Re: Renewable Sources of Energy
Posted: 12 May 2012 03:14
ABC news coverage (video) of new solar facility....
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?secti ... id=8649109
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?secti ... id=8649109
Consortium of Indian Defence Websites
https://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/
Need new tower. I don't see any other options.Vipul wrote:A query. If a wind park operator has the financial means what would be the technical constraints for existing wind parks to have its earlier low capacity turbines changed to higher capacity ones? Would these turbines be plug and play ones (a simple matter) or require bigger tower (some complications) or would require more angled area/unrestricted area for airflow? (complete dismantaling of all towers - more complications)
India plans to more than double its amount of clean power generation capacity to almost 53,000 megawatts by 2017 under the latest five year plan.
India plans to add 29,800 megawatts of renewable power generation in five years, more than twice the 12,871 megawatts added during the previous five year plan, according to data from the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.
Over the coming period, the nation plans to add 15,000 megawatts of wind farms, 10,000 megawatts of solar power, 2,700 megawatts of power based on biomass and biofuels, and 2,100 megawatts of small hydroelectric projects, Minister Farooq Abdullah said in a written response to parliament that was e- mailed by the ministry late yesterday.
The nation has installed 23,128 megawatts of clean power projects to date.
Spain Ejects Clean Power Industry with Europe Precedent
By Alex Morales and Ben Sills - May 30, 2012
Spanish renewable-energy companies that once got Europe’s biggest subsidies are deserting the nation after the government shut off aid, pushing project developers and equipment-makers to work abroad or perish.
From wind-turbine maker Gamesa Corp. Tecnologica SA (GAM) to solar park developer T-Solar Global SA, companies are locked out of their home market for new business. These are the same suppliers that spearheaded more than $69 billion of wind and solar projects since 2004 that today supply more than 50 percent of Spain’s power demand on the most breezy and sunny days.
Saddled with a budget deficit more than twice the European Union limit and a ballooning gap between income and costs in its power system, Spain halted subsidies for new renewable-energy projects in January. The surprise move by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy one month after taking office helped pierce investor confidence in stable aid for clean energy across Europe.
“They destroyed the Spanish market overnight with the moratorium,” European Wind Energy Association Chief Executive Officer Christian Kjaer said in an interview. “The wider implication of this is that if Spanish politicians can do that, probably most European politicians can do that.”
Spain’s $69 billion of investment in power capacity from 2004 to 2011 was about triple the spending per capita in the U.S. in that period, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance data and U.S. Census Bureau population estimates. Most of the 2012-2013 spending will be for the legacy of projects approved before the aid cuts to wind, solar, biomass and co-generation.
Spending Skids
Investment in solar photovoltaic alone is headed to skid to as little as $107 million in 2013 from $879 million this year and $1.5 billion last year, New Energy Finance estimated. For new wind projects, investment should plunge to $963 million in 2013 and $244 million in 2014 from $2 billion this year.
T-Solar, which became the world’s biggest solar-farm operator by leveraging its Spanish business, currently has more than 40 running in Spain, Italy and India. While it still makes solar panels in Orense, Spain, they’re bound for Peru.
“We have an important pipeline of projects, and it’s 100 percent outside Spain right now,” T-Solar Managing Director Juan Laso, who also heads the country’s photovoltaic power association, said in a telephone interview. “If you take such a brutal measure, what you do is oblige the industry to move out,” he said of the January moratorium.
Solaria, Gamesa
Solaria Energia y Medio Ambiente SA (SLR), a Madrid-based solar panel maker, slumped as much as 19 percent today to 30 euro cents a share after restating its 2011 earnings. The company lost 96 million euros last year compared with a 6.5 million-euro profit in 2010.
Gamesa, the world’s fourth-biggest wind-turbine maker by market share according to Navigant Consulting Inc. (NCI)’s BTM Consult unit, plans to reduce the factory output of its Spanish plants to 1,000 megawatts by 2013 from 1,200 megawatts at the end of last year.
