financing the future

The energy issue dominating South African headlines and dinner table conversation is the electricity supply crisis and how Eskom is going to worm its way out of this one. But in homes where the dinner table is a few cartons covered with cloth, and you have to shout to be heard above the din of rain on a tin roof, and the dog just knocked over the pot that's catching the drips, the perspective is going to be ever so slightly different. Let's face it: if your dinner was cooked over paraffin or a few sticks of wood, you aren't going to be too concerned about whether pebble bed nuclear is a better option than coal with underground CO2 sequestration.

We're talking about survival, and intellectual debate doesn't feed the masses. Arguments about the need to focus on a reliable supply of electricity to maintain a healthy economy (to provide jobs for the poor) and about how the forthcoming increases in electricity tariffs will hit the poor hardest, ignore the inescapable fact that there are not now and never have been jobs for a shockingly large number of South Africans.

The unemployed and underemployed need a solution too; and don't tell them they need clean energy unless you can tell them how they are going to pay for it. The poor are masters at innovation and using resources efficiently - ask anyone who survives on a few bucks a day. It's not because they enjoy ill-health from living in smoke-filled hovels that they continue to do just that. Their crisis is chronic, and it's not new. They don't need motivation to adopt energy sources that will improve air quality and reduce time spent scrounging for cooking fuel, they just need the means.

Which brings me to my point. A post last week on WorldChanging talks about the possibilities for using microfinance to bring cleaner energy options to poor communities. Microfinance service providers have a reputation for exploiting vulnerable communities with exhorbitant interest rates and improper repayment procedures, but where poverty is widespread and microfinance is provided through a well-entrenched network, as in South Africa, it seems there may be a viable market-based approach to addressing energy needs for those with almost no resources.

MicroEnergy Credits Corporation (MEC) have developed a model that works with existing microfinance institutions to broker arrangements that promote clean energy using carbon finance.

Allderdice and Dailey [founders of MEC] have developed two credit instruments, Microfinance-originated Carbon Credits and Millennium Development Goal (MDG) credits. With the first, MFIs [microfinance institutions] can receive revenue when they lend for energy systems that create verified carbon emissions reductions, such as solar PV systems, improved cookstoves and biogas digesters. With the second, MFIs can receive MDG Credits when they lend for an intervention that enables an MDG household to meet all or part of an MDG. According to Allderdice, "There is no established market in MDG credits yet, but MEC is building the infrastructure to enable it."

The WorldChanging post talks about the benefit of this approach in rural, off-grid locations, but it would be equally appropriate to urban off-grid communities, of which there are many in developing countries. Urban squatter settlements are far more desperate, in many ways, than rural settlements, and upgrading these areas is a more promising option than state-supplied housing. If residents have a financial mechanism to provide their own energy more sustainably, even better.

power demand reduction efforts in SA

South Africa's Western Cape Province is set to deliver solar water heaters to reduce energy demand. Environment, Planning and Economic Development MEC Tasneem Essop, and Minerals and Energy Minister Buyelwa Sonjica, have announced the launch of a solar water heater project that will roll out 1 000 geysers and establish a training academy to establish a pool of installation contractors.

Meanwhile the City of Johannesburg mayor Amos Masondo has said the city would install 10 000 solar water heaters, distribute compact fluourescent light bulbs, instal geyser electricity controls, and use solar-powered traffic lights* to help reduce the city's peak power demand of 3 500 MW. Together, these initiatives are expected to reduce peak demand by 325 - 475 MW at a cost of R397 - R577 million. That's somewhere in the range of R1 - R2 million per megawatt saved. In contrast, the Medupi coal-fired power station being built in Limpopo Province will cost at least R15 million per megawatt of generating capacity - proving yet again that reducing power consumption is far more cost-effective than increasing supply.

*After testing locally-manufactured solar-powered LED street lights, manufacturing company Broadwing Technologies figures retrofitting street lights could save 1 MW for every 12 000 to 15 000 units. Johannesburg has more than 140 000 conventional high pressure sodium and older mercury vapour street lights that could be converted.

retrofitting buildings for energy efficiency

Yesterday I joined the Cape Town portion of the Green Building video-linked seminar on retrofitting of buildings for energy efficiency. Presentations in Cape Town, Pretoria and Durban covered a range of topics from detailed case studies of building performance improvements to city-wide approaches to sustainability - all with the aim of spreading knowledge and discussing strategies to accelerate the retrofitting of buildings across South Africa's cities.

