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Can smarter storage solve our energy woes? | Ensia

Notrees Windpower Project battery storage unit

A new generation of technology focuses on supplying a midsize dollop of power exactly when and where it’s needed most.

Largely out of sight, tucked into building basements and stashed in garages, a new generation of energy storage technology is poised to help our aging grid not only avoid outages, but enable vast new flows of renewable power, all while saving some serious money. Call it the smart storage revolution.

California is ground zero for this trend. Across the Golden State, costs for electric power are high, renewables are multiplying, and key grid links are overloaded. But rather than rely on longstanding industry practice to fix grid problems by building more power plants or transmission lines, California regulators are encouraging customers and utilities to innovate.

At two InterContinental Hotels in the Bay Area, new storage technology is helping to reconcile these many challenges. The hotels’ secret weapon is a pair of fridge-sized boxes loaded with lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries. Day to day, they’re able to cut the hotels’ electricity costs by up to 15 percent.

They do so by taking advantage of California’s complex power pricing regime. Smart software recharges the batteries when power is cheap, typically at night. When rates head up, the system seamlessly switches part or all of the hotels’ load to the batteries, thereby avoiding the need to purchase power at the costliest times, explains Salim Khan, CEO of Stem, the Millbrae, Calif.–based startup that built the systems.

Stem energy storage units

New storage technology at two InterContinental Hotels in the Bay Area cuts the hotels’ electricity costs. Photo courtesy of Stem.

The technology helps the broader grid, too, by reducing the risk of outages. Grid gurus call it “peak shaving.” It’s a nifty trick in which stored energy displaces active generation during key moments. On the hottest days, even a tiny sliver of this kind of savings can make the difference between a blackout and business as usual.

For now, the InterContinental Hotels’ storage units are an exception, but they’re set to become a rule. In February, California became the first state to order investment in smart grid storage, initially calling for 50 megawatts (MW) in the Los Angeles basin area.

The rule doesn’t detail what kind of storage to deploy. Rather, it aims to spark more market innovations, like Stem’s, that improve grid performance while saving money. “This is a huge signal to the market that storage is ready to play” on par with conventional power plants, says Janice Lin, executive director of the California Energy Storage Alliance.

Goldilocks Storage

To be sure, storing electricity isn’t anything new. Cell phones, e-readers and laptops, all integral to daily life, let us use a little of the grid’s generation on the go.

Storage is well established at the macro scale, too. A little-known backbone of the U.S. grid is more than 20,000 MW — equal to the capacity of some 22 nuclear power plants — of “pumped hydro” storage. Scattered at scores of remote sites around the U.S., these systems comprise some 99 percent of today’s storage capacity.

At night, utilities use low-cost energy to pump water from a lower reservoir uphill to a higher basin. The next day, as demand peaks, the water is sent back downhill to generate power. Think of pumped hydro as the biggest battery we have. It’s capable of delivering city-sized volumes of power for hours in a row. That’s why grid operators are pushing to install thousands more megawatts of capacity.

But, as California is finding, on today’s grid, the sweet spot for smart storage is at scales somewhere between these two extremes. Much bigger than handheld phone batteries, but smaller than gargantuan lakes of hydropower, smarter storage solutions can be an ideal fit for critical niches where a midsize dollop of power, supplied for minutes or hours, is all that’s needed.

Sharing California’s Problems

California’s problems aren’t unique. Similar problems are surfacing across the U.S.

Transmission constraints. L.A.’s biggest problem isn’t inadequate supply of power — most of the time there’s enough juice available from regional generators. The real problem is funneling all that power through aged transmission lines that can’t handle the load.

In most markets installing new transmission cables, or even upgrading existing lines, is a no-go. As populations have grown, the cost of new grid links has skyrocketed; likewise, public patience with big construction projects is scant. New York City and Long Island face similar transmission constraints.

