Hydropower

Hydropower worked by catching the energy from falling water and is by far the most heavily used of the renewable energy sources. However many argue if it really is a renewable resource and by definition I would say yes it is a renewable energy source.  This does not mean that I am completely behind hydropower, due to the fact that in most cases you have to destroy surrounding ecosystems to harvest this energy.  Rivers need to be damned up and thus valleys are flooded and people are displaced in some cases. It may be emission free but this energy is not without damage.

In the past Rhode Island has been free of hydropower but things are trying to change.  There is tons of research being done on the potential hydropower in Rhode Island. Mostly people have been looking into converting the hundreds of damns, which are spread through out Rhode Island, into hydroelectric damns.  They wanted to see how much energy could be produced from each of these damns and how much it would cost to convert these old almost pointless damns into something that can be used to produce electricity.  However recently I have spoken with one of the major researchers and it appears that Rhode Island will remain hydropower free. 

I’ve included a video below about some of the negative affects of hydro dams in China.

Solar Energy

There are many different types of solar energy. There are photovoltaic solar panels, which are what people generally think of when they hear solar energy but solar energy is not limited to these.  There is also passive solar (heating a home through letting the sunlight in through windows) and solar water heating systems to name a couple.  There are some examples of solar energy being used in Rhode Island but are limited mostly to smaller privately owned projects.  There is one large-scale solar energy project in Rhode Island owned by Toray Plastics.  The reason there aren’t many solar projects in Rhode Island is simple…there’s not that much sunlight here.  You will typically see more solar project the farther south you so and in dessert environments where there is no shortage of sun.

Toray Plastics put up a 375 kW photovoltaic solar panel installation at their North Kingstown location.  There are two solar fields that add up to 3.5 acres and are made up of 1,650 panels. The panels are mounted on concrete foundations using single-axis trackers.  The single-axis trackers move from west to east and are meant to maximize the sun exposure to each panel, thus allowing them to produce the most electricity.  These made the Toray Plastics solar farm the largest in the state. 

If you would like to know more about this Solar
Farm, you can find more information here. 

Block Island Wind Farm

The Block Island wind farm will be a 30-megawatt wind energy farm being developed by Deepwater Wind, construction is set to start in 2013.  It will be located three miles southeast of Block Island and will be barely visible to the naked eye on a clear day.  It will consist of five turbines and deepwater claims it will generate over 100,000 megawatts hours annually.

          
The wind farm will supply Block Island with the bloke of it electricity.  National grid has agreed to distributive the electricity to the citizens at a set price using a feed-in tariff.

Feed-in Tariffs are policy mechanisms designed to help renewable energy technologies get started.  They do this by providing a contract with the renewable to buy a certain amount of energy at a certain price for a number of years.  This way there is defiantly a market for the product the renewable to producing and there is almost no uncertainty of its success. This will help companies get investors to start the renewable energy technologies going.  An example of this would be the wind turbine in Portsmouth.  If a feed-in tariffs were not in place then the wind turbine would be selling it’s energy at market price which would be to low for the turbine to make back it’s initial investment.

Block Island is currently getting their electricity from a dirty and very expense diesel plant.  This will reduce the pressure on Block Island citizens and give them a clean energy supply.

          
In addition to the wind farm being built, there will also be a transmission line build from the island to the main land to serve as a bidirectional electricity flow.  Excess energy from the wind farm will be transmitted to the main land and in times of low winds energy will be able to be transferred to the island from the mainland.  This will provide Block Island with a steady supply of energy. The project it’s self is positioned to be a demonstration wind farm for future investors in wind energy. 

Portsmouth High School Turbine

The turbine at Portsmouth High School is the largest turbine (1.5 MW) put up in Rhode Island; it is located in the town of Portsmouth and is located next to the high school.  The location of the turbine made it easy to connect with the power grid and is net metered to the grid.

(Net metering is where small energy providers are connected to the grid and allowed to supply excess energy they produce.  Some programs pay for the excess energy, while others provide credits on electric bills.  These small energy providers are small business and homes, mostly a single wind turbine, solar panels or other renewable energy providers.  Rhode Island has a net metering programs that allows business to be connected to the grid but only provides credits on electric bills.) 

Since the completion in March of 2009 the turbine it has produced 8,863,800 kWh, at a price of 20 dollars per kWh.

