Clea Kolster, PhD

UK curtailed (wasted) energy from wind by year: 2020: 3.5 TWh 2021: 2.4 TWh 2022: 3.4 TWh Thats enough energy to power several million tons of Direct Air Capture in the UK per year. Without changing actual electricity supply on the grid. Just sayin' #renewables #directaircapture #dac #wind #curtailment

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A technology to solve the water-energy-food crisis? Mapping sociotechnical configurations of agrivoltaics using Q-methodology. https://lnkd.in/eRtJ_Sz7

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Last week, myself and a number of colleagues in Berkeley Lab's Energy Markets & Policy Group, Berkeley Lab released our Annual Report tracking trends in Hybrid power plant development. Hybrid power plants combine generation + storage, most often solar + batteries, and the new report tracks and maps operational and proposed hybrids >1 MW in the United States, plus data mined from power purchase agreements. Check it out! at the link below. 👇 👇 👇 https://lnkd.in/g94GH--7 Among currently operating hybrid power plants in the US, PV+storage leads by all measures: • number = 288 • storage capacity = 7.8 GW/24.2 GWh • storage/generator capacity ratio = 54% (or 0.54 GW of storage per GW of solar) • storage duration = 3.1 hours Hybrid capacity in interconnection queues grew 33% in 2023. There was about 1 TW each of solar and storage in interconnection queues. About half of all solar came with batteries, and half of batteries came with generation. In CAISO, 98% of solar and 34% of wind capacity in the queues is proposed as hybrid. California has resource adequacy requirements, but also has big daily wholesale pricing swings induced by high solar penetration. Arbitrage opportunities for storage are substantial! We also review recent hybrid power plant update also reviews the PPA prices of 105 hybrid plants in 10 states. Prices have been rising, possibly due to higher storage/gen ratios (bigger batteries). But this hasn't seemed to have dampened demand.

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Scaling direct air capture and related quantification are major challenges for reducing carbon footprint. UC Berkeley has developed a powder that can absorb large amounts of carbon in DAC systems. "...direct air capture, or DAC, is being counted on to reverse the rise of CO2 levels, which have reached 426 parts per million (ppm), 50% higher than levels before the Industrial Revolution. Without it, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we won’t reach humanity’s goal of limiting warming to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) above preexisting global averages. "A new type of absorbing material developed by chemists at the University of California, Berkeley, could help get the world to negative emissions. The porous material — a covalent organic framework (COF) — captures CO2 from ambient air without degradation by water or other contaminants, one of the limitations of existing DAC technologies. “'We took a powder of this material, put it in a tube, and we passed Berkeley air — just outdoor air — into the material to see how it would perform, and it was beautiful. It cleaned the air entirely of CO2. Everything,' said Omar Yaghi, the James and Neeltje Tretter Professor of Chemistry at UC Berkeley and senior author of a paper that will appear online Oct. 23 in the journal Nature. https://lnkd.in/d3m7cw58

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#Google Sustainable energy firm energyRe announced that it has signed a 12-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Google, supplying the tech giant with 435 MW of renewable energy for its operations in the central U.S. from a new solar project. The project will be developed, owned, and operated by energyRe, and the firm will supply the generated electricity and Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) to Google. According to the companies, the new agreement will support Google’s target to operate on 24/7 carbon-free energy (CFE) by 2030. Operating on 24/7 CFE means matching electricity demand with CFE supply every hour of every day, in every region where the company operates. Google has been ramping up its clean energy purchases, as it looks to address the growing electricity consumption from its data centers. The company recently announced that it signed contracts to purchase approximately 4 GW of clean energy generation capacity in 2023, more than in any prior year. https://lnkd.in/d7tW9gnN

