Executive Peer Exchange on the Use & Integration
of Renewable Energy and Distributed Generation
in the Power Sector

October 11-22, 2008 Sacramento & San Francisco, California; Washington, D.C.

 

Conducted by the U.S. Energy Association Under the Asia Pacific Partnership
Funded by the U.S. Agency Department of State

Program Objectives

  • To discuss best practices and obtain copies of the following:
  • Government policies that promote renewable energy
  • Strategies and incentives for project financing, including credit guarantees and income tax provisions
  • Use of portfolio standards to expand renewable energy deployment
  • To analyze commercially proven renewable energy technologies

 

Anticipated Outcomes

  • To gain knowledge and documentation on the following:
  • Financing strategies for renewable energy projects
  • Policies and practices potentially applicable to India
  • Technologies with practical application to India

 

Delegates

West Bengal

S.P. Gon Chaudhuri, Director, West Bengal Green Energy Development Corporation, Email: nbirt2008@yahoo.com

Member Prittosh Ray, West Bengal Electricity Regulatory Commission, Email: wberc@cal3.vsnl.net.in

Mriganka Majumdar, West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Limited, Email: majumdar_48@yahoo.co.in

 

Punjab

Balour Singh, Director, Punjab Energy Development Agency, Email: peda_spa@yahoo.co.in

Prem Sagar, Chief Engineer, Punjab State Electricity Board, Email: premsagarji@gmail.com

Suresh Singla, Director (Tariffs), Punjab Electricity Regulatory Commission, Email: singla1008@yahoo.com

 

Gujarat

Mrs. Venu Birappa Pujar, Deputy Engineer, Gujarat Transmission Company Limited, Email: trvenu@gebmail.com

S.B. Patil, Senior Executive, Gujarat Energy Development Agency, Email: sb_patil1@rediffmail.com

Lalnunmawia Chuaungo, Managing Director, Gujarat Urja, Vikas Nigam Ltd., Email: md.guvnl@gebmail.com

 

World Institute of Sustainable Energy

Surendra Pimparkhedkar, Senior Research Associate, Email : pimparkhedkar@yahoo.com

 

United States Energy Association

Ms. Tricia Williams, Senior Program Coordinator, Email: twilliams@usea.org

Monday, October 13, 2008 – San Francisco, California

 

Pacific Gas & Electric(PG&E) Energy Center

Speaker: Uday Mathur, Energy Supply

Pacific Gas and Electric Company is one of the largest combination natural gas and electric utilities in the United States.  The company, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation, serves approximately 15 million people in northern and central California.  PG&E delivers some of the cleanest electric power of any major electric company in the United States and are aggressively adding renewable electric power resources to the supply of delivered power.  PG&E also leads the nation by hooking up more solar-generating customers to the electric grid than any other utility.  PG&E has a long history of developing, generating, and purchasing renewable power. Going forward, PG&E is taking steps to do even more with plans to study wave power off the coast of nearby counties, exploring "cow power" as one of the newest and most innovative ways to realize our renewable energy goals, using new geothermal energy resources, solar energy, and other renewable resources.  Recently, PG&E issued a 2008 renewable energy procurement solicitation where we are seeking to procure an additional 1 to 2 percent of the customers' electricity needs through renewable resources.  These efforts represent important milestones for PG&E towards a goal of supplying 20 percent of the customer needs with qualifying renewable resources under California's renewable portfolio standard program.

 

Technical integration of renewable energy into the system; challenges and strategies to meet renewable energy standards; project development; tactics to promote of renewable energy

Speaker: Robert Marcial, Director, The Pacific Energy Center

Tuesday, October 14, 2008 – Sacramento, California

 

Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD)

SMUD Presentations (click on links below to view presentation)

Energy Efficiency and Customer Research and Development

Renewable Energy Procurement

SMUD Solar Options For Commercial And Residential Customers

California's Rule 21


As the sixth largest publicly owned utility in the country in terms of customers served, SMUD's service area covers 900 square miles, including California's capital city, Sacramento County.  Today, SMUD offers competitive rates that are consistently lower than investor-owned utilities in the state through a diverse portfolio of generation sources, including renewable energy.

 

Technical integration of RE into the system; challenges and strategies to meet RE standards; project development; tactics to promote of RE.  Meetings will include discuss with SMUD’s Advanced Renewable Energy group to discuss the latest RE technologies available on the market.

