Southwestern China's Yunnan province saw its installed power generation capacity connecting to the grid reach 80.37 GW by November 1, increasing by nearly 10 times from 8.88 GW by end-2006, showed data from Yunnan Power Grid Corp.

Of this, clean energy capacity accounted for 84%, including 59.01 GW hydropower, 6.82 GW wind power and 1.92 GW solar power. Thermal power capacity stood at 12.62 GW.

With rich water resources, Yunnan has made great progress in developing hydropower, with capacity surged compared with less than 5 GW in 2006.

The province's hydropower capacity surpassed thermal capacity for the first time in 2009, signaling a successful transformation of energy mix from dirty fossil fuels to the cleaner hydropower.

To make full use of clean energy, the Yunnan Power Grid plans to invest 20.1 billion yuan ($2.93 billion) during the 13th Five-Year Plan period to optimize and improve power transmission to end users outside the province.

It is anticipated that Yunnan will have a power transmission capacity of 31.20 GW by 2020.

http://www.sxcoal.com/news/4549231/info/en

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How important is clever federal government policy in pushing down the costs of developing and installing renewable energy?

In Australia, we have gone to lengths to prove it is not the only thing that matters – sheer demand and clever technology mean it gets there in the end, at least in household solar. But in the US, we have just been offered a pretty compelling reminder of how good federal policy can be a game-changer, a job creator and economic win-win.

In an announcement that might be a last ditch effort to shore up America’s solar industry before a potentially destructive Donald Trump takes the reins in January, the Obama administration’s US Department of Energy’s has made a new commitment for its SunShot Initiative to cut the cost of solar-generated electricity by another 50 per cent between 2020 and 2030.

The goal is to slash the cost of energy over the next decade, to bring down the average cost of utility scale solar in the US to US3c/kWh, and the cost in the sunniest areas to just US2c/kWh. That will beat any fossil fuel technology by a wide margin it makes you wonder how a president Trump could ever “save” the coal industry as he has promised.

The SunShot Initiative was launched in 2011 “with the goal of making solar electricity cost-competitive with traditional energy sources without subsidies by 2020.” But what’s really worth noting is that in just five years the Initiative has achieved more than 90 per cent of that goal to cut the cost of utility-scale solar electricity in the US to $US0.06c/kWh.

Today, in America, the cost of utility-scale solar averages at $US0.07/kWh. The program has also aced more than 70 per cent of its commercial and residential PV cost targets – also in just five years.

The SunShot 2030 targets aim to double down; halving utility-scale costs again to $US0.03/kWh; and aiming for $US0.04c/kWh for commercial solar, and $US0.05c/kWh for residential.

And as the DoE points out, these are just the targets for areas with an average climate and without subsidies. In the country’s sunnier regions, they’re looking to push prices as low as $US0.02c/kWh for utility-scale solar.

At these prices, the DoE points to recent modelling that suggests the US could more than double the projected amount of nationwide electricity demand that could be met by solar in 2030 and beyond.

And there’s no reason to suggest they can’t smash these new targets – Congress willing – like they did first time around.

To support the effort, up to $25 million is being made available to improve PV module and system design, including hardware and software solutions that facilitate the rapid installation and interconnection of PV systems.

Another $30 million will be made available for projects that accelerate the commercialisation of products and solutions that can help to drive down the cost of solar energy. And $10 million will be put aside for projects focused on improving solar irradiance and power forecasts used by utilities.

The DoE said it was now accepting applications for the three funding opportunities under the SunShot Initiative’s PV Research and Development Program, Technology to Market Program, and Systems Integration Program.

But will SunShot be safe under a Donald Trump administration? There has been some speculation about this since last week’s election result. But there is a level of confidence that the property tycoon’s capitalist leanings and “make America great” mantra will see SunShot for what it is: a policy success story.

“The focus of the Sunshot initiative is to help the American solar industry and companies to reduce their costs to make them more competitive,” said Christopher Mansour, vice president of federal affairs for America’s Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), in an interview with PV Magazine last week.

“That’s a kind of a pro-Capitalist thing that the federal government get involved in.”

While Trump doesn’t put solar in the same basket with wind (hates it), one of his main quibbles with PV is that it’s “too expensive” – a complaint he shares with some of Australia’s leading Conservative politicians.

