Alternative Energy/Innovations in Wind, Solar and Tidal

Innovation in Wind

* Where is Wind innovation happening and what is fostering it?

Wind power is a mature technology. The field of onshore wind power has slowed in development and barriers to innovation largely remain at the development stage due to complex public policy and permitting involved with constructing power plants based on wind technologies. The field of offshore is a faster growing and more innovative field than onshore wind. Developments in adjustable blade angle and composite technologies have been crucial to the development of near shore wind. Deep water wind is the most experimental area of wind. Deep water installations take advantage of powerful winds and avoid NIMBY problems but they also require sophisticated moorings which are currently being developed and tested (Walter Musial of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory speaking at the Power of the Gulf Conference June 12, 2008 in Northport, Maine). Another advantage of offshore is that it allows the turbines to be larger due to fewer transportation limits. The larger turbines are more economical. "Reliability problems and turbine shortages have discouraged early boom in development." (Musial, Walter)

The US Department of Energy splits it focus in wind energy research and development between increasing the technical viability of wind systems and increasing the use of wind power in the marketplace. [1] Viability funded research have concentrated on: large wind technology, distributed wind technology, and supporting research and testing. Marketplace funded projects have concentrated on: systems integration and technology acceptance. The US Department of Energy has had some successful results encouraging US companies to innovate using their large wind technology program. [2] GE Wind Energy worked with the US Department of Energy to test components that it developed for its 1.5-MW wind turbine. This has been one of GE Wind Energy's more successful designs. Another project that is demonstrating commercial success is the new 2.5-MW wind turbine manufactured by Clipper Windpower. Clipper Windpower participated in cooperative research and development work with the Wind Energy Program and produced a 2.5-MW wind turbine that is currently on the market. Recent work in distributed wind technology research has helped meet demand for small turbines. [3] The DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory aided testing of consumer wind products. "The strategy of the supporting research and testing effort is to use the research staffs of the National Wind Technology Center (NWTC) and Sandia National Laboratories (Sandia) to perform wind-technology-specific research targeted to help industry improve the performance of components and fully integrated turbine systems." [4]

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) of the US Department of Energy attempts to balance public and private interests in its technology transfer policies. [5] Some of NREL's wind technologies have been patented and are available for licensing. [6] When a company partners with NREL a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) is used. The agreeement protects the existing intellectual property of both parties and "allows the company to negotiate for an exclusive field-of-use license to subject inventions that arise during the CRADA's execution." [7] The alternative way to partner with NREL is to use a work-for-others (WFO) agreement. This agreement is used for request for technical help from the lab but the project does not rise to the level of joint research.

As a leader in the US, GE Wind Energy is a focus of our investigation of for-profit companies. GE Wind Power promotes five key innovations: variable speed control, unique wind volt-amp-reactive ("WindVAR") technology, low voltage ride-thru technology, advanced electronics, and active damping. [8] Variable speed control allows maximize energy collection while keeping the minimizing the load on the drive train. Unique wind volt-amp-reactive is a "dynamic power conversion system" used to maintain "defined grid voltage levels and power quality." The technology uses "a voltage controller placed at the point of interconnect measures utility line voltage, compares it to the desired level and computes the amount of reactive power needed to bring the line voltage back to the specified range." [9] This reduces grid impact of wind, which is a variable input technology. Low voltage ride-thru technology is an enhancement to WindVAR. The technology that allows reaction to system events but does not require full system shut down during event recovery. The advanced electronics developed by GE Wind Power allow turbines to continually adjust blade pitch angle to maintain optimum efficiency for every wind speed. Lastly, active damping technology helps to reduce tower oscillation. The technologies represent innovations that are refinements on a mature technology. Most of these technologies aim to increase efficiency or adapt to current electrical grid constraints.

Patents in the wind industry

• Both in the US and in Europe, wind technology patents have been in creasing over the past ten years. In Europe, the European Patent Office (EPO) reports a 31% increase. (Reichman et. al. 2008)
• Given that the top 4 firms in the wind turbine industry account for 75% of the market, the market is very concentrated and there is a great deal of competition between the top companies. (Reichman et. al. 2008)
• GE, the largest US wind turbine manufacturer and one of the top 4 internationally, is know for aggressively enforcing its patents.
  • In February 2008, GE asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to bar imports of Mitsubishi's (Japan) turbines, arguing that their turbines infringed on one of GE's patents. (Reichman et. al. 2008)

Innovation in Solar

*Where is Solar innovation happening and what is fostering it?

The US, Germany, Spain, Japan and China are the leaders in the solar technology innovation. The innovation is happening due to "back-side" policy funding, which is defined as policies that incentivize market deployment of the technologies rather than the R&D fund incentives. The most successful back-side policy has been the Feed-in tariff used in Germany and Spain, which has jump-started their markets for solar PV, creating competition among the producers and motivating innovation. China is planning a major push in solar PV development, which will be funded through "front-side" policies which directly fund R&D in public institutions.

Solar PV Innovations

"A factor favoring continued solar growth is sheer technological momentum. This is an extremely strong factor with both external and internal characteristics. Externally, the increasingly powerful methods of science are opening up exciting possibilities in optics, nanotechnology, and biomimetics, which promise future solar breakthroughs. On the internal level, solar technology is advancing at a rapid pace—and this even without major federal R&D expenditures. For variations of silicon PV, laboratory efficiencies are approaching 50%. For thin films, efficiencies are likewise improving and manufacturing techniques are being revolutionized. There are also a host of hybrid-type silicon/thin film/optical cells and systems—some already commercialized, others still experimental—that could result in performance and cost breakthroughs." (Cappello 2008, 10)

"Given the pressure of the recent silicon shortage, it is no wonder that enthusiasm has suddenly shifted to thin film PV. Thin films have been in the R&D phase since the 1980s, but until recently only amorphous silicon (a-Si) had been commercialized. This situation began changing around 2005, as a-Si manufacturing continued to improve, and nanotech-inspired breakthroughs occurred in CIGS and CdTe. Moreover, advances were made in hybrid cell technology (combining a-Si and ultra-thin layers of crystal silicon). All this was enough to cause a “gold rush” into thin film in 2006 by solar companies and investors alike. By 2007, around 40 PV companies were in thin film—including established firms and startups—with some analysts projecting over 80 companies into thin films by 2010. In 2007, thin film production was in wild flux, with hundreds of megawatts either coming onstream or being readied to do so. The amount planned to come on the market by 2010—well over 1 GW—represents a quantum leap over 2006 TF production of a mere 100 MW. The Prometheus Institute projects that TF share of global PV production will soar to 22% by 2010 from just 7.5% in 2006. (Cappello 2008, 15)

Patents in the Solar Industry

• According to the Clean Energy Patent Growth Index, the number of annual patents issued in the solar industry in the US seem to be holding steady over the past few years.
• In Europe, patents have grown about 11% between 1998 and 2007, which is lower that the 16% growth in patents for alternative technologies generally. (Reichman et. al. 2008)

Innovation in Tidal

• Where in Tidal innovation is happening and what is fostering it?

Wave energy devices are highly diverse. There are many patents in this area, fewer concepts being tested at the laboratory level, very few working prototypes, and no commercial scale projects in operation, (Malter Musial of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory speaking at the Power of the Gulf Conference June 12, 2008 in Northport, Maine)

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