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Low-carbon transition is rewiring energy systems – and portfolios Summary: The transition towards low-carbon energy sources, predominantly solar and wind, is projected to dominate 70% of the global energy mix by 2050, prompting an annual capital investment average of US$4 trillion. Investors are encouraged to adopt a comprehensive portfolio approach to capitalize on opportunities across both public and private sectors. Key "mega forces" shaping long-term investment strategies include demographic changes, digital advancement, geopolitical shifts, evolving financial architectures, and the low-carbon transition. The latter is a complex array of shifts in energy, materials, food, and land use, expected to progress at varying speeds across different regions and sectors. Private markets are highlighted as crucial for providing targeted exposure and meeting diverse investment goals such as income generation, capital appreciation, and risk mitigation. Infrastructure investments, recognized for their economic necessity and resilience to economic cycles, are particularly emphasized. These investments often feature long-term, inflation-linked contracts providing stability in volatile markets. In Asia, significant due to its high emissions and reliance on hydrocarbons, supportive policies are enhancing the adoption of renewable energy, with ambitious goals set in countries like the Philippines, Thailand, and Malaysia. Blended finance strategies are also fostering robust public-private partnerships to boost climate infrastructure investment in emerging markets. Additionally, the importance of digital infrastructure in the energy transition is stressed, highlighting the need for green data centers and advanced energy storage solutions, such as the development of the world's largest battery energy storage system in Sydney. The scale and complexity of the low-carbon transition necessitate that investors remain well-informed about cost trajectories, technological advancements, and the dynamic interactions within the energy sector's value chain. Understanding regional diversities, especially in Asia, and strategically positioning investments in private markets and infrastructure are vital for effectively navigating this transition. The low-carbon transition offers a multitude of investment opportunities and challenges, emphasizing the need for a strategic and informed approach. Investors must consider broad macroeconomic forces alongside specific sectoral shifts. Key areas such as private market investments, infrastructure development, and technological advancements in energy storage and digital infrastructure are critical for leveraging the potential benefits of this transformative shift. #LowCarbonTransition #SustainableInvesting #RenewableEnergy #InfrastructureInvestment #PrivateMarkets #DigitalInfrastructure

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Found this to be an exciting and uplifting perspective - challenges do not equal doom. “We can’t let gloomy coverage of the challenges facing the US grid blind us to the steps we can take to achieve a brighter future. We have the technologies we need and critical policy tools to scale their deployment. It is not electricity load growth that is threatening our climate goals, but the business-as-usual responses to potential load growth that both threaten our climate goals and fail to prepare our energy systems for the deeper energy investments that are already on the way. The ultimate cost and pollution impacts of load growth will be determined by the extent to which utilities and state regulators choose to take advantage of the solutions at hand.” https://lnkd.in/eRB434TN

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"We need to rethink ever-increasing #energy demand", writes my colleague Dr Daniel Quiggin, in this timely paper, because relying on Co2 removals will not solve our #climate problems. Defining "the split between emissions reductions and removals" in country's #netzero strategies, and international cooperation on minimizing technological risks is essential. Get to grips with the technicalities and the politics of #BECCS and #DACCS below...

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The nation is currently on track to cut just 22% of its carbon emissions by 2030, compared with the 50% needed to reach its Paris Agreement goals. #renewables #power #energy #wind #offshore #onshore #solar #hydropower #floating #nuclear #geothermal #efficiency #transition #susteinability #circular #economy #esg #clean #decarbonization #electrification #climate #hydrogen #mobility #greensteel #ammonia #transportation #storage #fuelcell #smartgrid #der #powersystem #generation #transmission #distribution #electricity #machines #motors #drives #sensors #iot #education #engineering #innovation #entrepreneurship #creativity #technology #digitalization #cybersecurtity

