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Renewable Energy Technologies

Incentives for Renewable Energy

Visit the Utah State Energy Program for more information.

Wind

Click here for a complete list of Utah Wind Developers, Consultants, and Installers.

Get involved in Utah's Wind Working Group and/or receive information on wind-related events and opportunities. 

Get involved in Utah's Wind Power Campaign.  Contact Sara Baldwin sbaldwin@utahcleanenergy.org.

 

photo credit: Mark Maziarz

What is wind energy?

Wind energy is the fastest growing source of electricity generation in the world since the 1990s. Why? Incorporating wind energy promotes cost-effective energy production. The cost of wind-generated electricity continues to decrease with each new round of technological advances. Advances in siting, forecasting, and in turbine design have all contributed greatly to the lower cost of wind generation. In addition, the cost of fuel for wind energy is free-free from price volatility, emissions regulations, and extraction costs.

Got Wind? 
If you think you might have a good wind resource, you can:

1. Check Utah's Wind Maps and Wind Data (please note:Utah's wind data is constantly being updated and revised, so please don't be discouraged if your area is not on the map)

2. Contact the Utah State Energy Program

3. Apply for the State Wind Anemometer Loan Program

4. Contact a wind energy consultant or developer

5. Download the Small Wind Guide from the Department of Energy

6. Contact Utah Clean Energy for additional questions or concerns.

7. Visit the American Wind Energy Association for more information.

Benefits of Wind Energy:

  • Wind energy can diversify the economies of rural communities, adding to the tax base and providing new types of income.
  • Every time a wind energy project is installed, it creates new jobs for people who set up and maintain the turbines.
  • Wind turbines can be installed in farm fields and pastures without ill effects on people or produce. Wind farms are spaced over a large geographic area, but their actual "footprint" covers only a small portion of the land and do not interfere with crop production or livestock grazing.
  • Wind energy increases the sustainability of our energy portfolio, reduces air pollution, and requires no storage of waste produced from energy production.
  • “Wind: A Utah Opportunity” - Larry Flowers, Wind Powering America Program Technical Director, National Renewable Energy Laboratory

More About Wind:


View AWEA's up-to-date assessment of the wind industry (PDF document): Wind Energy Outlook 2006

Solar

Solar energy uses sunlight to generate electricity, provide hot water, and to heat, cool, and light buildings.

Click here for a complete list of Solar Dealers & Installers in Utah.

Get involved in Utah's Solar Working Group and/or receive information on solar-related events and opportunities. 

Click here. 

Solar Photovoltaic (PV)

Solar PV panels convert sunlight directly to electricity. PV panels vary in size from a few square inches to about the size of a door. A PV system, which consists of PV panels, a charge controller, and may include an inverter and batteries, can provide electricity for everything from electricity for irrigation pumping in remote areas, lighting for parking lots, to large utility size systems that power a city.

 

  • For more information on PV in Utah, read our brochure on Solar PV
    (Note: Large PDF, may take a while to download)

Concentrating Solar Power

Concentrating solar power uses the heat of the sun to create steam or mechanical power to turn a turbine and generate electricity. There are three main types of concentrating solar power systems: parabolic-trough, dish/engine, and power tower.

Find out more about Concentrating Solar Power:

Solar Hot Water or Solar Thermal
Solar water heating systems can be used to heat buildings and for culinary hot water use. The systems have two main parts a solar collector and a storage tank. To move the heated fluid between the collector and the storage tank, a system either uses a pump or gravity, as water has a tendency to naturally circulate as it is heated. Systems that use fluids other than water in the collector's tubes usually heat the water by passing it through a coil of tubing in the tank.

 

Passive Solar Design
Passive solar design utilizes the sun directly or indirectly to heat, light or cool your home or building. Simply orienting your building so that the long axis runs east west and incorporating simple design features such as large south facing windows with adequate overhangs and shading to keep the sun out during the summer months, and thermal mass, coupled with a tight building envelope, can reduce heating bills by as much as 50%.

Day lighting

Day lighting is a passive solar design principle that uses sunlight to light the interior spaces of the building. Day lighting uses direct, diffuse, or reflected sunlight to provide full or supplemental lighting for building interiors. Artificial lighting accounts for as much as 40% to 50% of the energy consumption in many commercial and institutional buildings, and 10% to 20% of energy consumption in industry.

Day lighting, in combination with energy-efficient lighting will substantially reduce building energy consumption. An important added benefit--though difficult to quantify--is that people prefer natural light. Thus day lighting contributes to more satisfied and productive occupants.

