Oklahoma needs renewable energy standard

By Associated Press


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A former member of the state board that regulates utilities said that Oklahoma needs to develop a renewable energy standard to encourage development of its wind energy sector and potentially lure manufacturing jobs.

Denise Bode, now president and CEO of the American Wind Energy Association — a Washington, D.C.-based trade group — spoke at the start of the "Revolution" wind energy conference.

The former Oklahoma corporation commissioner said 29 states have a renewable energy, or portfolio, standard that requires or encourages electricity providers to obtain a minimum percentage of their power from renewable energy resources by a certain date.

All of Oklahoma's border states, except Arkansas, have such a standard. A national renewable energy standard also is being discussed in Congress, she said.

Such standards, she said, give those in the renewable energy industry — particularly companies that manufacture parts for wind turbines — assurances their product will be used.

"That is a policy that every manufacturer looks at... when they're deciding to actually build a facility in a state," Bode said.

But the concept of what they call a "mandate" doesn't appeal to top officials from two of the state's largest utilities who also spoke at the conference. The presidents of Public Service Company of Oklahoma and Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co. both said the lack of a renewable energy standard hasn't hurt wind development in the state.

PSO has 393 megawatts of wind-generated power under long-term contracts and plans to add 198 megawatts to that portfolio, meaning it will receive about 11 percent of its energy from wind. OG&E has 170 megawatts of wind capacity in production and has said it wants to more than triple that capacity by the end of 2010.

"We don't have a renewable portfolio standard, but... we're in the top 10 in terms of wind energy production," said Stuart Solomon, PSO president and chief operating officer. "We've done a lot without any sort of standard or a mandate."

Solomon said he expects a potential standard to be an issue during the upcoming session of the Oklahoma Legislature. PSO would be willing to discuss the issue "and we can do something that makes sense."

OG&E Chairman, President and CEO Pete Delaney said his company doesn't think such a standard is necessary.

"We're really driven by economics," Delaney said. "We're market-driven. We're not mandate-driven.... We're investing in transmission, in wind farms to develop that capacity.

"We want to send a signal that this state is focused on the development of renewables. People get the impression, 'Oh, they don't have a (renewable energy standard), so they don't care about it.' As you can see, that's not the fact."

Bode said there is potential for the generation of 80,000 megawatts of wind power in Oklahoma, but only 830 megawatts of generation have been developed so far.

A state standard proposal could come through either the Legislature or Corporation Commission, commission spokesman Matt Skinner said. But any standards eventually would have to be approved by the Legislature and signed by the governor.

Bode, a Republican who served on the Corporation Commission from 1997 to 2007, said that while she's a conservative, she believes the state has the right to implement a standard.

"It is the appropriate role of government, when you are dealing with a regulated monopoly that has been granted a guaranteed service territory and a guaranteed rate of return that comes from its consumers... to have the government entity that oversees them... to determine what's in the public interest," she said.

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Iran, Iraq Discuss Further Cooperation in Energy Sector

Iran-Iraq Electricity Cooperation advances with power grid synchronization, cross-border energy trade, 400-kV transmission lines, and education partnerships, boosting grid reliability, infrastructure investment, and electricity exports between Tehran and Baghdad for improved supply and stability.

 

Key Points

A bilateral initiative to synchronize grids, expand networks, and sustain electricity exports, improving reliability.

✅ 400-kV Amarah-Karkheh line enables synchronized operations.

✅ Extends electricity export contracts to meet Iraq demand.

✅ Enhances grid reliability, training, and infrastructure investment.

 

Aradakanian has focused his one-day visit to Iraq on discussions pertaining to promoting bilateral collaboration between the two neighboring nations in the field of electricity, grid development deals and synchronizing power grid between Tehran and Baghdad, cooperating in education, and expansion of power networks.

He is also scheduled to meet with Iraqi top officials in a bid to boost cooperation in the relevant fields.

Back in December 2019, Ardakanian announced that Iran will continue exports of electricity to Iraq by renewing earlier contract as it is supplying about 40% of Iraq's power today.

"Iran has signed a 3-year-long cooperation agreement with Iraq to help the country's power industry in different aspects. The documents states at its end that we will export electricity to Iraq as far as they need," Ardakanian told FNA on December 9, 2019.

The contract to "export Iran's electricity" to Iraq will be extended, he added.

Ardakanian also said that Iran and Iraq's power grids have become synchronized in a move that supports Iran's regional power hub plans since a month ago.

