Energy Solutions for a Greener America | from the National Electrical Contractors Association

By Joe Salimando                  www.eleblog.com

We’re all entitled to have our own opinions. But – despite what typically happens in political debates (as in “climate change”) these days, no one is entitled to tell you what the facts are. Facts is facts!

Let’s take the case of an iceberg three times the size of Manhattan, detaching itself from an ages-old frozen structure. You can debate what it means, and what it proves (or doesn’t prove) . . . but you cannot argue with that fact.

Many electrical contractors might be thinking right now about whether to get in on the electric vehicle charging station business. Let’s look at some facts about the near-term future to solidify your thinking (so you can come to a more-informed decision) about where EVs are going between now and 2015:

1. The Chevy Volt and the Nissan Leaf are coming to market this fall, each in a limited release.

2. GM has said that it envisions a wider release of the Volt in the next 12-18 months. Add 18 months to September 2010, and you have February 2012.  See this item, which deals with what GM has said about its EV plans in its recent IPO filing.

3. According to reports I’ve read, there are 15 other companies planning to bring EVs to the market in 2011-12.  Google “electric vehicles 2012” and you’ll come across headlines such as “Honda plans EV, plug-in in 2012” and “Ford unveils plans for four electric cars by 2012,” and stuff about companies from Toyota to Tesla.

Side note: According to one blogger, at next month’s Frankfurt Auto Show, Renault will show only EVs. Think about that!

4. GM and Nissan will be able to annually assemble, combined, 195,000 EVs beginning along about 2012 (reference). Now, that’s not going to lead to market domination for EVs over gasoline-powered vehicles. However, if they make and sell those things, we’re talking about the need to install at least 195,000 home charging stations nationally in the year beginning September 2012. Or a significant number of “fleet” charging stations. Just for GM + Nissan.

Side note: See the news that Enterprise Rent-A-Car is buying 500 Leafs.

5. Yes, yes, yes – you can plug some of these cars into a 120V outlet, the one most people already have in a garage. However, to assure yourself of getting all of the Volt’s 40-mile range on batteries, it probably will take 10 hours to get to a full charge. For the Leaf (100-mile range), we’re talking 20 hours of this “trickle” charging.

Does that sound reasonable to you?

Folks who think they know something guess that people are going to want faster charging (and they’ll need an EC to get it). Check out this blog on alternatives for the Nissan Leaf from a “passionate alternative car enthusiast.”

6. You might want to get up-to-date – NOW – on the two fledgling DoE-funded (you paid for ‘em!) EV charging station experiments that are going on. One is Charge Point America, involving a company with the name Coulomb Technologies (nice name, eh?). The other is The EV Project, which features a company called ECOtality.

Each of these efforts – and the initial marketing plans of GM and Nissan, which are (of course) separate – envisions initial penetration by EVs in limited and selected geographical areas/localities. The idea is to roll out the things, see who bites, find out what the charging-station problems might be, see if any local-area utility distribution transformers blow up (!!!) – etc.

So you have to look at the years 2011-2015 as some kind of grand national experiment with EVs. Yes, experiments do fail. But some succeed!

7.  Yes, there are all kinds of problems that skeptics and others have and will conjure up for you. It’s not entirely clear that EVs are 100% good for the environment (the E stands for electricity, half of U.S. power comes from coal, etc.). There are folks who will do a Btu analysis for you, and it may not come out the way you like. Others note that the Volt, which is not exactly a huge vehicle, retails for $41,000 – and the $7,500 federal tax credit doesn’t really get the price close to, say, $17,500.

For the individual driver, the dollars per mile of the FUEL (electricity vs. gasoline) is going to work out in favor of the EV. Send crude oil prices back up to $147/barrel (which I am willing to bet will actually happen in a few years) – and the EV advantage expands.

My personal view: The U.S. dollar was losing value when Alan Greenspan and Hank Paulson were done. Timothy Geithner and Ben S. Bernanke have taken the dollar’s value down further (your reference for this is the price of gold, which was under $500/oz. in August 2005, and this month is topping $1,200/oz.).

So my view is that we should trade these shrinking, valueless pieces of paper for all of the crude oil we can get from the Arabs and that nutjob Chavez. Let’s drain ‘em dry, as long as they’ll accept our worthless currency.

But that’s another story, isn’t it?

