Combined Heat and Power District Heating in Denmark - A Case Study

The change to Combined Heat and Power (CHP) in Denmark created a decentralized heat and power structure that gradually can be transitioned entirely to renewable energy.

By establishing local consumer-owned and municipality-owned Combined Heat and Power plants (CHPs) ownership of power production gradually shifted from centralized power production to local, independent, not-for-profit energy supply. This change to decentralized CHP happened over the course of 10 years, in parallel with building of 3200 MW of new wind power with 85% owned and used-by-community power co-operatives referred to as Independent Power Producers (IPPs). By2001 a total of 45% of the 35 TWh of power used in Denmark was being produced by IPPs. Of the 45%, wind power accounted for 20% and CHP 25%. As a consequence the central power utilities (now owned by Vattenfall, DONG Energy and EON) had their share of the power market reduced to 55%. This transition took only 10 years to dramatically shift almost 50% of the power production from inefficient, centralized, fossil fuel companies to local, municipal or consumer-owned companies.

Coincidently this is the amount of time it takes to build one nuclear power plant, or roughly 1200 MW. This transition represented the single most important initiative to reduce CO2 emissions in Denmark.

In order to understand how Canada can benefit by following the lead of the Danish CHP and district heating model it is important to understand the history and framework that was developed and the subsequent advantages that they provided to the people of Denmark. This Danish model shows that a decentralized power system owned by the people can provide a sustainable energy future which reinforces that efficient power systems can built in a smart way to encourage local ownership and development of community renewable energy systems

History of District Heating In Denmark

During much of 1900?s fuel oil and coal made up a large fraction of the Danish heating supply on an individual basis. Typical residential homes employed fossil fuel burners to provide space heat and domestic hot water. This form of heat generation was problematic, it was expensive, dirty and required maintenance on a regular basis. In the early 1950?s the idea of decentralized community owned district heating systems started to arise which provided a cost effective, efficient solution for communities to get heat without the maintenance and at a reduced cost. District heating in Denmark started in big cities such as Copenhagen using fuel oil, coal and natural gas. Steam was produced for power and used the district heating loops as condensers thus increasing the thermal efficiency of the power generation dramatically.

The next phase was to offer CHP and new district heating distribution networks for towns and villages who were getting their heat from individual fossil fuel heating systems. In 1987 the Danish Steering Group for Renewable Energy implemented two programs to encourage the use of district heating and CHP. They included:

1. CHP for district heating systems without CHP
2. District heating loops and CHP for cities, towns and hamlets without district heating.

In addition, the Danish CHP program started with a few demonstration plants with sizes 100 to 3000 kWel. In 1990 the triple tariff system was introduced with tariffs for peak, medium and low load operation of the national power supply. To encourage building of local, consumer owned CHP a premium of power production of DKK 0,10 (?0,013) was introduced.

These polices paved the way for towns in the size of 500 to 70,000 people to implement CHP district heating systems using gas turbines, gas engines, solid municipal waste and biomass. Smaller centers typically used CHP gas engines and small biomass combustors, while the larger towns and cities employed gas turbines, or a combination of all of the technologies. Systems were designed based on the fuel available, the geography and the needs of the cities and towns. The majority of district heating loops in Denmark were installed from 1990-2001 and they were predominantly owned by the members of the community in which they were supplying. This gave control to the people and ensured that energy was distributed to the communities at fair prices. In addition, the savings due to the increase in efficiency could be reinvested in the community or given back to the energy consumers in the form of lower heating costs.

Technology

The favored technology has predominantly been natural gas powered CHP engines coming from a basket of European and North American manufactures. Stationary natural gas engines used in combine heat and power applications boast a factor four reduction in cost compared with conventionally generated thermal coal power for same produced power.

This is because:

1. The heat can be used if the system is placed in the community increasing the thermal efficiency of the system to over 85% compared with the best thermal coal power plant at 44% thermal efficiency.
2. Natural gas has a tenth of the SOx, half of the NOx and a third of the CO2 produced from combustion. The cost of removal of these pollutants in a coal generation plant is significant.
3. The cost to install a gas fired engine is 30% lower per kWhr installed than that of a coal plant and even cheaper if removal of the emissions from coal is included. Additionally, natural gas fired engines can be installed in 6 months as opposed to 5 years for a thermal coal plant.
4. Shipping of the engine and the balance of plant can be accomplished with standard shipping channels including trucks and trains.

With these financial benefits it became possible for local district heating companies owned by municipalities or consumers to build their own CHPs and offer cheaper heat to the households. This became one of the driving forces which encouraged a rapid change to local CHP.

To the right is a comparison of emissions from central coal power production to natural gas combined heat and power for the same quantity of power produced.

Is CHP renewable?

CHP using natural gas in not renewable but CHP can be a renewable venture if the right technologies are used. Stationary gas engines can run on a variety of fuels which can be tailored to local fuel availability.

These fuels can include:

• Biodiesel
• Plant oil
• Biogas
• Gasified biomass
• Land fill gas

If these alternate fuel sources are not available natural gas can be used a transitional fuel while the community determines which fuel can be utilized in the future. In essence, district heating with CHP provides the initial framework towards a renewable energy power and heat system.

