Electricity Conservation News and Tips
from Please Conserve

The future of the U.S. energy supply is a topic of fierce debate in the political and business arenas, and consumer opinion is a vital component of the broader discussion about the pros and cons of various paths toward a clean energy future. According to a new survey from Pike Research, consumer support for renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind, is extremely high.

In a survey of more than 1,000 U.S. adults, the cleantech market intelligence firm found that 79 percent of consumers have a favorable view of solar energy, and 75 percent have a favorable view of wind energy. In terms of overall support, these were the top two highest ranked areas in a survey that asked consumers about their views on 12 energy and environmental concepts. The results are summarized in a free white paper, which is available for download on Pike Research’s website, www.pikeresearch.com.

The percentages of survey respondents stating that they had either a “very favorable” or “favorable” view for each of the 12 concepts were as follows:

• Solar Energy:  79 percent
• Wind Energy:  75 percent
• Hybrid Vehicles:  64 percent
• Electric Cars:  57 percent
• Biofuels:  47 percent
• Clean Coal:  47 percent
• Nuclear Power:  42 percent
• Smart Meters:  37 percent
• Smart Grid:  37 percent
• Carbon Offsets/Credits:  24 percent
• LEED Certification:  19 percent
• Cap and Trade:  15 percent

Cap and Trade and Nuclear Power were tied in terms of the largest percentage of “strongly unfavorable” or “somewhat unfavorable” views from survey participants, each with a 19 percent unfavorable rating, followed closely by Carbon Offsets/Credits with 18 percent.

LEED Certification, the green building certification program administered by the U.S. Green Building Council, suffered from a very low level of familiarity among respondents. Fifty-three percent stated that they were unfamiliar with the program, the lowest level of familiarity of any of the 12 energy and environment concepts.

During 2010, new solar photovoltaic (PV) demand worldwide approached 10,000 MW and is expected to grow by double-digit percentages annually for the foreseeable future if production costs can be driven to market-competitive levels.

In response to interest in photovoltaics for industrial and utility scale power, SRI Consulting, Menlo Park, Calif., now part of IHS Inc., examines the economics for producing solar cells from three dominant commercial process technologies—monocrystalline wafers (Sunpower), CdTe thin-film (First Solar) and concentrating PV (Concentrix)—in its new techno-economic analysis report entitled “Solar Photovoltaic Technology.”

In the U.S. and other regions, utility commission renewable power portfolio requirements dictate that specific amounts of grid power be sourced using technologies that do not produce greenhouse gases. As a result, several utilities are now considering supplementing conventional power (nuclear, coal and natural gas) with a combination of wind power, biomass power, solar thermal and solar photovoltaic power.

Demand growth for PV power in the early 2000s averaged 40 percent per year, driven by a combination of technology advancements and generous government subsidies, especially in Spain and Germany, in the form of feed-in-tariffs. The global economic recession of 2008-09 all but eliminated growth, but early 2010 saw demand begin to turn around.

Photovoltaic power is well suited to distributed demand applications where its devices can be mounted on residential homeowner rooftops (< 5 kw capacity), and on small commercial buildings (< 50 kw). Advancements in both manufacturing technology and engineering and design practices are also reducing the cost of “balance of system” components required for the consideration of PV power at utility scale (> 5 MW) at economics approaching conventional peaking power cost (grid parity).

“Advances in technology have significantly improved cost competitiveness, but the commercial world still relies heavily on government subsidies,” said the report’s author and IHS Principal Consultant Anthony Pavone. “Like other renewable energy technologies, societal concerns over greenhouse gas-caused climate change provide the justification for these subsidies.”

Although the integrated product chain can be considered as starting with mined silicon metal and terminating with a combination of PV modules sold to end-use customers, and turnkey power plants sold to utility customers, the heart of the business is in producing PV cells, mounting them in modules (sometimes called panels) rated at 70 to 400 watts, and installing arrays of modules to satisfy customer requirements. A globally competitive producer requires a capacity base of 500 MW/year, and that a utility scale PV plant will have a capacity of 10 to 50 MW.

