Ford and Chrysler today joined the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a coalition of Fortune 500 companies and environmental groups calling on the federal government to impose limits on greenhouse gas emissions to fight global warming. With Ford (F) and Chrysler (DCX) joining General Motors (GM) in the coalition, Detroit now supports, officially anyway, quick Congressional action to reduce CO2 emissions. "We all recognize it is time for action," said Ford chief Alan Mulally in a statement. Apparently, though, it’s still not time for action to improve Ford’s vehicle fuel efficiency and reduce CO2 emissions from cars, one of the biggest contributors to global warming. Ford and the other automakers’ recent rearguard, and for once unsuccessful, efforts to quash legislation to raise fuel efficiency standards is causing a bit of cognitive dissonance with their move to adopt US CAP’s agenda. Greenwashing, anyone?
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California utility PG&E today announced deals with San Francisco solar startups GreenVolts and Cleantech America to build photovoltaic solar power plants. The projects are relatively small-scale – 2 megawatts for GreenVolts and 5-megawatts for Cleantech America – but represent a move by a major utility to use solar power stations close to urban areas to supply green energy during peak demand. To date, utilities like Southern California Edison (EIX) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SRE) have tended to contract for massive megawatt solar thermal power plants to be constructed in the Mojave Desert far from the cities they will supply. That often means billion-dollar transmission lines must be built or upgraded.
GreenVolts, which was featured in Green Wombat’s Big Solar story in the June issue of Business 2.0, will build its power plant on just eight acres in Tracy, a farm town turned exurb about 60 miles east of San Francisco. The company has developed a high concentration photovoltaic technology that features microdishes that track the sun and focus its rays on small but highly efficient solar cells. Rotating platforms hold 176 of the dishes (image above). The Tracy plant goes online in 2009. Earlier this month, GreenVolts announced a deal to build a prototype power plant for Avista (AVA), a Spokane, Washington-based utility.
The second deal is for a 5-megawatt plant to be built by Cleantech America on 40 acres near a PG&E (PCG) substation in the Central Valley city of Fresno. The power plant is set to begin operating in 2009. The company has apparently been operating under the radar – or at least Green Wombat’s radar, despite the fact that its offices are located across California Street from Business 2.0. Hello! Cleantech America’s site is sketchy on the details of it technology, describing a mix of "current and new concentrator PV solar technologies." Green Wombat is crashing on a magazine deadline today but will report further on the company in the coming week. CEO Bill Barnes certainly has an interesting resume: according to the Cleantech America site, he’s a former Time magazine editor who co-founded children’s clothing company Gymboree and "has participated in the start-up of successful companies in the energy and technology industry."
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photo: courthouselover
Hastings, Nebraska, at least according to Yahoo. The town has won Yahoo’s (YHOO) "Greenest City in America" challenge by getting its residents to accumulate the most points by asking environment-related question on Yahoo Answers, using "eco-friendly mobile search terms" on Yahoo’s mobile service, and taking a green pledge to do things like buying energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs, adjusting their thermostat by two degrees and carpooling to work once a week. Yahoo offered the winning city the choice of a fleet of hybrid taxis or the cash equivalent of $250,000. Not much need for cabs in a town of 25,000, so Hastings opted for the green stuff, which represents a little under 1 percent of the city’s annual budget. The town will use the money to pay for various environmental initiatives.
The runner-ups in the Yahoo sweepstakes are:
- Pelzer, South Carolina
- San Carlos, California
- Mill Valley, California
- Topeka, Kansas
- Dover, Delaware
- Spring, Texas
- Lawrence, Kansas
- Walnut Creek, California
- Fairfax, Virginia
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photo: rymdborje
The U.S. Department of Energy has named 13 "Solar America Cities" to receive up to $2.5 million in funding to further the adoption of solar technologies. Among them are Green Wombat’s stomping grounds in San Francisco and Berkeley. To qualify, a city had to be large, have a high electricity demand, and a "mature solar infrastructure."
