With Congress expected to take up legislation to extend or resurrect certain tax breaks in its lame-duck session, rumors circulated last week about a potential deal under which the Republican-controlled House might accept Senate legislation providing a…

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A proprietary variety of grass could be providing fuel for vehicles and feed for animals in the desert southwest. Biomass grower VIASPACE, Inc. says the results of the first two harvests of Giant King Grass grown at the University of California Desert Research Center (DREC) in Holtville, Imperial County, California are showing good signs as a viable biofuel feedstock and animal feed.

The results reported were for Giant King Grass harvested at approximately 8 feet tall for animal feed. Four representative sections of each planting type (replicates) were harvested by hand and fully characterized. Samples were also sent to Dairy One Forage Laboratory in Ithaca, New York for nutritional analysis.

The single node planting yield for the first harvest on September 2, 2014 was 37.4 fresh tons per acre (7.2 dry tons) and 58 days later, on October 30, 2014, the yield for the second harvest was 31.4 fresh tons per acre (5.4 dry tons). The crude protein level for the second harvest was 17.3% of dry matter. The whole stalk planting yield was about 27% lower with a crude protein level of 14.7%.

[Dr. Oli Bachie, Agronomy Crop Advisor, University of California Cooperative Extension] stated during the presentation, “This is the most giant grass I have ever seen. It is truly gigantic in terms of the biomass crops we are growing in the Imperial Valley.” Dr. Bachie emphasized that although the first two harvests were very impressive, the research program will continue for at least one year and the overall results will be compiled and published in the future.

VIASPACE is growing Giant King Grass in 11 locations in eight countries around the world for electricity production, biogas, biofuel, pellet and animal feed applications.

Apex Clean Energy has selected ACCIONA Windpower to provide wind turbines for its 165 MW Cameron Wind farm that will be purchased by IKEA upon completion. The Brownsville, Texas wind farm will feature the first U.S. installation of AW125/3000 turbines. Each turbine will have a rotor diameter of 125 meters and a 3 megawatt generator mounted on an 87.5 meter steel tower. The agreement includes the supply of 55 ACCIONA Windpower AW125/3000 turbines and a 20-year Full Service Warranty.

“ACCIONA and IKEA share the same commitment to a clean energy future, and we are proud that our innovative wind technology was selected to help IKEA meet its global sustainability goals. We are also pleased to collaborate with Apex Clean Energy, a prominent and respected wind energy company,” said Rafael Mateo, CEO of ACCIONA Energy.

ACCIONA plans to begin turbine deliveries in mid-2015, and the project is expected to reach commercial operation in late 2015. When completed. The project will be a key part of IKEA’s commitment to produce by 2020 as much renewable energy as the company consumes globally and will mark the single largest renewable energy investment made by the IKEA Group globally to date.

Mark Goodwin, Apex president, added, “We are very pleased to be working with ACCIONA on this important project. The Texas gulf coast has a very unique wind resource, and Cameron Wind will harness this power to provide clean, homegrown, affordable energy to the residents of South Texas.”

Earlier this week several key utility leaders met with U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz to discuss more wide-spread adoption of electric vehicles. During the discussions Edison Electric Institute (EEI) President Tom Kuhn announced two electric power industry initiatives to further commercialize electric transportation technologies. The first initiative is a commitment by more than 70 investor-owned electric utilities to devote at least five percent of their annual fleet acquisition budgets to the purchase of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) and technologies. This represents an investment of approximately $50 million annually.

The second program is a new Employee Adoption and Education Initiative to encourage its member utilities to participate in the Department of Energy’s Workplace Charging Challenge and to help drive PEV adoption among utility employees. Additionally, EEI has agreed to serve as an ambassador to the Workplace Charging Challenge.

“We are pleased that the Administration recognizes the unprecedented effort and commitment by our industry to lead by example and to drive innovations in the electric transportation market,” said Kuhn. “Advancing plug-in electric vehicles and technologies is an industry priority, and we are proud to undertake our new initiative to encourage PEV adoption among our more than 500,000 employees. Through these combined efforts, we look forward to continuing to work with the Administration to build on the current successes of the electric transportation market and to accelerate deployment even further.”

EEI’s initiatives are part of a broad industry effort to accelerate the adoption of PEVs and technologies by utilities. A white paper released by EEI in June titled, “Transportation Electrification: Utility Fleets Leading the Charge,” offers a road map for a long-term, coordinated effort to further spur the development of electric vehicle technologies in the transportation market. The effort is led by EEI’s Electric Transportation Task Force, which is co-chaired by Tony Earley and Portland General Electric CEO and President Jim Piro.

