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1. Verenium Opens Cellulosic Ethanol Demo Plant
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2. Google to Washington: We Want Plug-In Vehicles
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3. Duke Proposes Statewide Smart Grid
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4. The Daily Sprout
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5. Austin Basks in Solar Cities' Glow
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6. UN Offsets Might Not Be Offsetting Much
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7. SunEdison Raises $161M for PV Farms
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8. Texas Utility to Spend $690M on Smart Meter Roll Out
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9. Apple Eying Solar for iPods, iPhones & Laptops?
Verenium Opens Cellulosic Ethanol Demo Plant
Katie Fehrenbacher - Energy
There’s a quiet U.S. race going on to be the first to turn the country’s waste and biomass into next-generation ethanol at a large scale; as companies make progress it’s getting louder. Ethanol producer Verenium said today it has officially opened a demonstration facility in Jennings, La., which will produce 1.4 million gallons per year of cellulosic ethanol. The company says its demo plant is now in “the commissioning phase” (we are waiting for more clarification on that) and is on track to start construction of a 30 million gallon-per-year commercial plant in the middle of next year.
Verenium says the opening of its cellulosic demo plant is “a first for the U.S.” and its commercial plant will be “the first of its kind,” located in the southeastern United States. The company is publicly traded on the Nasdaq, and its stock rose slightly this morning to $2.40. Last time we looked at Verenium’s (VRNM) stock it had dropped 12 percent in February on its weak earnings: For the quarter ended Dec. 31, Verenium posted a loss of $21.6 million, compared with $6.1 million, for the same period a year earlier.
Verenium might claim it is the first with a demo plant and will be first to construct a commercial plant, but other companies are fighting for that title, too. Range Fuels, a startup backed by Khosla Ventures and other investors, is in the process of completing the initial 20 million-gallon-per-year phase of a commercial plant in Soperton, Ga., which it expects to finish in 2009. When that plant is fully up and running it's expected to produce 100 million gallons of ethanol a year from wood waste out of Georgia's pine forests.
Range Fuels had to push back completion of the plant’s initial phase from the end of 2008 to 2009, but CEO Mitch Mandich told us "the plant is the first of its kind, and even though pushed back, we have a multiple-year head start over the competition."
Coskata, which is also backed by Khosla Ventures, as well as GM, plans to scale up a pilot project to a 40,000-gallon demonstration facility by the end of 2008. In April Coskata said that pilot plant would be built in Madison, Penn., just northeast of Pittsburgh, and cost $25 million to build. The company says it is also working on a 100 million-gallon-per-year U.S. facility it hopes will go online by early 2011.
Interestingly enough, Verenium was also previously a Khosla investment. Founded in 1994 as Celunol, the company reportedly raised more than $60 million from Khosla Ventures, Braemar Energy Ventures, Charles River and Rho Ventures. In 2007 Celunol was bought by Diversa for over $100 million and renamed Verenium in 2007.
Regardless of which company is technically first, any company that can start producing cellulosic biofuels stateside will get a boost from the government. The Farm Bill and the Energy Bill are providing companies with tax credits, loan guarantees and research and development incentives.
Google to Washington: We Want Plug-In Vehicles
Craig Rubens - Energy
We told you a few weeks ago that Google.org was looking for video submissions of you all telling Google how much you wanted a plug-in electric vehicle (PHEV). Google has now officially sent out their call for videos and unveiled they’re grander PHEV scheme. Google.org and the Brookings Institute will be holding a conference on PHEVs on June 11 and 12 in Washington DC to explore how federal policy might reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
Google’s lined up an A-list of presenters for this conference, including Senators Orrin Hatch, John Kerry, and Lamar Alexander, as well as Congressmen John Dingell and Jay Inslee. From the private sector, FedEx CEO Fred Smith, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, Vantage Point Venture Partner and former-CIA director James Woolsey will also be in attendance. A full agenda and registration information are available here.
If you can’t make it to Washington for the conference you can catch in streaming online or send in your 90-second video of why you want a PHEV and you’ll get a shot of being part of the conference. The best videos will be screened at the conference and featured on the RechargeIT, Google.org’s PHEV program web site.
Officially titled “Plug-In Electric Vehicles 2008: What Role for Washington?” the conference will look at the national interest in putting millions of plug-in electric vehicles on the road and how federal policy could facilitate that.
Duke Proposes Statewide Smart Grid
Craig Rubens - Energy
Duke Energy, as a regulated utility, still needs approval from the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission for this project. Duke has yet to announce any vendor partners, but a project of this scope will almost certainly involve some of the many startups working in the smart grid community. Duke is a member of the GridWise Alliance, a consortium of over 60 companies including telcos, utilities, software giants and cleantech startups like SmartSynch, GridPoint and SensorTran.
This would be the biggest smart grid endeavor undertaken by the utility. Duke has toyed with smart meter deployment on the pilot project scale, working with smart meter maker Echelon on some 2,000-3,000 homes around the utility’s headquarters in Charlotte, N.C., Duke spokesperson Dave Scanzoni tells Earth2Tech.
