Green Drinks Discusses Recycling Solar

Green Drinks Discusses Recycling Solar

“It’s more of a problem than we thought it would be, now we have to work to fix the messes that we have made over the past 40 years.” Sam Vanderhoof, CEO

This month GreenDrinks chose to focus on how you can make an impact by recycling your clean technology. More specifically, solar panels. We spoke with Sam Vanderhoof, CEO of Recycle PV Solar, to learn more. 

Recycle PV Solar is a relatively new company, with their first plant opening only two years ago and their other two plants following not too much later after that. CEO, Sam Vanderhoof, has been in the photovoltaic industry for a while. Vanderhoof experience building companies and installing solar panels, running a company that installed over 9,000 rooftop solar panels in Sacramento. 

Recycle PV Solar had partnered with European based recycling business, PV Cycle, the largest PV recycling company, to bring technology to the US. Recycle PV Solar’s mission is to keep solar panels out of landfills and educate the public on how to recycle their PV solar once it reaches the end of its life.

It was originally thought that solar panels could provide around 30 to 50 years of services, but they typically last 12.5 years. Vanderhoof says that “while they could last a long time, we are seeing a lot of early life failure,” from environmental damage and questionable manufacturing.

PV panels are retiring quickly; it is projected by 2030, the decommissioning of solar panels will be higher than the installation of them. It is time to address what we will do at the end of life for solar panels.

In Europe, 95% of their PV Solar is being recycled, compared to the United States, where only about 10% of it is recycled, leaving the rest to end up in landfills. What are we doing wrong? One thing is that Europe has a mandatory recycling program for everyone. It cost European Recyclers about $0.70 to recycle each panel. In the U.S. it is an average of $18.00 per panel; this is because most of the recycling here is volunteer-based and hasn’t reached economies of scale to reduce cost.

Recycle PV Solar is looking to prevent solar panel waste from being an environmental disaster, keeping the Green Economy Green.  Vanderhoof closes by saying that “Everything we need to make this happen exists today; it is time to fix the messes we have made over the past 40 years.”

Thomas Hall

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Saraia Jackson is a second-year computer science major at CSU Sacramento. Her long-term goal is to become a cybersecurity analyst. She wants to show young African American women that they can do whatever they put their minds to no matter where they come from. She also really wants to devote her life to helping children and making a difference. 

CleanStart Sponsors

Weintraub | Tobin, EY, Moss Adams, Momentum

BlueTech Valley, PowerSoft.biz, Revrnt

College of Engineering & Computer Science at Sacramento State

So Many Battery Breakthroughs

So Many Battery Breakthroughs

Just keeping my eyes peeled for new announcements, I have seen close to a hundred announcements of legitimate breakthroughs in improved battery performance.  And there seem to be an even larger set of dubious announcements where it looks like the science needs years to catch up with the claims.  
Today I saw another good one.  It involves a lithium metal battery with graphene and a silicon coating to extend its life.  Lithium-metal batteries are exciting because they charge fast and have a high energy density.  But lifetime has been the big issue with a few dozen cycles the norm.  The new announcement from researchers at Rice University indicates they can triple this lifetime, but it’s still nothing great–for now.
Nobel laureate Dr. John Goodenough at the University of Texas has also been at the forefront of materials breakthroughs for batteries for years.  You can thank him for the rechargeable lithium-ion battery.  (He also invented the technology behind Random Access Memory.)   He has some new ideas that people call the “quantum glass” battery.  It uses a solid electrolyte instead of a liquid.  Those trying to advance it claim it will lead to long life, quick charging, and take prices to $30 per kWh, making batteries a relatively insignificant cost in EVs. 
What I note in all these articles is the tendency for groups to think they alone will reach some amazing goals in battery performance, but on closer inspection they all note the same impressive goals as being within reach.  We wrote about this in a prior blog.
The lessons are (1) if you think you have an amazing battery technology that will have unequalled performance, you are probably underestimating the size of the crowd that is saying the same thing, and (2) if you think batteries won’t improve by an order of magnitude, you are not watching closely enough.  
So watch this space.  We likely will report on more of these advances.
Thomas Hall

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gary Simon is the Chair of CleanStarts Board. A seasoned energy executive and entrepreneur with 45 years of experience in business, government, and non-profits.

CleanStart Sponsors

Weintraub | Tobin, EY, Stoel Rives, Greenberg Traurig LLP

BlueTech Valley, Buchalter, Moss Adams, PowerSoft.biz

College of Engineering & Computer Science at Sacramento State

Keep your Electronics Running

Keep your Electronics Running

Ever wondered what would happen to all your communication devices, smart home devices or refrigerator when power is lost from the grid. You no longer need to worry about losing access to those devices when using Off The Wall Energy’s Personal Energy Platform. 