But Mansour is confident this misconception can be cleared up.

“Part of our job has been is to talk with people on (Trump’s) campaign and his transition, to really point out that this is information that he has which may be a little bit out of date. That costs have come down tremendously, and we anticipate that they are going to continue to come down. We are competitive, and we are getting more competitive by the day,” Mansour told PV Magazine.

“I think that once we have an opportunity to talk with his people and talk with his incoming team a little bit more, and show him that this is a giant job creator for the United States.

“We are going to go from having 209,000 Americans working in solar from the end of 2019 to 400,000 by the end of 2020. These are good-paying jobs that are attractive to a lot of American workers. I am very confident they will see the advantages of current policy, and where it is helping the solar industry grow.”  

http://reneweconomy.com.au/us-energy-department-aims-to-slash-costs-of-solar-to-just-2ckwh-86323/

Trump or no Trump, the global clean energy train has left the station. A case in point is a new wind, hydropower, and energy storage collaboration between US-based GE and Germany’s Max Bögl Wind AG. The project is on track to connect its four wind turbines to the grid next year, with the hydropower component coming online in 2018.

The project represents an innovative combo of two different forms of renewable energy with an energy storage bonus thrown in.

Wind turbines and real estate

GE dropped a bit of a clue regarding one aspect of the project a couple of years ago, when it introduced its “space frame” turbine tower.

The company invited me to take a sneak peek of its prototype in California on behalf of CleanTechnica, and one thing I learned is that GE was beginning to think of wind turbine towers in terms of their footprint.

Our guide on the tour pointed out that the hollow design of the turbine tower provides the potential for piggybacking other uses inside the frame. 

That’s a lot of useful space, right? The polyvinyl cladding allows daylight to filter through, so you could imagine indoor farming among many other options.

Wind power and energy storage

GE’s new project takes the piggyback idea to a whole new level.

The project is located at the Gaildorf wind farm. It includes four wind turbines with a combined capacity of 13.6 megawatts. The base of each turbine will double as a water storage reservoir, for a total of 1.6 million gallons (to be clear, these are not GE space frame towers — for obvious reasons, they are fully enclosed).

These storage units will interact with a nearby lake with a 9 million gallon capacity, and a 16 megawatt hydropower plant. In effect, the turbines will act as giant batteries and provide an opportunity for the hydroplant to operate economically:

During times of peak demand and high electricity prices, the hydro plant will be in production mode. During times of low electricity demand and lower prices, the hydro plant will be in pump mode, pumping and storing water–and hence energy–in the upper reservoir for later use.

To ice the renewable energy cake, the added storage raises the height of each turbine tower by 40 meters.

The end result is a “record-breaking” height of 246.5 meters, making these turbines the tallest in the world.

GE will contribute its new 3.4-137 (3.4 megawatts, 137 meter rotor diameter) wind turbines to the project. That includes the company’s Digital Wind Farm platform with Predix* software to maximize efficiency.

For those of you new to the wind energy topic, stronger, more consistent winds are located at higher altitudes. So, the taller the wind turbine, the better.

When the wind is blowing strong, excess energy from the turbines will go directly to the grid. During lulls, the hydropower plant will draw additional water from the turbine towers as needed.

Onward And Upwards For Pumped Storage

Compared to other forms of energy storage, conventional pumped hydro has a limited opportunity for global application. Geography is the main limiting factor because two reservoirs are required, and one must be located higher up than the other.

The innovative approach offered by the GE – Bögl collaboration expands those opportunities to more sites, where an in-ground upper reservoir is otherwise unfeasible.

According to GE, Bögl is already anticipating that it will engage in one or two similar projects in Germany annually after the Gaildorf project goes online.

As for GE, the company’s GE Renewable Energy arm has been front and center in the clean energy revolution, especially in the area of wind turbine technology.

The company positioned its wind turbine business to take full advantage of the federal Production Tax Credit for wind, and now it has been expanding into the wind transmission sector.

GE recently got back into the high voltage converter business after a 20-year hiatus, just in time to hook up with the proposed 720-mile Plains & Eastern wind transmission line. The company will provide three converter stations for the project, which also has the support of the Energy Department.

http://reneweconomy.com.au/ge-forges-ahead-worlds-first-wind-hydro-storage-project-34492/

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