Westmead International School Alangilan, Batangas City College of Engineering and Architecture Electrical Engineering Department

Renewable Energy Paper

Submitted to: Engr. Andy De Torres

Submitted by: Benjie C. Mindanao John Remsis F. Faderagao

Introduction Renewable energy flows involve natural phenomena such as sunlight, wind, tides, plant growth (biomass) and geothermal heat. According to the International Energy Agency (2002), Renewable energy is derived from natural processes that are replenished constantly. In its various forms, it derives directly from sun, or from heat generated deep within the earth. Included in the definition is electricity and heat generated from solar, wind, ocean, hydropower, biomass, geothermal resources, and biofuels and hydrogen derived from renewable resources. Renewable energy resources and significant opportunities for energy efficiency exist over the world. Compare to other traditional energy resources like fossil fuel, which are concentrated in a limited number of countries. The rapid development of renewable energy and energy efficiency, and the technological diversification of energy resources, would provide a sustainable and stable supply of energy and a significant growth in economy for the world in a foreseeable future. History of Renewable Energy Prior to the development of coal in the mid-19th century, nearly all energy used was renewable. The oldest known use of renewable energy, in the form of traditional biomass to fuel fires, dates from 790,000 years ago (K. Kris, 2013). The second oldest usage of renewable energy is using the wild to drive ships over water. This can be traced back 7,000 years ago, to ships on Nile (The Encyclopaedia of Alternative Energy and Sustainable Living, 2013). Moving into the time of recorded history, the primary resources of traditional renewable energy were human labour, animal power, water power, wind and firewood (traditional biomass). By late 19 century, people concerned of running out of coal, so they promoted experiments with using solar energy. The development of solar engine continued until the outbreak of WWI. The importance of solar power was recognized in an article in Scientific American in 1911. In the far distant future, natural fuels having been exhausted, only solar power will remain as the only means of existence of the human race (Jones & Bouamane, 2012). In the 1970s, environmentalists promoted the development of renewable energy both as a replacement for the ultimate solution of oil, as well as for an escape from dependence on oil, and the first wind turbines was invented. Solar power had been used for heating and cooling, but solar panels were too costly to build solar farms until 1980. At present, renewable energy has ceased being an alternative. An increasing investment in renewable energy is added than other traditional resources in the world. According to Bloomberg (2011), the global

investment in renewable energy was increased from $19 billion USD in 2004 to $143 billion USD in 2010. It implies that the renewable energy will play an important role in the future international society. Different kinds of renewable energy in the world 1. Hydropower Hydroelectric energy is a term usually reserved for large-scale hydroelectric dams. The electrical power is generated through the gravitational force of falling or flowing water. This power is the most widely used form of renewable energy. According to Worldwatch Institute (2012), 16% of global electricity (3,427 terawatt-hours) was generated by it, and it is expected to increase about 3.1% each year for the next 25 years. There are 2 main methods of generating hydroelectric power: dams and pumped-storage. Using dams is the most common way. The hydroelectric power comes from the potential energy dammed water driving a water turbine and generator. The power extracted from the water depends on the volume and the difference between the water source and the waters outflow. This height difference is called Hydraulic head. The amount of potential energy in water is proportional to the Hydraulic head. A large pipe (penstock) delivers water to the turbine and drives the generator. The pumped-storage method produces electricity to supply high peak demands by moving water between reservoirs at different elevations. At times of low electrical demand, excess generation capacity is used to pump water into the higher reservoir. When there is a higher demand, water is released back into a lower reservoir through a turbine. Although the losses of the pumping process make the plant a net consumer of energy, the system increases revenue by selling more electricity during periods of peak demand, which the electricity price is the highest. Advantages and Disadvantages of Hydroelectricity The major advantage of Hydroelectricity is elimination of the cost of fuel. Due to the unstable geopolitics situation in the world, the prices of traditional fossil fuels become fluctuated. If people use Hydroelectricity, no imports are needed. According to Worldwatch Institute (2012), the average cost of electricity from a hydro plant larger than 10 megawatts is $0.3 to 0.5 USD cents per kilowatt-hour. On the other hand, the hydroelectric plants have long economic lives, with some plants still in service over 50-100 years. The labor costs of operating the plant are very low, as plants are automated and have few personnel on site in order to monitor the operation. Another advantage of using Hydroelectricity is it can reduce the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2). Some people claimed that CO2 is still produced during the manufacture and construction of the project. However, a study conducted by European Commission (2005) stated that hydroelectricity produces the

