With a focus on the San Diego region’s job growth, smarter technology development, solar energy storage integration and increased electric vehicle infrastructure and deployment, Smart City San Diego is delivering results. The collaborative is made up of City of San Diego, GE, UC San Diego, CleanTECH San Diego and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E).  It formed to leverage each entity’s strengths to create and implement initiatives to improve the region’s energy independence, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and assert San Diego as a clean energy leader.

“Over the past year, Smart City San Diego has been forward-thinking about creating opportunities for a more sustainable region,” said San Diego Mayor Sanders. “Moving into 2012, our collaborative will continue to build on those results and develop and launch even more initiatives to drive economic growth for our region.”

These results include:

Car2Go: The City of San Diego and SDG&E worked with Daimler’s Car2Go to make San Diego’s launch of its plug-in electric vehicle car sharing pilot a big success. The City continues to work with SDG&E to increase the number of public-access charging stations throughout the Car2Go targeted region. The team is working collectively to educate the community about the benefits of the pilot program and expects to increase public interest in electric vehicles and encourage the growth of the plug-in electric vehicle industry in San Diego. Data gained from Car2Go will provide information on where charging stations are most needed. Smart City San Diego also continues to work to streamline the permitting process for deploying charging stations.

Smart Appliances: SDG&E and GE are working together to test the communication links between GE’s smart appliances and SDG&E’s smart meters to ensure consumers are empowered with the best technologies to manage energy use and costs. GE’s Appliances business is supplying SDG&E with a smart dishwasher, washer and dryer along with a GE Nucleus energy manager and Programmable Control Thermostat to expedite the testing process. SDG&E’s team is currently testing the communication between these assets prior to consumer deployment.

Economic Development and Job Growth: CleanTECH San Diego – working with the City of San Diego, SDG&E, UC San Diego, Scripps Institution of Oceanography and its private sector member companies – is quantifying and categorizing regional clean tech companies that touch smart grid technology development. Categories include solar energy, energy storage, energy efficiency, clean transportation and other technology companies. CleanTECH San Diego has also created a baseline analysis of the direct and indirect economic impacts of the named clusters. This baseline analysis can help quantify year-over-year job growth and other economic impacts of the regional smart grid sector. This will be particularly helpful in measuring the economic impact of the over 180 solar companies and over 20 storage companies that call San Diego home.

Solar Integrated Energy Storage: UC San Diego and SDG&E have submitted a grant application to test, demonstrate and evaluate a variety of solar integrated energy storage projects over a 12 to 24 month period. If funded, this initiative will test multiple applications at multiple sites and provide analysis for the benefit of utilities, grid planners, regulators, solar inverter manufacturers, system integrators, business modelers, energy storage manufacturers and other early adopters. CleanTECH San Diego supports this initiative as part of efforts to advance the region as an Innovation Hub (IHub).  In August 2010, the California Governor’s Office of Economic Development designated the greater San Diego region as an IHub for solar energy storage.  The purpose of the IHub is to build on the region’s existing innovation infrastructure and strong culture of collaboration to accelerate the convergence of solar energy and energy storage.

Policy Leadership: In July 2010, Smart City San Diego hosted California Public Utilities Commissioner Mark Ferron for a day long briefing on San Diego’s smart grid initiatives.  The Commissioner met with industry representatives from the solar, energy efficiency, smart grid and technology sectors and toured UC San Diego’s world renowned microgrid.  The collaborative held a roundtable with the Commissioner to brief him on the vision and work of Smart City San Diego.

Solar Decathlon 2013 Finalist: The City of San Diego and UC San Diego worked with the Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon Committee to make San Diego one of two finalists for the location of the 2013 Solar Decathlon. The event promotes the outreach, education, and economic benefits of energy security, renewable energy and energy efficiency.  If early projections bear out, attendance at the event has the potential to be larger than the San Diego Convention Center’s highest attended conference and create a positive economic impact for the region.

Economic Development and Job Growth: GE worked with CleanTech San Diego and SDG&E to host a GE Sourcing Supplier Diversity event for the first time in San Diego.  Over 50 diverse local suppliers participated in one-on-one sessions with GE buyers to learn how best to work with GE and be considered for future projects.