A strategy to address both the short-term electricity supply crisis and the long-term environmnental and resource issues cannot ignore the need to improve the performance of buildings. Llewellyn van Wyk cited CSIR research in 2004 showing that there were 11.2 million dwelling units in the country, and 70.6 million sq m of non-residential building space. In Pretoria, cooling and lighting alone are responsible for 75% of energy use in office buildings. John Less of the Clinton Climate Initiative noted that buildings in the US are responsible for 71% of the country's total electricity consumption, and 33% of emissions.

Retrofitting to reduce this consumption is a key challenge. Municipal and provincial governments in South Africa are starting to consider their own building stock - the City of Johannesburg (one of the C40 cities) is advertising today for tenders to retrofit the city's entire stock of Council-owned buildings.

Colin Devenish, formerly of Old Mutual Investment Group and now with the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town, pointed out that a few building tenants in South Africa are starting to show signs of demanding better energy performance, and some landlords have discovered the financial benefits of improving efficiencies, although landlord / tenant relationships and building management systems in many cases work against change. But municipalities are actively looking at new by-laws to address these issues, and developers will have to smarten up quickly.

Eskom's immediate crisis is the driving force now, but the response of the building industry needs to look beyond the short term. There is the carbon market, which can be seen as a boon or a bane, depending on your perspective, but there is another driving force of change that is already presenting a serious threat: urbanisation. The global population is growing at around 73 million people a year, and an increasing percentage of the population is urbanised. Cities around the world are falling behind in the provision of infrastructure to meet urban needs. This is not a third world problem alone, because it is not only third world cities that are developing unsustainably. But in developing countries, according to van Wyk, this pressure - and inadequate response - is already causing ecological and social collapse (more severe in some areas than others), and committed leadership is demanded.

Buildings are only part of the problem, so retrofitting existing stock and changing design practice for new buildings are only partial solutions to more widespread concerns; but good building design, management and operation are vital to improving the liveability of cities. Case studies have demonstrated their potential contribution not only to reducing carbon impacts, but also to reshaping the social and cultural landscape. And social norms, along with awareness and education, are vital to instilling a sense of responsibility in the general population. Without these key ingredients, we are dead in the water.

German ingenuity

One place to look for the future of renewable energy is Germany, since the country is leading the global pack with renewables accounting for 6.7% of all energy consumption and 14.2% of electricity generated in the country. Not surprisingly, wind power is far more significant than solar in Germany, but it has reached a level where some observers believe wind power will reach saturation by 2038, after which solar will take over.

To put Germany's renewable energy generation in perspective: installed capacity there (wind, solar thermal and solar PV) exceeds 25 gigawatts, which is more than half of South Africa's total generating capacity. Which again raises the question of why renewables couldn't be significant in South Africa. To be fair, Eskom's constraints aren't only institutional. There are also significant supply chain bottlenecks, whether we're talking about replacing all incandescent lightbulbs or installing solar water heaters or building a wind farm.

Germany's transformation to a lower national carbon footprint has contributed to the global shortage of photovoltaic panels and wind turbines, and that has unfortunately kept prices high. But Germany has also pioneered a way to overcome the built-in subsidy that all countries provide to conventional power sources by not pricing in the environmental cost of carbon - the "renewable energy law":

The law says electricity produced from renewable sources must be purchased by utilities according to a generous “feed-in tariff” that sets higher-than-market rates and fixes them for 20 years. Roof-mounted photovoltaic systems installed in 2007, for example, can sell power at €0.49 per kilowatt-hour, or about seven times today's wholesale price, until 2027. The fixed rate allows investors to calculate returns and removes uncertainty over financing.

offshore wind energy is getting closer

Continuing with the renewable energy theme of yesterday's post, MIT Technology Review reported last week on plans to install deep-sea floating wind turbines. An interesting feature of the turbines developed by Blue H Technologies is that they have reverted to the two-blade rotor design, which is lighter and cheaper to build. (Three-blade designs are better for onshore wind farms because they turn at slower speeds and are less noisy.)