Storage offers a tidy solution. At night, utilities can use existing transmission lines to fill up batteries positioned near demand hot spots. Later, if demand peaks beyond power lines’ ability, batteries can fill in the necessary excess. “Energy storage helps you do more with less infrastructure,” says Bill Acker, executive director of NY-BEST, an energy storage technology consortium based in Albany, N.Y.

Waste and reliability. To meet peak levels of demand, the grid has been massively overbuilt. The Electric Power Research Institute estimates that one-quarter of all high-voltage distribution lines and about one-tenth of all power plants are used, on average, just 5 percent of the time, or 33 hours per month.

That means hundreds of billions of dollars in assets go unused the vast majority of the time. Utilities are recognizing that carefully targeted storage can cost-effectively replace these least-used assets, says Haresh Kamath, program manager for energy storage at EPRI.

“We’re not using most of our assets most of the time,” says Johannes Rittershausen, managing director of Convergent Energy + Power, a developer of energy storage assets. “The challenge is to find ways to address infrastructure needs most efficiently and at the least cost to end users. A well-designed energy storage project can do just that by taking advantage of slack capacity in targeted locations.

“The U.S. grid will require massive investment over the coming decades as infrastructure ages and our society’s peak electricity demand continues to grow,” he adds.

Renewables’ risks. As a rule of thumb, grid experts believe that when intermittent power sources such as wind and solar surpass 20 percent, grid instability soars. And where that threshold once seemed remote, it is routinely being surpassed in many regions.

Storage boosts the value of renewables in two ways: by stepping in to provide power when renewable output drops off, and by mopping up excess output when solar or wind power exceed demand.

In February of this year, wind output set a record in Texas, briefly cranking out more than 28 percent of the power demands of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the flow of about 85 percent of the state’s electric power. California’s goals for renewables are the nation’s highest, with a mandate to hit 33 percent by 2020. Roughly 20 more states, home to the majority of the U.S. population, have set goals of 20 percent or more.

Storage boosts the value of renewables in two ways: by stepping in to provide power when renewable output drops off, and by mopping up excess output when solar or wind power exceed demand.

“For the first time, the growth of renewables means we’re facing unpredictable supply,” says Lin. Demand will also grow less predictable as more electric vehicles come on line. “Plus it’s hard to find locations for new plants or transmission lines,” Lin adds. “Storage speaks to all these problems.”

Top Contenders

A menagerie of exotic new storage technologies — including thermal storage, flywheels and compressed air storage — are developing fast, but haven’t yet achieved commercial-scale viability. For now, advanced battery-based storage is the hottest of the grid’s newcomers, thanks to rapid declines in the price of Li-ion batteries.

Serendipitously, a key impetus for this trend started in the auto sector, where rising sales of battery-packed hybrids and electric vehicles are driving carmakers’ appetites for advanced Li-ion batteries. This is spurring new manufacturing capacity, driving prices down globally. Driven largely by rising demand from car companies, industry and utilities, the global Li-ion market is slated to double over the next four years, to around $24 billion, according to a recent Frost & Sullivan report.

As prices fall, Li-ion batteries are finding new niches. For now, at around $2,000 per kilowatt-hour, battery backup remains too costly for most applications. But they do pencil out for deep-pocketed utilities in key situations, where their ability to deliver large pulses of power is highly valued.

In January, for example, Duke Energy completed a 36 MW energy storage system at its Notrees Windpower Project in West Texas. Designed and installed by Austin-based Xtreme Power with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, the $44-million system is the world’s largest wind-linked storage unit, made up of thousands Li-ion battery cells.

According to financial service company UBS, the cost of storage dropped by 40 percent over the past two years, and analysts expect the slide to continue, or even accelerate. At around $500 per kWh, EPRI estimates more than 40,000 MW of potential demand will enter the market. At that price point, residential-scale battery backup may become a reality. Pilot trials of such household-scale backup appliances are underway near Sacramento, Calif.