Two forms of cell architecture, silicon-based wafer and thin-film technologies, dominate the business, with 80 percent and 20 percent market share, respectively. SRI’s study estimates the production economics for a PV utility power plant with a 50 MW capacity using the two manufacturing approaches. These economics, although not cost competitive with most conventional baseload power generation (4 to 8 cents per kwh), are close enough to compete with peaking electric power in most business environments, and with base load electric power in high-cost power regions, including Denmark, Italy and California.

“As PV technology improvements reduce cost faster than conventional technologies reduce cost, the world is likely to soon see an environment where PV subsidies are no longer necessary,” said Pavone.

For additional information, visit www.sriconsulting.com/PEP.

The United States accounts for approximately 20 percent of the world’s total electricity consumption for lighting at an annual cost of over $40 billion. The largest share of this lighting electricity is used in commercial and public buildings, followed by residential lighting, industrial sector lighting and outdoor/street lighting. According to a recent report from Pike Research, Boulder, Colo., fluorescent and light emitting diode (LED) lighting technologies will play an increasingly important role in the U.S. market, making up over three quarters of that market by 2020.

“Fluorescent lighting technology is becoming more and more important in many key applications,” says Pike Research senior analyst Mike Wapner. “Fluorescent lighting is already very energy efficient, it has increasingly cost-effective dimming options, and it’s been around long enough for people to have familiarity and confidence with its performance in a variety of lighting situations.”

Wapner adds that while technical, market and other barriers will somewhat hamper the growth of LED lighting in the beginning of this decade, adoption will start to accelerate by the 2014-15 timeframe. Penetration of the outdoor stationary sector will grow first, partly because color rendering is less important in these applications (thus allowing use of the least expensive LEDs). When compared to the overall lighting industry, LED sales volumes will still be relatively low in those years, but high prices will lead to large revenue figures. The long life of LED products will also mean that most sales will go into new construction and retrofit situations, and there will be relatively little replacement business.

Even though technological, policy and market trends appear to be driving the U.S. lighting market away from incandescent lighting, they will not totally disappear any time soon. Many types of “specialty” incandescent lamps are exempted from U.S. regulations that will phase out the most common bulbs. Incandescent lamps are also inexpensive to manufacture and there is still nothing restricting their use in much of the world, Wapner says.

An executive summary Pike Research’s report,
“Energy Efficient Lighting for Commercial Markets,” is available for free on the company’s website, www.pikeresearch.com.

Electronic and digital gadgets are the most popular gift items during the holiday season, but they are certainly on the wish list of consumers at other times of the year.

With so many electronics available to the consumer, it would be wise to understand the conservation tips and money-saving mode you should be in when a new electronic device finds its way into your home.

Virtually everything we own these days has a “sleep” or power-down mode, but many devices are fine left unplugged when not in use.

Digital and analog televisions, desktop and laptop computers, cable or satellite set-top boxes, compact audio and DVD players, cordless telephones, home theater systems, stand-alone DVD or DVR players, telephone answering systems, VCRs and video game players are becoming common in most households all over the world.

Monitors of our energy use, such as Energy Star, estimate that many of us spend as much as $100 or more a year on “phantom power” – or power that is needed just to keep a device plugged into the wall, even if it is not used for days at a time.

A website titled digitaltips.org provides an energy calculator as part of its guide to consumer electronics. The calculator allows you to input the number of hours you use an electronic device; the number of hours it is in idle or “sleep” mode; and the number of hours it is completely off, or not on the electricity load at all (unplugged).

When you tally all of your devices, the calculator gives you a monthly cost and a yearly cost. You can gauge what you are paying for one device to be in sleep mode most of the day, or you can figure out your yearly bill total for how you use every electronic device you own.

Energy Star calls these devices “energy vampires” for the way they suck energy from your system and money from your wallet.

