Meet the biggest heat pumps in the world

 

MVV Energie is building the world's most powerful heat pump systems

From the BBC

The pipe that will supply the heat pump, drawing water from the River Rhine in Germany, is so big that you could walk through it, fully upright, I'm told.

"We plan to take 10,000 litres per second," says Felix Hack, project manager at MVV Environment, an energy company, as he describes the 2m diameter pipes that will suck up river water in Mannheim, and then return it once heat from the water has been harvested.

In October, parent firm MVV Energie announced its plan to build what could be the most powerful heat pump modules ever. Two units, each with a capacity of 82.5 megawatts.

That's enough to supply around 40,000 homes, in total, via a district heating system. MVV Energie aims to build the system on the site of a coal power plant that is converting to cleaner technologies.

The scale of the heat pumps was determined partly by limits on the size of machinery that could be transported through the streets of Mannheim, or potentially via barges along the Rhine. "We're not sure about that yet," says Mr Hack. "It might come via the river."

One person well aware of the project is Alexandre de Rougemont, at Everllence (formerly MAN Energy Solutions), another German company that also makes extremely large heat pumps. "It is a competition, yeah," he says. "We're open about it."

Heat pumps soak up heat from the air, ground or, in these cases, bodies of water. Refrigerants inside the heat pumps evaporate when they are warmed even slightly.

By compressing the refrigerant, you boost that heat further. This same process occurs in heat pumps designed to supply single homes, it just happens on a much larger scale in giant heat pumps that serve entire city districts.

As towns and cities around the world seek to decarbonise, many are deciding to purchase large heat pumps, which can attach to district heating networks.

These networks allow hot water or steam to reach multiple buildings, all connected up with many kilometres of pipe. Ever bigger models of heat pump are emerging to meet demand.

"There was a lot of pressure on us to change the heat generation to new sources, especially renewable sources," explains Mr Hack as he discusses the decommissioning of coal-fired units at the Mannheim plant. The site is right by the Rhine, already has a hefty electricity grid connection, and is plugged in to the district heating network, so it makes sense to install the heat pumps here, he says.

He notes that the technology is possible partly thanks to the availability of very large compressors in the oil and gas industry – where they are used to compress fossil fuels for storage or transportation, for example.

Work on the Mannheim project is due to start next year. The heat pumps – with a combined capacity of 162MW – are set to become fully operational in the winter of 2028-29. Mr Hack adds that a multi-step filter system will prevent the heat pumps sucking up fish from the river, and that modelling suggests the system will affect the average temperature of the river by less than 0.1C.

Installations such as this are not cheap. The Mannheim heat pump setup will cost €200m ($235m; £176m). Mr de Rougemont at Everllence says that, at his company, heat-pump equipment costs roughly €500,000 per megawatt of installed capacity – this does not include the additional cost of buildings, associated infrastructure and so on.

Everllence is currently working on a project in Aalborg, Denmark that will be even more powerful than the system in Mannheim, with a total capacity of 176MW. It will use smaller modules, however – four 44MW units – and is due to become operational in 2027, when it will supply nearly one third of all heating demand in the town.

Those 44MW machines are actually the same ones used in a previous project, now fully operational, to the south of Aalborg in Esbjerg. There, they don't run at maximum capacity but rather supply 35MW each.

Large hot water storage tanks, each able to hold 200,000 cubic metres of liquid, will give the system added flexibility, adds Mr de Rougemont: "When the electricity price is high, you stop your heat pump and only provide heat from the storage."

Veronika Wilk at the Austrian Institute of Technology says, "Heat pumps and district heating systems are a great fit." Such systems can harvest heat from bodies of water or even wastewater from sewage treatment plants.

Dr Wilk notes that, when you use multiple large heat pumps on a district heating network, you gain flexibility and efficiency. You could run two out of four heat pumps in the autumn, say, when less heat is required than during the depths of winter.

All the systems mentioned so far harvest energy from water sources but, less commonly, very large heat pumps can use the air as a heat source, too. Even in a relatively cold city such as Helsinki.

"The sea in front of Helsinki is too shallow," explains Timo Aaltonen, senior vice president of heating and cooling at Helen Oy, an energy firm. "We calculated that we would need to build a tunnel more than 20km long to the ocean, to get enough water [with a] temperature high enough."

Helsinki is in the process of radically overhauling its district heating system. The city has added heat pumps, biomass burners and electric boilers to a 1,400km network that links up nearly 90% of buildings in the Finnish capital, adds Mr Aaltonen.

Heat pumps convert single kilowatt hours of electricity into multiple kilowatt hours of heat but electric boilers can't do this and are therefore considered less efficient.

I ask why Helen Oy decided to install hundreds of megawatts of these boilers and Mr Aaltonen says that they are cheaper to install than heat pumps and having them also means he and colleagues don't have to rely entirely on the air, which is limited in terms of how much heat it can provide at scale. Plus, the electric boilers can help to soak up surplus renewables and provide an electricity grid-balancing function, he says.

We are winning, despite Trump & big oil

 From Claes de Vreese

And now something positive:

Solar and wind energy production in the EU surpasses fossil energy for the first time.

#TippingPoint

Source: https://dr.dk

 

Despite big oil, despite Trump, despite the Right's betrayal of ordinary people: we are doing it. Too slowly, certainly, but the trend is in the right direction, on renewables, on EVs, and on heat pumps.

