Category: Water

About to be Published: A Comprehensive Handbook on Solar Energy

‘Sun Towards High Noon: Solar Power Transforming Our Energy Future’ will be published in paperback by Pan Stanford Publishing on March 22nd. It will be listed at $34.95 but a 30% discount is available along with free shipping when ordered online at www.crcpress.com (Promo Code STA01). The latest volume in the Pan Stanford Series on Renewable Energy, it was edited by Dr. Peter F. Varadi, a solar energy pioneer and author of an earlier volume in the series ‘Sun Above the Horizon: Meteoric Rise of the Solar Industry’ (see below). Peter is also a contributing author in this new volume, along with Wolfgang Palz, Michael Eckhart, Paula Mints, Bill Rever, John Wolgromuth, Frank Wouters, and Allan Hoffman.

The broad scope and comprehensiveness of the book can be seen in its detailed Table of Contents reproduced below:

1. Meteoric Rise of PV Continues 1
1.1 Sun above the Horizon 2
1.2 Sun towards High Noon 6
2. New PV Markets Sustaining Mass Production 9
2.1 Utilization of the Terrestrial Solar Electricity 10
2.2 Solar Roofs for Residential Homes 13
2.3 Grids, Mini-Grids, and Community Solar 24
2.4 Commercial PV Systems 32
2.5 Utility-Scale Solar 43
2.5.1 Current Status 47
2.5.1.1 Concentrating solar power systems 47
2.5.1.2 Concentrating photovoltaic systems 50
2.5.1.3 Flat-plate photovoltaic systems:
fixed and tracking 51
2.5.2 Future Prospects 54
2.6 Important Large Market: Solar Energy and
Clean Water 56
2.6.1 Desalination and Disinfection: Introduction 56
2.6.2 Desalination 56
2.6.3 Disinfection 62
2.6.4 Conclusion 63
2.7 Quality and Reliability of PV Systems 64
2.7.1 Module Qualification Testing 65
2.7.2 Module Safety Certification 67
2.7.3 Module Warranties 68
2.7.4 Failure Rates in PV Systems 70
2.7.5 Module Durability Data 71
2.7.6 ISO 9000 72
2.7.7 IECQ and IECEE 72
2.7.8 To Further Improve Long-Term Performance 73
2.7.9 International PV Quality Assurance Task Force 75
2.8 Storage of Electrical Energy 83
2.8.1 Introduction 83
2.8.2 Why Is Electrical Energy Storage Important? 83
2.8.3 What Are the Various Forms of Electric Storage? 85
2.8.4 Applications of Energy Storage and Their Value 92
2.8.5 Capital Costs of Energy Storage 93
2.8.6 Concluding Remarks 94
2.9 Solar Energy and Jobs 95
2.9.1 Introduction 95
2.9.2 What Are the Facts? 95
2.9.3 Concluding Remarks 100
3. Financing 101
3.1 Financing of PV 102
3.2 Subsidies and Solar Energy 104
3.2.1 Introduction 104
3.2.2 What Forms Do Energy Subsidies Take? 104
3.2.3 What Is the History of US Energy Subsidies? 105
3.2.4 What Has All This Meant for Solar PV? 108
3.2.5 Concluding Remarks 110
3.3 Wall Street and Financing 111
3.3.1 Policy Drivers for Solar Energy Financing 111
3.3.1.1 The importance of policy to financing 113
3.3.2 Federal Policies 114
3.3.2.1 Federal RD&D 114
3.3.2.2 Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act 117
3.3.2.3 Investment tax credits 118
3.3.2.4 Commercialization and deployment 120
3.3.2.5 Government purchasing 122
3.3.3 State and Local Policies 123
3.3.3.1 Renewable Portfolio Standards and RECs 123
3.3.3.2 Solar Set-Asides and SRECS 123
3.3.3.3 Net energy metering 124
3.3.3.4 Leading state examples 124
3.3.4 International Policy for Solar Energy Financing125
3.3.4.1 Policies of individual governments 126
3.3.4.2 International agencies 129
3.3.4.3 Multi-lateral development banks 131
3.3.4.4 Impact of NGOs on government policy 132
3.4 Solar Market Segmentation and Financing Methods 136
3.4.1 Utility-Scale Solar Project Financing 136
3.4.2 Commercial & Institutional Rooftop Financing 136
3.4.3 Community Solar 137
3.4.4 Residential Rooftop Financing 137
3.4.4.1 PPA model 138
3.4.4.2 Inverted lease 138
3.4.4.3 Loan-to-ownership 139
3.5 Solar Project Financing 140
3.5.1 Traditional Power Generation Financing 140
3.5.2 PURPA and the Development of Non-Recourse
Financing 140
3.5.3 Conditions Required for Project Financing 142
3.5.4 Overall Capital Structure: Equity, Tax
Equity, and Debt 143
3.5.5 Tax Equity Using the Investment Tax Credit 144
3.5.6 Bank Loans 145
3.5.7 Institutional Capital 146
3.5.8 Project Bonds 147
3.6 Capital Market Investment in Solar Securities 148
3.6.1 Equity Market Investment in Solar Companies 148
3.6.2 Yieldcos and Other Portfolio Companies and
Funds 150
3.6.3 Green Bonds 153
3.6.4 Securitization 155
3.7 Summary 157
3.8 Glossary 158
4. Present and Future PV Markets 161
4.1 The Global View of PV 162
4.2 The Present and Future of Neglected PV Markets:
Africa and the Middle East 164
4.2.1 Introduction 164
4.2.2 Africa 166
4.2.3 Middle East and North Africa 183
4.3 The Present and Future Market in the Americas 192
4.3.1 The United States of America 194
4.3.2 Canada 204
4.3.3 Countries in Latin America 205
4.4 The Present and Future Market in Europe 208
4.5 The Present and Future Markets in Asia 220
4.6 The Present and Future Markets in Australia
and in Oceania 231
4.7 Global Community Unites to Advance Renewable
Energy: IRENA 236
4.7.1 Start of IRENA 238
4.7.2 Hermann Scheer
4.7.3 IRENA’s Roots and Early Days 241
4.7.4 Institutional Setup 246
4.7.5 Hub, Voice, Resource 247
4.7.6 IRENA’s work 248
4.7.7 The Way Forward 252
4.7.8 Glossary 254
5. The Impact of Solar Electricity 255
5.1 The Impact of Solar Electricity 256
5.2 In the Twilight of Big Oil, in Retrospect, PV Was
a Missed Boat 259
5.3 PV and the Brave New World of the Electric Utilities 267
6. Outlook to the Future 281
About the Contributors 291
Index 295

