By Stephen Herrington

The University of Colorado-Boulder recently held its first Renewable Energy Technologies Workshop. The three day course, titled “RETool: Renewable Energy Technologies Workshop” took place on July 9-11.

Each day featured discussions on different aspects of renewable energy with daily topics covering the “Foundations of Renewable Energy”, “Renewable Energy Technologies” and “Realizing Renewable Energy”. Several networking events were included in the course. A networking reception was held at the Hotel Boulderado on Friday evening and a panel discussion on Saturday afternoon. Both events included leaders from the Colorado renewable energy field.

Instructors for the course featured CU-Boulder professors Paul Komor and Stephen Lawrence. Komor is the author of a book entitled “Renewable Energy Policy” and teaches in the Environmental Studies program. In 2007, Komor shared the Nobel Peace prize with Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in which he co-authored a portion of the IPCC’s Second Assessment Report. Lawrence serves as the Academic Director of the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship and the Chair of the Management & Entrepreneurship Division in the Leeds School of Business. He is the recipient of several teaching awards and teaches courses in sustainable venturing and alternative energy technologies. Research by Lawrence includes the evaluation of financial and environmental impacts of smart grids, economic impacts of energy storage and energy strategies for energy intensive businesses.

The course provided an overview of renewable energy in context to energy units, concepts, principles and relation to the energy industry and traditional sources of energy. These concepts were very eye opening in regard to the amount of energy each source is capable of carrying and the challenges inherent in moving towards a renewable energy economy. Various types of renewable energy technologies were discussed including wind, solar, hydropower, geothermal and biofuels along with renewable energy technologies for transportation. Unfortunately, the course lacked information about the newest developments in solar and wind technologies. No information about Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) or innovative residential wind energy systems was mentioned. Most disappointing was the absence of discussion about Smart Grid technology. Especially since Boulder is the first city to test fully integrated Smart Grid technology and the fact that energy efficiency was mentioned as one of the most important components of renewable energy by the panelists. In regards to expenditures for renewable energy, the class was amazed to learn that European governments invest nearly twice as much money in renewable energy as the United States.

The topics of renewable energy commercialization and transmission issues provided a big picture view of the industry along with opportunities for growth and refinement. Transmission is a word frequently heard but rarely understood. In addition to the dilemma of energy transmission from the source (ie. wind/solar farm) to the utility or “grid”, the fact that large scale storage for energy does not currently exist provides an ongoing problem that begs a solution. The answer would enable the utilization of a combination of various energy sources such as coal, natural gas, wind, solar, hydropower, biomass and geothermal. Solar energy is created in the day during peak energy demand. This works well during the day whereas wind energy is produced mainly at night providing energy that needs to be sent down the transmission line and utilized. This is where Smart Grid technology could provide the answer.

By providing smart solutions for the consumer and utility through a better understanding of energy consumption, peak demand times and utilization of smart appliances, the consumer and utility can in a sense work together to improve reliability and efficiency. Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV’s) are a possible answer to the energy storage problem as the battery in a PHEV can be used to store energy generated at night and add power back to the grid in the day during peak electricity demand. This is another topic that ties into Smart Grid technology in which the course could of provided more detailed information.

Renewable energy commercialization provides a wide range of jobs and demand for businesses related to renewable energy projects. There are obvious needs for engineers, environmental consultants, solar installers and energy efficiency experts but there are also not so obvious needs related to renewable energy that are creating niche markets for companies. These include work involved with transportation, construction, welding and crane operation along with standard business positions related to accounting, finance, marketing, business development and project management. The overall forecast for renewable energy jobs is positive with steady growth expected over the upcoming years. Lawrence predicts that there will be smart grid technology in a large number of homes and commonplace hybrid vehicle ownership by 2015, Solar PV and Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) will play key energy generation roles along with grid update completion by 2020, cellulosic biofuels will be common by 2025, wind will provide 20% of US energy needs by 2030 and algae bio-refineries will replace petro-refineries by 2040. Lawrence also predicts that hydrogen and fuel cells will never get traction.

The keynote speaker for the networking reception Friday evening was Craig Mataczynski, CEO of RES Americas, Inc. Mataczynski spoke about the growth of wind energy and the hurdles that still remain in regards to federal support of renewable energy. The conclusion of RETool featured a panel discussion on Saturday with John Brown, President of NexGen Energy Partners, Sue Kunz, CEO of American BioResources, Tod Perry, Program Manager for Clean Energy Entrepreneurship at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Samuel Weaver, CEO of Cool Energy, Inc. The panelists provided a candid view into four different renewable energy success stories and the shared belief that efficiency will play a key role in all areas of renewable energy development. All in all, the course was very informative and the instructors did a great job of condensing three semesters worth of material into a 3-day course. I will look forward to RETooling again next year!

Stephen Herrington is a freelance journalist and v.p. of marketing for GreenMarket Consulting based in Golden.