I must admit, I'm skeptical when people talk to me about jatropha. All the hype about it and the bloated seed prices just makes me lose interest. I just don't like the idea of a "silver bullet" to solve the energy security and climate issues. This mentality usually leads to new sustainability problems in the future.

photo courtesy of Manny Biona, Ph.D.- De La Salle University

Recently, however, I came across research about jatropha as a solid fuel. About 30% of jatropha seed mass is oil. This is what folks usually see. What they don't realize is the remaining mass is a solid fuel superior to coal. Studies of Dr. Manny Biona of De La Salle University show that Jatropha waste cake has higher LHV that coal. It also has more volatile content but less ash and moisture. This makes a more efficient and environmentally sound fuel. When jatropha is cofired with coal, about 1000Btu /lb more energy is released.

Data courtesy of Manny Biona Ph.D., De La Salle University
Note: JC data is for carbonize briquetter, J is for non-carbonized
% is for % Jatropha mixed with coal

Dr. Biona's team has developed a briquette making process for Jatropha waste cake. He has completed his lab scale tests and is now proceeding to his bench scale pilot. He welcomes partnerships and investments into this activity.

photo courtesy of Manny Biona, Ph.D. - De La Salle University

The use of jatropha briquettes could be a low cost way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and dependency on foreign coal. Power plants, cement factories and other coal using industries will benefit much from this breakthrough.

In a world vulnerable to the effects of Climate Change, we should develop a consciousness of our energy consumption. Every kWh of power, every liter of gasoline brings hundreds of thousands of people closer to their death. In the Philippines, a kWh emits about 0.6kg CO2 mainly from coal fired power plants. A liter of diesel emits 2.3kg of CO2 equivalent. While the prospect seems bleak there are practical ways to slowdown global warming. Here are a few of them:

1.) TURN OFF THE LIGHTS- In the Philippines, the most abused appliance is the bathroom light. STOP scaring your kids so you don't need a night light!

2.) UNPLUG your appliances - When you turn off your TV, stereo its actually on standby so you can activate it with a remote. Other appliances only turn off the secondary coil of its power supply. These cases actually draw current from the outlet up to 40% of the appliances rated current consumption. By unpluging or using a power strip, you completely isolate the appliance from the outlet.

3.) DON'T LET MUCH OF THE SUN IN - The sun radiates infrared and ultraviolet rays that carry heat. Permanently shade your east and west facing windows. Put awnings on your north and south facing windows. Put infrared blocking coatings on all your fenestration.

4.) PARK IT - Instead of driving your car during rush hour, park it and leave later. In a traffic jam, you burn gasoline without going anywhere.

5.) CARPOOL - Its not a swimming pool for your car, silly! Get your officemates to share your ride. You reduce your emissions to 1/5 since more people benefit from the burning of your fuel. To save even more, commute, bike or even walk.

This doesn't end here. Once you've done all these, tell at least five other friends or let them read this article.

I recently had a conversation with our church administrator about power. He was thinking of totally isolating the office from the grid and operating with diesel generators. I told him that would be a big mistake as diesel is an expensive power source. I explained to him that cost curves exist to substantiate this.

To assess the cost of power, one must first understand the concept of levelized cost. Levelized cost, comprehends various aspects of power generation, such as capacity factor (i.e. no of hours operation), investment, environmental costs, etc. Typically, fuel based sources would have costs increasing directly proportional to hours utilization. These values are plotted in busbar cost screening curves showing you what sources would be best to operate for certain durations.

The figure below contains screening curves for generation options in Cambodia. It shows that for less than 4000h/year operation, Open cycle gas turbines (OCGT) are cheaper. Beyond that, Combined Cycle turbines are preferred. While hydro appears high, the flatness of its curve makes it an attractive option. With cost optimizations and policy adjustments, hydro could be the least cost option in this case.

Cambodia: Screening Curves (Source: World Bank)

In the Philippines, geothermal and hydro compete with diesel and coal. The intercept points are much lower than that of the above case. By using screening curves, in couple 8760h demand plots, you can identify the right power source for each market segment. Peak loads could be best supported by diesel. Midrange needs could be met by gas turbines (natural gas). Baseload requirements, by geothermal, hydro or coal.

An interesting case for not selecting power sources correctly would be that of Iloilo City, Philippines. Under the franchise of the Panay Electric Company, the power rates are one of the highest in the world at PHP14/kWh. All because of a decision to run solely on diesel.

