Gregoire's CleanTech Blog

Une autre série de commentaires sur la conf. de CleanTech Venture Network

Coming out of last week's Cleantech Venture Forum, it's pretty clear that cleantech (and relatedly energy tech, which is not a 100% overlap, as regular readers of this site will understand) is fast becoming a mainstream investment area for VCs, in part driven by LPs' interest.

In terms of energy technology investing, Rodrigo Prudencio of Nth Power was kind enough recently to share some of the data that his firm is tracking. As part of a recent presentation he gave at Rice University, Rodrigo showed how US energy technology VC investments are at $1.7B so far in 2006 -- compare this with $0.9B for all of 2005, or with the $500mm expected this year in VC investments in Web2.0.

That the energy technology sector (and cleantech in general) is a booming investment area is well understood, but what was really fascinating was Rodrigo's breakdown of the numbers by subsector, which showed that some subsectors are getting a lot more investor interest than others.

Within Distributed Energy Technology, for example (btw, this subsector was 28% of the total), investments in fuel cells and solar dominated the subsector, while other technology areas such as new engine technologies and hydrogen generation were small or nonexistent in the data. This means that solar tech has received more than 10% of all energy technology VC investments so far this year. Interestingly, while investments in fuel cell technology have been generally flat or dropping over the past year, battery-related investments have been growing very quickly. For those who argue that batteries and fuel cells are competing technologies, this is interesting data.

Even more interestingly, in the Fuels subsector, ethanol-related VC investments have received more than $400mm, or just about one quarter of all energy tech investments. Some (including yours truly) would argue that much of this hasn't really been venture capital investment, but has instead been project finance and/or mezz financing that happened to include VCs in the mix. But the more important comparison is with other fuels-related investment areas -- biodiesel, fuels-related biotech, and new drive train technologies have collectively received less than $100mm so far this year. Such investments clearly are not receiving the same level of attention in the rush to invest in ethanol-related opportunities.

Encouraging to those who have been proponents of technology-enabled energy efficiency technology is the fact that 21% of energy tech investments this year were directed to Energy Intelligence, and of that, the vast majority has been directed to IT & software, end-use management, and sensors. This is good validation that such scalable technologies are primed for rapid market adoption -- or at least that investors think so. Such investments have more than doubled over the past two years.

Thanks to Rodrigo for sharing this very interesting look. As Rodrigo points out, there's a lot of deals concentration in certain technologies, and "the opportunity is to find neglected but valuable subsectors." Amen, and especially true for those investors with a broader cleantech mandate as well.

And it's all strong validation of the increasing interest in these industries, and in the cleantech investment thesis in general. Further such indications can be found in this article in PE Week, which points out that a lot of former IT/etc. venture investors are now looking to expand their efforts in the sector. Oftentimes because LPs are asking for it to happen. 

Source : CleanTech Investing

Le compte-rendu d'Expansion Capital sur le dernier forum de CleanTech Venture Network

I had the pleasure of spending the second half of last week at the 14th Cleantech Venture Forum in New York. The group continues to do a terrific job and there was notable excitement among the participants (disclosure: Expansion Capital Partners is an investor in the Cleantech Venture Network).

If I were to summarize the conference in a few sentences, they would be:

• Cleantech as an investment thesis and asset allocation is now mainstream. Some institutions are still skeptical, but they're becoming rare.
• More money is coming into the space, but the quality of dealflow being tracked still exceeds this nicely.

When I think hard about it, I could have said the same thing after the previous CTVF in San Francisco. But since the east coast events tend to focus more on the capital markets (i.e. Wall Street) and policy, vs. venture capital on the west coast, we heard from more folks outside the investment community this time. So the change felt more apparent.

Notable appearances included (in no particular order):

• Andy Rueben (Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Sustainability, Wal-Mart)
• Vinod Khosla (Khosla Ventures)
• Andy Karsner (Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy)
• Vijay Vaitheeswaran (the Economist)
• Kevin Walsh (MD, Renewable Energy, GE Energy Financial Services)
• Joseph Boren and Win Neuger, both from AIG (Joseph from AIG environmental and Win is the CIO of the parent company)
• Several journalists from major publications and news sources were either covering the conference or on the panel (see agenda)

Most panels seemed well received by the participants, and while I did not have a chance to participate in many of them (as I, like most participants, was in and out of meetings -- networking is always a key benefit of these events), I did sit in on the Vinod, Andy, Vijay fireside chat as well as parts of the bio-fuels panel, to note two.

