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ORegen Can Take the Heat: GE Lights up the Prairie with Hot Air

Every day Canada’s Alliance Pipeline scoops 1.6 billion cubic feet of natural gas from British Columbia and Alberta and hauls it 2,300 miles south to American consumers in Chicago. Along the way there are 14 compressor stations powered by giant GE turbines that pump up the pressure in the pipeline and goose the gas along. But the compressors also shed a lot of heat on the cold Canadian prairie, which is a waste.

For more information, see the full GE Report here

From Clean Edge News

According to the most recent issue of the “Monthly Energy Review” by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), with data through September 30, 2011, renewable energy sources continue to expand while outpacing the growth rates of fossil fuels and nuclear power. For the first nine months of 2011, renewable energy sources (i.e., biomass/biofuels, geothermal, solar, water, wind) provided 11.95% of domestic U.S. energy production. That compares to 10.85% for the same period in 2010 and 10.33% in 2009. By comparison, nuclear power provided 10.62% of the nation’s energy production in the first three quarters of 2011 — i.e., 11.10% less than renewables. Read the rest of this entry »

from the L.A. Times — Nathan Olivarez-Giles

Google announced that it’s investing $94 million in solar panel farms in the Sacramento area.

The money will go toward four photovoltaic, or PV, panel farms built by San Francisco-based Recurrent Energy, owned by tech-giant Sharp, and will help fuel the project alongside funding from investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., said Axel Martinez, Google’s assistant treasurer, in a company blog post Tuesday.

Read the rest of this entry »

Clean Edge publishes periodic reports – some free, others by subscription – focusing on clean-tech issues for both innovators and investors. Read excerpts from and download their most recent reports, for example:

• Clean Energy Trends 2011
• A Future of Innovation & Growth
• Five Emerging US Public Finance Models
• any others…

Access the reports here

The largest commercial solar projects ever approved in Connecticut have won the backing of state regulators and could provide more sources of renewable energy to electricity distributors Connecticut Light & Power Co. and United Illuminating.

Solar power plants in East Lyme and Somers were approved by the state Department of Energy & Environmental Protection and were chosen from a field of 21 proposals as part of a new competitive bidding process by the state to increase sources of renewable energy in Connecticut and drive down costs.

The two projects each would supply five megawatts of power to the electric grid. One megawatt can serve about 1,000 homes.

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Coping With 7 Billion: Water Treatment

Original Article: GE Reports | November 9, 2011

When it comes to water use, the numbers tell a bleak story. While the world’s population has tripled to 7 billion over the last century, water consumption has increased six fold. According to estimates, by 2025 some 5.3 billion people, or more than two thirds of the total population, will suffer from water shortages. The lack of water is already palpable. For example, ground water depletion in Mexico City has made the metropolis sink by 30 feet. As a result, some two million residents lack piped water.

Industry plays a significant role in the unfolding water drama. Some 20% of fresh water resources are swallowed by factories, power plants, refineries and other industrial installations. In the U.S., industrial water use approaches 45% of all water use, but just 6% is being reused.

That’s where GE Water & Process Technologies comes in. “If you think about 20% of the world’s freshwater, that’s a tremendous opportunity to start turning the crisis around,” says Jack Noble, the GE division’s Europe region executive.

Read the rest of this entry »

GE Breakthrough Aims to Cut Solar Costs in Half

by GE Reports | Original Article

Despite great leaps in solar panel technology, the biggest obstacle hindering their widespread use is quite pedestrian: stubbornly high installation costs. While the cost of panels has dropped by half since 2007, total installation costs, which include panels, labor and additional equipment, declined just 20% over the same period. Charlie Korman, manager of Solar Energy programs at GE’s Global Research Center, in Niskayuna, New York, says that for the market to take off “we need to get to the point where people can buy the system without relying on subsidies.”

GE Engineers Neil Johnson and Christian Wagner from Korman’s team assemble a solar panel array.

Korman is working hard to get there. He and his team of GE engineers have developed a system that aims to bring installation costs from the current $6.50 per watt to just $3. At that price, the savings provided by the panels would more than offset the expense of mounting them on the roof.

Korman’s solution is elegantly simple. “Right now, solar panel arrays are essentially high-voltage systems,” he says. In such a system, the panels are linked in a row like rail cars and feed 600 volts or more into a single high-voltage cable. To handle all this voltage, home owners must hire specially trained installation workers, buy equipment switching the direct electrical current generated by the panels to the 120-volt alternating current used by most home appliances, and install special wiring.

But GE’s engineers have found a solution to get around this problem and do it cheaply. They’ve built solar panels that can be linked in such a way that the output is socket-ready alternating current. They’ve also designed a standard installation kit so that the array can be assembled by an ordinary roofing contractor in half a day, as opposed to the two days it takes at the present. Korman says that the system has 60% fewer components than the current high-voltage kits. His goal is to slash installation costs by half and cut energy waste. “It’s is going to be good for 25 years,” he says.

GE has built a working prototype of the system and Korman’s engineers are exploring next commercial steps with other GE businesses.

GE is one of the largest investors in renewable energy. Last week the company announced plansto build a new plant near Denver, Colorado, producing high-efficiency thin film solar panels. The $300 million investment will create 355 high-tech manufacturing jobs. The company will also hire 100 new researchers at the Niskayuna research center.

The U.S. solar energy market stood at $4 billion in 2010. U.S. installed solar capacity is expected to nearly triple to 4.5 gigawatt in 2015.