Installed in the garages of 15 solar-powered homes, Li-ion battery packs the size of small file cabinets hold enough juice to supply a few hours of power. The systems are designed to let the homes go off grid during periods of peak demand, saving homeowners money while reducing stress on the network.

And at $250 per kWh, consulting firm McKinsey & Co. predictsautomakers will be able to build electric vehicles that would be competitively priced in comparison to conventional cars, but with much lower fuel costs. With an eye on a future where there’s a Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf or the like in every garage, utilities and carmakers are beginning to test vehicle-to-grid systems where EVs’ big battery packs are enlisted to back up the grid.

Powering Ahead

Innovative startups and companies from outside the utility sector are leading the shift towards smart storage. It’s not that utilities won’t play a big role here, but historically they tend to follow, says GreenTech Media smart grid analyst Zach Pollock. “Utilities’ adoption of nascent technologies is typically constrained by cautious regulators, conservative cultures and long budget cycles.”

And maybe that’s okay. Smart storage offers a rare opportunity, says Rittershausen. “We can do a project that makes a profit, saves the consumer money and reduces inefficiency,” he adds. “If this is done right it makes sense for investors, end users and utilities too.”

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Check out the original story here: http://ensia.com/features/can-smarter-storage-solve-our-energy-woes/?viewAll=1

 

Ensia

Peas on Earth: How PepsiCo is aiding Ethiopia’s chickpea farmers to secure its supply chain | Ensia

Say “Pepsi” and most folks think of the nose-tickling cola that has been Coke’s archrival for over a century. Or chips: About half of PepsiCo’s $58 billion in yearly sales comes from snack foods such as Lay’s and Doritos.

But chickpeas? Also known as garbanzo beans, the protein-rich legumes are a key ingredient in hummus, one of PepsiCo’s fastest-growing products. In 2007, the food and beverage giant inked a joint venture with Israel’s Strauss Group to sell Sabra-brand hummus and other foods in North America. Led by demand for the garlicky blend of chickpeas, olive oil and sesame, PepsiCo’s sales of dips in its Sabra line soared by 45 percent in 2010. In early 2011, the partners agreed to extend the deal to sell Sabra hummus and other spreads globally.

This lip-smacking growth gives PepsiCo a new challenge: How to secure a steady supply of chickpeas. In 2012, the company expects to buy several thousand tons; two years later, the shopping list calls for roughly twice that amount.

To help meet this need, PepsiCo is combining its business agenda with the development goal of helping 10,000 Ethiopian farmers double their production of chickpeas in a program it’s calling Enterprise EthioPEA. “This initiative will positively impact the livelihood of local farmers, address the critical issue of famine in the Horn of Africa and create sustainable business opportunities for PepsiCo,” said Indra Nooyi, chairman and CEO of PepsiCo in a statement.

The strategy is as unconventional as it ambitious. After all, Ethiopia is better known for famine than for food export. Enterprise EthioPEA aims to reverse that condition by bringing together international partners with local stakeholders. From overseas, PepsiCo, the United Nations World Food Programme and the U.S. Agency for International Development are joining forces. Within the country, the effort is led by the Ethiopian Institute for Agriculture Research, the Ministry of Agriculture and Omega Farms.

For Ethiopia, where half of all kids are stunted by malnutrition, chickpeas offer a familiar but underexploited dietary option, explains Tara Acharya, PepsiCo’s director of global health and agriculture policy.

With around 22 percent protein, chickpeas offer a nutritious alternative to meat and require fewer inputs to grow. The crop is also a rich source of complex carbohydrates, fiber, minerals and vitamins.

Ethiopian farmers routinely grow chickpeas today, but typically as a secondary crop between regular harvests of grains. In addition, dependence on less-productive seed strains and a paucity of irrigation limits harvests, says Acharya. As a result, yields have historically been too low to ensure stable market prices, and farmers tend to keep most of what they grow, for food and as seed stock for future crops. In 2008, Ethiopian farmers produced 287,000 tons of chickpeas, exporting roughly 14 per cent of that. For most farmers, chickpeas “haven’t had significant commercial importance,” says Acharya.

