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

By Rob Colgan, NECA Executive Director, Market Development

We have all heard alarming news reports about fire risk of lithium-ion batteries in the Chevy Volt, and many probably have the impression that some production vehicles actually burned or exploded after a crash. In fact, the only post-crash fire on record occurred in NHTSA test facilities, and then only after a side impact crash followed by a rollover test and three weeks in storage subsequent to the crash. GM has taken steps to prevent the coolant leakage even under these extreme circumstances on the 14,735 vehicles produced and delivered in 2011, and has strengthened the protection and added coolant leakage sensors for future production vehicles.

NHTSA concluded their safety defect investigation and issued a final report on Friday, January 20, 2012. A few salient points in the report are:

·         “the agency’s investigation has concluded that no discernible defect trend exists and that the vehicle modifications recently developed by General Motors reduce the potential for battery intrusion resulting from side impacts.”

·         “NHTSA remains unaware of any real-world crashes that have resulted in a battery-related fire involving the Chevy Volt or any other electric vehicle.”

·         “NHTSA continues to believe that electric vehicles show great promise as a safe and fuel-efficient option for American drivers.”

·         “Based on the available data, NHTSA does not believe that Chevy Volts or other electric vehicles pose a greater risk of fire than gasoline-powered vehicles. Generally all vehicles have some risk of fire in the event of a serious crash.”

The full text of the announcement of findings is available on the DOT website at nhtsa.gov.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Federal Energy Management Program(FEMP) will hold two 90-minute webinars as part of its Exterior Solid State Lighting Initiative. The first webinar, to be held Tuesday, January 24, at 2:00 EST, will cover high-performance parking lot lighting for federal facilities. The second webinar, to be held Wednesday, January 25, at 2:00 EST, will cover high-performance parking structure lighting for federal facilities.

Presented by Jeff McCullough and Michael Myer of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), each webinar will introduce participants to exterior solid state lighting technologies ideal for parking lot and parking structure applications. These energy-saving lighting solutions can reduce utility bills in the federal sector. Each webinar will provide attendees with:

• An exterior solid state lighting technology update
• An overview of product and application-related support resources available from FEMP
• Case studies of exterior solid state lighting applications

The webinars will focus on a performance specification that energy managers can use to help ensure that the selected applications deliver high-quality lighting, while saving energy and minimizing maintenance costs. Each webinar will be structured to include a 60-minute presentation followed by a 30-minute question and answer period.

Through its Exterior Solid State Lighting Initiative, FEMP offers a number of resources to help federal facility managers improve energy performance through a thoughtful process that recognizes the energy savings potential and specific challenges of various lighting applications.

Both FEMP webinars are free of charge, but you must register in advance to obtain an Internet address for the presentation. Registration is open through the following links:

• January 24: Parking Lot Lighting
• January 25: Parking Structure Lighting

DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) invests in clean energy technologies that strengthen the economy, protect the environment, and reduce dependence on foreign oil. For more information on DOE’s Federal Energy Management Program, visit the FEMP website. FEMP webinars train federal energy and fleet professionals on the latest energy requirements, best practices, and technologies. For information on other training opportunities, visit the FEMP training website.

At some point, solar photovoltaics would enter the real world – a point at which it would have to compete with other ways of generating electrons.

Perhaps 2011-12 is that time. According to Greentech Media, “solar module pricing dropped 30% in 2011.” The graphic below is one of several that ran with the item.

According to an item I found (& posted here) from The Nikkei Weekly, the Japanese solar PV industry faces a crisis in 2012 because of falling modular prices. Think about that for a second: Japan’s high-quality stuff has been out-selling products in the U.S. for maybe 30-50 years; now, solar modules going for 170,000 yen in Japan will be challenged by 100,000-yen priced items from elsewhere.

Lower prices are no one’s favorite way to sell anything. But until the efficiency of solar cells ramps up from the 20% range to some other (much more impressive) number . . . solar PV modules appear to have, in 2011, become a commodity.

That’s one reason why the 12-month price range of the stock of First Solar (stock symbol FSLR) is $175 to just under $30.

As of January 1, 2012, 100W lamps were to be 30 percent more efficient than previous versions or else prohibited from manufacture or import. January 1, 2013, is the deadline for 75W lamps, and January 1, 2014, targets 40 and 60W lamps. California started implementing these rules in advance.

NECA’s ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR magazine has published much information on the incandescent bulb production phaseout. The magazine tells its audience that, “As an electrical contractor, you serve on the front lines in communication with facilities owners, and you can help correct and clarify what the legislation means to them as well as assist them in making necessary changes to be in compliance.”

