The utility’s clients near the Minworth treatment plant are able to cook with “green gas” produced from their own sewage after Severn Trent started injecting the bio-methane into the gas grid last week. The gas becomes as clean, “exactly the same,” after treatment as normal gas. This is the first time in the U.K. a water company has delivered bio-methane to the grid. Companies previously used it only on-site.

“Local domestic customers will be able to tap into the energy contained within the biogas and bio-methane as it’s injected into the grid,” Simon Farris, Severn Trent’s renewable energy development manager, said Sept. 30 by phone.

The 8.4 million-pound ($13.6 million) facility treats sewage from about 2.5 million people. This produces a sludge that’s fed into systems that break it down into gas then washed, compressed and tested for quality and odor to ensure it smells like normal gas. After that it’s injected into the gas supply network to power local homes.

“Although it’s a little unsavory, there’s lots and lots of power locked in poo, and when that’s processed it’s perfect to generate clean renewable green gas,” Farris said in a statement.

‘Concrete Cows’

As part of the wastewater-treatment process, sewage sludge is produced. This is fed to 16 anaerobic digesters at Minworth, or “concrete cows which work like giant cow’s stomachs to digest the waste material to produce energy in the form of gas,” Severn Trent said. “Currently, we use 40 percent of this energy to make electricity but more can be done.”

Under pressure from the U.K. water regulator Ofwat to keep customer bills low, Severn Trent turned to “poo power” as part of a series of measures to boost efficiencies and reduce expenses. As energy is its second-highest operating cost, Farris said, this enables the company to save as much as 1.7 million pounds a year on its gas bill.

Ofwat published draft prices earlier this year that water and sewage-treatment companies, including Severn Trent and United Utilities Group Plc, can charge customers for the five-year period starting 2015. The proposals may see average bills drop about 5 percent even after deducting inflation. Ofwat’s expected to make a final decision on prices in December.

Severn Trent submitted a business plan to Ofwat that proposed limiting household bills to 2020 to an equivalent of 1.2 percent below inflation a year, with a price freeze in 2015 and below-inflation rises the remaining four years.

Food Scraps

It’s not just human waste the utility is eyeing to help deliver price cuts. It’s also turning to food scraps. The company in June said it’s building a 13 million-pound facility in central England that will turn food waste into energy and it plans similar plants across the Severn Trent region.

Whether Severn Trent decides to roll out similar plants at other treatment plants depends on the result of a government consultation on subsidies, Farris said. The Department of Energy and Climate Change is currently reviewing how much it pays organizations that feed bio-methane into the grid. A date hasn’t been set for a decision.

Without the subsidy, the technology isn’t yet economically viable, Farris said. “It needs to have an incentive at this stage. The hope is that over time the costs of this will come down as the technology becomes more established.”

Severn Trent isn’t the only water utility experimenting with poop. Thames Water Utilities Ltd. in 2010 started a 250 million-pound program to turn sludge to power across a number of sewage-treatment works. And Wessex Water Services Ltd. has produced biogas it used to power a Volkswagen Beetle car.

Copyright 2014 Bloomberg.

Lead image: Wastewater Treatment Plant via Shutterstock

See our story: Advanced Anaerobic Digestion: More Gas from Sewage Sludge

BERLIN —

Renewables became Germany’s most important power source for the first time this year, according to Agora Energiewende.

Clean-energy sources met 27.7 percent of Germany’s demand in the nine months through September, topping for the first time lignite, which generated 26.3 percent, the group owned by the Mercator Foundation and European Climate Foundation said today by e-mail, citing its own calculations.

Wind power and biomass accounted for 9.5 percent and 8.1 percent of demand, respectively. Solar panels generated 6.8 percent and fed as much as 24.2 gigawatts of electricity into the grid on June 6, about the same as 20 nuclear reactors, the group said.

Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, is shutting reactors by 2022 and wants to replace them with a greater share of renewables and efficient fossil-fired plants. The government intends to get as much as 60 percent renewables by 2035. 

Text above copyright 2014 Bloomberg.

Agora Energiewende tracks the makeup of electricity generation in Germany every day.  The «Agorameter» below shows how much renewable energy is being generated at any given moment, and the text on the top of the chart translates to «Generating Today in GW.» Generation from conventional power plants is shown in gray, solar is in yellow, wind in blue, water in light blue and biomass in green. The pink line shows the electricity demand. 

For comparison, see our August 27, 2014 article, U.S. Renewable Electrical Generation Hits 14.3 Percent

Renewable Energy is still something that many UK businesses dismiss as an issue that only really concerns domestic customers, but could this be a worrying misconception? Love Energy Savings’ Charles Whitworth takes a look at three key reasons why utilising renewable energy methods at your place of work could be a no-brainer for all involved!