Though this is celebrated as a huge success in many circles, it’s not without its challenges, including how to integrate such a large local surplus of renewable energy into the greater grid while maintaining network stability. Which is why regional utility AÜW and Siemens chose Wildpoldsried to test out a smart grid that automatically stabilizes the power network.

Becoming Prosumers

The story began in 1997, when Wildpoldsried mayor Arno Zengerle and the city council decided they wanted to revitalize the community and encourage growth without incurring debt. The town adopted the Innovative Leadership Plan, WIR-2020, to reinvent Wildpoldsried based on renewable energy, green building, and water resource protection. As part of the plan the town set a goal of producing 100 percent of its electricity from renewable energy by 2020.

Things happened much faster than planned — 17 years later, the town now has five biogas plants, almost 5 MW of solar PV, 11 wind turbines with a total capacity of more than 12 MW, a biomass district heating network, three small hydro power plants, and 2,100 square meters of solar thermal systems. While the first two wind turbines were partly financed by a small grant from the state of Bavaria, local residents — many of them dairy farmers — have financed all following turbines. Those turbines, which generated over 17,000 MWh of electricity in 2013, have a payback of 10 years, and then generate 80 percent of the earnings of the dairy farms.

All public buildings, 120 private residences, and 4 companies are connected to the district heating system. The biomass for the system is all sourced from waste wood from local forests and generates 8.2 MMBtu of heat each year. The majority of the PV systems in the town are on private residences — about 200 homes now have rooftop solar. Nine municipal buildings including the primary school, recycling facility, and sports center also have PV systems. The electricity generated from the solar, wind, and biomass is sold to AÜW under a fixed-price 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA).

Irene to the Rescue

While all this excess renewable energy is bringing in over $7 million a year in revenue, it was also causing a headache for AÜW, which has to maintain grid stability. So in 2010 AÜW chose Wildpoldsried as the site for a smart grid experiment. Meanwhile, Siemens was looking for a grid operator to test its new smart grid technologies. The two teamed up and launched a $6 million project called IRENE — Integration of Regenerative Energy and Electric Mobility.

The first step in IRENE was to install 200 measuring devices at renewable energy systems throughout the town. The devices measure different electrical variables such as current, voltage, and frequency, to determine who’s feeding energy into the grid, who’s consuming energy from the grid, and to find any problems affecting the network’s stability. Once any problems are identified, a variable transformer offsets voltage fluctuations. The town has also incorporated 138 kWh of battery storage into the system, which receives and discharges electricity to help stabilize the grid.

Keeping the Grid Stable with SOEASY

The key to the smart grid is a self-organizing automation system called SOEASY, which balances supply and demand to keep the grid stable. It is IRENE’s brain, so to speak. SOEASY considers weather, electricity prices, power quality, and other factors when deciding whether to send electricity into the grid or to storage. It’s actually more complex than the name makes it sound. SOEASY contains five different software modules — the personal energy agent, balance master, area administrator, network transport agent, and energy police.

• Personal energy agent: Every “prosumer” in the town has a personal energy agent. This small device allows the energy producer to dictate how much power he or she wants to sell, at what time, and at what minimum price, in 15-minute intervals. It is, in some sense, a distributed energy resource marketplace on the scale of one town embedded in a far larger grid.
• Balance master: The balance master is installed at AÜW and decides which personal energy agent offers it will accept to cover demand in the grid. It can plan adjustments up to a day in advance, and takes into account different parameters such as weather changes.
• Area administrator: The area administrator helps AÜW maintain network stability if too much energy is being fed into the grid. The area administrator can modify the input from different sources via commands to their personal energy agents, can send energy to storage, or can adjust the voltage through the variable transformer.
• Network transport agent: The network transport agent (NTA) collects data from the energy producers, consumers, and the grid, and supplies it to the area administrator, which intervenes if maximum voltage is exceeded, and to the balance master, which decides what power can be accepted without overloading the grid.
• Energy Police: The energy police makes sure that all energy producers supply the power promised by their personal energy agents, and that no power is illegally siphoned off.

Integrating EVs into the Smart Grid

One way to help balance the grid is to use electric vehicles to store excess energy. Wildpoldsried now has 32 electric vehicles that are leased to residents. When there’s an energy surplus, the vehicle’s batteries are given charging priority. The plan for the future is to have the vehicles return electricity to the grid in case of power shortages.

