 |
|||||||||||||||||||
Holyoke Gas & Electric's new 4.5 megawatt solar farm is the largest solar array |
|||||||||||||||||||
Holyoke: A great energy opportunity revealed
|
 |
“One of the most important things learned was that there is a lot of clean energy innovation in Massachusetts.”
|
So, it was very appropriate, technology-wise, that the first day of the Holyoke Clean Energy Innovation Workshop, held on November 9, focused on clean energy opportunities and distribution system capabilities offered by Holyoke Gas & Electric, including a tour of its hydro and solar facilities. Talk about auspicious timing: on the day of the tour, 1.5 megawatts from the new solar farm went on line, with an additional 1 megawatts going on line November 11.
“People were surprised to learn that Holyoke Gas & Electric has the largest solar array in New England, and that we are doing so much in the clean energy space,” said James Lavelle, manager at Holyoke Gas & Electric.
The two-day workshop attracted more than 120 participants – including CEOs of battery storage firms, venture capital investors, university computer science researchers, engineers from national research laboratories, utility executives, and managers from demand-side firms offering smart online software.
Holyoke has other important assets, attributes and advantages. It has a new generation of entrepreneurs who are reclaiming the red-brick mills with hopes of turning them into a 21st century manufacturing center. Learn more >>
The city is the home of the new $165 million Massachusetts Green High-Performance Computing center, a partnership with many of the top research universities in the state as well as industry partners Cisco and EMC. On Nov. 29, a “topping off” event celebrated the completion of the steel framing of the building that will house the computer center that is scheduled to open its doors in late 2012.
It is also the home of New England Independent Systems Operator, or ISO, which manages the reliability and operation of the electric grid serving New England, with its wealth of data and expertise.
 |
“Participants didn’t talk about what they had done in the past; they talked about what they might work on together in the future.”–James Kurose, Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, University of Massachusetts |
But, the tremendous sense of opportunity is being driven by Holyoke Gas & Electric’s willingness to engage with innovators, entrepreneurs and investors, according to Jim Kurose, Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts. For that reason, while the first day of the workshop focused on Holyoke Gas & Electric facilities, the second day of the workshop — with panels on “Innovators & Disruptors,” “Research and Education Collaborations,” “Investment,” “Regulatory”, and “Public Policy & Advocacy,” — focused on the challenges ahead and opportunities for collaborative testbed activities at HG&E.
“The great thing about Holyoke Gas & Electric, about it being a municipal utility, is that when [the managers] say yes, it means yes, they do real things, they are willing to partner,” Kurose said, one of the workshop organizers. “It’s an opportunity for the entrepreneurs and startups to work with a utility and try out their ideas and products in a real setting.”
For Kurose, the workshop created “magical” opportunities for interaction and collaboration – bringing together the idea people, the researchers, the investors, the entrepreneurs and the innovators. Kurose told the story of how one entrepreneur, William J. McNamara, president of Eco-Energy in Old Lyme, Conn., in partnership with Revere Security Corp., a cyber security firm from Addison, Texas, responded to the “real world” opportunity by having a one-page proposal for a test bed that he presented to Holyoke Gas & Electric at the beginning of the second day of the workshop.
Since the workshop, 10 additional companies have presented ready-to-go test bed proposals to Brian Beauregard, Holyoke Gas & Electric’s electric superintendent, expressing eagerness to enter into specific conversations.
Still, as Beauregard, proudly wearing a tie that featured an incandescent electric bulb, made clear during his participation in a panel discussion on “University Collaborations: Research & Education,” the municipal utility didn’t have the resources to do a test bed by itself: it needed additional resources, and it needed help with the analysis, mining and sharing of the data. “We need to pull in the universities with all of their expertise — researchers, assistants and Ph.D. students alike — to supplement our staff,” he said.
 |
| The workshop featured municipal, state, and federal perspectives on issues that impact development of an effective test-bed environment. From left to right: Kathleen Anderson (Director of Planning and Economic Development, City of Holyoke), Mayor Elaine Pluta (City of Holyoke), James Lavelle (Workshop Co-chair, Manager, Holyoke Gas & Electric), Patricia Hoffman (Assistant Secretary, Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Richard Sullivan (Secretary, Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs), and Jim Kurose (Workshop Co-chair, Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, University of Massachusetts) |
Data mining for customer patterns is not something his municipal utility can do well or efficiently, Beauregard explained. It is something that computer scientists do particularly well. What Holyoke Gas & Electric can offer is the opportunity to evaluate new applications in a real world environment. Indeed, one of the immediate outcomes of the workshop is that a UMass graduate student will begin to work on mining data with Holyoke Gas & Electric.