Instead, Zamudio-based Gamesa is adding capacity in India where it plans to open a third factory this year. In 2011, the company got less than 9 percent of its revenue in its home nation, down from almost 33 percent in 2009. Former CEO Jorge Calvet didn’t mention Spain on a May 10 call with analysts after announcing the company’s first quarterly loss.
“The future is outside of Spain,” said Sean McLoughlin, clean energy analyst at HSBC Bank Plc in London. “Gamesa already moved most of their business out of Spain and the moratorium only helps to accelerate and complete that process.”
Thirty-one years ago, Spain erected its first wind turbine at Tarifa, a city on the peninsula’s southern tip that juts into the gusty Straits of Gibraltar which divide Spain from Morocco.
German Model
In the 2000s, Spain copied the German clean-power aid model, as did nations from Portugal to Israel and Japan, increasing subsidies to a pinnacle in 2007. That’s when a law granted 444 euros ($556) a megawatt-hour for home rooftop solar panels feeding the power grid, compared with an average 39 euros paid to competing coal- or gas-fired power plants .
By 2009, the consumer bill for clean-energy aid had risen to 6 billion euros a year, ahead of the 5.6 billion euros in Germany, whose economy is almost four times bigger, according to the Council of European Energy Regulators.
Rolling Subsidy Cuts
After four successive reductions in subsidies since then, the government on Jan. 27 this year announced the moratorium on aid for new projects. The next month Spain saw itself drop out of the 10 most attractive markets for renewable-energy investors for the first time, due to reduced aid, on an Ernst & Young ranking. Spain led the list from October 2003 through July 2006.
“What happened in Spain is that abruptly, they changed the industry by changing the policy, and that doesn’t help build a sustainable industry,” said Stephan Ritter, general manager of General Electric Co.’s European renewables unit.
“The history of Spanish wind energy policy is ‘We’re going to keep it stable’ and suddenly out of the blue this comes, and it’s a bomb,” the EWEA’s Kjaer said.
The decline started before this year. The 75,466 renewable energy jobs that existed in Spain at the industry’s peak in 2008 shrank to 54,925 in 2010, according to the Renewable Energy Producers Association’s most recent data. Including indirect jobs, the tally slumped from 131,229 to 111,455.
Iberdrola SA (IBE), based in Bilbao, became the world’s biggest owner of wind farms, taking its Spanish experience abroad over the past decade. It campaigned for solar subsidies to be ended, because much of the power-tariff deficit sits on the utilities’ balance sheets straining their finances. Iberdrola, which also runs gas, hydro and nuclear plants, is Spain’s biggest utility.
Solar Drag
Solar energy was the biggest drag on the system, accounting for almost half of the annual 6 billion euros of liabilities and producing just above 2 percent of the power , said Eduardo Tabbush, an analyst in London at Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
With peak electricity demand at less than half of capacity, the country doesn’t need more power plants, he said. Spain has a capacity of 99 gigawatts, and peak demand of 44 gigawatts.
Spain’s power-system debt swelled to 23 billion euros as successive governments set electricity prices for consumers that didn’t cover the revenue utilities booked. Even with January’s moratorium, the electricity system racked up another 762 million euros of debt in the first two months of the year, according to the energy regulator.
Scapegoat for Policies?
“You’re making renewables a scapegoat for a problem that was created as a result of incredibly bad policies,” said Kjaer.
Spain is the world’s fourth-biggest wind energy market by cumulative installed capacity, and in solar photovoltaic power, it ties the U.S. for fourth, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The nation installed at least a gigawatt of wind power capacity every year since 2001, peaking at 3.5 gigawatts in 2007, according to the Spanish Wind Energy Association.
“At the moment there’s not a single project planned for 2013,” Heikki Willstedt, director of energy policy at the Spanish Wind Energy Association, said in an interview. “We have to keep a rhythm of installation over the next two or three years to keep the industry here in Spain.”
Solar power installations have been bumpier, totaling 550 megawatts, 2,760 megawatts, 70 megawatts, 390 megawatts and 430 megawatts for the five years through 2011, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance data.
