Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Great talk by Dave Irvine-Halliday

Here was a great example of technology making a difference in lives of families in the developing world. Simply a couple of LED lamps, a battery, and a small solar panel. What happens is that the families who get these units:
  • Save up to $400/yr in kerosene costs for lighting
  • Safer environment, no fires!
  • Lower pollution, less exposure to combustion by-products
  • Lower CO2, in the trillion ton range if the whole world were switched
  • Lower crime, particularly applicable to Afghanistan and other trouble spots
  • Higher education rates
  • Higher productivity
  • Higher ownership of property
What can this mean? For a family, this can mean a way out of poverty. The savings alone can mean purchasing a home in 2-3 years instead of living in a wood shack. Children can study.

For more information, see the Light up the World Foundation.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Gerry Fine speaks...

Schott's largest business unit is solar. He agrees that price/performance is not there yet. 4 segments: off-grid, residential, commercial, industrial. CSP is a big part of the business-thermal, because heat can be stored. Thermal systems are at 6-8% ROI, low risk, 20 year old tech.

PV: thin film and crystalline. It is very hard to differentiate. Cost/W differences are small and arguable. Reliability of supply and product are key--low risk important in the market.

Germany, largest market for solar in the world, has the solar flux of Alaska...due to subsidies and feed in tarrif. But that tarrif is going away.

Clearly a world-wide market dip, FIT reduced in Germany, cap on subsidies in Spain, and slowly developing American market.

What do the customers really need? Solar is expensive and non-competitive without subsidies. BP stated last week that solar power will never be competitive for BP. PV shows a 78% experience curve. DRAMS are 62%, LCDs are 65%, Limestone mining is 78%...not good enough. Roadmaps will keep industry on that curve, but how to make a discontinuous jump? Needed: order of magnitude type improvements in Si cost, efficiency, designs, radical integrated manufacturing. This is the conventional path. But solar must be much better than grid BECAUSE to use PV, other stuff needs to happen:
  • Smart grids for fluctuating, distributed inputs
  • Metering and Ren Port. Stds
  • Storage
  • Consistent federal policy
  • Installation process
  • Credit
78% isn't good enough.

Vinod speaks...

The solution to energy issues lies in a "Black Swan Event", check it on Wikipedia. He does not expect us to reduce usage, while we may be more efficient in what we use, usage will go up. This is more a question of taking more shots on goal. How do we get the financial system to fund more "science experiements"? This fits the VC model better than other investment models. Government money can be an accelerator, but shouldn't be the driver.

Solar: 1st Solar owns the business, give up on low cost low efficiency. Look into getting up to 50% efficient is the remaining investment niche. Also look into storage, wind an solar have problems. Solar thermal is still the dirty secret. Thin film will get to ~20%, but no higher expected. Concentration may still be important, balance of system cost important.

Integrated systems will make an impact when someone realizes efficiencies by doing so. Upgraded high voltage DC grid is better for us than a smart grid, even though we need both. These approaches get to 15% ish of the national grid on peak demand, the issue is really on the 85%, how do we get low carbon in a big way?

Short term, government policy will drive changes, but long term the sources will become more efficient and pay for themselves without support. Interesting derivative of that statement, if carbon taxes are used to offset other taxes, then the revenue from carbon tax is a short term increment in governmental time scales.

International: even though there is a lot of interest in Europe, Asia, India, there is little innovation; most innovations come from the US and migrate. So how do we extract the ideas? Innovation ecosystem is best in the US, again the government tries to fill the role elsewhere but doesn't do as well. The big markets will be in India, China, and they are unsubsidiezed. So you have to win without subsidies.

What about Nukes? Allow it to compete, and it will not be successful. Nukes depend on low cost of capital, loan guarantees etc. This gives a huge advantage and subsidy. Innovation cycle takes too long, 15-20 years, and you have to pay 100m in fees to qualify the system. Therefore, there won't be innovation at nearly the rate of other technologies, which will surpass it.

In the end, the diversity of opinions and approaches is the key to making innovation work. This is the problem with the government support. Throw out anything the pundits say, don't be afraid to try something, we are all too conservative (according to Vinod).

LEDs for lighting vs. flourescent

Cree presented strong energy results for street lighting and replacing incandescents, but what was interesting to me is the replacement of T8 flourescents with LEDS still leading to a 30% reduction in energy. Why? It turns out the optics of a point source lambertion radiator (LED) allows much more efficient optical design. Cylindrical radiators or even HTS lights have radiation patterns that lead to losses and ultimately make them less efficient than LEDs. Now, the 30% savings is not sufficient alone to drive deployment, but start to combine the better quality of the light, the better color control, and other potential advantages and it is a deployment option even in the 'walmart' scenario.

OPTOmism

OIDA is holding its 1st OPTOmism conference in Santa Clara this week. I'll be doing some posts of interesting datapoints picked real time.

The first speaker, Greg Kats from Good Energies, talked significantly about Green Buildings. He makes a point with which I concur that a lot of the discussion is about marketing. The energy payback, with the exception of the issues I've mentioned before, is straightforward. While 'Energy Efficient" is not going to get you any dates in college, "Green Building" is becoming a sexy term. This changes perceptions allowing a more open adoption environment. Already, in some areas, Green SQ Ftg is unavailable.

New data shows that LEED buildings also have
  • Lower vacancy
  • Higher lease rates
  • Higher productivity
  • Higher sales prices
And if you doubt what can be done with efficiency, with California regulation and utility participation, the state has actually held electricity consumption flat since the 70's, not per capita, total!

Buildings, including embedded energy (used to make the materials in the building) consume about 45% of US energy, so the target is huge. Obama administrations is to reduce CO2 net emmissions of buildngs in the US by 80%. Current programs can generate some 50% of that savings, but even more innovation needed to get to 80%.