least amount of greenhouse gases and externality of any energy. Therefore, we may conclude that Hydroelectricity is the cleanest energy in the world. However, there are some disadvantages of using Hydroelectricity. The main disadvantage is the hydroelectric projects can be disruptive to surrounding aquatic ecosystems both upstream and downstream of the plant site. Generation of hydroelectric power changes the downstream river environment. Water exiting a turbine contains very little suspended sediment, which can lead to scouring of river beds and loss of riverbanks. On the other hand, siltation will be happened if a huge reservoir is built in a river. Normally, water has its ability to transport particles heavier than itself from upstream to downstream. If a dam is built on rivers or within catchment areas with high siltation, the particles will fill a reservoir and reduce its capacity to control floods along causing additional horizontal pressure on the upstream portion of the dam. Eventually, the dam can become full of sediment and lost its function of preventing flood and generating electricity due to the less capacity of the reservoir. 2. Solar Power Solar power is the convention of sunlight into electricity. Sunlight can be converted directly into electricity through photovoltaic (PV), or indirectly with concentrated solar power (CSP), which normally focuses the suns energy to boil water which is then used to provide power. Photovoltaic (photovoltaic cell) is a device that converts light into electric current using the photoelectric effect. The first solar cell was constructed by Charles Fritts in the 1880s. Solar cells produce direct current (DC) power which fluctuates with sunlights intensity. For practical use, this usually requires conversion to certain desired voltages or alternating current (AC) through the use of solar inventor. Multiple solar cells are connected inside modules. Modules are wired together to form arrays, than tied to an inventor, which produces power at the desired voltage and for the AC in a desired frequency. In some developed countries, the residential photoelectric systems are connected to the grid in order to sell the surplus electricity to the public. Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) systems use lenses or mirrors and tacking systems to focus a large area of sunlight into a small beam. The concentrated heat is then used as a heat source for a conventional power plant. There are many concentrating technologies to collect the sunlight, like parabolic trough, concentrating linear Fresnel reflector, the Stirling dish and the solar power tower. In all these systems a working fluid is heated by the concentrated sunlight, and then used for power generation or energy storage. Thermal storage efficiently allows up to 24 hours electricity generation.

For parabolic trough, it consists of a linear parabolic reflector that concentrates light onto a receiver positioned along the reflector's focal line. The receiver is a tube positioned right above the middle of the parabolic mirror and is filled with a working fluid. The reflector is made to follow the sun during the daylight hours by tracking along a single axis. Advantages and Disadvantages of Solar Power There are many advantages of using Solar Power. The main advantage is the energy is nearly 100% free. Using solar power doesnt require expensive and on-going materials like coal and oil, and requires significantly low operating costs than conventional power production. This is because when the Stirling dish receives the sunlight, it will generate power automatically. Therefore, fewer workers are needed to monitor the process. Besides, no raw materials have to be extracted and transported to the plant, cost can also be saved. The other advantage of Solar Power is power decentralization (Whitburn, 2012). The conventional fuels, like coal and oil, are often transported cross-country or internationally. If people switch to use Solar Power, they can generate electricity as much as possible according to the domestic demand. On the other hand, the supply of energy will become more stable as people do not import fuels to generate power. The main disadvantage of using Solar Power is the power supply is not constant. In order to produce electricity, there must be sunlight. Therefore, energy must be stored or sourced elsewhere at night. On the other hand, the solar power production will be decreased during winter as there are less sunlight hours and the sun radiation is less intense. Besides, the criticism of using solar power is the power generation is inefficient. According to Whitburn (2012), around 22% of suns energy can be converted into electrical energy. This implies that there must be a fairly vast amount of service area in order to generate a lot of electricity. In the developed countries, where demand of electricity is significantly high, people are still affording huge expenses to purchase traditional fossil fuels to generate power. Therefore, we may ask a question: Why we have to use solar power? 3. Wind Power Wind power is the conversion of wind energy into a useful form of energy, such as using wind turbines to make electrical power, windmills for mechanical power and wind pumps for water pumping etc. According to EEM 08 (2013), in 2010 wind energy production was over 2.5% of total worldwide electricity usage, and growing rapidly at more than 25% per annum. It reflects that wind power will become potential substitute energy in the future.