Without getting into all of that, there are other potential problems – to which we all should pay attention – in the implementation of EV charging stations. For example, a few weeks ago Jesse Berst, who is an impressive writer and thinker on The Smart Grid, penned ATMs for Electricity . . . I did not previously consider a public charging station to be some kind of electrical equivalent of a bank’s ATM.  Did you?

It’s about NOW

For those in the electrical industry, the fact that the nation is about to engage in a national experiment with EVs is both exciting and nerve-racking. But for electrical contactors, the facts are:

(a)  the experiment IS going forward, will last at least a few years, and is of serious dimensions;

(b)  they can’t do it without you – they really can’t, trickle charging is some kind of bad joke; and

(c)   the national EV experiment will create work for ECs at precisely the time when work is in short supply.

Yes, it would be nice if this could be seen as a sure thing, with this experiment guaranteed to succeed and EV use expanding beyond 2015 (and beyond a few million cars) onto a wonderful, emissions-free future.

But right now, most electrical people with whom I speak are worrying more about 2010 and 2011 than the year 2030. That seems appropriate; and if that’s where you are, EVs might just brighten your view of the immediate future.

By Joe Salimando                  www.eleblog.com

The issue of renewable energy subsidies seems to me – and to others – an issue that’s besides the point. Instead, a good question might be: Exactly what sector of our economy is the federal government (and some of the states) NOT subsidizing?

And the subsidies didn’t start with Bush-Obama. A lot of our problems (if you ask me) stem from the federal subsidizes to housing, including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As you may not know, the fedgov is STILL subsidizing housing purchases (you can buy a house as a first-time buyer with just 3.5% down, FHA says here).

Solar vs. Nuclear

However, the subject came to the fore recently with a study, Solar and Nuclear Costs – The Historic Crossover.  Read about it (enthusiastic embrace) here; it’s the work of researchers at Duke U. (download 18p PDF free).  So maybe it’s true . . . perhaps the cost of solar-PV-generated electricity is actually cheaper than nuclear power!

Before you send a HeyWaitOneDoggoneMinute e-mail: There are a bellyful of objections to the enthusiasm; for an outstanding example, see this blog.

Here are my personal notes on this:

• Solar is subsidized – yes, it is. There are federal and state subsidies.  Financially, the thing can’t stand alone (I talked to an electrical person who wanted to do a solar PV install at his facility but couldn’t, even with the subsidies, get to a payback of faster than 17 years). The Duke researchers apparently cruised right on by this.

• But nuclear power is also subsidized. Federal legislation “caps” the liability of anyone associated with a nuclear power plant that has an accident. Did you know that? The last time it was up for reauthorization, it was said that without renewal of the Price-Anderson “no-fault” coverage (provided by the federal government!) no insurance company would even consider insuring a nuke – and thus no nukes would get built.

• Additionally, there are now $ subsidies for nuclear power, too, included in President Obama’s stimulus effort.

• And the big issue for alternative energy promoters is getting legislation that would impose a 15% RES. Isn’t that a subsidy of sorts?

Fossil Fuels vs. Alternative Energy

Back in May, at the Wind Energy event, I became aware of a company called New Energy Finance. It’s provides information; the speaker I saw from NEF (Tyler Tringas) put forth a rather negative point-of-view about the future of wind (at, remember, the big wind show). Strange? No; there’s something to be said for integrity, even today!

Turns out NEF was purchased in 12/09 by Bloomberg, so the recent NEF analysis of fossil fuel and renewable energy subsidies got plenty of play – see the Bloomberg report on it and the Business Week story (BW is owned by Bloomberg, too).

Bottom line finding: Globally, for every dollar governments expend to subsidize renewable energy sources (wind, solar), they fork over $12 to subsidize fossil fuels.

Surprising? Maybe not. And it might not even be “wrong,” if you think about it; we need this fossil stuff, it’s made human life better. There’s no way Planet Earth could feed 6.6 billion occupants without high farm output – and that comes thanks to energy.

Further, we could be realistic. The fossil fuel industry is huge. It can strong-arm or soft-sell (or both) the idea of subsidies to every government on the planet. It can put ads on radios, on television, in publications, on the web; and it can make behind-the-scenes investments.

By way of contrast, the renewables + energy-efficiency industries are weak sisters.

Other Subsidies

In late 2009, I heard Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speak. As I wrote here, although I am a lifelong fan of the Democratic Party, I’ve not been impressed by any of the Kennedys.

