Check out this story of mine in MIT Technology Review about Sundrop Fuels, a Colorado startup that’s trying to commercialize a process that uses the sun to gasify biomass, instead of burning a portion of the biomass itself to drive the gasification process. The technology is based on research carried out at the University of Colorado, Boulder, with help from NREL. The company believes the syngas from its process can be produced affordably in high enough quanity and quality that it could be refined into gasoline for less than $2 a gallon. One obvious hitch is the fact that the best place to harness and concentrate solar heat is in the U.S. Southwest — not exactly the place you’d go to look for surplus biomass resources. BTW: Sundrop is operating largely in stealth mode, and counts Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as one of its venture backers.

On the topic of solar, Ontario’s feed-in-tariff program is gaining momentum. On Wednesday the province’s power authority announced the latest batch of projects to be approved under the program — these ones in the 10 kw to 500 kw range. A few surprises: Loblaw Group of Companies, the grocery giant, has applied to have 136 of its stores across Ontario rigged with solar PV systems. If all go ahead, it would amount to 21 megawatts just for this one grocery chain. Loblaw is starting with four pilot projects and will move forward from there depending on the results. Surprisingly, Northland Power Income Fund will be doing the installations. I say “surprising” because I typically associate this company with natural gas and CHP plants.

There also appears to be quite a few schools putting solar on their rooftops, most of the projects being handled by Ameresco. The other big player in this initial round is OZZ International Inc., which has been approved to move forward on several dozen projects across the province.

All this momentum continues to lure foreign manufacturers  and new business models to Ontario. Most recently SMA Solar Technology AG of Germany said it was establishing a 500-megawatt a year solar inverter production facility in the province that would serve the Canadian market. They join Korean’s Samsung, India’s Solar Semiconductor, Germany’s Bosch and potentially Denmark’s Vestas.

Hi, just a note: Tonight on TVOntario I take part in a panel that discusses the media’s role in telling the climate-change story and whether we’re getting it right or wrong. The five others on the panel are Climate blogger Joe Romm of Climate Progress, Quentin Chiotti of Pollution Probe, Walter Russell Mead of the Council on Foreign Relations, Nature Magazine writer Nicola Jones, and Curtis Brainard of the Columbia Review of Journalism.

The one-hour discussion appears at 8 p.m. and again at 11 p.m. EST.

Tyler

I got my start in mainstream journalism as a technology and telecommunications reporter for the Globe and Mail, a beat I later took on at the Toronto Star and covered for six years before switching to energy. When I first started we were still using the term “information highway” to describe the coming convergence between the telephone and cable companies. Cable companies in Canada had their own networks, their own turfs, and their own regulated monopolies, while the phone companies had the same. The turfs overlapped, but the products and services stayed largely separate. You got cable from the cable guys, and phone service from the phone guys. The information highway threatened to change that, allowing the phone and cable guys to invade each other’s turf and bust through their respective monopolies.

The commercial Internet was still in its infancy and was considered part of the information highway. It was only in the mid-1990s that the Internet emerged as the dominant disruptive force in this technological vision. Internet Protocol, the communications standard underpinning the Internet, allowed all sorts of information — text, audio, video — to be treated as packets of data that could be shipped at high speed across cable and phone networks, which were privately operated networks that had on-ramps and off-ramps to the public Internet. As networks became faster, as compression of data got better, as computing power and memory grew exponentially, it became technologically possible and economical to deliver phone, broadcast, e-commerce, Web surfing and e-mail over both the cable and phone networks. The result: network convergence. Suddenly technology was creating competition in these regulated monopolies, forcing regulators to adapt and establish rules that permitted regulatory forbearance when competition in a market was deemed acceptable. For the phone and cable companies, the gloves were off. It was game on. 

Why am I telling you this? Because I’m seeing the same thing happening in the energy sector. Read the rest of this entry »

I reported Tuesday that Bosch Solar, a subsidiary of German conglomerate Bosch Group, had signed a deal with Calgary-based solar inverter maker Sustainable Energy Technologies that will see the firms integrate their respective products to create a kind of all-in-one solar package for the Ontario market. Sustainable Energy’s parallel inverter product, Paralex, would be integrated with Bosch’s micromorph thin film solar modules along with all necessary wiring. This would make it relatively easy for any contractor or home builder to install the systems without the need for specialized help. The companies hope this combination will distinguish themselves in an increasingly competitive market.

Sustainable Energy says it plans to move R&D and its inverter manufacturing to Ontario, where a feed-in-tariff program has lured many companies, including Korea’s Samsung, Chinese-focused Canadian Solar and India’s Solar Semiconductor. Denmark’s Vestas is also seriously eyeing Ontario’s offshore wind market.

If Sustainable Energy and Bosch follow through with these plans, it’s likely that Bosch will have to establish some sort of manufacturing footprint in Ontario. Not to produce the thin-film cells, but rather to do module encapsulation. Together, both companies could create several hundred direct jobs, but Bosch’s manufacturing presence would likely be minimal.

What’s unclear is whether Bosch sees Ontario as a launchpad to the United States. Sustainable Energy has indicated that it does, but Bosch has kept relatively quiet and, in all likelihood, if it was to pursue the California market it’s likely to set up assembly facilities there. And like most of the “deals” announced around manufacturing in Ontario, most of this is just talk so far. Samsung has a comprehensive framework agreement with the province, so it appears to be the real deal. The rest are just testing the waters, trying to get a sense of whether they can negotiate more from the Ontario government beyond the generous feed-in-tariffs being offered today. Whether the province is willing to step up with tax breaks and loan guarantees — that’s unclear. But until we get that clarity, most of what we’re hearing is nothing more than noise.

My story in today’s Toronto Star is about a new industrial efficiency program that will soon be unveiled by the Ontario Power Authority. Under the plan, the province will agree to pay up to 70 per cent of the cost of an industrial energy retrofit, making it possible for the industrial energy user to achieve up to 30 per cent energy savings and a one- to two-year payback on investment. The aim is to get 300 MW of savings initially. The province’s contribution to each project is capped at $10 million. While giving away millions to help industry use less energy would seem misguided, it’s in fact a very smart and effective strategy. The money being paid out will be much less than what it would cost to built a 300 megawatt power plant. Meanwhile, helping key industrial players become more efficient makes the Ontario economy more competitive and insulates these industrial operations — and the jobs they create — from economic downturns.

Roughly 50 to 60 big industrial players that connect directly to the province’s transmission system can participate in the program, which was spearheaded by international mining companies XStrata and Vale Inco, as well a steel giant ArcelorMittal Dofasco. The three companies, which formed a working committee that reported to the power authority, estimated that efficiency gains could “realistically” achieve 1,000 megawatts over five years.

Industrial efficiency might not be as sexy as solar and wind — actually, it’s definitely not as sexy — but the simple fact is that the greenest and cheapest megawatt is the one that isn’t used. This is a smart program. Oh yeah, and we shouldn’t forget the stimulus effect. These projects will create much-needed jobs over the next few years.