In 2004 Iran started selling electricity to Iraq. Iran electricity exports to the western neighbor are at its highest level of 1,361 megawatts per day now, as the country weighs summer power sufficiency ahead of peak demand.

The new Amarah-Karkheh 400-KV transmission line stretching over 73 kilometers, is now synchronized to provide electricity to both countries, reflecting regional power export trends as well. It also paves the way for increasing export to power-hungry Iraq in the near future.

With synchronization of the two grids, the quality of electricity in Iraq will improve as the country explores nuclear power options to tackle shortages.

According to official data, 82% of Iraq's electricity is generated by thermal power plants that use gas as feedstock, while Iran is converting thermal plants to combined cycle to save energy. This is expected to reach 84% by 2027.

 

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For Hydro-Québec, selling to the United States means reinventing itself

Hydro-Quebec hydropower exports deliver low-carbon electricity to New England, sparking debate on greenhouse gas accounting, grid attributes, and REC-style certificates as Quebec modernizes monitoring to verify emissions, integrate renewables, and meet ambitious climate targets.

 

Key Points

Low-carbon electricity to New England, with improved emissions tracking and verifiable grid attributes.

✅ Deep, narrow reservoirs cut lifecycle GHGs in cold boreal waters

✅ Attribute certificates trace source, type, and carbon intensity

✅ Contracts require facility-level tagging for compliance

 

For 40 years, through the most vicious interprovincial battles, even as proposals for bridging the Alberta-B.C. gap aimed to improve grid resilience, Canadians could agree on one way Quebec is undeniably superior to the rest of the country.

It’s hydropower, and specifically the mammoth dam system in Northern Quebec that has been paying dividends since it was first built in the 70s. “Quebec continues to boast North America’s lowest electricity prices,” was last year’s business-as-usual update in one trade publication, even as Newfoundland's rate strategy seeks relief for consumers.

With climate crisis looming, that long-ago decision earns even more envy and reflects Canada's electricity progress across the grid today. Not only do they pay less, but Quebeckers also emit the least carbon per capita of any province.

It may surprise most Canadians, then, to hear how most of New England has reacted to the idea of being able to buy permanently into Quebec’s power grid.

​​​​​​Hydro-Québec’s efforts to strike major export deals have been rebuffed in the U.S., by environmentalists more than anyone. They question everything about Quebec hydropower, including asking “is it really low-carbon?”

These doubts may sound nonsensical to regular Quebeckers. But airing them has, in fact, pushed Hydro-Québec to learn more about itself and adopt new technology.

We know far more about hydropower than we knew 40 years ago, including whether it’s really zero-emission (it’s not), how to make it as close to zero-emission as possible, and how to account for it as precisely as new clean energies like solar and wind, underscoring how cleaning up Canada's electricity is vital to meeting climate pledges.

The export deals haven’t gone through yet, but they’ve already helped drag Hydro-Québec—roughly the fourth-biggest hydropower system on the planet—into the climate era.

Fighting to export
One of the first signs of trouble for Quebec hydro was in New Hampshire, almost 10 years ago. People there began pasting protest signs on their barns and buildings. One citizens’ group accused Hydro of planning a “monstrous extension cord” across the state.

Similar accusations have since come from Maine, Massachusetts and New York.

The criticism isn’t coming from state governments, which mostly want a more permanent relationship with Hydro-Québec. They already rely on Quebec power, but in a piecemeal way, topping up their own power grid when needed (with the exception of Vermont, which has a small permanent contract for Quebec hydropower).

Last year, Quebec provided about 15 percent of New England’s total power, plus another substantial amount to New York, which is officially not considered to be part of New England, and has its own energy market separate from the New England grid.

Now, northeastern states need an energy lynch pin, rather than a top-up, with existing power plants nearing the end of their lifespans. In Massachusetts, for example, one major nuclear plant shut down this year and another will be retired in 2021. State authorities want a hydro-based energy plan that would send $10 billion to Hydro-Québec over 20 years.

New England has some of North America’s most ambitious climate goals, with every state in the region pledging to cut emissions by at least 80 percent over the next 30 years.

What’s the downside? Ask the citizens’ groups and nonprofits that have written countless op-eds, organized petitions and staged protests. They argue that hydropower isn’t as clean as cutting-edge clean energy such as solar and wind power, and that Hydro-Québec isn’t trying hard enough to integrate itself into the most innovative carbon-counting energy system. Right as these other energy sources finally become viable, they say, it’s a step backwards to commit to hydro.

