Weekly Clean Energy Roundup:March 2, 2005

News and Events

• Northwest Power Industry Commits $100 Million for Efficiency
• New York State Funds Two Wind Power and Three Hydropower Projects
• Utilities Pursue Biomass Power in Arizona, Alabama, and Georgia
• Ethanol Production Reaches New Heights in 2004
• Hybrid Bus Fleets Grow in New York City, L.A., and Indianapolis
• One-Megawatt Fuel Cell Planned for San Diego Hotel

Site News

Energy Connections

News and Events

Northwest Power Industry Commits $100 Million for Efficiency

The Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance announced last week that it will receive $20 million each year over the next five years to support its efforts to increase energy efficiency in the region. The funds will come from the Bonneville Power Administration, electric utilities, and public benefit funds?state funds generated through a fee on electricity to support public benefits such as renewable energy and energy efficiency. The $100 million investment will support market-based energy efficiency programs throughout Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington.

Since the Alliance began in late 1996, energy efficiency efforts in the Northwest have saved the region an estimated 130 megawatts of electricity through 2003. The Alliance programs encourage appliance manufacturers and retailers to make and sell more efficient products, encourage commercial building designers to adopt practices that yield high-performance buildings, and promote new and innovative energy-saving technologies to industries in the Northwest. By 2010, the Alliance and related efforts are expected to save enough electricity to offset the need for two new power plants in the region, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by about 2 million tons. See the Alliance press release.

Among the many useful services provided by the Alliance is a systematic review of energy efficiency products and technologies. Currently, five “Product Technology and Review Sheets” are posted on the Alliance Web site.

New York State Funds Two Wind Power and Three Hydropower Projects

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) announced last month that it selected five power generation producers to provide renewable power for the first phase of the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) Program. Two of the five projects are wind facilities: the 300-megawatt Flat Rock Wind Project near Lowville in Lewis County, about 25 miles southeast of Watertown, and the 7.5-megawatt Atlantic City Wind Farm (also called the Jersey-Atlantic Wind Farm) in New Jersey, both of which are expected to be at least partially complete by year-end. The remaining three projects are recent upgrades of existing hydropower projects owned by Brascan Power: the 17-megawatt Browns Falls hydropower plant and the 6.1-megawatt Higley hydropower plant, both in St. Lawrence County, and the 56-megawatt Spier Falls hydroelectric plant in Saratoga County. In 2006, NYSERDA expects to pay $15.7 million for the renewable energy attributes of the power generated by the five projects, estimated at 700,000 megawatt-hours. See the press releases from NYSERDA and Brascan Power.

NYSERDA chose the five projects from 22 proposals that came in response to a request for proposals (RFP) issued in late December. That solicitation aimed to acquire the renewable attributes of 1,400,000 megawatt-hours of renewable power, double the amount actually acquired to meet the state’s RPS requirement. See the NYSERDA RFP (PDF 1.1 MB).

For more information about the two wind projects, see the Flat Rock Wind Project Web site, the Flat Rock project summary (PDF 176 KB) from New York’s Tug Hill Commission, and a summary of the Atlantic City project on the Atlantic County Utility Authority Web site.

Utilities Pursue Biomass Power in Arizona, Alabama, and Georgia

Salt River Project (SRP), a utility providing power to Phoenix, Arizona, announced in February that it will purchase 10 megawatts of power from a wood-fired power plant to be built near Snowflake, in east-central Arizona. Snowflake White Mountain Power, LLC plans to build a 15- to 20-megawatt power plant that will derive at least 80 percent of its power from forest thinnings in Arizona. See the SRP press release.

Atlanta-based Southern Company has been making use of switchgrass, a native prairie grass that grows well in the South, at two of its plants since spring of 2001. In separate tests conducted at Alabama Power’s Gadsden power plant and Georgia Power’s Mitchell power plant, switchgrass was co-fired with coal to quantify the impact on environmental emissions and to determine the best method for handling it. Based on the successful results achieved from those preliminary tests, Southern Company committed to a three-year demonstration of biomass co-firing at the Gadsden power plant. Southern Company also announced last week that it is working with the Electric Power Research Institute and the Tennessee Valley Authority on a two-yea
r project to test a process for gasifying wood. The project will involve grinding up the wood, feeding it into a high-pressure gasifier, and evaluating the quality of the wood-derived gas, which could be used to power a gas turbine generator. See the Southern Company press release.

Meanwhile, researchers at the State University of New York (SUNY) hope to convert wood into an entirely different form of energy: ethanol fuel. The researchers have developed a process to extract from wood the sugar xylan, which can be fermented into ethanol. The process can also yield acetic acid, a valuable chemical, as a byproduct. See the SUNY press release.

Ethanol Production Reaches New Heights in 2004

The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) announced last week that the U.S. ethanol fuel industry set an annual production record of 3.4 billion gallons in 2004, an increase of 21 percent from the 2.81 billion gallons produced in 2003. In December, the industry produced 232,000 barrels per day of ethanol, tying the monthly record set in November, and beating ethanol production in December 2003 by 25,000 barrels per day. Including imports, U.S. petroleum companies used a record 3.53 billion gallons of ethanol in 2004.