Whether you are a distribution utility or a private company contracting power, it would be good practice to use screening curves to guide you in purchasing power.

In a recent article in the NYtimes, the North American Reliability Corporation states that the US grid's transmission reliability could be affected by increasing Solar and Wind power . Why? Intermittence.

Solar and Wind technologies are classified as intermittent. This means that they could be up at one time and gone the next. The strength of wind varies highly within short periods of time. So does the power it generates. Solar doesn't vary that much but follows the length of the daytime. If a grid had a high penetration of these sources, power would drop at sundown or when the wind suddenly dies. Director Mario Marasigan of the Energy Utilization Management Bureau (Philippine DOE) that Solar and Wind plants would require equivalent back-up capacities from more reliable power sources.

To mitigate this, a few of things come to mind:

1.) Storage technologies have to be developed. Most industry players have focused on developing generation technology but few have really developed cheap, reliable, utility scale batteries. Can we not have the same revolution as with mobile device batteries?

2.) Generation planning is more crucial than ever. We can no longer have much excess capacity. The penetration limit of intermittent sources must be defined from simulation results. Simulations have to be more detailed that before covering not just transmission grids but also distribution networks.

3.) How do we manage electrical consumption at different times of the day? Energy efficiency will play a key role in addressing this issue.

Is the Grid ready for the power of the future? The answer is up to us?

The US presidential campaign has got me interested in the past few weeks. The Obama campaign calls for a purely renewable energy strategy. McCain has an "all of the above" approach to energy security. While I don't agree about the use of Nuclear power, McCain does raise a valid argument for it. His long, personal experience as a Navy officer, put him in close contact with Nuclear reactors on the ships he was assigned to. His argument is that if we operate nuclear power in a disciplined, responsible way it would be a good, cheap, climate friendly source of power. This line of thinking is backed by the strategies of France and latter on, that of the UK. While McCain mentions clean coal (i.e. Integrated Gassification or Ultra-supercritical with CO2 capture), nukes will likely dominate his power portfolio because of the lower lifecycle GHG emissions.

For a nation like the US, with strict safety and environmental standards and enforcement, the chance this will work would be high. Is Nuclear power appropriate for the Philippines? To answer this , I will draw on my risk assesment experience as a quality and reliability engineer.

I see 3 high risk areas for Nuclear power in our country:

1.) Operational Safety - Some key traits in Filipino culture would be "pwede na" and "bahala na". It is not uncommon that workers would do short cuts and "discarte" to get a job done. Top to bottom you see this manifested in varying degrees in Filipino organizations. A good example would be our landfill in Montalban. After all the assurances it would be a "sanitary" landfill, inhabitants have experienced an ecological disaster. Leachate poisoned wells. Flies ruined crops. Farmers had no choice but to become scavengers. Residents I talked to clearly stated that they now have to buy water and food because the wells were poisoned and crops could no longer be grown.

2.) Waste Disposal - Speaking of waste, Nukes have radioactive spent rods that need to be handled properly. Again "pwede na", "bahala na" might cause these waste matter to end up in our dumps or water. Just imagine Laguna de Bay or Manila Bay filled with radioactive life. Even if we had good handling processes, finding an appropriate subterranean storage site would be difficult. This is considering that we are in the Pacific Chain of Fire and vulnerable to earth quakes. Just imagine a significant rise in cancer because of consuming radioactive food and water.

3.) Security/Pilferage of Nuclear Fuel - Oh Boy!!! This is a hot one. It is not uncommon to have bunker fuel in our power plants or fuel depots pilferred. It is also not uncommon for high level officials to "pilfer" the national treasury. The likelihood of fuel rods being pilferred is therefore high! The problem is, when rods are pilferred, the consequence would be more serious than the unexplained wealth of officials. This could mean enemies of the state could get their hands on materials to make a "dirty bomb".

If we really want to make nukes run in our country we have two options:

1.) Train our Navy to run nuke plants or
2.) Get our nuke workers go through Marine or SWAG indoctrination.

My friend Prof. Wali del Mundo of the University of the Philippines puts it very well. He says that unless we are able to follow the traffic rules of EDSA consistently, only then will we be capable of running nuclear power.

With the ratification of the Renewable Energy Law and its imminent signature into law, discussions about its implications to Philippine society should be more frequent. A key feature of this law is the Feed in Tariff. The simplest way of explaining this is that for a renewable energy source, the buying price will be defined for the next few years. This price could be fixed for the whole period or could follow a year by year fixed value scheme. The intent is to make the price higher than the market value to ensure cost recovery for expensive renewable energy systems.