However, there is a popular misconception that the government is “banning” the incandescent bulb and “forcing” people to use compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs). (“The incandescent lamp has not been banned,” ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR explains. “It simply has to become more efficient. Manufacturers are responding with products that provide nearly equivalent performance but with higher efficiency, which is good for consumers and the environment.”)

As a result of the misconception, the House of Representatives voted on a repeal of this provision in July, but it failed to gain the necessary support. We’ve also seen a number of blogs proclaiming something along the lines of, “Thomas Edison would be turning in his grave” if he knew what was happening to the incandescent bulb he introduced in 1879. The inventor’s great-grandson says nothing could be further from the truth. Read more and find out What Would Thomas Edison Do (WWTED), on NECA’s website >> 

By Joe Salimando
Salimando is a Fairfax, Virginia-based writer and contributor to energysolutions.necanet.org, eleblog.com, and tedmag.com.
Reach him at ecdotcom@gmail.com

There’s lots of “blowback” and “pushback” on the green, efficiency, and renewable energy fronts these days. Part of it may involve the Obama Administration’s close identification with “stimulus” investments in these areas; some of it may be about the sudden cheapening of natural gas, which might make electric power cheaper; there’s also the collapse of several “green” companies; and failures of “global warming” advocates to make their points stick are in the mix.

However, electrical contractors who have chosen Energy Solutions as an avenue for present and future growth might ignore all of that; you most likely are proposed specific solutions, one client at a time.

Suggestion: Look instead at what the larger companies in this space are doing. There are some huge companies out there, which are involved in the E.S. space – but they don’t have to be. They’ve chosen to be a part of the E.S. future.

What are they doing? Here’s a smattering of late 2011 news you might have missed:

1. While its stock has taken a steep dive, according to stories appearing in November and December, First Solar is an attractive potential takeover target. This one mentions GE, Samsung, and Siemens as potential buyers. Another offered this:

“Note that despite the plunge in market cap and the struggles in the solar industry, First Solar had net sales of more than a $1 billion last quarter at a gross profit of 37.7 percent.”

2. Is The Smart Grid for real? A lot of companies apparently think it is – look at the chart below that came with this article (on the purchase of eMeter by Siemens) . . . and the familiar electrical industry names involved:

It’s a table of acquisitions in TSG space.

So when you hear “smart grid,” don’t automatically turn off – a group of someones is out there, spending money to chase future pay-offs.

3. In the event you think wireless control devices aren’t here to stay, GE recently struck a deal to use “EnOcean’s battery-free wireless technology” in building control and automation systems. Yes, no-new-wires retrofits for building automation. More here.

4. Finally, some ideas big companies routinely put forward could be useful (on a smaller scale) to electrical contractors Consider a Greentech Media article on how Johnson Controls works energy efficiency and renewable energy investments into one project.

Essentially, it said, JC is throwing small wind installations into project “bundles” with energy-efficient retrofits. A company executive’s perspective:

“I discovered that some of these efficiency measures have very short paybacks. When you’re doing 10, 12, 15 efficiency retrofits on a single project, quicker payback items subsidize others. You can include some things because others make the whole bundle perform.”

Will that work for clients of electrical contractors as well?

By Joe Salimando
Salimando is a Fairfax, Virginia-based writer and contributor to energysolutions.necanet.org, eleblog.com, and tedmag.com.
Reach him at ecdotcom@gmail.com

The U.S. ban on incandescent light bulbs that are said to be too inefficient will “phase in” completely in 2014. After that, it is thought, fluorescents (including screw-in types) and LEDs (including replacements for linear fluorescents) will battle it out . . .  unimpeded by a low-priced, popular alternative that dates back to T.A. Edison.

Based on what I’ve heard/read, I have assumptions about Lighting’s near-term future:

1. Linear LED tubes, recently judged to be in need of serious improvement, will get it.

2. Sooner or later, most commercial buildings will have these energy-saving LED tubes in the ceiling. If you didn’t see the 11/30/11 Wall Street Journal article – well, click through to The Math Changes On Bulbs (hint: it’s all about maintenance savings).

3. LEDs might last 50,000 hours (and more). One can envision a future in which the commercial lighting replacement business (at the very least) is increasingly less available to electrical contractors and distributors.

However that works out, what I learned recently is: Maybe it’s not all that important.

LED conference segment

I attended Ecosystems for SSL, an event put together by Intertech PIRA – which does meetings for the LED business. One of two co-chairs said the meeting, which had a relatively small number of attendees, was basically a “think tank.”

Marc Chason, editor in chief of Global LEDs/OLEDs, was first up. He’s thought a lot more about LEDs than I have. One possibility, he indicated: LEDs may well wreck the market for . . . LEDs!