The other cities are:
- Ann Arbor
- Austin
- Boston
- Madison
- New Orleans
- New York
- Pittsburgh
- Portland, Oregon
- Salt Lake City
- San Diego
- Tucson
DOE also handed out $30 million in university grants for research to lower the cost of solar energy and improve its efficiency as well as $27 million to companies for "photovoltaic module incubator projects." Half of the 10 companies selected are Silicon Valley startups: CaliSolar, EnFocus Engineering, Solaria, SolFocus, and SoloPower.
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The hundreds of thousands of hybrid cars sold in the United States since their arrival on these shores in 1999 must be putting a dent in oil imports, right? Not quite. Or at least not yet. According to a report released by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, fuel efficient electric-gasoline cars like the Toyota (TM) Prius and Honda (HMC) Civic have saved a grand total of 5.5 million barrels of oil over the past eight years. On the other hand, the U.S. was importing 8.5 million barrels of oil a day in 2003 to power cars and light trucks. "Hybrid electric vehicles would have to replace a significant portion of the total light duty vehicle fleet to have an impact on petroleum imports," NREL researchers concluded. The lab calculated gasoline savings based on fuel efficiency data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and reports from hybrid car owners and then used modeling software to calculate how many hybrids were on the road in any given year. Despite the negligible consequence of hybrids on oil imports so far, researchers were optimistic about their potential, noting that hybrid sales have grown 72 percent a year over the past five years and that such vehicles were 45 percent more fuel efficient than similar-sized conventional cars in 2006. "Although the fuel savings from hybrid electric vehicles to date is relatively small compared to the total fuel use, as the technology matures and these numbers increase they can have a significant impact in reducing our overall transportation fuel use,” said NREL senior research engineer Matthew Thornton in a statement. Of course, that impact would be magnified if General Motors (GM), Ford (F) and other U.S. automakers focused less on creating hybrid versions of monster SUVs like the Chevrolet Tahoe and more on developing small and mid-sized hybrids. Or all-electric cars, for that matter.
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In another sign that Wall Street sees green in green energy, Morgan Stanley will finance and own solar arrays to be installed by SunPower (SPWR) at seven Wal-Mart stores in California that will produce 4.6 megawatts of electricity. Morgan Stanley (MS) will then sell the greenhouse gas-free power back to Wal-Mart (WMT) at market or below market rates as part of a long-term contract. Last month Wal-Mart announced that it was installing solar arrays at 22 of of its stores. Wal-Mart will keep any renewable energy credits associated with the production of green electricity. Those credits may have value one day if California establishes a carbon trading market as part of its limit on greenhouse gas emissions. Morgan Stanley’s move shows that Wall Street behemoths are moving into the green energy financing market, along with players like GE Energy Financial Services (GE) and pioneering outfits like MMA Renewable Ventures (MMA).
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photo: Doogie Boogie
California utility PG&E, the city of San Francisco and a green energy company will collaborate on a study to determine the potential for tapping tidal power in San Francisco Bay by placing turbines on the sea floor below the Golden Gate Bridge. Earlier studies estimated that tidal power could provide greenhouse gas-free electricity to as many as 40,000 homes in San Francisco. PG&E (PCG) will kick in $1.5 million for the study by outside experts, which will be completed in about a year. Depending on the outcome of the research, it could be three to five years before a tidal project goes online. Golden Gate Energy of Washington, D.C., currently holds the federal permits to conduct tidal power studies in San Francisco Bay and has committed $346,000 to the effort, according to PG&E. The joint study – the latest of several – will be only the first step in a complicated regulatory dance, complicated by a likely tussle over who ultimately wins the right to develop tidal power. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors recently voted to determine the feasibility of pulling the plug on PG&E and securing its own electricity supplies from renewable sources. A 400-megawatt tidal power plant would obviously help the city achieve that goal.
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On the heels of its $11 million push for plug-in hybrids, Google today said it will aim to generate 50 megawatts of renewable energy for its data centers by 2012 as part of its goal to carbon neutralize its operations by the new year. "Towards this end, we will set an internal cost of carbon voluntarily by using a ‘shadow price,’ the theoretical cost of carbon that we expect under a regulatory market," Google (GOOG) stated, a day after it put its 1.6 megawatt solar array – the
largest commerical solar installation in the U.S. – into operation at the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters. "This will allow us to make operational decisions as if there were already a price on carbon. That in turn enables us to include the true cost of power as one of the key criteria in site selection for our data centers – a cost not yet being recognized by the market, but one that will soon become real through carbon legislation. This is an important tool to reduce the financial risk that our energy investments face, and when evaluating power options, it will also put renewable energy on a level playing field."