This may be over your head, so I'll do an example. Today in Manila, the generation rate is about PHP 4.50/kWh. Applying feed in tariffs, the government could define the rate for solar to be PHP10/kWh for the next 15 years. Another way of doing feed in tariffs would be defining the solar generation rate to be PHP 20/kWh for the next 5 years, PHP 12/kWh for years 6 -10 and PHP 7/kWh for years 10-15.

So, who pays for the difference between the feed in and the market rates? That would be the consumer. Would this not make our price of electricity higher? In countries that have this, the price increase is negligible. Here's how:

Say we used 10,000,000 kWh for our city and solar power consumed was 100,000 kWh. We assume there are 100,000 households in the city

Power from non-solar sources - 9,900,000 kWh
Power from solar sources - 100,000 kWh
Generation Cost of non-solar power (@ PHP 4.50 / kWh) - PHP 44,550,000
Generation Cost of solar power (@PHP10/kWh) - PHP 1,000,000
Total generation cost - PHP 45,550,000
Generation cost/kWh - PHP 4.56/kWh

the addition will only be PHP 0.06/kWh. So for a household consuming 100 kWh/month this means only an additional PHP 6.00 per month.

The impact of feed in tariff is highly dependent on the cost and penetration (extent of use) of the renewable technology.

Initially, the DOE did not like to have this incentive as part of the Law. Groups like Greenpeace and solar companies pushed for this scheme. The point they raised is that this has been critical in the success of renewable energy programs in other countries like Germany. The implementation of this scheme would lie with the Energy Regulatory Commission.

A working Feed in tariff scheme is in operation in Cagayan de Oro running under CEPALCO. CEPALCO is noted to have the a 1MW solar array, the largest in the developing world.

At this point, more stakeholder discussions need to happen to define the feed in tariff values. This should take place in the next 6 months as the implementing rules of the law are being defined.

With the passage of the Renewable Energy Bill only awaiting President Arroyo's signature to make it law, we must now focus our energies in the development of our resources. In my opinion, significant effort must be made to develop Solar, Ocean and Enhanced Geothermal Technologies. Except for solar, all of these are capable of supporting baseload demand. I am biased towards these technologies as I believe are more sustainable compared to others. Biomass is faced with price issues as farmers are beginning to charge for the fuel. Biofuels are threatened with food vs fuel issues. Wind is very intermittent. Hydro is usually plagued with water use conflicts.

Solar should be an area of focus because of its portability. In off-grid and island areas, it remains to be a feasible solution for electrification. We must however focus on thin film technologies as silicon is extremely expensive. In the developing world, where land is usually not an issue, high efficiency cells may not be necessary. A thin film module would cost about $1 -1.50 /Watt as opposed to Si costing about $3-4/Watt. In the Philippines, the Visayas and Mindanao would be good areas for Photovoltaic power.

Ocean should also play a key role because of the archipelagic nature of our country. The tight straights between our islands make it ideal for marine current turbines to operate. The straight between Boracay and Caticlan, known to divers as "Channel Drift", would likely be a good spot for marine current power. There's also a feasibility ongoing in Cebu. Frankly, I'm sick and tired when people tell me that these are all in feasibility stage at the moment. We've been having feasibility studies all over the world for the last 20 years!

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) is a good technology to work on. I envision this along the coasts situated along the Pacific. OTEC uses the temperature gradient between the surface and the deep ocean to run a "reverse" refrigeration cycle capable of running a turbine. An OTEC facility can also provide Sea Water Air Conditioning/ Refigeration (SWAC) Again, people say this is still in technical feasibility. How can a 100 year old technology still be in feasibility? In essence this technology is just a deep well connected to a heat exchanger! Can we not accelerate our learning by knowledge management and disciplined risk assessment?

Finally, there is enhanced geothermal technology. This technology requires digging upto 3-4kms below, injecting water and piping the resulting steam to turbines. This makes geothermal portable to areas with an ample supply of water. Gone are the limitations of putting your plant in mountains and protected areas. You can put your plant in the middle of lahar country in Region 3 as long as you can provide the water. The best sites would probably be near the coasts. If done correctly, there would be no waste water or heat as water used will be reinjected into the heat source.