Victory is possible.

Snubbed

By Bill Bramhall 

Denmark introduces a carbon tax on agriculture

Source : Vegconomist

 From Vegconomist

Denmark looks set to introduce what is claimed to be the world’s first carbon tax on agriculture, following negotiations between the government, farmer organisations, trade unions, industry, and environmental NGOs.

The agreement is expected to be formally approved by the Danish parliament in August, and will see a tax of DKK 300 per tonne CO2e introduced on livestock emissions from 2030. This will rise to DKK 750 per tonne CO2e in 2035, but with a basic deduction of 60%; this means that the effective tax will be DKK 120 (€16) per tonne in 2030 and DKK 300 (€40) per tonne in 2035.

“We are investing in the future of our agricultural sector”

The proceeds raised by the tax in 2030-31 will be returned to the industry as a support fund to aid the green transition. The tax is expected to reduce emissions by 1.8 million tonnes of CO2e by 2030, enabling Denmark to achieve its legally binding target of cutting emissions by 70%.

Additionally, 250,000 new hectares of forest will be established in the coming years, and targets have been set to protect at least 20% of nature. Fees for slaughterhouses will be raised by DKK 45 million (€6 million) annually from 2029, and funding will be allocated to upskill labour.

The agreement has been reached despite Europe-wide backlash from farmers against proposed EU environmental policies, which led to some targets being dropped earlier this year. New Zealand has also recently scrapped plans for a tax aimed at tackling livestock emissions.

With the new tax, Denmark continues on its trajectory of progressive agricultural policies. In 2021, the country allocated 580 million DKK to farmers who produce plant-based foods; this was said to be the first time in history that plant foods had been given priority in an agricultural agreement.

In October 2023, Denmark became the first country worldwide to publish a national action plan for plant-based foods. The plan aims to strengthen and promote the country’s plant-based sector as part of the shift toward climate-friendly diets. Its publication came just a few months after a report found that Denmark’s financial sector currently lacks the objectives, knowledge, and ambition to invest in sustainable foods.

In March of last year, the Danish Climate Council recommended that two-thirds of the meat consumed by Danes should be replaced by plant-based foods, and suggested that high-emission foods such as beef should be taxed.

Beef and mutton produce the most methane in agriculture, and methane is 80 times as potent a greenhouse gas over 10 years as CO2 (it takes 12 years for methane to decay into CO2).  Also, expanding beef production means more land clearing, though obviously not in Denmark.  Globally, these two factors make agriculture a major source of greenhouse gases.  In 2024, 88% of Denmark's electricity came from renewables.   And 56% of Denmark's car sales are EVs/PHEVs.   Agriculture is the logical next step to cut emissions.  Heat pumps are another.  Compared to the rest of Scandinavia and Europe, Denmark has fewer heat pumps installed per 100,000 people, partly because its heat pump subsidies are smaller.  Heat pumps are far more efficient for heating in terms of energy use than old-fashioned gas or oil boilers.

Just to spite him

 By Guy Venables

45 years on: first wind turbine still going

Those around in the late 1970s may remember seeing magazine photographs of Danish students and volunteers carrying a massive wind turbine blade out of a tent (see Figure 13). (Karnøe and Garud, 2012; Tvindkraft, n.d.). That photo captured the world’s imagination. It was one of those rare historical moments that became a beacon to citizens everywhere who wanted to develop renewable energy by themselves, for themselves, and for their community’s benefit.

Figure 13. Tvind people power. The photo seen around the world in 1978 as students at the Tvind School carry one of the wind turbine blades from its assembly hall to the wind turbine. The action sent a political message: Together we are strong. We want wind power and we will build it ourselves. (Tvind School).

They were not ordinary students. They were on a mission and they knew at the time they were undertaking an historic task. They had set out to prove to the Danish government that Denmark didn’t need nuclear power, that Denmark with its long history of working with the wind could once again do so. They made another message clear too. If the Danish government wouldn’t act, the people would take the matter into their own hands, as they were doing that historic day, and build their own wind turbines.

Tvind was not an ordinary school either. Located near Ulfborg on the windy west coast of Denmark’s Jutland peninsula, the Tvind School was unlike a school in the modern sense and more in the tradition of the Danish folkehøjskole movement founded in the mid-19th century by Danish theologian N.F.S. Grundtvig. It was more like the training school founded by Poul La Cour at Askov than a public school. Not surprisingly, Tvind has had a similar influence on the development of wind energy in the contemporary era as the folkehøjskole at Askov had at the turn of the 19th century.

In the retelling of the modern wind industry’s early history, the construction of the wind turbine by Tvind and its role in pioneering modern wind turbine blades is often overlooked. It’s an uncomfortable story for many still, because the implications are so profound. How could a group of students, their teachers, and volunteers accomplish what some of the world’s most sophisticated aerospace firms with millions in research money could not? How could they build what was then the world’s largest wind turbine—a machine that has operated for more than three decades and remains in service to this day—when Boeing, Westinghouse, General Electric, Hamilton Standard, Kaman, Messerschmidt-Bölkow-Blohm, MAN and others had all failed, their turbines dismantled and sold for scrap?

The work at Tvind was taking place at the same time as NASA was developing its Mod-0A series and GE’s subsequent Mod-1. The difference in outcomes couldn’t have been starker.