But with PepsiCo’s commitment to buy excess production, if all goes to plan, both output and prices will rise. Working with farmers in Ethiopia’s wetter, more fertile north, Enterprise EthioPEA is introducing more vigorous seed strains along with technical and financial assistance to deploy low-cost flood irrigation. “Irrigation would also allow farms to add a second crop of chickpeas, during the dry season,” Acharya says, “and once installed, irrigation will help other crops, too.”

As harvests grow, Enterprise EthioPEA is working with local food processors to create an affordable supply of chickpea-based ready-to-consume supplementary food that will be used to feed 40,000 malnourished Ethiopian children.

Famine continues to take a toll in Ethiopia and neighboring countries. Rains did not fall in southern stretches of the country or in neighboring regions in late 2010, nor did they come in time in 2011 to save spring plantings. In parts of Kenya and Ethiopia, 2010–11 was one of the driest years since 1950–51. The tragic result is that today, some 13 million people face famine across the region. In Ethiopia’s southern provinces, 3.7 million are receiving food assistance from WFP.

Making a dent in these numbers will take time. Enterprise EthioPEA started last fall, and is slated to last through August 2013. By the following year, PepsiCo hopes crop yields will have doubled, producing enough to not only supply Ethiopia’s domestic needs, but also allow for export of about one-fifth of the crop, thereby doubling export income to farmers. By that time, PepsiCo hopes it can count on Ethiopia for about a tenth of its global chickpea needs.

Should Enterprise EthioPEA succeed, PepsiCo hopes to copy and repeat the strategy with other crops in other developing markets, says Acharya. A recipe that successfully blends profit with sustainable development is one few would want to keep secret.

ADAM ASTON is a Brooklyn-based writer covering energy, environment and green biz. Follow his work at adamaston.com or on twitter at @adamanyc.

Please check out the original article at Momentum, here: http://environment.umn.edu/momentum/issue/4.1w12/connections.html

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Elusive efficiency: Why saving energy is so hard and what can we do about it? | Ensia

When it comes to reducing fossil fuel use, increasing energy efficiency has obvious appeal: help the environment, boost energy security and save money, too—without the grit-your-teeth-and-get-by-without attitude of 1970s-style energy conservation. Not only that, but boosting the amount of work we squeeze out of each kWh or Btu is the cheapest, most plentiful and fastest tool we have for moving toward a more sustain­able energy future. Many efficiency fixes, experts point out, save so much it would be foolish to ignore them.

Americans have made some moves to enhance efficiency: Per capita energy use has fallen by 14 percent in the past three decades in the U.S., and since 1970 the energy necessary to create each dollar of GDP has been halved. Still, based on comparisons with other countries, that figure could well be halved again. And a recent report by the National Academies suggests Americans could reduce energy use 17 to 22 percent by 2020 and 25 to 31 percent by 2030 if we adopt existing and emerging energy efficiency technologies.

Why isn’t this “low-hanging fruit,” as efficiency is invariably called, being plucked? In the face of logic, incentives, regulatory mandates, new efficiency-enhancing technologies and even moral imperative, consum­ers remain surprisingly ambivalent about, or even muddled by, the op­tions. Part of the problem is how human behavior often stymies bet­ter intentions. Another factor is the more banal reality that bureaucracy and a lack of capital can slow any revolution in its tracks, no matter how cost-effective it might be.

“The potential to reduce the energy we waste is compelling,” Kenneth J. Ostrowski, a senior partner at global management consulting firm McKinsey & Co., said in announcing a 2009 study of the U.S. economy. “However, to unlock the full potential, we need a coordinated national and regional strategy to overcome barriers and scale up the deployment of existing energy efficiency technologies.”