So it surprised me when Kennedy’s attack on the coal industry led to new neuronal activity in my brain. Think about how we already subsidize coal:

1. Strip mining makes the landscape ugly. We let that happen, instead of insisting things get put back to the way they were. That’s a huge cost-savings for the coal miners.
2. Coal-mining and coal-burning puts a lot of mercury in the nation’s waterways. Kennedy himself has 2x the level of mercury in his body, he said, that is the limit for health (turns out he likes to eat fish).
3. Burning the stuff puts crap in the air that makes people sick. These sick folks are subsidizing the use of coal with their health, aren’t they?
4. He spoke about a minor subsidy – the fact that West Virginia highways have 22 inches of asphalt on them (maybe 20 inches more than you have or I have locally). Why? Heavy coal trucks would damage the highways otherwise. Isn’t the deep paving (and maintenance, one assumes) of those roads a subsidy?

This gets the mind a-spinning, doesn’t it? When you start “looking” for subsidies (overt or unacknowledged), you find ‘em everywhere. Some prime examples:

WIND – dead bats. Dead birds. Noise that (according to one speaker I heard at the wind show) is irresistibly antagonistic to about one-third of the human race. The need for energy storage (i.e., build a wind farm, you need also to build energy storage facilities).

SOLAR – unreliability. 10-year paybacks (even with subsidies). The need for another power source when the sun doesn’t shine . . . you know, when that big glowing orb in the sky is no longer in the sky. Plus the cost of storage (see above).

NUCLEAR – those of us who are pro-nuke (includes me) can’t overlook the fact that there’s no permanent nuclear waste storage facility in the U.S. We have 100+ places where the stuff is stored “temporarily.” If what I’ve read is correct, waste generated by Enrico Fermi (in 1943, in research that led to the A-bomb) is still around.

Plans to fix this are impossible. The plan to have a single place to dispose of the stuff entails transporting radioactive waste from those 100+ places to the single location (a field day for terrorists, one imagines).

Nuclear power is, obviously, subsidized by the fact that we’re all willing to put this 365-days-a-year danger out of our minds.
Where this leaves you

Personally, I would like someone to wrap every issue up in a tidy bag (with a bow) and tell me how to think about it in the future. That’s not happening here.

At best, you now know this: When people say that alternative/renewable energy is subsidized, they are full of something or other that doesn’t smell all that good. Every form of energy is subsidized. The fact that the new kid on the block, solar/wind/etc., needs serious subsidies is really a “so what” thing, isn’t it?

At the least, maybe you think that the energy subsidy issue is like a cage wrestling match with 37 octopuses. Watching it might not be all that comprehensible; making some sense in describing it might well seem impossible.

By Joe Salimando                   www.eleblog.com

When the NASDAQ rose 86% in 1999, I freaked out (I wrote about it, too – in January 2000). It later fell from 5,038 to 1,100, and hasn’t been near 3,000 since.

During the housing nuttiness, I saw signs offering 125% loan-to-value mortgages. Putting pencil to paper, I couldn’t make it work. Turns out, it actually DID NOT work!

Signs

Now, the world may be returning to something resembling Common Sense. Consider:

1. The AIA Q1/10 Home Design Trends Survey I know – you’re not in the residential electrical biz. These words have meaning beyond houses –

“We continue to move away from the ‘McMansion’ chapter of residential design, with more demand for practicality throughout the home,” said AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker, PhD, Hon. AIA. “And with that there has been a drop off in the popularity of upscale property enhancements such as formal landscaping, decorative water features, tennis courts and gazebos . . . There has been a steady decline in both the square footage and volume in home design in recent years.

2. Head of Europe’s central bank calls for austerity. There’s a lot on the Internet on this – including the Financial Times op-ed piece Jean-Claude Trichet wrote, and this New York Times blogger commentary. Why is this important?

a. It’s a Frenchman, not a German, calling for austerity. That turns 220 years of history on its head.

b. By getting out front on this, Trichet made it harder for the U.S. to run up bigger deficits via more stimulus programs and money-printing.

c. Once, Europe took its cue on economic matters from the U.S. Fed and the U.S. government. No more?

3. Maryland regulators turn down BG&E proposal on TSG

The MD utility (equipped with stimulus money) wanted to go to town on The Smart Grid. Here’s a key sentence from the PSC:

“The proposal asks BG&E’s ratepayers to take significant financial and technological risks and adapt to categorical changes in rate design, all in exchange for savings that are largely indirect, highly contingent and a long way off.”