And conveniently, both sessions covered the same topic: Biofuels (ethanol).
Not too many new thoughts for regular readers of this blog came out of this, but here’s a quick summary of what was discussed in the sessions:

- Ethanol is currently replacing MTBE as a fuel additive; this alone will likely put demand above 7.5B gallons by 2012.

- There is some debate around the energy and environmental balance in ethanol produced using current technologies; there is really no debate around the energy or environmental balance of cellulosic ethanol. Hence interest in earlier stage cellulosic ethanol technologies.

- Still early days for cellulosic ethanol; the cost still needs to come down significantly.

The gamble appears to be whether or not ethanol is adopted more widely than as simply an additive (i.e. E85 – 85% ethanol, 15% gasoline). This is what Khosla believes should happen and is pushing very hard for. He argues for three things:

• Mandate that 70% of all new cars be “flex-fuel” by 2014
• Mandate that 10% of gas stations owned by major oil co’s offer E85 in the same time frame
• Reduce current subsidy of ethanol to $0.25/gallon, but increase it to $0.75/gallon if oil drops to $25/barrel

He also noted that we should have a good indication of where policies regarding this are headed, since all candidates for the ’08 election have to go through the Iowa primaries. And Iowans care a lot about ethanol.

Andy Karsner was expectedly non-committal beyond what we already know through the recent energy bill.

But it should also be noted that if one takes current projections, some argue that there is already enough capacity in place and under construction to meet the projected demand. So not everyone is excited about jumping on new investment opportunities with Biofuels or Ethanol noted in the company name…

Noteworthy was also Andy Rueben’s presentation during the gala dinner, where he practically pleaded with the audience to share our knowledge about products that can help Wal-Mart save money (I.e. better/cheaper/more durable lighting; better/cheaper/more effective indoor control; smaller/more economical packaging etc). Considering the audience generally views Wal-Mart as a strong potential customer for their portfolio companies, my guess is someone will give him a ring…

I also found the quality of presenting companies to be significantly higher than in previous years, another sign of the maturing investment sector. And in keeping with the above commentary, the winner of the most promising presenter award was Targeted Growth – a Biofuels company.

Source : Cleantech Investing

Hope to see everyone at the next CTVF in San Francisco, at the end of February.

Les gagnants du California Clean Tech Open

Five California cleantech startups won seed funding Tuesday as part of the inaugural California Clean Tech Open, a business competition with the largest prize in the United States.

The companies—KiteShip, Adura Technologies, GreenVolts, EDC Technologies, and Crystal Clear Technologies—each won $50,000 in cash and more than $50,000 in services, including one year of free legal and accounting services, public relations consulting, executive search services, and office space—bringing the total value of the prizes awarded to more than $500,000.

The competition “is legitimizing this little area of cleantech as an investment category,” said Zach Gentry, CEO of Berkeley, California-based Adura Technologies.

It’s also good for the state and for the environment, he said. “Every light you turn off, it’s a pound of carbon dioxide, and if everyone does that, that’s power plants that don’t have to be built,” he said. “The value to California is large, and the value to individuals in the state is tremendous.”

The Winners

KiteShip, of Palo Alto, California, makes a wind power system for ships, reducing the cost of fuel—the No. 1 expense for ship owners. Ships use 10 percent of the world’s transportation fuel, but produce 50 times as much sulfur dioxide as all the other transportation combined because they use bottom-of-the-barrel bunker fuel, said KiteShip CEO Jeremy Walker.

KiteShip tethers large helium-filled sails to the ships, which use wind to reduce throttle—and energy costs—by 20 to 30 percent without reducing speed, Mr. Walker said. He added that 77 private sailboat customers are using KiteShip’s product now, and the company plans to launch its first commercial product next year.

Adura uses various sensors, wireless technology, and its software to turn off lights that are unnecessary or not being used. The company’s wireless sensor network could dramatically cut energy costs in commercial buildings without requiring the buildings to be rewired; a costly process, Mr. Gentry said, adding that the system can be installed in five minutes per fixture.