Duke says the Echelon system would allow them to reduce the level of voltage on the lines without impacting customer service, saving enough energy to power 40,000 homes for a year. For contrast, Duke just signed a power purchase agreement for 16 megawatts of solar power from SunEdison which will only power 2,647 homes a year.
Duke also has plans to implement a demonstration-sized project to offer solar panels or “other renewable energy sources” on site for customers, the beginnings of a truly distributed grid. That’s good news for residential solar installers.
Scanzoni says Duke is hopeful they will gain approval come June and that implementation of the five-year project could start before the end of the year. Once they begin the regulatory filings, Scanzoni said, vendor partnerships will likely be announced. Smart grid startups had best deploy sale reps to the Indiana area.
The Daily Sprout
Craig Rubens - Misc
World Bank to Put Up $5.5B for Cleantech: The World Bank plans to set up funds this July — both a $5 billion cleantech fund and a $500 million R&D fund — and hope to start raising cash by the end of the year - VentureBeat.
Bay of Fundy Sees More Tidal Interest: The Bay of Fundy, with its world famous tides, will have its tidal power potential further tested in a new partnership between New Brunswick’s Irving Oil and non-profit Huntsman Marine Science Centre - Cleantech.
Tesla’s Powertrain 1.5 Update: Tesla’s CTO JB Straubel posted a very thorough engineering update on the company blog saying the permanent powertrain solution is on schedule for August completion - Tesla Motors.
EPA Director Roasted by Senate: In case the write ups of the news that the White House meddled in EPA director Stephen Johnson’s decision to deny California’s request for an emissions waiver weren’t enough, here’s the video! - Veracifier.
Austin Basks in Solar Cities' Glow
Stacey Higginbotham - Policy
After being named to the Department of Energy’s list of Solar America Cities last summer, Austin today unveiled some of its plans to make good on its local utility’s goal of getting 30 percent of its energy from renewable resources by 2020. About 100 megawatts will come from solar, but so far Austin Energy is only able to get 6 percent of its power from renewables (and hopes to reach 12 percent by the end of the year when another wind farm comes online).
Austin says it has received $185,000 to expand its efforts to increase solar power across the city. The money and matching grant from Austin Energy will provide for an assessment of the total rooftop capacity in the city for solar panels, as well as to purchase solar panels for six more Austin area schools, bringing the count of Austin solar powered school buildings to 26.
Other solar initiatives include the city placing solar arrays on 24 city buildings, as well as five more being installed later this year. Austin Energy also funds a solar rebate program, begun three years ago, which rebates about $4.50 per watt, paying for about 60 percent of the cost of solar installations by the utility’s customers. So far 521 homes and 36 businesses have taken advantage of the program.
However, all of this provides for only 2 megawatts of solar power generated so far. The majority of Austin’s renewable energy comes from wind power, and even that won’t be enough to meet the demand for renewables under the current plans. So Austin still has a lot of work ahead of it.
UN Offsets Might Not Be Offsetting Much
Craig Rubens - Policy
The UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), a system whereby developed nations can earn certified carbon offset credits (CERs) by funding clean energy projects in the developing world, has come under fire again, this time from two separate reports. Both accuse the CDM of not adequately verifying that their credits are indeed being awarded to programs that would have otherwise not happened, an issue known as “additionality.”
David Victor and Michael Wara, two senior Stanford University academics, looked at thousands of offset projects and determined that anywhere from a third to two-thirds of the credits don’t actually represent emissions cuts. Meanwhile, U.S. watchdog group International Rivers has released a report claiming that nearly three-quarters of CDM offsets recipients had completed their project by the time they were approved, which the report’s authors say proves that the offsets were hardly an impetus for the project.
“Judging additionality has turned out to be unknowable and unworkable,” Patrick McCully, director of International Rivers, told the Guardian. “It can never be proved definitively that if a developer or factory owner did not get offset income they would not build their project.”
The Stanford researchers also noted that the developed world is footing the bill for programs the UN is approving, many of which are necessary infrastructure projects, not specifically carbon abatement projects. The Stanford pair found in their research that nearly every new hydro, wind and natural gas-fired plant planned for construction in China in the next fews years is applying for CDM credits. “Rich countries are clearly overpaying by a massive amount,” Victor said.
The CDM offsets are designed to encourage projects like forest protection, wind farms and clean power plants that would have otherwise not happened had the UN not offered extra funds via the CERs. But how does one adequately evaluate if it was the CDM offsets that gave a wind project with multiple financiers, tax incentives and a long-term business plan the final push to become feasible? The problem, as these two reports allege, is that every enterprising energy developer in the developing world is applying for CDM CERs and all-too-often receiving, even if they would have built the project without them.
This is the same issue the World Wildlife Foundation raised months when they released a report calling alleging 20 percent of the CDM offsets are bogus.
