WREF

Friday, March 9, 2012 11:50 AM

Financiers, Investors, Entrepreneurs — Are you Ready? More than 200 sessions will discuss everything scientific, renewable, efficient, environmental or financial at the World Renewable Energy Forum (WREF), May 13–17, 2012, in Denver, Colorado. Registration is open; early registration discount ends April 13. Sign up now for access to world's top renewable energy experts. If your focus is the business side of energy, here are just some of the presentations ready for you: Forecasting the Future of Energy Technologies using Economic Payback Curves Clean Energy Policy Building Blocks: Helping Policymakers Determine Best Policy Practices for Clean Energy Can You Find Real Gold in Investing in Green Energy in 2012? A Panel Discussion on the Effectiveness of Tax Credits, Incentives, and Grants for Renewable Energy Installations If the business side of energy isn't your thing, we've got hundreds of other sessions to choose from—WREF's complete program is now online. For more information on WREF, visit www.wref2012.org. About WREF The World Renewable Energy Network (WREN) and the American Solar Energy Society (ASES) have joined forces to present the World Renewable Energy Forum (WREF). This international event on renewable energy technologies will address the world's economic, environmental and security challenges at every scale, from off-grid villages to gigawatt power plants. The 2012 conference also is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the Colorado Renewable Energy Society (CRES) and the International Solar Energy Society (ISES). Conference details are at www.wref2012.org.

Energy Innovation Hubs

News release from the U.S. Dept. of Energy:

Energy Department to Launch New Energy Innovation Hub Focused on Advanced Batteries and Energy Storage

February 7, 2012

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced today plans to launch a new Energy Innovation Hub for advanced research on batteries and energy storage with an investment of up to $120 million over five years. The hub, which will be funded at up to $20 million in fiscal year 2012, will focus on accelerating research and development of electrochemical energy storage for transportation and the electric grid.  The interdisciplinary research and development through the new Energy Innovation Hub will help advance cutting-edge energy storage and battery technologies that can be used to improve the reliability and the efficiency of the electrical grid, to better integrate clean, renewable energy technologies as part of the electrical system, and for use in electric and hybrid vehicles that will reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil.

“As part of the Obama Administration’s investments in science and innovation, this Energy Innovation Hub will bring together scientists, engineers, and industry to develop fresh concepts and new approaches that will ensure America is at the leading-edge of the growing global market for battery technology,” said Secretary Chu.  “With the advances from this research and development effort, we will be able to design and produce batteries here in America that last longer, go farther, and cost less than today’s technologies.”

Energy Innovation Hubs are designed to bring together teams of scientists and engineers across intellectual disciplines to rapidly accelerate scientific discoveries and shorten the path from laboratory innovation to technological development and commercial deployment of critical energy technologies. The hubs are part of the Obama Administration’s broad-based clean energy research strategy aimed at harnessing American innovation to achieve needed breakthroughs in important energy technologies to grow the clean energy economy and generate new clean energy jobs.

The goal of the Batteries and Energy Storage Hub will be to deliver research leading to revolutionary new technologies.  While advancing the current understanding and underlying science around energy storage, the role of the new hub will be to develop radically new scientific approaches, including the exploration of new materials, devices, systems and novel approaches for transportation and utility-scale storage. The hub should foster new energy storage designs and develop working, scalable prototype devices that demonstrate radically new approaches for electrochemical storage, overcoming current manufacturing limitations through innovation to reduce complexity and cost. The ultimate goal will be to surpass the current technical limits for electrochemical energy storage and reduce the risk level enough for industry to further develop the innovations discovered by the hub and deploy these new technologies into the marketplace.

Letters of Intent to apply are due on March 1, 2012 with full applications due on May 31, 2012.  Universities, national laboratories, nonprofit organizations, and private firms are eligible to compete and are encouraged to form partnerships when submitting their proposals.  The award selection is expected this summer.  The full Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is available HERE.

This will be the fourth such hub established by the Department since 2010.  Other hubs include the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis, which focuses on advanced research to develop fuels directly from sunlight; the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors, which is seeking to improve nuclear reactors through sophisticated computer-based modeling and simulation; and the Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster for Energy-Efficient Buildings, which is working to achieve major breakthroughs in energy efficient building design.  Information on the existing hubs can be found on the Energy Innovation Hubs website: http://energy.gov/hubs.