“Commercial buildings represent a third of our power consumption in the state, and lighting represents 35 to 45 percent of that load,” he said. “A great part of the buildings are unoccupied and not using the light.”

GreenVolts, based in Berkeley, California, says it can lower the cost of rooftop solar-electric systems by 50 percent by using mirrors to concentrate sunlight into smaller solar cells. CEO Bob Cart says the company can concentrate sunlight at higher levels than its competitors, and also has a much more effective tracking system to follow the sun.

EDC Technologies, based in Ladera Ranch, California, says it can cut natural gas costs in hotels and apartment buildings by 15 to 30 percent with its energy efficiency system, which includes hardware, software, communications equipment, and services. Customers pay nothing up front, but agree to a monthly fee far less than the amount of energy savings they see, said Jim Seidel, vice president.

Owners and managers can monitor the energy costs online to see the savings, and will also be alerted if any energy equipment is not working properly, he said.

Crystal Clear Technologies, based in Portland, Oregon, has a nanocoating technology that can purify water at low cost. According to President Lisa Farmen, Crystal’s technology can purify enough water for one person for a year for materials costing only $1. “With this money, we can not only develop this technology, but get it to the people who need it,” she said in her acceptance speech.

The startup can put the nanocoating on a number of low-cost substrates, including sand, Ms. Farmen said. The nanocoating removes all water-borne pathogens and chemicals from the water in about five seconds without using electricity, she said. It also clumps the metals together so they can be recovered and not sent to a landfill, she said.

“Water treatment technology is so good, so why does two-thirds of the world not have it?” she asked. “One word and it starts with ‘m’—money. The big thing is we’ve done it for low cost.”

The Competition

The point of the competition was to raise more interest in cleantech and to get five cleantech businesses off the ground, said Michael Santullo, co-chair of the California Clean Tech Open (see Green Contest to Seed Startups).

Organizers originally intended to offer a $100,000 grand prize to the top company, but later decided to award all the winners equally.

Entrepreneurs submitted some 200 business plans in five categories: energy efficiency, renewable energy, smart power, transportation, and water management. The competition was judged by a group of venture capitalists, cleantech executives, and professors.

At the event Tuesday, Vinod Khosla, head of Khosla Ventures, said clean-energy technologies could help solve the climate crisis, energy crisis, pollution crisis, and terrorism crisis. And now, every university is working on those technologies, he said.

“Not only did we get 200 business plans for the Clean Tech Open, which we wouldn’t have gotten three or four years ago, but we also got the best brains,” he said. “I am confident once we get the best brains working on these problems, that we will solve them.”

Source : Red Herring

Un excellent article sur l'éolien en Inde et en Chine : Suzlon,...

Dilip Pantosh Patil uses an ox-drawn wooden plow to till the same land as his father, grandfather and great-grandfather. But now he has a new neighbor: a shiny white wind turbine taller than a 20-story building, generating electricity at the edge of his bean field.

Wind power may still have an image as something of a plaything of environmentalists more concerned with clean energy than saving money. But it is quickly emerging as a serious alternative not just in affluent areas of the world but in fast-growing, energy-starved countries like India and China. And leading the charge here in west-central India and elsewhere is an unlikely champion, Suzlon Energy, a homegrown Indian company.

Suzlon dominates the Indian market and is expanding rapidly abroad, having just erected factories in locations as far away as Pipestone, Minnesota, and Tianjin, China. Four- fifths of Suzlon's soaring order book now comes from outside India.

Not even on the list of the world's top 10 wind turbine manufacturers as recently as 2002, Suzlon passed Siemens of Germany last year to become the fifth-largest producer in terms of installed megawatts of capacity. Suzlon still trails the market leader, Vestas of Denmark, as well as General Electric of the United States, Entercon of Germany and Gamesa of Spain.

Suzlon's past shows how a company can prosper by tackling the special needs of a developing country. Suzlon's present suggests a way of serving expanding energy needs without relying quite so much on coal, the fastest-growing fossil fuel right now but also the most polluting. And Suzlon's future is likely to be a case study of how a manufacturer copes with China, both in capturing sales there and in confronting competition from Chinese companies.

The company is a product in many ways of India's dysfunctional power distribution system. Electricity boards owned by state governments charge more than twice as much per kilowatt-hour for industrial users as in the United States - and still suffer blackouts almost every day, especially in northern India.