“GE is proud to bring our grid modernization technology and expertise to Smart City San Diego,” said Mark Hura, global smart grid commercial Leader for GE’s Digital Energy business.  ”An efficient, reliable and sustainable electric infrastructure is essential to powering economic growth and supporting business, industry and the dynamic lifestyles of a skilled workforce.  We applaud all the successes over the past year and look forward to many more to come.”

Formed in January 2011, Smart City San Diego was charged with bringing together leading organizations from government, business, education and non-profit to maximize synergies to drive sustainability programs forward, identify new opportunities, embrace additional collaborators, and move the San Diego region beyond today’s boundaries of sustainability.  This model will be able to be duplicated in other regions.

The collaborative leverages its strengths and resources as a partnership to develop and implement local initiatives that will empower consumers, improve environmental quality, drive economic growth, and reduce the San Diego region’s reliance on oil.  The collaborative is working toward a more consumer-focused, environmentally conscious energy future by addressing San Diegan’s 21st century energy needs.

Click here for the Smart City San Diego website

A microgrid is a localized grouping of electricity generation, energy storage, and loads that normally operate connected to a traditional centralized grid.  The microgrid at University of California, San Diego (UCSD) is one of the best examples of an electricity network that provides local control yet is interconnected with the larger electricity grid.

Recently the Rocky Mountain Institute visited UCSD to study and document the microgrid that controls and integrates electricity supply and demand on the campus.  One result of their visit was a six minute video that spotlights the groundbreaking work being done on the La Jolla campus

At UCSD, the microgrid provides the ability to manage 42 megawatts of generating capacity, including a central cogeneration plant, an array of solar photovoltaic installations and a fuel cell that operates on natural gas reclaimed from a landfill site. The central microgrid control allows operators to manage the diverse portfolio of energy generation and storage resources on the campus to minimize costs. In addition, the campus can “island” from the larger grid to maintain power supply in an emergency, as in the case of the power blackout that struck parts of Southern California, Arizona and Mexico in September 2011.

The microgrid at UCSD provides a living laboratory to experiment with integration and management of local resources and to optimize the use of these resources in interaction with market signals from the larger grid.

Click here to watch the video.

Articles of Interest
Solar forecasting and microgrids
Understanding the Role of Buildings
UC San Diego is a campus-wide living laboratory for sustainable energy

The Future of the Electric Grid was published this week by the MIT Energy Initiative.  The 268 page report aims to provide a comprehensive, objective portrait of the U.S. electric grid and the challenges and opportunities it is likely to face over the next two decades.  It also highlights a number of areas in which policy changes, focused research and demonstration, and the collection and sharing of important data can facilitate meeting the challenges and seizing the opportunities that the grid will face.  The report shows that with new policies, the electric grid in the United States could handle the expected influx of electric cars and wind and solar generation.

Much of the report relates directly to developments in the San Diego region.  Chapter 5 is about The Impact of Distributed Generation and Electric Vehicles.  Chapter 8: Utility Regulation touches on the current challenge in San Diego to have a rate structure for distributed generation which is equitable for all parties.

(From page 182 of the report), “The distortions caused by these implicit subsidies rise with the penetration of distributed generation and with energy conservation more generally.  Consider, for example, proposed “zero net energy” buildings: if network costs continue to be recovered on a per-kWh basis, these customers could in theory receive all the benefits of being connected to the grid, drawing and injecting power on demand, while paying little or nothing toward the cost of the system or the option to use the network.”  Of course, the opposite side of the issue is also compelling.

Click here for the complete report and here for the abstract.

The multidisciplinary effort of the MIT Energy Initiative to generate The Future of the Electric Grid included economists, engineers and, of course, graduate students from MIT and from without.  Click here for an excellent video of the introductory presentation by the study c-chairs of the report. 

The last two sections of the report include a useful Glossary plus a list of Acronyms and Abbreviations.

