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1. It's About Time: Glendale Gets First DOE Smart Grid Stimulus Contract
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2. John Bryson Picks Next Hot Green Startups: Coda, On-Ramp, Ostendo
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3. FPL CEO: We Haven't Seen A Dime of the Smart Grid Stimulus
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4. Shell CEO Defends Pullback From Clean Power
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5. FuelCell Energy Finds Niche in Natural Gas Stations
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6. After ARPA-E, Sun Catalytix Seeks New Funding
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7. Building Green Homes Breaks Into the Mainstream in Northern Cali
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8. Daily Sprout
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9. WiMAX for Smart Grid: Arcadian Gets Connected
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10. Google Releases API for Energy Tool PowerMeter
It's About Time: Glendale Gets First DOE Smart Grid Stimulus...
Jeff St. John - smart grid
Earlier in the day, we cited Florida Power & Light CEO, Lewis Hay III, saying that the utility hadn't "seen a dime" of its $200 million smart grid grant — a complaint that's been echoed by other smart grid industry insiders we've spoken to in the past weeks. Trade group the Grid Wise Alliance sent letters to Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner and DOE General Counsel Scott Harris last month that said “[A] significant amount of time has passed without substantive progress being made towards the start of projects and the intended creation of jobs.”
Given that the first round of smart grid stimulus funds were announced at the end of October, and the second round was announced in late November, utilities are, perhaps rightfully, getting impatient to get the money to start paying vendors and hiring workers.
But Kuennen couldn't help answer one key question behind this delay in getting funds to utilities, which is whether or not DOE has resolved a disagreement with the IRS over whether or not the grants will be treated as taxable income. That's because Glendale, as a municipal utility, doesn't pay taxes, Kuennen explained.
"I don't know if they resolved the tax issue for IOUs (investor-owned utilities), but we don't have that problem," he said. SmartGridNews first reported on the dispute over grant taxation last month, and reported that the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, which represents state utility commissions, has weighed in against taxing the grants. On the smart grid industry side, eMeter Chief Regulatory Officer Chris King said in a blog post that the stimulus funds are not taxable, citing a regulatory ruling from Maine.
DOE hasn't yet responded to our request for comment made earlier in the week on the issue of taxing smart grid grants and how this issue might be affecting the lack of movement on getting contracts signed with investor-owned utilities. The GridWise Alliance said in its letters to Geithner and the DOE that making the grants taxable could force utility commissions to recalibrate the project rate cases that assumed a 50-50 split between the federal money and utility spending — and could cause some projects to be canceled.
Glendale W&P will apply the $20 million grant to its $51 million program to roll out smart electricity and water meters from Itron to its customers by September 2011, starting with a 1000-home pilot that will also include 300 in-home displays. Other plans include a distribution grid automation system, thermal energy storage, demand response systems, and the data storage systems to manage all that new smart grid data — as well as an expanded Wi-Fi backhaul system for the smart meters.
John Bryson Picks Next Hot Green Startups: Coda, On-Ramp, Ostendo
Jeff St. John - Automotive
John Bryson, former CEO of Edison International and co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council, has a yen for startups that can take solar PV, smart meter communications, and battery technologies farther. At least those were some of the startups he plugged in his opening speech at the U.C. Berkeley Energy Symposium on Thursday — electric vehicle maker Coda Automotive, smart grid wireless provider On-Ramp Wireless, and solid-state lighting display maker Ostendo.
Bryson, who has been advising the United Nations on energy and climate policy since leaving his leadership post at the parent company of Southern California Edison in July 2008, has reason to praise Coda, since he's on the company's board of directors. The Santa Monica, Calif.-based company is making cars in China, and backed with some $74 million in venture investment, as well as a $500 million capital commitment from a Chinese backer, CEO Kevin Czinger told Hybrid Cars last month.
Bryson clarified that $500 million commitment somewhat on Thursday. "The Chinese government — I'll oversimplify — has put up $500 million to move manufacturing forward," he said, though he didn't add more details. There's reason for China to want Coda to succeed. Not only is it planning to build its car in China — though its first market is to be the U.S.— it's also developing its batteries in partnership with China's Lishen Power Battery. China wants to grow its battery manufacturing base, not only for export but for domestic purposes — about half the EV charging stations to be installed worldwide over the next 5 years will be in China, Pike Research predicts.