The value of this new book is captured in the two back cover comments:

“This comprehensive and timely book provides the reader with a very thorough technical, regulatory, and financial overview of the global solar (PV) industry. Featuring internationally eminent contributors from the who’s who of solar industry experts, this book offers insights, analysis, and background on all the key issues facing this rapidly growing industry. It will be an invaluable reference and resource for scholars, investors, and policymakers dealing with the emerging solar power phenomenon.” (Branko Terzic, Atlantic Council, Former Commissioner/U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission)

“The long-term welfare of people on our planet depends on an energy system heavily dependent on solar energy. This solar energy handbook presents a well-documented, comprehensive, and insightful view of solar energy’s past, present, and future. Its preeminent contributing authors include solar energy pioneers, visionaries, and practitioners who bring a wealth of experience and insights into solar energy markets, financing, policy, and technology.” (Karl R. Rabago, Executive Director/Pace Energy and Climate Center, Elisabeth Haub School of Law, Pace University)

It is Time to Take the Next Step on Energy Policy

The following piece was first published on energypost.eu and the text is reprinted here as a new blog post.
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US desperately needs a national energy policy
September 24, 2015 by Allan Hoffman

The US – and indeed the world – is at a crossroads when it comes to the choice on how we want to provide energy services in the future, writes US energy expert Allan Hoffman. According to Hoffman, the US desperately needs a national energy policy that recognizes the importance of moving to a renewable energy future as quickly as possible. Without such a policy, economic growth, the environment and national security will suffer.

There are two fundamental ‘things’ needed to sustain human life, water and energy. Water is the more precious of the two as reflected in the Arab saying “Water is life.” Without water life as we know it would not exist, and there are no substitutes for water – without it we die.

