The hippies at the Department of Defense get their Green on at this well designed website.  The site includes a video on the 14-MW Nellis Airforce Base solar installation that contains easily the worst explanation of PV technolgy ever committed to film here by Michelle Price, Nellis AFB Energy Manager.

Video of Lissa Morgenthaler-Jones, CEO of LiveFuels explaining the recent change in business plan from algae oil to fish oil.  PETA is not going to be happy.

Rain water catchment systems from Rain Water HOG.  Rainwater can be used for watering the garden, toilet flushing, laundry washing, and bathing.

UC Berkeley and Prescience Intl are offering 10 scholarships to the Cleantech Institute.

On allocating some of the communications spectrum to the smart grid.  How much bandwidth does the smart grid really need?  Not a lot today, but how about tomorrow?

I had a long conversation with Dave Jones, the COO of LiveFuels over breakfast at Buck's last week. LiveFuels recently announced a shift in its business plan – moving from algae harvester and algae fuel company to fish aquaculturist/fish oil/biofuel/co-products supplier. 

I'm working on a larger look at biofuels from algae that takes into account the many recent announcements and my interviews in the algae realm (Exxon, SGI, Algenol, BP, Martek, etc.).  But I wanted to give a quick take on LiveFuels. Mr. Kanellos reported on the LiveFuels fish story here.

It's not unusual for a startup's business plan to shift from its original idea – many successful VC-funded firms have undergone that change.

Nevertheless, I don't think the founders of LiveFuels envisioned themselves as fishmongers in their original startup plans. I imagine the dream was more about crisp clean labcoats and shiny bioreactors producing millions of gallons of algae-derived oil, selling the oil to BP, and saving the world. Anyway, back to the fish.

Given the company's transformation into fish-squeezing ichthyologists, LiveFuels now has to deal with PETA and the like. Here's a video of Lissa Morgenthaler-Jones, CEO of LiveFuels, and her lapels, trying to calm the inevitable agitated animal rights activists from getting their protest on.

LiveFuels is not the first firm to extract fish oil. Nutraceutical firms extract oils from fish (and algae) to produce DHA and EPA, nutraceuticals which sell for lots more than $4 per gallon. If these nutraceutical oils are worth so much, why would LiveFuels sell them into the vicious, commodity transportation fuel market? 

Nor is LiveFuels the first to consider bioconversion as a method of harvesting algae. Scientists and startups like A2BE have looked at Sea Monkeys and Tilapia as bioconverters. LiveFuels is considering using filter-feeders like menhaden, sardines, or anchovies as its crop.

And LiveFuels is going to have to deal with sentiments such as this (taken from our comment boards, in this case from the erudite F. David Doty):

"The idea by LiveFuels of feeding algae to fish and extracting the oil from fish to fuel vehicles is the sickest I’ve heard yet from a humanitarian perspective. I regularly ingest fish oil. I buy about the cheapest I can find, as do hundreds of millions of others. I pay about $150/gal. If LiveFuels can bring the price of fish oil down, maybe more people can have better health, but fish oil will never fuel our vehicles. The world switched from whale oil to petroleum 150 years ago, and that saved the whales. We won’t go back."

And here's a comment from CGA, "Why not feed the fish to bears and squeeze the bears? They could revive the market for bearskin coats as a byproduct... Seems like an awful lot of wasted entropy to me.

In the words of Dave Jones: "We are still a biofuels company. We just have to harvest the co-products to make it work."

LiveFuels now has engineering challenges as well as ethical and public relations issues to surmount in its new incarnation. More on the company soon.

The interesting microinverter/distributed electronics field is now officially oversupplied.

The only firm who is actually shipping is Enphase with well over 30,000 units installed. National Semi, Tigo, and Solar Edge seem to be getting some sales traction and forming partnerships with solar module manufacturers and installers. And Petra Solar has booked some orders.

I'm adding a few more startups to the rapidly growing list of entrants in this rapidly innovating sector.

eWatz – According to LinkedIn, eWatz is developing a hardware/software solution using standards based open architecture for measuring, monitoring and maximizing photovoltaic solar panels and other renewable energies.