Advantages

Advantages of community based CHP units are vast, the main benefits being:

1. Reliability: Natural Gas engines are extremely reliable as they are used in the harshest of conditions where reliability is of the utmost importance. Typically these gas engines are installed in trans-ocean liners, drilling rigs, offshore oil platforms, and remote northern villages.
2. Community Autonomy: Having a local power and heat producer in the community provides the local community with autonomy giving the, ?power to the people?. This gives the community the ability to ensure that the power is developed in an appropriate manner.
3. The ability to incorporate Renewable Energy in the future: Having CHP with district heating opens opportunities to incorporate large fractions of renewable energy in the form of biogas, solar thermal heating, wind for heat, biomass gasification, plant oil based fuels and combustion of locally based biomass.
4. Scalability and Flexibility: Local CHP are scaleable and flexile to operate. This makes it easy to increase capacity in the future and matches well with the incorporation of wind and solar power in the supply system.
5. High Efficiency: Stationary Natural Gas CHP units boast an electrical efficiency of 41% and with heat recovery of the jacket water, exhaust, lube oil and turbo charger can achieve and overall thermal efficiency of over 85%.
6. Cost Effective Heat and Power: With high thermal efficiencies power cost can be reduced. As an example in 2001 Denmark had the third lowest power prices (without taxes) in Europe with Sweden and Finland being lower due to high contributions from hydro. In contrast France, with 80% of its power coming from atomic energy, had a higher power price than Denmark with its thousands of independent power producers.

To the right is an energy flow diagram comparing separate heat and power plants versus 1 combine heat and power plant to accomplish both. It is evident that using combined heat and power saves 30% of the energy regardless of the energy source.

Individual Use of CHP

In addition to community power systems, single users could also benefit from the use of CHP. Companies that already have back up power can follow the lead of the Reichstag (German parliament building) who recently started using its back up plant oil CHP unit as the main power supply for the building and using the grid as the back up. If the infrastructure is already in place then there is little to no capital cost to switch the operating philosophy, simply a management decision. Other single users of CHP can include apartment buildings, condominiums, commercial buildings, and industrial businesses.

What Next

The good news is that there are companies emerging in Canada to provide the combined heat and power service. Power Ecosystems of Calgary Alberta is setting itself up to provide CHP to commercial buildings, community rec centers and pretty much anyone who needs both heat and power. There is also a company out of New Zealand which offers a small Sterling Engine CHP called the Whisper Gen which Enmax plans on selling to its customers. Slowly the solutions are emerging but unfortunately if Canada wishes to developed the power and heating infrastructure in a similar fashion to Denmark we are going to have to embrace the concept of community owned utilities. This could be as simple as the community association of Bridgeland in Calgary getting together and setting up a community based CHP system and district heating loop to provide heat and power to the homes and businesses of Bridgeland. This concept might sound a little foreign to most Calgarians but it can be a reality if the people want it.

An Emerging Wind Industry Amongst the Pyramids

I recently embarked on a short, unexpected adventure to the ancient country of Egypt. The Folkecenter received a contract to teach a course in Cairo to a group of manufacturing companies looking to get into the wind industry, the Arab Organization for Industrialization (AOI). Preben, the director of the Folkecenter and Tupac, our wind expert and course teacher, asked me if I would like to assist Tupac with the course. I agreed, and two days later, was on a flight to Cairo.

AOI is a consortium of Egyptian companies that work together to industrialize Egypt through research and development at a central research center. In the past the AOI group has specialized in the manufacture of military equipment for the government. The military contracts have started to dry-up and in an attempt to reinvent themselves they recently starting looking to delve into new industries. Wind is one of those new areas and the Folkecenter has been hired to help them build up their knowledge and the industry.

I spent 8 days in Cairo. During that time I helped Tupac prepare papers and assisted him with anything that he required to ensure the course went smoothly. The beginning of the week started a little rough as the students did not really understand much about wind, wind turbine manufacturing and had slightly unrealistic expectations. It became evident that the students were expecting Tupac to hand over complete turbine designs including all of the sub-components so that the AOI group could immediately build up their fully vertically integrated manufacturing business. With careful explanation and numerous examples we helped them to see the bigger picture and substantially improve their understanding of wind theory, the industry itself and how to best proceed with entering this highly competitive market.

Starting a wind manufacturing business is not as easy as it was 15 years ago. The technology is now big, mature and slowly being consolidated to a few large players. Furthermore, entering a new industry is risky business. A large amount of initial capital is required and a successful design and prototype is a must. A major failure in the initial phases of a new industry can devastate future access to capital and wipe out trust from the marketplace. For that reason, it is best to think about building a wind turbine the same way one constructs a bicycle.

Take the example of the US manufacture of Trek bikes. The only component that is actually manufactured by Trek is the frame (nacelle). Shimano supplies the gear set (wind turbine gear box), and the pedals (turbine blades) are built by Race Face, a Louis Garneau saddle (turbine tower) and Shimano shifters (the control system in the turbine). Essentially, Trek is an assembly company- they purchase most of the sub-components and put the bike together. This model has many advantages, especially for a new and starting company. However, it is still not a cake-walk, and requires careful consideration and planning of sub-suppliers.

An assembled device of individual outsourced components can create a better product as each individual component is from a manufacturer that specializes in a specific area. Furthermore, it allows the wind company to focus on the holistic design of the machine as opposed to the nitty-gritty details of manufacturing gearboxes, blades, control systems and generators. This leaves two main duties for the turbine assembly company: (i) appropriately sizing readily available equipment to meet the requirements of the machine through existing industrial channels and (ii) securing a supply of the components so that the manufacture of the machines is not bottlenecked by a lack of supply from the sub-manufacturers. If point (i) is done correctly but there is no supply the process fails. You can see that a holistic design approach has to be undertaken from day one.

Once designed, the manufacturing company must submit an application to a recognized certification body, such as GL in Germany or NREL in the USA. This is mandatory as an uncertified machine cannot be insured. The application details the design, all manufacturer parts and specifies which sub-manufacturers and components the production company intends on using. Furthermore, the certification process can cost upwards of $300,000 and can take a significant period of time. Once certification is granted, the production company is locked to using the design & sub-manufacturers specified in their initial application.