The message delivered by the Tvind School so long ago was that wind energy was too important to be left to aerospace giants, electric utilities, and even to national governments. They demonstrated that unlike nuclear power, which requires massive centralized institutions, wind turbines could be built and owned by common citizens. This is a message that still resonates today.

Of course, the Tvind design team had sophisticated engineering knowledge. They and their faculty were not the Luddites some have portrayed. The school received valuable technical assistance from Helge Petersen and others from what would become Risø’s test station for wind turbines and from the Danish Technical University, for example. This was beneficial to all parties. Tvind was able to deal with some thorny technical problems, while the technical establishment gained valuable experience and hands-on knowledge of a large wind turbine outside the official Danish wind program.

And yes, they built upon a long Danish tradition with wind energy. But they were also willing to depart from that tradition when necessary. After all, they set out to build the first Danish wind turbine using long cantilevered blades instead of a rotor braced with the struts and stays like Juul had used at Gedser. They intended to build what was then considered a “modern” turbine, one that used cantilevered blades mounted downwind of the tower. Just as importantly, they were also willing to borrow good ideas from others, including from their southern neighbor, Germany. It was in this that they made their most significant technical contribution.

Tvind studiously avoided the common affliction that infects most design teams—the Not-Invented-Here syndrome. There’s a natural human tendency to want to go it alone, to be the sole inventor of a new idea and to discount the work of others and ignore the lessons they learned—often at great expense.

To build a long cantilevered blade the Tvind design team knew they needed a strong attachment at the blade’s root. Only a few decades earlier, Hütter had demonstrated just how to do so. Tvind’s development team adopted the concept as its own. The blades the Tvind team were building were no ordinary blades. They were big, each was 27 m long—as long as the blade that failed on the Smith-Putnam turbine in 1945. And massive, each blade weighed 5200 kg. The blades were nearly as big as those being developed at the same time by GE for its unsuccessful Mod-1 turbine.

Figure 14. Tvind blade. The late Preben Maegaard, one of the pioneers in the Danish wind revival, stands by the root end of one of the original Tvind blades. The blade is part of Danmarks Vindkrafthistoriske Samling collection of historic Danish wind turbines and components and can be seen at the Folkecenter for Renewable Energy near Hurup, Denmark. The 27-m long blade weighs 5200 kg. Note the blade flange where it mounts to the hub. The flange and the technique for attaching the fiberglass in the blade to the flange were originally developed by Ulrich Hütter in the 1950s and 1960s. Tvind adapted the technique to its pioneering wind turbine in 1975.

 

The huge Tvind project was begun in 1975 and finally completed in 1978. At the time it was the largest wind turbine in the world. It hasn’t been all smooth sailing. Out of safety concerns, the original 2 MW design was downgraded to 1 MW and half of this has been used for heating the Tvind school complex because the local grid wasn’t able to take the full 1 MW.

One blade failed in 1993 after 15 years of operation, requiring replacement of the rotor. The turbine was later returned to service and it was still operating in 2021[2024!]. This is a remarkable accomplishment for any wind turbine, and more so for such an early turbine and for one so large.

At the same time as Tvind was building the big wind turbine, a team of students developed an 11-kW downwind turbine using the same blade mounting technology they were using on the large turbine. In the spirit of La Cour, Tvind then made the design of these 4.5 m long blades available to others.

Tvind’s blade design—primarily its use of the Hütter flange—and their willingness to share the technology they had developed with other experimenters was the key element that led to what would become today’s wind industry, say Danish wind historians. All that was missing was someone to commercialize the blade technology (Maegaard et al., 2013).

Figure 15. Tvindkraft. World famous megawatt-scale wind turbine installed by students at the Tvind School near Ulfborg on the west coast of Jutland in 1978. Like other pioneering Danish wind turbines, the Tvind turbine is still operating after more than three decades—long after other large turbines installed during the period had been removed and sold for scrap. The turbine’s striking pop art paint scheme was created in 1999 by architect Jan Utzon to celebrate the turbine’s 25th anniversary. Utzon is the son of the architect who designed the Sydney Opera House.

[Read more here and here]

The rest is history.  

Thanks to these energetic pioneers, who succeeded when all the experts failed, wind, together with solar, will eventually power our grid.  In 2023, their combined total was 13.3% of global electricity generation.  In 2003, that was 0.4%.  That's a compound growth rate a touch under 20% per annum, which, if sustained, will lead to wind and solar reaching 80% of global electricity generation by 2033.  Will that sort of growth rate be sustained?   Who knows?  My guess is yes:  wind, solar, and battery costs continue to decline, while coal and gas get no cheaper.  

But those who twenty years ago mocked renewables because they provided less than half a percent of electricity, will no doubt be saying, I always told you they would work.  

Luckily for the world, these Danish students and professors didn't take no for an answer, and their triumph doesn't just live on in the explosive growth of wind power across the world, but in their turbine, the world's first commercial wind turbine, which is still working today, nearly 50 years later.

World's largest E-ferry

 From Daily Scandinavian

When the electric car-ferry Ellen entered service in 2019, she was the largest electric ferry in the world. She operates the route between the islands of Ærø and Als in Southern Denmark. This ferry, without noise or smoke, is paving the way to concrete transformation of maritime traffic and can quickly pay off the investments of EUR 21.3 million in both financial and environmental savings.