NavSemi – According to the company's website it builds a "Digital Solar Energy Maximizer for Home and Street Lighting products."

And Sympagis, another distributed electronics for PV firm has changed its name to eIQ Energy. It is funded by cleantech VC, NGEN.

We've heard of another called Annexus but have yet to find out further info.

Here's the updated list:

Microinverters

• Accurate Solar
• AzurayEnecsys
• EnPhase Energy
• GreenRay Solar
• Larankelo
• Petra Solar
• SolarBridge (formerly SmartSpark)

DC-DC Inverter Architectures

• Accurate Solar
• MPPC
• National Semiconductor
• eIQ Energy (fka Sympagis)
• SolarEdge
• Tigo Energy

Other Inverter Startups

• 1-Solar
• Annexus
• Apollo Solar
• Act Solar (acquired)
• Array Converter
• EOS
• eWatz
• GenDrive
• NavSemi
• Princeton Power
• Phobos
• Sustainable Energy Technologies
• TerraWatt Power

More details in the GTI Report: The Coming Disruption in the PV Inverter Market.

MegaWatt Storage Farms is a storage developer, a new entity – like a solar developer, except with energy storage. And like a solar developer, they are somewhat technology agnostic.

Some background. California, like many states, is in a race to reach ambitious Renewable Portfolio Standards and is increasingly bringing solar and wind farms online. Both of these energy sources are less than consistent. 

Here's an example of a "spaghetti chart" on a wind farm's output. The average is steady but the hour to hour change is striking. 

And here's an example of solar on a minute to minute basis. 

These are just some of the sources of volatility that are straining the electrical generation, transmission and distribution system. Utilities cannot work with this level of variance. Power needs to be available when we turn on the switch whether or not there is some cloud cover in the desert or if the wind stops blowing.
 
Ed Cazalet, the VP and Co-Founder MegaWatt Storage Farms believes that if California is to come close to achieving a 33 percent RPS by 2020, we are going to need at least 4 gigawatts of storage – or roughly 5 percent of the 75-gigawatts peak system demand. Cazalet is a former board member of the California Independent System Operator and the former chief executive officer and co-founder of Automated Power Exchange. I spoke with him before he presented at a recent SolarTech event.

MegaWatt, a startup with a very experienced team, looks to develop, own and operate large electricity storage facilities that connect directly to the wholesale electric grid and provide electricity storage services to utilities and other parties. 

Stalled by Regulatory Agencies

But merchant owned storage – owned by the customer or independent parties is a "substantial regulatory challenge," according to Cazalet. Is it transmission? Generation? Distribution?

Like transmission, storage moves energy from one place to another with some losses.  Is energy storage a transmission asset?

Storage competes with generation. Is is a generation asset?

Is it a distribution asset?

Or is it a fourth category?

The problem is, according to Cazalet, "If a utility doesn't  know whether to call it transmission, distribution, or generation – they're not going to use it." And that debate is going on right now in the California PUC and at the FERC.

Storage Technologies

We have covered the variety of energy storage technologies many times at GTM. Here's a link to a related blog and an EPRI powerpoint discussing energy storage prices.

Some energy storage technologies:

• Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES)
• Pumped Hydro
• Batteries
• Flow Batteries
• Flywheels
• Supercapacitors
• Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage (SMES)
• Thermal Storage

Each of the technologies has its' virtues, its' drawbacks, and its' suitable niches.

Although Cazalet is agnostic on the specific storage technology he does seem to like Soldium Sulfur (NaS) batteries.

"Japan is way ahead of us in storage, Japan has over 300MW of storage, much of it NaS, on the grid," said Cazalet. This includes 34 megawatts on an acre at a Japanese wind farm in their quest to find energy storage at its lowest price. Some of Japan's NaS batteries have operated for over a decade. NaS is also being deployed at scale in the MidEast and has been deployed at scale on the distribution grid in the U.S. by utility American Electric Power.
 
With regards to Flow Batteries: "Many firms going after it, you have to get the engineering right. Not yet up to multi-MW scale," he said.

And, "Li-ion is making vast strides." with "trailer size installations providing 2 megawatts for 15 minutes."