Subject to political pressures, the boards are often slow to collect payments from residential consumers and well-connected businesses, especially before elections. As a result, they often lack the money to invest in new equipment.

To stay open and prevent crucial industrial or computer processes from stopping, everyone from auto parts factories to outsourcing giants in India relies on even more costly diesel generators.

With natural gas prices climbing as well, wind turbines have become attractive to a wide range of businesses in India. Essar Group of Mumbai, a big industrial conglomerate active in shipping, steel and construction, is working on plans for a wind farm near Chennai, formerly Madras, after concluding that regulatory changes in India have made it financially attractive.

"The mechanisms didn't used to be there; now they are," said Jose Numpeli, vice president for operations at Essar Power. The electricity boards, he said, "know how to cost it, they know how to pay for it."

Wind will remain competitive as long as oil stays above $40 a barrel, said Tulsi Tanti, Suzlon's chairman and managing director; the price has recently dropped to around $60 a barrel. Below $40 a barrel, wind energy may require subsidies to remain cost-effective, or possibly environment-based taxes on oil and other fossil fuels.

Tanti and his three younger brothers were running a textile business in Gujarat in northwestern India when they purchased a German wind turbine, only to find they could not keep it running. So they decided to build and maintain wind turbines themselves, starting Suzlon in 1995 and later leaving the textile business.

To minimize land costs, wind farms are typically in rural areas, chosen for the strength of their winds as well as low land prices. That can cause culture shock.

"There were no big changes until the turbines came," Patil said, pausing from plowing here with his father in this remote, tribal area of central India where oxen remain at the center of farm life and motorized vehicles are uncommon.

The new Suzlon Energy wind farm here in Khori is a subject of national pride. More than 300 giant wind turbines, with 33-meter, or 110-foot, blades, generate electricity from the air. But it has also struggled with the sporadic lawlessness that has long bedeviled India.

S. Mohammed Farook, the installation manager, was far from happy on a recent afternoon. At least 63 new turbines, worth $1.3 million apiece and each capable of lighting several thousand homes when the wind blows, could not be put into service because thieves had stolen their copper power cables and aluminum service ladders for sale as scrap.

The copper or aluminum fetches as little as $1 from black market scrap dealers. But each repair costs thousands of dollars in parts and staff time, in a country that is desperately short of electricity and technicians alike.

"I am crying inside," Farook said.

Despite such problems, Suzlon has expanded rapidly as global demand for wind energy has taken off. Suzlon's sales and earnings tripled in the quarter through June 30, as the company earned the equivalent of $41.6 million on sales of $202.4 million.

Demand for wind turbines has particularly accelerated in India, where installations rose nearly 48 percent last year, and in China, where installations climbed 65 percent last year, although from a lower base.

Coal is the main alternative in India and China, and it is causing acid rain and respiratory ailments while contributing to global warming. China accounted for 79 percent of the world's growth in coal consumption last year while India represented another 7 percent, according to BP statistics.

China has imposed a requirement that power companies generate a fifth of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. China's target calls for expanding wind power almost as much as nuclear energy over the next 15 years.

India already leads China in wind power and is quickly building more wind turbines.

Chinese and Indian officials are optimistic about relying much more heavily on wind.

"I believe we may break through these targets - if not, we should at least have no problem reaching them," said Zhang Yuan, vice general manager of China Longyuan Electric Power Group, the renewable energy arm of one of China's five state-owned electric utilities, China Guodian.

Kamal Nath, India's minister of commerce and industry, was even more enthusiastic.

"India is ideally suited for wind energy," he said. "The cost of it works well, and we have the manufacturing capability."

Source : NY Times

VRB Power : Technologie de stockage pour l'éolien

VRB Power's sale last month of a flow battery system to Irish wind developer Tapbury Management Ltd. was a major coup for the company. The $6.3 million "Redox" system will provide 12 megawatt-hours of electricity storage for Tapbury's wind farm, allowing it to "firm up" energy produced from the farm. Now, Tapbury and Sustainable Energy Ireland (a government authority in charge of sustainable energy development in Ireland) are jointly funding a study to "ascertain and quantify the full potential economic benefits of coupling Vanadium Redox Batteries with wind farms in Ireland."

