Trouble in the Wind

There is trouble brewing in the wind generation industry in Victoria. On 30 August AEMO (AustralianEnergy Market Operator) published its annual “Electricity Statement of Opportunities”, which summarises announced and planned investment in Australia’s electricity generation capacity. The document, and a 30 page Executive Briefing, is available on AEMO’s website.

“Committed” and “advanced” projects are 44.2% wind, 45.3% natural gas, and only 10.5% black coal or fuel oil. Over 16,000 MW of capacity is proposed for wind, with around one third of that in Victoria. Victoria has the best wind potential in Australia but current capacity is less than 500 MW. AEMO’s data has this increasing tenfold once announced projects are completed.

But even while the AEMO report was at the printers, the Victorian Government announced major restrictions on wind farms in Victoria. They include a two kilometre buffer zone between wind turbines and houses, and a requirement that they be at least five kilometres from major towns. The restrictions are at odds with many of the projects that have already been approved.

The announcement has already forced wind generators to move their attention from Victoria to other states. The government’s decision does not affect announced projects, but it remains possible that the planning rules that allowed these projects to be approved may yet be overturned, and that some projects may not proceed. Yet AEMO projects that Victoria’s generation needs will be significant over the next few years. 

The Victorian Government’s aversion to wind power is not based on the state’s electricity needs. It seems to be ideologically driven, with a strong dose of populism. Wind farm opponents are particularly vocal in Victoria, and have a political voice in the local branch of the National Party. Its policies are unfortunate, but the real test will be whether the projects already approved will proceed, or whether ideology will triumph over common sense.

NABERS goes Six Star

The widely used NABERS rating scale has been extended to six stars, which means it now uses a similar scale to the Green Star rating used by the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA). The extended rating will be given to buildings that exceed the existing five star rating by a significant margin.

Buildings currently rated at 5 stars that are performing at a 5.5 or 6 star level will be issued new certificates reflecting their new rating. This change does not affect other ratings, as the existing 0-5 star scale has not changed. New 6 star ratings are now available for NABERS energy and water ratings for offices, hotels and shopping centres. Other NABERS ratings will be extended by mid 2012. A 6 star rating is awarded for “market leading performance”, and represents a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions or water use from a 5 star rating.

NABERS (National Australian Built Environment Rating System) has been in use for many years to rate the environmental performance of buildings on a 1 to 5 scale, in four key areas: energy consumption, water consumption, waste management and the built environment. They key difference between Green Star and NABERS has been that Green Star rates a building’s design and construction , while NABERS rates a building’s operation once constructed. Green Star is voluntary and run by the industry, NABERS is mandated in many cases (such as when office space changes hands) and run by the government (the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage on behalf of all Australia governments).

Both systems are in widespread use. They are unlikely to be amalgamated, because of their different purposes, but the tweaking of NABERS to an extra star does as least mean some level of alignment. It will still be the case that when someone talks of a “six star building” it will be necessary to ask whether it’s a six star Green Star or a six star NABERS, so we will probably start to hear terminology like “double six star”.

Environmental building standards in Australia remain a hodgepodge of competing and confusing systems operated by various levels of government and private industry. This is not about to change – but at least there is some agreement on the number of stars that represents peak performance.

How would Australia cope with severe electricity cuts?

The recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and the subsequent severe cuts in the nation’s electricity output, have led to extensive mandatory and voluntary energy-saving measures across the country.

Large corporations in Japan have been ordered to cut their peak electricity load by 15%, and small and medium corporations and households have been asked to make the same level of cuts voluntarily. The entire Japanese car industry has switched its weekend to Thursday and Friday to help lower peak electricity.

Air conditioners across the country (which gets very hot and sticky in the summer) have been set at 28 degrees, which has meant shirtsleeves and no ties for Japanese businessman, normally the most conservative of dressers. Business people everywhere are sporting “Super Cool Biz” badges to show they have embraced the energy-saving mantra.

The effect has been dramatic. Peak electricity demand has dropped 30% compared to last summer. There is a real feeling of national solidarity as the company copes with the problems of reduced energy capacity.

How would Australia cope in similar circumstances? I was asked by a Japanese colleague to suggest what we might do if, say, some natural disaster took out a similar amount of our generating capacity.

My feeling is that Australia would cope rather well. Nearly 90% of our electricity generating capacity is covered by the National Electricity Market (NEM), which covers all of Australia except Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Capacity can be switched around the NEM, so a local problem would allow a national response. The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), which manages the NEM, would be able to apply and enforce any rules it deemed suitable, including mandating the sorts of cuts that have been made in Japan.

