Douglas Creevey, Chief Technical Officer for Digicel, said: ‘As oil becomes more scarce and expensive, renewable energy will be used more and more to power telecommunications networks anywhere that grid power is not available. Using alternative power solutions, such as harnessing wind and solar energy, will help lower our operational expenditure and reduce our environmental impact ,giving people in the more remote islands of Vanuatu access to communications for the first time ’.

Since then, Digicel Vanavatu as announced the completion of  the second phase if this investment, using wind and solar hybrid power solutions for 25 base stations.  Digicel Vanuatu “now carries more than 60% of its network traffic on base stations powered by renewable energy sources.” This is a great success, detailed in this Digicel report: Green Power for Mobile Programme Digicel Vanuatu:  Commercial Roll-out of Green Power Technical Case Study.

The Vanuatu experience demonstrated that:

• A commercial scale implementation of green power solutions is viable for replacement of diesel generators at a significant proportion of Digicel Vanuatu’s off-grid sites
• Mobile operators venturing into green power solutions for their networks must be supported by expertise and resources experienced in this specific application of renewable power and telecoms. The GSMAoffers technical assistance services through its Green Power for Mobile (GPM) programme to provide operators with the skills and understanding to implement green power solutions. See Section 9: GSMA Technical Assistance for Operators for details
• Implementation of new build green power solutions requires no special alteration to the basic project planning methodology provided that domain expertise and green power roll-out methodology are included from the outset. Retro-fitting green-power to existing sites is considerably more complex than implementation on new build sites
• Low site power load is critical to the financial and technical viability of renewable energy resources. Intelligent selection of sites, telecoms equipment and cooling methods can significantly optimise site power consumption
• Green power deployments should have remote monitoring telemetry in order to allow operators tomonitor site power conditions and performance
• There has been a significant reduction in the regularity of fuel deliveries to the green powered sites, implying that over the long-term a sizeable OPEX reduction will be successfully proven

Based on the data from the GSMA Development Fund’s commercial scale roll out on Vanuatu, Digicell is moving to the next phase, remote microwave relays on Papua New Guinea.

Eltek Valere published an informative press update for GMS World 2010: Leading South Pacific Carrier Powers Wireless Network: Digicel Pacific optimizes remote network site power by combining diesel generator sets with solar powered DC power plant. The core details from the press packet is here:

Digicel Pacific implemented a 35-tower high capacity microwave backbone and base station network to provide more bandwidth for its mobile phone customers on the island. But the rugged terrain of PNG, one of the least explored areas in the world, meant that many of those sites were in areas not served by grid power.

Initially, Digicel Pacific deployed battery-powered network equipment with diesel generators to charge the batteries. These generators ran continuously but only at an efficiency of only 20 percent of load and were fed by monthly helicopter fuel runs, translating to a cost of US$6 per kWh.

With the hybrid-solar solution, Digicel installed photovoltaic cells in addition to the generators and was able to reduce generator hours to four per day and boost efficiency to 80%-90% of load which reduced costs to about US$1 per kWh.

An integral part of the solution was an Eltek Valere DC power system that converted both solar and generator power into 48V DC for the load. The Eltek Valere solution is composed of the Flatpack2 HE Solar Charger and the Flatpack2 rectifier. The Smartpack Controller manages the entire system, monitoring battery power levels and input voltage levels from the solar system and switching between the solar system and the diesel gen-set. The Smartpack features also include advance battery monitoring routines, as well as gen-set optimization programs and considerable data logging options.

“Digicel Pacific faced a unique challenge in building a network across a country with topography as difficult as Papua New Guinea,” said Kenneth Bodahl, Managing Director of Asia Pacific for Eltek Valere. “Rather than fight the environment, we were able to provide them with a flexible power solution that enabled them to both expand their network while cutting costs dramatically.”

The Flatpack2 HE Solar Charger connects to four to six solar panels and converts the solar power into controlled 48VDC for supply to telecom equipment. The solar charger is based on Eltek Valere’s industry-leading High Efficiency (HE) technology, which delivers more than 96% AC-DC power conversion efficiency.

