Overview of Renewable Energy
for GGR314
Danny Harvey, Professor
Solar Energy:
• Passive (passive heating, ventilation
cooling and daylighting)
• Active (using PV or solar thermal
collectors)
Triple-glazing throughout, maximized passive solar heat gain
Source: Danny Harvey
Solar chimneys on the Building Research Establishment (BRE)
building in Garston, UK
Source: Copyright by Dennis Gilbert, View Pictures (London)
Figure 4.53a Interior Light Shelf
Source: Danny Harvey
Figure 4.56 Light Pipe
Source: International Association of Lighting Designers
Supplemental figures, EnergyBase building,
Vienna
Source: Danny Harvey
Windows on south facade are slightly overhanging
Source: Ursula Schneider, Pos Architekten, Vienna
Air temperatures during flow through solarium
and heat exchanger
Source: Ursula Schneider, Pos Architekten, Vienna
Active Solar Energy
• Photovoltaic (PV) for electricity
• Concentrating solar thermal for electricity
• Solar thermal for space heating and hot water,
or for regeneration of desiccants in desiccant
dehmudification and cooling systems
Solar PV
Figure 2.28a Growth in annual PV production
Annual Installation of PV (MWp-AC)
6000
Rest of World
USA
Rest of Europe
Spain
Germany
Japan
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000
0
1998
2000
2002
2004
Year
2006
2008
Figure 2.28b Growth in installed PV power
Capacity (MWp-AC)
16000
Rest of World
USA
Rest of Europe
Spain
Germany
Japan
12000
8000
4000
0
1998
2000
2002
2004
Year
2006
2008
Figure 2.16 PV mounted onto a sloping roof
Source: Prasad and Snow (2005, Designing with Solar Power: A Sourcebook for Building Integrated
Photovoltaics, Earthscan/James & James, London)
Figure 2.17 PV integrated into a sloping roof
Source: Omer et al (2003, Renewable Energy 28, 1387-1399, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/09601481)
Figure 2.18a BiPV on single-family house in Finland
Source: Hestnes (1999, Solar Energy 67, 181–187, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/0038092X)
Figure 2.18b BiPV on a single-family house in Maine
Source: Hestnes (1999, Solar Energy 67, 181–187, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/0038092X)
Supplemental figure: BiPV on multi-unit housing
somewhere in Europe
Figure 2.19 PV modules (attached to insulation)
on a horizontal flat roof
Source: www.powerlight.com
Figure 2.21 BiPV (opaque elements) on the
Condé Nast building in New York
Source: Eiffert and Kiss (2000, Building-Integrated Photovoltaic Designs for Commercial and Institutional Structures:
A Sourcebook for Architects, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Colorado)
Figure 2.22 PV modules servings as shading louvres on
the Netherlands Energy Research Foundation building
Source: Photographs by Marcel von Kerckhoven, BEAR Architecten (www.bear.nl)
Supplemental figure PV modules as vertical shading louvres
on the SBIC East head office building in Tokyo
Source: Shinkenchiku-Sha and www.oja-services.nl/iea-pvps/cases jpn_02.htm
Figure 2.23 PV modules providing partial shading in the
atrium of the Brundtland Centre (Denmark, left)
and Kowa Elementary School (Tokyo, right)
Source: Shinkenchiku-Sha
Source: Henrik Sorensen, Esbensen Consulting
Supplemental figure: Amersfoort project,
The Netherlands
Concentrating Solar Thermal
Systems for Electricity
• Concentrate sunlight onto one point or line
with mirrors
• Make steam that drives a steam turbine
• Makes electricity, up to 24 hours per day
Figure 2.34a Parabolic trough schematic
Source: Greenpeace (2005, Wind Force 12: A Blueprint to Achieve 12% of the World’s
Electricity from Wind Power by 2020, Global Wind Energy Council, www.gwec.org)
Figure 2.35a Parabolic Trough Thermal Electricity,
Kramer Junction, California
Figure 2.35b Parabolic Trough Thermal Electricity,
Kramer Junction, California
Figure 2.35c Close-up of parabolic trough
Figure 2.34b Central receiver schematic
Source: Greenpeace (2005, Wind Force 12: A Blueprint to Achieve 12% of the World’s
Electricity from Wind Power by 2020, Global Wind Energy Council, www.gwec.org)
Figure 2.42 Central tower solar thermal
powerplant in California
Source: US CSP (2002) Status of Major Project Opportunities, presentation at the 2002 Berlin Solar Paces CSP Conference
Figure 2.34c Parabolic dish schematic
Source: Greenpeace (2005, Wind Force 12: A Blueprint to Achieve 12% of the World’s
Electricity from Wind Power by 2020, Global Wind Energy Council, www.gwec.org)
Figure 2.39 Parabolic dish/Stirling engine
for generation of electricity
Source: US CSP (2002) Status of Major Project Opportunities, presentation at the 2002 Berlin Solar Paces CSP Conference