As Hydro-Québec will point out, many of these critics are legitimate nonprofits, but others may have questionable connections. The Portland Press Herald in Maine reported in September 2018 that a supposedly grassroot citizens’ group called “Stand Up For Maine” was actually funded by the New England Power Generators Association, which is based in Boston and represents such power plant owners as Calpine Corp., Vistra Energy and NextEra Energy.

But in the end, that may not matter. Arguably the biggest motivator to strike these deals comes not from New England’s needs, but from within Quebec. The province has spent more than $10 billion in the last 15 years to expand its dam and reservoir system, and in order to stay financially healthy, it needs to double its revenue in the next 10 years—a plan that relies largely on exports.

With so much at stake, it has spent the last decade trying to prove it can be an energy of the future.

“Learning as you go”
American critics, justified or not, have been forcing advances at Hydro for a long time.

When the famously huge northern Quebec hydro dams were built at James Bay—construction began in the early 1970s—the logic was purely economic. The term “climate change” didn’t exist. The province didn’t even have an environment department.

The only reason Quebec scientists started trying to measure carbon emissions from hydro reservoirs was “basically because of the U.S.,” said Alain Tremblay, a senior environmental advisor at Hydro Quebec.


Alain Tremblay, senior environmental advisor at Hydro-Québec. Photograph courtesy of Hydro-Québec
In the early 1990s, Hydro began to export power to the U.S., and “because we were a good company in terms of cost and efficiency, some Americans didn't like that,” he said—mainly competitors, though he couldn’t say specifically who. “They said our reservoirs were emitting a lot of greenhouse gases.”

The detractors had no research to back up that claim, but Hydro-Québec had none to refute it, either, said Tremblay. “At that time we didn’t have any information, but from back-of-the envelope calculations, it was impossible to have the emissions the Americans were expecting we have.”

So research began, first to design methods to take the measurements, and then to carry them out. Hydro began a five-year project with a Quebec university.

It took about 10 years to develop a solid methodology, Tremblay said, with “a lot of error and learning-as-you-go.” There have been major strides since then.

“Twenty years ago we were taking a sample of water, bringing it back to the lab and analyzing that with what we call a gas chromatograph,” said Tremblay. “Now, we have an automated system that can measure directly in the water,” reading concentrations of CO2 and methane every three hours and sending its data to a processing centre.

The tools Hydro-Québec uses are built in California. Researchers around the world now follow the same standard methods.

At this point, it’s common knowledge that hydropower does emit greenhouse gases. Experts know these emissions are much higher than previously thought.

Workers on the Eastmain-1 project environmental monitoring program. Photography courtesy of Alain Tremblay.
​But Hydro-Québec now has the evidence, also, to rebut the original accusations from the early 1990s and many similar ones today.

“All our research from Université Laval [found] that it’s about a thousand years before trees decompose in cold Canadian waters,” said Tremblay.

Hydro reservoirs emit greenhouse gases because vegetation and sometimes other biological materials, like soil runoff, decay under the surface.

But that decay depends partly on the warmth of the water. In tropical regions, including the southern U.S., hydro dams can have very high emissions. But in boreal zones like northern Quebec (or Manitoba, Labrador and most other Canadian locations with massive hydro dams), the cold, well-oxygenated water vastly slows the process.

Hydro emissions have “a huge range,” said Laura Scherer, an industrial ecology professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands who led a study of almost 1,500 hydro dams around the world.

“It can be as low as other renewable energy sources, but it can also be as high as fossil fuel energy,” in rare cases, she said.

While her study found that climate was important, the single biggest factor was “sizing and design” of each dam, and specifically its shape, she said. Ideally, hydro dams should be deep and narrow to minimize surface area, perhaps using a natural valley.

Hydro-Québec’s first generation of dams, the ones around James Bay, were built the opposite way—they’re wide and shallow, infamously flooding giant tracts of land.


Alain Tremblay, senior environmental advisor at Hydro-Québec testing emission levels. Photography courtesy of Alain Tremblay
Newly built ones take that new information into account, said Tremblay. Its most recent project is the Romaine River complex, which will eventually include four reservoirs near Quebec’s northeastern border with Labrador. Construction began in 2016.

The site was picked partly for its topography, said Tremblay.

“It’s a valley-type reservoir, so large volume, small surface area, and because of that there’s a pretty limited amount of vegetation that’s going to be flooded,” he said.

There’s a dramatic emissions difference with the project built just before that, commissioned in 2006. Called Eastmain, it’s built near James Bay.

“The preliminary results indicate with the same amount of energy generated [by Romaine] as with Eastmain, you’re going to have about 10 times less emissions,” said Tremblay.