Although the investment is 40% more expensive than a conventional vessel, operating costs are 75% lower. It’s expected that she will save the release of 2,000 tons of CO2 per year. At her home port Ærø she loads her passengers and recharges her batteries with the surplus from the island’s wind turbines, which produce 130% of the electricity needed there. High-performance chargers top up the battery between sailings, so passengers do not need to wait long to depart.

Ellen’s batteries were developed by Leclanché of Switzerland. They are split between two battery rooms below deck and have a capacity of 4.3 MWh, larger than any other electric vessel. She is one of the first such vessels to have no emergency generator. A charging arm on the shore ramp moves with the tide and allows battery recharging while loading.

The 750-ton and 60-meter long ferry Ellen makes five daily trips between Ærø and Als in the Baltic Sea. Ellen is powered by 4.3 megawatts of battery power and was built by Søby Værft A/S with sections fabricated in Szczecin in Poland in 2016. 22 sections were welded together and the hull was towed to Søby on Ærø for outfitting.

“There are two reasons why Ellen is so special,” says the E-ferry coordinator Trine Heinemann. “There is no oil on board to run anything on the ship, so she’s fully-electric. Secondly the 22 nautical miles trip is seven times what existing comparable ships have covered. And the longer distances you start covering, the most usable your technology becomes. And I think in Europe it’s about 80 % of the ferry transportation that can be covered in a 22 nautical miles range.”

Ellen can carry 30 vehicles and 200 passengers. She was designed to minimize weight. Her passenger areas are on the same level as the open car deck. She does not have ramps, instead using those on shore. The hull is steel but the bridge is made of aluminum. Deck furniture is made from recycled paper rather than wood, giving the ferry a total weight of 650 tons.

“Actually, electric motors are more powerful because we have the full torque from the bottom so that’s quite nice. You can almost drive it like a speed boat!” says captain Thomas Larsen and adds that the crew quickly became familiar with the new tool.

“Perhaps most important of all for the dissemination of e-technology, pure electricity is simply the cheapest solution now,” according to a statement from the Ellen project team.

The 750-ton and 60-meter long ferry Ellen makes five daily trips between Ærø and Als in the Baltic Sea. Photo: Wikipedia commons

Denmark: greenest year ever

From State of Green:

2019 was a year where green ambitions were realised in the form of the Danish Climate Act. To top this off, power generated from wind turbines and solar power covered 49 per cent of the Danish electricity consumption in 2019, which is a new record.

In 2019, Denmark introduced the world’s most stringent climate act. New calculations from Danish Energy show that Denmark is already well on the way to delivering on the law that commits the country to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 70 per cent by 2030. Even though 2019 is not yet over, the calculations, which are based on the Danish Energy Agency’s statistics and ENTSO-E, the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity, show that the share of the wind and solar power in the country’s electricity consumption reached previously unmet heights.

Wind turbines produced enough power to cover 46 per cent of Denmark’s electricity consumption, which is a new record. Solar cells amounted for three per cent – a share which is expected to increase substantially in the coming years, given that certain types of large solar parks can be erected without subsidies. The previous record of 45 per cent was set in 2017.

The Danish Energy Agency estimates that the production of green energy will already exceed Denmark’s gross electricity consumption by 2028.

Wind production has also set new records. Using a cutoff of 16 December, wind turbines produced 15 terawatt hours in 2019, which is an amount equivalent to the electricity consumption of 3.75 million households. This figure has been aided by the offshore wind farm, Horns Rev 3, which officially opened in summer this year. The offshore farm consists of 49 turbines.

The amount of coal in the Danish electricity mix has also fallen by one third over the past two years. It now amounts for 13.3 per cent of production. Furthermore, the share of biomass, and in particular the amount of imported wood pellets, is beginning to flat line.

Both the low amounts of coal and the increasing shares of renewable energy means CO2 emissions from electricity are also falling. The power found in the Danes’ electricity sockets emits 157 grams of CO2 per kWh. These are historically low levels and far less than half the levels seen in 2013.

Viking economics

Scandinavia provides an alternative vision of economics and democracy to the kind of red-in-tooth-and-claw version that the USA practices, and which neo-liberals and economists have tried to make the standard ideology around the world.  Though policies differ in detail from country to country within Scandinavia, the general picture is one of high taxes, comprehensive welfare states, low inequality, low crime, low unemployment, free education and free health, and according to surveys, some of the happiest people in the developed world.  Despite all these things that the neo-liberal right deeply despises, somehow they also manage to have reasonable per capita growth (for developed countries—developing countries tend to have higher growth).

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

I’d like to tell you I’ve been away working hard on a study tour of the Nordic economies – or perhaps tracing the remnant economic impact of the Hanseatic League (look it up) – but the truth is we were too busy enjoying the sights around Scandinavia and the Baltic for me to spend much time reading the books and papers I’d taken along.

But since I always like telling people what I did on my holidays (oh, those fjords and waterfalls we saw while sailing up the coast of Norway to the Arctic Circle!), I’ve been looking up facts and figures in a forthcoming book comparing the main developed countries on many criteria, by my mate Professor Rod Tiffen and others at Sydney University (including me).

But first, the travelogue. Prosperous countries have a lot in common but Scandinavia is different. I have seen the future and, while some might regard it as political correctness gone mad, it looked pretty good to me.