Cleantech companies in San Diego continue to receive global recognition as innovators.  On Wednesday Cleantech Group LLC (not to be confused with CleanTECH San Diego) announced their 2011 Global Cleantech 100.  From our region the honorees were Genomatica, On-Ramp Wireless and Synthetic Genomics.  There are 58 U.S. companies on the list with California way in front with an impressive 36.  In all, 16 countries were represented.

The rigorous selection process began with a long list of 4,274 nominated companies.  The expert panel was made up of 70 individuals drawn principally from leading cleantech investors from around the world. 

The leading cleantech sub-sector was Energy Efficiency with 19 companies.  This was followed by Solar (14), Water & Wastewater (12), Energy Storage (10) and Biofuels & Biomaterials (9). 

Click here to read the 32 page report. 

About the UCSD microgrid Forbes magazine said, “First light for what the new smart grid architecture will look like is already visible”.  It is an integral part of a much larger campus community effort.  Click to learn about Sustainability 2.0, A Living Laboratory.  Click here for Byron Washom’s presentation, Local Impact, National Influence, Global Reach. 

My favorite educational experience has always been show and tell.  We were treated to a tour of the campus for a first-hand look at the key components of the evolving energy system.  On the very day we were there the largest full cell on any college campus was being activated for the first time.  Manufactured by FuelCell Energy, Inc., the 2.8-megawatt fuel cell will provide about 8% of UC San Diego’s total energy needs.  In conjunction with the City of San Diego and Encinitas-based BioFuels Energy, the renewable-energy project will turn waste methane gas from the Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plant directly into electricity without combustion.

Directly opposite the site of the huge fuel cell are two impressively large solar arrays designed and fabricated by Soitec and installed on the campus for evaluation.  The first solar installation was a progressive step which led to San Diego Gas & Electric signing contracts with Soitec for 125 megawatts of solar power.  The second is the fifth generation of Soitec’s concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) system which will generate about five times more electricity with a fractionally larger footprint. 

The new system consists of 12 CPV modules, each generating more than 2 kW of peak power.  For this new product, Soitec has reconfigured its Concentrix modules to reduce the number of parts per CPV system, making installation in the field simpler and faster.  By leveraging the field-proven CPV cells, high concentration ratio and silicone-on-glass Fresnel lens construction used in previous generations of Concentrix products, the new system delivers the same high reliability and life expectancy.

Soitec’s two-axis-tracking CPV systems are well suited for installation sites with high direct solar radiation.  The systems produce a high, constant power output curve throughout the day and are able to match peak-load demands.

Soitec has begun shipping demonstration units to project sites.  Plans call for volume production to ramp in the first quarter of 2012 at the company’s manufacturing facility in Freiburg, Germany, and later at Soitec’s planned new factory in San Diego.

The last photo is of the partially completed, fifth generation Soitec CPV system on the UC San Diego campus as of October 12, 2011.

Since 1987, the CONNECT Most Innovative New Product (MIP) Awards have been San Diego’s “Oscars” for local technology innovation.  The 2011 finalists in the Clean Technology category include Genomatica for Process for High-Volume Chemicals from Renewable Feedstocks, Noble Environmental Technologies Corporation for ECOR and Wildcat Discovery Technologies for 5V Cathode (CM1) and Electrolyte (EM1).  Winners will be announced on Friday, December 9th before an audience of more than 800 of San Diego’s top executives, entrepreneurs, VCs and academics.  Click here to register for the MIP exhibition and awards luncheon. 

San Diego’s 18th Annual TechAmerica High Tech Awards finalists in the Clean Technology category include EcoATM, Hadronex, Juice Technologies and Sapphire Energy.  Click here to register for the October 28th event. 

The regional cleantech cluster in San Diego continues to receive national recognition.  On Wednesday the Global Cleantech Cluster Association announced the semifinalists for the 2011 Later Stage Award competition.  This best-of-the-best recognition includes four San Diego cleantech companies, Genomatica, PowerGenix, Achates Power and EcoATM.  In another forum Sapphire Energy was honored as a “Game Changer of the Year 2011” in Clean Technology by Grow-California for their impact on California’s green industry.