Tracing energy to its source
These signs of progress likely won’t satisfy the critics, who have publicly argued back and forth with Hydro about exactly how emissions should be tallied up.

But Hydro-Québec also faces a different kind of growing gap when it comes to accounting publicly for its product. In the New England energy market, a sophisticated system “tags” all the energy in order to delineate exactly how much comes from which source—nuclear, wind, solar, and others—and allows buyers to single out clean power, or at least the bragging rights to say they bought only clean power.

Really, of course, it’s all the same mix of energy—you can’t pick what you consume. But creating certificates prevents energy producers from, in worst-case scenarios, being able to launder regular power through their clean-power facilities. Wind farms, for example, can’t oversell what their own turbines have produced.

What started out as a fraud prevention tool has “evolved to make it possible to also track carbon emissions,” said Deborah Donovan, Massachusetts director at the Acadia Center, a climate-focused nonprofit.

But Hydro-Québec isn’t doing enough to integrate itself into this system, she says.

It’s “the tool that all of our regulators in New England rely on when we are confirming to ourselves that we’ve met our clean energy and our carbon goals. And…New York has a tool just like that,” said Donovan. “There isn’t a tracking system in Canada that’s comparable, though provinces like Nova Scotia are tapping the Western Climate Initiative for technical support.”

Hydro Quebec Chénier-Vignan transmission line crossing the Outaouais river. Photography courtesy of Hydro-Québec
Developing this system is more a question of Canadian climate policy than technology.

Energy companies have long had the same basic tracking device—a meter, said Tanya Bodell, a consultant and expert in New England’s energy market. But in New England, on top of measuring “every time there’s a physical flow of electricity” from a given source, said Bodell, a meter “generates an attribute or a GIS certificate,” which certifies exactly where it’s from. The certificate can show the owner, the location, type of power and its average emissions.

Since 2006, Hydro-Québec has had the ability to attach the same certificates to its exports, and it sometimes does.

“It could be wind farm generation, even large hydro these days—we can do it,” said Louis Guilbault, who works in regulatory affairs at Hydro-Québec. For Quebec-produced wind energy, for example, “I can trade those to whoever’s willing to buy it,” he said.

But, despite having the ability, he also has the choice not to attach a detailed code—which Hydro doesn’t do for most of its hydropower—and to have it counted instead under the generic term of “system mix.”

Once that hydropower hits the New England market, the administrators there have their own way of packaging it. The market perhaps “tries to determine emissions, GHG content,” Guilbault said. “They have their own rules; they do their own calculations.”

This is the crux of what bothers people like Donovan and Bodell. Hydro-Québec is fully meeting its contractual obligations, since it’s not required to attach a code to every export. But the critics wish it would, whether by future obligation or on its own volition.

Quebec wants it both ways, Donovan argued; it wants the benefits of selling low-emission energy without joining the New England system of checks and balances.

“We could just buy undifferentiated power and be done with it, but we want carbon-free power,” Donovan said. “We’re buying it because of its carbon content—that’s the reason.”

Still, the requirements are slowly increasing. Under Hydro-Québec’s future contract with Massachusetts (which still has several regulatory steps to go through before it’s approved) it’s asked to sell the power’s attributes, not just the power itself. That means that, at least on paper, Massachusetts wants to be able to trace the energy back to a single location in Quebec.

“It’s part of the contract we just signed with them,” said Guilbault. “We’re going to deliver those attributes. I’m going to select a specific hydro facility, put the number in...and transfer that to the buyers.”

Hydro-Québec says it’s voluntarily increasing its accounting in other ways. “Even though this is not strictly required,” said spokeswoman Lynn St. Laurent, Hydro is tracking its entire output with a continent-wide registry, the North American Renewables Registry.

That registry is separate from New England’s, so as far as Bodell is concerned, the measure doesn’t really help. But she and others also expect the entire tracking system to grow and mature, perhaps integrating into one. If it had been created today, in fact, rather than in the 1990s, maybe it would use blockchain technology rather than a varied set of administrators, she said.

Counting emissions through tracking still has a long way to go, as well, said Donovan, and it will increasingly matter in Canada's race to net-zero as standards tighten. For example, natural gas is assigned an emissions number that’s meant to reflect the emissions when it’s consumed. But “we do not take into account what the upstream carbon emissions are through the pipeline leakage, methane releases during fracking, any of that,” she said.