The best place to start to defeat those vampires is in the easiest places – by unplugging chargers from outlets after phones, digital camera battery packs, handheld vacuum cleaners or power tools are fully charged.

Using the power management features, or sleep modes, on electronic devices is also a good way to save power. The sleep mode on a computer uses less power than a screen saver.

Many electronic devices have automatic shutdown modes. Most TVs offer that option, which comes in handy for those who tend to watch late-night television only to nod off a few hours before actually turning off the TV. Many video-game players also have the automatic shut-off, since many kids tend to leave electronic devices on when not in use for long periods of time.

A power strip to cluster many devices that can all be turned off at the same time is another common piece of advice. A device called a Smart Strip by Bits Limited is now available and has the capability to cut idle currents to monitors, printers, desk lamps and other items when you turn off your computer’s power.

As consumers are learning more about how to conserve energy and save money in this green era, handling electronic devices properly can go a long way.

In terms of educating the public, electronics are close to equal footing with energy savings related to water. When you tell someone that they spend $2,500 a year on water, and that using less hot water could reduce that amount dramatically, that will get people’s attention.

In the same manner, wise use of the home’s electronic devices can save hundreds of dollars over several years.

With the U.S. coal industry reeling from a series of mining disasters, many business and government leaders are seeking ways to mitigate the costs—economic, environmental, social and human—of electricity from coal. Among the most high-profile approaches for addressing at least some of these costs lies in carbon capture and sequestration (CCS).

However, according to a recent report from Pike Research, CCS faces a number of challenges including uncertainty about the costs of technology, the lack of a pipeline network to transport CO2 to geological storage sites and, most notably, the absence of a price on carbon emissions.

“There will be an extensive, expanding CCS industry in place by the early 2020s,” says managing director Clint Wheelock. “How large and how vibrant that industry will be depends on how CCS is prioritized by corporations and governments over the next decade.”

The addition of CCS systems to power plants will likely add between 50 and 70 percent to the cost of producing electricity. To date, no commercial-scale integrated power plant with CCS exists. The intensive short-term financing, radical policy shifts and R&D advances that would be required for multiple deployments of CCS in the next five years, Pike Research believes, appear unlikely.

Nevertheless, the forces behind CCS projects are strong, and growth is likely to be significant in the longer term. By 2020, according to the report, global revenues for CCS systems could surpass $1 billion annually under a moderate forecast scenario. In a more aggressive scenario that includes a strong push for CCS by government and industry, that figure could be as high as $42 billion in the same timeframe.

An executive summary of Pike Research’s report, “Carbon Capture and Sequestration,”is available for free download at

www.pikeresearch.com.

Green is probably the most prominent color associated with the holidays, but are the holidays environmentally green?

It was a question that first came under scrutiny during the mid 1970’s energy crisis when large holiday light displays were viewed as a waste of energy.

Those celebrating the holidays with the traditional outdoor lights were asked to turn them off at a reasonable time, and shopping centers, municipalities and other organizations making big splashes with significant outdoor displays also were asked to tone things down.

In today’s green-conscious environment, companies that offer large holiday displays for cities, businesses and charitable organizations have a definite conservation view in mind.

It  is not uncommon for companies, such as Brandano Displays, Inc., which has built large holiday displays for communities and businesses since 1976, to take environmental conservation into account on every project it develops.

Prior to 1990, most holiday lighting attractions made use of disposable decorations and displays that would last about three years. More common now are displays that are considered “extended-life” that can function properly for 10 years or more, thus cutting down on steel, wire and plastic parts being disposed in landfills.

A large company like Brandano Displays went as far as making sure that the power consumption in their displays was minimized and that painting and welding procedures were updated to cut down on disposable waste. In turn, all production papers, cardboard, plastics and steel were being recycled.