What’s interesting here: A utility regulator stood up to a big utility on a hot new technology.

4. Directly relevant to NECA members, see CEO John Grau’s blog post on Unsustainability.

Add it all up

I can’t tell you Common Sense will win in the end. But here’s what it might mean:

A. Go back to your customers and listen.

A few years ago, I spoke with a lighting expert who said end-users usually rejected lighting retrofit proposals short of a 40% ROI. I found that shocking; it seemed tough for American corporations to get even a 15% ROI elsewhere

Your customers might have changed. Listen to them! You might end up taking those retrofit proposals off the shelf, updating the technology – and doing the work.

B. Big corporations may call less and less of the tune.

At a Smart Grid conference in September 2009, I heard speakers talk about a pilot project that wasn’t working out the way the utility had envisioned. Why not? Customers (mostly residential) . . . just didn’t want the utility to come near their property. No trust!

What we need, someone in front of the room said, is a third party to work in the middle on The Smart Grid. (Of course, I am paraphrasing.)

It was a big room; by the time I got to the microphone to suggest “electrical contractors” as people customers might actually trust, the session had ended.

Similarly auto-makers and the utilities are seeking someone to solve their problems with in-home charging-station installation for EVs. Guess who came to mind? YOU.

c. Understanding technology has great value.

It’s taken me decades to appreciate the advantages ECs have here (and typically do not use). Examples:

1 – The average commercial or industrial customer doesn’t know how to read a monthly electricity bill. You can do it, ‘splain it to your customers . . . and make money! In some cases, all it takes to cut costs is a call to the utility (changing the “tariff” under which the customer is billed).

2 – At a “green” conference last October, I heard an engineer talk about an (unnamed) client. The client company worked 6-day weeks in 2006, 2007, and much of 2008; the building was on a 6-day schedule. When the economy blew up, the client returned to a 5-day week.

. . . except no one “told” the building’s operators. We can be sure the people running the building KNEW it wasn’t being used on Saturdays in 2009. But no one told the operators to return the building to the 5-day-a-week schedule. As a result, when the engineer’s company was asked to help lower the energy bill, it was child’s play!

How much of this is out there?

3 – New technology keeps coming down the pike. Consider LEDs: There’s a lot of misleading information out there on these new things. What’s more, if you think you know something about LEDs and commercial lighting, just wait five minutes . . . your knowledge will be out-of-date.

In such a situation, the contractor who develops and sustains a high level of understanding and customer communication creates for himself/herself a tremendous advantage.

Where this leaves us

Reexamine your assumptions, especially on energy matters. You might well be in a better position than you had come to believe!

By Rob Colgan

A lot of activity on Electric Vehicles and charging stations in the news the last couple weeks. This is a great new market for electrical contractors that could grow exponentially once it gets started.

I will be attending the Plug-in Electric Vehicles and Infrastructure Workshop that DOE is hosting tomorrow (22 July) at the department’s HQ In Washington DC. A live webcast is also available, but you have to register by today at http://www.tvworldwide.com/events/doe/100722 .

By Joe Salimando                   www.eleblog.com

Recently, after my visit to the Wind Power show (discussed briefly here on Energy Solutions), I proceeded to create 12 blogs from my event notebooks for another client, tedmag.com. See the 13^th post of the group, which provided a guide to the 12 items (you might read a few of ‘em).

All told, they’re probably at more than 10,000 words. As a reporter, I’m proud to inform the electrical industry audience of all that I saw and heard. But as a writer, I’m aware that . . . 10,000 is one huge bundle of words.

Too many? I don’t know. However, I am aware that “verbose” is not a compliment.

Then – to further put the word total in perspective – I came across a July 8 piece posted to a Canadian newspaper’s site, Wind’s Bad Day. It amounts to all of 378 words – and, within that, made an excellent point, the likes of which I’ve tried to make a few times on the tedmag.com site:

Because wind systems will always have days when they will contribute essentially nothing, and because society will not want power blackout on those days, the only prudent course for the managers of the electricity grid is to value wind’s capacity at essentially nothing.

You want storage with those turbines?

Yes, the 378-word piece is a criticism of wind’s role in creating an alternative to coal (or nuclear) power. That does not – at all – necessarily mean we should stop building wind power plants. However, it does mean that a rational approach to reshaping the grid is to explore a lot of other alternative energy types (there are a lot out there) and realize that every time we add a bunch of turbines, we’ve got to have . . . something else as well – if we want the electrical power system to remain stable, reliable, and instantly responsive.

