The first thing that struck me is the ambitious goal of San Francisco to become a 100% renewable city, through the CleanPowerSF program. Other metro areas, like Austin and Portland, tout 100% renewably run government buildings but no large city has yet to get close to a total renewable goal. Some of the avenues to reach this goal are Community Choice aggregation (CCA), near-shore oceanic generation, and distributed generation.
Phase I of the CleanPowerSF , the CCA program in SF, will begin in the spring/summer 2012. This program offers local communities the option to buy their electricity directly from a power provider and ensure that the power is from a renewable source. PG&E will still provide the transmission, power line maintenance and the billing but the energy used by the participating customers will be purchased directly from renewable energy producers, at little more than $4/month extra. This is a movement that has taken off in other communities such as Marin and in other states like Illinois.
Another interesting idea that was highlighted is the potential benefit of electric vehicles (EV's) to help with the off peak energy load. This is something that is inherent with EV already, but I'll explain. In brief, energy production fluctuates during the day to meet demand, in the evening when industrial/commercial applications are low, energy is cheaper and due to an excess of energy generation without demand, energy is sometimes wasted. Since, most people use there cars during the day and charge them at night there is a great potential for the "lost" energy to be captured at the fleet level. There are potential fleet level designs to turn municipal or industrial fleets into a "battery bank" to store wasted energy and create renewable energy credits (REC's), a win-win situation.
Another interesting thing I discovered was from a conversation with a few people regarding tidal power generation. There was a feasibility study done in 2009 that looked at few different techniques of harvesting energy from the oceans and some promising findings came from it. The findings indicate that under ideal wave conditions power can be produced at a cost that is close to solar production before subsidies and government rebates. There have been pilot programs throughout the world and there is talk of an ocean power generation system for San Francisco in the not to distant future.
Many other panels talked about the dynamic approach to REC's and the renewable's market. There were some great case studies of REC marketing, solar production and ways for businesses to enter the renewable energy market. I am happy to report that even during the down economy over the last few years the voluntary renewable energy market has expanded and the future still looks bright for more expansion. I recommend attending this conference next year, to anyone interested in keeping up to date or becoming a part of the renewable energy marketplace.
Another interesting idea that was highlighted is the potential benefit of electric vehicles (EV's) to help with the off peak energy load. This is something that is inherent with EV already, but I'll explain. In brief, energy production fluctuates during the day to meet demand, in the evening when industrial/commercial applications are low, energy is cheaper and due to an excess of energy generation without demand, energy is sometimes wasted. Since, most people use there cars during the day and charge them at night there is a great potential for the "lost" energy to be captured at the fleet level. There are potential fleet level designs to turn municipal or industrial fleets into a "battery bank" to store wasted energy and create renewable energy credits (REC's), a win-win situation.
Another interesting thing I discovered was from a conversation with a few people regarding tidal power generation. There was a feasibility study done in 2009 that looked at few different techniques of harvesting energy from the oceans and some promising findings came from it. The findings indicate that under ideal wave conditions power can be produced at a cost that is close to solar production before subsidies and government rebates. There have been pilot programs throughout the world and there is talk of an ocean power generation system for San Francisco in the not to distant future.
Many other panels talked about the dynamic approach to REC's and the renewable's market. There were some great case studies of REC marketing, solar production and ways for businesses to enter the renewable energy market. I am happy to report that even during the down economy over the last few years the voluntary renewable energy market has expanded and the future still looks bright for more expansion. I recommend attending this conference next year, to anyone interested in keeping up to date or becoming a part of the renewable energy marketplace.