See the graphic (from Chason’s slide deck) below.

Chason posted a few words (from an article that included in its headline Beware The Lighting Decline from LED’s Long Lifetimes). As seen in the graphic, there’s a projected dip in the world market for LEDs in the “out years” after LEDs go mass-market. Will this happen? I don’t know.

What it means for contractors is that the Lighting business – starting right now – is going to be about coping with serious amounts of change. It may well stay that way until the 2020s.

More reduction?

While pondering limitations on the lighting market’s future growth, I remembered something in NEMA’s electroindustry magazine. On page 24 (which you can see here) of November’s issue, NEMA said it had formed a Daylight Management Council.

From what I’ve heard (in conferences) about daylighting, it isn’t as easy as including more windows In a building’s design. The Lighting system has to cope with changes in the light supplied by natural sources – as in, the Sun sets; or the Sun spends a day playing peek-a-boo, thanks to heavy cloud cover.

Certainly, daylighting means less use of light fixtures; it might even mean fewer fixtures to be installed.

Perhaps new buildings that make heavy use of daylighting will lead electrical contractors to focus more on lighting controls – which will certainly need to be commissioned and perhaps tweaked further over time.

By Joe Salimando
Salimando is a Fairfax, Virginia-based writer and contributor to energysolutions.necanet.org, eleblog.com, and tedmag.com.
Reach him at ecdotcom@gmail.com

Lately, I’ve been getting a bunch of dark-cloud-type communications on the future of the electric vehicle. A friend e-mailed an article with the headline Electric Vehicles Headed for a Crash. BYD, the Chinese auto-making company that produces EVs – in which Warren Buffet (!!!) is invested – has said it won’t bring the things to the U.S. because we don’t have enough public charging stations.

And the worst, from my perspective: John Petersen, a writer (on SeekingAlpha.com) on alternative energy investments who I’ve come to respect, is regularly using some of his space and time to bash the EV.

In football terms, all this seems all wrong to me. It is as if on the first play from scrimmage – just after our team got the ball, shortly after the marching band left the field and the other team kicked off – our offense lined up, the QB dropped back 15 yards . . . took the snap, and punted the ball.

Of course, the QB might pass, and throw an interception. He could try to hand the ball off, and it might bounce off the turf into the hands of the other team’s cornerback, who’ll race into the end zone. A lot of other bad things might happen.

But is thinking like that the reason we got out of the bed this morning?

Good news, if you look for it

What follows is a bit of EV good news. To be clear: I am a reporter by training. It is NOT ALL GOOD NEWS out there. You can find plenty of bad and (as hinted above) . . . you won’t struggle to find it.

1. There’s a car-maker in the U.S. selling an EV for “as low as $21,625.” Did you know that?

Above: Mitsubishi’s “i” car, an EV you can buy now for $21K or thereabouts; below, the BMW “i3” concept EV – which, when introduced in 2013, reportedly will go from 0 to 60 in eight seconds.

2. Nissan has said – out there in public, where people can hear it – that by the year 2015, it will have an EV with a 250-mile range. An affordable thing. Now, you know and I know that we’ll all forget this in a few minutes – and won’t remember it in 2015. HOWEVER: Japanese business executives are not known for their wild-butted statements, are they?

3. EVs are ridiculously expensive, you hear. Just the other day, I responded to a post on Facebook (on a site I monitor) that said EVs cost a lot too much. Of course, Tesla’s Roadster has outstanding single-charge mileage available from its battery – 245 miles! – but the car costs $109K.

I can’t pay $109K for an automobile. You?

BUT before we all go for a drink to drown our too-expensive-EV sorrows . . . here’s a reminder from a DoE blog:

Remember that plasma TVs, cell phones, personal computers and many other common products were once fabulously expensive luxury items, but quickly became a staple for middle class Americans. These price declines wouldn’t have been possible without the first, commercial scale marketing as premium products.

. . .posted within the context of a DoE explanation of government loans to Tesla and Fisker, another company that makes EVs.

4. On this NY Times blog, you’ll learn that Jay Leno – yes, a celebrity – drove almost 11,000 miles in a Chevy Volt (over nearly one year) . . . without hitting a gas station. The guy claims he’s used roughly half of the 9 gallons of gas he found in the vehicle when he bought it.

My question is: Aren’t the remaining 4.5 gallons of gas a bit stale by now?

Your question might be: How the heck did he do that? He drives less than 35 miles a day, round-trip. A Volt reportedly can go 40 miles on its battery. Apparently, in Jay’s case – it does!