IRENE ended in 2013, and the developed smart grid now serves as the foundation for IREN2 (Future Viable Networks for Integration of Renewable Energy Systems). The goal of IREN2 is to study how energy systems with distributed power generation, battery storage, district heating, biogas plants, and diesel generators can be technically and economically optimized.

The renewable energy systems in Wildpoldsried have done more than help Germany move towards its renewable energy goals. The renewable energy systems have created 140 new jobs, led to construction of an ecological training center, and increased tourism, with over 100 delegations visiting the town each year. The increased revenue has allowed the town to have its own doctors, recreation center, fire station, and other amenities not available in many other towns of a similar size. And the success of the smart grid will enable places to develop even larger smart grids for all of Germany and the world.

This article was originally published on RMI and was republished with permission.

Lead image: German town via Shutterstock

10 hot companies, 10 hot slides explaining where they are, what they’re up to, and where they are going, and when and how and why.

Here are new slides from the Advanced Biofuels Leadership Conference – ABLC Next 2014, as presented in San Francisco.

We found these super-hot because they essayed three topics very much on the industry’s mind:

1. Who are the fresh faces and how are they redefining the sector at the start-up level?

2. How and when are some of the later-stage ventures now approaching their first commercial plants?

3. What are the outside-the-box thinkers thinking?

The Young Fresh Faces

Optimus

What’s Up? It’s a diesel replacement technology — a biofuels, but not the ones you know. 

Why Hot? Cost, cost, cost. As this slide shows, and as every fleet manager knows, it comes down to the Benjamins.

Allylix

What’s Up? Super-dense jet fuels offer the potential of longer range missions or heavier armament using the same planes — like an upgrade in jets without buying a new jet.

Why Hot? These guys are getting closer and closer to the real deal in super-advantaged fuels in probably the one arena where performance is everything – combat missions.

Leaf Energy

What’s Up? Sugars are the new oil if sugars can be cheap enough to replace the old oils. Leaf think they have cracked a part of that puzzle with massively advantaged yields for C6 sugars.

Why Hot? The absence of competition – only a handful of companies have technology for breakthroughs on sugar costs – here’s the wonder from Down Under.

Vertimass

What’s Up? E10 saturation has the US exporting ethanol – meanwhile, airlines are crazy for alcohol-to-jet fuels but the costs (driven by process yields) are a formidable barrier.

Why Hot? Here comes Vertimass with a breakthrough on yield, via a one-step process that removes oxygen from ethanol without removing energy-carrying carbon.

Later-stagers, heading for scale

Clariant

What’s Up? Cellulosic biofuels are going mainstream and big time — now, the major players are lining up not only technology but an entire suite of allied services, including logistics and planning — to ensure they have the winning technology for the RFPs.

Why Hot? Here comes Clariant with a really broad array of services that exemplifies what the top-notch companies are a) capable of and b) doing, to attract the big-ticket customers in the race for dominance of next-gen fuels.

Virent

What’s Up? You’ve heard of the Plant Bottle from Coca-Cola — but, yawn, you mutter something about “there are no green premiums” and go back to sleep, confident that brands like Dasani will get brownie points (or is that greenie points?) but not much else from technologies like Virent’s that deliver all-renewable plant bottles.

Why Hot? Wrong, grasshopper. Dansani has been qa) rocking and b) pretty much saved by the plant bottle. It may not confer anything in terms of price, but it is punching well above its weight when it comes to grabbing market share — and big sales mean economies of scale in production, and there’s your green margin, and that’s what matters.

SE4ALL

What’s Up? Projects have been tough to get going in the developing world – in addition to the usual barriers of feedstock, technology, market risk and policy risk — there’s the whole range of challenges that are summed up in “country risk” — and in steps Sustainable Energy For All movement to get things going from the bottom up to change that equation.The bottom up energy of new technologies and project developers combine with the top-down thrust of the UN and groups like the Asian Development Bank, to blow through the barriers.

Why Hot? If there’s anywhere where feedstock is sustainable, available, reliable, affordable, it’s the developing world. And they are often crying out for alternatives to petroleum. Here’s a strategy to break through the barriers.

Edeniq

What’s Up? Cost, cost, cost — that’s the mantra for naysayers these days on cellulosic biofuels. Used to be “five years away”. But still, a problem needing addressing, Here’s comes Edeniq with a frankly lower-cost approach.

Why Hot? Project developers to biofuels: “The best things in life are free, but you can give it to the birds and bees, I want Money, that’s what I want.”

Outside the box thinking

Benefuel

What’s Up? There are retrofits and retrofits, Some come with a case of wonderful, all have some challenges. This slides lines up the bad and the beautiful.