Beauregard’s fellow panelist, MIT’s John Williams, professor in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, framed the issue of resources more broadly: “We need an energy policy at the federal level (which, he added, we don’t have),” and with it, the opportunity for big-scale studies, with real-life practical data. Williams said that he was now working in Saudi Arabia, working to develop an integrated grid with demand side management and distributed generation.
 |
The workshop proceedings, which were captured by volunteer note takers, are being compiled by management consultant Karen Utgoff, who will have a final version ready by mid- December. As a result of the workshop, 11 companies have presented ready-to-go test bed proposals, according to Brian Beauregard, Superintendent, Holyoke Gas & Electric. |
Earlier in the workshop, the panel on “Investment” made very clear how much the landscape has changed, for the worse, with limited amounts of venture capital available to back projects, and limited federal resources available after stimulus – and Solyndra. Worldwide, the only direction the world’s economy can go is toward clean energy, the panelists agreed.
The panel, made up of institutional and angel investors from both the private and public sectors, featured Zaid Ashai, a General Partner with Point Judith Capital, Daniel Hullah, Principal, Rockport Capital, James Kenney, Vice President for Commercial Lending, MassDevelopment, and David Miller, Executive Managing Director, Clean Energy Venture Group, with Arif Padaria, Managing Director of Investments at the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center serving as moderator.
One of the challenges that the United States faces, according to Hullah, is that its electric grid is quite reliable already, while India and Africa, with less reliable infrastructure, are more adaptable to distributed generation. The other issue is that the U.S. is considered the “Saudi Arabia” of natural gas, which keeps energy prices low. Miller predicted that the externalities of natural gas — the pollution problems with fracking — would soon become part of the equation.
Miller said that what drives venture capitalists is a combination of greed and fear – greed to find an investment that will create a really big return on an investment, and fear that once an investment is made, the firm may not be able to recoup its money.
 |
Arif Padaria, Managing Director of Investments at the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (far left), moderated a panel on opportunities and challenges associated with the region’s clean energy investment ecosystem. Panelists from left to right: David Miller (Executive Managing Director, Clean Energy Venture Group), Zaid Ashai (General Partner, Point Judith Capital), James Kenney (Vice President of Commercial Lending, MassDevelopment) Daniel Hullah (Principal, Rockport Capital) |
One disadvantage of the clean energy market, Hullah said, is its lack of “immediate gratification” from investment; it takes time to realize its value. He urged that startup companies articulate the big problem that can be solved, ones that can demonstrate real progress in order to “de-risk” the deal.
The national perspective was shared by Patricia Hoffman, assistant secretary, the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, the U.S. Department of Energy, in her keynote address that identified the “grand challenges” in the clean energy marketplace.
The good news is that Massachusetts, under the leadership of Gov. Deval Patrick, has created a series of programs and initiatives seeking to spark the development of clean energy technology in the Commonwealth. That message was delivered by Secretary Richard K. Sullivan, Jr., Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, in an address describing the "Massachusetts Clean Energy Landscape." Sullivan said that efforts such as Holyoke Gas & Electric's 4.5 megawatt solar project were crucial to reaching Gov. Patrick's goal of installation of 250 megawatts of solar power by 2017. Sullivan's view was seconded by panel members from the “Public Policy & Advocacy” session, including Patrick Cloney, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, Susan Reid, Director of the Conservation Law Foundation Massachusetts, and Peter Rothstein, President of the New England Clean Energy Council.
 |
| The good news is that Massachusetts, under the leadership of Gov. Deval Patrick, has created a series of programs and initiatives seeking to spark the development of clean energy technology in the Commonwealth, according to Secretary Richard K. Sullivan, Jr., Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. |
“One of the most important things learned,” said Lavelle, describing the content of the sessions, “is that there is a lot of clean energy innovation in Massachusetts, and there are a number of opportunities for using Holyoke as a test bed for further collaboration in clean energy innovation.”