The study is expected to be completed by end of October, 2006 and will be used to determine the economic potential for battery storage operating in the forthcoming Single Electricity Market in Ireland. With over 3,000MW of wind energy in the application process in Ireland, there are estimates that there could be a need for in excess of 700MW of storage in Ireland to enable the successful roll out of its most abundant natural resource.

Positive results from this study could add further momentum to VRB's business prospects in Ireland and throughout Europe. I'm surprise there's not an Irish company called Shamrock Wind Power, given that the clover is green, has three leaves (a turbine has three blades) and it's a symbol of the Irish.

Source : CleanBreak

BioLogio : le Fraunhofer travaille sur les questions de logistique liée à la biomasse

Ces dernières années en Allemagne, le marché de l'énergie issue de la biomasse s'est développé pour atteindre un niveau économique significatif. Néanmoins, la logistique liée à l'utilisation du bois comme combustible n'est pas encore optimale. C'est pourquoi l'institut Fraunhofer IML souhaite répondre à ces questions de logistique dans le cadre du projet "BioLogio - Développement et mise en place

2d3d.gis développe "covoiturage 17", le service de covoiturage mis en place à la Rochelle

Réduire les émissions de gaz à effet de serre. Contribuer à limiter l'impact de l'activité humaine sur le changement climatique annoncé. Laisser les villes respirer. Ne pas plomber son budget avec des factures de carburant toujours plus élevées. Pour toutes ces bonnes raisons, il est plus que temps de repenser nos usages en termes de transports ! Les trois communautés d'agglomérations de La Rochelle, de Rochefort et de La Plaine d'Aunis ont fédéré leurs moyens et leurs énergies pour créer un service communautaire de covoiturage. Suite à l'appel d'offre des collectivités, c'est Écolutis, opérateur de covoiturage installé à Fouras qui est en charge de cette mission.

Dans le cadre de sa mission de service intercommunautaire, Écolutis a développé un outil de gestion adapté aux besoins des agglomérations. La nouvelle version du site covoiturage 17 est notamment dotée d'un système de cartographie. Ce service en ligne à la mesure du territoire a été réalisé en partenariat avec 2d3d.gis, une entreprise de La Rochelle spécialisés dans le développement de S.I.G, les systèmes d'information géographique.
En plus de la plate-forme internet, outil de mise en relation des offres et des demandes, Écolutis gère le service au quotidien. Inscription en ligne et également par téléphone, vérification des permis de conduire et des assurances, rapprochement avec les profils recherchés. Point fort pour les adeptes des trajets réguliers, la garantie de retour ! Si le "covoitureur" qui devait vous ramener a un problème, une solution de remplacement est proposée.
Visiter Covoiturage17

Un bon article de synthèse sur quelques technologies de batteries

Une nouvelle génération de batteries pour alimenter des appareils électroniques nomades toujours plus gourmands se prépare à débarquer sur le marché d'ici dix ans, au moment où les modèles traditionnels montrent des signes de surchauffe illustrés par un nombre croissant de rappels.

Sony, Matsushita, Hitachi, Toshiba et MTI Micro Fuel Cells développent des batteries qui disposent de la technologie fuel-cell (pile à combustible), qui produisent elles-mêmes du courant à partir d'un carburant externe, contrairement aux modèles traditionnels qui se contentent de stocker l'électricité.

Cette industrie doit relever le défi de suivre l'évolution des appareils nomades, comme les ordinateurs portables, les baladeurs numériques et les téléphones mobiles, toujours plus gourmands en courant. L'utilisation de l'ordinateur portable ne se limite plus au traitement de texte ou de données et s'étend désormais couramment à la vidéo conférence, à l'hébergement de sites internet et aux jeux interactifs.

Parallèlement, les consommateurs commencent à regarder des films long-métrage sur leur lecteur multimédia de poche ou des émissions de télévision sur leurs mobiles.

"Il n'existe pas, à moyen-terme, de batterie qui puisse satisfaire tous ces besoins. Celle-ci doit être légère, compacte, dotée d'une longue autonomie et assez sûre", a expliqué Stephen Baker, analyste chez NPD Group. "Ils n'ont pas encore mis au point une combinaison chimique qui satisfasse toutes ces exigences."