Now that the search for exactitude has begun, Hydro-Québec won’t be exempt, whether or not Quebeckers share that curiosity. “We don’t know what Hydro-Québec is doing on the other side of the border,” said Donovan.

 

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Sen. Cortez Masto Leads Colleagues in Urging Congress to Support Clean Energy Industry in Economic Relief Packages

Clean Energy Industry Support includes tax credits, refundability, safe harbor extensions, EV incentives, and stimulus measures to stabilize renewable energy projects, protect the workforce, and ensure financing continuity during economic recovery.

 

Key Points

Policies and funding to stabilize renewables, protect jobs, and extend tax incentives for workforce continuity.

✅ Extend PTC/ITC and remove phase-outs to sustain projects

✅ Enable direct pay or refundability to unlock financing

✅ Preserve safe harbor timelines disrupted by supply chains

 

U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) led 17 Senate colleagues, as the Senate moves to modernize public-land renewables, in sending a letter calling on Congress to include support for the United States' clean energy industry and workforce in any economic aid packages.

"As Congress takes steps to ensure that our nation's workforce is prepared to emerge stronger from the coronavirus health and economic crisis, we must act to shore up clean energy businesses and workers who are uniquely impacted by the crisis, echoing a power-sector call for action from industry groups," said the senators. "This action, which has precedent in prior financial recovery efforts, could take several forms, including tax credit extensions or removal of the current phase-out schedule, direct payment or refundability, or extensions of safe harbor continuity."

"We need to make sure that any package protects workers and helps families stay afloat in these challenging times. Providing support to the clean energy industry will give much-needed certainty and confidence, as the sector targets a market majority, for those workers that they will be able to keep their paychecks and their jobs in this critical industry," the senators also said.

In addition to Senator Cortez Masto, the letter was also signed by Senators Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.).

Dear Leader McConnell, Leader Schumer, Chairman Grassley, Ranking Member Wyden:

As Congress takes steps to ensure that our nation's workforce is prepared to emerge stronger from the coronavirus health and economic crisis, we must act to shore up clean energy businesses and workers who are uniquely impacted by the crisis, with wind investments at risk amid the pandemic. This action, which has precedent in prior financial recovery efforts, could take several forms, including tax credit extensions or removal of the current phase-out schedule, direct payment or refundability, or extensions of safe harbor continuity.

First and foremost, we need to take care of workers' health and immediate needs to stay in their homes and provide for their families, and the Families First Coronavirus Response Act is a critical down payment. Now, we must make sure the workforce has jobs to return to and that employers remain able to pay for critical benefits like paid sick and family leave, healthcare, and Unemployment Insurance.

The renewable energy industry employs over 800,000 people across every state in the United States. This industry and its workers could suffer significant harms as a result of the coronavirus emergency and resulting financial impact. Renewable energy businesses are already seeing project cancellations or delays, as the Covid-19 crisis hits solar and wind across the sector, with the solar industry reporting delays of 30 percent. Likewise, the energy efficiency sector is susceptible to similar impacts. As the coronavirus pandemic intensifies in the United States, that rate of delay or cancellations will only continue to skyrocket. Global and domestic supply chains are already facing chaotic changes, with equipment delays of three to four months for parts of the industry. A major collapse in financing is all but certain as investment firms' profits turn to losses and capital is suddenly unavailable for large labor-intensive investments.

To ensure that we do not lose years of progress on clean energy and the source of employment for tens of thousands of renewable energy workers, Congress should look to previous relief packages as an example for how to support this sector and the broader American economy. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (also known as the Recovery Act or ARRA) provided over $90 billion in funding for clean energy and grid modernization, along with emergency relief programs. Specifically, ARRA provided immediate funding streams like the 1603 Cash Grant program for renewables and the 30 percent clean energy manufacturing tax credit to give immediate relief for the clean energy industry. As Congress develops this new package, it should consider these immediate relief programs for the renewable and clean energy industry, especially as analyses suggest green energy could drive Covid-19 recovery at scale. This could include direct payment or refundability, extensions of safe harbor continuity, tax credit extensions, electric vehicle credit expansion, or removal of the current phase-out schedules for the clean energy industry.

We need to make sure that any package protects workers and helps families stay afloat in these challenging times. Providing support to the clean energy industry will give much-needed certainty and confidence for those workers that they will be able to keep their paychecks and their jobs in this critical industry.

These strategies to provide assistance to the clean energy industry must be included in any financial recovery discussions, particularly if the Trump Administration continues its push to aid the oil industry, even as some advocate a total fossil fuel lockdown to accelerate climate action. We appreciate your consideration and collaboration as we do everything in our power to quickly recover from this health and economic emergency.