Because most traditional holiday displays called for literally hundreds of thousands of lights laced in trees and foliage, companies began to steer away from that by creating displays that would reduce the number of lights by up to 60 percent. Power consumption has taken on a science of its own in regards to holiday displays, as the spacing between bulbs can be set up to use less power, and high-efficiency lighting is used where feasible.

Delivery of large displays also has a new focus, as there is much attention paid to eliminating packaging waste of paper, wood, cardboard and plastics.

Last, but not least, and possibly the easiest advice to follow is that cities and organizations should reduce the hours and days in which their large holiday displays are lit.

It is more typical now to find a holiday display reduce hours or not even be lit on nights that are considered to have low attendance.

While the United States can still boast of the largest wind farm in the world with 627 turbines cranking electrical power at the Roscoe Wind Farm in Roscoe, Texas, many eyes are on the United Kingdom now with the official opening on Sept. 23, 2010, of the largest offshore wind farm.

The Thanet Offshore Wind Farm is considered the largest of its type in the world, off the south coast of Ramsgate in Kent, England. Energy company Vattenfall has reported that the wind farm has 100 turbines and will produce enough energy a year to provide power for up to 200,000 homes. This is in addition to the UK’s current onshore capabilities, leaving United Kingdom leaders proclaiming it now produces enough wind power onshore and offshore to power all of the homes in Scotland – and intends to become a world leader in wind energy.

The ongoing pursuit of wind energy and its capabilities will continue to be a keen interest amongst other world leaders as costs vs. benefits become more clear and more prevalent as time passes.

The Roscoe Wind Farm in Texas, for example, cost more than $1 billion to build, but provides enough power for more than 250,000 average Texan homes. The wind farm is located about 200 miles west of Fort Worth, and spans parts of four Texas counties and covers nearly 100,000 acres, several times the size of Manhattan. Farmers in Texas, as in other states across the country, are seeing the benefit in royalties from wind farm projects, and some are convinced that a wind farm can help revive economies in remote areas. This is particularly true of west Texas and along the state’s panhandle.

Wind-farm proponents maintain that wind turbines represent a cleaner energy source, unlike fossil-fueled power plants. In general, wind farms require no water and generate no carbon dioxide – the main heat-trapping greenhouse gas that is considered a major contributor to global warming. This is possible because the group of wind turbines on a wind farm are interconnected with a medium voltage (usually 34.5 kV) power collection system and communications network. Substations are used to increase voltage with a transformer so the energy can connect with a high-voltage transmission system.

While the United States is considered a world leader in wind farm technology, the United Kingdom is gaining recognition and attention with its latest offshore venture. In the past few years, Spain, Denmark and Germany were considered the main wind-energy producers in Europe.

Currently, Britain gets only 3 percent of its energy from renewable sources, but is aiming for a target of 15 percent by 2020. The nation ranks 25th of 27 European Union countries on green power and intends to change that quickly. And they are doing it in impressive fashion, as each Thanet turbine is up to 380 feet (115 meters) tall and the site is as large as 4,000 football fields.
Vattenfall said its new farm could generate 300 megawatts of energy at full capacity, although critics note that wind power output can be intermittent and variable. The company said the farm is expected to operate for at least 25 years.

Prior to the economic downturn, wind turbines were in high demand, but in the past 18 months wind energy has lost some momentum despite the nation’s continued push for “green” energy sources.

In late July, the American Wind Energy Association reported that only 700 megawatts of wind power was installed in the United States in the first half of 2010. That’s 71 percent fewer wind towers than in the first half of 2009 and 57 percent fewer than in the first half of 2008. New installations for full-year 2010 will likely be 25 to 45 percent below last year, the group estimates.

Construction on a number of wind-power projects will at least be started this year to take advantage of the federal convertible tax credit that is due to expire. Currently there are about 5,500 megawatts in the pipeline. Next year, however, AWEA predicts a dramatic decline “as there is no demand beyond the present coasting momentum” without new federal government policy to promote wind farm demand.