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🌟SUCCESS STORY🌟 PVRADAR's soiling risk assessment for a 1.4 GW portfolio 🌍 We assessed the soiling risk of a leading energy company's 1.4 GW portfolio spanning 15 projects across four continents and diverse climates. With projects scattered from arid deserts to temperate zones, each site presented unique challenges. ✅ Six different soiling models applied and validated against measured data. ✅ Soiling loss for each project defined based on last 20 years of historical particulate matter, meteo conditions, and local rainfall. ✅ Consolidation of insights into an accessible dashboard, providing a comprehensive overview of soiling risks for the entire portfolio. ✅ Selection of the most cost-effective cleaning strategy for each case through integrated techno-economic modelling and evaluation of various technologies. 📤The analysis resulted in a robust global strategy against soiling risk, ensuring optimal performance and profitability across the client's diverse PV plant portfolio. Concerned about soiling loss? Let PVRADAR support you today!

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ICYMI: Last week on my Forbes column, I published the first of a series of articles on point-source carbon capture--a contentious topic about which there is both a lot of hype and a lot of unthinking vitriol. I'll be posting the second article, which looks at the strengths and weaknesses of different technical pathways to point-source capture, tomorrow so stay tuned! #carboncapture #ccus #climatechange #investing https://lnkd.in/eMy_s3VP

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I do a lot of research and I like to think I'm fairly knowledgeable about the renewables sector...however, the data in the two graphics below about how many coal-fired power stations have been cancelled blew me away - https://lnkd.in/ga6vpa-w. Not just because of the numbers. Also, because if you only watch western media, you'd have a wildly false picture of what is really happening...! Shout out to the team at @terranindustries and @siennasimkins for the quality research and actionable insights that they produce. I highly recommend them. #renewables #coalfiredpower #fossilfuelenergy #sustainableconsumptionandproduction #SDGs #SDG7 #SDG13 #terranindustries

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Leading financial institutions have started to take comprehensive steps to plan for a net-zero transition, and those efforts are gaining momentum. At least 42% of institutions in sector alliances under the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) have disclosed all 10 components of the GFANZ transition plan framework. #renewables #power #energy #wind #offshore #onshore #solar #hydropower #floating #nuclear #geothermal #efficiency #transition #susteinability #circular #economy #esg #clean #decarbonization #electrification #climate #hydrogen #mobility #greensteel #ammonia #transportation #storage #fuelcell #smartgrid #der #powersystem #generation #transmission #distribution #electricity #machines #drives #sensors #iot #education #engineering #innovation #entrepreneurship #creativity #technology #digitalization #cybersecurtity

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Informative summary of #carboncapture (CC) insights and progress in the US from BloombergNEF's Brenna Casey: • Capacity to increase 7X by 2035; • Capacity to reach ~164 million mtpa (equal to the next three markets combined) by 2035; • Global CC investment doubled last year to $11B, with the US getting 25%; • #Hydrogen and #power sectors to dominate CC; • Permitting for #CO2 transport pipelines and storage continues to be a challenge. #sustainability #energytransition #IRA #carbon #decarbonization #decarbonisation #ccs #ccus #carbonremoval #carbonsequestration #carbonstorage #carbonemissions

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Interesting thinking about the electricity market and how market forces could support an evolution of the way we do business there. "For instance, similar to markets that trade different grades of crude oil (WTI and Brent), perhaps we can “grade” energy based on its characteristics, so that energy that includes inertia and VARs is valued higher than energy that doesn’t include these other characteristics. A MWh of energy from a synchronous generator has a higher operational reliability value than a MWh of IBR energy, so how can we signal this economically?"