 

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Germany's Call for Hydrogen-Ready Power Plants

Germany Hydrogen-Ready Power Plants Tender accelerates the energy transition by enabling clean energy generation, decarbonization, and green hydrogen integration through retrofit and new-build capacity, resilient infrastructure, flexible storage, and grid reliability provisions.

 

Key Points

Germany tender to build or convert plants for hydrogen, advancing decarbonization, energy security, and clean power.

✅ Hydrogen-ready retrofits and new-build generation capacity

✅ Supports decarbonization, grid reliability, and flexible storage

✅ Future-proof design for green hydrogen supply integration

 

Germany, a global leader in energy transition and environmental sustainability, has recently launched an ambitious call for tenders aimed at developing hydrogen-ready power plants. This initiative is a significant step in the country's strategy to transform its energy infrastructure and support the broader goal of a greener economy. The move underscores Germany’s commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and advancing clean energy technologies.

The Need for Hydrogen-Ready Power Plants

Hydrogen, often hailed as a key player in the future of clean energy, offers a promising solution for decarbonizing various sectors, including power generation. Unlike fossil fuels, hydrogen produces zero carbon emissions when used in fuel cells or burned. This makes it an ideal candidate for replacing conventional energy sources that contribute to climate change.

Germany’s push for hydrogen-ready power plants reflects the country’s recognition of hydrogen’s potential in achieving its climate goals. Traditional power plants, which typically rely on coal, natural gas, or oil, emit substantial amounts of CO2. Transitioning these plants to utilize hydrogen can significantly reduce their carbon footprint and align with Germany's climate targets.

The Details of the Tender

The recent tender call is part of Germany's broader strategy to incorporate hydrogen into its energy mix, amid a nuclear option debate in climate policy. The tender seeks proposals for power plants that can either be converted to use hydrogen or be built with hydrogen capability from the outset. This approach allows for flexibility and innovation in how hydrogen technology is integrated into existing and new energy infrastructures.

One of the critical aspects of this initiative is the focus on “hydrogen readiness.” This means that power plants must be designed or retrofitted to operate with hydrogen either exclusively or in combination with other fuels. The goal is to ensure that these facilities can adapt to the growing availability of hydrogen and seamlessly transition from conventional fuels without significant additional modifications.

By setting such requirements, Germany aims to stimulate the development of technologies that can handle hydrogen’s unique properties and ensure that the infrastructure is future-proofed. This includes addressing challenges related to hydrogen storage, transportation, and combustion, and exploring concepts like storing electricity in natural gas pipes for system flexibility.

Strategic Implications for Germany

Germany’s call for hydrogen-ready power plants has several strategic implications. First and foremost, it aligns with the country’s broader energy strategy, which emphasizes the need for a transition from fossil fuels to cleaner alternatives, building on its decision to phase out coal and nuclear domestically. As part of its commitment to the Paris Agreement and its own climate action plans, Germany has set ambitious targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing the share of renewable energy in its energy mix.

Hydrogen plays a crucial role in this strategy, particularly for sectors where direct electrification is challenging. For instance, heavy industry and certain industrial processes, such as green steel production, require high-temperature heat that is difficult to achieve with electricity alone. Hydrogen can fill this gap, providing a cleaner alternative to natural gas and coal.

Moreover, this initiative helps Germany bolster its leadership in green technology and innovation. By investing in hydrogen infrastructure, Germany positions itself as a pioneer in the global energy transition, potentially influencing international standards and practices. The development of hydrogen-ready power plants also opens up new economic opportunities, including job creation in engineering, construction, and technology sectors.

Challenges and Opportunities

While the push for hydrogen-ready power plants presents significant opportunities, it also comes with challenges. Hydrogen production, especially green hydrogen produced from renewable sources, remains relatively expensive compared to conventional fuels. Scaling up production and reducing costs are critical for making hydrogen a viable alternative for widespread use.

Furthermore, integrating hydrogen into existing power infrastructure, alongside electricity grid expansion, requires careful planning and investment. Issues such as retrofitting existing plants, ensuring safe handling of hydrogen, and developing efficient storage and transportation systems must be addressed.

Despite these challenges, the long-term benefits of hydrogen integration are substantial, and a net-zero roadmap indicates electricity costs could fall by a third. Hydrogen can enhance energy security, reduce reliance on imported fossil fuels, and support global climate goals. For Germany, this initiative is a step towards realizing its vision of a sustainable, low-carbon energy system.

