Advanced Energy Perspectives

Workers lower an HVAC unit onto the roof of a school. Photo courtesy of McKinstry.

This week and last, the AEE Institute published first-ever surveys of advanced energy employment in California and Iowa. Both states are known as advanced energy standouts, each in its own way. California is an across-the-board leader in climate and energy policy, with a strong greenhouse gas law and a 33 percent renewable energy standard. Iowa gets more than a quarter of its electricity generated by wind and its farms contribute greatly to the nation’s renewable fuels capacity. But now we can state with certainty that those noteworthy characteristics translate into thousands of businesses and tens of thousands of advanced energy jobs – in California, hundreds of thousands.

Here are the top-line findings from the two reports.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) plan to regulate carbon emissions is just the latest challenge facing the U.S. electric power system. Technological innovation is disrupting old ways of doing business and accelerating grid modernization. Earlier this year, AEE released Advanced Energy Technologies for Greenhouse Gas Reduction, a report detailing the use, application, and benefits of 40 specific advanced energy technologies and services. This post is one in a series drawn from the technology profiles within that report.

Remember a few months ago when Eric Wesoff of Greentech Media the story, “I Almost Bought Hawaii’s Utility,” in which a reported coalition of investors came incredibly close to purchasing Hawaii’s largest utility and implementing an aggressive transition to advanced energy? Well, it wasn’t Wesoff’s investment group, but this week NextEra announced that it had acquired Hawaiian Electric Industries (HEI) for $4.3 billion.

During this year’s lame duck Congress has a very lengthy list of “must pass” bills on its agenda, including extending crucial tax provisions that expired at the end of 2013. Among these expired tax provisions are key incentives for wind, solar, efficiency investments, and renewable fuels. Passage of this bill now is essential to allow filers to claim the tax benefit on this year’s tax filings. But right now, tax extender legislation is on the rocks.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) plan to regulate carbon emissions is just the latest challenge facing the U.S. electric power system. Technological innovation is disrupting old ways of doing business and accelerating grid modernization. Earlier this year, AEE released Advanced Energy Technologies for Greenhouse Gas Reduction, a report detailing the use, application, and benefits of 40 specific advanced energy technologies and services. This post is one in a series drawn from the technology profiles within that report.

Gas turbine technology is mature and in wide use. In its most basic configuration – the simple cycle gas turbine (SCGT) – air is compressed, mixed with fuel (most frequently natural-gas), and the mixture is burned in a combustor. The resulting hot, pressurized gases are expanded through a turbine that drives the compressor and an electric generator. SCGTs have conversion efficiencies of up to about 40%. In a combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plant, the hot exhaust gases leaving the turbine pass through a heat recovery steam generator, which produces high-pressure steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a generator, producing more electricity with no additional fuel input. This increases overall electrical efficiency to nearly 60%, making CCGTs the most efficient conventional power plants available.