Bob Guimarin of Off The Wall Energy is creating the Personal Energy Platform, a portable micro-energy storage system with real-time awareness of grid and off-grid availability. It works much like a mini-Tesla power wall, but located inside your home at each wall outlet, maintaining power to your most critical devices.

The Personal Energy Platform is a power management system that can be charged at night and discharged during the day, negating the use of grid power when rates are high. It can be plugged into a 120V/240V AC wall outlet and directly connects to your AC and DC devices. It has a unique approach to lower energy waste by connecting native DC devices directly to the Personal Energy Platform without the use of individual device AC/DC inverter power cords. Current plans are for two models, a 440W CommHub unit that can be used to power your home communication devices and a 2000W (2kWh) PowerPlus unit that can power refrigerators and more. 

The Personal Energy Platform is an attractive consumer-oriented product designed for maximum flexibility and ease of use.  All the while operating autonomously to support your critical communications, security systems, food preservation, and home medical devices without the need to swap power cords or impacting your lifestyle choices.

If you want to learn more about Off The Wall Energy, make sure you come to our meetup on February 27, 2020

Going 100% Renewable Needs More Storage

Going 100% Renewable Needs More Storage

Much of the attention in Clean Energy these days goes to consumer products and energy generation. This is well deserved because the contribution to global warming energy generation has made and consumers wanting to learn more about how to reduce their impact. The complicated reality of going to 100% renewables is not just energy generation or changing our lifestyles but also updating the grid and adding storage to it. Storage is things like Lithium-ion Batteries, SPIN’s flywheel, and pumped hydro.

 In passing SB 100 the State Government made California a world leader with an ambitious goal to operate 100% on renewables by 2045.  Successes in solar, utility-scale and rooftop we have reduced our emissions but also changed the energy demand profile of the electric grid. A perfect example of this is the duck curve of energy demand.  The complications of meeting energy supply and demand is a very real obstacle in maintaining grid reliability as we move to 100% renewables. To manage an ever more complex grid we need storage.

 Policies contributing to the success of solar should be expanded to promote storage.  We are seeing the California Energy Commission invest in the commercialization of more storage projects and companies like Electrify America are investing in grid storage to avoid impact cost of Electric Vehicle Chargers on the grid.  But we can do more. Net Metering, the policies that helped build a fledgling rooftop solar industry, needs to be adopted to promote home storage solutions. Like the early adopters of EVs and Solar, we need to incentivize private investment in storage. There are companies like Empower Energy and Off the Wall Energy, who are gearing up to provide small storage solutions to business and residential companies.  

 Supporting the 100% Renewables in California to fight climate change means supporting Storage.

Thomas Hall

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Thomas is the Executive Director of CleanStart. Thomas has a strong background in supporting small businesses, leadership, financial management and is proficient in working with nonprofits. He has a BS in Finance and a BA in Economics from California State University, Chico. Thomas has a passion for sustainability and a commitment to supporting non-profits in the region.

CleanStart Sponsors

Weintraub | Tobin, Moss Adams, River City Bank, GreenbergTraurig

BlueTech Valley, PowerSoft.biz, Revrnt, Synbyo, Califronia Mobility Center

2020 Predictions

2020 Predictions

Since I went 4.5  for 10 last year I felt I needed to return to my terot cards take another shot at ten fearless predictions for the coming year.  We will revisit these at the end of the year to see how we did.  If you have some insights or questions, let us know at Info@cleanstart.org and we will include those in a future newsletter.

    1. The momentum for the “hydrogen highway” will stall out.  Battery electric vehicles are proving to be superior to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in almost every way.  As a result, sales of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are lagging expectations and hydrogen sales have grown slowly.  About 152,000 battery electric and plug-in hybrids were sold in the state in 2019, compared to about 1500 fuel cell electrics.  Only 8 FCEVs were sold in the last quarter of 2018 in our ten-county region. Probably fewer than 30 were sold here in all of 2019.  The total registrations for FCEVs in the state stands at about 6,000 at year-end, while the total for battery and plug-in electrics is about 616,000.  (Exact data as of end of 2018 are 248,332 battery electrics, 216,042 plug-in hybrids, and 5,391 FCEVs). In 2017, the Air Resources Board projected that there would be 13,400 FCEVs in 2020 and 37,400 by 2023.  At one time, the goal was a million FCEVs by 2030. None of these will be even close to being realized.