What keeps the Philippines from achieving these technologies? A beggars mentality? A mindset of intellectual and financial inferiority? Being sigurista? If we are to remain enslaved by these, we will never have progress! We will be caught by the never ending cycle of foreign debt. We have to pass the hat around and develop our resources for ourselves. Instead of wasting our money in gambling, lets put our money into this where the odds are better.

The Irish have a phrase "Sinn Fein" meaning "Our Own". While the phrase has been associated with the "troubles" in Ulster, translating the phrase in Filipino removes its bleak flavor. "Sariling Atin" brings the hope of the sunrise and the vitality of the rainbow.

Sa paglilinang ng "Sariling Atin", tiyak na darating ang pag-asang parang bukang liwayway. Kasunod dito ang malabahagharing kulay, ng buhay sa bansang tunay na malaya.

No...I'm not talking about the $700B bailout bill that was shot down yesterday. I'm talking about the proposed Renewable Energy Act of the Philippines. After 20 years, this Clean Energy measure finally passed both houses! The Renewable Energy Coalition got the it to pass in the House of Representatives last June. Last Monday, the measure passed on 3rd reading in the Senate. In the next few weeks, congress will convene a bicameral conference committee to resolve contentious provisions of this measure. I will really be keeping an eye on the netmetering provision as the house will probably push for a 1% peak demand cap in contracts. My friend from Greenpeace will watch the fixed tariff provision.

What does this mean to the ordinary homeowner. It means that Renewable Energy home systems will be more affordable because of fiscal and operational incentives. ROI for systems will reduce significantly. The law will also mean that a certain % of the power you get comes from renewable energy.

Anyway...congratulations to the RE Coalition led by Cates Maceda. Special recognition goes to Rina Bernabe for all the legwork and coordination.

If you haven't tried this now is your chance.

With all the controversy about Chinese milk, etc. I decided to put this blog about the Chinese PV industry highlighting my experience dealing with them in the Solar industry.

The company I was working for had a subcontractor in Shenzhen. Our company made the cells, they assembled these into modules (aka panels). Getting to Shenzhen wasn't really a problem. I remember filling out the application early in the week then getting it by Friday. There appears to be an atmosphere of wanting people to come in. I got a 2 entry F visa good for 3 months. There was another occasion where I had to go to Shenzhen at short notice with out any visa. Taking a van from HK, I go to the border at Huanggang. The visa office can issue you a 7 day L visa for about 400RMB (if my memory serves me right). They can also issue you a 40 day visa. I brought my own picture but they can take your picture there also. My friend gets his visa at Luohu (Lowu in Cantonese) accessible from HK by commuter train at East Tsim Sha Tsui. If you intend to go somewhere else, you can get your visa at these border stations, take the train from Luohu or the plane at Bao-an airport.

Our subcontractor was located in the Longgang district of Shenzhen. The factory was a 2 floor operation with an a company of workers. Solar cells were soldered by hand. Our cells were thin so they kept on breaking a lot of them until they learned how to handle them correctly. The paper trail was confusing, process control was a mess. I was tasked to work on the testing area, where I found the lack of temperature controls which led to the underating of our modules. My colleague was working on lamination issues, and he found issues like water contamination during glass washing ( yes glass gets washed before cells are laminated on to it).

Factory management was also struggling personnel issues. High turnover translated to workmanship issues when replacement workers came. There was the language problem. Management also had communication issues with workers. Despite of all this, I found the Chinese worker industrious and helpful if he/she understood what you were trying to do. Things got better when they hired a Six Sigma Black Belt for a Quality director. My Shenzhen based colleague was able to work joyfully for a change.

Its is a principle that you get what you pay for. If you want to pay cheap, be prepared to invest more sweat into it. You actually pay more eventually by paying less initially. Chinese labor is definitely cheap but the juggernaut attached. We had to deal with modules that were under rated , delaminating or shorted/shunted. Someone once said that people don't care about quality anymore. I beg to disagree. If you're paying for a $750 PV module or a $20,000 car, there'd better be high quality in it.

What does the Philippines do when countries like China and Vietnam siphon labor intensive industries? We adapt! Our industries should move towards automated, high value portions of the supply chain. If we used to assemble, now we ought to fabricate. We now have Sunpower and Solaria fabrication plants. I just talked to a local thin film PV developer who's also starting up. We should also move to knowledge based industries. While call centers are good we should move to technology/software design services.

In summary, we are faced with a choice. We can either whine about other countries taking over our turf or adapt and survive. First we need to Outlive (our comfort zones)...Outpray...Overcome. Then we begin to Outwit...Outplay...Outlast!