While it is true that Eltek Valere is publicizing a sale, what is interesting is the details of the systems selected. The equipment selected are not the normal rectifiers/inverters used in home or building solar installations. The Flatpack2 48/1500 HE Solar is specifically designed to fit with a telecommunications site’s power system. This is not a “hacked in” solution, but a system with everything a telecom company is looking for in commercial grade. It is a nice indicator to the detail Digicel Pacific are putting into the equipment selection for this next phase.

The Statkraft prototype plant is built at the paper pulp manufacturer Sodra Cell Tofte’s plant at Hurum in Buskerud, Norway. The location will provide the osmotic plant with a good supply of fresh water and seawater, along with access to the established infrastructure.

The location, the video, and the test point to Osmotic Power being a interesting co-generation tool in a wide range of manufacturing plants. As per the siting of Statkraft’s prototype, manufacturing tends to be located at the juncture of fresh and salt water. It is logical that the “first market” for Osmotic Power is in existing facilities with an established plant operations.

Is this real? Apparently. Lyng Composite is building the membrane technology for the project. If you look around at other membrane oriented plants and technologies, you will see that the technology and facilities is well understood. This is just a matter of doing the initial prototype engineering and then working the scaling figures to see if it economical (i.e. at what point do you recoup your capital investment).

As a follow-on, check out this news report from DW. It has good footage of the prototype plant.

Other Reading:

• Energy From Sea Water? Consider IBM Intrigued

This model was a counter incentive to more solar installations in the the state. Home owner’s were not motivated to invest in site generated power (solar and wind) nor continue with maximized efficiencies to put more power into the grid. AB 920 changed this model. 2010/2011 are the transition years where the home owner gets paid at the year end “true-up” period (true-up allows for the averaging of the year’s power productions – compensating for day light hours and other seasonal impact).  Now a home owner will get paid for the excess power sent into the grid.  Feed-in tariffs are now real in California.

For those who are interested, I’ve transcribed the letter.

January 29, 2010

Subject: Assembly Bill 920 and Your New PG&E Net Energy Metering (NEM) Options

Dear Laina Greene:

PG&E would like to let you know about a Net Energy Metering (NEM) program enhancement that goes into effect this year. Late in 2009, Governor Schwarzenegger approved a new program feature (Assembly Bill 920 – Huffman – Solar and Wind Generation) that provides a new compensation option to your basic NEM program.

If you provide more energy to PG&E’s electric system (PG&E grid) than you receive on a 12 month basis, you will be identified as a “net generator.” As a result, you will have the ability to receive a once-per-year compensation for the excess electricity you supply to the PG&E grid. Starting in 2011, this compensation will be calculated at the time of your normally scheduled, annual true-up.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) still has to determine the details before the new enhancements to the NEM program are fully implemented. In the meantime, you will automatically be enrolled in the new program and the 12-month period that determines your eligibility for compensation will start on your regular 2010 true-up date. For example:

1. If you qualify as a net generator at the end of your 12 month true-up period starting in 2010 (and ending in 2011), you will qualify or compensation for your net excess electricity. PG&E will automatically notify you at that tie of your compensation options.
2. If you do not qualify as a net generator at the end of your 12 month true-up period, you will not be eligible for compensation for that period and there will be no change from the current NEM program. If you should become a net generator in a subsequent 12-month true-up, PG&E will then notify you of your compensation choices.

If you would like to move up the 2010 start date of your 12 month true-up period, you may elect to do so by providing the information requested below and submitting it to PG&E at

NEM Compensation Program

PC Box 770000

MC B12CSan Francisco, CA 94177

If you do not choose to move up your upcoming 2010 true-up date, PG&E will perform a true-up of your account once we receive your request. However, your surplus electricity, if you have any associated with the previous true-up period, will be zeroed out.

In summary, you do not need to take any action to be eligible for the new program, and PG&E will automatically notify you of your compensation options if you qualify as a net generator. You may want to periodically check for updates on the new features at our solar energy website (http://www.pge.com/solar), or feel free to call our Solar Customer Service Center at 1-877-743-4112.