      A huge reason is that hydrogen fuel has turned out to be much more expensive than gasoline and particularly more costly than electricity.  Currently, hydrogen is priced at about $12.50 per kg, with equivalent energy to a gallon of gasoline but with a fuel cell double the efficiency of an engine, the equivalent of gasoline is more like $6.25 per gallon.  Stated another way, gasoline costs about 12 cents per mile (at $3.15 per gallon), hydrogen 25 cents, and electricity 6 cents.

      This leads us to make several predictions for 2020: 
      • Sales of FCEVs in our region will fall below 10.
      • The number of hydrogen refueling stations will barely reach 50 statewide (there are 44 now, with 3 in our area).  Governor Brown’s goal was 100 stations by 2020, 200 stations by 2025, and 1000 by 2030. We may never see 100 stations in California.
      • The price of hydrogen locally will not fall below $10 per kilogram.
      • A major auto company will announce it is dropping its FCEV production. 
    2. The number of EV charging stations around Sacramento will exceed 1000.  According to ChargeHub, there are currently 566 charging stations within 15 km of downtown Sacramento.  Of these 478 are Level 2 (220 V) chargers and 88 are Level 3 (480 V, 110 A). We believe the total for this area will exceed 1000 by the end of the year with over 200 being Level 3.  We may also see the first fast chargers go into existing gas stations, an interesting development in itself.  
    3. One more independent EV company in the US will announce it is beginning manufacturing.  The field is getting crowded and one might think some companies would drop out.  They may, but at the same time we think there will be at least one more entrepreneur who will take the plunge. At the same time, we could see some other established car companies announce full battery electric cars this year. 
    4. There will be at least 15 nominees for Sustainable Innovation of the Year.  Stoel Rives and the Sacramento Business Journal will be conducting this contest again in 2020, the fourth year for it.  It has been a good way to highlight the best and brightest in clean tech. The number of companies nominated has been an indicator of interest in sustainability and of the level of activity in the clean tech community.  The first year, there were 16 nominees, but the number has trended down ever since. We believe there has been a surge in bringing innovations to market in our area and that should be reflected in the number of nominees. 
    5. Prices for a ton of carbon emission reduction in 2020 will still not break $20.  It has been rising slowly both in the prompt and futures markets, but the supply of carbon emission reductions has continued to grow, keeping a lid on prices.  The most recent price for carbon allowances for 2021 cleared at $19.53, so maybe next year we will have to take a closer look. 
    6. The installed cost of solar PV will rise modestly.  We were wrong about this one last year.  But with the new requirements for solar on all new homes and the continuation of the tariffs on Chinese panels, we cling to the idea that the cost will be pushed up a few cents from its current $4.50 per kW on homes. 
    7. The revenue generated by our regional clean tech companies will top $6 billion.  The last time we collected this information in late 2018, the total was $5 billion, but we see an upswell in sales success.  Maybe it will result in 20% growth over two years. Wouldn’t that be nice?
    8. A bill will be introduced in California to extend generous subsidies to homeowners to install storage.  The subsidies for PV panels are declining.  There are subsidies for grid-scale storage, but not much for the homeowner.  We expect there will be a move to change this, but it won’t pass. Maybe 2021. 
    9. Two renewable-based microgrids with over 1000 customers each will be established in Northern California.  The power shutoffs of last year are accelerating the interest of communities in creating sections of the grid that can be powered more reliably.  Already, PG&E has trucked-in engine-generators to provide power during shutoffs, but people are demanded cleaner solutions. Some clever communities, whether as part of the CCA movement or separately, are looking at solar, wind, hydro and battery combinations to give them better reliability.  Dozens if not hundreds of communities are having these discussions. There are already about 100 microgrids in the state serving a few large customers each in most cases. The question is whether this will spread to larger aggregations of customers and to the use of renewables. There are many obstacles, so getting two done in 2020 is actually a pretty aggressive prediction.
    10. One cleantech startup in our region will be acquired for a substantial sum.  We know there are several discussions underway.  Just waiting for the shoe to drop.

 Make sure to follow CleanStart this year and see how I do on my predictions.

 

Follow us on Social Media to keep upto date!

Thomas Hall

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gary Simon is the Chair of CleanStarts Board. A seasoned energy executive and entrepreneur with 45 years of experience in business, government, and non-profits.

CleanStart Sponsors

Weintraub | Tobin, EY, Stoel Rives, Greenberg Traurig LLP

BlueTech Valley, Buchalter, Moss Adams, PowerSoft.biz

College of Engineering & Computer Science at Sacramento State