How Does California Meet the 33% Renewables Target?

Cazalet's answer: "Put the storage near the load centers and deliver it on peak;" and, "Combine that with dynamic pricing."
 
Cazalet adds in a recent editorial:

Battery storage has no air, water, or noise emissions. Four gigawatts of distributed storage will provide 8 gigawatts of dispatchability (4-gigawatts charge rate plus 4-gigawatts discharge rate) to integrate variable wind and solar. Batteries can respond almost instantly over their full range of dispatchability. 
 
Four gigawatts of distributed storage can also absorb 4 gigawatts of nighttime over-generation from wind and other sources, bringing it to the load centers at night on existing transmission,
and then delivering it during the day when we need it. 
 
He emphasizes, "Distributed storage is the only practical, large-scale and clean option for integrating a 33 percent variable renewable energy portfolio."  And adds, "It is now up to California’s PUC, Energy Commission, ISO, and perhaps the Legislature, to establish a portfolio standard for storage to complement the standards they have set for renewables and demand response."

Greentech Media receives a lot of press releases and promotional materials on products and services that stretch the meaning of green.  My recent favorites were the flood of bidet promotions – they cut down on toilet paper, you know, and green cigarettes.

Greenwash is growing. There is no standard or single organization to substantiate these claims and there are literally hundreds of "Green Labelling" organizations.

Anyway, on that topic (greenwashing, not bidets) Business for Social Responsibility, a sustainability consulting organization, just released a great report on "Understanding and Preventing Greenwash."

They provide a guide to spotting the “10 Signs of Greenwash”:

• Fluffy language: Words or terms with no clear meaning (e.g., “eco-friendly”). 
• Green product vs. dirty company: Such as efficient lightbulbs made in a factory that pollutes rivers. 
• Suggestive pictures: Green images that indicate a (unjustified) green impact (e.g., flowers blooming from exhaust pipes). 
• Irrelevant claims: Emphasizing one tiny green attribute when everything else is not green. 
• Best in class: Declaring you are slightly greener than the rest, even if the rest are pretty terrible. 
• Just not credible: “Eco friendly” cigarettes, anyone? “Greening” a dangerous product doesn’t make it safe.
• Jargon: Information that only a scientist could check or understand. 
• Imaginary friends: A “label” that looks like third-party endorsement — except that it’s made up. 
• No proof: It could be right, but where’s the evidence? 
• Outright lying: Totally fabricated claims or data.

You can download the full report at their website. 

It has become cliche to refer to energy storage as the holy grail of renewable energy.  Actually, it's not energy storage that we need.  We have that.  What we need is cheap energy storage. 

"Most storage technology is expensive so we spend a lot of time trying to figure out the value."

Those are the words of EPRI's Dan Rastler who spoke on Wednesday night at the monthly Silicon Valley Photovoltaic Society meeting at PARC.

EPRI

Mr. Rastler is the Program Manager for Energy Storage at EPRI.
  
Founded in 1973, EPRI is an "independent" non-profit center for public interest energy and environmental research center that receives about $350 million in funding each year.  "Independent" is an approximate term in this case as EPRI's substantial budget comes in the most part from America's utilities.  And utility agendas don't always map exactly with the public good.  That said, it was an informative talk and Mr. Rastler did not seem too evil.

Smart Grid Defined

Rastler's talk looked at electric energy storage's role in the smart grid, defining the smart grid as "overlaying information control technology over the electric grid for efficiency and reliability,"  adding, "The buzzword is interoperability – how do you make everything connect across the entire domain from bulk generation to the customer?"

He made the distinction between smart grid on the utility side – where utilities are putting sensors and cameras on utility assets, "to where it really gets interesting"– the customer side where the smart grid can influence customer behavior.

Another important point he made was the need for scale – because anything less than 100 megawatts is not really important to a utility.

Industry Pain Points and Market Drivers

• The biggest driver the electrical sector is facing is carbon.  "There is no single technology that is going to get us there."  It's going to take a portfolio of technologies – solar, de-carbonizing, EVs, wind, nuclear, etc.

