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Friday, February 27, 2009
Cache & Packets
President’s plan pushes pair of alternative energy plays
By Efrain Viscarolasaga
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Turn almost anywhere and there is talk about the president’s stimulus package, and with so many billions shifting around, I couldn’t possibly explain it all here.
But there are two nuggets — one high-tech and one fairly low-tech — that caught my eye.
High tech energy
President Barack Obama has been very outspoken about his desire to promote alternative forms of energy and modernize the nation’s electric infrastructure to support those efforts. As part of the package, the Department of Energy is expected to get $4.3 billion for projects that will upgrade the nation’s power grid, and about half of that will be allocated to “smart grid” projects, which aim to make the grid not just a disbursement vehicle for electricity, but a communications network for applications that can help make that power grid more effective and efficient. This is a good thing.
Technology companies from all over the spectrum will be gunning after the smart-grid money, including Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., and Cisco Systems Inc., all of which are part of a consortium called the GridWise Alliance, aimed at bringing smart grid capabilities to the market. The alliance also includes local companies such as Newton-based smart -rid technology developer Ambient Corp. and Tyngsborough-based flywheel energy storage developer Beacon Power Corp.
While at its core the smart-grid rollout is a technology play, it is also an infrastructure project, and the kind of project that usually generates more jobs than straight technology rollouts.
American Superconductor Inc., for example, builds superconducting wire, as well as infrastructure systems for both traditional and wind-powered grids. Should the company’s technology, which is “shovel ready” for deployment into the grid, be included in some of the projects under the DOE’s funding, officials suspect it will immediately add jobs.
“Installing superconducting wire requires a lot of people, not just in the manufacturing, but in digging the trenches and engineering the cable, all the way to (jobs at) the utility itself,” said Jason Fredette, director of investor and media relations for AMSC.
The GridWise Alliance reports the deployment of smart-grid applications could spur as much as 280,000 jobs in this country. Government support, said the report, which was released before the stimulus bill was finalized, should speed the deployments.
In the end, the administration may wish it had allocated more to the grid-modernization program. Industry pundits have projected the infrastructure upgrade of the nation’s power grid could cost more than $1 trillion over the next 22 years. If it means putting people to work and getting a better energy infrastructure, why hold back?
Low-tech energy
Also included in the plan is a tax credit for one of the lower-tech alternative energies out there — namely, wood pellets.
The compressed organic waste-based fuel got a ton of interest last summer, as oil prices skyrocketed and people faced a cold winter, almost to the point of creating a shortage on the supply side. But as the price of oil came down, attention gradually focused elsewhere.
However, many still believe in the benefits of wood pellet fuel, and the tax credit, which provides a 30 percent consumer tax credit in 2009 and 2010 on the purchase of pellet-burning stoves, is expected to help the industry gain wider acceptance in the alternative fuel portfolio.
In the words of a contact who works in the wood pellet industry and sent along an unsolicited comment, “this is huge for our industry.”
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