One aspect in which the Nordics (strictly speaking, Finland isn’t Scandinavian because it’s a republic rather than a monarchy and because the Finnish language bears no relation to Danish, Swedish or Norwegian) are way more advanced is the role of women.

All of them have had female prime ministers or presidents, they have loads of female politicians and we were always seeing women out at business functions with their male colleagues.

Governments spend much more on childcare and they’re big on men actually taking paid paternity leave. They have “family zones” in trains and we were struck by how many men we saw by themselves pushing prams.

They’re much more relaxed on sexual matters. These days, any new building in Sweden will have unisex toilets, with rows of cubicles and not a urinal to be seen. Neat way of sidestepping debates about which toilet transgender people should use.

The Nordics are well ahead of us on environmental matters. They’re bicycle crazy (a big health hazard for tourists who don’t know they’re standing in a bike lane) and drive small cars.

They’re obsessed with organic food and even hotel guests are expected to recycle their paper and plastic. One hotel we stayed at in Copenhagen was so concerned to save the planet its policy was to make up the rooms only every fourth day.

The Norwegians have made and, unlike the rest of us, saved their pile by selling oil to the world but you get the feeling it troubles their conscience. So, like the other Nordics, they have ambitious targets to move to renewables and, to that end, are making more use of carbon pricing than most other countries.

The truth is, I’ve long wanted to see Scandinavia for myself. It’s a part of the world that most politicians and economists prefer not to think about. Why not? Because its performance laughs at all they believe about how to run a successful economy.

Everyone in the English-speaking economies knows big government is the enemy of efficiency. The less governments do, the better things go. The lower we can get our taxes, the more we’ll grow.

Just ask Scott Morrison. As he loves to say, no one ever taxed their way to prosperity. What’s he doing to encourage jobs and growth? Cutting taxes, of course. That’s Economics 101 – so obvious it doesn’t need explaining.

Trouble is, the Nordics have some of the highest rates of government spending in the world and pay among the highest levels of taxation but have hugely successful economies.

The Danes pay 46 per cent of gross domestic product in total taxes, the Finns pay 44 per cent, the Swedes 43 per cent and the Norwegians 38 per cent (compared with our 28 per cent).

Measured by GDP per person, Norway's standard of living is well ahead of America's. Then come the Danes and the Swedes – at around the average for 18 developed democracies (as are we) – with the Finns just beating out the Brits and the French further down the list.

The Nordics are also good at managing their government budgets.

We all know unions are bad for jobs and growth and we’ve succeeded in getting our rate of union membership down to 17 per cent. Funny that, the Nordics still have the highest rates (up around two-thirds), so, do they have lots of strikes? No.

The four Nordics are right at the top when it comes to the smallest gap between rich and poor, with Canada, Australia, Britain and the United States right at the bottom.

Other indicators show that (provided you ignore the long snowy winters) the Nordics enjoy a high quality of life and not just a high material standard of living.

Note this, I’m not claiming that the Scandinavians are more economically successful because of their big government and high taxes. No, I’m saying that, contrary to the unshakable beliefs of many economists and all conservative politicians, there’s little connection between economic success and the size of government.

So how do the Scandis do it? I read this on the wall of an art museum in Aarhus, Denmark: “In a society we are mutually interdependent. Strengthening the spirit of community, we improve society for all of us as a group but we also provide each individual with better opportunities for realising his or her own potential.”

Source
Note: US population growth rates are higher than Scandinavian

Source

So deeply are the neo-liberal tenets held in Anglophone countries that no matter how much evidence is produced showing that the Scandinavian model works, I doubt that we will ever move towards their system.  Sad.

In Denmark, greener is better

In Denmark, political parties are fighting over which has the greenest policies.  What a nice problem to have.  In Australia, the ruling "Liberal"/"National" coalition has just been re-elected after a scare campaign about how much the opposition Labor Party's emissions reduction plans would cost.  The L/NP has no plans to cut emissions.  Indeed, it wants to subsidise coal power stations.  Peak stupid.  Or Venal.

 Actually, Denmark is on track to dramatically cut emissions, whoever wins the Danish elections.  For example, by 2026 Denmark will have zero emissions from electricity generation.

Wind should produce 70% of total generation, and solar 20%.

But more electricity will be needed to power electric cars.  Eliminating natural gas and coal will require only 61% wind, even without solar.  If EVs increase electricity demand by 30%, the expansion of wind and solar will ensure there is enough power even without fossil fuels.  And remember: an EV stores a few days' worth of household electricity demand, so EVs will balance the grid.  Electricity pricing will be adjusted to encourage charging when electricity is surplus, and discouraging it when supply is tight. 

A 100% carbon-free economy.  And its political parties are vying with each other to make it happen faster!  Cause for hope.

Nuclear and hydro are imported.  

Danish island ends fossil fuel use

Bleak and windswept Samsø generates all its own electricity. Image: By Kyrre Havik Eriksen on Unsplash

It can be done.

Tackling climate change is urgent. It’s too urgent to be feasible, say some critics. But as one Danish island ends fossil fuel use, its story shows it  may be time to think again.