Opening Remarks & SMUD Overview – Jaspal Deol, Manager, Customer Operations, Customer Services

Renewables Programs/Services - Clifton Lewis, Manager, Programs/Services

Renewable Projects (Utility Scale) - Jon Bertalino

Customer Service – Tom Jas, Research & Evaluation

Welcome – Paul Lau

Site visit to waste-to-energy Facility

Wednesday, October 15, 2008 – Sacramento, California

 

California Energy Commission

Speakers: Melissa Jones, Executive Director and Heather Raitt, Technical Director, Renewable Energy Office

The California Energy Commission is the state's primary energy policy and planning agency.  Created in 1974, the Commission has five major responsibilities: (1) Forecasting future energy needs and keeping historical energy data, (2) Licensing thermal power plants 50 megawatts or larger, (3) Promoting energy efficiency through appliance and building standards, (4) Developing energy technologies and supporting renewable energy, and (5) Planning for and directing state response to energy emergency.  The Commission's role includes overseeing funding programs that support public interest energy research; advance energy science and technology through research, development and demonstration; and provide market support to existing, new and emerging renewable technologies.


Policies that promote renewable energy, including renewable portfolio standards and other incentive programs; rebate programs, the role of an income tax base for renewables, the California Renewable Resources Account (which collects from ratepayers of the state's investor-owned utilities) and other financing strategies; the impacts of integrating RE on the energy market; how a market facilitates RE use; consumer education and marketing programs

 

Welcome – Melissa Jones, Executive Director

Overview – Heather Raitt, Renewable Energy Office


Technical integration of RE into the system; challenges and strategies to meet RE standards; project development; tactics to promote of RE.  Meetings will include discuss with SMUD’s Advanced Renewable Energy group to discuss the latest RE technologies available on the market.

 

Site Visit of SMUD Solar Powered Hydrogen Fuel Station

Site Visit to solar installations

Thursday, October 16, 2008 – Los Angeles, California

 

Meeting with Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD)

Technical integration of RE into the system; challenges & strategies to meet RE standards; project development; tactics to promote of RE.  Meetings will include discuss with SMUD’s Advanced Renewable Energy group to discuss the latest RE technologies available on the market.

 

Site visit to SMUD 80 MW Solano Wind Farm

Friday, October 17, 2008 – Los Angeles

eSolar Inc. (click for presentation)

eSolar designs and develops utility-scale Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) projects starting at 46 MW.  The eSolar power plant utilized small mirrors which track the sun with high precision and reflect the sunlight to a tower-mounted receiver, which boils water to create steam.  This steam powers a traditional turbine and generator to produce solar electricity.

The simple concept of making renewable energy cost-competitive with fossil fuel energy has driven eSolar to engineer a paradigm shift in CSP technology, providing a cost-effective and scalable solution. eSolar builds an individual 46 MW power unit on 160 acres (64 hectares) and can scale up to 500 MW or larger capacity with multiple units.  The utility-scale CSP power plant is based on mass-manufactured components and designed for rapid construction, uniform modularity, and unlimited scalability.  The eSolar approach marries a low-impact, pre-fabricated design with patent-pending computer software and elegant engineering solutions to provide solar electricity ranging from 46 MW to over 500 MW.

 

Monday, October 20, 2008 – Washington, DC

 

Covanta site visit – waste to energy plant

Meeting with Covanta (click for presentation)

Covanta Energy is an internationally recognized owner and operator of Energy-from-Waste and power generation projects.  Covanta Energy's Energy-from-Waste facilities convert municipal solid waste into renewable energy for numerous communities, predominantly in the United States.  As a world premier operator of large-scale energy-from-waste facilities, Covanta Energy is proud to offer an environmentally sound solution to communities' solid waste disposal needs. With over 30 facilities worldwide, Covanta uses municipal solid waste as a fuel to generate clean, renewable energy.  Covanta's modern Energy-from-Waste facilities safely and securely turn 15 million tons of waste into over 8 million megawatt hours of clean renewable electricity each year and create 10 billion pounds of steam that are sold to a variety of industries.

 

Covanta’s modern energy-from-waste facilities:

  • Produce a combine total of 7,800 Gigawatts of renewable electricity per year, which creates enough energy to power the homes in the city of Philadelphia.
  • Serve the waste disposal needs of approximately 12 million people in communities across the United States.
  • Reduce the need for fossil fuels, saving the equivalent of 15 million barrels of oil each year.
  • Recover and recycle 360,000 tons of metals from the waste which is enough metal to manufacture 275,000 hybrid cars each year.
  • Process over 5% of the nation’s waste.
  • Have a worldwide presence, with facilities in Europe and China.