At the insistence of a friend, I am starting a series of blogs about the Renewable Energy Bill pending in the Philippine Senate. This measure has been around since 1988 and has never been passed into law. We have finally passed in the lower House. Progress in the Senate has been slow because this chamber easily gets sidetracked into other issues.

Anyway, today we talk about netmetering. This is what I can an operational incentive (vs. fiscal) because the benefits come during the operation of the renewable energy facility. This incentive allows for a power consumer to sell excess self-generated power into the grid. It is accomplished by replacing your watthour meter with one that turns back when you generate excess power. Another way of doing it is by adding a second meter that records excess power generated. At the billing date, power generated is credited into one's electric bill (i.e. Cost consumed - Cost generated = bill). Of course, they only credit generation cost.

This incentive has been a key contributor to the success of solar in other countries like the US and Germany. Netmetering reduces system cost by about 40%. I did some calculations and discovered that it also reduces the ROI of a Photovoltaic system from 20-22years to 6-8years. Why? Netmetering precludes the need for batteries gives the extra revenue stream.

The renewable energy bill passed in the Philippine House of Representatives puts a cap of 1% of peak demand in a grid. For Luzon, this would be about 120MW. Why should a law have a quantitive limit, when one can simply put the verbage "subject to technical limititations". (I presented this in the House Technical Working Group and got a concession, only to find it gone in a future version of the bill.GRRR!!!) The speculation is that private distribution utilities are behind this. The Senate version does not have such limit particularly also because of the support of Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, the father of the Philippine Deregulated Power market. (As a lobbyist, I also learned my lesson here. Never let legislators off the hook. Appreciate the support of Sen's Juan Miguel Zubiri and Edgardo J. Angara and their respective staff.) It is also interesting to note that California initially had the same 1% cap but had this amended to 2% in order to meet the Million Solar home initiative.


Having said all this, it is essential that this measure is passed asap (considering purely technical limitations only). It provides for better access to clean, secure and sustainable power to our people.

My family had a great time today in Lake Caliraya, Laguna, planting trees to reforest a denuded portion of Napocor's ( National Power Corporation of the Philippines) watershed in this area. Caliraya is a man-made lake, home to ~600MW of hydro-electric power. Considering large dams and flooding was done in its construction, this lake is technically not sustainable. It does, however, provide clean electric power ( compared to fossil fuels).

One may ask, "How can hydropower be made sustainable?" The answer is simple in worlds but often difficult in practice. The principle involved is ensuring that a hydropower endeavor must have minimal impact to the immediate ecosystem and community in the site. Traditional large dams involved the impounding of huge volumes of water leading to key issues such as:

1.) Reduction of available water volume for the local community
2. ) Species/Human displacement because of flooding
3. ) Species destruction because of changes in flow characteristics
4.) Water quality changes because of flow characterisitic change

For hydro plants to be sustainable, they must maintain the overall flow characteristics and volume of the river or tributary. Systems known as run-of-river hydro systems do not have dams, but divert some of the water to power station by means of a penstock. After usage, the water is brought back to the river. These are often seen in rural settings in the Philippines and in other parts of South East Asia. Since this technology depends on the normal flow of the river, one much choose sites carefully to ensure consistent power delivery all year round.

Some small hydro plants, use dam technology. For these to be sustainable, they have to first demostrate that their dam is not large ( as defined by the world commission on dams). After this, these plants have to demonstrate that volume or flow changes will not affect local community usage or biodiversity.

Sad to say most of the major hydro plants in the Philippines are not sustainable. We do hope that proposed installations in Panay and Bicol consider sustainability in their designs.

Trivia: The largest hydropower station in the world is the Three Gorges Dam in China. It is projected to be capable of generating 22.5GW of power when all turbines are operational.

I had the privilege of being invited to a special forum of the Congressional Committee of Science,Technology and Engineering (COMSTE). This is a special committee of the Philippine Congress. Today's forum featured Dr. Cayetano Paderanga, one of our foremost economists, who gave a very good update of the country's economic performance. The main speaker was Dr. Johnsee Lee of the Industry Technology Research Institue.

ITRI is credited for playing a key role in Taiwan's transition to a High Tech economy. Dr Lee highlighted the activities of ITRI in the past decades like birthing companies such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Universal Microelectronics Company. Today ITRI works to bring frontier technologies such as Photovoltaics, Nanotech and Biotech.