But Coda’s battery technology could be adapted to grid storage as well, Bryson said, repeating comments that Coda CFO made to the Cleantech Group. Bryson clarified those comments by noting that Coda is looking at frequency regulation — keeping grid power frequency within reasonable bounds to avoid power outages — as a key market for grid storage, though he didn't expand much on how or when Coda might be doing that.
Bryson isn't on the board of the other two startups he mentioned, though he is impressed with their work. The first, San Diego-based On-Ramp Wireless, has come up with a proprietary, low-power wireless technology that it says can offer hundred-mile ranges, and is one of the partners in San Diego Gas & Electric's GridComm project. Bryson added that On-Ramp also offers the ability to penetrate barriers like manhole covers — something that the 900-megahertz smart meter communications from Itron and Silver Spring Networks, two companies providing tech to California smart meter rollouts, can't do as well, he said.
Ostendo, a Carlsbad, Calif.-based maker of solid state lighting-based curved displays, is working on research to capture more light spectrum to increase the efficiencies of today's solar photovoltaic cells from about 20 percent to a potential 80 percent, Bryson said. But Bryson also pointed out that the company is still only at “the lab level of development" on the research.
FPL CEO: We Haven't Seen A Dime of the Smart Grid Stimulus
Katie Fehrenbacher - smart grid
FPL Group’s investor-owned utility FPL won a $200 million grant — the maximum amount that could be awarded to any one project — to help it install 2.6 million smart meters, 9,000 smart distribution devices, 45 phasors and advanced monitoring at its substations. FPL announced last year that it will build out a smart meter project in conjunction with Cisco, GE, Silver Spring Networks and the city of Miami.
Is the Department of Energy dragging its feet on handing out the stimulus funds? Well, the first round of smart grid stimulus funds were announced at the end of October, and the second round of smart grid stimulus funds were announced in late November. So we’re already at between 3 and 4 months between picking the winners before funds have reportedly reached utilities’ and vendor’s pockets. FPL isn’t the only one that’s stated this, but a variety of vendors have repeated the same sentiment to us.
One reason for the possible delay is that it seems to be unclear if the stimulus funds are taxable or not. SmartGridNews recently reported that "the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service have determined that Smart Grid stimulus grant awards are taxable," but "The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) thinks it's a really bad idea." On the other hand industry watchers like eMeter Chief Regulatory Officer Chris King have said that the stimulus funds are not taxable.
Shell CEO Defends Pullback From Clean Power
Katie Fehrenbacher - clean power
“Money-wise, the budget hasn’t changed,” said Voss, stating that Shell invests 25 percent of its R&D and technology budget on alternative energy. But as the Wall Street Journal moderator pointed out, that’s a “tiny portion” compared to the overall capital spending on fossil fuel energy.
“What has happened is that we’ve narrowed the options somewhat,” Voss said. Shell is focusing on alternative energy that is close to its current business, like biofuels, he said. Earlier this month Shell announced plans for a $12 billion joint venture with Brazilian sugar producer and ethanol developer Cosan to create alternative transportation fuels.
Of course, Shell wants to keep investing in clean energy technology that can stand on its own, and makes the company money. Shell owns 11 wind farms in the U.S. and Voss said that “wind survives on its own today.”
In contrast Shell decided that its solar investments just weren’t surviving on their own. It decided to leave solar PV and thin-film solar technology development to the smaller- and medium-sized companies as “we don’t see that being something we can scale,” said Voss.
While Shell might technically be keeping its small R&D spending on alternatives going, it clearly hasn’t won over mind share in green technology as of late. During Voss’ talk a member of the audience asked: Why has Shell moved from being a leader in green technology to a company that has fallen behind?
One reason is that Shell has not seemed to make many partnerships or investments with green tech innovators. Other oil companies, like Exxon, have made high-profile partnerships with companies like Craig Venter’s Synthetic Genomics to work on algae fuel. Chevron’s venture capital arm, which isn’t all that active, has invested in a variety of companies like solar thermal company BrightSource, biofuel technology company Codexis, and thin-film company Konarka. Update: Shell has also invested in Codexis.
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FuelCell Energy Finds Niche in Natural Gas Stations
Jeff St. John - clean power
For FuelCell Energy, one such niche may be scavenging wasted energy within the guts of the natural gas distribution system itself. The Danbury, Conn.-based company is piloting a project with natural gas giant Enbridge that has a potential to grow to hundreds of megawatts-worth of fuel cells in the field — if it can get the electricity prices it needs to make the project pay off.