 

Passive Cooling
Passive cooling can be as simple as orienting your windows to take advantage of natural ventilation and creating cross ventilation. The visitor center at Zion National Park incorporates a cool tower. When natural ventilation is not adequate water sprayed on pads at the top of the towers creating a passive evaporative cooler. The cool, dense air "falls" through the tower and exits through the large openings at the bottom of the towers.

More About Solar:

Biomass

Biomass power is the use of plant and animal based materials to generate electricity and fuels. Utah’s best biomass potential lies in gasification, anaerobic digestion, pyrolysis, and small, modular systems.

Gasification systems use high temperatures and an oxygen-starved environment to convert biomass into a gas (a mixture of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and methane). The gas fuels an electric generator.

The decay of biomass produces a gas— methane— that can be used as an energy source. In landfills, wells can be drilled to release the methane from the decaying organic matter. Then pipes from each well carry the gas to a central point where it is filtered and cleaned before burning. Methane also can be produced from biomass through a process called anaerobic digestion.

Anaerobic digestion involves using bacteria to decompose organic matter in the absence of oxygen. Methane can be used as an energy source in many ways. Most facilities burn it in a boiler to produce steam for electricity generation or for industrial processes. Two new ways include the use of microturbines and fuel cells. Microturbines have outputs of 25 to 500 kilowatts. About the size of a refrigerator, they can be used where there are space limitations for power production. Methane can also be used as the "fuel" in a fuel cell. Fuel cells work much like batteries but never need recharging; producing electricity as long as there's fuel.

In addition to gas, liquid fuels can be produced from biomass through a process called pyrolysis. Pyrolysis occurs when biomass is heated in the absence of oxygen. The biomass then turns into liquid called pyrolysis oil, which can be burned like petroleum.

  • Join an email list for more information on Utah's biodiesel resource.
  • Gas 2.0 has information, blogs, and news on the latest in biodiesel across the country

Several biopower technologies can be used in small, modular systems. A small, modular system generates electricity at a capacity of 5 megawatts or less. This system is designed for use at the small town level or even at the consumer level. For example, some farmers use the waste from their livestock to provide their farms with electricity.

Like other renewable sources, biomass energy systems have significant benefits:

  • Biomass use strengthens rural economies
  • decreases America's dependence on imported oil
  • avoids use of MTBE or other highly toxic fuel additives, reduces air and water pollution
  • reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
  • Anaerobic digesters can use waste streams from livestock and animal feeding operations to turn waste to on-site energy production. Not only do these systems provide renewable energy, they also help farmers and ranchers meet environmental regulations.

More About Biomass:
Geothermal

Get involved in Utah's Geothermal Working Group and/or receive information on geothermal-related events and opportunities. 

Click here. 

Geothermal Energy is heat (thermal) derived from the earth (geo). It is the thermal energy contained in the rock and fluid (that fills the fractures and pores within the rock) in the earth's crust.

Geothermal energy is a clean, abundant, and versatile natural resource available to meet Utah's energy needs. Geothermal steam and hot water are now routinely utilized for the generation of electric power with the gentlest of environmental impacts.

These resources can be classified as low temperature (less than 90°C or 194°F), moderate temperature (90°C - 150°C or 194 - 302°F), and high temperature (greater than 150°C or 302°F). The uses to which these resources are applied are also influenced by temperature. The highest temperature resources are generally used only for electric power generation. Current U.S. geothermal electric power generation totals approximately 2200 MW or about the same as four large nuclear power plants. Uses for low and moderate temperature resources can be divided into two categories: direct use and ground-source heat pumps.

Direct use, as the name implies, involves using the heat in the water directly (without a heat pump or power plant) for such things as heating of buildings, industrial processes, greenhouses, aquaculture (growing of fish) and resorts. Direct use projects generally use resource temperatures between 38°C (100°F) to 149°C (300°F). Current U.S. installed capacity of direct use systems totals 470 MW or enough to heat 40,000 average-sized houses.

Ground-source heat pumps use the earth or groundwater as a heat source in winter and a heat sink in summer. Using resource temperatures of 4°C (40°F) to 38°C (100°F), the heat pump, a device which moves heat from one place to another, transfers heat from the soil to the house in winter and from the house to the soil in summer. Accurate data is not available on the current number of these systems; however, the rate of installation is thought to be between 10,000 and 40,000 per year.

(Information furnished by the Geo-Heat Center, Source: Geothermal Resources Council)

 

More about Geothermal:


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