Overall the talk was inspiring, bittersweet and alarming. Inspiring because Taiwan was able to overcome scarce resources and international marginalization. Bittersweet because decades ago we were training Taiwanese engineers now its the reverse. Threatening because they are now positioning themselves in areas like Photovoltaics , which is a key focus area for the Philippines.

Industry reps in COMSTE proposed an ITRI-like entity. I'm not so sure what strategy they intend to take, but I think industry can start something unilaterally. They can establish a non-profit entity (just like ITRI), pool funds and establish technical capability. After this, they can lobby for projects and be a contractor for the DOST or DOE. Dr Lee kept on repeating that ITRI is a contractor of the Taiwanese government.

The concept of a non-profit doing work for the government is not new in the energy sector. The defunct UNDP-GEF-DOE CBRED project attempted to establish a non-profit Market Service Center for renewable energy development. CBRED was shutdown because of project management issues. Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes keeps on saying that social mobilization is essential to meet development goals. An industry initiated/led institute would be essential to Sustainable Energy advancement.



EE times interview of Johnsee Lee talking about the latest activities of ITRI

Photovoltaics (PV) are quite different। These parts collect light from the sun and transform them into electricity. These collectors are 5" wide diodes, usually Si, that generate charge carriers when exposed to light. ( I'll probably get into the physics of this device in a later blog.) A cell has about 0.6V and 5A (about 3W). The cells are stringed together in series to produce a module (laymen call these panels). Typically off-grid applications would require 30-50W modules. An on-grid installation uses 200W modules. (If you don't know what this means, just go outside your house and see if you have an electric meter. If you have one , then you're on-grid. ) If you have a house that consumes 1.5kW(1500W) of electricity at peak ( The sum of all wattage ratings of your appliances and lights), you will need about 10 200W panels to meet your electrical needs and system loses.

In a photovoltaic system you will also need to have a charge controller or control center and storage. The control center toggles between your modules and the grid (normal power from the utility). It also monitors the charge of your batteries. The storage batteries should be deep cycle ones like those used in an RV and not your car batteries. (Deep cycle batts provide 80% of their rated capacity vs. 20% for car batts.)

With all these components together you should be able to produce your own electricity. I'll be talking more about how to modules in a later blog...

An Ohio home with PV shingles
(taken from Picasa- Solar Gallery)

When you mention solar energy people would respond in a lot of ways. The most common one would be solar water heaters from Solahart.   I'm blogging to give an introduction for all of you who might be interested to have solar at home.  

There are two technologies available to collect solar energy: Solar thermal and Photovoltaics.  Solar thermal collectors absorb the heat from the sun use this to heat up water.  These are the Solahart types quite popular in the Philippines.  You can actually build your own thermal collector with the following steps:

1.  Build a cabinet type structure with its opening facing upward. 

        2.  Line the structure with reflective coating. 

        3.  Place a black painted water tank inside your structure.

        4.  Connect plumbing to your water tank

        5.  Cover your structure with translucent glass

     

  Be sure to have your collector facing South and tilted about 15deg from horizontal. This ensures that your panel follows the path of the sun.

  I more advanced set-ups, the hotwater is connected to an absorption chiller to produce solar cooling. 

 I will be talking about Photovoltaics next time...

typical solar thermal collector set-up

 (taken from wiki-pedia)

I was offline for a few days because my PC crashed.   Don't know exactly what happened.  It seems like a combination of the effects of the SP3 update and damage to my power cord socket.  Anyway, I think I need to purchase a new PC for now.

Before I was cut off from the web, I discovered a very useful software called LEAP.  LEAP, or Long range Energy Alternative Planning System, is an application that enables you to model energy consumption, production and resource extraction for different sectors. It can model power and fuel use. According to its website, it is fast becoming the world standard for integrated resource planning and greenhouse gas mitigation assessments.  

I tried training exercises posted on the web and discovered the tool's capability to model/forecast power consumption based on population growth and other demographic info.  I see this as handy in plotting alternative scenarios based varied interests and stakeholder goals. It appears to be an indispensable tool in participative energy planning.

You can download it from www.energycommunity.org.  It is available for free for academics and non-profit organizations.