An obvious conclusion – which I noted in a two-part piece back in late April (see part one and part two) – is that Energy Storage is going to be HUGE in the future. Or, to say it another way: No local or regional power grid will add a lot of wind turbines without the need for heaps of storage as well.

If “energy storage” makes you think next about “mega-stupendo mountains of lead-acid batteries” . . . well, that’s not what we’re talking about here. See this Dept. of Energy page for a start, for info on things like “emitter turn-off thyristor” and a shopping list of “basic research needs” on the subject.

Or download this two-page PDF, which outlines storage R&D projects that have already been blessed with DoE grant money:

• Large Battery System (3 projects, 53MW)
• Compressed Air (2 projects, 450MW)
• Frequency Regulation (1 project, 20MW)
• Distributed Storage (5 projects, 9MW)
• Technology Development (5 projects)

Some electrical contractors will build wind turbines that they (or others) will tack onto the local/regional or national grid. And a logical – unavoidable, if you ask me – future will see still other ECs engaged in building significant numbers of power storage facilities, and tacking them onto the system.

By Joe Salimando                              www.eleblog.com

We all want to think every thing we love is liked by everyone else, and all of the things we are “against” are universally hated. For me, the news – when I was about 7 years old – that some people rooted for baseball teams other than the New York Yankees came as a complete shock.

It’s 49 years later, and – to tell the truth – it’s still a bit hard to believe. What’s not to like about Yogi Berra, for Pete’s sake?

However, beyond sports, we contest just about everything in the United States of America. We have elections. I’ve seen brothers compete harder against each other than against strangers. And, of course, we pit one company against another – and we enjoy not just the results, but the doing of that.

For example: In more than three decades, I’ve met only one NECA contractor who uses the same electrical distributor for 100% of his purchases.

It behooves us to know what others are saying about the things we like. Along those lines: The idea of “green” has come under attack of late. I’m not referring here to the global warming/climate change discussion.

No. I’m talking about basic green stuff that contractors might find themselves doing, talking about, and hoping to do.

NECA seems to believe in keeping its members informed. Therefore, the following section of this blog – which you might characterize as “Anti-Green” – is here for the simple reason that you should be informed.

So here it is – FYI.

Bad Stuff About Green

First Appeal of a LEED Certification – it’s a high school in Wisconsin. The appeal was denied, and the folks who believe USGBC erred issued a document, “LEED Credibility Destroyed,” which you can download from the article linked here.

Missing The Boat With Net Zero? – this blog is not “anti-Net Zero Energy Buildings,” but specifically takes on a NZE development built with, as the greenish blogger wrote, with “unsustainable characteristics.” As in, it’s located far from anything.

Bursting of the Green Bubble – this one is from a rabid anti-green site (in my opinion). Read this to find out what the rock-solid opponents are saying.

Out in California, the Suspend AB32 group labeled its anti-green petition on the ballot as the California Jobs Initiative. In other words: If it’s good for green, it’s bad for jobs. Those who oppose Suspend AB32 – including the governator – say the oil companies are behind the movement.

Also on the California ballot: See this allegation about the utility PG&E funding the “anti-green” Proposition 16.

A Spoonful Of Sugar

There’s probably more out there (I don’t collect this stuff, although I do read it when I trip over it). I’m certain that, if you followed all those links, you’re not thrilled.

So let’s end this with one of my favorite Yogi stories. The other day his wife of 61 years, Carmen, asked him where he would like to be buried after he dies. He is, after all, 85 years old.

“Yogi, you were born in St. Louis, you played all of your home games for the Yankees in the Bronx, and you’ve lived all this time in New Jersey,” Carmen said.

“Where would you like us to bury you, when the time comes?”

Yogi’s response: “Surprise me.”

By Joe Salimando                   www.eleblog.com

What’s above is a headline from the publication Advertising Age (see story here).

Where’s the beef? According to the article, every person who buys an electric vehicle from Nissan will have to (as in, Must!) first listen to a basic discussion – with the car company, apparently – on the building electrical systems in his/her/their house!!!

Here’s a slice from Ad Age:

Like a typical launch, there’s a car to promote, a consumer to entice and a price point ($32,780) to convince potential buyers is fair. But that’s where the similarities end. Those who buy a Leaf when it becomes available later this year will be in for quite the one-to-one marketing experience. This is not a car that can be plugged into any outlet: Buyers will have to undergo an electrical education and a visit from an electrician to inspect their home and make sure their wiring is up to snuff — and a possible upgrade if it’s not.