Why Hot? Benefuel is, bless them, telling it straight, and offering some breakthroughs that mean big things to big players. Is there anything hotter than the good guys getting traction?

EBI

What’s Up? Everyone wants diesel and jet fuels, no one wants to pay more, the new technologies are cool, but scale-up is daunting with all the new technology that has to be developed. But what about using the old ABE process — proven beyond a shadow of a doubt — and some proven chemistries. That’s the question that EBI’s Chris Somerville is asking — why not chose the simpler route?

Why Hot? Proven is the New Cool in a risk-adverse environment, and this clever route to “hybrid biofuels” might just be the ticket for a new path, or a revisit of an old path, to affordable, drop-in fuels.

Tell us about your organization and it’s role in the advanced bioeconomy.

The Energy Biosciences Institute explores the application of biology to the energy sector. We have a commitment to improving sustainability of energy systems and bringing modern science to the public discourse on the future of energy.

Tell us about your role and what you are focused on in the next 12 months.

I have two main roles. The first is to evaluate technologies for biofuels and bioenergy in the context of energy security, food security, and long-term economic and environmental sustainability. The second is to act as an “honest broker” to the public, policymakers, and other stakeholders considering bioenergy options.

What do you feel are the most important milestones the industry must achieve in the next 5 years?

I think the industry needs to continue to show that it has renewable sustainable solutions that are economically viable. The first spate of cellulosic plants need to show they can produce consistent and reliable volumes of fuel. Conventional biofuels need to show they can continue to grow and provide jobs and positive impacts on food security.

If you could snap your fingers and change one thing about the Advanced Bioeconomy, what would you change?

I would change the perception that the advanced bioeconomy is somehow at odds with conservation and that it is “less green” than other renewable technologies.

Of all the reasons that influenced you to join the Advanced Bioeconomy industry, what single reason stands out for you as still being compelling and important to you?  

I want to make the world a better place to live.

Where are you from? 

I grew up in rural Michigan.

What was your undergraduate major in college, and where did you attend? Why did you choose that school and that pathway? 

I started out in chemical engineering but switched to biochemistry. I wanted to build things but I wanted to know why more. I went to Michigan Technological University because they let me into the lab, doing my own projects as an undergrad whereas the big schools told me to “wait for graduate school”, an idea I was skeptical I would pursue.

Who do you consider your mentors. What have you learned from them?

My grandparents taught me to have patience, perseverance, and humor in all things. I don’t always manage it but I do try.

What’s the biggest lesson you ever learned during a period of adversity?

Lesson Ten:
Listen more than you talk
Everyone has failures
Sometimes it’s not about you
Some situations just suck
Only one fight at a time
Not everything is in your control, but some things are
There are idiots everywhere
Every good girl deserves fudges
Never give up on yourself

What hobbies do you pursue, away from your work in the industry? 

My hobbies include an untameable garden with perpetually needy fruit trees, an incorrigible mutt, and a wonderfully creative and thoroughly self-absorbed sixteen year old boy.

What 3 books would you take to read, if stranded on a desert island?

I don’t re-read books so I’d go with something useful…KonTiki for inspiration, How Things Work for self-evident reasons, and The Boat Who Wouldn’t Float because Farley Mowat had a great sense of humor and I’m pretty sure mine would need some help after the second week.

What books or articles are on your reading list right now, or you just completed and really enjoyed?

Just finished The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. Now reading The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss

What’s your favorite city or place to visit, for a holiday?

I’ll go anywhere there is water but Lake Michigan, north of Traverse City is still my favorite.

Here’s a blast from the past, the name BioWillie hasn’t been heard on these pages since 2008, and its reappearance today isn’t a bit of good news. The ambitious plan from country music singer WIllie Nelson to help American farmers by turning their crops into American fuel for American truckers (are you noticing a theme?) has officially come to an end.

Sparked by a discovery on Maui, biodiesel became the Texas singer-songwriter’s mission. He literally wrote a book all about it and started a company, BioWillie, that turned the famous Carl’s Corner truck stop into Willie’s Place and he got involved with biodiesel producers. Then things went south, with more producers entering the pictures, the end of government subsidies and the price of petroleum diesel dropping from its incredibly high average US price of $4.82 a gallon back in July 2008 (it’s at $3.49 today). There were money problems with Willie’s Place, too, with the group building it defaulting on a loan. In all, this is a good story that the Houston Chronicle tells about Willie and his quest – and biodiesel is something he still cares about – and you can read it here.

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