This is the primary reason that careful consideration of sub-suppliers must be taken. If a designated sub-supplier later goes bankrupt, or can no longer supply a component, the production company has to go back to the drawing board, find a new sub-supplier and submit a new application the certification board and eat all those extra costs. This could sink a new and starting-out company.

There are extremely long lead times in all of the components and therefore careful planning and sourcing must be made. In order to mitigate these issues manufacturers such as Vestas and Enercon have worked very hard at vertically integrating their companies so that they are not vulnerable to supply shortages. Elements such as gearbox design, blade design, and blade manufacture are very complicated and specialized. This takes a lot of time, money and R&D.

So you can see, starting a new wind company is harder than it looks. And this is why consulting companies such as Xmire exist. Xmire is a private offshoot of the Folkecenter that specializes in the integrated design process of wind turbines. The actual engineering design is only a small part of getting the turbine to market. As important are factors such as ensuring that the correct business arrangements are in place, understanding regulatory and certification processes, carefully choosing sub-suppliers and planning around lead times. Ultimately Xmire?s role is to guide new entrants successfully into the market.

By the end of the first week of three with the Egyptian engineers, Tupac had drilled all of the above information and a whole pile more into their brains. It was clear that they had never thought about half of the issues that were presented to them, which in my opinion means that they got good value for their money in the course.

The last two days that I spent in Cairo I visited the Pyramids, the Sphinx and the Egyptian Museum. While we were at the Pyramids we hired some horses to take us around the sites. The largest pyramid was constructed of over 3 million giant cut stones and was originally completely ivory white. They estimate that the pyramid took over thirty years to build which is amazing because most of the stone was shipped from up river. The Khafre pyramid is over 140 m tall and was the tallest building on earth until the 1930?s. It was truly amazing to be amongst such giants knowing that there where no cranes or digital positioning systems to make sure that the stones were placed in the right orientation. While I was there I also hired a camel named Charlie Brown. He was an interesting camel and I must admit that riding a camel is far different than ridding a horse. I have included two short videos of Charlie brown here that you can watch.

Although the people living in Cairo right now are not actually related to the Egyptians who built the pyramids they have some very inspirational structures to look upon when they start to tackle the wind turbine industry. Egypt has some of the most consistent winds in the Mediterranean and Red Sea and has the potential to dominate the African wind turbine market if they play their cards right. The management that I spoke with at AOI knows this and is very interested in racing towards the development of the wind industry. They also told me about some very large plans to install a giant water desalination system on the Mediterranean Sea which will be powered entirely by wind. It will be interesting to follow the Egyptians over the next few years, especially if they succeed! One day I will look back to the week I spent in Cairo amongst the Pyramids and seedling wind industry and remember that I played a very small but significant role in providing the water for the seed to sprout.

A Windy Excursion with Rob's Parents

Rob and I were very happy to host Robs parents, Jon and Thea, for a few days here at the Folkecenter at the end of October. Keen to expose them to some of the neat things that we have experienced, we organized a field trip packed with renewable energy exhibitions. In the morning we visited (i) a straw-bale fired community district heating plant and (ii) a cooperatively owned biogas facility providing combined heat and power to the local community of Lemvig. We’ll discuss both of these in separate district heating and biogas blogs.

In the afternoon we concentrated on wind power. We first visited the large National wind turbine test site, followed by the Folkecenter’s 525kW turbine and the small-scale wind test site.

The Risoe Large Wind Power Test Station, Hoevsoere



Within a one hour drive from the Folkecenter, several companies (Vestas, Micon, Bonus & Nordex) are testing out their mega-turbines at the Risoe Large Wind Power Test Station. These prototype turbines are the big boys ranging from 3-5MW. To give you an idea, the largest commercial turbine in the world today is a 5MW monster, with a 126m blade diameter! REpower is the manufacturer and this turbine is located in Germany.

Interestingly, several of the turbines were not operating. This certainly reflects the difficulty in constructing machines of this magnitude. Significant research is going into blade design to reduce the elasticity of longer blades. If the blades bend too much (from the force of the wind) they will hit the tower. In addition, the tall towers and long blades are difficult to transport (this can cost up to 20% of the equipment cost) and expensive to install requiring tall cranes and experienced operators.

Nonetheless, we enjoyed a picnic lunch at the base of these fantastic pieces of engineering.

The Folkecenter’s 525kW Turbine in Hanstholm



The next stop was Hanstholm, a small west coast village, an hour drive away. Here, the Folkecenter developed and installed a 525kW wind turbine back in 1992. At the time, this prototype turbine was the largest in Denmark. Over 25 years later, the wind turbine has produced an impressive 1.4MWh/yr, not required any component repairs or upgrades and has survived several severe North Sea storms. An impressive prototype indeed.

Here are some facts about this beauty:

- Hub height of 41m

- 17m long blades with a fixed rotational speed of 31 RPM

- blade tips rotate at close to 200 kph and produce virtually no sound.

- the three 1600 kg blades are connected to a hub of 3 tonnes

- A gear ratio of 1:48 with an input shaft of 450mm

I think that Rob’s parents were most impressed that they were given the opportunity to climb the 41 meters and stand inside the nacelle. but a little shocked when we told them that they would be climbing a ladder, and not a staircase! But Jon and Thea were both up to the challenge and quite confidently threw on a pair of coveralls and started climbing. Thea was especially relieved to find a few resting platforms along the way. We all made it to the top, enjoyed the view, and caught our breaths as Rob keenly explained and pointed out all of the turbine components.

