Green Energy News | September 2, 2001

September 2, 2001 – Vol.6 No.23

ENERGIES... week of September 2, 2001

GREEN HOME IMPROVEMENT. In its continuing initiative to bring solar power into mainstream markets, AstroPower will begin selling solar systems through Home Depot starting with three stores in the greater San Diego, California area.

At Home Depot’s Escondido, Carmel Mountain and Sports Arena home improvement supply stores, customers will be able to learn about AstroPower systems through interactive displays, purchase a system using a Home Depot Consumer Credit Card or Home Depot Home Improvement Loan, and have the system installed through Home Depot’s Installed Products Initiative by AstroPower trained technicians.

The products available are AstroPower’s SunLine and SunUPS pre-engineered grid-connected systems. SunUPS includes back-up battery power. Wise consumers should independently study their electric power requirements, the solar potential for their home, and grid-connected solar in general before plunging into their own system.

Home Depot also teamed recently with Portland General Electric (PGE, Portland, Oregon) in a consumer education program to promote compact fluorescent (CFL) light bulbs. The result? nearly 250,000 CFL bulbs sold in three days. When in use those CFL’s will save an estimated 19 million kilowatt hours of electricity each year.

Aside from the sales of CFL bulbs and subsequent energy savings, the PGE / Home Depot program is intended to be a model for other electric utility / consumer retail partnerships to follow.

Visit AstroPower at http://www.astropower.com/, PGE at http://www.PortlandGeneral.com/ .

ANOTHER TYPE OF GREEN VEHICLE? What if a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) were designed to be connected to a home power system? The vehicle’s battery pack could be recharged like a pure electric car from grid or distributed generation power connection, or the vehicle, running on its fuel supply, could power the house if needed.

A new study from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) indicates that consumers might be agreeable to plug-in hybrid vehicles. The study showed that 30 to 50 percent of respondents would choose a plug-in HEV even if it were priced 25 percent higher than a $19,000 conventionally powered sedan. Further, 63 percent said they preferred plugging in a vehicle at home than going to a gas station for a fill-up. Most, 86 percent, said they had easy access to a U.S. standard 120 volt outlet.

The study was based on the idea of a plug-in HEV that would have a 60 mile all-electric, battery-only range. (Most trips could be made on battery power.) Its gasoline engine in conjunction with the battery pack would be used for longer travel distances. Overall, the standard sedan would obtain the equivalent of 80 miles per gallon. Moreover, the car would not need a diesel engine, ultra lightweight construction, a new fueling or recharging infrastructure or extreme body aerodynamics to achieve this level of energy efficiency.

Opinion? Despite some engineering and cost hurdles, this plug-in hybrid car could be fairly easy - read less expensive - to develop and commercialize than fuel cell vehicles. Given the seamless transition these vehicles could make into the marketplace - no new fuels or infrastructure needed - consumers could readily accept and adapt to them. For the complete study - Comparing the Benefits and Impacts of Hybrid Electric Vehicle Options - as well as charts, graphs and a full news release visit EPRI at http://www.epri.com/ .

WORLD WIND WATCH. According to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) the ten U.S. states with the best wind power potential are North Dakota, Texas, Kansas, South Dakota, Montana, Nebraska, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Minnesota and Iowa... Visit the AWEA at http://www.awea.org/ .

Swiss-Swedish industrial conglomerate ABB will climb mountains to capture the strongest breezes. The company will install a turbine at 7700 feet (2350 meters) in the mountains above Andermatt, Switzerland. The highest-installed-wind-turbine-in-the-world will generate enough power for 400 homes.

Norway’s Ministry of Petroleum and Energy has given the state-owned power company Statkraft the go-ahead to build a wind farm at Smola. The first phase, with twenty 2 megawatt turbines and 40 megawatts capacity, will be complete by the end of 2002. A second phase of fifty-two turbines and 104 megawatts capacity will be added later. Visit Statkraft at http://www.statkraft.no/ .

Now on the order books for wind turbine manufacturer Nordex AG are twelve turbines for a facility in Schuby near Schleswig, Germany (valued at $20.1 million), seven turbines for a wind farm in Fitou near Narbonne, France (valued at $6.1 million) and ten turbines for the Minami-Osumi wind farm in Japan (also valued at $6.1 million) Visit Nordex at http://www.nordex.dk/

Progress is being made on Canadian Hydro’s wind projects. Cowley North has seven of its fifteen 1.3 megawatt turbines installed, the rest by the end of the year. The Sinnott project’s five turbines will be installed in October. Additional turbines could be installed at Sinnott, too, if market conditions for wind power are ripe. The two projects are in Alberta. Visit Canadian Hydro at http://www.canhydro.com/

Back in the U.S. the Climate Trust and the Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) have jointly purchased 36,500 megawatt hours of Green Tag greenhouse gas emission offset credits from the Bonneville Power Administration. Unique to this more than $200,000 transaction is that the offset credits will be retired. The credits will be held in trust and not resold to companies trying to meet emission caps.

The Green Tags will be linked to a new wind project in Condon, Oregon, or another project. Revenues from the purchase will be used to help finance more green power capacity. Visit the Climate Trust at http://www.climatetrust.org/ and the BEF at http://www.bonenvfdn.org/ .