“Strong federal policy supporting the U.S. wind energy industry has never been more important,” says Denise Bode, AWEA’s chief executive officer. “We have a historic opportunity to build a major new manufacturing industry. Without strong supportive policy, like a national renewable electricity standard to spur demand, investment and jobs, manufacturing facilities will go idle.”

Federal stimulus money from the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act has helped to bring some wind power projects already in the pipeline to the finish line, adds Bode. “However, power purchase agreements—the locomotive that drives the project pipeline—are difficult to obtain today given the drop in overall electricity demand, lower natural gas prices and the absence of a clear national renewable energy policy.”

AWEA says a renewable electricity standard would prompt utilities to buy wind power and stimulate demand again. As proposed in the American Clean Energy and Leadership Act of 2009, which got the nod of the Senate Energy and National Resources Committee last summer, a national renewable electricity standard would require that 15 percent of the United States’ energy be produced from renewable sources, such as wind, solar and biomass, by 2020. However, the scaled down energy bill recently introduced by Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) did not include a renewable electricity standard, but rather focused on the cleanup of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and measures for improving U.S. energy efficiency.

You probably know that wearing lighter colors in the summer keeps the body cooler. You might be surprised to find out that scientists are applying this principle in an attempt to cool urban cities plagued by intense summer heat. A team of scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research suggests that the roofs of buildings should be painted white to relieve urban heat. Although their concept is still under investigation, the team used a highly innovative computer model to help demonstrate how this idea would work.

Urban heat becomes a problem in cities in the summer. Many structures utilize asphalt, tar, and other dark substances in construction and these materials absorb heat very quickly, increasing the temperature in a city by 2-5F. This phenomenon is called the urban heat island effect. Using computer simulations, the scientists showed that if all the roofs in a city were painted white, the urban heat island effect could be reduced by 33% because the white roofs would reflect the heat.

Although the study is still in development, it does show some promising evidence that increasing summer temperatures can be curbed in a very simple manner. The researchers did state that the capacity to which the white paint would curb temperatures did also depend on the structure itself, the density of the roof, and the climate of the location. The researchers also may want to test the implementation of ‘green roofs’ which use plants and shrubbery as a way to reduce heat. Not only can these green roofs mitigate heat, they also add dimension and beauty to an otherwise bland and boiling locale.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s top 10 Green Power Partners increased their voluntary green power commitments by more than 1.5 billion kilowatt-hours in 2009, while 300 new organizations joined the Green Power Partnership. Overall, the 1,200 partners are buying nearly 18 billion kWh of green power annually, equivalent to the annual carbon dioxide emissions from electricity use of more than 1.6 million average American homes.

“EPA’s Green Power Partners are raising the bar for clean, renewable energy use,” said Gina McCarthy, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation. “By using green power, they’re doing their part to fight climate change and proving every day that sound environmental practices can also be economically sound.”

Among the top 10 partners, Intel Corp. remains the partnership’s largest single purchaser of green power, increasing its commitment over the previous year to more than 1.4 billion kWh. Kohl’s Department Stores increased its green power purchase by more than 1 billion kWh in 2009, becoming the second-largest purchaser within the partnership. PepsiCo, Whole Foods Market, the City of Houston, Dell, The Pepsi Bottling Group, Cisco Systems, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and Johnson & Johnson round out the top 10 purchasers. All together, these 10 leaders are buying more than 7.3 billion kWh of green power annually, equivalent to the carbon dioxide emissions from the electricity use of more than 680,000 average American homes.

EPA’s Green Power Partnership works with more than 1,200 organizations to voluntarily purchase green power to reduce the environmental impacts of conventional electricity use. Green power is generated from renewable resources such as solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, biogas, and low-impact hydropower. Green power electricity generates less pollution than conventional power and produces no net increase in greenhouse gas emissions. The green power purchases support the development of new, renewable generation resources nationwide.

For more information on the top 50 green power purchasers list, visit http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/toplists/top50.htm. For more information on EPA’s Green Power Partnership, visit http://www.epa.gov/greenpower.