The real disruptive innovations — and where the opportunities for deals may exist — are in the area of demand-side management, according to numerous workshop participants.
The key, according to Richard Kolacinski, the lead in Draper Laboratory’s Smart Grid Information & Decision Systems, is understanding and calculating “the value proposition” for managing electric load choices. Kolacinski predicted that new smart grid software applications will soon overlay with existing mobile and wireless communications infrastructure, providing the ability for customers to manage their purchase of electricity — and use of smart energy appliances — at optimum levels to save money.
For Mike Jacobs, the Director of Regulatory Affairs and Market Policy for Xtreme Power, a battery and storage company, it’s finding the practical opportunity to demonstrate the way that his batteries can provide the load management needed by utilities in constrained transmission areas or during times of peak demand to flatten demand and reduce costs.
One of the valuable nuggets of information that emerged during breakout conversations at the workshop was the fact that ISO-New England expects the region to generate some 3,200 megawatts — about 10 percent of the peak capacity — from demand resources by 2014.
For ISO-New England, with its first priority being the reliability of the grid, the importance of the test bed is to provide proof of concept that the new smart devices won’t precipitate an unintended disruption of the grid and service to customers, explained Eric Wilkinson, external affairs representative.
The buzz and energy generated by the workshop in the days immediately following the gathering was a tangible force, according to numerous participants. The workshop proceedings, which were captured by volunteer note takers, are being compiled by management consultant Karen Utgoff, with a final report ready by mid-December. That report, and other workshop information, can be found at the workshop’s website: http://cs.umass.edu/energy_innovation_workshop.
But even before a report emerges, the landscape for smart energy applications in Holyoke, in partnership with Holyoke Gas & Electric, is being rapidly redrawn. Entrepreneurs and startups have begun approaching the municipal utility with proposals to evaluate their technologies in a test bed setting. Another group of workshop participants is interested in working with “real world” Holyoke Gas & Electric data to help evaluate research ideas and prototype designs.
 |
Attendees discussed opportunities for test-bed and research collaborations related to disruptive clean energy technologies. Pictured: Jake Horsey (right) and Aaron Cantrell (left) of CoFabDesign, an alternative vehicle design project based out of Hampshire college. The electric vehicle is part of their ‘EV-XI’ initiative. |
The value proposition — for renewable energy, for demand-side management, for utility-university research projects focused on utility data — will certainly be calculated and recalculated as emerging test bed proposals move forward.
But the value of the Holyoke Clean Energy Innovation Workshop has, in large part, been demonstrated. It has served as a catalyst for continuing conversation and collaboration and tremendous excitement about future collaborative opportunities.
The next steps are still being defined, said Holyoke Gas & Electric’s Lavelle. The municipal utility would like to see a steady stream of opportunities for collaboration on clean energy generation, storage and smart grid applications — ones that will “ultimately result in investment and job creation in Holyoke and the Pioneer Valley,” Lavelle said.
“Holyoke Gas & Electric envisions a number of practice-driven and data-driven [test bed] opportunities,” Lavelle continued. “These include: hydropower technology testing, hydrokinetic technology testing, pumped storage testing, battery storage testing, wind technology testing, smart-grid testing, cyber-security testing and others. Discussions on several opportunities are ongoing.”
“Holyoke is a unique opportunity, in large part because of its emphasis on renewable energy resources,” Kurose said.
.......................
A workshop report focused on action opportunities and next steps will be released in the coming weeks. For additional information about the Holyoke test-bed opportunity, go here:
http://www.cs.umass.edu/energy_innovation_workshop/index.htm
|