The UN has argued that every step of the offset permitting process has “a responsible level of scrutiny” and that the entire process is then verified by a third party. The UN also points to the vibrant and growing market for carbon offsets, of which they are but a part, as evidence that the mechanism is working. Currently CDM offsets are estimated to be a $20 billion annual business with the expectation that it will grow to over $100 billion over the next four years.
However, that market where their credit are traded is anything but stable. The EU, which runs the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU-ETS), recently revamped its emissions reduction framework and has threatened to severely limit CER trading if a successor to the Kyoto Protocol that includeS the U.S. and China in a broader carbon trading scheme is not agreed upon. Currently the EU-ETS is the only place UN-issued CERs have any value.
SunEdison Raises $161M for PV Farms
Craig Rubens - Startups
Following SunEdison’s announcement last week that it will build what it claims will be, at the time of construction, the largest photovoltaic farm in the U.S., the company now says it’s getting more cash to fuel its ambitious plans. The Beltsville, Md.-headquartered solar service operator says it has just closed $161 million in financing — $131 million in private equity and $30 million in debt financing. The round included Greylock Partners, HSH Nordbank AG, Applied Ventures, Black River Commodity Clean Energy Investment Fund, Black River Asset Management, MissionPoint Capital Partners and Allco Renewable Energy Limited.
This round was raised over the last six months, during which SunEdison signed some big deals with utilities all over North America, including the agreement with Duke Energy inked last week for the power from their largest PV array which will cost an estimated $173 million to build. Meanwhile, SunEdison has projects in progress around the world, including a new manufacturing facility in Spain, construction a large PV farm in Canada, and a partnership with Wal-Mart in Hawaii.
And while many of these photovoltaic installations are big, these tens-of-megawatts projects are small in comparison to the 500 MW solar projects taking shape in the desert. Can PV systems be built as utility-sized plants? Optisolar, a thin-film solar startup, thinks so. The startup is now trying large-scale photovoltaics with the development of a huge 550 megawatt PV farm in San Luis Obispo, Calif. This installation will dwarf any other PV installation on the continent and, if built, prove that cheaply made thin-film solar can scale. Construction is scheduled to start in 2010.
Meanwhile, SunEdison has its hands plenty full with utility contracts. The renewable portfolio standard that requires many utilities to buy a minimum percentage of their power from renewable sources is creating a lot of business for the likes of SunEdison. Now they just need to keep getting solar panels online.
Texas Utility to Spend $690M on Smart Meter Roll Out
Katie Fehrenbacher - Energy
That will include 3 million installed advanced meter systems, which the companies say is the largest project in Texas and one of the largest in the United States. Landis+Gyr’s contact is for $360 million, notes the Wall Street Journal. Smart meters enable customers to see how much power they are consuming, at what rate, in real time, which can encourage them to cut back. Oncor’s release this morning cites California and Ontario studies that show smart meters cut home energy use by 9 percent and 6.5 percent respectively.
That helps save customers money on their electricity bill and helps the utility better manage the power grid. PG&E and Southern California Edison have started on similar efforts. So why don’t all utilities do this?
Ah, right: the price tag. Oncor is spending $690 million to install the technology, which includes everything from the meters, the system, the installation, the back office support, the low-income in-home displays, customer education and legal costs. The customers will also ultimately help foot the bill. Oncor’s plan, which still needs regulatory approval, requests an added fee of “less than $2.35 per month for 11 years.” The release notes that an important component of successfully deploying the technology will be a consumer education campaign. True, but also installing this type of energy efficiency technology can often be significantly less than the cost of adding new power generation.
Photo courtesy of Landis+Gyr
Apple Eying Solar for iPods, iPhones & Laptops?
Katie Fehrenbacher - Energy
The patent application says Apple is looking at ways to embed solar panels behind the LCD screens of mobile gadgets like iPods, iPhones and laptops. That type of design is likely years in the making and is waiting on the cost of next-generation solar panels to drop dramatically. But we can’t deny there’s real appeal.
Embedding solar in gadgets could be valuable because, as devices get more complex and power-hungry, solar could provide a way to extend the device’s battery life. Our current battery technology is certainly not keeping pace with gadgets’ growing power demands.
There’s also the space constraints. While our gadgets are getting more power hungry, they’re also getting smaller, which is why Apple could be thinking of doubling up on the screen and solar panel space. There’s just no room for them anywhere else. Utilizing the space behind the screen means the company wouldn’t have to make major design changes to its current successful products.
Also not to be overlooked is that embedded solar would help disconnect our gadgets from the not-so-green power grid. That can cut down on carbon emissions and also enable the gadget-owner to save a bit on the electricity bill. Apple might not demonstrate its commitment to fighting global warming just yet, but we’re sure the company would be more than happy with the green PR generated by a “solar iPod”.
No doubt they’d also be pleased with the markup they could add to such a product. Hey, we’d pay the premium for an off-the-shelf solar option any day.
(Image is our idea of fun with photoshop. Definitely not an Apple product.)
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