5. In Fall 2010 at the Gridweek event, I sat through a bunch of presentations on one day about EVs. One speaker was from BMW; I was having trouble staying awake. One reason: His company’s EV wasn’t coming for a few years, he said. He talked a lot about carbon fiber . . . about how BMW was going to make the car out of this stuff, so it would be lighter. A lighter EV means you don’t need all that much batter to propel the car down the road, of course.

Carbon fiber? I was trying to understand battery technology, for Pete’s sake! So: I took a short walk to wake myself up.

Well, I should have found one of those 5-hour energy-shot things and stayed put. It will shortly be 2012, and BMW promises its i3 “concept car” for 2013 (more here) – a BEV (battery-only electric vehicle). This will be the answer to “can EVs be sexy,” I think, as the company says: “The BMW i3 Concept accelerates from 0 to 37 mp) in under four seconds and from rest to 62 mph in less than eight seconds.”

6. Political criticisms of any Presidential administration have been numerous over recent years; with what has (typically) been said about Clinton, Bush, and Obama, you have to wonder why anyone would ever run for President! But if folks of all political stripes could ever agree on one good thing done by the Obama Administration, it should be (it says here) to massively fund R&D into batteries.

Does this make it a “sure thing” that we’ll have better batteries in the near future? NO.

But it is doggone hard to imagine how we get to the 400-miles-on-one-charge EV without putting billions into battery R&D.

So even if we fail to develop next-gen batteries that give a lot more bang for the buck, at least we didn’t get the dang football and, as soon as we got a firm grasp on it . . . punt it on down the field!

Mike Johnston, NECA Executive Director, Standards and Safety, highlights why he feels NECA contractors are great partners for any of the 22 local organizations participating in the recently announced U.S. Department of Energy’s Rooftop Solar Challenge.

The U.S. Dept. of Energy will fund $12 million in awards for the new Rooftop Solar Challenge as part of DOE’s SunShot Initiative. The Challenge supports 22 regional teams to spur solar power deployment by cutting red tape — streamlining and standardizing permitting, zoning, metering, and connection processes — and improving finance options to reduce barriers and lower costs for residential and small commercial rooftop solar systems.

“While the program will help reduce the costs homeowners and businesses pay to install solar energy systems, it’s important to remember that rooftop PV panel installations must be safe. The government expects this, as does the public. These types of installations should only be done by qualified electrical contractors, a requirement in the National Electrical Code. Improving accessibility to financing and permitting is commendable, but protecting a homeowner’s property should be paramount,” said Johnston. Read more about the Rooftop Solar Challenge on NECA’s website >> 

By Joe Salimando
Salimando is a Fairfax, Virginia-based writer and contributor to energysolutions.necanet.org, eleblog.com, and tedmag.com.
Reach him at ecdotcom@gmail.com

Back in April, on the blog that I own, I wrote that 2011 was “the year of energy storage.” It was a preposterous pronouncement. I don’t have the license to declare any particular moment in time “the year of” anything.

And energy storage? Who cares?

Except for this: I have gone to the workshops and seminars, listened to and read up on what the serious green advocates & thinkers are saying and have said – and the reality seems crystal clear. If a region, or a nation, hopes to make Solar, Wind + EVs work on any significant scale . . . it can’t do it without storage (and on a very big scale) . . . and The Smart Grid (to make it all work together).

Positive – if this vision is correct, there is a potential future in which Solar, Wind + EVs play huge roles. Sure, it’s easy to poo-pooh any one of these (I can do it for you if need be). BUT: This alternate future can be reasonably envisioned, with storage and TSG integrated into the picture

OK: It might not happen for 50 years. But if you think about it, a day in the year 2062 on which these alternatives plays a big role might well be a pretty swell day for the United States of America.

Also, getting from here to there – if you think we can do it – embeds certain assumptions. One is that we build energy-efficient buildings (close to Net Zero Energy, if not there – or better). In other words: We stop WASTING energy on a massive scale.

[I was brought up by parents who were children during the 1930s Depression. I lived in Brooklyn NY, where I could walk to see my grandparents (an 8-block walk to my dad’s parents, a 4-block walk to my mom’s). All these people were convinced that waste was idiotic. It rubbed off on me. I’m not sure why energy waste is so . . . popular.]

Another assumption, to get to that special day in 2062, is that one heck of a lot of electricians and electrical contractors are busy over the next five decades building efficient new buildings, retrofitting existing structures to use electricity conservatively, adding tons of Solar & Wind power-generating installations, constructing energy storage facilities, and working on a much smarter, more capable electrical grid. This is NOT the reason the nation should pick the option; but it’s a very nice spin-off benefit for those visiting necanet.org, doncha think???

