Meeting with DOE NREL May 18, 2010

Participants from DOE NREL:

  1. Robert Hawsey, Associate Laboratory Director, Renewable Electricity and End Use Systems.
  2. Dick DeBlasio, Chief Engineer,Renewable Electricity and End Use Systems
  3. Dr. David Mooney, Director, Electricity, Resources, & Buildings Systems Integration
  4. Brian Parsons, Principal Group Manager, Transmission and Grid Integration, Renewable Electricity and End Use Systems
  5. Carol Tombari, Manager, Stakeholder Relations, Public Affairs
  6. Ryan Raffaelle, Manager, NationalCenter for Photovoltaics
  7. Scott Haase, Senior Project Manager, Deployment & Industry Partnerships

Bob and I gave an overview of NRECA, CRN, plus key T&SA and RDE projects plus a presentation on Energy Storage, etc.

Bob Hawsey gave an overview of NREL. NREL is the only lab whose sole mission is renewable energy and energy efficiency which is managed by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy LLC (50% Battelle and 50% Midwest Research Institute-MRI in Kansas City) with 7 universities on their board like MIT, Stanford University, Colorado School of Mines, University of Colorado, etc. There are two primary lines of innovation: 1 Renewable Electricity and End Use (headed by Bob) 2. Renewable Fuels and Vehicles underpinned with science (with $20 million from the DOE Office of Science). NREL is $400 million with $87 million Solar, $37 million for wind and water power, $70 million for building efficiency technologies, $31 million Vehicles. NREL has 2000 people up from 1200 a year ago. The budget is shown below:

The key area for energy efficiency is to provide cost effective and marketable zero energy buildings by 2025 (buildings are 71% of electricity and 38% of carbon emissions). The R&D thrust is LED, building integrated PV advanced HVAC (non-vapor compression technology will reduce electricity by 50%), whole building integration, etc. Bob showed off a soon to be the world’s largest net zero energy commercial building for NREL offices, but the cost must have been at least 2 to 3 times the normal cost of office space.

In the vehicle area, NREL is working on energy storage, advanced power electronics, ancillary load reduction, utility interconnection, etc for PHEV.

Bob Hawsey noted that the NREL owns a GE 1.5 MW wind turbine and Siemens is having NREL test advanced blade designs for a 2.3 MW wind turbine. NREL has a 2.5 MW 21 rpm dynamometer and is being upgraded to a 5 MW. Codes for wind turbine blades were developed by NREL and the GE 1.5 MW wind turbine was proof tested at NREL. NREL is investigating an AMSC high temperature superconducting wind turbine at 10MW to cut the weight by 50%. DOE NREL’s goal is to drive wind energy prices to below 3.6 cents per kWh in low wind sites on-shore by 2012 and 7 cents/kWh off-shore by 2014 which become very competitive prices with conventional gas fired generation.

NREL is researching solar. In the US there is 1,100 MW of PV at 16 to 32 cents/kWh. First Solar Cd Te was invented and developed by NREL. NREL is the gold standard for solar. The target price for PV is 6 to 13 cents/kWh by 2015 depending on the size and location in the US assuming a 30% ITC (Investment Tax Credit). Concentrating Solar Plants (CSP) in the SW US are producing electricity at 10 cents/kWh to 14 cents/kWh, but cooling these systems is a major issue as there is little water for cooling CSP in the SW. The Geothermal is a small program in pushing geothermal down from 5 to 8 cents/kWh to below 5 cents/kWh with no need for a PTC (Production Tax Credit). NREL is developing biofuels like biodiesel and cellulosic ethanol. Bob noted that there are 171 companies producing 2.2 billion gallons each year in the US.

NREL also provides strategic planning and decision support, geospatial analysis, etc. They have completed an Eastern Wind Interconnection study. NREL is doing very high penetration scenarios for renewable energy (20% to 30% wind and 30% solar). NREL is working with many utilities on Smart Grid projects. NREL has contacts in the field including Alaska and Hawaii.