Even before the moratorium was established, opportunities were dimming for renewable power in Spain. The so-called pre- registry of wind projects, which had been approved to receive above-market electricity prices, was set to expire at the end of 2012. And a retroactive cap was set on the number of hours when solar generators can earn higher rates.
Acciona, Abengoa
Acciona SA (ANA), a developer of wind and solar projects that in 2011 derived more than three quarters of electricity sales in Spain, has less than half of its pipeline of new projects for 2012 in Spain. Energias de Portugal SA’s renewables division, based in Spain, has less than a fifth of its pipeline there.
At Abengoa SA (ABG), the portion of revenue from Spain fell to 27 percent last year from 39 percent in 2007. Abengoa has 1,210 megawatts of solar thermal plants either in construction or in a pre-construction phase, a third of it in Spain.
“It reaches a point where if more interesting markets open up and you have to export to those markets, many times it’s better to take the factories there,” said Willstedt. “All of this know-how could be lost quickly, or it’ll move away, or it could be bought by competitors.”
In a country where unemployment in April rose to 24.4 percent, the subsidy moratorium puts more positions at stake, according to Willstedt.
’Five Years on Ice’
In its March 30 budget, Spanish Premier Rajoy’s government gave no sign of when it would bring back subsidies, and the National Energy Commission, an advisory body, has published scenarios including a suspension until 2017.
“I don’t know any sector that can be put on ice for 5 years and then be taken out intact,” said T-Solar’s Laso.
Abengoa Chief Executive Officer Manuel Sanchez Ortega said Feb. 28 in an interview he thought the moratorium would last 18 months at the most.
“Then the industry will pick up the pace again,” Ortega said. “If it lasts more than 18 months we are running the serious risk of driving all this industry out of the country.”
To be sure, Spain is headed to meet its European Union target of getting 20 percent of all its energy from renewables by 2020. The country generated 23 percent of its electricity from renewable sources in 2010.
Answer to TN power problems is blowin' in the wind
The last fortnight, when wind energy met over one-third of Tamil Nadu's energy demand, has proven the ability of renewable energy to consistently meet utility-scale energy supply, according to the Indian Wind Power Association. This illustrates the need for the policy makers at the State and Centre to restore the incentives to support the wind energy sector, said the Association. The association of wind energy producers said that since May 25 wind mills contributed over 2,800 MW to 3,500 MW of power to the State Grid. Referring to the official statistics available with the Tamil Nadu Transmission Corporation, the utility handling power transmission, they said for nearly a fortnight now, the wind mills have fed 70-80 million units of electricity daily into the State's power grid. This accounts for up to 35 per cent of Tamil Nadu's energy requirement. This supply has contributed significantly to alleviating the power shortage of about 3,000 MW in the State.
Tamil Nadu has made a mark on the global renewable energy scene as it is now second only to Denmark, where wind mills contribute up to 40 per cent to the power grid.
May 2012 was a record month for solar photovoltaics (PV) in Germany, according to figures presented by the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW). For the first time slightly more than four billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity from PV was generated and fed into the German grid last month.
This electricity generation from solar corresponds to about ten percent of Germany's electricity consumption during May and represents an increase of roughly 40 percent over PV generation in May 2011.
This looks like study about integration of diverse sources in grid. The mix has been assumedThe Renewable Electricity Futures Study (RE Futures) provides an analysis of the grid
integration opportunities, challenges, and implications of high levels of renewable electricity
generation for the U.S. electric system. The study is not a market or policy assessment. Rather,
RE Futures examines renewable energy resources and many technical issues related to the
operability of the U.S. electricity grid, and provides initial answers to important questions about
the integration of high penetrations of renewable electricity technologies from a national
perspective. RE Futures results indicate that a future U.S. electricity system that is largely
powered by renewable sources is possible and that further work is warranted to investigate this
clean generation pathway. The central conclusion of the analysis is that renewable electricity
generation from technologies that are commercially available today, in combination with a more
flexible electric system, is more than adequate to supply 80% of total U.S. electricity generation
in 2050 while meeting electricity demand on an hourly basis in every region of the United States.