An Escondido–based firm is utilizing its technical expertise in electrical transportation to design solutions to integrate wind and solar energy into the grid. Transportation Power, Inc. (doing business as TransPower) will receive $2 million from the California Energy Commission (CEC) to design, build, and test a new, low cost fast energy storage system known as Grid-Saver. The Grid-Saver system will ease the integration of utility-scale renewable energy projects onto the state’s electrical grid. The prototype system, with a peak capacity of five megawatts, is projected to cost about five times less than competing battery systems.  Last year TransPower was awared a $1 million competitive grant from the (CEC) for component development and manufacturing planning related to production of battery-electric trucks.

Click here for a slide deck presentation about ElecTruck and Grid-Saver.

An Electric Vehicle (EV) is typically parked 95 percent of the time. The most expensive component in the car is the battery, so why not put it to work making EVs not just environmentally but also financially appealing? That’s the idea behind Nuvve’s new V2G (Vehicle to Grid) technology; a solution having gone through 10 years of development in the US and now ready to be commercially launched in Europe with Denmark as the first test market.

Electrical car batteries as energy storage solution
An increasing amount of EVs today come with bidirectional drive trains able to both charge and discharge power into the grid. Nuvve’s innovation is a server connecting the EVs to the grid operator, a technology unmatched in the market.

The EV owner makes the battery available to Nuvve during a given period and, depending on supply and demand in the grid, the company uses the car as a short time energy storage solution in order to help regulate the power frequency of the grid. The value of providing these regulation services is very high.
Nuvve’s calculations show their business model compensating each individual EV owner $10,000 over the life of a vehicle depending on market price and owner commitment.

Danish smart grid perfect for new technology
The US company is in the process of opening a head quarter in Denmark. Nuvve will start out by hiring eight Danish employees for departments in Horsens and Copenhagen, but is planning to quickly scale up both staffing and the scope of the pilot project targeted to start in September depending on project financing.
CEO of Nuvve, Gregory Poilasne, says that one of the reasons the company chose Denmark is due to the large amount of renewable energy in the Danish grid resulting in significant power fluctuations from sources such as wind.

“As opposed to countries like Sweden and France where the power supply is fairly constant as a result of large nuclear and hydropower production, the dynamic Danish grid is an optimal choice for our technology. We offer the most economic and ecologic solution to support ancillary services and power regulation while generating revenue for EV owners without really impacting their vehicles or driving needs,” says the Nuvve CEO, who also stresses Denmark’s significant experience with EVs as a deciding factor.

“At the same time, Denmark’s grid is closely connected to the rest of Europe, so for us it’s also a stepping stone to the neighboring countries such as Germany and the Netherlands.”

Cooperation with strong Danish partners
One of Nuvve’s Danish partners is Bright Ignite, a member-based cluster organization actively promoting the Danish EV sector.

“At Bright Ignite, we work to create jobs and growth related to e-mobility. Some of our main tasks are R&D projects aimed at new technologies and the market,” says CEO of Bright Ignite, Karsten Lumbye Jensen, who quickly saw a clear match with Nuvve’s V2G project.

“We believe the Nuvve solution to hold a large potential, which we would like to examine further. The V2G project gives us an excellent chance to gain experience and learn how to conduct business in an area we see as very valuable to companies, end users and the nation as a whole,” says the Bright Ignite CEO adding that the organization already has access to V2G ready EVs for participation in the program.

Bright Ignite is working very closely with Nuvve and is creating a consortium including key partners in order to make this project successful. One of the aims of the consortium is to analyze the V2G technology’s behavioral impact on the EV owners participating in the project, and also evaluate potential postponement of infrastructure upgrades within utilities and distribution companies.

Denmark’s fourth largest utility, NRGI, is also examining the Nuvve solution.

“The grid of the future will meet many potentials and challenges, one of them is the EV and plug-in. Right now, the grid has no trouble handling the relative low number of EVs in operation, but long term they are going to be negative impact on the grid unless we charge them intelligently. NRGI is always searching for new technologies and business models seeking to stabilize the grid and increase the share of renewables in our power production. That’s why we’re now taking a very close look at Nuvve’s interesting set-up,” says CEO of NRGI, Søren Sørensen.