“There will be an individual conversation with every customer that goes through the purchase process for the Leaf,” said Mark Perry, director-product planning at Nissan North America, said. “Some of it will be web-based, but it is going to be an individual communication.”

Note that a recent search on the Google News search engine (http://news.google.com) on the term “electric vehicle” turned up 1,500+ recent news items. Is that happening because a mile-deep hole in the Gulf of Mexico is spewing pollutants into our waters, killing wildlife, slaughtering tourism-dependent businesses, and more.

Perhaps. And note: If it is the case, things could get worse, according to Matthew Simmons, an oil industry expert who has proven himself (to me, at least) to be worth a listen.

Lots & Lots To Learn

Beyond that number (which may or may not surprise to you), there appears to be a great deal to know. Take, for example, this piece on what’s going on with EVs in Oregon – it included this information, relevant to contractors in that state:

As of July 1, electrical contractors can use the state Building Code Division’s minor label permits Web site — minorlabels.dcbs.oregon.gov — to buy permits to install charging units for electric vehicles.

Contractors who buy minor label permits buy them in lots of 10; each permit costs $14. These permits are usually processed the same day, according to Lisa Morawski, spokeswoman for the Department of Commerce and Business Services, which includes the Building Code Division. Only one in 10 installations is inspected, chosen at random, she said.

Going the traditional route, contractors would have to go to their own jurisdiction to buy a permit, and the prices vary. For example, Pendleton and Coquille charge $54 for the type of electrical permit needed for an electric vehicle charging station, Morawski said.

These types of permits are usually processed in one or two days, but all would need to be inspected, she said.

At least in OR, then, we have an answer about what will happen after someone buys a plug-in EV. Especially interesting: “Only one in 10 installations is inspected, chosen at random.”

Note: The Energy Solutions blog featured a post on EVs back on May 4.

“Green energy” retrofits and renewable energy sources offer some of the best opportunities for building owners and managers to dramatically lower their property’s power consumption – and their power bills. The National Electrical Contractors Association’s (NECA) latest publication in its Electrical Design Library focuses on six ideas that incorporate the latest advances in energy-efficient technology.

“Building owners should start by working with an electrical contractor to complete an energy audit of their facility to learn how power is being used and where their best opportunities for energy savings exist,” said Rob Colgan, NECA Executive Director, Marketing. Colgan also coordinates NECA’s Energy Solutions Task Force.

“A few of these ideas might not be quite ready for prime time,” Colgan said, “but they are great examples of where the technology is heading–and sooner than you might think. Often the best solutions are easy rather than exotic – relighting with energy-efficient fixtures and using occupancy sensors and advanced lighting controls.”

NECA contractors are the leaders in offering comprehensive energy solutions that meet a building owner’s goals. “NECA contractors start by showing an owner how he can save money on his operating costs,” Colgan said. “Reducing a building’s carbon footprint is a great additional benefit.”

This EDL can be downloaded free of charge at www.ElectricalDesignLibrary.com, along with the complete EDL archive. Printed copies are also available for purchase online in the NECA Store.

About NECA: NECA is the voice of the $130 billion electrical construction industry that brings power, light, and communication technology to buildings and communities across the U.S. NECA’s national office and 119  local chapters advance the industry through advocacy, education, research and standards development. For more information, visit www.necanet.org.

by Rob Colgan

 Q: How are ARRA funds being distributed through the GSA and state/local governments to fund the greening of government facilities?

 A: Building Operating Management recently published a three-part article that sheds some light on where the money is going, and where we might be seeing some projects getting started. Here are a few links to the article:

 Recovery Act Funds Green

Part 1: Stimulus Funds Earmarked to Green Government Facilities

Part 2: Recovery Act Funds Energy Efficiency Grants For State, Local Projects

Part 3: Controversy, Confusion Over Buy-American Clause

By Joe Salimando                 www.eleblog.com

Your humble reporter journeyed to Dallas May 23-26 for WindPower 2010. This was an ELECTRICAL show, in more ways than one.

NECA contractors with booths on the huge show floor were: Aldridge of Illinois, O’Connell of upstate NY, MYR Group (home to a lot of NECA-member companies), Quanta Services (ditto), and Rosendin of California.