We appreciate your ongoing business and will continue to inform you of any significant updates or changes to the NEM program as they occur.

Sincerely,

Felecia K Lokey

Senior Director

Customer Engagement

Pacific Gas and Electric Company

See Jeff’s full article (here):

• Assess Solar Powered Irrigation in Africa
• Solar-powered irrigation systems improve diet and income in rural sub-Saharan Africa, Stanford study finds
• Solar-powered irrigation systems improve diet and income in rural sub-Saharan Africa, FSE study finds

While this study was funded via a grant from the Environmental Venture Projects (EVP), its work is the type needed to provide data for all the Social Business Model efforts. It data help others figure out how to scale to other places around the world.

Governments are debating who should contribute to this Fund (main concept is that polluting countries should pay more to assist the developing world not pollute as they grow–that some technology transfer needs to happen).

Starting from the Kyoto Protocol where Parties developed the Clean Development Mechanism to assign carbon credits that developed countries could purchase by clean tech projects in emerging markets, there has been lots of movement to find ways to provide liquidity. These range from  private sector creating carbon trading markets to Multilateral Banking offering “accounts receivables” type  financing against these credits, but there is still clearly a huge funding gap.

In July 2008, the World Bank Board of Executive Directors created the Climate Investment Funds (CIF) and by September 2008 donor pledged over $6.1 billion. These funds will be managed by the World Bank and the Regional Development Banks, i.e African Development Bank, European Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. The initial study report from the World Bank, which focuses on the first objective, finds that the cost between 2010 and 2050 of adapting to an approximately 2°C warmer world by 2050 is in the range of $75 billion to $100 billion a year.

Yesterday a Multilateral Development Bank workshop was held over at the National Opera House to discuss these various funds and inputs for moving forward. Denmark announced that they will input an additional $240M over and above what they have given. In particular at the end of the day, a discussion around the  Clean Technology Fund  with clearer guidelines and parameters of spending was discussed. The key focus of the Clean Technology Fund is scaling projects around power, energy efficiency and transport.

4 main projects in the various regions including a concentrated solar power plant in Africa were discussed. Many frank input was given as to what works and does not work.One delegate was curious why Africa with water issues was chosen for a solar thermal project that requires massive amounts of water.Meanwhile, other projects they discussed had made attempts to involve small and medium enterprises, enabling co-generation instead of just centralised power systems and one even set up a :foundation” of local community players to enable and empower the community around the projects.

The overall theme however was very old school and idea was to adopt centralized large scale government projects for power generation. Yet throughout the day, there was a vision to ensure the impoverished and marginalized people benefitted as well. This to me is a hard balance to make especially if it comes from traditional bankers.

Whilst I agree that there is a real need for scaling large projects to produce huge amounts of electricity to replace the current carbon intensive ones, I also feel the fact that there is equally a place for co-generation in a distributed model. I was happy to hear the bank  does support grassroots movements such as that of the 2004 Nobel Peace Price Laureate, Prof Wangari Maatahi of the Green Belt Movement, I would like to see the Bank do more not just for grassrooots deforestation efforts, but also to support distributed models of rural electrification such as the Grameen Shakti project. Grameen Shakti through the local women installs about 10,000 solar homes a month and have installed 250,000 to date–these are the kind of projects that could scale faster in the emerging world without the need to build huge power plants and distribution lines. It also puts the power and money back into the people who need it most. Besides this project employs and empowers women in the process too.

I also suggested that they look at co-generation in areas such as telecommunication where it makes good business sense to move away from diesel. There are currently 22 million tonnes of carbon from mobile telephony running on diesel, and countries like India use more than 2 billion litres of diesel today. At the same time with zero carbon solutions like VNL and ApnaNet, and very low costs of maintenance and implementation, there are clear opportunities for a low hanging fruit project in the emerging markets which can really scale and benefit the people directly. It is expected over the next 10 years that another 30 Million tonnes will be added to meet the growing needs of telecommunications alone (India has 15 million new users, China has 10 million new users)—there is an opportunity to use the pent up demand for communications and their need to charge mobile phones to explore funding and scaling rural electrification (after all 1.6 billion people today do not have access to electricity).Since from the operater’s perspective, 30-70% of their operating expenditure is energy, they often get return of investment within 6months to a year-this should sound like music to a banker’s ears===great opportunity to fund the greening of the ICT sector (includes energy efficiency of data centres but looking beyond energy efficiency has greater potential). Having funding available from the World Bank and having carbon credits allocated to their efforts, will definitely help mobilise the whole industry to come on board. Right now, we only have few pioneers such as Safarikom, Telefonica, Google, etc.and we need to sweeten the deal for more to follow (helps them also break from the equipment financing lockin they are facing from their vendors not allowing them to change).