The Hanstholm turbine uses an integrated design which combines a heavy duty gear box to couple a 525 kW ABB generator and the rotor. The motive force of the machine comes from the three rotating blades. Over-torque is prevented in an ingenious way- the blades are aerodynamically designed to induce a stall condition above a certain rotational speed. As there is enormous momentum in a rotor of this size, it is not possible to stop the blades by applying a disk brake on the output shaft of the transmission. Air brakes, located on the blade tips are deployed to de-power the rotor to a specified RPM at which point a disk brake, located on the fast shaft of the gearbox, is applied.

Stall vs Pitch Control

The more recently designed wind turbines employ pitch control. Pitch control rotates the three blades along the blade axis in order to change the approach angle of the wind relative to the blade surface. This allows the turbine to vary the torque relative to the wind conditions. Pitch systems generally have a lower cut in speed which means that the turbine starts producing at lower wind speeds, 2 m/s as compared to 3 or 4m/s. Also, they don’t need air breaks as the whole blade surface can be rotated parallel to the direction of the wind. This increases efficiency slightly if controlled correctly.

Think about this: The wind measurement device (the anemometer) is located on the back of the turbine (behind the blades) and measures the wind speed after the wind has passed through the rotor. Therefore, the anemometer is not a good device to determine pitch angle. Another method has to be employed. Pitch angle is actually controlled by measuring input shaft torque. If the torque is too low a more aggressive pitch is used to maximize the power in the wind, if it is too high a less aggressive pitch is used to reduce the main shaft torque. The pitching system in the new turbines uses very fast motors which allow the blades to change at speeds of up to 300 Hz. All of the technical mumbo jumbo amounts to a turbine that produces high quality power - what the power companies demand!

After having been exposed to pitch and stall control wind turbines I would say that by no means have pitch control turbines made stall control machine obsolete. Although stall control versions are slightly less efficient, pitch control requires more mechanisms in the hub, more parts to repair, and more systems to monitor. Also, if something goes wrong with the pitching system the wind turbine can have an over speed situation causing catastrophic failure.

If you are interested in learning more about how a wind turbine works, wind turbine designs, over speed protection, the history of wind power in Denmark, turbine manufacture and installation, there is a fantastic movie by the Danish Wind Energy Association called "Out of the Blue". You can watch it by clicking on the hyperlink.

The Folkecenter’s Small Scale Wind Test Station

We also visited the small scale test station here at the Folkecenter to show-off some of the models on display and currently being tested: a 1 kW Bergy, a 600W Lakota, and a small 1 kW wind turbine from Greece. In addition they have two Folkecenter design turbines operating: the 7.5kW Uni and the 75 kW “Potato” as it is affectionately called. The Uni and Potato are grid-connected and produce all of the annual electrical requirements (including electrical heat) for the Folkecenter.

The center provides a report and a power curve for the turbine manufactures based on established standards. This third party validation process is important for manufacturers in addition to testing their machines in some of the most severe European wind weather.

Interestingly, although the machines should be designed for 70m/s, many still end up quite battered after a trial period here. One in particular required some component replacement after only one year in service. Just two days ago, hurricane strength winds were predicted (+30m/s or +100kph) so we decided to forcefully yaw the machine out of the wind to protect it from further damage. Needless to say, we won’t be investing in that model when we install wind in our own home.

The Folkecenter has a small wind turbine catalogue where they have compiled a long list of small wind turbines that are available in the market. The book also provides technical, contact and cost information. As far as we know it is the only catalogue of its kind. You can find it here.

A Wind-Cooled Beer Fridge

As most of Robs friends and family know Rob has three loves in his life:

1) his wife, of course

2) good beer

3) Renewable Energy

Well, being at the Folkecenter has allowed Rob to experience all three of these things in one swoop! Here at the Folkecenter small wind turbines are constantly showing up from various manufactures from around the world in order to get a shot at the Danish test bench. In order to test a wind turbine a load has to be applied to it so that a power curve can be attained. Some test centers do this by plugging the wind machine into a battery with lighting or even by dumping the load using a rheostat. Here at the Folkecenter they came up with a much smarter use of the precious resource of wind- Beer Cooling!

The temperature of Robs beer on any given day is directly related to the speed of the wind during that day.

Unfortunately, in some parts of the world the wind strength in the hot summer months (when you need cold beer) tends to be lower than those in the cold winter months. However, this is not the case in Denmark! Here the wind is always blowing, day night, summer, winter- it does not matter. And Rob, having been here for nearly 3 months, knows how hard the wind has been blowing just by the temperature of his beer. In fact 10 m/s produces a beautiful temperature for beer, roughly 4 degrees C. If the wind is too high we have to be careful as the beer might drop below zero, but so far this has not been a problem as the wind stays around 10 m/s most days.

The beer cooling wind turbine is also connected to a laptop that measures various performance indicators of the wind turbine. These include: power output, RPM, wind speed, and wind direction.

Furthermore there is a saying around here that if your turbine can survive in Denmark it will survive anywhere. The winds of Denmark has provided many turbine manufactures with sobering experiences after attempting to test their mills here.

The Folkecenter has assembled a catalogue of small wind turbines from around the world to make purchasing the correct model easier for consumers. The catalogue contains loads of information, sells for around $60 CND and can be purchased here .

Wave Power at the Folkecenter and its potential in Canda - Updated!

{After initially publishing this blog I came across a Vancouver-based company, Finavera Renewables, looking to develop a wave energy project (I think that it may be the first commercial application in Canada) off the west coast of Vancouver Island, in Ucluelet, BC. Check out this very interesting short clip of the technology:}




I was sitting around on a Saturday Morning this weekend tired of looking at a computer screen so Melissa and I decided to go for a bike ride over to the Folkecenter Wave Energy test site. The site consists of a long pier which allows test devices to be placed away from the shore in order to capture dynamic wave energy and transform it into power.

