Clean and green

As we veer away from a reliance on fossil fuels in a quest to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy is moving to the forefront. For all the benefits that renewable sources provide, the move to clean and green is not as easy as you would think.

Significant work is being done here in Australia on the development of new technologies that address generation, storage and distribution of power to an increasingly energy-hungry world. Our government is behind renewables in a big way - implementing the carbon tax as a method of incentive and by setting up programs to encourage investment and innovation.

The government’s Clean Energy Future (CEF) plan includes a number of initiatives including the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), which will invest over $10 billion into renewable-energy, low-pollution and energy-efficiency technologies.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) will administer $3.2 billion in government support for research and development, as well as demonstration and commercialisation of renewable energy. In addition, the $200 million Clean Technology Innovation Program has pledged to support business investment in research and development of new technologies over the next five years.

The pillars of clean energy

According to CEF, there are four important pillars to the plan: renewable energy, energy efficiency, carbon price and action on the land. Now of those four, I think carbon price has been effectively covered in just about every media vehicle known to man in this country, so we won’t go down that road here, except to recognise that it is essentially the government’s way of deterring industry from relying on fossil fuels.

Action on the land refers to the Carbon Farming Initiative, which creates economic reward for farmers and land managers who reduce pollution or store carbon in the landscape.

Energy efficiency is a pretty straightforward concept. As one of the pillars of the CFE, it is promoted to business and consumers alike through a series of energy-efficiency schemes, which may be involve grants, mandatory disclosures, tax breaks or other incentives.

Renewable energy targets have been thrown about for a while now, the current diktat being that 20% of Australia’s electricity will come from renewable sources by 2020 - a mere seven years from now, under the Renewable Energy Targets (RET) Scheme. The CEFC will devote half of the $10 billion under its remit to renewables technologies and schemes (geothermal, wave energy and large scale solar), while the other half will be allocated to broader ‘clean’ energy initiatives including low-emissions cogeneration.

Intermittent energy

Renewables are ‘intermittent’ sources, that is, the sun isn’t shining all the time, the wind isn’t always blowing and the tides are, well, tidal. So, the question of grid stability and reliability arises as we ask how we can depend on sources that are not in constant production. One of the greatest challenges in a move to renewable energy remains how to store that energy for use when it is required.

It takes planning to provide adequate power as and when the grid demands, so finding a suitable way to store renewable energy is seen as the key to our energy future. Not surprisingly, there’s no shortage of companies and research teams conducting studies and developing systems in pursuit of the ultimate solution.

Not all are equal

There are a range of technologies being investigated, each with its own set of characteristics that make it either more or less appropriate for a particular application. Some are more economically viable than others, and many previously employed technologies, such as hydro pumping, require costly infrastructure, so more feasible alternatives are being sought.

Electrochemical, or battery, storage is probably receiving more investment and interest than other methods. On home soil, CSIRO has developed the UltraBattery, a combination lead acid battery and supercapacitor. The integration of these two technologies capitalises on the strengths of both and compensates for weaknesses. Lead acid batteries are cheap, but have a limited number of recharge cycles. CSIRO has been working on supercapacitors since the early 1990s and is a world leader in the technology. They are amazingly quick to charge (a matter of seconds) and can extend battery life up to five times. The recyclable potential of supercapacitors is a drawing card as well, up to 500,000 charge cycles versus about 1000 of standard rechargeables.

UltraBattery is ideal for use in hybrid-electric vehicles (HEVs) and has undergone extensive testing in that very application as a result of an international collaboration that spans Australia, Japan, the UK and the US. CSIRO sees potential for the UltraBattery in solar and wind storage scenarios, and is involved in activities that will see commercialisation of the product for that use.

Fuel cell future

Micro fuel cells are being developed around the world, but Australia has made significant headway and is well positioned to lead the race, according to CSIRO. Current development has realised a cell that provides operating and stand-by times six or seven times longer than standard lithium-ion batteries, meaning that portable devices including mobile phones, cameras and laptops could hold charge long enough to be useful! The team has had a hydrogen-powered prototype running for 7000 hours, with a view to achieving a 15,000-hour (2-year) life span of continuous operation.

Large-scale storage

While there’s no denying that advances in battery power for portable devices are a massive step in the right direction, the issue of large-scale renewable energy storage is still being solved. Taking advantage of the CEF program funding to encourage investment into renewables, DMG/Mori Seiki launched the CellCube, developed by Gildemeister Energy Solutions, onto the Australian market late last year.

The energy store CellCube allows independent and flexible utilisation of the electricity generated by solar power plans and wind turbines, thus serving as an uninterrupted power supply, even in the dark and when there is no wind.

Nash Dhruve, spokesman for the company, said, “The battery system ensures a clean, emission-free and fast energy supply at all times. The system is very reliable and allows reliable storage and very fast reaction times. It can be incorporated into everyday energy systems, which makes it suitable for remote operations who need (or want) to be independent of local council grids.”

The DMG/Mori Seiki approach to the CEF program is to view clients as potential partners and suggest that anyone wanting to take part in the scheme should view solution providers, such as themselves, in that light.

“We want to create partnerships with our customers and help them apply for the government grant, which can be a very complicated procedure,” Nash explains. “We don’t only sell a product, but provide total solutions. We know that applying for government assistance is a really complex process, so we take the paperwork off our customers, who decide to invest in renewable energy solutions such as the CellCube.”

Legacy

While we may be looking to clean and green energy for the future, we are a nation that has historically relied on coal-fired electricity generation. 75% of our electricity comes from coal and it’s a dirty business. According to the Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences Energy Update 2011, only around 8% of current generation is from renewable sources, which means that we have less than a decade to more than double that number if we are to meet RET aims.

What we don’t hear about so often is what will happen to existing generators. According to the CEF plan, the government will negotiate closure of emissions-intensive facilities through financial incentive, offer refinancing and additional fiscal inducement to strongly affected generators to permit the purchase of carbon permits.

While funding schemes that encourage innovation, enterprise and ingenuity are to be applauded, you’ve got to wonder if maybe the bar hasn’t been set a little too high in terms of numbers and time frames. Seven years isn’t very far away and all it’ll take is a change of government to throw things off track. Only time will tell.