House Members Ask for Wind PTC Clarification

Thirty members of the U.S. House of Representatives Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition (SEEC) have sent a letter to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Department of the Treasury encouraging them to act swiftly in issuing guidance to clarify the eligibility qualifications for the renewable energy tax credit that was extended in the American Taxpayer Relief Act. Lawmakers extended the renewable energy production tax credit (PTC) as part of the “fiscal cliff” deal signed into law on January 2, 2013.  This extension altered the language of the PTC to apply to projects that have “commenced construction” instead of projects that have been “placed-in-service.”

Source: House of Representatives SEEC

Xcel May Add More Wind Power

Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy reportedly is considering adding more wind power to take advantage of the recently-extended production tax credit (PTC) program. According to the StarTribune, the company said it is soliciting proposals from developers for up to 200-megawatts of additional wind energy. Xcel currently has the most wind power of any U.S. utility, partly due to the Minnesota Renewable Energy Standard statute which requires it to increase the percentage of its overall power provided by renewables. The company stated it is well ahead of meeting those requirements. No information was provided about possible locations of new wind farms, but the company stated it would be open to proposals that serve its customers in Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota and Wisconsin. Read more

Renewable Energy Standard Update

According to a recent report released by the Minnesota Department of Commerce's Division of Energy Resources, all 16 of the utilities subject to the Minnesota Renewable Energy Standard have demonstrated compliance with the 2011 requirements and are on track to comply with 2012 goals. The report is entitled Progress on Compliance by Electric Utilities with the Minnesota Renewable Energy Objective and the Renewable Energy Standard and is prepared for the Minnesota Legislature once every two years.

Minnesota’s Renewable Energy Standard (RES) statute, amended in 2007, requires that all electric utilities, with the exception of Xcel Energy, provide 25 percent of their total Minnesota retail electric sales from renewable sources by 2025; Xcel Energy’s requirement is 30 percent by 2020. The RES is balanced to protect ratepayers from paying excessive amounts for renewable energy, especially if utilities can show they are unable to meet the RES. 

All utilities, with the exception of Xcel Energy, were required to provide 12 percent of their total Minnesota retail electric sales from renewable sources by the end of 2012. Xcel, which provides about half of the state’s electricity, had to generate 18 percent of its retail sales from renewable sources by the close of 2012.

Actual 2012 compliance figures will not be known until May 2013, when final figures will be reported to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission. Year-to-date 2011 generation was used to estimate the ability to comply with 2012 requirements.

The Renewable Energy Standard progress report (.pdf)

Source: Minnesota Department of Commerce

Solar Farm Goes Online Near Slayton

A solar energy project built by Ecos Energy in a former cornfield outside of Slayton, Minn, began producing power last week, according to a report in the StarTribune. The project consists of 7,040 solar panels arranged in 32 rows with an output capacity of 2 megawatts. The power is being purchased by XCel Energy, which is planning to study how solar energy and intermittent energy from nearby wind farms can complement each other. In Minnesota, twice as much solar capacity was installed in 2012 compared with the prior year, with more than 250 projects of varying sizes coming online, according to the StarTribune report. Read more

Report Says Ethanol Boosted State Economy in 2011

A new report from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture shows the state's ethanol industry produced over $5 billion in total economic activity last year, according to an article in today's Pioneer Press.  In addition to supporting more than 12,600 jobs, the ethanol industry added $912 million to the value of the state's corn crop in 2011. Much of the production, however, was to take advantage of the federal production tax credit before it's year-end expiration, and resulted in a market glut which lowered demand for ethanol in the first half of 2012, the report pointed out.  Read more

Plants' Role in CO2 Management Questioned

According to a new University of Minnesota study, plants may not be able to absorb as much of the increased levels of carbon dioxide in the air as originally thought. The study shows that while plants can absorb and benefit from large amounts of carbon dioxide, they may not get enough of the required nutrients from typical soils to absorb the levels of  CO2 that scientists previously believed possible, which raises questions about their role in mitigating fossil-fuel emissions. The study was published in the current issue of journal Nature Climate Change. Read mores 

New Report on Economic Benefits of Wind Energy

A new study concludes that recent wind energy projects increased both personal income and employment in the counties included in the research, which was done by the USDA Economic Research Service, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.  The researchers looked at economic data from 1,009 counties in 12 windy states, including North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota. Among the sources of economic benefits analyzed in the study were direct employment during construction and operation, lease payments to landowners, demand for local goods and services, tax payments and other spending. Read more

New Energy Storage Technology Announced

RICHLAND, Wash. – A Washington state firm with a 27,000 square foot manufacturing and design facility in Mukilteo has signed a license agreement with Battelle to further develop and commercialize a type of advanced battery that holds promise for storing large amounts of renewable energy and providing greater stability to the energy grid.

The agreement with UniEnergy Technologies LLC is intended to advance and commercialize "redox flow" battery technology.

Developing a technology that can smoothly integrate energy from variable and intermittent sources — such as wind and solar power — onto the electricity grid while maintaining grid stability has proven challenging. First developed in the 1970s, redox flow batteries are one type of storage technology that has shown the ability to meet this challenge. But until now, these batteries have been limited in their ability to work well in a wide range of temperatures, their relatively high cost, and their limited ability to store energy, otherwise known as energy density.