La technologie qui prévaut actuellement est l'association lithium-ion que les experts considèrent comme relativement sûre malgré le rappel le mois dernier de six millions de batteries d'ordinateurs portables par Dell et Apple Computer.

Dans les deux cas, les batteries fabriquées par Sony ont été rappelées en raison d'un risque de surchauffe. Dans un cas, le périphérique défectueux a pris feu.

Ce mois-ci, Matsushita, plus connu par sa marque Panasonic, a également rappelé 6.000 batteries de PC pour des raisons similaires. Un million de téléphones portables ont également été rappelés par Kyocera en raison d'un problème de surchauffe qui a nourri des inquiétudes au sujet de ces batteries lithium-ion.

AVANCEES SCIENTIFIQUES

Jusque-là, ces batteries, pourtant développées des décennies plus tôt, ont tenu bon et les ingénieurs les ont installées sur les derniers-nés des appareils électroniques.

Les améliorations viennent de sociétés comme Valence Technology, dont les systèmes sont notamment utilisés par Segway, le fabricant de trottinettes électriques. Sa technologie "Saphion" permet à Valence d'utiliser pour ses batteries lithium-ion des composants chimiques moins inflammables, explique le groupe.

Altair Nanotechnologies souligne pour sa part que ses batteries peuvent être rechargées plus souvent alors que l'association traditionnelle lithium-ion peut provoquer un phénomène de "fatigue des particules".

Les batteries utilisant les systèmes mis au point par UltraLife Batteries, Zinc Matrix Power et Optodot, entre autres, semblent elles aussi plus sûres, mais les analystes ne sont pas convaincus que ces évolutions suffiront.

Avec le temps, les batteries "fuel cell" seront dix fois plus puissantes et se rechargeront immédiatement. Mais leur arrivée en masse sur le marché prendra du temps, après une longue période de test et de perfectionnement, soulignent les analystes.

"La pile à combustible est la prochaine étape, mais (elle) n'est pas encore prête", a précisé Jim Tully, directeur de la recherche chez Gartner. "Dans cinq ou dix ans, elle remplacera la batterie traditionnelle", a-t-il ajouté.

Contrairement à d'autres technologies, où les ingénieurs, par exemple, peuvent multiplier les puces sur un circuit ou agrandir une usine pour des écrans plus grands, la recherche sur les batteries nécessite de manier des produits bruts. Des éléments chimiques comme le nickel et le lithium se manipulent avec précaution.

"La technologie des batteries est liée à l'énergie et c'est pour cela qu'elle n'évolue pas aussi vite que celle des mémoires ou des disques durs", a expliqué Peng Lim responsable de MTI Micro Fuel Cells, une branche de Mechanical Technology. "L'énergie est produite par une réaction chimique. A chaque fois que vous faites une percée vers une nouvelle technologie, cela prend du temps."

Brian Kimberlin, responsable du marketing de Panasonic Battery Corp of America, filiale de Matsushita, a annoncé le développement d'une batterie disposant de la technologie de la pile à combustible et destinée aux ordinateurs portables. Mais elle n'arrivera pas sur le marché avant trois à cinq ans, a-t-il précisé.

"Nous sommes très prudents et ne lançons pas n'importe quoi sur le marché. Nous voulons être sûrs que nos produits fonctionnent bien et qu'ils sont sans danger", a-t-il déclaré.

Source : Reuters

Expérimentation du chauffage à l'hydrogène à Paris

283 logements parisiens bénéficient d'un chauffage provenant d'une pile à combustible à hydrogène, installée porte de Brançion, dans le XVe arrondissement de Paris.

L'acquisition de cette pile à combustible à hydrogène (un parallélépipède de 8 x 3 x 4 m de 28 tonnes), par l'OPAC de Paris, permettra de produire d'une part de l'électricité, achetée par EDF, et d'autre part de l'énergie thermique pour chauffer 283 logements sociaux.

Elle fonctionnera de novembre à mars de chaque année, le reste de la période hivernale étant assuré par les chaudières gaz actuelles restées en appoint.

Cette pile à combustible à hydrogène, alimentée au gaz naturel, aura une puissance de 250 kW. Rentable, avec un retour direct pour les abonnés au réseau de chauffage (une économie d'environ 12 %, sur les charges locatives, doit apparaître sur la quittance des bénéficiaires), la pile ne fonctionnera que durant la période la plus froide, son rendement devenant moins intéressant que les solutions classiques, en demi-saison.