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Given constraints on land and resources, the world faces a pressing need to reconsider energy generation and storage methods. The solution? Battery skyscrapers. This insightful article discusses the importance of grid-scale storage in achieving net zero emissions by 2050. While lithium-ion batteries have their limitations, innovative approaches like battery skyscrapers offer promising solutions to our energy storage challenges. Check out the full article and explanatory video here: https://lnkd.in/eFZxfaXf #EnergyStorage #RenewableEnergy #BatteryTechnology

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The Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering have just published a report entitled "Towards a Green Hydrogen Roadmap for the UK. https://lnkd.in/gKCvpKgy Based on an expert workshop in January this year, the report describes the myriad roles green hydrogen could play in the economy, laying out in great detail what needs to happen in the near, medium and long term to summon this miracle into being. Amazingly, it does this without so much as a cursory look at how much it would cost, or looking at alternatives. That's right, there is no data or analysis WHATSOEVER on what green hydrogen costs to produce, transport, store, distribute, use and keep safe, or how much cheaper other solutions would be. I can lay out a wonderful vision for the role of luxury real estate, holidays and fast cars in my life if I don't have to mention their cost. The £ symbol appears just four times in the report, each time associated with funding set aside for subsidies in the UK: £400m in up-front investment support and £2bn in revenue support over 15 years. *So let's see how much hydrogen £2.4 billion of subsidy will actually deliver, and destroy this report with a back-of-envelope calculation.* The inaugural UK hydrogen auction last year revealed that subsidies of £9.49 per kg were required to get green hydrogen projects to happen. This is in line with figures for actual costs in other European countries. (An EU hydrogen auction cleared at a much lower price, but that was on top of other sources of funding, nowhere near enough to cover the full cost penalty of using green hydrogen.) Let's suppose that £9.48 figure can be reduced by a factor of three between now and 2030. That seems ambitious, based on everything I know, but let's go with it. You would still need £3 of subsidy per kg of hydrogen for each green hydrogen project. And since what you are doing is building electrolyser plants, storage, pipelines, etc, you need 15 years of funding committed up-front, because that's the way project finance works. So the current £2.4 billion of subsidies has to cover 15 years of hydrogen production, of which each kg requires £3 in subsidy, which means it gets you 2,400,000,000/15/3/1000 = 53,000 tons of hydrogen per year. Enough to clean up just 8% of the UK's existing grey hydrogen use! So you've spent £2.4 billion - some of which, by the way, you have taken away from Winter Heat Allowances for pensioners at enormous political cost - and you've cleaned up 8% of the UK's existing hydrogen use. YOU HAVEN'T DONE ANY OF THE COOL THINGS IN THE REPORT. How could this happen? Simple. The workshop was a gathering of vested interests in hydrogen. No one representing alternative pathways. No critical figures. A bunch of hydrogen, fuel cell, chemistry and combustion academics. No scrutiny by economists. Doh! * A huge, huge fail by The The Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering *

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Great class session at Stanford University's ENVRES221 today led by Hannah Bebbington of Stripe who is working on the massive opportunity in carbon removal. The Frontier Climate team is developing long term incentives to create a market for permanent carbon removal with an Advanced Market Commitment structure that has more than $1B of committed capital. The Frontier team (including Stripe’s Head of Climate Nan Ransohoff) are true leaders and pioneers in this field. Frontier has contracted >350,000 permanent carbon removal tons across 32 projects since inception, and is organized with the goal to "send a strong demand signal to researchers, entrepreneurs, and investors that there is a growing market for these technologies. Importantly, Frontier aims to help create net new carbon removal supply rather than compete over what exists today." The team is truly at the frontier of the field, publishing knowledge gaps in the market (https://lnkd.in/gTXkcdTM) and encouraging growth across many potential carbon removal pathways (they have funded 6 pathways to date). Learn more about their work at http://frontierclimate.com Hannah spoke about the importance of focusing time and investment on carbon removal pathways that can come down a substantial cost curve as they scale, as well as the importance of the “yes/and” mindset as we approach climate solutions. Hannah is an alum of Stanford, and took the class years ago - it was special for me and Christoph Frehsee as the teaching team to host a distinguished alum of the class as the guest lecturer. At the end of each quarter we generally say something to our students to the effect of, "our goal is that one day some of you will come back to teach a session of this class". And today it happened. It was a terrific session, showcasing the inspiring work that is going on at Frontier. Well done, and thank you for joining us, Hannah!

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