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Wind and solar incorporated into the traditional fossil fuel strategy

BY JOE TYRRELL

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

New technologies, new policies and new media can pose challenges for even the largest corporations.

At a presentation aimed at "bloggers," officials of Public Service Enterprise Group gave upbeat, and at times impassioned, sales pitches for the company's alternative energy projects and proposals, from solar to wind to energy efficiency.

But the speakers were competing with the blaring hockey pre-game program at the Prudential Center in Newark as the New Jersey Devils prepared to take on the New York Rangers.

Huddling around was a loosely defined group representing state, national and local media of all sorts, including some apparently drawn as much by the chance to watch a game from the corporate box as by any nuances of energy policy.

The message that company officials were trying to impart was one highlighting the growing importance of renewable energy sources — not to mention good goaltending.

"There's such an opportunity here" for clean energy and jobs, said Randall Mehrberg, executive vice president for policy and strategy. "When you look at where our oil comes from, why wouldn't we be interested in renewable energy in America?"

Unlike more polluting forms of energy, "I think people love solar... people want solar," he said.

Al Matos, vice president for renewables and energy solutions, said the company is investing $1 billion over two years in a variety of New Jersey initiatives. They include working with communities and school districts, especially in urban enterprise zones in Newark and elsewhere, he said.

Another program would provide automatic cycling switches to customers who request them for their air conditioners, so they turn on and off every 15 minutes during peak demand times, he said.

Yet another would attach solar panels to many utility poles of the company's PSE&G subsidiary. That could yield about 12 megawatts of electricity while providing visible, local demonstrations of the technology, Matos said.

To meet the green goals of the state's energy master plan, though, "offshore wind has to be an integral part," said Scott Jennings. As a vice president of the company's joint venture with Deepwater Wind, he might be expected to say that.

But the firms estimate their proposed field of wind turbines 16 to 20 miles off South Jersey could generate 350 megawatts. That is still insufficient in a state whose energy master plan estimates electricity consumption in 2020 will be 97,800 gigawatt hours.

(A gigawatt equals a billion watts or 1,000 megawatts. A gigawatt hour is the amount of energy generated in an hour by a one gigwatt power source.)

If other offshore turbine fields are established, though, their combined power could play a significant role in meeting future energy demand, Jennings said. One crucial advantage is proximity to customers, he said.

"It's very different than building a wind farm in Iowa and having to build a 1,000-mile transmission line" to the Northeast, he said.

Under current federal regulations, though, Jennings projected a seven-to-nine timeline, which would minimize offshore wind's contribution to meeting the state's energy goals.

The latest analysis by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and its consultant AWS Truewind estimated wind power technology could produce 37 million gigawatts of energy nationally per year.

But the agency's forecast for New Jersey remains: not much on shore, except for the narrow strip of barrier islands and adjacent coast from Sandy Hook to Cape May and along the Delaware Bay.

The balkanized American power market, where policies vary from state to state or even town to town, makes it hard to implement new technologies on sufficient scale. But Diana Drysdale's includes finding business outside the corporation's utility service area.

In New Jersey, that means the 18-acre "solar garden" that came on-line late last year at Mars Chocolate North America in Hackettstown. Some 28,000 solar panels generate up to 2 megawatts of electricity, meeting one-fifth of the factory's needs.

But as vice president of the company's Solar Source subsidiary, Drysdale also has a 12 megawatt project under way on 90 acres in Ohio, and a 100-acre 15 MW venture with a 30-year contract with Jacksonville, Fla. Together, the facilities represent an investment of about $110 million.

Fields of solar arrays are land intensive, another potential obstacle in a small, densely developed place like New Jersey. But Mehrberg said they have become an attraction in Wyandot County, "people go out to see the solar panels."

The Not in My Backyard "factor with solar is very, very low," Drysdale said of the array fields. They are unobtrusive, quiet and often are sited on former farmland or Superfund sites, so there is no need here for the more concentrated solar towers being built in Spain and elsewhere, she said.

But there is still the tricky matter of geography. A field with the same number of panels "is going to be twice as efficient in Arizona as in New Jersey, for the same price or less," Drysdale said.

So far, though, Solar Source has gone where the policy outlook is clearer. Ohio and Jacksonville are among several areas around the nation that were seeking alternative energy projects, Drysdale said. As more solar power comes on line around the country, the price should creep steadily closer to conventional fossil fuels, she added.

"I do believe we're going to see the so-called (price) parity in four to five years," she said.

Solar technology is gradually getting more efficient, and Mehrberg said a breakthrough is unnecessary.

"Think about the Model T," he said. "What Henry Ford achieved with assembly line was economies of scale, and that is where we are today in the solar industry... we don't need a next step" in technology, "we need the assembly line."

But that's another challenge in a fractious political climate, in a country heavily invested in domestic coal and foreign oil, and seemingly at a loss for anything resembling an energy policy.

Despite the varying effects on their component companies, PSEG officials are still pushing for a "cap and trade" system. This would put limits on large-scale emitters of greenhouse gases, but would create a market where companies or plants that came in less than their caps could sell credits to those who emit more.

The idea arose as the pro-business alternative to imposing stringent taxes or fines or high-polluting industries. But it would strengthen the hand of nuclear power and green energy companies at the expense of coal and oil companies. As a result, Republicans and conservative Democrats in Washington have stymied it.

Despite this, PSEG officials remain hopeful cap-and-trade will survive and a policy will emerge. The Obama Administration is making sincere efforts to spur renewable energy, Mehrberg said. Like other officials, he stressed a national policy would help guide businesses in their long-term capital planning, regardless of what types of projects the policy favors.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency "is trying to cooperate by making clear that they're going to enforce the (air pollution) regulations," Mehrberg noted, although the same Congressional mix of coal-and-oil advocates have responded by trying to water down the Clean Air Act.

Of course, press conferences do not happen in vacuums, even at hockey games. In Jersey, the PSEG came hard on the heels of Gov. Chris Christie's decision to cut $158 million from the state Clean Energy Fund.

For PSEG, the green theme offered a timely counterpoint to the frequently negative publicity generated by the Susquehanna-Roseland transmission line to be installed across Pennsylvania and New Jersey by their PSE&G subsidiary.

Approved last month by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, the roughly $1 billion project has critics who point to it as an example of bringing in more polluting energy from fossil fuel plants into the state market.

PSEG is spending $1.3 billion on upgrades to its coal plants to make them as clean as possible, Mehrberg noted, though acknowledging, "there is no technology today that's applied on a large scale to prevent greenhouse gases."

Joe Tyrrell may be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it