In five years, by 2023, the UK Met Office says, global warming could temporarily [?] rise by more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, the target agreed by 195 governments in 2015. So the world needs to switch fast from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

The island of Samsø, off Denmark’s east coast, has wasted no time. Between 1998 and 2007 it abandoned its total dependence on imported fossil fuels and now relies entirely on renewables, mainly wind and biomass. It’s been singled out as the world’s first 100% renewable island by the Rapid Transition Alliance (RTA), which says Samsø can teach the world some vital lessons about changing fast and radically.

In 1997 Samsø, with 4,000 inhabitants, entered a Danish government competition to develop a model renewable energy community, aiming to prove that the country’s target of reducing carbon emissions by 21% was achievable.

Samsø’s winning proposal was based on strong community engagement and a cooperative ownership strategy. It showed how to make renewables a social, economic and energy success.

What the islanders did was straightforward enough. By the year 2000 they had installed 11 wind turbines, covering their electricity needs. A further 10 offshore turbines were erected in 2002, generating enough energy to offset emissions from their cars, buses, tractors and the ferry to the mainland. Three-quarters of their heating and hot water now comes from biomass boilers fuelled with locally grown straw.

Samsø’s transition, the Alliance says, proved that a wholesale shift to renewable energy was possible with existing technology and limited government assistance.

Nowadays, residents are producing so much more clean energy than they need (and exporting what they don’t use) that, in effect, they have an average annual CO2 footprint of minus 12 tonnes per person, helping their fellow citizens to lower their emissions too (the average Dane emits 6.2 tonnes of CO2 a year, the average Briton 10 tonnes)[US 19.9 tonnes, Australia 25 tonnes].

Samsø, the argument runs, proves the effectiveness of setting ambitious targets – and meeting them. The Alliance says Samsø’s transition is impressive because it was achieved with the active buy-in (both figuratively and financially) of the local community.

Winning hearts and minds was crucial. People often oppose on-shore wind turbines as a visual intrusion, a blot on the landscape. So the transition organisers, Samsø Energy Academy, worked out how to include the islanders as the turbines’ owners.

They had a simple principle: if you could see a turbine from your window, you could sign on as a co-investor, meaning that anyone living with the technology had a stake in it and stood to.benefit

With so many islanders having a direct stake in the turbines there is now near unanimity that the renewable transition has been good for Samsø. Of the 11 onshore turbines, nine are owned privately by local farmers and two by local cooperatives. Five of the offshore turbines are owned by the municipality, three privately and two cooperatively by small shareholders.

Before the transition began Samsø had relied mainly on oil, with its electricity generated in coal-fired power plants on the mainland. The potential for renewables had not been explored, and there was deep scepticism towards them. A lack of opportunities for education and work had led many young people to leave the island.

The islanders embraced the transition, but not because of climate change. Instead, most looked to its potential to provide jobs, strengthen the local economy and secure greater energy independence.

Key to Samsø’s success, the Alliance believes, was the insistence on transparency, consultation, and starting from what people wanted. From the start there was full disclosure of information, with the master plan published in the island’s library and information shared through the local newspaper and discussed in detail at regular community meetings.

Samsø’s long tradition of agricultural cooperatives also helped to ensure strong local engagement. There was ample time for discussion and decision-making, which helped to build confidence and a strong sense of collective ownership of decisions.

[Read more here]

Samsø beach (Source Visit Samsø)

Denmark's first zero-subsidy wind farm

In most developing countries, apart from China, renewables aren't subsidised (though fossil fuels often are).  China even has a nascent carbon price via a cap-and-trade scheme.  But in developing countries, which initiated the green revolution, there are still some subsidies as well as carbon prices set by cap-and-trade regulations or carbon taxes.  The sustained fall in the cost of renewables has meant that in developing countries they are now making up most of new capacity and in developed countries they can now be deployed without subsidy.  The first modern wind turbine built was in Denmark, and it's still operating today.  (There was one built in the USA in 1888, though)  Now it's time for unsubsidised wind:

Gusty wind conditions and the first Danish deployment of Vestas' largest wind turbine model will enable Hirtshals Havn to churn out electricity on pure market conditions, only backed by a three-year PPA.

Installation of Denmark’s first zero-subsidy wind farm has begun, writes EnergyWatch.eu. Domestic developer Hirtshals Havnefond has planned a project in partnership with Vestas featuring four wind turbines of the model V136-4.2 at the country’s northern port of Hirtshals. The machines will start spinning on pure market conditions starting from the fourth quarter of this year. The project’s only security is a three-year power purchase agreement (PPA) entered with energy trader EnergiDanmark.

“It has a unique placement and novel wind turbines,” said Hirtshals Havnefond Chair Jens Peter Lunden, explaining how the project will be viable devoid of subsidy.

With an average wind speed of 8.2 meters per second, Hirtshals Havn could hardly be better suited for wind energy generation. The V136-4.4, with its 66.7 meter blades, can harvest more wind power the any wind turbine model thus far installed in the country. The 4.2 MW machine can also, Vestas claims, generate roughly 17 GWh annually at such wind speeds – approximately double last year’s average output from an onshore wind turbine installed in the country.

Wind Denmark acknowledges that the project site was the decisive factor in planning Denmark’s first zero-subsidy wind farm. For, even though last year’s technology-neutral tender ended with a remarkable average price of EUR 0.0031 per kWh – achieving veritable zero-subsidy status is entirely special, the interest group says.