Recently however, with funding from the Energy Department's Office of Electricity Delivery & Energy Reliability, researchers at DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have made significant progress in improving the performance of redox flow technology.

Redox flow batteries are a type of rechargeable battery that stores electrical energy in two tanks of electrolytes, which are then pumped through a reactor to produce energy. The PNNL-developed vanadium electrolytes incorporate two novel approaches to overcome the limitations of previous generations of redox flow batteries. The result is a dramatically improved operating range, higher energy density and lower cost for vanadium redox flow batteries.

The licensing agreement with UniEnergy will lead to enhanced commercial products for utilities, power generators and industry that will enable the energy grid to operate more reliably and efficiently, with better integration of  renewable resources, such as energy produced by wind and the sun.

"The redox flow battery is well-suited for storing intermittent, renewable energy on the electricity grid. The technology can help balance supply and demand, prevent disruptions and meet the grid's varying load requirements," said Imre Gyuk, energy storage program manager at DOE's Office of Electricity Delivery & Energy Reliability in Washington, D.C.

"Redox flow batteries can also help utilities during times of peak demand on the grid, providing additional power when it is needed," he added. "Successful commercialization of DOE-sponsored technology development, such as this, is vital for creating the grid of the future, and sustaining U.S. leadership in advanced technology."

Source: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Natural Gas Plant Proposed for Iowa

Officials from Alliant Energy and the Iowa Utilities Board reportedly heard public input in Marshalltown regarding a $750 million natural gas plant Alliant plans to build over the next five years. The 600-megawatt plant would generate enough electricity for 500,000 homes in addition to $1.7 million in property taxes for Marshall County. Read more

NREL Produces Ethylene via Photosynthesis

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have demonstrated a better way to use photosynthesis to produce ethylene, a breakthrough that could change the way materials, chemicals, and transportation fuels are made, and help clean the air.

NREL scientists introduced a gene into a cyanobacterium and demonstrated that the organism remained stable through at least four generations, producing ethylene gas that could be easily captured. Research results were published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science.

The organism – Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 – produced ethylene at a high rate and is still being improved. The laboratory demonstrated rate of 170 milligrams of ethylene per liter per day is greater than the rates reported for the photosynthetic production by microorganisms of ethanol, butanol or other algae biofuels.

The process does not release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Conversely, the process recycles carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, since the organism utilizes the gas as part of its metabolic cycle.

Ethylene is the most widely produced petrochemical feedstock in the world. But currently it is produced only from fossil fuels, and its production is the industry’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide. Steam cracking of long-chain hydrocarbons from petroleum produces 1.5 to 3 tons of carbon dioxide for every ton of ethylene produced.

The NREL process, by contrast, produces ethylene by using carbon dioxide, which is food for the bacteria. That could mean a savings of six tons of carbon dioxide emissions for every ton of ethylene produced -- the three tons that would be emitted by tapping fossil fuels and another three tons absorbed by the bacteria.

NREL principal investigator, Jianping Yu, says it’s the difference between using old photons and new photons. Ethylene from old photons is the ethylene produced from fossil fuels, derived from photosynthetic organisms that captured the sun’s energy millions of years ago. The NREL process uses new photons that are currently hitting plants, algae and bacteria capable of producing fuels directly.

Ten years ago, a group of Japanese scientists led by Takahira Ogawa at Sojo University was the first to try to produce ethylene via photosynthetic conversion in the cyanobacterium Synechococcus 7942. But by the fourth generation, the bacteria were defunct, producing no ethylene at all, Yu said.

NREL turned to a different cyanobacterium, Synechocystis 6803, which scientists had been researching for a long time, knowing how to change its DNA sequences. They manipulated the sequence to design an ethylene-producing gene to be more stable and more active than the original version.

This process resulted in an organism that uses carbon dioxide and water to produce ethylene, but doesn’t lose its ability to produce ethylene over time. The product ethylene is non-toxic to the producing microorganisms and is not a food source for other organisms that could potentially contaminate an industrial process.

“Our peak productivity is higher than a number of other technologies, including ethanol, butanol, and isoprene,” Yu said. “We overcame problems encountered by past researchers. Our process doesn’t produce toxins such as cyanide and it is more stable than past efforts. And it isn’t going to be a food buffet for other organisms.”

After the culture reaches maximum growth, it’s possible that it could keep producing for months at a time, said Rich Bolin, who is a member of NREL’s partnerships group. The ethylene gas it produces naturally leaves the organism, spurring the organism to keep producing more.

The ethylene would be produced in an enclosed photobioreactor containing seawater enriched with nitrogen and phosphorous. The ethylene gas would rise and be captured from the reactor’s head space. It could then undergo further processing, including a catalytic polymer process to produce fuels and chemicals. The continuous production system improves the energy conversion efficiency and reduces the operational cost.

NREL is initiating discussions with potential industry partners to help move the process to commercial scale. Interested companies include those in the business of producing ethylene or - transportation fuels, as well as firms that build photobioreactors.

“Separations in biotechnology are complicated and costly,” said Jim Brainard, director of NREL’s Biosciences Center. “The nice thing about this system is that it is a gas that just separates from the culture media and rises to the head space. That’s a huge advantage over having to destroy the valuable culture that is taking carbon dioxide and light and water to make your product. It’s much easier than a liquid-liquid separation like in ethanol.”

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.

Source: NREL