In order to generate electricity, we have to use wind turbine to convert kinetic from the wind. Normally, turbine has a design of a horizontal axis wind turbine having an upwind rotor with 3 blades, attached to a nacelle on top of a tall tubular tower. In a wind farm (group of turbines in a same location), each turbine is interconnected with a medium voltage (often 34.5 kV) power collection system and communication network. At a substation, the medium-voltage electric current is increased voltage with a transformer for connection to the high voltage electric power transmission system. Advantages and Disadvantages of Wind Power The main advantage of using wind power is less water and air pollution will be created. The form of energy (wind) will exist constantly. During the energy generation process, no greenhouse gases will be released. In order to generate the power stably, wind turbines should be built in coastal areas or gaps in mountains where the wind is reliable, strong and steady. However, there are some disadvantages of using wind power. The main disadvantage is the wind can never be predicted. If the place where the winds strength is too low to support the wind turbine, it is not suitable to use wind power. That is one of the reasons that most of the countries determine wind turbine layout, power curve, thrust curve and long wind speed before deploying wind turbines. The second disadvantage is noise substances. Although wind energy is non-polluting, the turbines may create lots of noise. According to GE Reports (2010), the closest that a wind turbine is typically placed to a home is 300m or more. At that distance, a turbine will have a sound pressure level of 43 decibels. Compare to air-conditioner, which has a 50 decibels sound level, wind turbines really creates a loud noise to the residents nearby. Therefore, there are lots of complaints from the residents about the turbines noise problem. 4. Biomass Biomass is biological material from living or recently living organisms, most often referring to plants or plant-derived materials (Biomass Energy Center, 2012). As a renewable energy source, biomass can either be used directly, or indirectlyonce or converted into another type of energy product such as biofuel. Biomass is all biologically-produced matter based on carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. The estimated biomass production in the world is 146 billion tons a year (Lynn and Osburn, 1993). Biomass energy is derived from 6 distinct energy sources: garbage, wood, plants, waste, landfill gases (methane gas) and alcohol fuels.

As biomass is a natural material, many highly efficient biochemical processes have developed in nature to break down the molecules of which biomass is composed, and many of these biochemical conversion processes can be harnessed. Biochemical conversion makes use of the enzymes of bacteria and other micro-organisms to break down the biomass. In most cases micro-organisms are used to perform the convention process: anaerobic digestion (used to produce ethanol), fermentation and composting. Other chemical process such as converting straight and waste vegetable oils into biodiesel is trans esterification (Convention technologies, 2011). Advantages and Disadvantages of Biomass The main advantage of using Biomass is it is everywhere and very easily available. In the agriculture industry, residuals like bagasse (fibers) from sugarcane, straw from rice and manure lagoons from cattle etc. Fully utilized biomass reduces pollution by offsetting the amount of waste in landfills. Methane and other poisonous gases from dead organic matters can be found in landfills and water treatment plants. These can be captured and converted to fuels suitable for generating electricity. On the other hand, rural economies will grow because of using the biomass. As biomass feedstock are bulky and costly to transport, conversion facilities will be located where the crop is grown. It implies that more local residents will be employed. Besides, since the demand of biomass will be increased, farmers may grow more crops in order to satisfy the demand. If there is a surplus supply, they ought to sell the crops to other markets. Therefore, the rural economy will become more diversified. The main disadvantage of using Biomass is the burning method of biomass is not clean. Compare to burn fossil fuels, burning biomass also produces large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2). If we still burn biomass, the greenhouse effect may be worse as CO2 is the major source of greenhouse gases. On the other hand, the energy converting process is not mature. During these days, scientists are finding different biomass resources in order to convert them into energy. For example, they are trying to break down the carbohydrates and simple sugars to make alcohol. However, the process has not been perfected yet. If we use biomass as the major source of energy, the reliability of energy supply may not be guaranteed. 5. Geothermal Energy Geothermal energy is from thermal energy generated and stored in Earth. Thermal energy is the energy that determines the temperature matter. Earths geothermal energy originates from the original formation of the planet (20%) and from radioactive decay of minerals (80%) (Schubert, 2002). The