“We have reached a point where the combination of fantastic wind conditions and the latest technology make it a given that onshore wind turbines can be installed without subsidy. This is a milestone we have been working towards for many years,” said Wind Denmark Chief Executive Jan Hylleberg, who, however, does not for that reason advocate canceling future tenders with attached subsidies.

“In part, it is about promoting technology-neutral competition, and there will probably still be projects requiring some support, as last year’s tender demonstrated. Fantastic wind conditions are not found everywhere, and there will also be sites that don’t allow the for the latest technology.”

The nascent turbine technology planned for Hirtshals only relates to the tops of the towers. Nacelles will be placed atop 82-meter towers, which is roughly half the height of Vestas’ forthcoming platform. This design feature is due to Denmark’s height restriction regulations, which stipulate that tip blade height must not exceed 150 meters. If that requirement was slackened, a larger portion of Danish wind power could be subsidy free.

“There is no doubt that if it were possible to install turbines taller than 150 meters, we would have a situation that could accommodate more wind turbines completed free of subsidy,” Hylleberg said.

Hirtshals is not the only zero-subsidy green power project planned in the country. In February, Danish developer Better Energy announced a 125 MW solar farm, only secured with a PPA with Danish fashion company Bestseller.

[Read more here]

And to allow community participation, shares in the new venture will be offered to everybody who lives within a 4.5 km radius.   That's one way to prevent fake claims that wind turbines cause cancer.

Source: Port of Hirtshals

Methanol Fuel Cells

The MS innogy on Lake Baldeneysee in Essen (Source)

I'd heard about hydrogen fuel cells, but I'd never heard of methanol fuel cells before I read this article.  Methanol is made from methane, i.e., natural gas.  But methane can also come from green sources: biomass, or old rubbish dumps for example.  Or it can be made via the Sabatier process, which takes carbon dioxide, water and heat and produces methane.  So in principle, methanol can be carbon neutral, and if it is used in a fuel cell rather than burnt, it is silent, produces no nitrogen oxide (Nox) or particulate emissions.

After a ship-naming ceremony on Friday, the MS innogy is now ready to take passengers for a green tour on the beautiful Lake Baldeneysee. The MS innogy, the first vessel in Germany to be powered by methanol fuel cells, is a project by innogy, a leading distributor of green energy in Germany and the City of Essen. The methanol fuel cell system powering the vessel is developed and manufactured by the Danish fuel cell manufacture SerEnergy. 

About a year ago, the companies started to develop a plan to turn a diesel-powered vessel into an electric vessel powered by environmentally friendly methanol fuel cells. 

“We are very proud to see the vessel touring the lake in Essen, it is an important milestone in showing the potential of methanol as the green fuel of the future. For us, it has been a very interesting project to be part of, and since the project is a first of its kind we have had to think out of the box to create an ideal energy system matching the energy demands of the vessel”, says Mads Friis Jensen, Chief Commercial Officer at SerEnergy. 

Not only has the methanol fuel cell system zero harmful emissions and is CO2-neutral, it is also low on noise and vibrations, allowing the passengers to enjoy the tour without the characteristic engine noise and vibrations you normally experience on a vessel. 

The MS innogy is a part of innogy’s “greenfuel” project where they demonstrate the entire value chain of environmentally friendly methanol, from a green production of methanol using CO2 from the surrounding air, green electricity and water, to the use of methanol as fuel in the excursion vessel and in cars. The scene of the methanol value chain demonstration project is the City of Essen – this year’s “Green Capital of Europe” and the demonstration project goes hand in hand with the ambitious transition the city is undergoing in reinventing itself as a “Green City”.

[Read more here]

What are the advantages of methanol?

• Lower costs – Methanol is cheap and easy to produce. Typically, there is 15-60% fuel cost savings compared to diesel generators.

• Low to zero emission – Serenergy’s methanol fuel cells offer a CO2 neutral solution. There is a 50-65% CO2 reduction compared to diesel generators and no harmful emissions (NOX or particles).

• High efficiency – The fuel cell system offers a high efficiency compared to internal combustion engines. It has a complete system efficiency up to 50%.

• Reliability and low maintenance –The lack of moving parts in a Serenergy methanol fuel cell, especially compared to an internal combustion engine, signifies that the level of maintenance is low and the reliability of the system is thus very high.

• Energy security – Oppose to fossil fuel, such as petrol and diesel, methanol is a very flexible fuel, which can be produced from a broad range of feedstock, hence ensuring energy security.

• Scalability – The Serenergy methanol fuel cell modules are designed and available in customised sizes from 10 to 120 cells. Furthermore, two or four systems can be connected for higher power ranges. Consequently, this means that is a scalable power output of 1kWp to 6kW

• Quiet energy – A Serenergy methanol fuel cell system generates no (low) noise (<62dB) and no vibrations, which makes them ideal for power generation in residential areas.

• Technology compatibility – Serenergy’s methanol fuel cell solutions must be seen as complementary and not as a competitor, with other energy generation technologies. Especially renewable technologies.

(The benefits of methanol fuel cells)

A critical problem with the hydrogen or methane/methanol economy is that producing hydrogen via electrolysis from water has a substantial energy loss.  How much is lost depends on the precise process used.   But at best it's around 35%.  According to Tesla, their Powerwall battery is around 90% efficient.  So on the face of it, batteries are more efficient.  On the other hand, according to SerEnergy, methanol cells are 1.8 times as efficient as diesel:

Methanol and fuel cells is a good match. Methanol used in fuel cells is highly efficient and in many cases, it make twice as good use of energy as a combustion engine. Serenergy fuel cells have an efficiency of +45 %, whereas a combustion engine has an efficiency of 25-30 %. 