Dick DeBlasio gave an overview of the NREL Electricity Program which covers advanced power management (smart grid, modern grid, etc.). NREL is supporting Smart Grid Interoperability standards (IEEE P 2030) and interconnection standards like IEEE 1547), proposed IEEE 1547.8 P for grid connected loads like PHEVs. NREL/TP 550-46638 is being released on “Understanding Fault Characteristics of Inverted Based DG) and NREL/TP 550-44727 on system impacts on distributed generation. NREL has a keen interest in the Smart Grid conformance testing. Bob Gibson noted that there might be value for CRN and NREL to work in the area of Smart Grid conformance. Dick presented an excellent slide on grid modernization, the smart grid, and integration of the grid with distributed renewables as shown below:

Brian Parsons presented the results of the Western Wind and Solar Integration Study which will be released this week in Phoenix. GE did the production cost models, 3 Tier did the geographic study of wide spread wind energy, etc. The study examined the costs and operating impacts due to the variability and uncertainty of 35% renewables on the WestConnect Grid (NV, AZ, NM, CO and WY) but all of WECC was modeled. 3 Tier simulated the wind speed every 10 minutes every 2 km. Not enough solar data profile data on decentralized roof top solar and centralized solar, but satellite cloud cover modeled. 30% wind and 5% solar was modeled. Solar was assumed to be 70% CSP and 30% distributed PV. Note that class 3 wind is still more economic than a solar PV. PS of Colorado with XCEL is doing significant studies on operational impacts on cycling coal plants. WECC roles require 3% of the generation must be spinning and another 3% can be non-spinning. It was very important to integrated weather sensitive loads and generation. In July the wind has little impact on operation of coal and nuclear, but in the spring and fall the coal will have to swing about 50%. There may be a few hours when the wind will have to spill. The WECC fuel cost drops from $50 billion to $30 billion. The wind variability is high in any given state, but across the WECC the wind variability decreases, but is still significant. Demand Response or DR will be needed for 20 to 80 hours to manage the variability of wind (as is used in ERCOT). The study showed that going to high penetration wind will not require additional bulk energy storage, but the study did not determine the operational cost impacts and reduced reliability of the existing coal fired plants nor did the study determine impact on transient stability of the transmission system. If the coal minimum is only 70% the operating costs jumped dramatically. There are a lot of caveats like need sub hourly scheduling for economic dispatch, Balancing Area cooperation, commit additional operating reserves, target new DR programs, wind must spill, etc. PJM ISO is the only ISO that requires that wind bid into the markets. Long distance transmission is not needed for lower levels of wind penetration. Less than 1% of wind energy is spilled and curtailed with a strong DR program. Wind provides 10% to 15%, PV provides 20% to 25%, and CSP provides 95% of the peak load.

David Mooney presented the Eastern Wind Integration Study (EWITS) by increasing wind energy up to 20% wind penetration and also up to 30% (less Florida). AWS did the meso scale 10 minute and 2 km modeling of wind speed. Four scenarios looked at mixes of Midwest, local, and off shore wind resources and all scenarios require a lot of wind and transmission. The high capacity factor on shore wind needed 224 GW of wind, and high capacity wind with on shore needed 226 GW, and local wind with aggressive off-shore need 230 GW. Scenario 4 with aggressive off-shore needed 337 GW of wind for a 30% capacity factor. It was shown that aggregation of wind turbines did smooth out the wind variability from one turbine to 300 wind turbines. Wind integration costs for operating and spinning reserves cost about $5/MWh. The transmission costs for integrating wind is less than 10% of the total levelized costs. Is there the level of offshore wind energy infrastructure available or can it be ramped up. 20% wind will reduce carbon by 4% from 2010 levels. It was noted that it can take longer to build the transmission than to get the wind generation built. Without transmission, significant curtailment of wind will be required.

Ryan Raffaelle discussed the PV opportunities in the US which has the largest solar resource in the developed world which is shown in the following along with the growth in solar industry jobs:

NREL has the NationalCenter for PV (NCPV). Ryan noted thatLong Island is investigating a 300 Solar PV area. Crystalline silicon is now 85% of the market, but is now rebounding with dramatic reduction in amorphous silicon. The 40% efficiency barrier has been broken and Amonix is switching to high efficiency solar collectors and Emcore’s three layer semiconductor collector with high levels of concentration also is achieving 40% efficiency as shown in the attached.

