Page 6 - North American Clean Energy January/February 2020 Issue

by Pete Maltbaek, General Manager North America, Smarter Grid Solutions
THE UCLA LUSKIN CENTRE FOR INNOVATION
recently issued a detailed report on America's progress to 100% clean energy. According to the report, 1 in 3 Americans now live in a city
or state that has committed to, or achieved, 100% clean electricity. It also revealed that renewable energy generation throughout the US has nearly doubled since 2008.
Last year saw significant developments in the climate and clean energy industries here in the United States. I firmly believe that we can all look forward to more positive developments for 2020.
Here are our predictions for US energy in 2020:
Science and policy
We expect greater clarity of communication and impact from the climate science, as well as practical experience and observation on climate change effects. There will likely be more climate emergency declarations, more 100% renewables policies enacted, more 'net zero target' setting, and rolling forward of timelines to reflect the urgency.
Regulation
We should see a stronger response from regulators on science and policy through market and system measures, along with a general opening and tilting of the sector towards clean energy. The value of customer participation, self-production, and flexibility will be ongoing trends, balanced by the need for all to pay for the grid. Regulators
will work on getting out in front of the climate agenda to reflect the technical advances, opportunities, and system changes. All while incentivizing utility business model changes, and the adoption of competitive, non-wires solutions to network capacity issues.
Customers
With the wider citizenry being more climate aware and motivated, we expect more innovative customer value propositions from energy and network companies, with greater reception from customers. This includes growth in corporate Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) - to meet private and municipal energy targets; Energy as a Service (EaaS) solutions - for those needing capital support in pursuit of their goals; dynamic tariffs for smart/flexible cost-conscious customers; and multiple energy vector solutions - including flexible EV charging and heat solutions for those wishing a holistic approach to their energy needs.
Technology
Many of the technologies needed for the energy transition are either currently in place or imminent. Some of the newer tech advances will need to make the jump to commercial solutions to enable implementation at scale. Examples include end-to-end supply chain, productization, value engineering, and effective system integration (to manage the complexities of the electricity system and market).
Systems and business models
The goal is to deliver an energy system that exceeds those available today in terms of cost and performance. To help reach that goal, we need better coordination and co-optimization of the new clean energy technologies and customers, the grid, and the markets.
In the coming year, we expect to see increased deployments of connected energy solutions at a systems level, including renewable energy generation, electrified vehicle transport, marine transport, space, water and process heat, and other flexibilities from customers.
We should see the hybridization of technologies such as wind/storage, PV/storage, PV/EV, and the solutions to integrate these to grid and market
at different scales. Business model innovation should continue from service providers and the supply chain (as a service, data focused, flexible licensing and leasing, and from customers).
Finance & investment
Look for the continued flow of greater investment finance into clean energy assets and other clean tech, with a manifestation in the onward rise of renewable energy and associated operational, market, and system integration solutions. The real economics of fossil-fired power generation will continue to divert investment dollars towards clean sources.
New players & entrants
We expect to see a greater prominence for
new, emerging, and growing participants in electricity supply chains as well as direct market participants - EV provision, EV charging, energy storage, behind the meter aggregation, flexibility service providers, hybrid energy solutions, and heating and cooling (service) solutions. This will start to have a profound effect on the nature of clean, decentralized energy systems.
The coming decade...
We already see the effects of a decade of innovation, policy, regulation, and investment in the clean energy transition. These changes are just the starting point for the complete decarbonization of energy that will result in a smarter, more flexible, and more decentralized and customer focused energy system. The coming decade will see massive changes in the structure and experience of clean energy to all corners of the world.
Pete Maltbaek is part of the Smarter Grid Solutions global executive team. Based in California, he is responsible for the management and growth of the company’s
business throughout North America.
Smarter Grid Solutions
/// www.smartergridsolutions.com
guest editor's note
news bites
Predictions for 2020
Race to create limitless clean energy
Fusion has long been viewed as the ultimate goal for energy generation. Smashing together deuterium and tritium atoms releases energy as they combine and is the reaction at the heart of the sun. With no dangerous waste products and a virtually limitless supply of these atoms from seawater, billions have been spent on fusion research. However, recreating the extreme conditions of temperature and pressure on earth are not easy. A British company, First Light Fusion (FLF), is developing a different approach to fusion and is on target to achieve fusion gain, more energy out than goes in, by 2024. In order to achieve the conditions needed for fusion, they launch
a projectile to hypervelocities at a target which requires very high levels of precision to achieve
and so they selected 32 digitizers from Spectrum Instrumentation to monitor the results. One of the challenges is ensuring synchronicity in the firing
of all six limbs that has to have nanosecond level accuracy. The electrical energy is stored in 192 capacitors that are arranged in pairs and each of the 96 pairs is controlled by a bespoke switch which is capable of holding off the voltage and transferring the huge currents involved. After the firing, Spectrum M2i.4912-exp digitizer cards are used
to acquire hundreds of machine diagnostics from each capacitor and switch along with numerous probes in the limbs covering current and voltage readings with a sampling rate of 10 MS/s (100 ns time interval). 32 cards are linked together in two banks of 16 using Spectrum’s Star-Hub feature to ensure synchronicity across all 256 input channels. This configuration provides the flexibility of adding additional channels if required in the future.
Spectrum Instrumentation
/// www.spectrum-instrumentation.com
Plug into wave energy
A new energy technology substation for SURGE2 is being built on the coast of Peniche, Portugal
to convert the energy from ocean waves into an endless source of sustainable electricity using WaveRoller technology from AW-Energy Oy (AWE) based in Finland. The installation team included AWE and a Spanish team from PROinSENER Energía who built it based upon Abengoa design specifications. Recently AWE was issued a manufacturing certification from Lloyd’s Register. Multiple projects are underway around the world.
AW Energy Oy /// www.aw-energy.com
6
JANUARY•FEBRUARY2020 /// www.nacleanenergy.com