Renewable Energy: How Far and How Fast

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Renewable Energy How Far and How Fast
Lawrence Papay, Member, U.S. National Academy
of Engineering CAETS 2009 Calgary July 14, 2009
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Key Objectives of whole AEF Phase I
Foundational Study

• Provide authoritative estimates of the current
  contributions and future potential of existing
  and new energy supply and demand technologies,
  impacts and costs
• Critically review existing work - dont reinvent
  the wheel
• Not to recommend policy choices, but assess the
  state of development of technologies
• Lay groundwork for action-oriented Phase II
  studies policy and strategies

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Americas Energy Future Technology
Opportunities, Risks and Tradeoffs

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Additional Information on the Americas Energy
Future Effort
October 2008
May 20, 2009
Est. July 9, 2009
June 15, 2009
Final Report, Est. July 15, 2009 Americas Energy
Future Technology and Transformation

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Panel on Electricity from Renewables Study Charge

• The panel will examine the technical potential
  for electric power generation with alternative
  sources such as wind, solar photovoltaic,
  geothermal, solar thermal, hydroelectric, and
  other renewable sources.
• Initial deployment times lt 10 years costs,
  performance, and impacts
• 10 to 25 years barriers, implications for
  costs, and RD challenges/needs
• gt 25 years barriers and RD challenges/needs,
  especially basic research needs
• Primary focus is the quantitative
  characterization of technologies with deployment
  times lt 10 years - renewable sources showing the
  most promise for a substantial impact in the near
  to mid-term
• Panel will address the challenges of
  incorporating such technologies into the power
  grid (in consultation with TD subgroup of main
  AEF committee)

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Panel on Electricity from Renewables
LAWRENCE T. PAPAY, NAE, PQR, LLC, Chair ALLEN J.
BARD, NAS, University of Texas, Austin, Vice
Chair RAKESH AGRAWAL, NAE, Purdue
University WILLIAM CHAMEIDES, NAS, Duke
University JANE DAVIDSON, University of
Minnesota, Minneapolis MIKE DAVIS, Pacific
Northwest National Laboratory KELLY FLETCHER,
General Electric CHARLES GAY, Applied
Materials CHARLES GOODMAN, Southern Company
Services, Inc. (retired) SOSSINA HAILE,
California Institute of Technology NATHAN LEWIS,
California Institute of Technology KAREN PALMER,
Resources for the Future JEFFREY PETERSON, New
York State Energy Research and Development
Authority KARL RABAGO, Austin Energy CARL
WEINBERG, Pacific Gas and Electric Company
(retired) KURT YEAGER, Galvin Electricity
Initiative
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Status of Renewable Power in the U.S.

• Renewables are a modest 10 of all generated
  power
• 6-7 is hydroelectricity (depending on water
  conditions)
• Biomass (2) and wind (1) make up most of the
  rest
• But growth rates for renewables are impressive
• Wind 23 compounded growth (1997-2006)
• Installed capacity 5.2 GW (2007), 8.4 GW
  (2008), and 2.8 GW for the first quarter in 2009
• Solar PV over 30 compounded growth (2000-2008),
  mainly on demand side, but from a very low base

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Renewable Resources
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Estimate of wind power resource base

• Pacific Northwest National Laboratory estimates
  on-shore wind resources at 11 million GWh per
  year from Class 3 and higher regions
• Actual wind resource could be higher or lower
• Wind electricity potential estimated from
  point-source measurements at 50 m -modern wind
  turbines can have hub heights of 80 m or higher,
  where more wind energy resource is likely to be
  available.
• Model simulations of very-large-scale wind farms
  show the potential for agglomeration of
  point-source wind speed data over large areas to
  overestimate the actual wind energy resource and
  show that extraction of a large fraction of the
  energy might impact meteorology and climate
• Assuming extraction of a limit of 20 percent of
  the energy in the wind field, an upper value for
  the extractable wind electric potential would be
  about 2.2 million GWh/yr (compared to 2008
  electricity generation of 4 million GWh)
• Significant offshore resources also exist (on the
  order of the on-shore resources for distances
  5-50 nautical miles offshore)

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Solar Energy Resources in the United States
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Estimate of solar resource base

• The solar energy resource base is very large
• Assuming 230 Watts per square meter as
  representative mid-latitude, day/night average
  solar insolation, solar resource provides
  equivalent of 16 billion GWh of electric energy
  annually to continental US
• At 10 percent average conversion efficiency would
  provide annual 1.6 billion GWh/yr (compared to
  2008 electricity generation of 4 million GWh)
• Coverage of 0.25 percent of the land area of the
  continental United States would be required to
  generate 4 million GWh
• Estimates of the rooftop area suitable for
  installation of PV have been performed
  state-by-state potential generation ranges
  greatly (from one to 15 million GWh)

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Resource Finding

• Clearly there is a great deal of wind and solar
  resources and lesser amounts of geothermal,
  biomass, and hydropower to develop
• However, these resources are distributed unevenly
  around the country
• Solar and wind are intermittent and pose
  challenges for integration into the electricity
  system
• Further, although the size of the resource base
  is impressive, there are economic and
  deployment-related considerations to using these
  sources on a large scale