geothermal gradient, which is the difference in temperature between the core of planet and its surface, drives a continuous conduction of energy in the form of heat from the core to the surface. The most common way of capturing the energy from geothermal sources is to tap into naturally occurring hydrothermal convection (Clean energy, 2009) system where cooler water seeps into Earths crust, is heated up, and then rises to the surface. When heated water is forced to the surface, it is a relatively simple matter to capture the system and use it to drive electric generators. There are 3 designs for geothermal power plants, all of which pull hot water and steam from the ground, use it, and then return it as warm water to prolong the life of the heat source. The simplest design, the steam goes directly through the turbine, then into a condenser where the steam is condensed into water. In a second approach, very hot water is depressurized or "flashed" into steam which can then be used to drive the turbine. The third approach is called a binary system. Hot water is passed through a heat exchanger, where it heats a second liquid like isobutane in a closed loop. The isobutane boils at a lower temperature than water, so it is more easily to convert into steam to run the turbine. Advantages and Disadvantages of Geothermal Energy The advantage of using geothermal energy is there is no consumption of any type of fossil fuels. Therefore, no greenhouse gases will be emitted. After the construction of the geothermal power plant, there is little maintenance and only few employees have to monitor the process. Eventually, cost can be saved. The disadvantage of geothermal energy is not all areas are suitable to use it. People have to find a good spot where the place is substantial and continuous amount of heat that could be tapped into. For example, it is good to build up a plant near the volcano belt as the temperature of the Earth crust in that area is about 700-1400, which is good to heat the water and produce lots of steam to the turbine. On the other hand, the initial investment costs of geothermal energy are extremely high. As people have to drill and test whether a certain area is suitable for a geothermal plant, and it costs them a lot of money. Therefore, only developed countries, like Iceland, the USA and New Zealand etc. are willing to develop this energy.

Application of renewable energy in the world Until 2011, the total investment in renewable energy has reached $257 billion USD, up from $211 billion USD in 2010. The top 5 countries for investment in 2011 were China, Germany, the USA, Italy and Brazil (REN21, 2011). The reason why renewable energy has developed rapidly is the policy support by the government. In 2009, the US President Barack Obama suggested a plan including more than $70 billion USD in direct spending and tax credits for clean energy and associated transportation programs. Besides, he committed to permit 10,000 MW of renewable energy projects on public land in 2012 (Morris, 2012). Undoubtedly, the governments subsidies stimulate citizens using more renewable energy. Growth of renewable energy Renewable energy sources were estimated 16.7% of global final energy consumption in 2010. At the end of 2011, total renewable power capacity world exceeded 1,360 GW. In the power renewables accounted for almost half of the 208 GW capacities added globally during 2011, wind and solar photovoltaics accounted almost 40% and 30% respectively (REN21, 2012). It seems that solar power will become the major source renewable energy. According to the projection by the International Energy Agency (Sills, 2011), photovoltaic and solar-thermal plants may produce most of the worlds electricity within 50 years, and half of all energy needs, like wind, hydropower and biomass will supply the remaining generation. The actual usage of different kinds of renewable energy Hydroelectricity Hydropower is produced in 150 countries. In Asia-Pacific it generates 32% of global hydropower in 2010. China is the largest hydroelectricity producer, with 721 terawatt-hours in 2010, representing 17% of domestic electricity use. There are 3 hydroelectricity plants larger than 10GW: the Three Gorges Dam in China, Itaipu Dam across Brazil & Paraguay border and Guri Dam in Venezuela (Worldwatch Institute, 2012). Geothermal power Geothermal power plants can operate 24 hours per day. The capacity grew from 1GW in 1975 to almost 10GW in 2008. The US has the largest capacity of geothermal power, representing 3.1GW. Other countries with significant installed capacity include the Philippines (1.9GW), Indonesia (1.2GW), Mexico (1.0GW) and Iceland (0.6 GW) etc. (Bertani, Huenges et al, 2008). In some countries geothermal power becomes the major supply source of electricity. The geothermal power represents 17% to total power mix in Philippines in 2008 (Walet, 2009).