Here at Love Energy Savings HQ, we speak to many business owners and financial controllers who seem to dismiss green energy as somewhat of a fad, or something that just doesn’t apply to them and this is always to the chagrin of our energy specialists. Renewable energy has just enjoyed its most successful 12 months to date and Germany has even managed to produce more than half of its power via renewable means. This has obviously not purely been down to home energy customers, so why should your company at least consider its commitment to renewable energy?  

Turn the page to continue.

The largest net-zero neighborhood in North America will be constructed more than a mile above sea level. All 308 houses in the Geos Neighborhood in Arvada, Colo. will harness sunlight and the earth’s core to generate as much energy as the homes consume.

But before the solar and geothermal technology comes into play, the design of these cottages and multi-family dwellings will reduce energy needs by 80 percent through efficiency concepts including passive solar collection and extreme air tightness. In fact, the layout of these residences at 5,540 feet will enable the homes to collect 60 percent of their winter heating needs through sunshine permeating the windows.

Homes Echo Values

Thanks to its monetary and environmental savings, energy efficiency is valued by both residents and housing developers along Colorado’s Front Range. Just ask New Town Builders. The Denver-based developer was one of the first in Colorado to offer production-scale net-zero homes, incorporating a 9.9 kilowatt (kW) solar photovoltaic system, in addition to energy saving appliances and efficiency designs. Originally priced in the mid $400,000s, New Town’s net-zero homes cost about $27,000 more than its homes without zero energy features.

For the second year in a row, New Town Builders was awarded by the U.S. Department of Energy for its innovation and energy efficiency, while maintaining interior comfort and durability. The company is also Colorado’s first production builder to include solar panels as a standard feature on its single-family homes in Denver.

Financial Obstacles

Today’s green building materials have a longer lifespan — between 20 and 50 years — which reduces maintenance costs, reveals Regency Builders President Jon Schoenheider. “A home built in 2014 saves almost 80 percent more in energy costs than homes built 10-plus years ago,” Schoenheider said.

Although the savings generated by net-zero residences can total several hundred dollars each month, the energy-saving features are seldom taken into account by mortgage underwriters. Therefore, it can be difficult to finance a net-zero home — even for the most seemingly-eligible buyer.

Offsetting Energy with Community Solar

Individuals who are unable to qualify for a mortgage on a net-zero home, or those who aren’t ready to buy a new house can still offset their household’s energy use — with community solar.

For example, Boulder-based Clean Energy Collective (CEC) allows any homeowner, renter, business or municipality to purchase enough photovoltaic (PV) panels to zero out their electricity bill. The solar panels are located in a centralized solar array that serves all residents within a given utility territory, such as the Denver Community Solar Arrays that serve Xcel Energy customers. Instead of the clean energy being generated and consumed by a single residence, the solar power is fed back to the utility grid and enables an entire community to benefit from locally-sourced, renewable energy.

Mainstream by 2020?

But for those determined to live in a net-zero dwelling, more options are becoming available every month. SunPower and KB Homes have just announced a partnership to build «double» net-zero energy homes that will feature solar electric panels and battery back-up, in addition to energy-efficient appliances and water recycling.

As net-zero communities continue to be tested by housing developers across the country, some experts predict that these buildings could hit the mainstream market as early as 2020.

The original article was posted on the CEC blog.

Co-written with Natara Feller.

On August 22, the New York Public Service Commission (NY PSC) issued a proposed rule on the Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) initiative and comments were submitted throughout September. In short, the PSC intends to transform NY’s utilities into Distributed System Platform Providers (DSPPs), which will create, operate, plan, and police new markets for distributed energy resources (DER) and demand response (DR), in addition to acting as a local balancing authority (like a distribution level RTO). Retail Energy Providers (REPs aka ESCOs in NY) are asking, who will police the DSPPs and what will stop utility-affiliated generation from getting preferential treatment?

In our last post on this matter, we highlighted that REV may serve as one of the main driver’s of NY’s compliance efforts under the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. Now that REV’s form is taking shape, it’s being asked whether New York is sacrificing its freedom from monopoly control over the energy industry for the sake of expedience.  The question is whether utilities, rather than a third party, should take on this role, as the argument follows that utilities have the resources and ability to more easily expand into becoming DSPPs.

The Proposed Rule

The NY PSC’s August 22 proposal was focused on Track 1 issues, namely the design of DSPPs and how to get customers engaged. REV is moving in two tracks, with Track 2 focused on regulatory and ratemaking changes that will implement Track 1. Among other issues, the proposed rule focused on data access and customer awareness, as ESCOs and DER providers need to have access to consumer information and usage data in order to provide targeted demand management products to consumers.