Martin Jakubowski, Blue H co-founder, estimates that their wind farms will deliver wind energy for seven to eight cents (US) per kilowatt-hour, "roughly matching the current cost of natural gas-fired generation and conventional onshore wind energy". Paul Sclavounos, a mechanical engineer and a specialist in naval architecture at MIT, believes current technology is nearly competitive:

In Sclavounos view, the economics of the power industry are already approaching a tipping point that will drive rapid adoption of floating turbines. "The technology is essentially proven," he says. "We know we can design [platforms] and spars that are not going to move in big storms. What is going to lead to this industry taking off will be the economics. When carbon-emissions trading markets start maturing, you're going to see this industry take off, even without state subsidies. We're not far from it."

The MIT Technology Review, by the way, is a mine of interesting information on the latest technological developments on energy, biotech, nanotech and other fields.

what is your rooftop doing for you?

I would love to hear why Eskom can't - or won't - do this.

US energy company Edison International plans to start a five-year plan to roll out 250 megawatts of solar panels on the rooftops of commercial buildings in California. It's not a mega-project: it's a big project done in small steps of 1 MW a week. Apart from the fact that electricity will be generated close to where it's most needed - and building owners can benefit financially by providing space for the panels - the beauty of this approach is that newer solar panel technologies can be used as they are developed, and the project can benefit from the steadily falling price of a megawatt of solar generating capacity. There is no need to lock into technology that becomes superseded by more efficient panels. And how about this: if one set of rooftop panels goes offline, the rest keep on generating - no big machinery to be shut down for maintenance. And this: no new transmission lines to build, no towers to construct, no extra land consumed.

Granted, 250 MW is not a huge amount of electricity - it's less than a tenth of the output of a standard coal-fired power station. But it will start to look better as buildings and other electricity consumers become more efficient. In Southern California, 250 MW will run 162,000 homes - but those are homes that guzzle power like a cool drink on a hot day. Improve building design and build in more efficient fittings and appliances, and more homes can drink from the well of renewable energy. Take away electrically-powered water heaters, air conditioners and stoves, and renewables suddenly become significant. Even Eskom understands that improving energy efficiency is the cheapest way out of the supply crisis.

Municipalities should be pushing hard for this. Especially departments worried about traffic safety during power blackouts. Instead of mounting solar panels atop traffic signals, and chaining a set of batteries to the nearest tree, they could be tapping into secure rooftop systems. Inside the well-designed buildings, the wiring circuits will be planned to ensure that mission-critical systems are fed from the backup solar system.

As efficient systems, renewable power sources and more visible monitoring strategies become commonplace (so that we can see the impact on consumption from the day-to-day decisions we make), we will gradually improve our individual and collective performance. We'll move towards less carbon-intense lifestyles, almost without noticing it, which will further increase the options for alternative power sources. Everybody wins.

electricity on the go

Generating electricity from rooftop solar panels or wind turbines is the start of a move to repurpose existing infrastructure - a trend that should gain momentum over the next few years. And it doesn't have to be limited to buildings. Distributed generation can also go mobile, with dramatic potential.

One of the big challenges for renewable energy is storing energy for later use, or for transport to another location. Conventional batteries have made some progress, but they don't provide industrial-strength storage. Fuel cells, on the other hand, are scaleable to serve a variety of needs, and the hydrogen they use as fuel can be transported using a number of methods. Hydrogen fuel cells hold promise for cars and other transport vehicles, but their potential goes way beyond just powering vehicles.

Berkeley professor Daniel Kammen suggests that when you fill up your fuel cell vehicle with hydrogen, the electricity generated by the fuel cell in your car can be used for just about anything. Drive to the office, hook up to a special plug-in station, and the building's emloyees can all power the office building, receiving revenue in return. And do the same thing at home.

The trick, of course, is that while hydrogen is plentiful, it takes energy to capture it for use in fuel cells. This energy might be sourced from coal, natural gas, nuclear or renewable energy. Like electric trains running from overhead lines, or subway trains runnng from an electrified third track, it makes no difference to the vehicle where or how the energy was sourced, so the options are limitless. This means the mix of energy sources might be dirty at first, especially in countries that are coal-rich, but the mix can be changed over time, without having to change the vehicles that use hydrogen cells.

The benefit with this mobile fleet of electricity generators is that they bring the energy to where it is needed, and the owners of the FCVs can offset the investment with supplementary income, which could accelerate adoption of the technology. As Kammen points out, it's a whole new way of looking at power systems.

biofuel debate goes deeper than food vs fuel

The March 14 edition of Financial Mail reports on the use of jatropha as a biofuel feedstock as an alternative to food crops. The food-versus-fuel debate is raging like a wildfire on the African veld, and the South African government responded to local critics by banning the use of maize for biofuels. Given that maize arguably produces no more energy than goes into its production, that was probably a wise decision. But the issues go deeper.