Wind power Wind power is growing over 20% annually, with a worldwide installed capacity of 238,000 MV at the end of 2011 (Morales, 2012). Wind power is widely used in Europe, Asia and the US. Some countries have reached a high level of wind power generation, such as 21% stationary electricity production in Denmark, 18% in Portugal, 16% in Spain and 14% in Ireland etc (World Wide Energy Report, 2010). In 2011, 83 countries are using wind power on a commercial basis (REN21, 2011). At present, the United Kingdom is the largest offshore wind power generator in the world. Until 2012, the UK has 3 largest wind power projects: Walney Wind Farm, which generates 367 MW power; Thanet Offshore Wind Project, which generates 300 MW power and the London Array project, which generates 600 MW power (Barkham, 2012). Solar Power (Photovoltaics) In the 1980s and early 1990s, most photovoltaic modules were used to provide remote-area power supply, but since 1995, industry efforts have focused increasingly on developing building integrated photovoltaics and photovoltaic power stations for grid connected applications. In some sunny regions, such as Spain, the Middle East, North Africa, the Southern USA, India and part of China etc., modern solar modules are close to achieving grid parity, which means that the country can generate electricity at a levelized cost that is less than or equal to the price of purchasing power from the electricity grid. Many solar photovoltaic power stations have been built in the world. Until now, the largest photovoltaic (PV) power plants in the world are Agua Caliente Solar Project in the US (247 MW); Charanka Solar Park in India (214 MW) and Golmud Solar Park in China (200 MW) (Lenardic, 2010). Most of the plants are integrated with agriculture and some use innovative tracking systems that follow the suns daily path across the sky in order to generate more electricity than conventional fixed-mounted systems. Biomass For biomass, biofuels may be the most common form of usage. According to REN21 (2011), biofuels provided 3% of worlds transport fuel in 2010. According to the International Energy Agency, biofuels have the potential to meet more than 25% of world demand for transportation fuels by 2050 (Platts, 2011). Since 1970s, Brazil has launched an ethanol fuel program, which lets the country become the 2nd largest producer of ethanol in the world. The program uses modern equipment and cheap sugarcane as