LEAP screenshot

Finally got the EPlus plugin for sketchup to work.  I guess you really can use it only for the geometric aspects of modeling.  You still have to do some edits in the idf file if you want to change the construction or add equipment into your model.  The plugin has a "getting started" manual visible in the plugins tab of sketchup.  It teaches you how you can define zones and zone parameters.  It doesn't tell you how the animation function works, so this is the next thing I will have to find out.  

www.leonardo-energy.org offers free webcasts and webinars on sustainable energy.  I tried out 2 introductory courses on PV systems and Distributed generation.  The Information was very basic, good enough for novices in the renewable energy systems.  This was basically something like a powerpoint presentation with a voice over. They have webcasts for harmonics, lighting, renewable energy.  They also have webinars to discuss updates on specific technologies and issues.  Free e-books are also available in this site.  I think every sustainable energy advocate must check this site regularly

I got into an LED vs CFL conversation in a meeting today. Which technology is really appropriate for us in the Philippines? To answer this question, we ought to examine each technology.

What is an LED? The name, Light Emitting Diode, says a lot. First, the device is a diode. Which means it lets current pass under a when the positive and negative terminals are connected one way (forward bias) but nothing terminals are reversed (reverse biased). Second, it means that light is produced as it goes through this process. The device construction is simply a junction of unlike semiconductor materials (i.e. PN junction). When the device is unconnected, a electric field exists because of the interactions of charges on semiconductor and that of introduced impurities. In a forward bias condition, the field facilitates the movement of charges across the junction, thus the current. As charges(i.e. electrons, negative charge) move in one direction, they meet "particles" (holes, positive charge) with opposite charge and direction. When electrons and holes meet light is produced as the electron moves to a lower energy state. This process is called photoluminescence. The photovoltaic phenomenon an the opposite process to photoluminescence.

LED Mechanism: image taken from wikipedia

CFLs on the other hand, are socket type versions of Fluorescent tubes.  The technology is simple.  Electrons come is from a terminal and collide with gas molecules in the tube.  The molecules go to a higher energy state then go down immediately  to achieve stability.  As the molecules seek stability, they emit light in the UV range. The UV waves hit the coatings on the tube walls, causing it to Fluoresce.  The gas is a mixture of mercury vapor and other noble gases.

CFL: image taken from wikipedia

The main argument against CFL is the mercury while LEDs are always hit with cost and directional capability.  Which one is appropriate?  A CFL bulb only has 4.0mg mercury or 40% of mercury coming from the usage of an incandescent if power came solely from coal plants.  In the Philippines, it would probably be the same but the financial savings  and the avoidance of CO2 emissions would merit CFL use.  The ADB estimates that switching 1M CFLs would result to about $47M savings due to avoidance of new power plant installation.  Philippine government and the ADB are gearing for piloting the worlds first efficient lighting project under the clean development mechanism.  CFL was chosen, considering affordability which is crucial to the long term sustainability of the project.  This is to note that a significant percentage of the population are below poverty line.  Since this is under CDM, waste handling would be something that would be considered in the approval process.  Folks from 1st world countries may yap about the evils of CFL but until the cost of LEDs go down this is the only accessible solution.  Instead of us harping about CFLs, lets do something to make LEDs affordable and accessible to the poor.

Try this out...may help you in your advocacies.

Today I was writing an accomplishment report for SWITCH. I handle the component on participative energy planning. The concept originally came about when members of Panay civil society groups contacted Prof. Rowaldo del Mundo of the University of the Philippines. They asked him how are power load forecasts made. They were concerned that local government officials were pushing for the installation of coal fired power plants in Iloilo. At this point, the relationship between civil society, the power sector and local government were already adversarial.

With these factors in mind, Prof. del Mundo developed a strategy to teach stakeholders how to forecast power loads and develop their own power development plan. Thus the Multi-stakeholder Power Development Plan (MSPDP) was born. The process was to 1.) teach stakeholder power forecasting, 2.) lead them to develop a long term regional outlook, 3.)formulate alternative scenarios favorable for each stakeholder group and 4.) statistically determine the optimal scenario for all stakeholders. While MSPDP was not completed. The result show that compared to other forecasts, MSPDP was the closest to Panay's actual power consumption in 2006 -2007








SWITCH will be continuing the work of MSPDP, through a compressed version of the process to be completed by Jan'09. Regional Energy Work Teams (REWTs) will be formed in other regions to receive the best practices of the pilot. SWITCH aims to enhance the existing Power Development Planning process by social mobilization by Feb. 2010.