The Folkecenter is not currently doing any wave research of their own right now due to limited funding but they rent the pier out to other companies with innovative ideas who want to test their designs. Currently the Wave Star is being tested at the Folkecenter which can be seen in our pictures below and on their website.

Wave power is an up and coming field which is getting a lot of attention in Europe right now due to the fact that there are large coastlines in Western Europe in and because waves have significantly more energy density than other transfer mediums, such as wind. Wave energy is commonly confused with ?flux or tidal power? which captures energy from diurnal tidal movement in order to produce renewable energy. No commercial wave energy farms currently exist but there are plans for commercial applications in the Orkneys off Northern Scotland and Cornwall England.

Waves and Energy Density

Waves are essentially another form of wind energy as waves are formed by the wind. Wave size can be directly correlated to (i) the wind speed, (ii) the distance over which the wind excites the waves and (iii) the depth of the ocean floor. Essentially, the ocean is a giant sail capturing energy from the wind over a very large area and converting this energy into waves. If humans learn to master the art of capturing energy from waves we will be able to substantially decrease the footprint per unit of energy captured due to the increased energy denisty.

I am not going to bore all of you on how the energy in a wave is calculated but I will leave you with an example of how much potential energy can be stored in one wave. Briefly, wave energy density is a function of wave speed and height. For example, a wave 15 m in height with a period of 15 seconds (i.e. waves at 15 second intervals) can have a potential energy of 1700 kW/m. Although this size of wave would be rare it illustrates how much power can be stored in water.

A good wave site will have any average energy density of approximately 20kW/m to 70kW/m which is still quite large. This would be equivalent to the amount of solar energy that falls on 2 square kilometres of land.

Capturing the Energy

There are a various ways of capturing the energy from waves. As you can see in the picture to the right the motion that wave devices usually try and capture is in the form of an oval. Highly buoyant objects are used to transfer elliptical motion into vertical motion. This power is then transmitted through one of many different power take-off devices which can include: hydraulic rams, peristaltic pumps, pump to shore, hydroelectric turbines, air turbines, and linear electrical generators. Once the power is captured it can be used to turn a generator producing electrical power.

Example of Capturing the Energy in Conrwall England:


Power Potential Globally

Wave power has huge potential globally and as conventional forms of energy start to become more expensive countries with large coastlines and prevailing winds will start looking to exploit this form of energy more and more. The global potential of wave power has been estimated at 8000 to 80,000 terawatt hours per year or 1 ? 10 terawatts. This is the same order of magnitude as the worldwide energy consumption figures, listed below for comparison:

· 1.7 TW: average electrical power consumption of the world in 2001

· 3.34 TW: average total (gas, electricity, etc) power consumption of the U.S. in 2005

· 15 TW: average total power consumption of the human world in 2004

Ravis Wave Machine:
Rob shows the world how much power is in the Human Wave!




Going Forward

There are a few major developments that are taking shape here in Europe with respect to wave and tidal energy. In the next two to three years there are three major test projects that will be launched to demonstrate new technology. As oil and gas prices continue to rise, competitiveness of wave power is going to be increasingly attractive as there are very few apparent environmental drawbacks to their use. I believe that in the coming decades wave and tidal power are going to play an important role in generating power for maritime countries around the globe. Here are a few links to some companies who are in the process of developing new technology in the area of marine renewables:

Wave Dragon
Ocean Power Delivery Ltd
Wave Star Energy
British Wind Energy Association

The Future of Our Energy Supply

In this blog, we discuss that because the World is so dependant on oil society needs to start moving in the direction of other energy sources immediately to offset future economic, social and political consequences of peak oil. Add in the environmental reasons and the direction is obvious: Renewable Energies must be integrated into the energy mix starting now.

Currently the World does need oil and the World is dependant on oil. World consumption this year reached a record high 84 million barrels per day (mbpd), just over 1000 barrels per second (remember this number for later). Note that I don't particularly like to quote George Bush, but even he has admitted: "here we have a serious problem, America is addicted to oil". In Canada, we are no different, and perhaps even more reliant with our colder climate and long transport distances.

It is unwise, naive, unsustainable and ignorant for us to believe that we can go on consuming non-renewable energy sources forever. That is the exact definition of non-renewable. Fossil fuels are finite and are being depleted, period. One day in the future, when half of the total amount of existing resources have been extracted, worldwide production will begin to decline irreversibly regardless of demand, regardless of investment, regardless of new wells drilled. This is a physical reality and is called Peak Oil.

The concept of Peak Oil was first defined by M King Hubert in the 1960's when he announced to the world that the United States would reach peak sometime between 1965-1970. His colleagues mocked him believing that advances in technology would drill the US out of any oil shortage. In retrospect, his prediction was correct as seen in this chart showing US Oil Production and Imports:

US is now a net importer of oil- they consume approximately 20 mbpd yet produce only 6 million barrels.

Every existing reservoir has this same bell-shaped curve production profile and it is only commonsense that the worldwide production profile will assume the same shape. When will world Peak Oil occur? No one knows with any certainty but there are numerous analysts and scientists vigorously studying this question and oil production is in decline in 33 of the 48 largest oil-producing countries.

A quick google search of "Peak Oil" proves that this event is on the minds of a lot of people- including Michelle and I. We have spent the last few years closely following publications, have read 4 books and seen three documentaries on the subject (all listed below), talked to numerous people, followed Internet websites and tried to ensure that we are well informed. Unfortunately, what we have learnt is a little frightening.