feedstock, and the residual cane-waste to produce heat and power. By the end of 2008, there were 35,000 filling stations in Brazil with at least 1 ethanol pump (Budny and Paulo Sotero, 2008). In the US, nearly all gasoline sold is mixed with 10% ethanol (E10), and some car manufacturers have developed the vehicles which can use the pure gasoline up to 85% of ethanol (E85). The biofuels market is still expending rapidly. According to the US Energy Information Administration (2013), nearly 890 million gallon pounds of biofuels produced in 2012. Is renewable energy good or bad to our society? Climate change concerns, coupled with high oil prices and increasing government support, are driving increasing renewable energy legislation and commercialization. This explains that why the renewable energy market can grow significantly. However, some people criticized that the supply of the renewable energy is unreliable or even more polluting to the environment than the fossil fuels. Therefore, we may ask a question: Is renewable energy good or bad to our society? The reason why people have to use the renewable energy is it can help to improve the energy efficiency. It represents the most immediate and the most cost-effective way to reduce oil dependence, improve energy security and reduce health and environmental impact of the energy system (Worldwatch Institute, 2006). By reducing the total energy requirements, improving energy efficiency could make increased reliance on renewable energy more practical and affordable. On the other hand, the new technologies of renewable energy offer a range of options for generating electricity nearer to where it is needed, is helpful to diversify the nations bulk power supply provided by the fossil fuels. However, there are some environmental and social issues we have to be concerned before using renewable energy. The first thing is land area required. Some energy like biomass and biofuels, is the large amount of land required to harvest energy, which otherwise could be used for other purposes or left as undeveloped land. In the US, crops grown for biofuels are the most land-incentive of the renewable energy sources. By burning the biomass to produce electricity for an electric car, increases the car can go from a hectare of crops from 30,000 to 54,000 km/year. Compare with the same hectare with photovoltaics, it allows the car to go 3,250,000km/year, over 100 times as far as biofuel (Campbell, 2012). If we use a lot of space to provide a low energy-efficient fuel, it is costly to the public as we ought to use the undeveloped land to develop other infrastructure like railway, commercial buildings and leisure facilities etc. The other thing is the energys longevity. Even through a source is a renewable energy, it does not mean that the source will last forever. For example, the shifting of riverbeds and changing water patterns may halt the function of hydroelectric dams, lowering the amount they are available to generate electricity. On the other hand, some people claimed that geothermal power being a renewable energy depends on

the rate of extraction being slow enough such that depletion does not occur. In other words, the pressure and temperature of the earths crust cannot support the turbine to generate enough amount of electricity if people overuse the energy. If depletion occurs, the temperature can regenerate if given a long-period of non-use (Jomiras Net, 2008). Based on the above examples, we may conclude that the renewable energy may not renewable because of the unforeseeable changes in natural environment. Therefore, people must control carefully the daily usage of the energy and consider finding more sources of other renewable energy in order to let a singular source of energy become sustainable to use. Conclusion Based on the high oil prices and the political support by the government, we may see that there will be a significant growth in the renewable energy market in the next 10-20 years. Some energy sources like solar power and wind power will be substitute fossil fuels as the major sources to generate most of the worlds electricity in the next 50 years. Frankly speaking, renewable energy will play an important role in the global society. After a deeply discussion of each type of renewable energy sources, it is very easy for us to find the common advantages of using them: Saving the cost and the power supply will be more flexible. As people can find those energy sources anywhere, like sunlight and wind power, they do not rely on importing fossil fuels from other countries; a lot of transportation costs can be saved. Besides, people only employ few staff to monitor the power generation process since the natural power like sunlight and wind will drive the power generator automatically. Therefore, the operating costs can also be saved. On the other hand, as people can easily get the energy sources, they can adjust the amount of power generation according to the domestic demand easily. However, there are some criticisms of using them: Pollution and the energy technology development is not mature. Some energy sources like biomass and wind power, they will still emit huge noise and carbon dioxide respectively in the power converting process, it is still harmful to the environment. Besides, some sources like biomass and photovoltaics, people have to reserve a wide range of land to grow the crops and install the solar panels respectively in order to provide small amount of energy. Therefore, the immature energy development may not satisfy the huge energy demand of all citizens in a developed country. They have to still rely on the traditional fossil fuels. According to International Energy Agency (2007), renewable technologies contribute to world energy security, reduce dependency on fossil fuels, and provide opportunities for mitigating greenhouse gases. Frankly speaking, the world should use more renewable energy instead of fossil fuels. As we mentioned before, the energy source will not last forever even it is renewable. Therefore, we have to control the usage of the resources and avoid using single type of resource in order to them become sustainable to

use. On the other hand, scientists may continually develop the technologies to improve the energy efficiency. If we develop the renewable energy successfully, people can get a green and healthy life in a foreseeable future.