July 27, 2010 - NY improves net metering for businesses; PGE develops rooftop solar in Oregon

Today I open with another photo shot on a Maine island: this time one of the wind towers on Vinalhaven run by the Fox Islands Wind project.  At 4.5 MW of installed capacity, Fox Islands Wind touts itself as the largest community wind-power facility on the East Coast of the United States.  My colleague Drew Landry snapped this shot when he was on Vinalhaven celebrating the project's ribbon cutting in November 2009.



The state of New York's Public Service Commission has adopted a revised set of rules governing net metering of distributed solar and wind generation at non-residential customers' sites.  These rules will make it easier for non-residential customers to site larger distributed generation behind their meters.  Until recently, a non-residential customer's solar or wind electric generating equipment was limited in capacity to the lesser of 2 MW or the customer's highest historic peak usage during the previous 12 months.  In practice, this meant that consumers demanding less than 2 MW of on-peak usage could not fully benefit from net metering opportunities, as their sales to the grid were capped at their own historic peak demand.  Once the revised rules take effect, New York businesses will be able to sell up to 2 MW to the grid.  For more information, see NY PSC Case Numbers 10-E-0133, 10-E-0134, 10-E-0135, 10-E-0136, 10-E-0137, or 10-E-013.

In the Pacific Northwest, Portland General Electric has installed the largest rooftop solar project in the region.  PGE is a fully integrated electric utility that serves more than 817,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in Oregon.  Its project, spread atop the roofs of seven ProLogis distribution warehouses, covers 673,000 square feet and is rated at 2.4 MW.  Cost?  $14 million, $2.3 million of which is coming through incentives from the Energy Trust of Oregon. This project brings PGE to a total portfolio of 14.3 megawatts of solar capacity.  This portfolio includes more than 10.7 megawatts of customer-owned solar projects supported through PGE's net metering program, as well as a 104-kilowatt solar highway demonstration project with the Oregon Department of Transportation.  Oregon has recently adopted the "Solar Payment Option program", an incentive-based pilot program anticipated to bring another 17.5 megawatts of customer-owned solar projects online within the next 5 years.

It is hay harvest time in Maine, and farmers report that the season's good growing conditions have led to a very good harvest.

Also in Maine, utility Central Maine Power has acquired the final Army Corps permit it needs to build its $1.4 billion Maine Power Reliability Program transmission upgrade.

June 23, 2010 - the history of the Trafton tide mills; Russia-Belarus gas dispute

Monday's paddle brought me through the remains of the Trafton tide mill. What I hadn't realized is that the eastern branch was home to another tide mill owned by the Trafton family.

From the Georgetown Historical Society's A History of Georgetown Island:

The lumber mill on the western branch, which was built by David Oliver and Thomas Trafton, continued to be operated into the first decade of the 20th century, and the mill dam can still be seen. David Oliver, Jr. had a son David of the 3rd generation (grandson of David and Grace). He and his wife, Hannah Stacy, came to Georgetown from Lynn, Massachusetts. He and his father, David Jr., and Thomas Trafton, built their first lumber mill on the eastern branch of the Cove on what is now the Indian Point Road. Later they built a second lumber mill on the west branch of the Cove Thomas Trafton also had a gristmill on the west bank of the western branch, near the former old Post Office at the bottom of the hill in Georgetown Center.

I found an interesting blog, Five Islands Orchard, which provides some more history and information. Apparently the students of the Georgetown elementary school are considering building a demonstration tidal mill at the western Trafton site. Blogger Ben Polito says he did a rough calculation of perhaps 1.4GJ of energy per tide, equivalent to about 390 kWh or 10 gallons of gas. While this might not seem like a lot of energy today -- particularly since harnessing it would likely require a $1 million-plus hydro facility -- the Trafton mill would have provided the energy equivalent of 300 laborers, all for a relatively low cost.

On the international energy news front: the conflict between Russia and Belarus over gas offers a classic example of how energy policy choices interface with national security. Russia's state-owned utility Gazprom first cut off 35% of Belarus's gas supply, then increased the cut to 70% of normal flows, over about $200 million in debt Belarus is said to owe. In response, Belarus has cited $260 million in unpaid tariffs as a reason cut off Russia's access to the international pipeline needed to get Russian gas to Europe. In today's interconnected world, states and nations rely on fuel supply and infrastructure in neighboring jurisdictions. Russia is dependent on Belarus's pipeline to deliver 20% of its total European exports, and Belarus is dependent on Russia for gas to power electric generation, industry, and (in winter) heating. Though this relationship provides each nation with resources it wouldn't otherwise have, friction in the relationship leads to periodic strife such as we see today. Some cite this downside risk as grounds for increased domestic self-reliance and energy security. Indeed, if the situation progresses to where Russia delivers no gas to Belarus, that nation will need to have an alternate fuel source and contingency planning to keep businesses and homes running.

Finally, hay is for horses: a Kennebec River hay farm, during first harvest.

From Energy Policy Update

June 17, 2010 - hay is for horses

Yesterday, I looked at the U.S.'s historic energy usage.  In 1900, according to the U.S. Census, there were 76,094,000Americans, who consumed an estimated 9.587 quad of energy.  This works out to 125 million Btu per capita -- about 38% of today's U.S. per capita energy intensity.  As noted yesterday, I suspect this figure does not include the substantial energy that was used to feed draft livestock in 1900.  We don't usually think of livestock fodder as containing solar energy, but in a very real way, photosynthesis has been a major energy base for millennia.

To that end, I found an interesting note in the Thirty-Fifth Annual Report of the Secretary of the Maine Board of Agriculture, from 1892:

OUR HAY CROP.
By W. B. Kendall, Delivered at Clinton.

IMPORTANCE.

' On July 4th of each year our State of Maine celebrates its agricultural independence, by presenting its farmers with a constant, and never-failing million ton crop of grasses, the great basis of our agricultural life and wealth, in this northern clime.

So constantly do we gather this king of all crops into our barns, that, while almost every year, some of our cultivated crops, through drought, flood, insect blight or "season" are failures, the great hay crop, because ever present, is not given the gravity of consideration it demands. The hay crop of Maine has averaged, for the past ten years, one and one quarter million tons. At 87 per ton in the field $8,750,000 and at 810 per ton in the barn, $12,250,000,or more than the value of all others combined. We hear much of Maine's great lumber crop, and industry, but even this does not, in primal value, nor in the capital invested in its manufacture, nor in value after it is manufactured, amount to as much as the value of the hay crop in the field, the labor, machinery and barns for its storage and the cash value of the same delivered in Boston market, or consumed on the farm.

Our hay crop, the basis of our dairy industry, supports through our northern winters 1,100,000 head of cattle, horses and sheep.

In fact, a total failure of our hay crop for three years would practically depopulate our State, farm, town and city.

The agricultural report focuses on Maine's export of hay to southern New England, both to feed livestock used for food production (like the dairy farms) and to feed draft animals.  When you drive around the Maine countryside today, and see the hay fields that remain scattered here and there, it's easy to forget that all that hay is a vehicle for storing and consuming solar energy -- and that Maine has a long history of exporting that energy southward.