Ice Energy Cools the Air On Top & Intel Puts Solar Power Inside Out

The Southern California Public Power Authority and Ice Energy are launching a project to shift 53 megawatts of peak-time power consumption to hours of lower demand by deploying units that make and use ice to run air conditioners, while Intel, looking to be a leader in the green energy movement, is getting ready to begin construction on eight solar power installations in separate facilities in four American states.

By GreenerBuildings Staff (27 January 2010):

PASADENA, CA, and WINDSOR, CO — The Southern California Public Power Authority and Ice Energy are launching a project to shift 53 megawatts of peak-time power consumption to hours of lower demand by deploying units that make and use ice to run air conditioners.

SCPPA, which represents 11 municipal utilities and an irrigation district serving about 2 million customers, and Ice Energy, based in Colorado, announced their agreement to work on what they describe as the first utility-scale, distributed energy storage project in the United States.

“We now have a convenient and cost-effective solution for addressing peak demand,” SCPPA Energy Systems Manager David Walden said in a webcast news conference.

“This is a historic day for the utility industry and in recognition for the role that energy storage will continue play” in reducing peak demand,” said Chris Hickman, Ice Energy’s executive vice president of utility solutions.

For utilities, energy storage systems are considered key Smart Grid components because of their capacity to store energy efficiently and dispatch it when and where needed.

Founded seven years ago, Ice Energy developed its Ice Bear Distributed Energy Storage System to work with standard rooftop air conditioning units on small to midsized commercial buildings.

At night, when demand on the grid is low, the Ice Bear goes in to “ice charging” mode, freezes 450 gallons of water and stores it.

During the day when the grid reaches peak demand levels, typically between noon and 6 p.m., the Ice Bear goes into “ice cooling” mode. It takes over from the air conditioner’s energy-intensive compressor and cools the hot refrigerant using the ice made the night before. The cooling cycle lasts at least six hours until the ice completely melts, at which point the AC compressor goes back on the job and the ice making and cooling cycles begin again.

Installation for SCPPA will begin in the first half of the year and rolling deployment will take about two years. About 1,500 government, commercial and industrial buildings — retrofits and some new construction — will be involved, Hickman said.

The power authority and the company say that the project will permanently reduce demand peak electricity demand and, when complete, can shift as much as 64 gigawatt hours of on-peak consumption to off-peak times annually. The power authority estimates that the shift can offset enough peak demand to serve the equivalent of 10,000 homes.

The benefits cited include an increase in systemwide efficiency in addition to improved efficiency at the end-load or building level; increased grid reliability; better reliability for the integration of energy from renewable resources, which are intermittent and largely available at off-peak times; and a buffer for customers against prices for power during peak periods.

When asked, Walden of SCPPA said the system costs about $2,000 per kilowatt of capacity.

Ice Energy leaders said they have tested the technology with 20 utilities in the United States and Canada and they are looking forward to other major projects.

“We believe that this contract represents just the tip of the iceberg — while it’s very big for us, it’s very small compared to the problem we’re seeking to address,” said Ice Energy CEO Frank Ramirez.

In terms of energy storage systems, thermal energy storage sits at the end of the spectrum favoring capacity and usage over a period of time with flywheels providing high-end, fact-acting response and batteries filling the middle range, Hickman acknowledged.

Though Ice Energy’s applications are relatively new, thermal energy storage has been around for decades.

CALMAC, founded in 1947, has its IceBank energy storage system in place at more than 3,300 sites around the world. The New Jersey-based company and the Sarasota County School System recently announced that the Florida schools have saved more than $8 million in energy costs in the past 18 years by using the company’s thermal energy storage equipment.

In a prepared statement about the Ice Energy and SCPPA project, Jeffrey Byron of the California Energy Commission said the venture meets the state’s requirement that utilities consider energy efficiency and demand-side management solutions before investing sources of generation. “This project includes all of the aspects we look for: managing electrical consumption, improving system efficiency, reducing greenhouse gases, and creating regional jobs for our communities,” Byron said.

Source: www.greenerbuildings.com

By Sharon Gaudin in Computerworld US (30 January 2010):

Intel, looking to be a leader in the green energy movement, is getting ready to begin construction on eight solar power installations in separate facilities in four states.

The chip maker announced this week that one solar installation will go up in New Mexico, two in Arizona, two in California and three in Oregon. With building contracts in place and required permits obtained for nearly all the projects, construction is expected to begin within a week and a half, according to Marty Sedler, Intel’s director of Global Utilities and Infrastructure.

“We’re extremely excited,” Sedler told Computerworld . “We’ve been buying renewable energy for a few years now. That was kind of our first step in trying to demonstrate some leadership. That was good, but it was always the intention that we would follow that up with more action… It’s certainly the right thing to do, in terms of leadership in helping the environment and sustainability. It’s good for our shareholders and employees… really everyone.”

Sedler noted that the largest installation, planned for Folsom, Calif. , is designed to be a 1-megawatt solar field covering six acres. The smallest installation will produce 100 kilowatts and will cover 13,000 square feet of a rooftop on an Intel campus building.

All of the energy produced by the solar arrays will be used by the Intel facilities on site.

“People don’t really understand how land-intensive these projects are,” Sedler said. “It’s a lot of space. It’s difficult for people to do really large projects. If we’re talking about property on a particular business campus, it’s tough.”

He declined to say how much Intel is paying for the eight different construction projects, which he said should be wrapped up by this coming June. Weather in Oregon could delay those three projects, he noted.

The arrays, at best, will supply about 7% of the energy each facility consumes every year, Sedler said. Together, they should produce enough energy to power 9,000 average U.S. homes. They also should reduce carbon emissions to equal taking 600 cars off the roads.

Intel has been putting some focus on green technologies and the environment.

Last July, Intel announced it had invested $10 million in five companies that develop technologies to reduce electric bills and greenhouse gas emissions in homes and data centers.

Intel Capital, the company’s investment arm, has invested in companies that develop technology to enable active monitoring of electricity usage in homes and data centers.

Source: www.arnnet.com.au