I believe Australian consumers would also embrace voluntary cuts. When faced with a crisis or a national call to action, Australians respond well – the Sydney Olympics were a triumph of organisation. Daylight saving time was extended, Sydney’s traffic patterns were altered, and the population made a genuine effort to make things happen. Australians can be a cynical lot, and we certainly lack the social cohesion of Japan, which is one of the world’s most homogenous societies, but we also have a community spirit that is missing in fragmented societies like the USA and the United Kingdom.

Cutting 15% off Australia’s peak load would be relatively easy to implement and enforce. We have the regulatory framework, the infrastructure, and under appropriate circumstances we would have the national will. It is unlikely a tsunami will roll up the Hunter Valley, or an earthquake shatter the vast brown coal generators of Gippsland, but if that were to happen I’m sure we’d cope.

The real challenge, which we are facing right now, is how we deal with incremental change. Australia will have to wean itself off coal generation at some time in the future. We are making half-hearted moves in that direction, but in the absence of a compelling event our efforts are feeble. Perhaps we need something like the scale of the Japanese emergency to force us to act.

Cisco withdraws from REM market

Cisco has followed in the recent footsteps of Google and Microsoft by announcing that it is withdrawing from the Residential Energy Management (REM) market. The details and rationale were explained in a blog from Laura Ipsen, Senior Vice President in Cisco’s Smart Grid business.

“Over the past two years the home and building energy management markets have evolved in such a way that we believe we can provide more value to our customers and the industry by enabling interoperability through our core networking products and solutions as part of our integrated architecture within the broader Smart Grid effort.

“For building energy management, this means we are actively pursuing several strategic options for Cisco’s Network Building Mediator and Mediator Manager product line, with an emphasis on minimising the impact on current customers, partners and employees. For energy management in the home, we will transition our focus from creating premise energy management devices to using the network as the platform for supporting innovative applications and architectures that will improve our customers’ value proposition in the consumer energy management market”.

Cisco has had an end-to-end approach to Smart Grids through its Connected Grid strategy, with REM one of the building blocks. There were a number of announcements a year or so ago, including a touch-screen in-home display (IHD) and energy management software for monitoring and controlling energy use. The IHD connects to smart meters, with Ethernet and WiFi connectivity to a home network.

Cisco’s withdrawal from the market is less of a surprise than Microsoft and Google’s withdrawals (see SER blog, July 2011). Cisco is well placed to provide the network and connectivity capabilities across the Smart Grid infrastructure, but REM is a more specialised area and clearly not core business for the company.

REM will be a significant market in the long term, but it is currently fragmented and immature. That is likely to be the case until smart meter and Smart Grid technology is more settled. Already there are many specialist companies offering a range of solutions. It is possible Microsoft and Google will re-enter the market through acquisition, when the dust has settled, but it doesn’t really make much sense for Cisco to be there at all, except to provide the connectivity.

A version of this article first appeared in The Green IT Review (www.thegreenitreport.com)

Climate Scepticism on the Rise

Most Australians believe that climate change is a major problem to the planet, but an increasing number of people are sceptics or denialists. The chart shows the responses to the question “Do you agree or disagree with the statement that climate change is a major problem to the planet?” over the four years Connection Research has been asking the question in surveys.

The results shows a steady increase in denialism (“strongly disagree”) and scepticism (“disagree” and “neutral”). The number who “agree” has remained about the same, while the number of those who “strongly agree” has declined sharply. The most recent results are from Connection Research’s Interconnected Home survey, which polled 5,333 households. All the surveys were of at least 2,000 people.

The results indicate the success of the denialist campaign. It is led by News Limited media, many on the conservative side of politics, and populist radio shock jocks. Even media organisations such as Fairfax and the ABC have contributed, by giving equal coverage to loony antiscientists like Christopher Monckton.

Connection Research has commented elsewhere on the psychology and politics of climate change denialism. The debate, which should not be a debate at all, is a classic example of how obfuscation and double-think can drive out science, facts and rationality. The is room in science for scepticism, indeed that is one of the scientific method’s defining characteristics, but the methods being employed by those who refuse to believe the evidence goes way beyond that.

There is some good news. There are still many more “warmists” than denialists. Two thirds of people still agree climate change is a problem, and the number who strongly agree has stopped declining. But that still leaves many denialists – enough to give the semblance of a balanced debate.