Here we have a chart compiling world production forecasts from numerous sources including: ASPO (The Association for the Study of Peak Oil), British Petroleum, Deffeyes (A geologist formerly at Shell and now a professor at Princeton University) and other reputable scholars and energy analysts.

World production forecast Made by Khebab of The Oil Drum:

Also listed in the table below are a number of other petroleum geologists, analysts, economists and scientists with their estimated peak production date. Click on the hyperlink if you want more information on any of the sources.

Matthew Simmons - 2007-2009, Skrebowski - After 2007, Deffeyes - Before 2009, Goodstein - Before 2010, Colin Campbell - Around 2010,World Energy Council - After 2010,Laherrere - 2010-2020, EIA (Nominal) - 2011, CERA - After 2020,Shell - 2025 or later.

And so, it appears from the above that many well-reputable energy experts and scientists are expecting the World Oil Production to peak in the very near future (0-15 years).

Alright, what does all this mean? What are the consequences? Nobody is entirely sure, but as peaking is approached (or surpassed) fuel prices and price volatility will surely increase dramatically.

We are used to, and have built our entire modern infrastructure on the basis of cheap abundant energy. To give you an idea of how addicted we are, here are some facts and statistics that you may find interesting:

• The majority of our food supplied is entirely dependant on oil. For every calorie of food, the average North American consumes 10 calories of hydrocarbon energy. Hydrocarbons are used in the tilling of soil, planting, fertilizing, pesticides, harvesting, transporting, processing, packaging, distribution to stores, refrigeration, and finally in cooking.
• World transportation (land-based vehicles, ships, planes) is over 98% dependant on petroleum. Also, in North America, 2/3 of the total amount of energy is attributed to transportation.
• A barrel of oil contains the energy equivalent of almost 25,000 hours of human labour.
• According to the American Automobile Manufacturer?s association, 1 out of every 7 jobs in the US is dependant on automobile manufacture.

A recent report commissioned by the US Department of Energy was prepared by Dr. Robert Hirsch. Hirsch investigated how long it would take to transition the economy from oil to alternate forms of energy. He also investigated the economic, social and political costs of inaction or untimely mitigation.

The main conclusions of his report are:

• World oil peaking is going to happen, and will likely be abrupt.
• Oil peaking will adversely affect global economies, particularly those most dependent on oil.
• Mitigation efforts will require substantial time: 20 years is required to transition without substantial impacts.
• A 10 year rush transition with moderate impacts is possible with extraordinary efforts from governments, industry, and consumers.
• Late initiation of mitigation may result in severe consequences.

Hmmm... let me recap the two last points: (a) it appears that an optimistic prediction of world oil production peak is within 20 years (estimate from Shell) and (b) a 20 year transition is required to relieve the world of substantial economic, social and political impacts. This is a clear indication that although the World currently needs oil and is dependant on oil we need to start moving in the direction of other energy sources immediately. Add in the environmental reasons and the direction is obvious: Renewable Energy must be integrated into the energy mix starting now, and it must be the way of the future.

Alright, now you may be thinking, "this guy is a crazy, there is no way that oil is in short supply... how can he claim that the world is running out of oil??". And so let me make this clear: I did not say the world is running out of oil, I am discussing Peak Oil, i.e. when we've hit the half-way point and the point of time in which supply exceeds demand.

What about technological advances? Won't technology advances continue to allow the human civilization to maintain the increase in the production of oil? In response, here are two quotes from respected energy gurus:

Colin Campbell: "there is a strange irony related to this subject, that is, the better that you do the job of exploiting oil and gas the sooner it is gone." Mathew Simmons: "All of these great tools that ended up being great enhanced production techniques were basically super straws just sucking the last easy oil out of the ground at faster rates, and to no extent significantly increasing the amount of oil from a significant oil field."

What about the Oil Sands? Isn't there more oil in the Alberta Oil Sands than in Saudi Arabia? This is true however tar sands oil is much harder to extract than conventional reserves. In the early days of North American conventional oil, the net energy yield was greater than 100:1. This has declined and is now at closer than 20:1. Oil Sand extraction results in something like 1.5 units of energy yielded for 1 unit of energy expended. Add in the substantial cost increases and overruns seen by all of the Oil Sands projects and it is clear why Oil Sands oil costs nearly $28/barrel while Iraqi oil costs roughly $2. Currently the Alberta Oil Sands produce approximately 1mbpd with an anticipated production of 3 mbpd by 2015. Remember that number from the beginning of this blog? 1/84= 1.2%. The Oil Sands contribute less than 2% of the current global consumption. Even at 3 mbpd, this contribution to global supply is not significant, especially considering that demand will have increased while global supply may be decline?

What about the Middle East? This is somewhat complicated to discuss in what was meant to be a short blog, but I will highly recommend, for those interested, Mathew Simmons recent book "Twilight in the Desert". In the book Simmons explains how the Middle East is basically out of capacity.

What about Nuclear? My views on that subject deserve (and will receive) a separate blog. Briefly, consider that a large scale switch over to nuclear power would take 10,000 of the largest nuclear power plants to produce the same amount of energy use from fossil fuels for North America alone. And this does not even solve the transportation issue. At 3-5 billion dollars per plant (not including the decommissioning costs) and the 10-15 year timeframe from planning to construction, I do not believe nuclear to be a realistic option. Above all, I do not believe Nuclear to be a "green" energy solution.

Albeit worrisome, all of this provides a great opportunity for new technologies and the advancement of Renewables. In one of our next blogs we will talk about how the Thisted community here in Denmark uses over 80% renewable energy for household heating and electrification of the grid.

More Information:

Websites (among many): (i) The Oil Drum; Discussions about energy and the future. (ii) The Energy Bulletin; Relevant Energy Article.(iii) Wolf at the Door; Beginners guide to peak oil.