Google will tap solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and other renewable energy sources depending on the location of the facility, Google energy strategist Bill Weihl told Green Wombat through a spokesperson. The green electricity may generated on-site or elsewhere.
The search giant will purchase carbon offsets to cover emissions it does not directly eliminate. "As a start, we’ve calculated our own carbon footprint by taking into account the emissions from purchased electricity, employee commuting, business travel, construction, and the manufacturing of our servers," Google said. "And we’ve partnered with the Environmental Resources Trust to have our footprint independently verified." The company also said it will press for public policies to establish energy efficiency standards, renewable energy requirements, public funding for clean energy R&D and the setting of a price on greenhouse gas emissions.
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photos: green wombat
Talk about a clean commute: As part of an $11 million green cars initiative, Google is creating a plug-in hybrid car-sharing fleet. Employees will be able to book a super fuel-efficient plug-in Prius online through a partnership with Enterprise Rent-A-Car, charge the car under a solar-powered canopy at the Googleplex and, eventually, feed electricity from the car’s battery back to the grid. Google (GOOG) and California utility PG&E (PCG) demo’d the technology yesterday in Mountain View during the launch of the RechargeIt.org initiative from Google.org, the search giant’s philanthropic arm.
Under sunny skies, Google.org chief Larry Brilliant drove a white plug-in Prius emblazoned with the Google colors into a parking bay whose roof is covered with solar panels, part of the company’s 1.6 megawatt solar installation – the nation’s largest. He got out of the car and grabbed one of the retractable power cords hanging from the roof and plugged in the Prius to applause from the Googlers and guests. (Plug-in hybrids feature larger, rechargeable batteries that allow the cars to travel further on electric power, dramatically increasing fuel efficiency as the gasoline engine is used less.) "We hope to demonstrate the potential of plug-in hybrid cars and vehicle-to-grid technologies as a way to create a more, secure and efficient green energy system," Brilliant said as nearly a dozen other Priuses sat parked behind him. A123 Systems/Hymotion has converted two Priuses for Google, which will use them to gather data on plug-in hybrid performance. So far, the Google Priuses – named Galapagos and Great Barrier Reef – have averaged about 74 miles per gallon – that’s 3.2 liters per 100 kilometers for readers residing in the metric world – and produce 68 percent fewer emissions than the average U.S. car.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who rode to the event on a bicycle, showed how plug-in hybrids can feed electricity to the grid at peak demand times to reduce the need to tap greenhouse-gas emitting power plants. "I happen to have a Prius but not a plug-in. Now I’ll have to try to get one myself," Brin said. "It would be very nice not to have the inconvenience of going to gas stations." He plugged a power cord into a Prius and then pressed a button on a laptop that sent a wireless signal to the car, which began sending electricity back to the grid.
"I think the potential for plug-in hybrid cars and all-electric cars is really great," Google co-founder Larry Page told Green Wombat as he stood by his blue Huffy bicycle. "I love the demo with the plug-in to grid. If you have tens of thousands or millions of these cars, the amount of energy they can produce is much more than the normal generation capacity."
As part of the RechargeIt program, Google will invest $10 million in alternative transportation technologies and is giving $1 million to various groups to advance plug-in hybrids. Small change, perhaps, by Google standards, but as electric car companies like Silicon Valley’s Tesla Motors have shown, you don’t need Detroit and Tokyo’s billion-dollar budgets to make significant strides in automotive technology. Tesla, for instance, will put its Roadster super car on the highway for about $100 million.
But efforts like Google’s plug-in hybrid car-sharing program may have the most potential to light a fire under the automakers, which have so far dragged their feet on developing such cars. When up to 100 converted Priuses begin cruising the highways and byways of the Bay Area, many consumers are going to have the same reaction Green Wombat had after a ride in the Tesla Roadster: I want one. Now imagine if other Silicon Valley companies – say, Yahoo (YHOO) – follow Google’s lead and create similar car-sharing programs. Microsoft (MSFT), for instance, itself has a huge solar array at its Mountain View campus.