Figure 2.40 Stirling Receiver
Source: Mancini et al (2003, Journal of Solar Energy Engineering 125, 135–151)
Source: Clery (2011, Science 331, 136)
Description of the scheme in the
proposed project shown in the preceding slide
Solar Thermal For Space Heating
and Hot Water
Figure 2.45 Types of collectors for heating
and domestic hot water
Source: Everett (2004, Renewable Energy, Power for a Sustainable Future, 17-64, Oxford University Press, Oxford)
Figure 2.46 Installation of flat-plate solar thermal collectors
Source: www.socool-inc.com
Figure 2.47a Integration of solar thermal collectors
into the building facade
Source: Sonnenkraft, Austria
Figure 2.47b Integration of solar thermal collectors
into the building roof
Source: Sonnenkraft, Austria
Figure 2.48 Integrated passive evacuated-tube
collector and storage tank in China
Source: Morrison et al (2004, Solar Energy 76, 135-140, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/0038092X)
Wind Energy
Figure 3.1a Annual additions to wind energy capacity
40
Other
China
India
US
Other European
Spain
Germany
Annual Addition (GW/yr)
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1995
1997
1999
2001
2003
Year
2005
2007
2009
Figure 3.1b Growth in total wind energy capacity
180
160
Other
China
India
US
Other European
Spain
Germany
Capacity (GW)
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
1995
1997
1999
2001
2003
Year
2005
2007
2009
Figure 3.2a Breakdown of installed capacity
at the end of 2009
Denmark
2.2%
Portugal
2.2%
ROW
13.5%
US
22.3%
UK
2.6%
France
2.8%
Italy
3.1%
Germany
16.3%
India
6.9%
Spain
12.1%
China
15.9%
Figure 3.2b Capacity (MW) installed in 2009
ROW, 4272
Portugal, 673
UK, 763
Canada, 950
China, 12894
France, 1088
Italy, 1104
India, 1339
Germany, 1875
Spain, 2409
US, 9989
Figure 3.3 Wind farm at Pincher creek, Alberta
Source: Garry Sowerby
Figure 3.4 Progression of rotor sizes over time
Figure 3.25 Middelgrunden wind farm, next to Copenhagen
Source: Danny Harvey
Biomass
Advantages of biomass:
•
•
•
•
•
Can be stored
Provides rural income & employment
Potentially cleaner than coal for most pollutants
Can be irrigated and fertilized with sewage water
Can be cultivated in such a way as to improve
the landscape and remediate soils
• Can make use of animal wastes and agricultural
residues while providing an effective fertilizer
byproduct
Disadvantages of biomass energy
• Land intensive (efficiency of photosynthesis is
~ 1%, with further losses when biomass is
converted to secondary forms of energy)
• Can compete with land for food
• Complex to initiate and manage
• Must be tailored to the biophysical and socioeconomic circumstances of each region
Bioenergy Crops
• Annuals
• Perennial grasses
• Woody Crops (trees)
Annuals
• Starch-rich crops (maize (corn), wheat,
potatoes) (used to produce ethanol)
• Sugar-rich crops (sugarcane, sugar beets)
(used to produce ethanol)
• Oil-rich crops (coconut oil, palm oil,
sunflower oil) (used to produce biodiesel)
Figure 4.3a Sugarcane (a sugar-rich crop)
Source: www.wikipedia.org
Figure 4.3b Sugarcane harvesting
Source: www.wikipedia.org
Figure 4.3c Cut sugarcane stalks
Source: www.wikipedia.org
Figure 4.4 Palm oil (and oil-rich crop)
Sources: Left, Photo by Jeff McNeely in Howarth and Bringezu (2009, Biofuels: Environmental Consequences and
Interactions with Changing Land Use, SCOPE); upper right, Stone (2007, Science, vol 317, pp149 );
lower right, Koh and Wilcove (2007, Nature, vol 448, pp993–994)
Perennial grasses
• Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum)(native to North
America)
• Miscanthus (native to tropical Africa and tropical
and temperate Asia)
• Napier grass (native to tropical Africa)
• Jatropha curcas (a poisonous weed native to
Central America, used in India)
Figure 4.5 Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum)
Source: US Gov public domain
Figure 4.6 Miscanthus sinensus (upper)
& Napier grass (Pennisetum pupureum) (lower)
Source: www.wikipedia.org
Figure 4.7 Close-up of Jatropha (left), and degraded land
before (upper right) and after being planted
with Jatropha (lower right) in India
Source: Left, photo by Jeff McNeely in Howarth and Bringezu (2009, Biofuels: Environmental Consequences and
Interactions with Changing Land Use, SCOPE); right, Fairless (2007, Nature, vol 449, pp652–655)
Woody crops
• Short-rotation coppicing
- Willow (Salix)
- Poplar (Populus)
• Modified conventional forestry
- Acacia (N-fixing)
- Pine (Pinus)
- Eucalyptus
Figure 4.8 Harvest of coppice willow and irrigation
of new growth with sewage water in Sweden.
