Career Spotlight

Renewable Industry Career Potential

The renewable power industry has leaped forward in recent years as state after state has mandated Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS). There is discussion in Congress of enacting a national renewable standard of 15%. Many states have mandates from 10% to as high as 30% with talks of going to 50%. The emergence of global warming as a national issue along with the sustained high cost of fossil fuels provides strong incentives to a continued long term growth in this sector.

What does this mean to you as a power professional? It indicates that along with traditional opportunities in thermal plants with investor and publicly owned utilizes and Independent Power Producers (IPP), you will see more need for professionals to develop, build, commission, asset manage and O&M these new technologies.

PowerPlantPro has seen an increase of jobs listed over the past few years for renewable projects. Its parent company, CleanTech Energy is seeing a large growth in new and exiting companies creating renewable technologies as well as developing new projects. Wind project economics means that wind projects dominiate the project total capacity added, but interest and investment in solar should start to bring significant new installations. Factors Impacting Renewable Adoption

Important drivers that determine the rate of renewable expansion are:

2. RPS Mandates- State and Federal
3. Tax credits- Investment tax credits (ITC) and and Production tax credits (PTC)
4. Federal stimulus bill- The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) dedicates over $80B to energy related products and projects.
5. Technology- New technologies reduce cost of renewewable projects
6. Energy Commodity Costs- As fuel cost increase it makes renewables more cost effectvie. As raw metals and materials costs increase, it unevenly impacts all technologies.

 

A brief review of the more common renewable technologies include:

Wind

Wind is one of the oldest renewable technologies. For thousands of years it has been used to support water supply, farming and basic industries. When electrical generation technologies were first developed, wind turbines were considered an obvious prime mover to drive a generator. While there are many different designs, all wind turbines capture wind to convert the wind's kinetic energy into mechanical energy (in the form of a rotating shaft). In electric power turbines, the mechanical energy drives an electric generator. Wind energy is a pure renewable resource and produces zero emissions.

Most wind turbines are horizontal axis models that many of you have seen in pictures. The 3 blade model is most common and efficient at harvesting wind. Examples of common utility sized turbine vendors include: Vestas, GE, and Suzlon.

All wind projects start with the wind resource assessment. At least 1 year of wind speeed data is collected at potential sites. The wind must reach sufficient speeds over a minimal time to justify the investment of capital in the thousands of dollars per kW installed. Project capacities vary from 28-46% with wind regimes from 6-10 meters/second. Project costs include; development, wind turbine, balance of plant, roads, foundations, substations and transmisison spurs.

Solar

Over thousands of years the sun has been used for an energy source. Whether heating homes or cooking food, many civilizations have seen the benefits of solar energy. More recently, advancements in systems to convert the sun's energy to electricity have emerged. As a fuel source perspective, solar energy is a perfect renewable energy source as a widely available and pollution free energy. The amount of solar energy reaching the earth on a daily basis is many times the amount needed to meet all of our energy needs. The value of solar energy is limited by latitude, seasons, altitude, cloud cover, and topography.

The basic types of solar technologies are:

1. Passive Solar - The sun's heat is captured through efficient building design to heat a building or structure.
2. Solar Thermal Energy - The sun's heat is absorbed by a liquid as it passes through a heat capturing piping system. This heated fluid or gas can be then moved through a steam turbine to create electricity such at the solar electric generating stations (SEGS) plants developed by LUZ over 10 years ago in the high desert of California.
3. Direct Solar Electricity Generation ? With this technology, electricity is generated directly through photovoltaic (PV) cells in which light stimulates electrons in semiconductor materials and a completed circuit allows electricity flow.

Biomass

This technology converts biomass (forest, agricultural and urban wood and plant wastes) through one of several types of technology to electricity, process heat or steam. Most plants are direct fired and smaller than typical utility plants. The biomass plant is limited to the area that it can economically collect fuel. In the past these projects were built on a surveyed fuel price, but saw prices increased rapidly as the plant created a demand for the fuel that previously did not exist.

Gasification

Biomass, municipal sludge and coal, as well as other fuels, are gasified and then used in a traditional gas turbine peaker, combined cycle, IGCC or thermal power plant.

Hydro

This is probably the oldest form of renewable power. It has been used for centuries for direct mechanical work or electricity production. Plants typically fall into one of two categories; run of the river or the more traditional dam. More recently new technologies such as wave and tidal power capture are being evaluated.M

Other

It is being argued that nuclear power be considered a solution for global warming. It is difficult to argue that nuclear power is a renewable source of power. It is one of the lowest cost of power technologies available before waste handling is deal with.

 

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