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Technology Advances
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Technology Finding

• Clearly some technologies are sufficiently
  developed and are being deployed - such as wind
  turbines, solar PV and concentrating solar power,
  traditional geothermal (hydrothermal), and
  biomass
• These technologies are improving in cost and
  performance (examples shown in the next slide)
• Over the time frame through 2020, these
  technologies are technically ready for
  accelerated deployment at commercial scales
• There are other technologies that are further
  away, including enhanced geothermal, wave and
  tidal energy, and ocean thermal gradient
  technologies

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Levelized Cost of Electricity for Selected
Renewable Technologies in 2010 and 2020 from
various studies
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Cost Competitiveness of Wind versus Natural Gas
Impacts of the PTC
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Economics Finding

• Renewable electricity is generally more costly
  (except for hydro and wind, and hydrothermal in
  some cases) to produce than electricity from
  fossil fuels
• Policy incentives (renewable portfolio standards,
  production tax credits) have been required to
  drive increases
• Improvements in technology and stable and clear
  public policies will be required for renewable
  technologies to improve their cost competitive
  position

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Life-cycle Emissions of Greenhouse Gases (in CO2
Equivalents) for Various Sources of Electricity
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Life Cycle Analysis of Land Use Impacts (does not
include land use impacts from extraction)
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Environmental Impacts

• Renewable electricity technologies are attractive
  since they generally have inherently low
  life-cycle carbon dioxide emissions
• Renewables generally have low levels of other
  atmospheric emissions and water use
• The diffuse nature of the resources means that
  the technologies must be spread over large
  collection areas
• This is mitigated somewhat because the land may
  be used for multiple uses and impacts tend to
  remain localized

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US and World Wide Wind Turbine Material Usage
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The Cash Flow Valley of Death for the Process
from Product Development to Commercialization
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Effects of PTC Expiration and Extension on Wind
Power Investment
PTC extended to 2012 2008 installation 8.4
GW 2009 first quarter 2.8 GW
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Deployment
Consideration of deployment issues is key just
having adequate technologies capable of
efficiency and reliably producing electricity is
not sufficient to have non-hydro renewable make a
significant (10-20) contribution to US
electricity systemKey factors impacting the
wide-scale deployment and integration of
renewable energy sources

• Relatively high costs (especially in absence of
  price on carbon)
• Supply of materials
• Inertia
• Perception of risk performance uncertainty
• Inadequate workforce
• Complex decision making policy setting
• Infrastructure limitations

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• Scale of Deployment is Critical
• Department of Energy study of 20 percent wind
  penetration by 2030 demonstrates challenges and
  potential opportunities
• 100,000 wind turbines
• 100 billion dollars of additional capital
  investments and transmission upgrades 140,000
  jobs
• 800 million metric tons of CO2 emissions annually
  eliminated ( 20 of electricity sector
  emissions)
• 50,000 kilometers2 of land area (2-5 of which is
  directly needed for turbines)
• In the panels opinion, increasing manufacturing
  and installation capacity, employment, and
  financing to meet this goal is doable, but the
  magnitude of the challenge is clear from the
  scale of such an effort

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Deployment Potential Finding

• The readiness of conventional hydropower, wind,
  solar photovoltaics and concentrating solar
  power, hydrothermal, and biopower technologies
  are such that they could comprise up to 20
  percent of all electricity generation by 2020, up
  from about 10 percent today (most/all growth in
  non-hydropower part of renewables)
• By 2035, further deployment based on current and
  improved technologies and supportive public
  policies, could result in non-hydro renewables
  collectively providing 20 percent or more of
  domestic electricity generation

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• Renewables Integration
• Wind solar provide intermittent power must be
  integrated into electricity systems that also
  includes base load and peak generation
• Transmission capacity and other grid improvements
  are critical for significant penetration of
  renewable electricity sources
• Transmission improvements - new resources into
  the system, geographical diversity in generation
  base, access to regional wholesale electricity
  markets
• Distribution improvements - two-way electricity
  flow, time-of-day pricing
• 20 percent intermittent renewables would require
  grid improvements, fast-responding generation,
  but no electricity storage
• predominant (i.e., gt50 percent) level of
  renewable electricity penetration will require
  storage, new scientific advances, and dramatic
  changes in how we generate, transmit, and use
  electricity

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Achieving Greatly Increased Penetration of
Renewable Electricity

• Sustained actions involving the coordination of
  policy, technology, and capital investment will
  be essential
• Although continued technological advances are
  critical, the degree of penetration also is
  determined by actions that collectively center on
  sustainably improving the economic competiveness
  and on policy initiatives that have a positive
  impact on competitive balance and the ease of
  deployment of renewable electricity.
• The promise of renewable resources is that they
  offer significant potential for low-carbon
  generation of electricity from domestic sources
  of energy that are much less vulnerable to fuel
  cost increases than are other electricity
  sources.