From U.S. Dept. of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) news release:

CREED: Helping Colorado Cleantech Startups Find the Money Thursday, January 19, 2012 The Colorado Center for Renewable Energy Economic Development (CREED) at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) invites cleantech entrepreneurs to attend the next event in its Entrepreneur Series. The Jan. 26 class, "Financing Your Cleantech Startup," will provide cleantech entrepreneurs with an overview of how to find capital for a startup. "If you are in startup mode, you're likely asking yourself a variety of difficult funding questions," NREL Manager for the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center Richard Adams said. "You need to answer these questions for your own strategic development as well as for the people and organizations to whom you intend to pitch." On Jan. 26, Tim Reeser, Executive Director Cenergy and Venture Director at Aravaipa Ventures will discuss: The challenges of financing a cleantech start-up or early stage company Forms of capital for start-up and early-stage companies Key elements of a financing strategy as your business grows When to ask for money, what "type" of money and the associated risks What common mistakes are made in early-stage financing and how they can be avoided. CREED's Entrepreneur Series provides support for companies trying to get off the ground. The Entrepreneur Series builds a community among cleantech participants so they can draw on one another for expertise, support and networks. CREED is a collaborative partnership between NREL and Colorado to expand clean tech entrepreneurship in the state. It is designed to bring together stakeholders and service providers who support the creation and growth of cleantech companies, contributing to economic development in Colorado. What: CREED Entrepreneur Series – Financing Your Cleantech Startup When: January 26 -- registration is at 2:30 p.m.; workshop goes from 2:45 - 5 p.m., with networking from 5-6 p.m. Where: CREED - Center for Renewable Energy Economic Development, Denver West Office Park Building 52, 14062 Denver West Parkway, Suite 300 Golden, CO 80401 Fee: $25 per person Registration: Call the Colorado Cleantech Industry Association (CCIA) at 303-623-2690 or online at https://www.creed.org. NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy's primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. NREL is operated for DOE by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC. ###

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Companies Face Fines for Not Using Unavailable Biofuel

The following was gleaned from a January 10 New York Times article with the above title.

Companies Face Fines for Not Using Unavailable Biofuel

WASHINGTON — When the companies that supply motor fuel close the books on 2011, they will pay about $6.8 million in penalties to the Treasury because they failed to mix a special type of biofuel into their gasoline and diesel as required by law.

But there was none to be had. Outside a handful of laboratories and workshops, the ingredient, cellulosic biofuel, does not exist.

In 2012, the oil companies expect to pay even higher penalties for failing to blend in the fuel, which is made from wood chips or the inedible parts of plants like corncobs. Refiners were required to blend 6.6 million gallons into gasoline and diesel in 2011 and face a quota of 8.65 million gallons this year.

The 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, aimed at reducing the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, its reliance on oil imported from hostile places and the export of dollars to pay for it, includes provisions to increase the efficiency of vehicles as well as incorporate renewable energy sources into gasoline and diesel.

It requires the use of three alternative fuels: car and truck fuel made from cellulose, diesel fuel made from biomass and fuel made from biological materials but with a 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gases. Only the cellulosic fuel is commercially unavailable. As for meeting the quotas in the other categories, the refiners will not close their books until February and are not sure what will happen.

The goal set by the law for vehicle fuel from cellulose was 250 million gallons for 2011 and 500 million gallons for 2012.  Even advocates of renewable fuel acknowledge that the refiners are at least partly correct in complaining about the penalties.

The standards for cellulosic fuel are part of an overall goal of having 36 billion gallons of biofuels incorporated annually by 2022. But substantial technical progress would be needed to meet that — and lately it has been hard to come by.

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Building Storehouses for the Sun's Energy, for Use After Dark

The following was gleaned from a January 3 New York Times article with the above title.

Building Storehouses for the Sun’s Energy, for Use After Dark

The solar power industry must overcome a major stumbling block: finding a way to store it for use when the sun isn’t shining.

Solar thermal power makes electricity by using the sun’s heat to boil water. The water can be used to heat salt that stores the energy until later, when the sun is no longer shining.

The U.S. Energy Department recently gave a $737 million loan guarantee to a solar thermal company for a plant that will generate 110 megawatts at peak and store enough heat to run for eight to 10 hours when the sun is not shining.

One advantage of adding storage capacity has to do with the equipment that makes electricity being the most expensive part of a solar thermal system.  If it is connected to storage technology, it can run almost twice as many hours as a plant without storage. That means the unit cost of electricity drops.

Another has to do with the arcane economics of electricity. A utility must assure a supply of electricity in two forms: energy and capacity. The difference has never meant much to most consumers, who directly pay only for energy, as measured in kilowatt-hours.

But capacity, the dependable ability to produce power, is becoming more important as renewable energy forms a larger and larger part of the grid.

Wind and sun provide a lot of energy but not much capacity. Today, backup capacity for wind and solar power comes in the form of expensive gas-fired generators, which sit idle most of the year but operate when the wind stops blowing or the sun stops shining.

Storage could cut costs by 4 cents a kilowatt-hour, Mr. Denholm calculates — a considerable benefit for a commodity that retails for an average of 11 cents. A big part of the savings is not having to build the gas-fired generators for backup.