AI for Energy, Japan's solar Auction, Spain's Hydrogen Scheme
US cancels offshore wind auction, France launches hydrogen scheme, Robotic sprayer for agricultural fields, Building performance standards in the US
In this newsletter
Clean Energy Economics
AI for Energy
News from Governments
Top stories
Clean Energy Economics
JPY 4.5 ($0.029)/kWh - lowest price at which 93MW of utility-scale solar projects were awarded in the latest auction in Japan pv magazine
The US has canceled its 2nd competitive lease sale, launched in March 2024, for offshore wind power in the Gulf of Mexico due to lack of participation - only one company expressed interest. In the first lease sale in August 2023, one lease was awarded to RWE. Press Release
AI for Energy
A recent report from the US Department of Energy and National Nuclear Security Administration discusses the role AI can play in the energy sector. Here are some potential applications:
power plant design and licensing
grid management - optimizing generation and demand-side needs
automating the monitoring, control and maintenance of power plants
fully autonomous operation, such as for micro-reactors
siting of new energy deployments
hazard response e.g. flood control
predictions of subsurface resources - critical minerals, geothermal reservoirs, uranium deposits, water
automation in materials laboratories - for materials discovery, testing, commercial production
reducing emissions - create a subsurface digital twin for identifying carbon storage sites; tools for emissions prediction, measurement mitigation; use AI for better sensor design and data collection;
Here’s a detailed look at how AI can help scale nuclear energy.
AI for Nuclear Energy
Nuclear power is in great demand, but has a tedious and expensive permitting and regulatory process in the US.
the most recent approval of a NuScale US600 Small Modular Reactor, with a rated thermal output of 160 MWt and electrical output of 50 MWe, was received after 8 years of pre-application engagement and a subsequent 6 years of a formal review of the application. The company had to invest more than $500 million and 2 million labor-hours to prepare its licensing application, which encompassed a staggering 12,000 pages, 14 separate topical reports, and more than 2 million pages of supporting documentation for U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) audits
AI in nuclear can help in expediting the licensing and regulatory process, accelerating construction and deployment, and allowing semi- or complete autonomous operation.
Nuclear energy-specific AI models can be developed that combine historical operational data, knowledge of scientific principles and different engineering disciplines involved, and sensor data to give more suitable models than current commercial-use LLMs. Specifically AI can be used to - aid technical review by acting as subject matter experts on new technologies, connect concepts from different disciplines, aid creation of documents for applications and review by regulators, identify risks from historical data, for information retrieval, and even for helping identify gaps in regulations and improving them.
It can also used for maintenance and operations on site and managing scheduling of different power plants as per grid needs.
AI can monitor equipment performance continuously, predict potential malfunctions, and conduct maintenance before failures occur, improving plant reliability and safety. AI can be used to optimize nuclear power systems and plant operations, reducing downtime, improving efficiency, and increasing the safety and reliability of the plant. AI can also analyze large amounts of sensor data and other plant data to identify patterns, trends, and anomalies that signal potential problems or maintenance needs so they may be corrected before an outage or failure occurs
Any AI models used for nuclear power plants must address issues of cybersecurity, physical security and operational security. Anyone working on these applications must consider
reliability of AI models - to base decisions on real data, and not ‘hallucinate’
zero failure - where used for autonomous operation of nuclear and other systems, there is no tolerance for failure
low power consumption so that these can be deployed on-site
well-tested against vulnerabilities such as attacks by adversarial AIs
how much training data is sufficient, also how to assess data quality, and AI tools for cleaning the data
AI for Energy - Report on Winter 2023 Workshops, April 2024 (PDF)
News from Governments
The European Union has launched the “Restore Our Ocean and Waters” initiative for restoring marine habitats, managing river sedimentation, controlling emissions from fishing boats and helping repurpose aging/unusued offshore infrastructure. The project will setup Lighthouses at 4 key locations to serve as hubs, and use a Digital Twin of the ocean - a high-resolution model including physical, chemical, biological, socio-ecological data that will be able to “replicate the properties and behaviours of marine systems”. Digital twins are useful for analysing the impact of different climate change scenarios, and understanding which human interventions can be helpful. Innovation News | EU - Restore Our Oceans and Waters
The Netherlands is introducing a €998 million scheme to support setting up at least 200 MW of electrolysis capacity for making green hydrogen.
The aid will take the form of a direct grant combining an upfront investment grant up to 80% of the investment costs and a variable premium over a period of 5 to 10 years.
Spain is launching a €1.2 billion scheme to scale installed capacity for producing green hydrogen to at least 100 MW. Direct grants will be made to help cover investment costs of projects in 3 areas -
making renewable hydrogen-derived fuels (such as methane)
renewable hydrogen storage
renewable electricity
India has declined to accept EU’s proposal for a carbon tax on imports of carbon-intensive goods such as steel, aluminium, cement, under the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). ET Energy
Egypt recently launched the Future of Egypt project that aims to convert 16800 km² of desert into agricultural land, using treated wastewater, groundwater, and an ‘artificial river’ for irrigation. An industrial zone for food production will also be setup. The National (May, 2024) | Future of Egypt Project
Top Stories
New Zealand’s gross greenhouse gas emissions in 2022 fell to the 1999 level, as reported in the country’s first ever emissions reduction monitoring report. The largest drop was in energy and industry, aided by increase in hydropower generation and closure of a petroleum refinery. Press Release | Monitoring Report - Emissions Reduction, July 2024 (PDF)
After Shell recently announced a pause on construction of its Sustainable Aviation Fuel project in The Netherlands, BP is now “scaling back plans for new biofuels projects.” Press Release
An increasing number of cities in the US are introducing Building Performance Standards that set specific targets for energy use and emissions reductions. Thirteen cities, including Boston, Seattle and New York, have already introduced these, covering about 25% of buildings in the US, as per JLL. The limits set by these standards become more strict over time, and there are severe fines for violations.
Under Boston’s BERDO, buildings greater than 35,000 s.f. that do not meet emissions standards face a penalty of US$1,000 per day beginning in 2025, while smaller buildings (20,000 s.f. – 34,999 s.f.) will face a US$300 per day penalty for non-compliance starting in 2030.
Though these penalties appear high, at the current cost of retrofits, building owners are more likely to pay the penalty than spend on emissions reduction.
Utility Dive | JLL (recommended)
CRAFT is a $100 million fund, launched by the Green Climate Fund, to support agri-tech innovation in 6 areas - agricultural analytics, water harvesting and irrigation, food systems, geospatial mapping and imaging, catastrophe risk modeling, supply chain analytics. One of the beneficiaries of the fund is Brazil-based Solinftec that has developed a solar-powered, autonomous robotic sprayer that can distinguish between crops and weeds, attract and kill pests using electric current, and monitor the development of plants.
Egypt’s voluntary carbon market, AFRICARBONex, is now operational.
Quick read from RMI on using Ammonia as a fuel
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I’m the maker of SummaryWithAI.com. You can find me on Twitter and LinkedIn. I also blog sometimes on Floating Coordinates.
