The U.S. also bails out its renewable energy industry

Buried within the 400 or so pages of sweeteners that were added to the recent $700 billion bailout package for the U.S.  financial sector that has been signed into law by President George W. Bush is a provision which breathes life to an anxious nascent renewable energy industry.

This is the extension of the Production (PTC) and Investment Tax Credits (ITC) which was unexpectedly passed as part of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (H.R. 1424), as the bailout plan is officially known.

For months renewable energy practitioners--developers, investors, manufacturers and would-be users--could only wring their arms in anguish as they watch the spectacle of legislators bickering among themselves whether to extend or not the tax credits.

They view these tax credits as a lifeline to the whole renewable energy industry--solar, wind geothermal, and now the marine energy technologies--before it gets to its own maturity. The provision will extend the PTC for one year and the ITC for eight years.

The other highlights of the package include:

• Eliminating the $2,000 capon the residential ITC
• Allowing utilities to obtain ITC
• Authorizing $800 million for clean energy bonds for generating facilities using renewable sources
• Creating an ITC for so-called marine energy technologies which include tidal, wave current and ocean thermal

The solar energy industry is particularly ecstatic. The legislation "will enable (solar) companies to continue to invest in American production, American jobs and America's energy independence," said Mark Finocchario, president of SCHOTT Solar.

The wind industry considers the tax credits essential to the growth of the industry. In the geothermal sector, these credits encourage aggressive growth and support rapid deployment strategy for building geothermal plants within the decade, said Brent Cook, CEO of geothermal developer Raser Technologies.

That such incentives are vital to the industry can be seen in recent history. In 1999, 2001 and 2003 when Congress didn't renew the tax credits, wind power installations dropped by 93% in 2000 and by 74% in 2004.

Prior to the signing into law of the bailout package, wind developers have been putting projects on hold because financial institutions have been reluctant to fund these projects with only a glimmer of hope that the tax credit will be renewed, said Leon Steinberg, CEO of National Wind, a leading wind energy developer.

The solar industry relies on a 30% credit on new investments. If the credits were not renewed, the solar market could collapse, and solar-technology firms could end belly up,  according to an industry insider.

Our honorable senators and House representatives should take heed of the lessons from the U.S. situation. Their dilly-dallying of passing the renewable energy bill has cost the country enormous amount of opportunity losses.

Now that the bill will become law upon its signing, our legislators should realize that their job has only begun. We need to put some substance into the skeleton bill that they have just passed.

Vanadium battery catches the sun and the wind

By J R Ruaya

When the wind dies down or the sun stops shining at night or during cloudy days, the solar collectors and wind turbines stop working. There is just no cost effective way of storing energy from these sources.

Not anymore.

A recent development of energy storage using vanadium electrochemical cells is now about to break into the commercial realm.

In a solar installation photovoltaic solar panels catch the sun’s energy and convert it into electricity. This is then stored into the vanadium battery so that the energy can be used at a later time or pumped into the grid.

A vanadium battery, which works similarly as the familiar battery used in toys and flashlights, has distinct advantages over the other battery cells in the target application. The main advantage is it uses the same elements in both half-cells which eliminates cross-contamination of the two half-cell electrolytes during prolonged use. The positive and the negative half-cells are separated by a proton exchange membrane.

It has high efficiencies of 80 – 90 % in large installations. Furthermore, the costs rapidly goes down as the installation is scaled up. And maintenance is easy.

The battery can also be fully charged or discharged. In cases where time is the essence, the electrolyte solutions can simply be replaced rather than waiting for recharging.
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Sidebar:

The electrochemistry involved is not too difficult to understand even by undergraduate students of chemistry. The schematic is shown below (courtesy of the University of New South Wales):

The half-reactions are:

At the positive electrode:

VO2+ + 2H+ + e = VO2+ + H2O E° = 1.00V

At the negative electrode:

V3+ + e- = V2+ E° = -0.26 V

The standard cell potential E° (cell) is 1.26 Volts at concentrations of 1 mole per litre and at 25°C, but under actual cell conditions, the open circuit cell voltage is 1.4 Volts at 50% state-of-charge and 1.6 Volts at 100% SOC (Skyllas-Kazacos, 2002, p. 2).
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Early demonstration projects include a solar-powered housed in Thailand, an electric golf cart, and a back-up power system for a nuclear submarine.

In the United States, which is playing catch up with the technology, a 15-kW photovoltaic installation has just been put up at the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa, Florida jointly by Tampa Electric and the University of South Florida’s (USF) Power Center for Utility Explorations (PCUE) at a cost of approximately $ 575,000 (Tampa Electric, 2008).

Earlier in June, two similar 5 kWx4hr systems have been installed at the downtown St. Peteresburg campus of USF and at Albert Whitted Park in the same city by the university and Progress Energy of Florida (VRB, 2008).

The vanadium redox battery has been developed and its use pioneered at the University of New South Wales. An engaging historical and scientific account of its development has been presented by Skyllas-Kazacos (2002).

With the technology now available what remains is the development of policy initiatives as embodied in the renewable energy bill still pending in Congress for the solar and wind power to take off in the Philippines.

References

Skyllas-Kazacos, M. (2002, July). An historical overview of the vanadium redox flow battery development at the University of New South Wales, Australia, 13. Retrieved August 19, 2008, from http://www.vrb.unsw.edu.au/overview.htm

Tampa Electric (2008, August 4 news release). Tampa Electric, USF partner with Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo to develop new renewable energy project. Retrieved August 19, 2008 from http://www.tampaelectric.com/news/article/index.cfm?article=466.

VRB Power Systems Inc. (2008, June 9 press release). Progress Energy and University of South Florida’s Power Center for Utility Explorations unveil two 5kW x 4hr VRB Energy Storage Systems as part of SEEDS project . Retrieved August 19, 2008 from http://www.vrbpower.com/docs/news/2008/news_20080609.pdf