The $10 million Canadian ($9.7 million) "Direct Fuel Cell – Energy Recovery Generation" (DFC-ERG) project started up in November 2008 in Enbridge's Toronto, Canada headquarters. It's meant to capture energy otherwise wasted in natural gas pressure reducing stations — the facilities that take in gas that's been highly pressurized for long-distance transport and reduce that pressure for local distribution. Reducing the pressure of a gas makes it cool down — cold enough that it has to be heated with gas-fired boilers before it's piped on. Traditional systems also release pressure with a valve, wasting that pressure energy.
The 2.2 MW DFC-ERG system, on the other hand, puts the high-pressure gas through a turbo expander to turn some of that "scavenged" energy into electricity. Then there's FuelCell Energy's 1.2 MW fuel cell, fueled by the plentiful natural gas in the station, which generates a lot of heat as a byproduct. That heat replaces the gas-burning boiler, cutting emission from burning the gas, and generating electricity to boot.
This energy scavenging fuel cell combination can claim a 60 percent or more efficiency, Enbridge reports, which would make it among the most efficient forms of generation out there. IDC Energy Insights states that the Toronto plant's efficiency has approached as high as 65 percent — a combination of 47 percent efficiency of FuelCell Energy's molten carbonate fuel cells and another 15-percent from the turbo expander, built by French company Cryostar.
All in all, Enbridge sees 250 to 300 MW of opportunities for these systems in Ontario, California and the Northeast. In Europe, it has identified another 200 to 600 MW of potential, said Sam Jaffe, an analyst with IDC Energy Insights who's studied the project. Because it cuts down on emissions from the gas boiler, the DFC-ERG system also leads to a net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, even though the natural gas running through the fuel cell is still converted to CO2.
But making DFC-ERG pay off, Jaffe says, will depend on what price the system can command for the electricity it sells. "Enbridge told us that if they could sell the electricity for 11.5 Canadian cents per kilowatt-hour, the system would be competitive," he said. However, in Ontario province, where the pilot is located, grid power goes for about 3 Canadian cents per KwH, meaning that "they're losing money on the system."
The province of Ontario’s Green Energy Act doesn't approve fuel cell power for its feed-in tariff program, which bars the Toronto project from getting subsidies to help close that gap, he said. But throw in some incentives for clean or renewable power, or for power that's generated in smaller distributed units close to electricity loads, and that equation might change, he said.
Take Connecticut, FuelCell Energy's home state, which has qualified the DFC-ERG system as clean power under its mandate to get 27 percent of its power from clean source by 2020. The company is seeking financing for a 9 MW DFC-ERG system at a Milford, Conn. gas pressure station, and has three more such projects in the works, said Andy Skok, executive director of strategic marketing.
The company is also looking at California — where it already has some 9 MW of fuel cells running on state-incentivized biogas — for more DFC-ERG systems, Skok said. California does have a very limited feed-in tariff program that applies only to renewable power generated at water and wastewater treatment plants, but FuelCell Energy is hoping that program might expand to include the natural gas stations where its DFC-ERG systems can work, he said.
"The economics are different in each of those regions, but all in all, they fall into that range where 11, 12, 13 cents a kilowatt-hour makes this a viable economic operation," he said. That makes them competitive with wind and solar power, he said, and "probably a little more expensive than ordinary brown power, but not a lot more."
After ARPA-E, Sun Catalytix Seeks New Funding
Jennifer Kho - Energy Storage
The idea behind the technology, developed by Dan Nocera at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is to use an intermittent source of energy, such as solar power, to split water into hydrogen and oxygen via electrolysis. When the energy is needed, the hydrogen and oxygen can either be recombined to produce electricity, such as with a fuel cell, or the hydrogen can potentially be converted into a liquid fuel, like ammonia, and used to power vehicles.
If Sun Catalytix’s energy storage technology is successful, it could help spur the deployment of renewable energy. Solar and wind power are intermittent, meaning that the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow, and these events can’t be controlled according to electricity demand. Energy storage has long been considered a Holy Grail for enabling large amounts of distributed renewable-power projects.
But so far, energy storage for these applications has been too expensive. Sun Catalytix hopes to change that and is working with cobalt-phosphate catalysts consisting of compounds in solution, instead of the usual metal surfaces. “The real benefit is that the materials are dirt cheap,” said Metcalfe, who is also a general partner at Sun Catalytix investor Polaris Ventures and the former CEO of defunct biofuel startup GreenFuel Technologies.
Aside from the catalysts, the rest of the device also is made of cheap materials, such as plastic, he added. “All the materials we have [on the device] running in our office now come from Home Depot – we're talking PVC, not stainless steel.”