The people of Portsmouth voted on whether or not the turbine would go up, however the town only told the people what would be good about the turbine. There wasn’t any information given about the possible negative effects to the citizens that live close to the turbine.   Now that the turbine is up there are neighborhoods that are being affected by shadow flicker and the noise the turbine creates.  In some cases it has forced people to change the way they live.  I have included a video taken within on of the homes affected by shadow flicker.

Wind Power

Wind turbines generate wind power.  These wind turbines capture the stored energy in wind and convert it to electricity.  The turbines have large blade that are rotated by the wind as it passes through them.  The turning blade then powers the engine inside the turbine, which then converts the energy into electricity.  It sounds simple, however wind is not a steady resource; it changes by the time of day and year. There are also downsides associated with the turbines; they can not be located near populations of people do to shadow flicker and noise created from the blades turning and the engine humming, and they are a possible threat to wild life (this has yet to be proven).

           
Each turbine operates on what is called a power curve. This power curves is the amount of wind energy it takes to move the blades of the turbine and at what point there will be too much energy in the wind for the blades to safely rotate.  In most cases the turbines are programmed to turn off or but a brake on the blades so that will stop rotating in strong winds, so not to damage them and anything in the surrounding area.

Power Curve for 20 kW (Taiwan Wind Turbine Co.)

           
Turbines should not be located near the general population and especially not near residential areas.  The rotation of the blades cases a shadow affect known as shadow flicker. This shadow flicker gives the effect of a strobe light and in some cases it has been known to cause health problems to people that have had extended exposure.  The blades also cause a noise when the blades are on the downward section of their rotation. In addition to the blades the engines it’s self creates a sort of humming as it generates the electricity. There is hope, as the technology develops the noises created by the turbines are being lessened.

           
Wind energy is not perfect, but if it is used properly and away from people it can be a great resource to supplementing our energy needs. As the technology improves it will take less and less wind to create electricity, with the negative affects being lessen at the same time.  The future will show that wind and other renewables will rise to meet the demand for energy. 

Renewable Energy Siting Partnership

The Renewable Energy Siting Partnership (RESP) is a group of scientist, researchers, and stakeholders working together to meet the goal of “to provide technical expertise about the effects renewable energy may have on the people, wildlife and natural resources of Rhode Island.” The project is looking at all forms of renewable energy and how they can be applied in Rhode Island.  There are many people a crossed the state involved in the project and I am currently involved in the economic proportion of the RESP working on economic models.

           
The project was originally scheduled to take place between September 1^st, 2011-March 31^st, 2012, but has been extended six months, but no extra funding has been supplied.  The project was spilt into three phases; the first was Issue Identification and Assessment (September-November 2011), second was Information Synthesis and Communication (December 2011-January 2012) and third is currently going on which is Develop Final Products (February-September 2012). 

          
 Learn more Here

Biofuels in Rhode Island

Biofuels are a alterative for fossil fuels made from plants.  There are many different types ranging from ethanol made from corn and biomass (commonly agricultural waste) to biodiesel made from used vegetable oil.  Biodiesel runs the same as conventional diesel.  However, there has to be adjustments when using other forms of Biofuels and this is not the only draw back to them.

           
The major issue with biofuels is that the land that they are using to grow the vegetation necessary to produce the fuel is land that is being taken away from food production.  This is could raise food prices, making it harder for the average American family to feed it’s self. This could even lead to people in poor countries going hungry to support the gas guzzling habits of rich countries like the United States. If you were to create fuels using the waste created from the agricultural process there wouldn’t be the problem of raising food prices and there would be less waste going into landfills.  This would solve a lot of problems however, a energy efficient process of doing this is yet to be discovered and it would still not produce enough fuel for the United States.            

           
There is one process that seems promising and that is the production of biodiesel from waste vegetable oil.  This works by a company or person making deals with restaurants in their area to collect their waste oil (restaurants tend to give this oil away for free being otherwise they would have to pay to dispose of it).  Once the oil is collected it is put through a process where it is cleaned and chemically altered. You can learn more about it here.

           
Currently there is a company in Rhode Island producing and distributing biodiesel around the state.  Newport Biodiesel is a local company with over 1,000 restaurant partnerships around New England.  The provide home heating oil from many homes around the state with the help of distribution partners T.H. Malloy & sons  and Guardian Fuels. If you are interested in purchasing biodiesel, contact Newport biodiesel or one of their distribution partners.