 (Why do we use methanol?)

This is still a developing technology.  But it's certainly interesting enough to keep one's eye on it.

A New Tony Seba speech

Tony Seba calls it "God Parity" when solar plus storage falls below the cost of transmission.

This is the latest Tony Seba speech. It's long but eminently watchable.

He makes the usual point with the two pictures of the same New York street in 1900 (with just one car, the rest horses) and 1913 (all cars except for one horse-drawn carriage); of how AT&T (the inventor of the mobile phone!) hired McKinsey and Co in 1985 to forecast total mobile phone demand by the year 2000, and were 120 tmies out; and how Kodak (the inventor of the digital camera !) went from record profits in 2000 to bankruptcy in 2012 as conventional camera sales collapsed.

He pointed out that technological adoption rates (for successful technologies) are ALWAYS S-curves,  starting slowly then accelerating, and only peaking out when they approach 100% market share. Over the last couple of decades,  the S-curves have become steeper: new technologies are being adopted faster.

Lithium ion batteries fell in cost by 14% per annum from 1995 to 2010.  From 2010 to 2014 the rate of decline accelerated to 16% per annum.  From 2010 to 2016 it accelerated again to 20% per annum [which implies that in the last couple of years it has been higher than 20%, which we know is true]  For Con Ed (a US utility) 1/3rd of generating assets are used for just 6 hours a year.  So even if batteries are too expensive to be used for 3 or 4 or 5 hours of time-shifting power output, they are already cost competitive for these brief periods of peaking power.  By 2020 or so (3 years away!) it will cost the average American consumer just $1 a day to store 24 hours of electricity demand.  But disruptions starts earlier.  The most profitable part of utility sales is the supply in the afternoon-evening peak which is just 6 hours. Already tropical islands are switching to 100% solar+batteries because it is cheaper than diesel.

ICE (internal combustion engine) cars, i.e., petrol/diesel cars convert just 17-21% of the energy stored in the petrol/diesel into motion; electric cars convert 90-95%.  Plus electrons are much cheaper to transmit than atoms.  He gives the example of a Jeep Liberty which would cost $15,000 for 5 years of "gas" (i.e., petrol) vs $1565 if it were electric.  Petrol cars have 2000+ moving parts (transmission, driveshaft, clutch, valves, differential , pistons, gears, carburettors, crankshafts ....) EVs 20.  Reflecting this, Tesla has offered an infinite mile warranty.  Biggest cost of maintenance is tyres. In 2013 he drew the battery cost curve which projected an SUV at $35-$40K in 2017-18, $29K by end 2019, and $22K by end 2022 for cars with over 200 miles range.  People said he was mad.  But we have the Chevy Bolt, the Tesla Model 3 and soon the new Nissan Leaf.

Lidar (needed for autonomous vehicles) cost $70,000 in 2012, $1,000 in 2014, $250 in 2016.  $90 Lidar on the way. World’s first 1 teraflops computer cost $46 million in 2000 and covered 150 square metres.  2016, a 2.3 teraflops computer by Invidia cost $59, and is about the size of a laptop.  Invidia expects a 1000 times improvement by 2025.  All these forces together will lead to transport as a service: autonomous cars which you will only use when you need them (the average car is used for only 4% of the time—the rest of the time, it’s parked) Per mile, costs of transport will drop 10 fold.  The (ICE) used car market will collapse. ICE car companies will have to compete with zero-value used cars and transport as a service which will be 10 times cheaper.  By 2030, the car fleet will be 80% smaller.  Oil demand will peak in 2020, and will be 30% lower by 2030.

A newly-built Danish school gets 50% of its electricity from solarpanels—in its walls.  Copenhagen is 55 degrees N, 3 degrees south of Juneau in Alaska, and 5 degrees north of Vancouver.  If they can do it, 90% of the world can.  Installed solar capacity has doubled every 2 years since 2000 (a 40% per annum growth rate)  Solar provides 1.5% of total world electricity, but it is just 6 doublings—12 years—away from providing 100% of world electricity.  By the end of this year, solar will be at or below grid parity in 80% of the world.   The falling cost of rooftop solar will soon fall below the cost of transmission, never mind generation.  Generation will be distributed, like an internet of energy.

When I watch Tony Seba, I am optimistic about us—mankind—doing enough to stop runaway global warming.  Solar is just getting cheaper every year, and if it continues growing at anything like the rate it is now, we will cut CO2 emissions by 30% over the next 15 years.  Electric cars will dominate the market in 15 or 20 years, and that will lead to a further cut in emissions from transport by 30% plus (remember a big chunk of oil demand is for stuff like tarmac or as feedstocks for plastics).  If we can also cut the emissions of iron and steel, cement production, and air transport we will be able to reduce emissions by 70% over the next 20 years.  This is far better than the IEA (International Energy Agency)’s  projections which assume emissions will keep on rising for decades.  Of course, you then have to deal with dimwits like Australia’s “Liberal” party, which now wishes to subsidise a coal-fired power station, which no utility will build (because it’s so much more expensive than renewables.)  But I hope intelligence will win.