SOLAR TODAY - June 2011

General Electric:

Strong Move into

Solar

This feature was adapted from Solar@ Work, a free, biweekly e-bulletin geared toward solar professionals. To read the latest issue and to have Solar@Work delivered to your email box, sign up at solartoday.org/sw.

On April 7, General Electric Co. announced it will invest $600 million in the purchase of thin-film pioneer PrimeStar Solar and construction of the nation’s largest photovoltaic (PV) factory, capable by 2013 of producing 400 megawatts (MW) of cadmium-telluride modules annually.

PrimeStar, launched in 2006 based on technology developed at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, has a factory in Arvada, Colo., with capacity of 40 MW annually. Location of the new factory had not been determined, but economic development officials in Colorado, Michigan and New York (GE’s home state) began lobbying for it immediately.

The move was widely viewed as a direct challenge to market leader First Solar, which this year will have the capacity to produce 2,300 MW annually. First Solar claims 11. 6 percent efficiency for modules delivering now; PrimeStar claims 12. 8 percent conversion.

GE first invested in PrimeStar in September 2007 and acquired a majority share the following May. It now assumes 100 percent ownership.

Since 2002, when GE rescued Enron’s wind turbine-manufacturing division from the financial conflagration, the company swiftly has become a major factor in renewable energy. It sold 2. 5 gigawatts of wind turbine capacity in 2010, more than half the U.S. market. GE also sells about 40

percent of all the gas turbines for electric generation in the world, so a month after the Fukushima tsunami, Chairman/ CEO Jeff Immelt was able to tell reporters that a shipment of GE gas turbines was already westbound across the Pacific to help fill the gap in Japan’s electric power grid.

GE turbine technology underlies both the clean and dirty sides of the energy industry. Company founder Thomas Edison built his first hydroelectric generating station in 1882 (in Wisconsin), and GE launched commercial development of the Curtis steam turbine in 1897. About 6,000 large GE steam turbines are in service around the world, producing power from coal plants, nuclear plants and concentrating solar plants. They’re backed up by more than 6,000 GE gas turbines making electricity around the world.

The nuclear power plant database maintained by the World Nuclear Organization ( world-nuclear.org) shows that GE built about 32 percent of the 104 nuclear power plants still operating in the United States. This means that GE nuclear reactor designs may be generating about 3. 8 percent of the nation’s electric power. The company’s wind turbines may now make half of that. New data from the Energy Information Administration suggest that the United States’ non-hydro renewable sources will produce more electricity than the whole nuclear industry sometime this summer. Now it looks as if General Electric wants to lead that charge. —SEth MASiA

Implementing Local Smart Grids

Isolated villages in Japan have a history of audacious self-determination and an innate passion for participation.

In 2005, I visited one of these towns as part of a wood biomass research project. Kuzumaki is a small town of 8,000 in the mountainous middle of Iwate Prefecture, 50 miles from the coast. A bit over a decade ago Kuzumaki decided to fight climate change its own way, one wacky idea at a time. By the time I got there it had become an eco-tourist destination. In 2010, Kuzumaki hosted more than 500,000 visitors (about 40 visitors for each resident!) who came to marvel at its wind farm, a biogas generator powered by cow manure from its famous dairy (which has been supplying non-contaminated milk as part of the disaster relief effort), a biodiesel refinery fueled with used tempura oil, photovoltaic-roofed schools and modern elder-care facilities heated by wood pellets made locally in Japan’s first pellet mill, established more than 30 years ago.

When the earthquake struck, Kuzumaki was already generating a lot of its own electricity. Nonetheless, when the regional grid went down, it took the town with it. Electricity was out only for a day. But townspeople wonder what might have kept their local grid live.

A smart grid could have kept many of the lights on in Kuzumaki.

DANBIHN.COm

A smart grid can also let Japan rebuild its grid using a lot of intermittent renewables like solar and wind.

How so? Using the same price and control signals: If wind power picks up in the middle of the night (as it often does), prices will drop and price-responsive loads (smart appliances, electric cars, etc.) will buy the cheaper power. When a cloud floats between the sun and PV panels in the middle of the day, supply drops and prices go up, and some loads will decide to hold off a bit. This keeps the grid in balance — all without needing to add new power plants or new energy-storage technology.

Smart grid technology can allow small regions of the grid to temporarily disconnect and operate independently. Demark has a large test project doing exactly this. Many of the lights in Kuzumaki could have stayed on.