We also need energy to power our bodies, derived from chemical conversions of the food we consume. We also need energy to enable the external energy services we rely on in daily life – lighting, heating, cooling, transportation, clean water, communications, entertainment, and commercial and industrial activities. Where energy differs from water as a critical element of sustainable development is the fact that energy is available in many different forms for human use – e.g., by combustion of fossil fuels, nuclear power, and various forms of renewable energy.

Critical juncture

Today the U.S., and indeed the world, stands at a critical juncture on how to provide these energy services in the future. Historically, energy has been provided to some extent by human power, by animal power, and the burning of wood to create heat and light. Wind energy was also used for several centuries to power ships and land-based windmills that provided mechanical energy for water-pumping and threshing. With the discovery and development of large energy resources in the form of stored chemical energy in hydrocarbons such as coal, petroleum, and natural gas, the world turned to the combustion of these fuels to release large amounts of thermal energy and eventually electricity with the development of steam power generators. Nuclear power was introduced in the period following World War II as a new source of heat for producing steam and powering electricity generators and ships.

My recommendation is to put a long-term and steadily increasing price on carbon emissions to motivate appropriate private sector decisions to use fewer fossil fuels and more renewable energy and let the markets work

Renewable energy, energy that is derived directly or indirectly from the sun’s energy intercepted by the earth (except for geothermal energy that is derived from radioactive decay in the earth’s core), has been available for a while in the form of hydropower, originally in the form of run-of-the-river water wheels, and since the 20th century in the form of large hydroelectric dams. Other forms of renewable energy have emerged recently as important options for the future, driven by steadily reducing costs, the realization that fossil fuels, while currently available in large quantity but eventually depletable, put carbon dioxide into the atmosphere when combusted, contributing to global warming and associated climate change. Renewable energy technologies, except for biomass conversion or combustion, puts no carbon into the atmosphere, but even in the biomass case it is a no-net-carbon situation since carbon is absorbed in the growing of biomass materials such as wood and other crops.

Support for renewables is also driven by increasing awareness that while nuclear power generation does not put carbon into the atmosphere it does create multigenerational radioactive waste disposal problems, can be expensive, raises low probability but high consequence safety issues, and is a step on the road to proliferation of nuclear weapons capability. Another driver is the now well documented and growing understanding that renewable energy, in its many forms, can provide the bulk of our electrical energy needs, as long disputed by competing energy sources.

Clean future

All these introductory comments are leading to a discussion of the energy policy choice facing our country, and other countries, and my recommendations for that policy. This choice has been avoided by the U.S. Congress in recent years, much to the short-term and long-term detriment of the U.S. We desperately need a national energy policy that recognizes the importance of energy efficiency and moving to a renewable energy future as quickly as possible. That policy should be one that creates the needed environment for investment in renewable technologies and one that will allow the U.S. to be a major economic player in the world’s inevitable march to a clean energy future.

Before getting into policy specifics, let me add just a few more words on renewable energy technologies. Hydropower is well known as the conversion of the kinetic energy of moving water into electrical energy via turbine generators. Solar energy is the direct conversion of solar radiation directly into electricity via photovoltaic (solar) cells or the use of focused/concentrated solar energy to produce heat and then steam and electricity. Wind energy, an indirect form of solar energy due to uneven heating of the earth’s surface, converts the kinetic energy of the wind into mechanical energy and electricity. Geothermal energy uses the heat of the earth to heat water into steam and electricity, or to heat homes and other spaces directly. Biomass energy uses the chemical energy captured in growing organic material either directly via combustion or in conversion to other fuel sources such as biofuels. Ocean energy uses the kinetic energy in waves and ocean currents, and the thermal energy in heated ocean areas, to create other sources of mechanical and electrical energy. All in all, a rich menu of energy options that we are finally exploring in depth.

Controversial

Energy policy is a complicated and controversial field, reflecting many different national, global, and vested interests. Today’s world is largely powered by fossil fuels and is likely to be so powered for several decades into the future until renewable energy is brought more fully into the mainstream. Unnfortunately this takes time as history teaches, and the needs of developing and developed nations (e.g., in transportation) need to be addressed during the period in which the transition takes place.

