Category: Renewable energy

Renewable Energy and Jobs

The attached article was first published on the website energypost.eu edited by Karel Beckman. The article was stimulated by my strong belief that the job-creation aspects of renewable energy manufacture and deployment are receiving too little attention.

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Jobs? Investing in renewables beats fossil fuels
May 19, 2017 by Allan Hoffman

For policymakers who are interested in job creation, investing in renewable energy is considerably more effective than investing in fossil fuels, writes Allan Hoffman, author of the blog Thoughts of a Lapsed Physicist and formerly with the U.S. Department of Energy. Solar and wind are powerful engines of job creation and economic growth.

Job creation is always a safe issue for politicians to address and it played a crucial role in our recent presidential election. Donald Trump achieved his unexpected upset victory over Hillary Clinton by appealing to disaffected workers in normally Democrat-leaning states such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. A primary focus of the Trump campaign was jobs in the manufacturing and coal-mining industries, where many workers had been laid off in recent years. Some people have blamed these job losses on Obama Administration policies, including support for solar and wind energy. What are the facts?

The fact that renewable energy, mostly in the form of solar and wind energy, is entering the energy mainstream, both in the U.S. and in other countries, is a reality. This is often attributed to their reduced costs and role in reducing carbon emissions. What is often overlooked or given minimal attention is that investment in the manufacture and deployment of these clean energy technologies creates many ‘green jobs’. What data supports this statement?

Already the largest source of renewable energy jobs in the U.S., solar energy will be a major factor in shaping our future energy system and creating new jobs

Data for the U.S. was available from the Green Jobs Initiative of the Bureau of Labor Statistics in annual reports for fiscal years 2009, 2010, and 2011. Unfortunately, budget sequestration brought an end to this program in 2013. Today other organizations are filling the gap, e.g. The Solar Foundation’s annual ‘National Solar Jobs Census’, monthly reports from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), and occasional reports from other non-governmental organizations.

Largest employer

On a global basis the International Energy Agency (IEA) has become a source of jobs information, as has the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) through its Renewable Energy and Jobs Annual Reviews. Two highlights of IRENA’s 2016 Review were that (a) global direct and indirect employment in the renewable energy industry had reached 8.1 million in 2015, a 5% increase over 2014, and (b) solar photovoltaics (PV) was the largest renewable energy employer at 2.8 million jobs, an 11% increase over 2014.

Solar Foundation data indicated that in 2016 the U.S. solar industry (8,600 companies) employed 260,00 workers. This was an increase of more than 20% for the fourth straight year and more than 178% since 2010. This outpaced the overall 2016 national jobs growth rate of 1.5%. California led U.S. states in solar employment with 100,050 jobs.

How do these numbers compare with numbers in the fossil fuel industries? In 2015 workers employed directly in oil and natural gas extraction numbered about 187,000, a decrease of 14,000 from 2014. Indirect related jobs number about 2 million, of which about 40% are at gas stations. Another fossil fuel industry that received considerable attention during the 2016 election was coal mining. It accounted for 68,000 jobs in 2015, continuing its decrease of recent years.

A different story

Looking ahead, what can we expect? As oil and natural gas prices increase from their recent lows, and fracking is therefore reinvigorated, the number of related extraction jobs should stay approximately level. This should continue as long as no cost penalty is imposed on carbon emissions, and Trump Administration support for maintaining and expanding fossil fuel extraction is strong.

Coal is a different story. Long the basis of more than half of U.S. electricity generation, coal’s share of that market is now down to about a third and heading lower. When combusted it is the dirtiest of the fossil fuels, and automation of the coal digging process and competition from fracked and low cost natural gas has signaled the beginning of the end of the coal era and related jobs in the U.S. In addition, utilities are not adding new coal powered systems because their capital and operating costs are higher than for new natural gas, wind and solar power plants (data provided by EIA).

Solar and wind are no longer niche businesses

What are the prospects for renewable energy and related jobs in the U.S. in the future? As reported by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), at the start of 2016 jobs in the U.S. wind industry totaled 88,000, an increase of 20% over 2014. This was made possible by the installation of nearly 9,000 megawatts of new electrical generating capacity across 20 states, an increase of 77% over 2014. Wind accounted for 41% of all newly installed U.S. electrical capacity in 2015, ahead of solar (28.5%) and natural gas (28.1%). This growth will continue both onshore, where essentially all U.S. wind turbines have been installed to date, and offshore as this large resource begins to be tapped.