"We hope programs like this will encourage manufacurers to make similar commerically viable plug in cars available. We know there’s a pent-up demand for such a product," said Enterprise executive Greg Stubblefield. And we’re anxious to see manufacturers progress in that direction. As we would certainly be a buyer for these vehicles."
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San Francisco solar startup GreenVolts today announced an agreement to build a demonstration solar power plant for Pacific Northwest utility Avista. GreenVolts was one of the companies featured in Green Wombat’s Big Solar story that appeared in the June issue of Business 2.0. Avista (AVA), based in Spokane, Washington, will also make a "strategic investment" in GreenVolts. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. GreenVolts has developed a high concentration photovoltaic technology that features microdishes that track the sun and focus its rays on small but highly efficient solar cells. Rotating platforms hold 176 of the dishes. GreenVolts 1-to-20-megawatt power plants are designed to be placed near cities or utility substations to provide electricity during peak demand without the need for new transmissions lines or other infrastructure that often must be built for large-scale solar power plants located in the desert. In other words, GreenVolts offers a plug-in power plant designed to save utilities from having to crank up fossil-fueled power stations to provide electricity when demand soars in the afternoon.
GreenVolts is Exhibit A in how renewable energy mandates are creating opportunities for startups to break into the Big Power business. Founded in 2005 by Internet marketing veteran Bob Cart, GreenVolts is located in downtown San Francisco’s "green grid" – it’s a short stroll from the GreenVolts office to companies like utility PG&E (PCG) and solar financier MMA Renewable Ventures (MMA). GreenVolts got its first big boost when it was named a winner of the California Clean Tech Open startup contest, scoring a $120,000 package that included office space from PG&E. That opened doors in Silicon Valley and allowed Cart to raise $1.5 million in seed financing as well as attract John Woolard, CEO of utility-scale solar power company BrightSource Energy, to his board. When Green Wombat first interviewed Cart, GreenVolts had just moved into its new offices and the bare-bones decor was pure startup. "We plug in directly to distribution system rather than being far away from the loads using the transmission grid," says Cart, 42. "And that means we don’t have to pay the cost of transmission and don’t have the loses and environmental impact of desert-sited systems."
Of course, GreenVolts will only score contracts with utilities if its plug-in power plants can produce electricity at competitive – or near competitive – rates. The key to doing that is the company’s technology, according to Cart. He disappears and returns carrying a prototype of the GreenVolts microdish. It’s about the size of an overhead projector – remember those? – and features a curved mirror that faces a module holding a tiny solar cell about the size a cameraphone lens. GreenVolts licensed the mirror technology from Lawrence Livermore Laboratories. "It gives us a mirror that is low-cost to produce, is highly reflective and highly durable," says Cart. The design allows the sun to be intensely concentrated on the solar cell, which is made by Boeing’s (BA) Spectrolab subsidiary and is the world’s most efficient at converting photons into electrons. The dish contains an automated pressure washing system, which keeps mirror clean and thus its efficiency high while reducing maintenance costs. The off-axis design prevents shade from falling on the dish when the sun is directly overhead.
Cart tapped the expertise of a cadre of engineers to help design the GreenVolts system, paying them in stock. GreenVolts’ manufacturing VP is the CEO of Spokane fabrication company Ecolite, which is performing the mechanical design and assembly of the dishes and platform, which GreenVolts calls a CarouSol.
The company is negotiating a second power plant deal with a large utility Cart declined to identify. He says GreenVolts already has signed a lease for farm land that will be the site of a power plant and plans to be in production by June 2008. That gives Cart less than a year to perform all the testing and validation to ensure his technology delivers on its promise. "It’s answering the question of how do you prove this will work for 20 years in a year," he says. "With a year’s worth of testing how do you tell it’s going to last for 20. That’s a challenge. We think we have good answers for that. We think we have the right idea, we think we have a way to get this off the ground and we think the demand for it is going to be phenomenal."
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