Consider the Value

First, take a step back and consider the value efficiency offers.

In an influential study published in 2008, psychologists Gerald T. Gard­ner and Paul C. Stern assessed the impact of around 30 steps households could take toward increasing their energy efficiency, all using currently available technologies. The sum of the efforts, they found, could cut U.S. home energy use by up to 30 percent. Since residences account for nearly one-third of total energy use, these savings could trim 11 percent from overall U.S. energy consumption.

In its 2009 report, McKinsey identified waste and other savings opportunities amounting to 23 per­cent of the U.S. energy pie, excluding the transportation sector. The cost of energy-saving upgrades, McKin­sey found, could be entirely paid for within a few years by the resulting reduction in spending on energy. For a total investment of $520 billion, the U.S. could trim some $1.2 trillion from its energy costs by 2020. “Energy efficiency should be elevated to a national priority,” said Ostrowski.

The savings would be greater still if the calculation considers future innovation, says David Goldstein, energy program co-director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. In his 2010 book Invisible Energy, Goldstein estimated savings of 80 percent are possible by 2050 if we include technologies now in the pipeline, as well as those likely to be introduced given what we know about the pace of innovation. 

Commenting on a National Academy of Sciences study estimating that energy savings of 30 percent are possible with today’s technology, Goldstein points out that by factoring in improvements in these technologies, the efficiency resource balloons in size to trillions of dollars of growth potential.

Culprit: Confusion

So if these gains are waiting to be made, what’s holding up the great efficiency revolution?

One culprit seems to be confusion. Consumers face a challenge connecting big, abstract gains with more familiar day-to-day decisions, such as installing CFL lightbulbs. And Americans are — for now, at least — so muddled about energy and efficiency that we’re largely unable to identify best choices about how to cut consumption.

In 2009, a research team led by Shahzeen Attari at Columbia University’s Center for Research on Environmental Decisions surveyed 505 subjects to assess their perceptions of energy consumption and savings for a variety of household, transportation and recycling activities. The team found that subjects sometimes overstated the impact of visible actions that offered relatively little energy savings, while profoundly underestimating the impact of less-visible steps that saved 10 or even 100 times more energy. While the test did not formally include cost estimates, the data suggest that respondents tended to underestimate choices with bigger impacts that were more costly.

Interestingly, respondents who identified themselves as eco-minded tended to be less accurate than the general public. Emphasizing that the study wasn’t testing the causes of these misconceptions, Attari points out, “The well intentioned may focus on behaviors that they do, and pay less attention to the ones they don’t do.”

But the study offers one piece of the puzzle to help encourage efficiency: Enlighten consumers about their consumption. Some utilities, for example, are tinkering with household gizmos designed to deliver data to residents so they can see their energy use. That kind of personalized instant feedback on gains made may be just what people need to make pursuing energy efficiency seem worth their while — particularly if reducing energy use is tied to something that makes a difference to them.

High costs, such as the price tag for insulation or a new, energy-efficient furnace, can be a barrier to major green upgrades.

“Go after what matters most to a consumer,” says Attari. “If they care about security, talk about energy independence. If they care about economics, talk about cost savings. If they care about their grandkids, talk about protecting future generations. If they care about biodiversity and species extinction, talk about polar bears.”

Set the Pace

Consumers are quick to state a willingness to pay for green features. But in practice, another impediment to adopting energy efficiency measures is our aversion to paying large amounts up front, even if the investment promises long-term savings. High costs, such as the price tag for insulation or a new, energy-efficient furnace, can be a barrier to major green upgrades.

Some cities have pioneered an innovative solution to this problem. Adapting a model historically used to pay for sewer systems, sidewalks and other public works, planners in Berkeley, Calif., devised an approach — called Property Assessed Clean Energy, or PACE — that financed the up-front costs of big-ticket efficiency investments by issuing a bond. Property owners could, in turn, borrow those public funds to pay for green upgrades. To pay back the loan, homes that tapped into PACE funds see their taxes rise incrementally over 20 years.