Because the compounds deposit themselves on the electrodes, constantly repairing themselves as the device splits water, this technology can also use salty or dirty water, he added, a big advantage where clean water is in short supply. While normal electrolyzers shut down in minutes if they’re run on dirty water, Sun Catalytix’ electrolyzer has already run for days at a time with no degradation, Metcalfe said. In addition, if the hydrogen is converted back into electricity, the reaction produces clean water as a byproduct, a potential plus, say, off the grid in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Sun Catalytix hasn’t yet decided whether its ultimate product will be electricity or fuel, Metcalfe said, adding that the technology could potentially address any application that currently relies on a big diesel generator. For example, the technology could be used to provide backup power for telecommunications towers or mobile land bases for the military – and the hope is the technology could eventually target residential and commercial markets, as well, he said.
Make no mistake, the startup is still years away from commercialization and doesn’t yet have a market plan in place. It’s currently working to meet technology milestones under the two-year ARPA-E contract, Metcalfe said, adding that Polaris generally aims to invest for five to seven years. Sun Catalytix will have plenty to prove, including its efficiency, stability and reliability, as well as its ability to manufacture its devices cheaply and at scale and volume, before it can meet its potential.
Building Green Homes Breaks Into the Mainstream in Northern Cali
Justin Moresco - green building
The announcement marks the first commitment by a major homebuilder to construct all its homes in a region to the GreenPoint Rated standard, an important validation for the nonprofit that was established in 2004 (so far more than 10,000 single- and multi-family homes in California and Nevada have been or are being built to meet Build It Green's green building criteria). But more importantly, the move shows that giant homebuilders are beginning to believe that there are enough mainstream buyers interested in green to warrant a shift toward building homes with features like highly insulated windows and walls and the use of recycled materials.
"Consumers want homes that will save them money in operations and that are green," KB Home spokesman Craig LeMessurier, told us. "The two go hand in hand." Over the last three years, KB Home has built about 1,100-1,200 new homes in Northern California, and the company operates in 11 U.S. states. LeMessurier wouldn't say if the company might expand the commitment to other regions, nor would he say if the new green homes in Northern California would cost more to build than conventional construction. If there is a premium passed to buyers, however, KB Home clearly believes it can win over customers with lower energy and water bills and the marketing power of green.
KB Home isn't alone in its shift, albeit still slow, to green building. Miami-based Lennar, a leading U.S. builder, has unveiled a line of green homes called PowerSmart Homes that are designed to save up to 40 percent on energy use. The company says it aims to have all its new homes in Minnesota achieve its PowerSmart criteria. Pulte Homes, which calls itself the nation's largest homebuilder, is increasingly focused on adding green features to its structures and last year won the U.S. Green Building Council's "Outstanding Production Builder" award for its Villa Trieste project in Las Vegas, which includes 185 single-family homes that met the council's highest standard, LEED Platinum.
The announcement by KB Home is also noteworthy because the company chose to hang its hat on an independent rating system, in this case Build It Green, rather than brand its homes green based on in-house criteria. GreenPoint Rated, like LEED, depends on third-party verification and that means KB Home's structures in Northern California will have to show that they've been built to standards developed by independent experts.
Daily Sprout
Katie Fehrenbacher - Misc
Trade Group Says Extend Tax Code for Algae: The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) said algae producers are at a disadvantage when it comes to attracting investment because algae fuels “are not currently recognized in the tax code as advanced biofuels.” To deal with that problem BIO asked Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus and Ranking Member Charles Grassley to extend the tax code for algae. — release.
Top 10 Nuclear Power Countries: Discovery created this cool photo spread of the top 10 countries building nuclear power — Discovery.
Konarka Links with Konica Minolta: “Konica Minolta, an office equipment and high-tech components maker, has spent $20 million to take a 7.5 percent stake in Konarka, whose co-founders include Alan Heeger, a 2000 Nobel prize laureate in chemistry.” — Reuters.
Battery Problem for EVs is Perception and Technology: “Researchers from the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis are suggesting that part of the "battery problem" is a mismatch between established performance goals and what consumers may initially seek from electric-drive vehicles.” — GreenCarCongress.
German Solar Subsidy Cuts: “Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet as expected has agreed to a proposed cuts to state-mandated solar power incentives in July, a government source told Reuters on Wednesday.” — Reuters.