Negative – there’s always a negative; forgive me (please) for including this here. You can’t get to the 2062 scenario of lots of Wind, lots of solar, 162 million EVs (just to pick a number), 1,432 energy storage facilities of significant size, and a super-intelligent two-way regional and national electrical grid . . . without spending one heck of a lot of money.

Storage rises on national agenda

Who else shares this preposterous vision?

Well, Pike Research came out in November with a report that energy storage capacity worldwide will expand by 100x over the next 10 years. Yes, that’s 100x growth in fewer than 3,700 days. That would take storage to 12,353 mW on planet Earth. See the release here.

[NOTE: While I have no idea whether or not Pike will turn out to be correct on its number – or the prediction that the 100x growth will cost “only” $172 billion – I think you will really enjoy a feature of the research company’s site: A really interesting blog that delves further into many Energy Solutions issues.]

Above: Graphic from 221-page report on storage prepared for the California Energy Commission, released in November. Downloadable free (PDF) – click here. 

Also on the storage issue, see a Phil Carson post from mid-November on what’s going on in California (based on a recent report) on IntelligentUtility.com. California is running into the need to grow storage – and doggone fast – because of the self-imposed requirement that utilities get 33% of their electric power from renewable sources in 10 years.

Bottom line: It was one thing for the state to require utilities to get to 20% renewables; I believe the hard number was 18% by the deadline (which was 2010). But to get to 33%, they are going to need storage, and The Smart Grid. It’s inescapable.

As California also faces some challenges with $$$, and is out ahead of the rest of the country on NZE discussions – at a minimum, it should be an interesting laboratory to watch on storage and much more.

When Ohio’s 19 Joint Apprenticeship Training Centers received a two-year grant from the U.S. Dept. of Energy in 2009 to implement a green energy training program, they set big goals for the program. Jan. 12, 2012, marks the official end of the grant, and the Ohio GROWs (Green and Renewable Opportunities for Workers) project has trained nearly double the number of apprentices and journeymen it set out to reach. One thousand of these newly trained workers are already in the field, and the promise of several new wind farm projects in the state indicate that Ohio GROWs will meet its employment target of 1,125.

“There are more and more wind turbine farms going across the landscape in Ohio. We know of at least three, with a total of 200-250 turbines that are on the books for Seneca, Crawford and Hancock counties. Hardin County is home to the Hog Creek I and II Wind Farms,” wrote project director Judy Ennis in the latest newsletter from Ohio GROWs. “Paulding County has the Timber Road II and III Wind Farms and the Blue Creek Wind Farm. Developers are saying that there will be more than 800 wind turbines in the future for northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan. This will mean employment for the highly trained holders of the Wind Turbine/Competent Climbing certificate from the JATC’s of Toledo and Warren.”

Dave Wellington, the Toledo Electrical JATC Director along with Bill Box, a Local 8 Business Agent and Nathan Eaton, an instructor at the Toledo Electrical JATC, recently took a trip to the Blue Creek Wind Farm in Paulding and Van Wert County. Job site superintendent Jerry Sluzewicz, MJ Electric of Iron Mountain, MI, gave them a tour of the project site. The project consists of approximately 156 turbines over 20 miles of farmland. Each turbine reaches a height of around 336 feet tall, not including the blade that extends another 160 feet from the hub of the turbine into the sky.

Sluzewicz reported that the project was on schedule, and it looked as though all of the pre-job projections were going to be met. He also mentioned the pride and professionalism of the IBEW members, especially the Local 8 members, on this project. He appreciated the way these members stepped up to the plate to make this a successful endeavor for an out-of-town contractor using electricians from Ohio to build the farm.

Eaton jumped at the chance to climb one of the towers, where he could admire the results of the training program up close. From pouring the foundation to the underground work to erecting the tower, nacelle and rotor, each trade worked together so every tower looks as though it came straight from the factory, clean and precise. It was obvious that each tower was constructed with pride and precision.

The Blue Creek Wind Farm was made possible through help of the Ohio GROWs grant. “The grant put Ohio workers to work on some of the first industrial size wind turbines in the state,” Eaton wrote about his experience. “These turbines will be producing power that is clean and renewable far into the future.”

Ohio GROWs has capitalized on strong relationships built between the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) and the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA) through the leadership provided by the Ohio Electrical Labor Management Cooperative Committee (OELMCC). In addition to earning NJATC Green Jobs Certification, participants also earned college credits through the University System of Ohio. The program also hosted the state’s first Energy Solutions Summit in September, bringing together energy efficiency and renewable energy industry stakeholders.