“PACE helps consumers get past the hurdle of paying up-front costs,” said Claire Danielle Tomkins, director of research at the Carbon War Room, at the Business Climate 2010 conference in New York.

To date, more than 20 states have passed laws enabling PACE programs. Perversely, however, Washington stymied the progress of PACE deployments. In the wake of the global financial crisis, federal authorities blocked mortgages attached to PACE bonds, arguing that the added payments increase a borrower’s monthly costs and thereby add risk to still sickly mortgage markets.

Rebound

Interestingly, thanks again to human nature, even implementing measures that improve efficiency will not necessarily result in reduced energy use.

Energy efficient washing machine
Households that installed high-efficiency washing machines also boosted washing volume 5.6 percent.

One challenge is something called the “rebound effect”, or Jevons paradox. By definition, greater efficiency lowers the cost to use a resource or technology. But as goods and services grow cheaper, people tend to consume more of them .

When these two dynamics collide, efficiency gains can be diluted by increases in use. One study found that households with high-efficiency washing machines boosted the volume of washing they did on average by 5.6 percent. This increase didn’t negate the 40 to 50 percent reductions in water and energy consumption the units delivered, but it did erode total efficiency gains, according to a 2008 RAND paper by economist Lucas Davis.

For another twist on how human nature can stymie efficiency’s efforts to cut energy use, consider America’s love affair with big, fast cars. The technology to dramatically boost vehicle efficiency has been progressing for decades, but technology upgrades that could have saved energy have instead gone to soup up performance. While mileage barely budged between 1990 and now, average horsepower surged 77 percent, to around 230 today. As a result, today’s mild-mannered Toyota Sienna minivan offers about as much horsepower as Ford’s fastest ’72 Mustang.

More Carrots, More Sticks

Alas, there is no single fix for efficiency elusiveness. Logjams like the PACE policy must be dismantled one by one. And because human behavior is so complex, approaches to altering it must take many forms.

For now, incentives are the most politically saleable strategy to induce efficiency savings. As part of the 2009 stimulus bill, the U.S. Department of Energy doled out hundreds of millions to boost efficiency programs.

More vigorous mandates are making a comeback, too. Most visible, perhaps, has been the rollout of higher mileage standards for cars. And in 2010, DOE announced dozens of tough penalties against companies selling appliances, plumbing and lighting without certifying that they meet energy and/or water efficiency standards. Such well-crafted rules promise to speed change while obviating many of the psychological traps that can distract consumers. When we can’t opt for a less-efficient technology, our purchasing decisions get easier.

There may even be a public appetite for a yet heavier regulatory hand. A national survey conducted by the Mellman Group for the Union of Concerned Scientists suggests consumers may prefer tougher mileage rules. The study found that about 74 percent of voters favor tougher federal goals requiring that average fuel efficiency rise to 60 mpg by 2025. Two-thirds supported the goal even if it meant a $3,000 premium on the sticker price, assuming that could be recouped in savings at the pump within four years.

Perhaps the biggest motivator of all could end up to be the market. The sharp oil price spike of 2008 caused an unprecedented stampede away from gas-guzzling vehicles and triggered broader efforts to cut energy use. Similar increases in the cost of electricity or natural gas could do much to motivate consumers to cut back by improving their energy efficiency.

Advocates for a tax on carbon emissions generated by energy use argue such a fee would trigger the adoption of energy efficiency measures in an orderly fashion by preventing such on-again, off-again shifts toward efficient technologies. Better to create an incentive to put efficient systems into place ahead of time, they argue, than to wait for unpredictably high energy prices to return and force these shifts chaotically.

Indeed, better we all learn efficiency-improving behaviors while we can afford to.  View Ensia homepage

A version of this feature originally appeared in the Fall 2010 issue of Momentum magazine, Ensia’s predecessor.

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