WiMAX for Smart Grid: Arcadian Gets Connected
Jeff St. John - smart grid
The move makes Arcadian the latest tech vendor to tackle the WiMAX smart grid market. Sprint wants utilities to use the WiMAX network it's building in partnership with Clearwire for smart grid applications. San Francisco-based startup Grid Net has launched its first utility job in Australia to prove out its WiMAX-enabled smart meters and underlying software, and vendors such as General Electric and Alvarion are offering WiMAX gear to utilities such as Texas's CenterPoint Energy and New England's National Grid that want to run their own high-speed, next-generation wireless networks.
In the cellular world WiMAX is struggling against an alternative “4G” technology known as Long-Term Evolution, or LTE, with Sprint-Clearwire carrying the WiMAX banner against LTE backers like Verizon and AT&T. But for the smart grid, WiMAX could offer some important benefits. WiMAX can provide a lot of bandwidth for applications like mobile workforce. WiMAX technology can also potentially be really cheap in the future because it’s an open standard and so many large manufacturing partners are building an ecosystem including GE, Motorola and Intel.
"There are a lot of companies making a lot of bets out there" on different networking technologies, is how Ed Solar, Arcadian's CEO, put it in an interview last week — and Arcadian wants to connect them all, including WiMAX. The startup’s selling point is a bit like that coming from the cellular providers for smart grid — ride on our networks, and avoid the costs of building your own. But by specializing in utility-specific networks, Arcadian hopes to ease utility worries about smart grid traffic being bumped in favor of supporting consumer data traffic.
The startup, backed with about $90 million from Goldman Sachs, Gilo Ventures and Clal Industries, has utility clients to which it can offer its WiMAX product. It has a showcase client in Great River Energy, a generation and transmission utility that spans Minnesota and is connecting about 16 underlying electricity with Arcadian's network. Arcadian is also in discussions with at least five other utilities, Solar said, though he wouldn't name them.
One utility the startup is definitely working with, however, is San Diego Gas & Electric. That utility's Department of Energy-funded GridComm project represents a "prime example of, how do you look at the network of networks" for smart grid, Solar said. GridComm's goal is a network that can support every utility need, from low-cost, 15-minute or hourly interval smart meter data exchange to the super-fast and reliable connections needed for substation automation or bandwidth-intense IP video security camera systems.
SDG&E said specifically that WiMAX would be part of GridComm's suite of solutions, and while Solar wouldn't say whether Arcadian was doing that for the utility, citing a nondisclosure agreement, he said the new gateway could definitely support it.
Google Releases API for Energy Tool PowerMeter
Katie Fehrenbacher - Green IT
Google had been planning on opening up the PowerMeter API since the energy tool’s inception a year ago, but the process often takes some time to make sure the tool is ready. Srikanth Rajagopalan, PowerMeter Product Manager, told me in an interview that the PowerMeter API has been ready for awhile but that the team had been collecting and incorporating feedback from the first device partners.
Rajagopalan tells me that Google has put a strong emphasis on security and privacy into the API. For example, there are specific steps for authorizing a home energy device so that it can “talk” to Google PowerMeter. The device makers will also need to educate the end user on how to feel comfortable with connecting the energy data with third parties like PowerMeter, said Rajagopalan.
Google’s decision to release its PowerMeter API is representative of a small number of companies that have moved into the home energy management space from the web and are looking to tap into the innovation of the Internet and the ecosystem of third party developers for energy. Microsoft released its software development kit for its energy tool Hohm to developers recently and is expecting to have the first Hohm-integrated devices this summer. (At our Green:Net conference on April 29 in San Francisco, I’ll be interviewing Ed Lu Program Manager in Advanced Projects for Google and Troy Batterberry Product Unit Manager for Microsoft Hohm, on stage about why the Internet giants are getting into energy. Super saver ticket sales for Green:Net end this Friday).
Energy dashboard makers like Tendril are also offering open APIs that will enable third-party developers to make innovative applications based around energy data. At the AlwaysOn Going Green conference in mid September Tendril CEO Adrian Tuck briefly discussed a computer game that was being built around Tendril's API that will use a character whose powers will be based on how much energy the players saves in his/her daily life. (Check out my article: The Developer's Guide to Home Energy Management Apps, GigaOM Pro, subscription required.)
For Google, releasing PowerMeter’s API will hopefully bring in more end users via new gadget partners. PowerMeter only has "a few thousand users at this point" Google told us recently. And opening up the API will also allow third party developers to “innovate in the field,” as Rajagopalan explained it. The mantra of Internet development is that the developer community will be able to create innovation far beyond what the companies can do in house. It will be the same for innovating around energy data.
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