D'un point de vue environnemental, le bénéfice est important avec des émissions d'oxydes de souffre (SOx) et d'oxydes d'azote (NOx) thermiques et imbrûlés sont nulles, tandis que le rendement électrique de la pile à hydrogène permettra une diminution des rejets annuels de CO2, de 138 tonnes par an.

Outre, cette pile à combustible, l'Ile de France a engagé avec l'OPAC de Paris, qui gère l'exploitation de 408 chaufferies, desservant 63 700 logements en chauffage, une politique de gestion énergétique globale pour améliorer les modes de chauffage existants.

Ainsi, 1 252 m2 de capteurs solaires assurent la production d'eau chaude sanitaire solaire de 809 logements, depuis 2002, avec une précision de 4 500 m² supplémentaires, prochainement.
Au final, l'ensemble de ce plan énergétique régional devrait permettre de :
économiser 4 400 MWh/an
réduire la dépense énergétique de 200 000 € HT/an
éviter le rejet dans l'atmosphère de 765 tonnes de CO2, 206 kg de NOx/an et 13 kg de SO2/an.

Découvertes en 1839 par Sir William Grave, oubliées jusqu'aux programmes spatiaux des années 1960, les piles à combustible suscitent un nouvel intérêt depuis les années 1990, devant l'urgence de trouver : des énergies moins polluantes, une alternative aux énergies fossiles et une production d'électricité décentralisée.

Une pile à combustible convertit de l'énergie chimique en énergie électrique et thermique, selon le principe inverse de l'électrolyse. Durant cette réaction, le cœur de pile maintenu à une température interne de l'ordre de 650 °C libère de la chaleur sous forme de gaz assimilable à de l'air chaud.

Source : biofrais.com

Total et les énergies renouvelables

Total a pris, en août, une participation de 10 % dans la société Scotrenewables Marine Power Ltd. Cette entreprise, basée dans les Orcades (Ecosse), est spécialisée dans le développement d’une technologie de production d’électricité à partir d’hydroliennes fonctionnant grâce aux courants marins, dont l’intensité est particulièrement importante autour de ce chapelet d’îles de la mer du Nord. Scotrenewables Marine Power travaille en étroite relation avec le centre EMEC (European Marine Energy Centre), qui dispose des infrastructures nécessaires à la qualification de dispositifs de production d’électricité d’origine marine. Elle bénéficie également du soutien des chercheurs de l’Université Heriott-Watt d’Edimbourg et de l’université des Orcades, avec lesquels Total entretient plusieurs partenariats. N’émettant pas de gaz à effet de serre, l’énergie liée aux courants marins présente l’énorme avantage d’être prédictible et pourrait, à long terme, contribuer significativement à la production d’électricité d’origine renouvelable, en particulier au Royaume-Uni et en France. « Ce nouvel engagement de Total dans les énergies marines fait suite à une prise de participation en juin 2005 dans un projet de valorisation de l’énergie des vagues en Espagne. Les demandes d’autorisations correspondantes ont été déposées et sont en cours d’instruction », souligne Total.

Le Groupe confirme ainsi son intérêt pour les énergies renouvelables : « Outre les biocarburants, Total est en effet présent depuis plus de vingt ans dans l’énergie solaire photovoltaïque et poursuit son action à travers deux sociétés, Photovoltech et Tenesol. Par ailleurs, après avoir inauguré en 2003 une première centrale éolienne près de Dunkerque, Total a été sélectionné en 2005 par le ministère français de l’Industrie pour développer le plus grand projet éolien terrestre (90 MW) en France, dans l’Aveyron. Total poursuit en outre les études concernant un projet éolien en mer de plus de 100 MW situé au large de Dunkerque ». Outres les champs éoliens en mer et les hydroliennes, Total suit de près les travaux de l’Ecole centrale de Nantes et de son projet SEAREV. Cet engin, en cours d’élaboration, consiste en une structure flottante équipée d’un balancier produisant, grâce au mouvement des vagues, de l’électricité. Nous reviendrons sur ce projet novateur dans les prochaines semaines sur Mer et Marine.

Source : meretmarine.com