Industry news
Things I noticed and thought were interesting
Week ending 14th October 2018
1, Biofuels mandates for aviation. Norway said that 0.5% of aviation fuel would have to be from renewable sources by 2020. The percentage is trivial. However I think the national mandate is the first in the world and is an important signal to the aviation industry.
2, Indian PV. The world’s largest coal producer, Coal India, announced a joint venture with an Indian lignite company to build their own power generation operations. 5 gigawatts are envisaged of which 3 will be solar (about 3.5% of this year’s global installations) and 2 coal-powered. The PV is planned to be completed within 15 months on unused land owned by Coal India. Somewhat paradoxically, the intention is to generate enough renewable electricity to cover all Coal India’s internal needs. Of course the impact is negligible compared to the pollution generated by the coal it produces for power station use.
3, Direct Air Capture to methane. Climeworks is one of the two leaders in direct capture of CO2 from the atmosphere. It recently completed a plant in Italy that combines the collected CO2 with hydrogen from water electrolysis to make methane. The gas is then used to provide fuel for standard natural gas trucks. This is a trial, funded by the EU, and no detail is provided on the economics of the operation. But I think that direct air capture of CO2 reacted with hydrogen created from surplus electricity is likely to be a vitally important route for energy storage and low carbon transport.
4, Peer-to-peer energy trading. A new experiment in Bangkok will allow direct trading between four major electricity users, all with substantial solar power installations and within the same district of the city. The trial will employ a blockchain accounting system provided by Australian company Power Ledger. One of the interesting features of this trial is that it also involves the local electricity network operator. In the long run, peer-to-peer trading threatens the profitability of networks since less electricity will shipped over long distances because local generation will be more cost effective.
5, Electric transport. French company Engie announced a contract to supply 100 electric buses, renewable electricity and all the charging infrastructure in Santiago, Chile. Engie’s wider plans in Santiago include electric taxis, car-sharing, an electric light railway to the airport and a network of charging installations. Engie claims that Chile will have the largest electric bus fleet in the world after China. This is an interesting new move for the company, supplying the transport as well as the electricity and the charging points.
6, Climate food labelling. Nutritional labelling is standard. Now Denmark says it is exploring the use of labels to indicate the climate impact of foods. The problems of doing this are huge: for example, how are the emissions arising from soybeans from Brazil estimated, how does the label deal with different rates of fertiliser application? But because Denmark believes its farming is amongst the most GHG-efficient in the world it sees longer-term marketing advantages. The agricultural trade associations are in favour. Denmark also restated is ambition for full carbon neutrality by 2050.
7, Price competitiveness of renewables. The EBRD, the London-based infrastructure lender owned by 67 countries, said that ‘renewables are now the cheapest energy source’. (This is the headline of a press release. The text is a little less definitive). It quoted solar energy in the Middle East, one of the areas in which invests, now being available for 2.5 cents per kilowatt hour, less than the cost of gas. The World Bank gave a similar signal as it withdrew its support for a new coal-fired power station in Kosovo. The Bank said it was obliged to ‘go with the lowest cost option, and renewables have now come below the cost of coal’. Public financing of coal plants is now almost dead.
8, Thin film solar. The world leader in organic photovoltaics, Heliatek of Germany, installed a 180 square metre array on the side of a warehouse in Duisburg. This is the largest thin film installation on a building façade in the world. Heliatek’s films are so light that they are literally stuck onto the side and roofs of buildings. My guess is that this installation has a conversion efficiency of less than 10%, or about half that of good quality silicon PV. But I also suspect that this is irrelevant; Heliatek’s films can be used almost any surface, including those where conventional PV would be impossible.
9, Energy transition. Norwegian company DNV produced its second energy transition forecast. In my opinion, the rigour of the work, and its intellectual independence, make it the best source of long-term projections. Some headlines: peak oil demand 2023, peak final energy use 2032, percentage of world GDP spent on energy falls from 5.5% in 2016 to 3.1% in 2050. Half of all energy supply is renewable by mid century, and over 2/3rds of electricity production. EVs match internal combustion engine costs by 2024. But despite all this, the Paris 2 degree targets are comprehensively missed in DNV’s projections. In other words, even relatively optimistic predictions for the speed of the energy transition suggest a much hotter world.
10, Embodied emissions in solar PV. Every so often the rumour resurfaces that manufacturing solar panels creates more emissions than are saved when the PV is installed. The story will become more difficult to tell in the future. Longi, one of the largest PV companies, announced that all the electricity it uses to make panels will come from solar farms within three to five years. (Electricity is the dominant energy need in panel manufacture).
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