Conclusion

Germany’s call for hydrogen-ready power plants is a forward-thinking move that reflects its commitment to sustainability and innovation. By encouraging the development of infrastructure capable of using hydrogen, Germany is taking a significant step towards a cleaner energy future. While challenges remain, the strategic focus on hydrogen underscores Germany’s leadership in the global transition to a low-carbon economy. As the world grapples with the urgent need to address climate change, Germany’s approach serves as a model for integrating emerging technologies into national energy strategies.

 

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IEA warns fall in global energy investment may lead to shortages

Global Energy Investment Decline risks future oil and electricity supply, says the IEA, as spending on upstream, coal plants, and grids falls while renewables, storage, and flexible generation lag in the energy transition.

 

Key Points

Multi-year cuts to oil, power, and grid spending that increase risks of future supply shortages and market tightness.

✅ IEA warns underinvestment risks oil supply squeeze

✅ China and India slow coal plant additions; renewables rise

✅ Batteries aid flexibility but cannot replace seasonal storage

 

An almost 20 per cent fall in global energy investment over the past three years could lead to oil and electricity shortages, as surging electricity demand persists, and there are concerns about whether current business models will encourage sufficient levels of spending in the future, according a new report.

The International Energy Agency’s second annual IEA benchmark analysis of energy investment found that while the world spent $US1.7 trillion ($2.2 trillion) on fossil-fuel exploration, new power plants and upgrades to electricity grids last year, with electricity investment surpassing oil and gas even as global energy investment was down 12 per cent from a year earlier and 17 per cent lower than 2014.

While the IEA said continued oversupply of oil and electricity globally would prevent any imminent shock, falling investment “points to a risk of market tightness and undercapacity at some point down the line’’.

The low crude oil price drove a 44 per cent drop in oil and gas investment between 2014 and 2016. It fell 26 per cent last year. It was due to falls in upstream activity and a slowdown in the sanctioning of conventional oilfields to the lowest level in more than 70 years.

“Given the depletion of existing fields, the pace of investment in conventional fields will need to rise to avoid a supply squeeze, even on optimistic assumptions about technology and the impact of climate policies on oil demand,’’ the IEA warned in its report released yesterday evening. “The energy transition has barely begun in several key sectors, such as transport and industry, which will continue to rely heavily on oil, gas and coal for the foreseeable future.’’

The fall in global energy spending also reflected declining investment in power generation, particularly from coal plants.

While 21 per cent of global ­energy investment was made by China in 2016, the world’s fastest growing economy had a 25 per cent decline in the commissioning of new coal-fired power plants, due largely to air pollution issues and investment in renewables.

Investment in new coal-fired plants also fell in India.

“India and China have slammed the brakes on coal-fired generation. That is the big change we have seen globally,’’ said ­Bruce Mountain a director at CME Australia.

“What it confirms is the ­pressures and the changes we are seeing in Australia, the restructuring of our energy supply, is just part of a global trend. We are facing the pressures more sharply in Australia because our power prices are very high. But that same shift in energy source in Australia are being mirrored internationally.’’ The IEA — a Paris-based adviser to the OECD on energy policy — also highlighted Australia’s reduced power reserves in its report and called for regulatory change to encourage greater use of renewables.

“Australia has one of the highest proportions of households with PV systems on their roof of any country in the world, and its ­electricity use in its National ­Electricity Market is spread out over a huge and weakly connected network,’’ the report said.

“It appears that a series of accompanying investments and regulatory changes are needed, including a plan to avoid supply threats, to use Australia’s abundant wind and solar potential: changing system operation methods and reliability procedures as well as investment into network capacity, flexible generation and storage.’’ The report found that in Australia there had been an increase in grid-scale installations mostly associated with large-scale solar PV plants.

Last month the Turnbull ­government revealed it was prepared to back the construction of new coal-fired power stations to prevent further shortfalls in electricity supplies, while the PM ruled out taxpayer-funded plants and declared it was open to using “clean coal” technology to replace existing generators.

He also pledged “immediate” ­action to boost the supply of gas by forcing exporters to divert ­production into the domestic ­market.

Since then technology billionaire Elon Musk has promised to solve South Australia’s energy ­issues by building the world’s largest lithium-ion battery in the state.

But the IEA report said batteries were unlikely to become a “one size fits all” single solution to ­electricity security and flexibility provision.

“While batteries are well-suited to frequency control and shifting hourly load, they cannot provide seasonal storage or substitute the full range of technical services that conventional plants provide to stabilise the system,’’ the report said.