So Clean Tech Funds, outside the VC and angel funding exists. Of course these process are more complicated but it nevertheless exists for both private sector and governments. Although for now, Bank financing still appears traditional for project financing or accounts receivable financing i.e ways to minimize their own risk but the staffers look very committed to do their part for Climate Change Mitigation, development, gender empowerment, poverty reduction and so there is hope. In any case, the banks attemptto ensure liquidity especially through the Clean Technology Fund is commendable. It still does appear that the kind of projects the Geeks Without Frontiers is envisaging–bridging the digital divide sustainably and empower the poor out of the poverty line, may still fall outside the purview of VCs, angels, Foundation, microfinance, and Banks etc. We are still thus committed to raising Unity Capital to fill this grassroots financing gap and do hope to find “enlightened” MDBs that are ready to collaborate.

Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change Study Overview

Press Release

Consultation Draft

Executive Summary

Presentation

web cast

The Clean Technology Fund includes programs in:

Power Sector: Renewable energy and highly efficient technologies to reduce carbon intensity;

Transport Sector: Efficiency and modal shifts; and in

Energy Efficiency: Buildings, industry and agriculture.

To learn more about the CTF click on any of the following links:

• Key Documents
• CTF Meetings
• CTF Joint Missions
• CTF Investment Plans
• CTF Proposed Decisions by Mail
• Project Proposals

Review, Overview, & Crtique

climatefundsupdate.org provides a detailed outline, process, and links to how Clean Technology Fund operates.

Friends of the Earth have a couple of reports which outline their opposition to the World Bank’s CTF:

• Why the World Bank Climate Investment Funds Should be Stopped A FoEI Briefing, June 2008
• Poznan Declaration: World vs. Bank December 9, 2008

Articles and References

World Bank Clean Technology Fund Would Be Cash Cow for Coal (April 9, 2008)

World Bank funds solar projects (December 10, 2009)

Thailand Seeks Clean Technology Fund’s Support for Its Low-Carbon Growth Strategy

U.S. Contributions to a World Bank Administered Clean Technology Fund (June 5, 2008)

Is the Clean Technology Fund benefiting the poor or simply satisfying the energy needs of the rich? (30 June 2009)

World Bank: Clean technology fund investment plan for Mexico (May 5, 2009)

Morocco to receive $150 million for energy transformation (November 5, 2009)

Over $5.5 billion in New Investment for Clean Energy Technology in the Middle East and North Africa Region (December 9, 2009)

Asia Development Bank Clean Technology Fund

Multilateral lenders endorse P250M for Clean Technology Fund to Philippines DOE (December 6, 2009)

Kseniya Lvovsky Talks about the World Bank’s Efforts to Combat Climate Change (December 1, 2009)

That last part is “heavy.”

Like all World Bank projects, you need to did for the agendas driving change. In this case it is right in the press release ….

The transformational objective of this investment plan is served by accelerating cost reduction for a technology that could become least-cost globally, and then be replicated in other countries with high GHG emissions.

I’m not sure what this means. Go north to Spain and you have several seasoned CSP companies which already know how to be “least-cost globally.” These CSP companies are here in California setting up shop. Granted, CSP CAPEX and OPEX can be better, but that will come with time. What would be surprising is if CFP contracts are awarded to some of the new start-ups which are not from US, Europe, or China.

Still, this $750 million should contribute to the projected growth. As seen below, Emerging Energy Research did not project a huge growth for North Africa. Perhaps this investment would help change this projection.