Emcore has filed over 40 patents on Inverted Metamorphoric (IMM) multi-junction solar cell. It was noted that a Solar Concentrating PV system will use a spectral splitter to focus the different spectra of light onto different PV materials and cool the cell to generate hot water or possibly even steam for making more electricity. Note that according to Ceramatec the SCPV could be used to make hydrogen from HTSE or syngas from HTCE. CdTe is projected to reach PV module prices less than $1/kW. Crystalline Si (c-Si) has been bid $1.5/kW per module.Metamorphic thin film Si is also being developed that could drop the c-Si module costs as shown in the following:

Total system costs will be double the module cost. Thus PV system prices may be at around $3000/kW. Because of the toxicity of Cd, First Solar must track and recycle all CdTe systems. Indium for thin film will also be in short supply. It is completely false that PV energy will never pay back the energy used to produce PV with energy payback in 6 to 10 years. For the first time in the history of PV, solar production is now below demand, but by 2012, the demand will exceed production. Solar PV arrays are warranted for 30 years, but the inverters are only warranted for 5 years. A lot of PV systems are made in China because of investment capital availability, incentives, etc in China.

Dave presented the status of a new Energy System Integration Facility (ESIF). The ESIF will uniquely address limited smart load control technologies, lack of control strategies for vehicle to grid (V2G) and grid to vehicle to enable electrification and new infrastructure needs, etc. Virtual utility operations and simulation dedicated to integration of RE and EE technologies at scale. There will also be a smart grid testing and validation lab. There will be a lot of R&D for simulation of DOD base RE and EE microgrids. The ESIF will be able to do up to 2 MW at 480 V and 13 kV.

Scott Haase presented NREL R&D on biopower. There is expected to be a competition for biomass for fuels and for electricity. Electricity is typically the lowest value product for biomass use with biodiesel or bio-ethanol which has three times the value of biopower. Currently there is about 5 GW of pulp and paper, 2 GW dedicated biomass, 3 GW of MSW and LFG, 0.5 GW of cofiring of biomass at a cost of about 6 cents/kWh to 20 cents/kWh for small biopower units. The biopower PTC is half the PTC for wind. NREL has a geographic assessment of biomass feedstock assessment. NREL can do specific studies on GIS screening of coal plants, biomass resources, and biomass costs to identify best candidate sites, analysis feedstock competition between fuels, and power, etc. DOE is bringing the biomass plant back with $370 million over 10 years for some major projects.

Brian Smith, the NREL Lab Program Manager for Wind and Water Power Technologies (and director of the National Wind Test Center NWTC) presented an overview of the wind technology as well as advanced hydroelectric technologies. NREL NWTC has a $40 million budget and serves to test new wind turbines and solve new problems with existing turbines through many CRADAS with the wind power industry. The global wind industry grew by 31% in 2009 to 157 GW, but is still only 1.7% of the total world capacity with the US growing by 39% in 2009 to 35 GW (1.8% of the total capacity) and is now the Global leader in installed capacity. It was interesting to note that each GW of wind provides 1,000 construction jobs, 200 operating and supply chain jobs, cuts 1.8 MT of CO2 annually, saves 1.3 Billion gallons of cooling water each year, provides $3 million in lease payments each year (which is why farmers and ranchers like wind energy), is the lowest cost renewable at about $2,000/kW and $50/MWh including the renewable Production Tax Credit (PTC), and is sustainable. It was interesting to note that the capacity factor of wind in class 6 was only 30% 10 years ago, but is now approaching 45% (a 50% improvement) due to improve bladed designs, larger machines, and taller towers (80 m up from 50 m high). Brian noted that in the Eastern US there is growing interest in large off-shore wind farms where the size of the wind turbines will increase from 2.3 MW on shore up to 5 MW and even up to 10MW (avoids crane height and transportation restrictions on land) due to the expense of the tower and platform that is anchored in the sea bed, and because these resources are in excellent wind regimes with high capacity factor winds with close access to the main population centers (from Georgia to Maine). However the capital costs are currently daunting at $4,000/kW which is twice the on-shore wind cost, but capacity factors could be over 50% and much of the output would be coincident with the daily peaks. One issue that was not addressed was how would these turbines fair during hurricanes? The NWTC also provides for independent testing of small 3 kW and above as shown below:

A video was provided that showed the time lapse of a Siemens’ 2.3 MW wind turbine with a 80 m tower height and a 90 m rotor diameter whose advanced fiberglass blade design was being tested while Bob and I toured the site (as seen below).

We learned that the NWTC has received a $10 million ARRA grant to upgrade the output of their dynamotor to test wind turbine generator components from 2.5 MW to 5 MW to keep up with the growing size of wind turbine components. The current dynamotor was testing a large wind turbine gear box with funding from over 30 vendors and suppliers to determine the root cause of failure of gear boxes that have failed in 2 to 3 years rather than last 20 to 30 years.