While jatropha has high oil content, creates jobs, grows on wasteland that is unsuitable for many food crops, requires little or no water, and does not directly threaten food security, there is another concern. The Department of Agriculture considers the plant to be an alien invader. Priscilla Sehoole of the department says:

Too many lessons have been learnt at high cost when plants that promised to be solutions turned into environmental and social disasters for SA. The plant has to be tested locally to ensure environmental impact and sustainability before it is introduced.

South Africa has ample experience of foreign plants that have spread, destroying indigenous plants and sucking groundwater supplies dry. So, despite numerous advantages of the jatropha seed for biofuels, there are other concerns besides food security. The Science and Development Network reports that China's push to increase biofuel production (which also excludes food crops) threatens to increase deforestation and reduce biodiversity.

community empowerment through energy independence

Starting with a small-scale biogas project funded with a grant from the UN, the Santa Fe Women's Group from Santa Fe de Guatuso in Costa Rica have transformed their lives by taking control of their household energy needs, and gone on to develop a tree nursery, a wetlands conservation project and a rural tourism business. The 16 founding families of the group each built their own biodigesters, with training from the Agriculture Ministry, and use the methane from cow manure for cooking.

The tree nursery provides native tree species for local farmers to help restore and protect the environment, and provides income for the women. In this traditionally conservative community, the women have had to overcome resistance to their growing role in providing for the community, but acceptance has led to new efforts at collaboration and a strong focus on community education. Their work has improved financial security, reduced deforestation, reduced the health problems associated with using wood for cooking, and strengthened the community's efforts at self-improvement.

The Rural Costa Rica website details the stories of these women and their projects, and provides step-by-step instructions on how to build a biodigester suitable for household use, as well as a number of videos and articles on projects in other countries.

arts & sciences collaborate in the Antarctic

A dream to create a network of under-resourced community radio stations powered by renewable energy is well on its way to becoming reality, thanks - in part - to two intrepid South Africans who were willing to brave the Antarctic to test equipment in remote and inhospitable conditions.

Cape Town filmmaker Siphiwe Ngwenya and Johannesburg music producer Ntsikelelo Ntshingila took part in a collaboration between the arts and sciences to test a mobile renewable energy unit for the non-profit Interpolar Transnational Art Science Constellation (I-TASC). The unit allows researchers to work beyond the confines of their Antarctic bases by providing power on the move, and doubles as a bivouac providing shelter for a few days without external support. Dubbed Umthombo Womlilo (Well of Fire) renewable energy unit, it's an official project of the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2008. I-TASC is described as a "decentralised network of individuals and organisations working collaboratively" toward the "interdisciplinary development and tactical deployment of renewable energy, waste recycling systems, sustainable architecture and open-format, open source media".

This unit's predecessor was used to run an Antarctic radio station and relay weather information to an internet website, and was functioning perfectly after a year of testing, so the team built Umthombo Womlilo. Now the unit's sleigh runners will be exchanged for wheels and taken "on a tour of schools and universities, and to the national science festival, Scifest Africa, to be held in Grahamstown next month. It would also be used to power Alex FM, creating a platform to create public awareness around IPY and I-TASC, with the end goal being to establish an international network of solar and wind-powered community radio stations." [Source: Cape Argus, 15 March 2008 - subscription required]

The I-TASC website notes:

In addition to raising awareness of Antarctica and the human interaction, legacy and impact in the polar regions, it is hoped that through this research we may also be able to build a modular renewable energy unit which can be adapted to have useful applications in each of our local contexts, running a community radio station in a South African township, a media lab in rural Jamaica, a housing project in Chile or a foreshore communication installation in New Zealand.

The next objective for the Antarctic work of I-TASC is to expand the polar radio station Radio SANAE to provide "radiophonic bridges between dispersed Antarctic research bases" for collaboration, and provide a platform for artists:

It will encourage artists participating in Antarctic residency programmes, and others to create audio-based art (sound art, new music, radio drama and other audio based practices) for broadcast. Using internet-based systems, and posted CDs, we hope to enable an interface between artists and musicians based around the world and the residents of Antarctica.