Nuvve was introduced to Denmark and the Danish partners through Invest in Denmark. Cleantech Investment Manager Anita Kjøller Nielsen from Invest in Denmark in Silicon Valley says that Nuvve brings a valuable piece of the smart grid puzzle to the table:

”For a long time, we’ve been talking about the EV as an integrated, stabilizing factor in the intelligent grid. But the partners that we introduced to Nuvve all but agreed they had not expected this technology to be ready for another 4-5 years. Nuvve launching in Denmark now not only creates jobs, it also helps strengthen Denmark’s green technology cluster and its position as one of the leading smart grid nations in the world.”

Gregory Poilasne stresses Invest in Denmark’s role in the process of the European launch.

”Invest in Denmark immediately understood our solution, how to position it and which key players in Denmark to introduce us to in order to get the project started.”

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For more information about vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology read Cars that give back: Connect your electric vehicle to the grid, and make $440 a year by Jim Motavalli a New York Times contributor who blogs about green transportation.  I met him at the recent CleanTECH San Diego Electric Vehicle Showcase.

EDF played a key role in shaping the CPUC guidelines, which the state’s three investor-owned utilities (IOUs) are required to use in designing and deploying their smart grids.  With 20 million customers among them, San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E), Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) and Southern California Edison (SCE) are the largest utilities in California. Plans are due to the CPUC by July 1st and EDF will score them in mid-to-late July.

In addition to developing this ‘report card,’ EDF worked with SDG&E on its plan—also being released today—to ensure that, among other things, its smart grid:

1. Empowers customers to save energy and money;
2. Enables integration of large- and small-scale renewable energy projects to meet the state’s 33 percent Renewable Portfolio Standard and distributed generation goals; and
3. Incentivizes electric vehicles to charge when electricity is cheaper and cleaner.

EDF also is advising PG&E and will use the framework to score all three utilities’ plans with equal rigor, so that the best elements are adopted and any weaknesses or gaps are remedied.

“Since these public utilities are investing millions of their ratepayers’ dollars in the smart grid and need to get so many things right, EDF developed this framework to help California’s smart grid deliver on its promises.  It also identifies concrete steps these utilities can take to reach those goals,” said Miriam Horn, director of EDF’s smart grid initiative.

Energy experts at EDF will use the framework to score how well the public utilities’ plans will enable the integration of clean energy technologies, empower customers, create a platform for innovative technologies and services, enable demand-side resources to be made available for wholesale energy markets and meet environmental targets set forth in federal and state laws. These laws include California’s 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32), which requires the state to reduce greenhouse gas pollution to 1990 levels by 2020.

EDF’s Evaluation Framework for Smart Grid Deployment Plans, Benefits to Consumers and the Environment focuses on results defined by the U.S. Department of Energy: ‘enhanced grid operations, customer services and environmental benefits.’  EDF staff and an independent consultant developed the framework with input from multiple stakeholders including CPUC staff, the California IOUs, former Austin Energy General Manager Roger Duncan, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), The Brattle Group, Galvin Electricity Initiative and consumer advocacy organizations.

“This is a brand new effort by the utilities with ratepayers footing the bill. We want to make sure plans deliver solid returns on those investments.  This tool will make it easy to show which utilities made the grade,” said Tim O’Connor, an attorney and climate change analyst at EDF.

EDF is working on multiple smart grid projects across the country, including the Pecan Street Project, in Austin, Texas, a $25 million demonstration project designed to meet consumer and community needs.  EDF is also engaging consumer groups and other public and private entities to help ensure consumers have the information and protections they need, and that ratepayer investments deliver returns in the form of cleaner air, improved public health, reduced energy costs and a stronger economy.

Environmental Defense Fund (edf.org), a leading national nonprofit organization, creates transformational solutions to the most serious environmental problems. EDF links science, economics, law and innovative private-sector partnerships. Visit us on Twitter at @EnvDefenseFund and @EDF_CA, at our California blog, California Dream 2.0, and on Facebook at facebook.com/EnvDefenseFund.

SOURCE Environmental Defense Fund