

Hydrovolts Wins ImagineH2O Contest

Turning Water Into Opportunity

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~ Yesterday Hydrovolts took first place and the 2010 Water Energy-Nexus Prize. The company wins $20,000 and a package of professional services. Awesome!

It's great validation for the concept of distributed microscale hydropower from flowing water. Hydrovolts has identified a diverse collection of market segments each of which could provide real opportunity to fulfill a great need. Several have global scope, and sales could be pretty robust if the company can get a decent product to market before its competitors do.

Some good press on the competition in the past; there should be some more in the coming days.

Doing Nothing

You Can Pay Me Now, Or...

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An interesting 5-minute video from the Florida Solar Energy Center. While some of the specifics pertain to Florida, the broad comparison applies everywhere. Investment today in renewable generation makes long-term economic sense in the same way that it pays to pony up now to put our kids through college. The cost of acting, while more up-front today perhaps, is a winner long-term over the cost of doing nothing.



Here in Washington we would perhaps not compare ourselves so directly to solar, but instead include bioenergy, wind and perhaps distributed hydropower or tidal/wave generation. The core points about grid parity, the importance of energy retrofits and other efficiency measures, and the value of energy independence are still compelling.

A Lot of Spin

Spinning Building, Turbines, Stories

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Architects are enamored of integrating wind turbines into buildings, although it's still quite unclear whether it makes any financial sense. Making financial sense, however, is not much of a concern in over-the-top Dubai, site of a radically innovative proposed new building that not only has rotating wind turbines between each floor, but also has floors that rotate as well.

The proposal by Dynamic Architecture appears stylish but one can doubt whether it will ever be built. Searching the web, there are plenty of articles claiming that construction is set to begin and even one claiming it already has, but more than 2 years later there is no sign of any actual progress. Perhaps the economy did it in, but in Dubai that seems unlikely. More plausible is that it is impractical, and, at $3000 per square foot, too pricy even by the rarefied standards of the emirates.

16 Predictions for 2011

Looking Forward, Looking Backward

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It's that time when people make predictions for the coming year.

This is my first try at making a formal list of prognostications, which I plan to revisit a year hence when I make my second list.

Many are about cleantech and renewable energy, or about things that will affect the future of them.

I hope I'm wrong about many of these.

Without further preamble:

Off-Grid Africa

Distributed Power is Growing All Over

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Yurt in western China with solar panel

Low-cost, small-scale, simple distributed power generation continues to make gains. It was part of the original business model for the Hydrovolts turbine, the genesis of Clarian Power, and the market power of Nokero light "bulbs."

Now general-purpose solar panels are going up in remote locations around the world, especially Africa, where the sprawling grids of centrally-generated power plants don't reach.

Providing even a small amount of electricity makes an enormous difference in the quality of life for people in the developing world. It provides lighting which allows students to read and study at night, improving education, a key precursor of upward economic mobility. It can replace unhealthful sources of illumination, cooking and heating, especially animal manure, charcoal, and wood, many of which are burned inefficiently and with limited attention to adequate ventilation.

The economics make sense. The cost of charging equipment (particularly cell phones) in both time and direct expense is rapidly recovered by the value of local generation capacity.

The biggest impediment to more distributed generation is the initial capital cost. Traditional lenders prefer large central projects because the due diligence is both familiar and easier--there is only one location to examine, and to subsequently monitor, over the course of the financing. Micro-lending could pick up the slack, but there still needs to be a business model that creates revenue to pay back the investment. While selling a goat may work for some, providing a local charging station may work for others. As remote villages gain dribs of electricity, however, more models will arise. Entrepreneurs exist in rural Africa too, and having a enabling platform technology like electricity opens the way to many kinds of businesses. As costs of solar panels continue to decline, and as other forms of distributed generation become available, the effect on rural areas of the developing world will be transformative.

"Smells Like Money"

Farm Power Northwest Turns Poop Into Power

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Farm Power Co-founder Kevin Maas
at the Rexville installation

Anaerobic digesters take various kinds of biomass, typically animal manure, and extract methane. The methane can either supply a generator to make electricity, or be used directly as fuel for cooking, heating, or other equipment. The residual liquids and solids can, with some caveats, be used as fertilizer or for soil amendment.

The first anaerobic digester was built more than 150 years ago, but has not previously seen widespread use. That could be changing, for several reasons: preventing uncontrolled emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more troublesome than carbon dioxide; mitigating the mountains of manure produced by modern concentrated animal feedlot operations (CAFOs); and generating distributed local power and commercial byproducts that raise revenues and cut costs.

Up in Western Washington's Skagit Valley, Farm Power Northwest is building anaerobic digesters for local dairy farmers. This week I traveled up to the Mount Vernon area and met with Kevin Maas, who, with his brother Daryl, founded and run the company. The rest of this post is mostly photos of the Rexville installation, the company's first, online since August 2009. There's lots of good links and information, as well as pictures of construction on their web site and Kevin's blog.