The critical need is to move through this transition as quickly as possible. Without clear national energy policies that recognize the need to move away from a fossil fuel-based energy system, and to a low-carbon clean energy future, as quickly as possible, this inevitable transition will be stretched out unnecessarily, with adverse environmental, job-creation, and other economic and national security impacts.

My recommendation is to put a long-term and steadily increasing price on carbon emissions to motivate appropriate private sector decisions to use fewer fossil fuels and more renewable energy and let the markets work. Nuclear power, another low-carbon technology, remains an option as long as the problems listed earlier can be addressed adequately. My personal view is that renewables are a much better answer.

The revenues generated by such a ‘tax’ can be used to reduce social inequities introduced by such a tax, lower other taxes, and enable investments consistent with long-term national needs. In the U.S. it also provides a means for cooperation between Republicans and Democrats, something we have not seen for several decades. It is clear that President Obama ‘gets it’. It is now more than time for U.S. legislators to get it as well.

Editor’s Note (Karel Beckman, energypost.eu)

Allan Hoffman, former Senior Analyst in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), writes a regular blog: Thoughts of a Lapsed Physicist.

On Energy Post, we regularly publish posts from Allan’s blog,in his blog section Policy & Technology. His writings often deal with issues at the intersection of energy technology, policy and markets. Allan, who holds a Ph.D. in physics from Brown University, served as Staff Scientist with the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and in a variety of senior management positions at the U.S. National Academies of Sciences and the DOE. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Two New Books Worthy of Your Attention

I am pleased to use my blog to bring two new books to your attention, one just published and one to be published next month.  Both are highly recommended.

The first, just published by W.W.Norton and co-authored by Lester Brown and several of his Earth Policy Institute colleagues, is ‘The Great Transition: Shifting from Fossil Fuels to Solar and Wind Energy’.  It addresses the energy transition that is unfolding rapidly around us and is a topic I have been writing and speaking about for many years, including in this blog. Lester has been an important part of this discussion from day one  and in this book he and his fellow authors “..explain the environmental and economic wisdom of moving to solar and wind energy and show how fast change is coming.” It is a global topic that needs increased public visibility and discussion, one that will impact the energy systems that our children and grandchildren will inherit.  Without going into too much detail I will quote just a few lines from the book’s preface and  the comments of two book reviewers:

“Preface: Energy transitions are not new. Beginning several centuries ago, the world shifted from wood to coal. The first oil well was drilled over 150 years ago. Today we are at the start of a new energy transition, one that takes us from an economy run largely on coal and oil to one powered by the sun and wind. This monumental shift, which is just getting underway, will compress a half-century of change into the next decade.

The purpose of this book is to describe how this great transition is starting to unfold. While the book cuts a wide swath and takes a global view, it is not meant to be a comprehensive study of the world energy economy. Each technology discussed here easily deserves its own book, as do many topics important to the transition that are not discussed in depth here, such as energy efficiency, the “smartening” of electrical grids, energy savings opportunities in industry, and batteries and other energy storage…..”

Reviewer comments: “Brown’s ability to make a complicated subject accessible to the general reader is remarkable..”(Katherine Salant, Washington Post); “..a highly readable and authoritative account of the problems we face from global warming to shrinking water resources, fisheries, forests, etc. The picture is very frightening. But the book also provides a way forward.”(Clare Short, British Member of Parliament).

The second recommended book, due out next month, is Gustaf Olsson’s second edition of  ‘Water and Energy Threats and Opportunities’. The first edition was published by the International Water Association in June 2012.

In my review of his first edition I stated:  “Professor Olssons book, Water and Energy Threats and Opportunities, the result of a meticulous multi-year effort, meets an important and growing need: to define and illuminate the critical linkage between water and energy. He explores the water-energy nexus in detail, and carefully discusses its many implications, including for food production and its connection to global climate change. He properly and repeatedly emphasizes the important message that water and energy issues must be addressed together if society is to make wise and efficient use of these critical resources. Given its comprehensive scope and careful scholarship, the book will serve as a valuable addition to the libraries of students, researchers, practitioners, and government officials at all levels.”