More Youtube Videos of Matthew Simmons in the News: (i) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IwtAQzrfiw , (ii) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fo3sxhBylw

Peak Oil Books: (i) The Party is Over, Richard Heindberg. (ii) Twilight in The Desert, Mathew Simmons. (iii) High Noon for Natural Gas, Julian Darley. (iv) A Thousand Barrels Per Second, Peter Tertzakian.

Peak Oil Documentaries:(i) The End of Suburbia, (ii) A Crude Awakening, (iii) Crude Impact

Calgary engineers study renewable energy in Denmark

Michelle and I were featured in an article published in the Calgary Herald on Friday, the 5th of October, 2007.

Check out the University of Alberta Alumni website, where the article has been re-published or you can go direct to the Calgary Herald.

Husum Wind Energy Conference

Rob and I attended the Husum Wind Energy Conference on September 18th. The largest wind industry trade show in the world is held every second year in Northern Germany in a small town called... you guessed it, Husum. In a lot of ways we found it similar to the giant Oil and Gas show in Calgary.

All of the big names in wind were there: Vestas, GE, Siemens, as well as small wind turbine companies and many, many support industries like bearing manufacturers, steel makers and forgeries, etc. It was neat to be able to see so many replica models and also large equipment on display.

The day we arrived, we were told by a colleague that there was a forum going on that day about the US and Canadian emerging wind markets. We found our way to the forum, walked in, sat down and listened for several hours to some great presentations. A representative from The Canadian Wind Energy Association gave a very interesting presentation about the potential for growth in the wind sector in Canada and she also anounced that the current cap on wind power in Alberta was about to be lifted. Sure enough, in todays newspaper, the Alberta Energy Minister anounced that the 900-megawatt threshold was removed. Good news for the wind industry. See the article.

Anyhow, after the presentations, food and beer appeared and the participants started to mingle- with us mingling and munching along. Met some very interesting people. Volker Thompson recently retired as the President of St. Lawrence Community College in Kingston Ontario. He gave a presentation on the need for Alternative and Renewable Energy education in Canada and worldwide. Volker has been a huge supporter of renewable energy in Canda and can be largely accredited for the fact that St. Lawrence College is one of the only places in Canada that has a Center for Alternative and Renewable Energy studies. Also of interest is that Volker and his wife are starting to build their dream home- a fully off-grid, self sufficient home providing all of its own heating, power, waste water treatment and food production. We spoke to them at length as Rob and I are interested in one day doing something very similar.

Rob also spoke to some people from Lethbridge college who have recently started up a new Wind Turbine program to train windsmiths in our home province. They definetly forsee a huge demand for qualified wind maintenance personel in Canada. We found a great news article in the Edmonton Sun about this program.

And lastly I met a documentary maker, who is beginning research on a new documentary about Renewable Energy. I admitted to him that I was a closet video editor, and was hoping to get more into documentary making- he suggested that we keep in touch with the possibility of doing a little bit of collaboration. Cool!

And so, in the end we were so thrilled about being so far away from home, yet learning, meeting, networking and hob-nobbing with important wind energy gurus, industry reps, and prominent people all from Canada! To top it off, we then learnt that we had actually 'accidentally' snuck into a forum that you had to pay extra for- 500 euros extra.

Windsmithing - Not Recommended on a Windy Day

The Nordic Folkecenter (NFC) is full of wind turbines, some big, some small and even more that don't work. There is a Test Field with platforms and foundations for testing of electricity producing windmills of 1 KW up to 30 KW as well as mechanical wind pumps. The Test Field is equipped with data loggers, wind measurement masts, towers for installation of wind turbines and water wells where the performance of small windmills for electricity and water pumping can be measured.

Over the years they've tested numerous wind turbine designs and last week Michelle, Jesse (the resident Californian) and I were tasked with fixing two of these delinquent turbines. We were all really happy with this task as it is one of the best ways to learn about how turbines work. Tupac (the lead engineer) also claims that fixing poorly designed windmills has the added bonus of teaching us how not to design them!

In order to fix a turbine you need two things: (i) slow wind speeds ( >~8m/s) and (ii) a man lift. Tupac and I drove off to Hurup to pick up a sketchy man lift from the local tool rental shop. We hooked up to the lift and towed it back to NFC so that we could get to work. The first turbine called the ?Uni? had two small problems which took us most of the day to fix. The 7.5 kW Uni is a Folkecenter designed turbine which is built like a brick sh_t house. Most turbines of this size are not built to last but this one is basically a scaled down version of a Vestas 1 MW machine. It uses a uniframe design which allows it to be compact, robust and very reliable. The turbine has a hydraulic disk break on a fast shaft for stopping at slower speeds and centrifugal air breaks on the blade tips for over speed protection. On the larger machines you can not use a disk break to stop that much momentum without a catastrophic failure so you use a type of aileron which is activated when the rotational speed is too high.

The first order of business with the Uni was to refasten the yaw pinion which allows the machine into the wind. Replacing the pinion was no problem, it was getting to it that was hard. Unfortunately the design of Nacel (wind turbine body) was poor and so accessing various components while 15 m in the air is not all that easy. After we had fixed the yaw pinion Jesse and I were asked to reinforce the Nacel on the Uni as it shakes like Nitin Parimi on the dance floor when the winds are high. While we were fixing the Uni the winds were quite low and the sketchy man lift worked alright. The next day however was a totally different situation.

The second turbine that we had to repair shall remain unnamed on this blog as it is a P-o-S. The manufacture of the turbine appears to happen somewhere in China and everything that could go wrong did go wrong.