Source: Dimitriou and Aronsson (2003, Unasylva 56, 221, 47-50)
Figure 4.9a Five-year old Acacia plantation
Source: Doug Maquire, Oregon State University, www.forestryimages.org
Figure 4.9b Eucalyptus plantation in Spain (left) and 4-year
old Eucalyptus in Hawaii (right).
Source: NREL Photo Exchange, www.nrel.gov/data/pix)
Figure 4.9c 14-year old loblolly pine
(Pinus taeda) in Georgia, USA
Source: Dennis Haugen, www.forestryimages.org
Large-scale integration of
dispersed renewable energy
sources with an HVDC (highvoltage DC) grid
Figure 3.32 Typical DC and AC Transmission Pylons
± 500 kV DC
route width: 50 m
800 kV AC
85 m
Source: GAC (2006, Trans-Mediterranean Interconnection for Concentrating Solar Power, Final Report, GAC,
www.dlr.de/tt/trans-csp)
Figure 3.33 Transmission corridors transmitting
10 GW of electric power
Source: GAC (2006, Trans-Mediterranean Interconnection for Concentrating Solar Power, Final Report, GAC,
www.dlr.de/tt/trans-csp)
Figure 12.1c Minimum of CSTP and wind electricity cost
(cents/kWh) (excluding transmission cost)
5
6
7
8
10
From C. Macilwain (2010, ‘Supergrid’, Nature 468, 624-625)
Nuclear Energy?
The issues are:
•
•
•
•
•
•
How fast we could ramp up
Cost
Long term U supplies
Isolation of waste from the biosphere
Terrorism/arms proliferation
Safety
Figure 8.27 Nuclear reactor ages
35
Number of Reactors
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Age (Years)
Source: Data from www.iaea.org/programmes/a2/index.html
35
40
45
Maintaining existing capacity
• As of April 2007, 114 out of 436 nuclear power
reactors in the world were more than 30 years
old
• Assuming the normal reactor lifetime of 40
years, 114 new reactors will be needed during
the next 10 years, or an average of one every 5
weeks – just to maintain the existing capacity
• The following decade, a new reactor would be
needed every 22 days on average just to
maintain the existing capacity
Resource Constraints
• Its hard to say how much uranium might become
available with large increases in the price of uranium
(due to scarcity)
• However, in the absence of reprocessing and use of fast
breeder reactors (which pose enormous terrorism risks
in today’s world), the supply would likely not be adequate
for more than 100 years (and possibly much less) if we
were to somehow double the current supply of electricity
from nuclear reactors.
• However, nuclear wastes would be a problem for 100s
of thousands of years – is it fair to burden future
generations with this just so that we get (at most) an
extra 100 years from nuclear energy?
Figure 8.16 Capital cost of nuclear power plants
12000
Overnight Capital Cost ($/kW)
10000
Wall Street &
Independent
Analysts
8000
6000
Completed Nuclear
Reactors
Utilities
4000
Early Vendors,
Government &
Academics
2000
0
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
Year
Source: Cooper (2009, Institute for Energy and the Environment, Vermont Law School)
2010
My conclusions on nuclear
energy
• It will at best be too little too late
• It is unlikely to be less expensive than
reliable renewable energy systems
• There are many important unresolved
issues