Electrical distributors with booths included (I hope I didn’t miss any): Border States Electric, City Build Utility Supply, Elliott Electrical Supply (of east Texas), Gexpro (formerly GE Supply, now a unit of Rexel), Graybar, Hagemeyer (a unit of Sonepar), Stuart C. Irby (also a unit of Sonepar) and Wesco.

Grainger also had a booth.

NECA-IBEW was represented on the show floor.

There were also a bunch of non-union electrical contractors with booths on the show floor.  Names you might know include Pike and IES, but there were other (smaller) contractors, too.

In addition, many booths displayed wares from electrical manufacturers whose names you know. I spent time in the Thomas & Betts booth, for example. I wandered by the Erico booth numerous times.

GE Energy, Siemens, ABB, and other big-name wind-energy companies were on hand. Included in there are the foreign companies – Iberdrola, Acciona, and so forth.

Bring Sneakers In 2011

Woody Allen (supposedly) said that 90% of life is just showing up.  Or maybe it was Yogi? The big wind event will be held in Anaheim next May. My advice is: (1) Show up and learn. (2) Forget dress shoes, bring sneakers.

The show floor was enormous (someone told me there were 1,428 exhibitors, and many of the booths were huge). The show took up six halls of the Dallas Convention Center (booths 101 to 12000), not including what was outside, and 2000 booth numbers on another floor.

My feet hurt just thinking about my three days at this event. Yes, this might have as much to do with my physical condition (65 pounds overweight) as with the square miles covered by the show floor.

I thought it was important to show up. I went to this event to LEARN. It’s impossible to keep up with what’s happening in a market that has suddenly emerged (or so it seems) as a significant part of the electrical industry without listening and asking questions.

A Sketch Of Key Info

What did I learn? I’ll fill several Special Report blogs on www.tedmag.com with information from my notebooks (3 of them). Here’s a sketch:

1. The wind industry had its best year ever in 2009. That won’t be matched by 2010 and maybe 2011 and 2012, too. What’s happening? As the price of natural gas fell off of a cliff (and stayed down, due to unanticipated extra supply from shale gas), the price at which wind farms could sell their power plunged below the price at which they’ll break even.

So where there were 10 gW of wind power generation put in place in 2009, the first 90 days of 2010 saw the installation of fewer than 600 mW!

2. This is why the American Wind Energy Association (show sponsor – see www.awea.org) is so big on getting legislative help from Congress. The idea is to require renewables as part of every utility’s portfolio, in every state, so that wind is mandated. I don’t know what you think of that, but – from the speaker list and what I heard at the opening day’s plenary session – this political thing is an AWEA priority.

3. There’s a lot of electrical stuff in a typical wind installation. I heard one speaker say (in answer to a question) that 30% of a typical project was electrical, but I walked into that session late (from another session) – and so it’s not quite in context. But you wouldn’t have to have heard this to know that electrical is a big part of wind . . . just a walk through the show floor (albeit, a painful one in dress shoes!) would tell you that.

4. There were deals being made at this show, important conversations between consultants, vendors, contractors, and customers. The key thing here: There is a 30% (of project cost) benefit from the U.S. government that can be claimed – if your project is substantially underway by 12/31/10. With that kind of free money at stake, getting things in motion in the months after May 26 would seem pretty important!

5. There are three wind categories:

Small: under 100 kW.

Mid-sized: 101 to 1,000 kW (which, of course, is 1 mW).

Large: Over 1 mW.

Large projects (like those in which GE Energy gets involved) are “developed.” It’s hard to envision a contractor getting involved in this “cold” (i.e., with no experience).

Mid-sized wind seems interesting. From what little I heard about it, there is a shortage of suppliers of this size of wind installation. That’s not definitive, just what I heard.

Small wind is more expensive. It can run 12 cents to 25 cents per kW, which is not economic. But people do want wind power in their backyards (including farmers –

there was at least one speaker from the USDA here).

6. Yogi said you can see a lot just by looking. At this show, you could also hear a lot just by listening. I heard someone say that a friend was a rock-ribbed conservative farmer – but that the man had become a huge advocate of wind energy, because the wind farm on his property was making more money than the farming operation.

BOTTOM LINE: I couldn’t be everywhere and see everything at this event (not even close!) – so these data support no conclusions. However, I am certain of this: Had you gone to the same event as I attended, you might have heard different stuff, seen other interesting product and services on display, asked better questions, and learned more (or at least something other) than I did.