“In the absence of a major technological breakthrough, it is most likely that batteries will complement rather than substitute ­conventional means of providing system flexibility. While conventional plants continue to provide essential system services, their business model is increasingly being called into question in ­unbundled systems.’’

 

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Cheap material converts heat to electricity

Polycrystalline Tin Selenide Thermoelectrics enable waste heat recovery with ZT 3.1, matching single crystals while cutting costs, powering greener car engines, industrial furnaces, and thermoelectric generators via p-type and emerging n-type designs.

 

Key Points

Low-cost tin selenide devices that turn waste heat into power, achieving ZT 3.1 and enabling p-type and n-type modules.

✅ Oxygen removal prevents heat-leaking tin oxide grain skins.

✅ Polycrystalline ingots match single-crystal ZT 3.1 at lower cost.

✅ N-type tin selenide in development to pair with p-type.

 

So-called thermoelectric generators turn waste heat into electricity without producing greenhouse gas emissions, providing what seems like a free lunch. But despite helping power the Mars rovers, the high cost of these devices has prevented their widespread use. Now, researchers have found a way to make cheap thermoelectrics that work just as well as the pricey kind. The work could pave the way for a new generation of greener car engines, industrial furnaces, and other energy-generating devices.

“This looks like a very smart way to realize high performance,” says Li-Dong Zhao, a materials scientist at Beihang University who was not involved with the work. He notes there are still a few more steps to take before these materials can become high-performing thermoelectric generators. However, he says, “I think this will be used in the not too far future.”

Thermoelectrics are semiconductor devices placed on a hot surface, like a gas-powered car engine or on heat-generating electronics using thin-film converters to capture waste heat. That gives them a hot side and a cool side, away from the hot surface. They work by using the heat to push electrical charges from one to the other, a process of turning thermal energy into electricity that depends on the temperature gradient. If a device allows the hot side to warm up the cool side, the electricity stops flowing. A device’s success at preventing this, as well as its ability to conduct electrons, feeds into a score known as the figure of merit, or ZT.

 Over the past 2 decades, researchers have produced thermoelectric materials with increasing ZTs, while related advances such as nighttime solar cells have broadened thermal-to-electric concepts. The record came in 2014 when Mercouri Kanatzidis, a materials scientist at Northwestern University, and his colleagues came up with a single crystal of tin selenide with a ZT of 3.1. Yet the material was difficult to make and too fragile to work with. “For practical applications, it’s a non-starter,” Kanatzidis says.

So, his team decided to make its thermoelectrics from readily available tin and selenium powders, an approach that, once processed, makes grains of polycrystalline tin selenide instead of the single crystals. The polycrystalline grains are cheap and can be heated and compressed into ingots that are 3 to 5 centimeters long, which can be made into devices. The polycrystalline ingots are also more robust, and Kanatzidis expected the boundaries between the individual grains to slow the passage of heat. But when his team tested the polycrystalline materials, the thermal conductivity shot up, dropping their ZT scores as low as 1.2.

In 2016, the Northwestern team discovered the source of the problem: an ultrathin skin of tin oxide was forming around individual grains of polycrystalline tin selenide before they were pressed into ingots. And that skin acted as an express lane for the heat to travel from grain to grain through the material. So, in their current study, Kanatzidis and his colleagues came up with a way to use heat to drive any oxygen away from the powdery precursors, leaving pristine polycrystalline tin selenide, whereas other devices can generate electricity from thin air using ambient moisture.

The result, which they report today in Nature Materials, was not only a thermal conductivity below that of single-crystal tin selenide but also a ZT of 3.1, a development that echoes nighttime renewable devices showing electricity from cold conditions. “This opens the door for new devices to be built from polycrystalline tin selenide pellets and their applications to be explored,” Kanatzidis says.

Getting through that door will still take some time. The polycrystalline tin selenide the team makes is spiked with sodium atoms, creating what is known as a “p-type” material that conducts positive charges. To make working devices, researchers also need an “n-type” version to conduct negative charges.

Zhao’s team recently reported making an n-type single-crystal tin selenide by spiking it with bromine atoms. And Kanatzidis says his team is now working on making an n-type polycrystalline version. Once n-type and p-type tin selenide devices are paired, researchers should have a clear path to making a new generation of ultra-efficient thermoelectric generators. Those could be installed everywhere from automobile exhaust pipes to water heaters and industrial furnaces to scavenge energy from some of the 65% of fossil fuel energy that winds up as waste heat. 

 

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