Last week I attended Procopio’s Environmental Breakfast Club held on the UC San Diego campus.  Under John Lormon’s direction the speakers began with some comments about the differences between smartgrid and microgrid.  Byron Washom, Director of Strategic Energy Initiatives, UC San Diego gave an update on the status of the sophisticated microgrid being built on the ever-expanding seaside campus.  Much has been accomplished with more to come.  The UC San Diego system demonstrates the advantages of an intelligent energy system designed for increased efficiency, security and sustainability.  Environmental sustainability at UC San Diego is a real-world learning experience serving the dual purposes of advancing the base of knowledge and saving the university millions of dollars in operating expenses. 

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.

After fire and the wheel, it was only logical to invent the patent attorney.  San Diego’s vibrant cleantech cluster exists because of a concentration of human capital including research institutions, a technically skilled labor pool, savvy VCs, creative entrepreneurs and intellectual property attorneys. 

Eric Lane of Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps in San Diego is the author of Green Patent Blog.  His cleantech IP blog was recently honored as one of the top 50 environmental law and climate change blogs by the LexisNexis Environmental Law & Climate Change Community.

Pyron Solar

Timothy F. Brick

The conundrum of water is the socio-economic disconnect between the absolute necessity of water in our daily lives versus a pricing mechanism which signals both ready abundance and global scarcity.  On Thursday, Procopio’s Environmental Breakfast Club included Chairman Timothy F. Brick of the Metropolitan Water District, David Pierce, Analyst in Climate Research at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Procopio’s John Lormon as the always insightful moderator.  The provocative presentations will serve as stimulus for several future posts to this blog.  This post will be limited to some core truths about H20, reflections on the nature of water risk and, finally, a brief thought about the clean tech opportunity in water. 

We hold these water truths to be self evident:  The population of the world continues to grow.  The supply of fresh water does not.  Life-essential water is more valuable than the biggest diamond ever found, but is, in many cases, presented as if for free.  The external energy cost of water in aggregate is surprisingly high.  Chairman Brick said about 19% of California’s electricity is used to transfer, treat or heat water.  And, always with us, is the partially lit stage of special interests on which the water play takes place.  Agriculture in California gets 80% of the water.  Think rice growers in Japan and the corn/ethanol colossus in the Midwest.  The Ag lobby’s political clout overwhelms the forces of supply and demand.  Of course, cheap water for growers is an indirect subsidy for food for California and beyond (and cheaper hay for your Arabian horse if you have one).  

SIO’s David Pierce’s macro views of climate change were a background for Chairman Brick’s closer view of the state of our state’s water.  There’s no shortage of disturbing scenarios.  San Diego receives about 50% of its water from the Colorado River, 34% from Northern California and 16% locally. 

Risk #1  For decades, California’s pull of water from the river has roughly increased with the population.  Within a short period of time, that correlation will cease.  California’s divvy of the Colorado will be locked in at a fixed amount. 

Risk #2 San Diego’s 34% share from Northern California is directly tied to mountain snowpack and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.  The snowpack is functionally a larger water reservoir than anything man has built.  Climate change has greatly reduced our frozen water-in-the-bank.  An equal amount of precipitation with a lower ratio of snow versus rain changes our ability to capture and contain.  The water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta comes from a levy-protected system which in some areas is several feet below sea level.  Levies built prior to 1920 straddle at least two earthquake fault lines.  The United State Geological Service estimates there is a 62% probability of an earthquake of 6.7 magnitude or greater striking the Bay Area before 2032.  A massive failure of the infrastructure would mix salt water with fresh destroying a primary water source for all of California.

Risk #3  The water we drink is from a crazy quilt of infrastructures spread out over most of the western United States.  Many of us who fear the impact of climate change are greatly concerned about regional variance.  It is possible that a planet which is gradually warming may be experiencing regional climate changes which are more extreme.  A more extreme regional climate change could have a negative impact which would reverberate far beyond regional bounders.  (e.g.  A sudden and dramatic reduction in the snowpack.)   Our limited ability to evaluate a risk of this type adds to its “riskiness”.    

What are some of the San Diego clean tech opportunities in water?  San Diego receives about 84% of its water from outside the region.  There is no reasonable hope that this supply will grow in the years ahead.  The longer the distance of transport the greater the possible event risk to the water infrastructure.  Therefore, the focus should be on technologies for local solutions including desalination, recycling, reclamation and conservation.  The math of desalination is better than the deniers will admit when you take into inconsideration the increasing cost of traditional sources of water and the progressive improvement in desalination technology.  Can you imagine satisfying the thirst of a billion new humans without effectively using the water which blankets 70% of our planet? 

Future posts will cover the close-to-home water supply solutions of recycling, reclamation and conservation.  Of particular interest are the opportunities to provide systematic cues to influence human behavior.  In the meantime, you can check out the 36 Water & Wastewater companies in the CleanTECH San Diego company database.