I began experimenting with the Energy Plus plugin for Google SketchUp. The concept of the tool is to use SketchUp to render a building model and launch a EPlus simulation from it. It is an excellent tool from the geometric aspect as you just have to click and drag shapes to make the structure. The problem is that the simulations don't work!!! Output CSV (Comma Separated Value) files don't come out. Why? It might be a problem of passing parameters or some issues in variable naming consistency. I guess I have to read the Input Output Reference of EPlus to find out. It looks like I'll be using the plugin to render the geometric aspect but I'll use the EPlus IDF (Input Data File) editor to work on the thermal and run parameter. As soon as I figure this out, I'll be saying something about it here. 'Til then....

I just finished doing the tutorial exercises for Energy Plus.  It is an interesting application because you can simulate the cooling and heating performance of a building.  You start out by creating partitions of the building you want to analyze. The software has values on construction materials taken from ASHRAE databases.

Thermal zones of model

The next step is to render sub elements like windows and doors.  As soon as this done,  energy plus can render it as a .dxf file.  

Rendering windows and doors

 You can then simulate building performance based on weather/climate data taken from WMO.  You can also add HVAC, lighting or occupancy components to your model.    After running your model, you can get a good estimate of your energy performance.  The output would be something like this:

Site and Source Energy

	Total Energy (GJ)	Energy Per Total Building Area (MJ/m2)	Energy Per Conditioned Building Area (MJ/m2)
Total Site Energy	233.55	503.77	503.77
Net Site Energy	233.55	503.77	503.77
Total Source Energy	655.37	1413.66	1413.66
Net Source Energy	655.37	1413.66	1413.66

Building Area

	Area (m2)
Total Building Area	463.60
Net Conditioned Building Area	463.60

Resized picture of end use output

Energy plus seems to be a great tool in analyzing building performance whether for retrofits or new designs.  I will be exploring more of this tool and its google sketch-up plug-in. I will be making it part of my arsenal of tools in my advocacy for sustainable energy.  Stay tuned...

drawings taken from Energy Plus getting started guide 

OTEC or Ocean Thermal Energy  Conversion is probably one of the most promising energy technologies for tropical countries.  It utilizes warm surface water to "evaporate" a refrigerant and cold deep ocean water to condense it.  The  evaporation of the refrigerant produces a high pressure gas that can drive a  turbine.  So far literature has reported less than 20% efficiency but this may be due to the fact that this technology didn't get much support by developed countries.  

An attractive feature of OTEC is the potential for the infrastructure to support refrigeration, desalination, hydrogen production while producing power. OTEC can also be installed in mobile platforms or ships. In my opinion, these features are too attractive to be ignored. Considering that developed countries don't have much of the ocean thermal gradient resource,  its up to developing, equatorial countries like the Philippines to develop this resource .  Developed countries ought to pitch in too because of their "carbon debt".

A typical open cycle plant design. 

Map of OTEC potential sites

Illustrations taken from www.nrel.gov/otec

A few days ago, I read in the dotearth blog of the NY times about Google's investment in Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS). The technology is quite interesting. Typical geothermal systems utilize natural steam pockets near volcanoes. EGS involves drilling into the earth's crust about 4km's. Water is then pumped into the drilled area to open fissures. Heat from magma would result to steam build up in the fissures. During operation, there would be inlet pipes for water and outlet pipes for steam. Harvested steam would be transported to a turbine and generate electricity. EGS would make geothermal power feasible almost anywhere in the world. This would be a better alternative to coal fired power plants, one of the main causes for the climate crisis.

Video taken from dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com courtesy of google.org

Welcome to my new blog. In this page, you will read my take on how we can solve the climate crisis. In a nutshell, climate change can be addressed when we go for renewable energy, practice efficient consumption and employ technologies appropriate to our local realities. In an interview this morning, I was asked the question: "What is renewable energy?" The host said that it was a term alien to most people in the Philippines. I responded "Ito po ang enerhiya na nangagaling sa likas na yaman na madaling palitan ng kalikasan" ( Energy using resources easily replenished by nature). I then gave examples of renewable energy forms and mentioned the country's good position in Geothermal and Hydro. We still have a lot to do if we are to do our part in mitigating climate change. It is my hope that this blog shows practical ways of adapting sustainable energy practices. Keep on reading...

This is a photo of an awesome windfarm in Joshua Tree, CA. Taken in 2000 during a long drive from Phoenix AZ to San Diego CA along Interstate 8. While we have this in Ilocos, we still have to see this in a larger scale. The Philippines has a potential of 7404MW of utility grade wind power. Today we only have about 25MW operational in Bangui Bay.