The turbine is a simple 1 kW machine with a tail furling mechanism. It employees a slip ring under the turbine to allow the turbine to orientate itself to the wind without being restricted by a fixed cable going to the ground. The turbine, installed just over one year ago, was not properly designed for the monster Danish winds prevalent here. After one year of pummelling from the wind (more than 20 m/sec in the winter time) the turbine had to be removed, dismantled and rebuilt.

After ordering and installing a new insert fitting from China, we ascended 15 meters to the top of the tower to discover that the new insert had a larger diameter than the original and therefore would have to be ground down. After grinding the insert down, we returned the next day to ascend in the man basket to the top of the tower again. The wind speeds were high and we hesitated, but decided that we did not want to keep the man lift rented for another day. Once all the way up, Tupac and I immediately regretted it.

First off, we found out that the new insert bolt pattern was different and therefore we could not install the machine. Second, the wind had picked up enough that the man basket started to sway significantly from side to side. Out of fear that the lift would tip over we actually tied the man basket to the tower (thank-god we had brought up some rope!). We initially thought to leave the man basket in the air and climb down the tower but decided to use a makeshift pulley system with the rope and attempt to kept tension on the basket to minimize swaying as we slowly lowered ourselves. It took us about 45 minutes to get safely back to the ground. I was very glad to plant my feet onto a solid surface again.

I guess you could say we learnt two valuable lessons- how not to design a wind turbine and how not to underestimate the wind load. You bet I'll be checking the wind speeds before climbing into that basket again!

As an aside, this last weekend the wind speeds toped out at 20 m/s and Denmark was producing around 80% of it's energy from wind mills. The wind turbines were making so much power they actually surpassed the capacity of the central plants. Some critics of wind power claim that the surges in wind power that we experienced this weekend are the reason that wind power cannot exceed 20% of the total grid capacity. For instance, recently announced in Alberta by the Utilities Board was a wind power production upper limit of 900MW (~12%). As demonstrated here in Denmark and at the Folkecenter it is possible to have much higher (some even argue 100%) Renewable Energy and in one of our future posts we will talk about how the Folkecenter is dealing with wind variability. In fact, one of my projects deals directly with the management and control of excess wind power.

A Car Powered by Wind

Here at the Folkecenter there are numerous vehicles running on alternative fuels.

Pure Plant Oil (PPO)

There is a rape seed refinery here where they have the ability to press and filter rape seed (purchased from nearby farmers) to produce rape seed oil. The only byproduct from this process (seed cake) is fed to cattle. There is a large tank and a filling station to fuel up the Folkecenter diesel Toyota pickup that has been converted to run on plant oil.

This truck is quite similar to our VW van back in Canada, also converted to run on plant oil with main two differences. (i) Our vehicle filtration system is much more complicated as we use waste oil from restaurants, which requires significantly more filtration. (ii) Instead of converting the diesel fuel tank to PPO, we installed a secondary tank for PPO and have therefore retained the ability to use diesel fuel if we so chose.

Hydrogen-powered

There is a wind-hydrogen production facility (i.e. hydrogen fuel produced using electricity produced by a wind turbine) and a demonstration vehicle that has been converted to run on hydrogen.

When hydrogen is burned in air the main product is water.Therefore the the key advantage of hydrogen is that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not produced (i.e. No greenhouse gases are produced).

Note that hydrogen is an energy transfer medium rather than a primary source of energy. It is obtained by splitting water (H2O) into hydrogen and oxygen. If fossil fuels, e.g. coal, oil or natural gas, are used to generate the electricity, there is no advantage over using the fossil fuels directly. You still get all the CO2, and there is a considerable loss of energy. There are numerous disadvantages of hydrogen: 78% of the energy put into the production of hydrogen is never regained, the susbtantial size of a hydrogen tank, safety issues, and the fact that most of the hydrogen currently produced comes from non-renewable sources.

The Electric Car

I believe that the most interesting and promising of the demonstration vehicles here at the Folkecenter is the electric car. Why turn that electricity into hydrogen (and lose considerable efficiency) when you could simply power your vehicle with the electricity? Especially if that electricity comes from a renewable source such as solar or wind? Here, wind turbines convert wind energy into electricity which is then stored in the battery of their electric car. The car pictured here uses lead acid batteries and old electric motor technology. Once fully charged the car can travel over 30 kilometers. Of course, this is not ideal for long road trips but is more than sufficient for 90% of our commuting needs. We also came across a movie called: "Who Killed the Electric Car" . If you haven't seen this documentary we highly recommend it.

After doing more research on the internet we discovered that there are now electrical storage options that can run a vehicle for over 300 km, and there are car manufacturer nearly ready to put their electric vehicles on the market (google 'Tesla Roadster'). Rob is now convinced that when we return to Canada we'll be looking into to purchasing a an old Chrysler Neon and converting it to an electric car. You can buy a conversion kit for various cars at http://www.canev.com/. Perhaps with a combination of wind turbines and solar panels we'll be able to say that our car is powered by the wind and the sun. Imagine that!

Off we go to Denmark!

After living and working in Calgary Alberta for the past 4 years in the Oil patch, Rob and I have decided to leave our jobs for a year and explore renewable energy, various eco-sites, alternative building types, sustainable communities and sustainable agriculture. We'll be gone from July 2007 to August 2008.

Our first stop is the Nordic Folkecenter for Renewable Energy in Denmark. The Folkecenter carries out research on many types of renewable energies, particularly wind energy, but they have also done some very extensive research on burning vegetable oil in diesel engines. Discussions with them led to an offer to participate in their study/research program in Denmark for four months.

Well be posting blogs and stories about our Learnings over the next six months.

Off we go to Denmark!

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