Impressive prospects

Two recent reports have documented the equally impressive prospects for solar energy’s growth. IRENA’s ‘Letting In the Light: How Solar Photovoltaics Will Revolutionize the Electricity System’ states that “The age of solar energy has arrived. It came faster than anyone predicted and is ushering in a shift in energy ownership.”

Bloomberg New Energy Finance reported in a June 2016 report that “..solar and wind technologies will be the cheapest way to produce electricity in most parts of the world in the 2030s..” Already the largest source of renewable energy jobs in the U.S., solar energy will be a major factor in shaping our future energy system and creating new jobs. A recently published book Sun Towards High Noon: Solar Power Transforming Our Energy Future (Pan Stanford Publishing; Peter Varadi editor and contributor) discusses the jobs issue in detail along with other issues, including solar financing, markets, and quality control.

We must not be left behind as this energy transition unfolds in the next several decades

What conclusions can be drawn? If a primary national goal is to create jobs in the energy sector, investing in renewable energy is considerably more effective than investing in fossil fuels. Solar and wind are no longer niche businesses, their widespread use addresses global warming and climate change, and their manufacture and deployment are powerful engines of economic growth and job creation.

The U.S. Congress must recognize this and put policies in place that accelerate their growth. Other countries recognize this potential and are moving rapidly onto this path, some even faster than the U.S. We must not be left behind as this energy transition unfolds in the next several decades, but we must also not forget the people who will be displaced from their jobs in traditional energy industries.

Editor’s Note

Allan Hoffman is author of the blog Thoughts of a Lapsed Physicist. He is a former Senior Analyst in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and physicist by training.

Hoffman is a contributor to a new comprehensive handbook, Sun Towards High Noon, edited by solar pioneer Peter F. Varadi, which details the meteoric expansion of the solar (PV) industry and describes how solar power will change our energy future.

Zero Energy Buildings: They May Be Coming Sooner Than You Think

Buildings account for approximately 40 percent of the energy (electrical, thermal) used in the U.S. and Europe, and an increasing share of energy used in other parts of the world. Most of this energy today is fossil-fuel based. As a result, this energy use also accounts for a significant share of global emissions of carbon dioxide.

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Source: U.S. Department of Energy, Buildings Energy Data Book

These simple facts make it imperative that buildings, along with transportation fleets and power generation, be primary targets of reduced global energy and fossil fuel demand. This blog post discusses one approach in buildings that is gaining increasing visibility and viability, the introduction of net zero energy buildings and the retrofit of existing buildings to approach net zero energy operation. A net zero energy building (NZEB or ZEB) is most often defined as a building that, over the course of a year, uses as much energy as is produced by renewable energy sources on the building site. This is the definition I will focus on. Other ZEB definitions take into account source energy losses in generation and transmission, emissions (aka zero carbon buildings), total cost (cost of purchased energy is offset by income from sales of electricity generated on-site to the grid), and off-site ZEB’s where the offsetting renewable energy is delivered to the building from off-site generating facilities. Details on these other definitions can be found in the 2006 NREL report CP-550-39833 entitled “Zero Energy Buildings: A Critical Look at the Definition”.

The keys to achieving net zero energy buildings are straight forward in principle: first focus on reducing the building’s energy demand through energy efficiency, and then focus on meeting this energy demand, on an annual basis, with onsite renewable energy – e.g., use of localized solar and wind energy generation. This allows for a wide range of approaches due to the many options now available for improved energy efficiency in buildings and the rapidly growing use of solar photovoltaics on building roofs, covered parking areas, and nearby open areas. Most ZEB’s use the electrical grid for energy storage, but some are grid-independent and use on-site battery or other storage (e.g., heat and coolth).

A primary example of what can be done to achieve ZEB status is NREL’s operational RSF (Research Support Facility) at its campus in Golden, Colorado, shown below.