In his expanded second edition Professor Olsson, a distinguished faculty member in industrial automation at Lund University in Sweden and a Distinguished Fellow of the International Water Association, adds additional and updated information on climate change,  energy system water requirements, renewable energy, and a clear and comprehensive discussion of the important subject of fracking for fossil fuel supplies which has recently emerged as a major public issue.

In its first incarnation Professor Olsson’s book qualified as a ‘bible’ on water-energy issues. In its second incarnation it qualifies even more so.

 

New book – ‘Energy Poverty: Global Challenges and Local Solutions’

Two years in the making, this 21-chapter book was released by Oxford University Press (OUP) on December 20, 2014. It addresses the importance of energy access in reducing poverty and increasing human welfare, a topic just beginning to receive widespread visibility. A brief description of the book is attached below; a Table of Contents can be found at the following website:
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/energy-poverty-9780199682362?cc=dk&lang=en&

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Edited by Antoine Halff, Benjamin K. Sovacool, and Jon Rozhon

A one-stop treatment of energy poverty, an issue whose pivotal role in the fight for human development and against poverty is only now being recognised
A practical guide and reference work for policymakers and practitioners in the field
Provides a fresh perspective on tomorrow’s energy challenges
Brings together diverse viewpoints and includes contributions from experts and practitioners from all over the world, including China, India, Brazil, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East
Includes chapters from authors at the cutting edge of research: Fatih Birol, chief economist of the International Energy Agency, Han Wenke, head of China’s Energy Research Institute, Nigel Bruce of the World Health Organisation, and Jason Bordoff, former senior advisor on energy to President Barack Obama”

I also attach a copy of the chapter I was privileged to write, ‘Energy and Water: A Critical Linkage”, on a topic that is also receiving increasing attention. It is a bit long compared to my usual blog posts, but worth reading. A special gift awaits those who read to the end of the chapter.
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Shale Gas and Hydraulic Fracturing – Framing the Water Issue

A detailed report on fracking (‘Shale Gas and Hydraulic Fracturing – Framing the Water Issue’), co-authored with two Swedish colleagues Gustaf Olsson and Andreas Lindstrom, was released today by SIWI, the Swedish International Water Institute. The report’s Executive Summary is included below; the full report can be found at http://www.siwi.org.

SIWI Report no. 24/Executive Summary
“Shale Gas and Hydraulic Fracturing – Framing the Water Issue” by Andreas Lindström, SIWI, Dr. Allan Hoffman, US Department of Energy/retired, and Prof. Gustaf Olsson, Lund University.

The emergence of shale gas and shale oil has quickly changed the landscape of opportunities for energy provision and security in different regions of the world. Difficulties in assessing the actual quantity of existing global shale hydrocarbon reserves produce opposing views on whether the world is on the verge of a “shale gas revolution” and, if it is, how long it could last. Some argue that shale gas may constitute a backbone of energy supply for specific countries for decades to come, while others say the peak may have passed already.

Despite this, some nations – such as the USA – have already started an ambitious exploitation of this comparatively cheap energy resource, providing new and favourable conditions for domestic energy supplies and costs, and creating new jobs in the booming shale industry. For various reasons other countries have not taken the plunge, despite assessed quantities of shale resources. These reasons include fear of possible severe environmental impacts. These are often associated with shale gas extraction accomplished through the technology known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”; evidence of the impacts is emerging in places where intense, unregulated fracking takes place.

Many of these impacts make themselves felt in water resources. Fracking is a water-intensive activity, and as the reserves are often found in dry areas extraction poses additional challenges in what are often already water-stressed environments. The vast water quantities needed over the life span of a shale gas well, where water is used to fracture rock under high pressure, pile further stress on local fresh water sources which are already needed for many different purposes. At times when water supplies are running short in a specific area it has to be transported to the fracking site from afar.

Water quality is also under threat from fracking as well as the quantity available. Many chemicals used in the fracking fluid (the composition of which is often protected for commercial confidentiality reasons) have increasingly been found to be harmful both to the environment and to human health, yet poor regulations and legislation governing fracking often allow accidents which contaminate surrounding water sources. There is a need for greater responsibility, through developing codes of conduct and regulatory systems governing fracking so as to protect water resources and the environment. It should be adopted by all nations currently exploiting or liable to exploit shale resources as part of their energy supply.