Is UCG the answer?

Brisbane company Carbon Energy (www.carbonenergy.com.au) has announced it has started generating electricity at its 5MW Bloodwood Creek facility near Dalby, using underground coal gasification (UCG) technology. The company has a contract with Ergon Energy to start supplying electricity to the grid in October of this year.

Carbon Energy’s technology is very different from the better known coal seam gas (CSG) method of extracting energy from the gas deposits which accompany all coal deposits. CSG recovers gas held in fractures of underground coal seams by water and ground pressure, and involves drilling into the coal seam and pumping groundwater in to force the gas to the surface. It often involves the controversial process of “fracking” – fracture stimulation – which fractures underground coal seams in order to increase the flow of gas and water.

UCG, by contrast, transforms solid coal into gas on site. A small amount of natural gas is pumped down ta well to heat the coal and initialise the gasification process. Air, or a combination of oxygen and steam, is then pumped into the coal seam, which initiates a reaction that converts the coal into gas. The technology was used in Soviet Russia in the 1930s, but never achieved large scale production because of the difficulty in maintaining a consistent quality of gas throughout the extraction process.

Carbon Energy was spun out from the CSIRO in 2007 to commercialise the process, which CSIRO had been working on for ten years. They key was to ensure a consistent flow of gas, necessary to bring the technology to commercial reality. That has been done. The technology creates “syngas”, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, which can be used to generate electricity by conventional means. Carbon Energy has pilot projects in the USA, Turkey, Chile and India. The company is listed on the ASX (CNX), with Incitec Pivot as its biggest shareholder.

UCG shows promise. It cannot be used on all coal seams, but has few of the environmental problems of CSG. The commercialisation of the technology through Carbon Energy’s relationship with Ergon is extremely promising, and may lead to large scale production across Australia.

Smart Meters in Texas – Lessons for Australia?

The US State of Texas is often mentioned as having the most similar electricity market to Australia’s. Since 2002 most of Texas has been a single partially deregulated market, similar to eastern Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM). Each market serves a population of about 20 million people.

So what is happening in Texas with smart meters may be a good indicator of what might happen in Australia. A recent survey in Texas of 500 participants in a smart meter and in-home display (IHD) pilot program showed that 71% of customers reported changing their electricity consumption behaviour as a result of having access to their energy use data.

The survey was carried out on the back of the implementation of smart meters and smart grid technology, partly funded with a $200m Smart Grid Investment Grant from the US Department of Energy. The survey responses showed that:

• 83% of respondents reported turning off lights at night or when not in the room
• 51% adjusted the temperature on their thermostat
• 93% reported they are satisfied with their in-home display, and 97% reported they will continue using it.

To date, wholesaler CenterPoint Energy has installed nearly 1.5 million smart meters in its 2.2 million have a smart meter can get detailed information on their electric usage by visiting the SmartMeterTexas.com website. In the future they will have the option of purchasing an IHD, providing them with up-to-the-minute usage information.

There is some scepticism about the use of smart meters, particularly if all they do is provide information about energy use, as in this case. Many customers obviously find it interesting to see how and when energy is used and the impact changes in use can have, but there is no guarantee that the novelty will not wear off. This survey confirms that this would show if it has had any long term effect on behaviour.

Smart meters may have some impact on their own, but they are likely to only really come into their own when they are combined with other Smart Grid technologies that offer differential pricing, so customers can actively manage energy use to save money. Without that, the best bet to reduce usage is to provide online analysis that shows the customer’s electricity use compared with figures for neighbours. Wanting to do better than others (and save more money than they do) is a powerful incentive.

A version of this article first appeared in The Green IT Review (www.thegreenitreport.com)

Green IT – Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Australian IT departments are not taking Green IT seriously. Most CIOs say they want to be green, but they are doing very little about it. And the main reason is that do not have to pay for the power their computers use – it is hidden away in the corporate electricity bill.

Less than one percent of Australian IT departments include the power consumption of IT in their IT budgets. And guess what – those few that do are on average much more energy-efficient than those that don’t.

The cost of Green IT
is hidden in the IT budget

Connection Research has devised the IT Sustainability Index (ITSx – formerly known as the Green IT Index), which rates organisations’ effectiveness in five different areas of IT Sustainability –Lifecycle, End User, Enterprise, Enablement and Metrics. The average ITSx in Australia this year is 52.8, down a little from 53.9 in 2010. But the average rating for those who include the cost of IT energy consumption in the IT budget is a whopping 82.3 – nearly 30 points higher.