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It incorporates demand reduction features that are widely applicable to many other new buildings, and some that make sense for residential buildings and retrofits as well (cost issues are discussed below). These include:
– optimal building orientation and office layout, to maximize heat capture from the sun in winter, solar PV generation throughout the year, and use of natural daylight when available
– high performance electrical lighting
– continuous insulation precast wall panels with thermal mass
– windows that can be opened for natural ventilation
– radiant heating and cooling
– outdoor air preheating, using waste heat recovery, transpired solar collectors, and crawl space thermal storage
– aggressive control of plug loads from appliances and other building equipment
– advanced data center efficiency measures
– roof top and parking lot PV arrays

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U.S. ZEB research is supported by DOE’s Building America Program, a joint effort with NREL, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and several industry-based consortia – e.g., the National Institute of Building Sciences and the American Institute of Architects. Many other countries are exploring ZEB’s as well, including jointly through the International Energy Agency’s “Towards Net Zero Energy Solar Buildings” Implementing Agreement (Solar Heating and Cooling Program/Task 40). This IEA program has now documented and analyzed more than 300 net zero energy and energy-plus buildings worldwide (an energy-plus building generates more energy than it consumes).

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An interesting example of ZEB technology applied to a residential home is NREL’s Habitat for Humanity zero energy home (ZEH), a 1,280 square foot, 3-bedroom Denver area home built for low income occupants. NREL report TP-550-431888 details the design of the home and includes performance data from its first two years of operation (“The NREL/Habitat for Humanity Zero Energy Home: a Cold Climate Case Study for Affordable Zero Energy Homes”). The home exceeded its goal of zero net source energy and was a net energy producer for these two years (24% more in year one and 12% more in year two). The report concluded that “Efficient, affordable ZEH’s can be built with standard construction techniques and off-the-shelf equipment.”

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The legislative environment for ZEB’s is interesting as well. To quote from the Whole Building Design Guide of the National Institute of Building Sciences:
“Federal Net Zero Energy Building Goals
Executive Order 13514, signed in October 2009, requires all new Federal buildings that are entering the planning process in 2020 or thereafter be “designed to achieve zero-net-energy by 2030”. “In addition, the Executive Order requires at least 15% of existing buildings (over 5,000 gross square feet) meet the Guiding Principles for Federal Leadership in High Performance and Sustainable Buildings by 2015, with annual progress towards 100% conformance”.
Two milestones for NZEB have also been defined by the Department of Energy (DOE) for residential and commercial buildings. The priority is to create systems integration solutions that will enable:
Marketable Net Zero Energy Homes by the year 2020
Commercial Net Zero Energy Buildings at low incremental cost by the year 2025.
These objectives align with the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA), which calls for a 100% reduction in fossil-fuel energy use (relative to 2003 levels) for new Federal buildings and major renovations by 2030.”

A word about cost: ZEB’s cost more today to build than traditional office buildings and homes, but not much more (perhaps 20% for new construction). Of course, part of this extra cost is recovered via reduced energy bills. In the future, the zero energy building goal will become more practical as the costs of renewable energy technologies decrease (e.g., PV panel costs have decreased significantly in recent years) and the costs of traditional fossil fuels increase. The recent surge in availability of relatively low cost shale gas from fracking wells will slow this evolution but it will eventually occur. Additional research on cost-effective efficiency options is also required.

To sum up, the net zero energy building concept is receiving increasing global attention and should be a realistic, affordable option within a few decades, and perhaps sooner. ZEB’s offer many advantages, as listed by Wikipedia:
“- isolation for building owners from future energy price increases
– increased comfort due to more-uniform interior temperatures
– reduced total net monthly cost of living
– improved reliability – photovoltaic systems have 25-year warranties – seldom fail during weather problems
– extra cost is minimized for new construction compared to an afterthought retrofit
– higher resale value as potential owners demand more ZEBs than available supply
– the value of a ZEB building relative to similar conventional building should increase every time energy costs increase
– future legislative restrictions, and carbon emission taxes/penalties may force expensive retrofits to inefficient buildings”

ZEB’s also have their risk factors and disadvantages:

“- initial costs can be higher – effort required to understand, apply, and qualify for ZEB subsidies
– very few designers or builders today have the necessary skills or experience to build ZEBs
– possible declines in future utility company renewable energy costs may lessen the value of capital invested in energy efficiency
– new photovoltaic solar cells equipment technology price has been falling at roughly 17% per year – It will lessen the value of capital invested in a solar electric generating system. Current subsidies will be phased out as photovoltaic mass production lowers future price
– challenge to recover higher initial costs on resale of building – appraisers are uninformed – their models do not consider energy
– while the individual house may use an average of net zero energy over a year, it may demand energy at the time when peak demand for the grid occurs. In such a case, the capacity of the grid must still provide electricity to all loads. Therefore, a ZEB may not reduce the required power plant capacity.
– without an optimised thermal envelope the embodied energy, heating and cooling energy and resource usage is higher than needed. ZEB by definition do not mandate a minimum heating and cooling performance level thus allowing oversized renewable energy systems to fill the energy gap.
– solar energy capture using the house envelope only works in locations unobstructed from the South. The solar energy capture cannot be optimized in South (for northern hemisphere, or North for southern Hemisphere) facing shade or wooded surroundings.”

Finally, it is important to note that the energy consumption in an office building or home is not strictly a function of technology – it also reflects the behavior of the occupants. In one example two families on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts lived in identical zero-energy-designed homes and one family used half as much electricity in a year as the other. In the latter case electricity for lighting and plug loads accounted for about half of total energy use. As energy consultant Andy Shapiro noted: “There are no zero-energy houses, only zero-energy families.”

A History of Renewable Energy at DOE

As you will have noticed when you logged in, the ‘theme’ (presentation format) of the blog has been changed to make it more interesting and visually attractive. Hopefully you will like the change.

Back to blogging: my next several blogs will focus on renewable energy, starting with a few bits of history that may not be widely known. Some of my fellow ‘dinosaurs’ will know this history, but one purpose of this blog is to share some of this history with the young people now populating the field who may not.

I will start with a memo that I forwarded to DOE Undersecretary Kristina Johnson when she requested information on the history of renewable energy at DOE (History of RE at DOE). She had spoken to a group of Fellows at DOE about her responsibilities and this topic came up in the following discussion. The memo makes reference to the ‘DPR’ and the video of President Carter’s 1979 speech when he dedicated solar water heaters that had been mounted on the White House roof. The DPR is discussed below and copies of the video (DVD) are available upon request.

The DPR (Domestic Policy Review of Solar Energy) was the final report of the first comprehensive review of federal renewable energy policy. It was announced by President Carter on May 3, 1978 when he dedicated SERI (Solar Energy Research Institute) in Golden, CO. It involved 30 federal departments and agencies, and at its peak there were 175 senior officials detailed to the DPR task force. As DOE’s senior representative to the DPR, and just one month after I had joined DOE as a political appointee, I was designated to head the effort by my boss, Al Alm.

The next six months were rather intense, beginning immediately on May 4th when it became urgent to move my temporary DOE office in the Old Post Office Building in downtown DC to the Forrestal Building (DOE Headquarters) without DOE assistance (no trucks or moving staff were available on short notice). One of my then new staff was also with me in the Old PO Building (Ron White, still a dear friend all these years later) and using our own cars we moved our stuff into a large open (and somewhat unpleasant) space on the G-level of Forrestal. In the next few days this space, which we dubbed the ‘bullpen’, was filled with desks to accommodate the anticipated agency detailees, but without dividing walls. Actually, there was one small office in the bullpen, mine, which meant that I saw the mice when they occasionally showed up during the day.

Another problem ‘out of the chute’ was the fact that the other 29 departments and agencies didn’t trust the 30th, DOE, because of some recent history. Shortly before the DPR was announced the Carter Administration had released a National Energy Policy, also a multi-agency effort chaired by DOE. The story I was told by non-DOE staff was that DOE, at the last minute, had pulled out a draft it had prepared on its own and submitted it as the multi-agency report. Not nice! As a result I spent much of the DPR’s first month building relationships with the non-DOE detailees to reestablish trust.

The DPR was completed in early December 1978, and delivered to the Domestic Policy Staff of the White House on December 6th, 1978, a date that those of us intimately involved in putting it together will never forget. For several years after, on the anniversary of this date, several of my staff and I would get together to celebrate the DPR’s completion. The full report, with appendices, was formally published in February 1979 and is available in DOE’s archives – its Executive Summary is attached (DPR-Executive Summary-1979).

What is worth noting is that a 34+ year old report is still somewhat relevant, indicating that the ‘dinosaurs’ did some useful thinking way back when and that U.S. energy policy has not advanced as quickly or as much as we had hoped when the report was completed in 1978.