Since late November, four new plants have started producing ethanol: one in Nebraska, one in Missouri, and two in Iowa. The latest one, near Emmetsburg, Iowa, started producing ethanol last week. In addition, an ethanol plant near Oshkosh, Wisconsin, finished doubling its capacity in December. According to RFA, there are currently 83 ethanol fuel plants nationwide with the capacity to produce more than 3.7 billion gallons of ethanol each year. In addition, 15 ethanol fuel plants now under construction and two major expansions now underway will eventually add nearly 700 million gallons in new ethanol production capacity. See the RFA press releases.

Hybrid Bus Fleets Grow in New York City, L.A., and Indianapolis

A growing number of hybrid buses are now in service throughout the United States, and New York City’s fleet of hybrid buses is poised to lead the world. On Monday, Orion Bus Industries finished delivering an order for 125 hybrid buses to New York City’s transit agency, and by the end of this year, Orion will deliver another 200 hybrid buses, creating the world’s largest fleet of hybrid buses. The buses use the HybriDrive diesel-electric propulsion system from BAE Systems. See the BAE Systems press release.

New hybrid buses were also delivered recently to Los Angeles, California, and Indianapolis, Indiana. The Los Angeles International Airport is the new proud owner of two hybrid-electric buses that run on compressed natural gas. Hybrid Bus Technologies, LLC manufactured the buses using a hybrid propulsion system from UQM Technologies, Inc. Meanwhile, the public transit agency in Indianapolis received its first two hybrid buses in January and placed them in service last month. The buses use the hybrid propulsion system developed by General Motors Corporation (GM). See the press releases from UQM Technologies and GM.

One-Megawatt Fuel Cell Planned for San Diego Hotel

FuelCell Energy, Inc. announced in mid-February that it will provide four 250-kilowatt fuel cell power plants to the Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina by year-end. The one-megawatt fuel cell installation will provide baseload power to the hotel, and its waste heat will be used to heat the pool. The project is the first in a series under an agreement between Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc., which owns the Sheraton, and Alliance Star Energy LLC, a joint venture of FuelCell Energy and Alliance Power. The new agreement provides the framework for fuel cell projects for Starwood hotels, with an initial focus on its California properties. See the FuelCell Energy press release.

FuelCell Energy and Alliance Power have also been working with the City of Santa Barbara to install two 250-kilowatt fuel cell plants at the El Estero Wastewater Treatment Facility. The 500-kilowatt system will be fueled with methane generated at the facility. The companies and the city dedicated the new system last week. See the FuelCell Energy press release.

Residents of certain areas of Tokyo, Japan, have the opportunity to provide power and hot water for their homes using a fuel cell cogeneration system developed by Tokyo Gas Company, Ltd.; Ebara Ballard Corporation; and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. At a cost of about $9,550 (1 million yen), customers will have use of a 1-kilowatt fuel cell system for 10 years. Customers will also earn a 3 percent discount on their gas bills for three years and will have their bill capped at about $90 per month (9,500 yen). See the Tokyo Gas press release (PDF 137 KB) and the Tokyo Gas Web site.

Site News

Study Leads to New Web Site for Energy Efficiency Best Practices

The new Best Practices Benchmarking for Energy Efficiency Programs Web site is the online version of the National Energy Efficiency Best Practices Study, a benchmarking study to identify best practices in energy efficiency programs throughout the United States. The study, funded by the California Public Utilities Commission, divides the energy efficiency universe into 11 categories: 6 residential categories, 4 non-residential categories, and mass-market advertising. For each category, the study profiles a number of programs across the country, then draws on those profiles to determine best practices for energy efficiency programs within that category. The Web site also provides a search tool for finding relevant profiles and reports based on the goal or structure of the energy efficiency programs. See the < A href="http://www.eebestpractices.com/index.asp">Best Practices Benchmarking for Energy Efficiency Programs Web site.

Energy Connections

EIA: U.S. Companies Achieving Greater Cuts in Greenhouse Gases

A total of 234 U.S. companies and other entities have reported undertaking 2,188 projects in 2003 to reduce or sequester greenhouse gases, DOE’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) announced last week. The companies, participants in EIA’s Voluntary Reporting of Greenhouse Gases Program, reduced their emissions by the equivalent to 268 million metric tons of carbon dioxide through direct emission reductions, 81 million metric tons through indirect emission reductions, and 7 million metric tons through carbon sequestration. Indirect emission reductions are reductions from sources not owned or leased by the reporting entity, but occurring as a result of the entity’s activities. Relative to 2002, the cut in direct emissions increased by 1.2 percent, while the cut in indirect reductions increased by 1.1 percent. See the EIA press release.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released its draft inventory of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and sinks for 1990 through 2003. The draft report finds that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions increased by 0.6 percent in 2003, slightly less than the EIA had reported in mid-December. See the EPA draft report and the related EIA press release.

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