News related to such mechanisms have appeared earlier/elsewhere too.As wind powers an increasing amount of electricity generation, entrepreneurs are hoping to replace modern windmills with a high-tech version of an even older technology: kites.
Winds are stronger and more consistent at higher altitudes, but building a 100-story-tall turbine isn't cost effective. So engineers are working on using kites to send aloft power generators that create energy when mounted rotors are spun by the wind; they transmit electricity through the cables that tie them to the earth as a string tethers a child's kite
A few years ago in Maharshtra there were rumours of effect of wind-mill farms on weather. Do not have ready references for those times. We are talking about climate here and that looks free from any major impacts. There is need to do more workMore realistically, Jacobson and Archer found that 4 million 5-megawatt turbines operating on the planet's surface could supply as much as 7.5 terawatts of power without significant negative impacts on the climate. This is more than half the world's power demands in 2030, optimistically assuming that all energy is converted to clean energy by then.
While these researchers focused on the global climate effects of very large-scale wind power, more study is needed. Archer said the findings suggest that even heavy use of wind power is likely a smart, safe and clean way to generate energy.
"There is still a lot of interesting work to be done on local and regional climatic consequences of wind," Marvel said.
Marvel and her colleagues detailed their findings online Sept. 9 in the journal Nature Climate Change. Jacobson and Archer published their research online Sept. 10 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Both teams will present their work at the Airborne Wind Energy Conference on Sept. 11 and 12 in Hampton, Va.
Federal subsidies for new wind-power generation will end on Dec. 31 unless they are renewed by Congress. For the sake of our economy and the smooth operation of the energy market, Congress should let the subsidies lapse. They waste taxpayer money, subvert the allocation of capital, and generate a social cost many times the price tag of the subsides themselves.
Since 1992, the federal government has expended almost $24 billion to encourage investment in wind power through direct spending, tax breaks, R&D, loan guarantees and other federal support of electric power. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that a one-year extension of existing federal subsidies for wind power would cost taxpayers almost $12 billion.
The costs of wind subsidies are extraordinarily high—$52.48 per one million watt hours generated, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. By contrast, the subsidies for generating the same amount of electricity from nuclear power are $3.10, from hydropower 84 cents, from coal 64 cents, and from natural gas 63 cents.
In addition, wind power benefits from federal mandates requiring the use of renewable energy by federal agencies along with preferential treatment by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service. Many states provide additional tax breaks, subsidies and mandates for wind power. The total value of these additional subsidies has never been calculated.
But the cost to taxpayers is only part of the problem. Subsidized, wind-generated electricity is displacing other, much cheaper sources of power. The subsidies are so high that wind-power producers can pay utilities to take the electricity they produce and still make a profit. Such "negative pricing" has occurred for some time in the Midwest, the Pacific Northwest and in Texas—and, according to the Energy Information Administration, it will likely grow.
kenop wrote:A bit OT but,
Will developments in thoirum-based nuclear power will blow away need for refining renewables? Interest is going up in the western countries too. India had eyes set on thorium since the start. Over last one year, China also is in the game.
Really? Do you really know?Theo_Fidel wrote: The reason for this is quite simple. There can be no thorium reactors.... causing inefficiency at each step that our weak human processes are unable to create a viable cycle. With present physics/materials this is likely to remain true indefinitely.
US and China are looking at restaring their Thorium based technologies and here we have people advocating shutting it down just when we are on the verge of a breakthrough. Jai Ho.chetak wrote:kenop wrote:A bit OT but,
Will developments in thoirum-based nuclear power will blow away need for refining renewables? Interest is going up in the western countries too. India had eyes set on thorium since the start. Over last one year, China also is in the game.
Hundreds of tons of thorium sands were exported from India in yet another major scam.
Any clear idea as to where exactly they went and who was involved?
I don't think it is anyone's case that all these thousands and thousands of crores of Thorium investment should be thrown away. Continue the research at a modest level by all means. Don't count on it to save our a$$.vishvak wrote:K. Should we therefore approach Thorium energy cycle - keeping tech domestic as well - so that energy remains independent and as cheap as possible? - Yes.