Part of REV’s means for success is an information exchange that would provide energy use data to the provider, and information about energy services and costs to the customer. Further, an information exchange between ESCOs and customers has the added benefit of increasing customer awareness and engagement in their energy options.

Customer electricity usage data is not readily available to ESCOs due to existing privacy regulations, data acquisition technology limitations, data acquisition costs, and data hosting costs, which makes it impractical for ESCOs to offer time-of-use and targeted demand management products. The August 22 proposal identified recommendations to fix this:

• First, customers and energy service providers should have access to energy usage information. This adds an element of transparency and affords the customer an opportunity to assess the economic value of time and location variable usage. Customers are given the option to opt-out, in order to preserve customer privacy and security. Further, customers will have access to their own energy usage data in a secure and standard format.
• Second, to support ESCOs’ ability to develop customer offerings, Track 1 recommends a bi-directional electricity data information exchange. Through analysis of customer data, ESCOs will be able to offer opportunities for DER products and services. To better communicate this to the customer, Track 1 proposes that utilities make available approximately 1000 characters on their bills for ESCO bill messages concerning DER or other energy-related value-added products. ESCOs can therefore market directly to the consumer, based on their energy needs.

ESCO Industry Reacts: REV’s Ideas Are Great, Anti-Competitive Monopolies Aren’t

In addition to the above, the proposed rule generally confirmed that utilities will serve as DSPPs going forward, that they should be subject to performance reviews, that utilities can only own generation under specific circumstances, and that market protections must be in place where utility affiliates are operating as DER providers.

At the end of September numerous comments were submitted to the NY PSC on its August 22 proposal to institute REV. The National Energy Marketers Association (NEM) submitted that REV may create an environment for market power abuse and that, “measures should be considered so that regulated utilities are not allowed to exercise discriminatory or otherwise anticompetitive behavior that would stifle competition. One tool the Commission could consider is instituting a market cap limiting the degree of market penetration of a regulated utility.” The Retail Energy Supply Association (RESA) submitted that “[t]he Straw Proposal expands and solidifies the utility monopoly position with respect to DER. In its role as DSP the regulated utility should limit its activities to facilitating, promoting and operation of the DER market.”

Former FERC Chair Jon Wellinghoff, now partner at Stoel Rives, in conjunction with Katherine Hamilton and Jeffrey Cramer of 38 North Solutions, LLC, submitted six recommendations:

1. “Oversight of the [utility] should be comprehensive and diligent to prevent anti-competitive practices.”
2. “The [utility]  should not participate as a competitor to sell or install in DER market.”
3. “The interconnection process for distributed resources should be open and transparent.”
4. “There should be a clear delineation between market and operations sides of the DSP[P].”
5. “The planning process should be open and transparent.”
6. “Utilities should develop and submit a contingency plan to turn over operations to an independent [Distributed System Operator].”

The near-term priority at this point for many ESCOs is having direct access to customer data, which would allow ESCOs to offer DER products and expand the DER market. As the rule stands, ESCOs would only be able to access customer data in a second hand data exchange controlled by the utility. NYISO noted that lowering the need for peak capacity plants to stay online will require heavy planning integration between the PSC and NYISO. Utilities are generally enthusiastic and argue that their knowledge of the distribution system and their relationship with customers puts them in the ideal position.

Reply comments on Staff’s straw proposal are due on October 24, and a second technical conference on Track 1 will be held on November 6.

Lead image: New York map via Shutterstock

Ever wonder what happened to the notion last August that the city of Minneapolis (MN) would take over its energy utilities? While it may seem like the issue vanished, last Monday the Minneapolis City Council held a hearing on another way forward to a better energy future. On the table is a novel partnership between the city and Xcel Energy and CenterPoint Energy to meet the city’s ambitious equity, energy and environmental goals.

Why should the city opt for an untested utility partnership?

Over the past several years, Minneapolis has developed a comprehensive sustainability plan, including these ambitious targets: generating 10 percent of energy from local renewable energy sources, cutting energy use by 17 percent and reducing greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent by 2025. But there’s a big fly in the sustainability ointment. Two-thirds of the emissions from city residents and businesses come from energy sold by Xcel and CenterPoint.

In other words, the city’s sustainability success hinges on its ability to influence the use of its two largest energy sources: electricity and gas.

Read more of this published commentary at the Minneapolis Star Tribune…

Lead image: Minneapolis via Shutterstock