• Managing increased wind penetration – Texas could have 18 gigawatts of wind by 2015, California could have up to 12 gigawatts of wind by 2012.  The intermittency of renewables like wind and solar need bulk storage to buffer that unpredictability.

• We are going to need $200 billion in transmission and $400 billion in distribution investment in T&D infrastructure over the next 15 years

• Peak is only 400 hours a year – storage and information control can help manage the peak

Advanced Energy Storage Technology

Rastler is a fan of advanced lead acid batteries.  He pointed out a firm called Xtreme Power and declared that, "lead acid is going to re-emerge."  Xtreme Power builds a solid dry cell rated as a 1-megawatt four-hour system for $2 million.

He noted a few other storage technologies nearing commercialization or ready for deployment at reasonable price points:

• A 400 megawatt-10hour CAES (Compressed Air Energy Storage) system
• A 1 megawatt–seven hour NaS system as substation grid support  that costs $3,000 to $3,500 per kilowatt hour
• A 500 kilowatt-four hour ZnBr flow battery system that is meant to be transportable to where the pain point is
• "Lithium ion is getting to megawatt scale," he said citing a 1 megawatt-15 minute Li-ion system.  He adds, "There are as many different Li-ion chemistries as there are California wines."  There are currently early field trials by Altair Nano and A123 using Li-ion at utility scale.
• Redox flow batteries with a number of different electrolyte species

Costs of Storage

According to Rastler, "We need to get below $300 per kilowatt hour installed all in."

CAES is below $100 per kilowatt hour (but does use a fuel source).

Cost of Li-ion ranges from $400 per kilowatt hour to $1,200 per kilowatt hour.

Final Words

Rastler finished in saying that we have to get the cost structure down significantly and we need a smart grid and storage-aware regulatory policy.

He concluded saying that storage is "really an advanced materials play."  The EPRI presentation can be downloaded here.

What Is BIPV?

The term BIPV (Building Integrated Photovoltaics) is a loaded term. What is it really?

Photovoltaic roofing tiles? OK, that makes sense. Although that's a tough product to sell. Just ask now bankrupt Open Energy. Or perennial fund raiser Redwood Renewables. Merging electronics with roof tiles, roofers with electricians, is a difficult mix. Sharp, SunPower, Suntech and others have made forays into this type of product.

How about flexible solar that sticks on roofs?  Like United Solar Ovonic (a-Si) or Ascent Solar (CIGS)? These are innovative, lightweight, flexible technologies – but what part of "Building Integrated" don't you understand? These are "Building Applied" and don't form a structural part of the building envelope.  No doubt there are applications for these products, especially when light weight is a crucial consideration. But they are not truly building integrated.

France has a generous BIPV tariff but BIPV is a pretty vague term in French as well. According to a colleague: "As you're driving through the French countryside you'll occasionally see its ambiguity put to good use on bare-boned lean-tos with 'integrated' PV panels. The BIPV provision basically says that for it to qualify for the €0.65/tariff the panels need to form an aesthetic part of the building architecture. Funny."

Real BIPV

The real revolution for BIPV is to bring PV into the built environment and transform PV from Greentech into Maintech – making solar power part of the building envelope. This is the type of BIPV designed and integrated by companies like altPower.

I spoke with Anthony Periera, the CEO of altPower, a solar installer and integrator who designs and deploys BIPV. Real BIPV.

His most recent BIPV project, the Visionaire in New York City, is pictured below.

altPower's BIPV is assembled with "cassette-built pre-glazed construction" also called "unitized curtain wall." That's essentially modular window units, pre-assembled off-site – as opposed to "stick construction" where the glass is infilled on-site.

altPower designs the unitized curtain wall, contracts its' construction to others, after which it is installed by ornamental iron workers (as opposed to glaziers or electricians).

"The BIPV market is pretty slow but will come back when construction comes back," said Periera. altPower mostly does rooftops and claims to have 10 megawatts to 20 megawatts in the pipeline. It has three BIPV projects totaling 150 kilowatts in the pipeline.

The PV curtain walls cost ~$180 per square foot installed of which the module is ~$120 per square foot. 

altPower is one of the early pioneers in the untapped and huge-potential BIPV market. Maintech, not Greentech.