For those who have no idea how much power IT is consuming, the figure is just 46.1. And for those who know who much power IT is consuming, but do not include it in the IT budget, the figure is 60.3.

The conclusion is obvious. The higher the visibility of IT’s power consumption, the more effective an organisation’s IT Sustainability strategy will be. And that’s across the board, not just in energy efficiency. It shows up in such areas as green procurement and using IT as a low carbon enabling tool.

The Carbon Price and Why We Need it

The government has released its draft carbon price bill. The proposed legislation is actually contained in 14 separate bills, which the government refers to as its “Clean Energy Legislative Package”. The most important are:

•  The Clean Energy Bill 2011, which sets up the carbon price mechanism.
• Clean Energy Regulator Bill 2011, which establishes a regulatory body to administer the mechanism – the so-called “carbon cop".
• The Climate Change Authority Bill 2011, which establishes a new authority to advise the government on the future design of the carbon price mechanism.
• The Clean Energy (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2011, amending existing legislation in the area to align it with the new bills.

The government is seeking comments on the draft bills until 22 August. It will then finalise them and attempt to get them through both houses of parliament later this year, so they can take effect from 1 July next year.

There have been the predictable howls of outrage from the opposition and the usual suspects. They have relied on their favoured tactics of obfuscation and downright lies to discredit the bill’s aims. Few of their arguments stand up to close scrutiny – the consensus of economists, scientists and most of those in the business world is that Australia needs a price on carbon, and that the community needs the certainty that such a price will bring.

The government is attempting to use – shock horror – facts and logic to counter these arguments. Number one salesman is Climate Change Minister Greg Combet. He has been travelling the country explain the legislation to whoever will listen. His, and the government’s, arguments are nowhere better put than an address he gave to the Sydney University Law School on 27 July.

“It is important to note that the Government’s clean energy future policy is a classic example of evidence-based policy,” he said. “In this case, the evidence is the science – another feature of the current debate that has also sadly attracted an extraordinary amount of mindless opposition. Climate change is on the national and international agenda because of the strong scientific consensus.”

Combet then outlined the arguments contained in the Climate Commission’s recent report “The Critical Decade”, which are worth repeating because they are a superb summary of the reasons action is necessary:

• There is no doubt that the climate is changing. The evidence is overwhelming and clear. 

• It is beyond reasonable doubt that human activities - the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation - are triggering the changes we are witnessing in the global climate.

• With less than 1 degree of warming, the impacts of climate change are already being felt in Australia and around the world.

• The risks of future climate change – to our economy, society and environment – are serious and grow rapidly with each further increase in temperature.

• Minimising risks requires deep and ongoing transformational shifts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

• We need to begin now to make these transformations; to decarbonise our economy and move to clean energy sources.

It’s really that simple. Time to cut to the chase and get on with the job.

A Green Wave at Swinburne

Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne has opened an Energy Management Research Centre (EMRC). “The facility will be pioneering in intelligent management of home energy use, and will be an international showpiece of technology, education, and collaboration,” says Professor Leon Stirling, Dean of Swinburne’s Faculty of Information and Communications Technologies.

The EMRC will contain an R&D centre, a demonstration and training facility, and a seminar and conference hall. It will feature energy conservation demonstrations showcasing energy efficiency technologies from Australia and around the world. The showpiece of the centre will be a 3D “tele-immersive” Energy Efficiency Demonstration Room that will be used to demonstrate the real-time impact of energy conservation measures and technologies. The centre will be located at the university’s Hawthorn campus.

greenwavereality.com

Swinburne has partnered with Danish-American residential energy management (REM) vendor GreenWave to open the centre. GreenWave has developed a range of REM products, including in-house displays (IHDs), energy monitoring devices, and an Internet energy management platform.

GreenWave does not sell direct to consumers, but intends to partner with energy suppliers to find larger markets for its products. Many of its senior executives, including CEO Greg Memo, and board members come from Cisco. Given Cisco’s interest in the REM market, and its track record of acquisitions, it would not surprise to see Cisco make a bid for GreenWave when the time is right.

Meanwhile, GreenWave has a beachhead in Australia with the EMRC at Swinburne. No deals with Australian energy distributors have been announced, but you have to ask yourself why a start-up REM company based in Irvine, Calfornia, with manufacturing operations in Singapore and marketing out of Denmark, would make the effort.

Expect to hear a lot more of GreenWave (or will it be Cisco?)