Hybrid of Public/Private Financing for Renewables
I wrote not too long ago about the huge, long-term role that the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), as part of the Department of Energy, plays in supporting the development of clean energy technologies. Their work with solar energy leader Solyndra is a perfect example of a case in which this public support made it possible for a private company to raise critically important addition capital, by preventing their initial private investors from getting scared away. At a certain point, new (very large) rounds of cash were required to get the company to its next level. As I recall, NREL supported this effort to the tune of over $700 million — and this robust commitment showed investors that they weren’t alone in their belief that the company was on the right track.
But not every company that asks for money receives any at all — let alone $700 million. So exactly how does this process work? How fair is it? What criteria are most important? What types of companies are favored over others, and why? Are more mature renewables technologies, like photovoltaics (in which Solyndra plays), favored over newer ideas? (Solyndra has a very well proven breakthrough in deployment of CIGS (copper indium gallium (di) selenide), generating a significant leap in PV efficiencies and reduction in costs).
Unfortunately, it’s not clear. I suppose it’s not supposed to be. Take solar thermal/CSP (concentrated solar power) as an example of a new technology. Technologies like PV and wind have a several-decade head-start over CSP. When I interviewed industry leader Ausra‘s founder Dr. David Mills for my book on renewables, he told me that Ausra had gotten to the second round in one of these mega-contests in which the DoE selects its favorites to back, but that they didn’t make the finals. When I asked if he resented their decision, he — perhaps simply out of good sportsmanship and professional courtesy — said that he didn’t, and told me that he’ll simply try again another time.
I can’t count all the people who have asked us for our insights at 2GreenEnergy on this matter — and I regret that all I can turn up are anecdotal incidents like these. I ask readers to share their own experiences with this process so that all my learn. Thanks.
Solar thermal power using the power tower approach is the only thing that makes sense for generating large amounts of electricity using solar power, partly because it is possible to store heat so that power can be generated when the sun is not shining and partly because it results in less toxic electronic waste than photovoltaic power.
One of the problems with photo voltaic panels which has received inadequate attention is that their useful life is only from 20 to 30 years after which they become toxic electronic waste. If we ever generate a significant amount of power using the PV approach, there will be a horrendous problem of recycling the old PV panels. That cost should be taken into consideration when determining the cost of electricity generated by PV panels.
Also, PV panels generate power only when the sun is shining and there is no economical way to store large amounts of power to make power available when the sun is not shining.
Unfortunately, solar electric power cannot replace coal or nuclear generating plants since the coal or nuclear plants must always be on stand-by for when the sun is not shining, even with heat storage. Thus, the cost of PV panels is not INSTEAD of coal or nuclear, but rather IN ADDITION to coal and nuclear. The major cost of generating electricity is not in the fuel, but rather, in other operating costs and the cost of investment. So, although solar power could reduce the amount of coal and nuclear material used to generate power, it would most likely cause the cost of electricity to be at least double.
Advances in nuclear power largely eliminate the traditional objections to it. Also, the federal government and utilities have recently become more aware that uranium, with its well-known problems, need not be used to generate power; thorium can be used instead of uranium. Thorium is about four times more plentiful than uranium and there is enough thorium available to meet the world’s energy needs for centuries.
For more information on using thorium to fuel nuclear reactors, visit http://www.energyfromthorium.com/.
Instead of opposing nuclear energy, 2greenenergy should be promoting the safest and most economical nuclear energy technology. Wind and solar will NEVER replace fossil fuels except in certain very limited circumstances. Delaying the implementation of nuclear power will result in the burning of more fossil fuel.
Solar power leads to better education, health, safety and income by allowing poor communities to cook, pump water, run fridges, store vaccines, light homes, schools, clinics and businesses, and power computers, homes and farms more effectively. Power to the people!
NREL has a team in Hawaii to develope renewable energy. Right now Hawaii gets 90% of it’s electric from imported oil. What a mess. The NREL team has Renewables all over the islands, like wind, solar, geo thermal (Kilawala volcano) wave power, water currents in what and temperate temperatures so passive zero energy home are easy. What a gold mine of energy.
I’d never consider Nuclear since it’s the most costly energy ever invensted and deadly not to mention the uranium now comes from Russia. Who needs coal, nuclear and nagural gas when we have Renewables everyplace. We also have free storage in the millions of new advanced battery Electric Vehicles like the Nissan LEAF, Tesla family S sedan and many others.
The new non toxic and safe lithium batteries as well as solar panels are all recyclable. Most PV panels are warrentied for 25 years and will last 50 or more. It’s a whole new world, an EV world. Where EVeryone works together, well almost EVeryone.
The traditional view of utility scale renewables is that they offset the utility baseline sources, such as coal, gas, etc. There is a separate and distinct debate on the viability of a very large and distributed micro-supplier grid vs. the more traditional utility scale, tree structured grid. As usual, I prefer to take a moderate approach and assume that I can successfully integrate distributed and utility scale sources within the same intelligently managed mesh. Instead of “smart grid” meaning greater automation within the utility controlled resources, I define it to mean true two-way communications between the consumers and the suppliers, and allowing for the consumer to be a supplier. The computing resources and algorithms exist to do this right now. What is missing is an overarching energy policy that compells such a design.
As far as CSP goes, that’s been around almost as long as PV. Definitely nothing new there other than a bit of public consciousness. Energy storage, as stated by others in this thread, is largely where the body is buried. For CSP, molten salt has been efficacious from the perspective of price/performance, but it is not a new idea either. Obviously many other forces besides invention are at work here.
One of the few renewables that’s 24×7, and thus utility qualified, is geothermal. When you have a volcano in your backyard, I am at a loss to explain Hawaii not being close to 100% renewably powered. We need to stop being so darn conservative and be a little expansive in our thinking, like Von Braun was with the F-1 engine.