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In Push for Collaboration, Solar and Storage Industries Unveil “Smart Solar” Potential

July 17, 2016

Pairing solar with energy storage will be integral to cement the future of both emerging sectors, said experts at the Intersolar North America’s annual event held this week in San Francisco.

The three-day event and exhibition was co-located with ees North America, a stand-alone event focused on energy storage technologies and services. But experts from the separate industry events underscored that the sectors’ futures are aligned and should grow in tandem, calling for the backing of a joint, “smart solar” sector.

Solar’s Unique Revenue Catch-22

The solar sector, in particular, has seen a number of hurdles that threaten its widespread adoption, the most cited of which are linked to its non-dispatchable nature.

Though solar penetration has soared, behind-the-meter applications have been hampered by ruthless net energy metering battles between regulators and electric utilities in at least 20 states. Utilities argue that net metering customers don’t pay their fair share of grid expenses, raising costs for non-solar ratepayers, whereas the solar sector says that utilities don’t fully account for distributed solar’s value to the grid, such as capacity value, transmission and distribution deferral, and line loss savings.…

Germany Backs Measure to Replace Renewable Incentives with Competitive Auctions

July 15, 2016

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Lawmakers in Germany have voted to replace subsidies for wind and solar with competitively priced electricity prices.

The country’s upper (Bundesrat) and lower (Bundestag) legislative chambers on July 8 voted to adopt an amendment to the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG 2016) introduced by Minister of Economics and Energy Sigmar Gabriel. The legislation aims to replace feed-in tariffs with renewable energy auctions.

“[Renewable generators] are no longer small puppies,” Gabriel said as he introduced the bill earlier this year. “They have grown up and they need to face market pressure.”

The law is credited with enabling Germany’s energy transition, Energiewende, which calls for the country’s current share of renewable power to increase from 33% in 2015 to 40% in 2025, 55% in 2035, and 80% in 2050.

One of the earliest iterations of the law, EEG 2012 guaranteed feed-in tariffs for renewable power producers, setting fixed prices per kilowatt-hour, emphasizing priority access for renewables, and binding grid operators to buy all renewable power and sell it on the exchange.…

Entergy Considering Sale of FitzPatrick Nuclear Plant to Exelon

July 13, 2016

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Entergy Corp. announced on July 13 that it is in discussions with Exelon Corp. concerning the potential sale of the James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant in Scriba, N.Y.

The news comes following the release of the New York Department of Public Service’s proposal to subsidize zero-emissions attributes of upstate nuclear power plants, including FitzPatrick (Figure 1).

1. James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant. Entergy plans to close the 838-MW single-unit facility on January 27, 2017. The company said its decision was based on “the continued deteriorating economics of the facility.” Source: Entergy Corp.

Entergy announced on November 2, 2015, that it would retire the FitzPatrick plant. Key drivers cited by the company included “significantly reduced plant revenues due to low natural gas prices, a poor market design that fails to properly compensate nuclear generators like FitzPatrick for their benefits, as well as high operational costs.”

Today, Entergy said its discussions with Exelon are consistent with its commitment to consider any viable option that would allow FitzPatrick to remain in operation.…

EU Parliament Approves New Cybersecurity Rules

July 11, 2016

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The European Union (EU) parliament on July 6 approved the first community-wide rules designed to bolster cybersecurity throughout the EU.

According to the official statement, the new law “lays down security and reporting obligations for ‘operators of essential services’ in sectors such as energy, transport, health, banking and drinking water supply. EU member states will have to identify entities in these fields using specific criteria, e.g. whether the service is critical for society and the economy and whether an incident would have significant disruptive effects on the provision of that service.”

In addition, some “digital service providers” such as search engines and online marketplaces will be required to take measures to secure their infrastructure and report significant cybersecurity incidents to national authorities.

Community-Wide Cybersecurity Action Necessary, EU Notes

“Cybersecurity incidents very often have a cross-border element and therefore concern more than one EU member state. Fragmentary cybersecurity protection makes us all vulnerable and poses a big security risk for Europe as a whole.…

Largest Wind Turbine Contest Gets Another Entrant

July 9, 2016

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Siemens on July 5 entered the competition for the largest wind turbine in the world with an upgrade of its SWT-7.0-154 model. The new SWT-8.0-154 turbine boosts power output over the earlier model through upgraded magnet technology. Other components remain largely the same over the earlier model and the smaller SWT-6.0-154 turbine, Siemens said.

The firm thus joins two others offering 8-MW wind turbines: MHI Vestas and Gamesa and Areva’s joint venture Adwen. Deciding which model is “largest” depends on how one defines the term, though. All are rated at 8 MW, but the MHI Vestas V164 has a larger rotor diameter at 164 meters (m) than the 154-m Siemens model.

Adwen’s AD-180 has the largest rotor diameter—at 180 m—of any commercially available design, but none have yet been constructed. Adwen and Danish firm LM Windpower completed the first AD-180 blade in June, each of which is just over 88 m long (Figure 1). The blades will be used for the AD-180 prototype planned to be built at a site in Germany later this year.…

Expansion Joint Bellows Rupture Forces D.C. Cook Nuclear Plant Offline

July 7, 2016

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Indiana Michigan Power—a subsidiary of American Electric Power (AEP)—reported that Unit 2 of its Donald C. Cook Nuclear Plant in Bridgman, Mich., was forced offline on July 6 due to an expansion joint bellows rupture on the unit’s moisture separator reheater.

Although no one was in the area at the time and there were no injuries, an adjacent turbine building exterior wall was damaged when the roughly 48-inch-diameter bellows burst. The component is part of the plant’s secondary steam system, providing nonradioactive steam to the low-pressure turbine.

An Unusual Event, the lowest level alert on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) emergency response scale, was declared at 12:50 a.m. due to the unanticipated incident. The event was terminated at 2:07 a.m. The company said all appropriate notifications to local, state, and federal officials were made.

Unit 2 was shut down manually, with no impact to public health and safety. Unit 1 was not involved in the event and remains in operation at full power.…