The University of Iowa: Some updates from Decarb2040

Events and resources for engineering students, faculty, and staff

College of Engineering

Some updates from Decarb2040 -- Positioning Iowa as an energy exporter in the coming era of deep decarbonization.

Decarb2040 is a one-year research and community building project at the University of Iowa. You are receiving this email update about Decarb2040 because you have come to one of our events, or you have collaborated with someone on the Decarb2040 project team in the past. @decarb2040

University of Iowa Decarb2040 Seminar

Opportunities through Climate Smart Agriculture

Feb 9. 12-1 PM.

Event registration: https://bit.ly/3KmLIF4

Speakers:

Mahdi Al-Kaisi – Emeritus Professor, Department of Agronomy, ISU
Alejandro Plastina – Associate Professor, Department of Economics, ISU
Ron Rosmann – Master Farmer, Harlan, IA

Individual farmers, as well as the State of Iowa, stand to benefit from expanding carbon markets and other opportunities related to reducing net carbon dioxide emissions through various management practices.  We will present a question and answer session on the opportunities and barriers to the adoption of climate-friendly farm practices. The speakers will address topics on: 

- Climate smart agriculture practices and carbon capture

- Economic opportunities in removing carbon from the atmosphere

- Lessening CO2 emissions through crop rotations, fertilizer practices, and other cropping and livestock system decisions

The session will be entirely virtual and will consist of a short, guided Q&A with plenty of time available to submit questions and discuss these topics. Please join us Feb. 9 from 12-1pm by registering for the event through the virtual registration link above.

Speaker biographies can be found at our project webpage.

Save the Date: Our Hawkeye Decarbonization Summit will be held on Apr 21 and Apr 22, 2022. This will be hybrid, with in-person attendance and networking opportunities, and a full remote option. Conference website will be up soon. Confirmed keynote speaker: Saul Griffith, https://www.saulgriffith.com/

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Two opportunities are open for University of Iowa Faculty members:

$50,000 in Funding through Community Grant Program: $12,000 to $17,000 awards, with proposal deadline for short proposals of Feb 15. LEARN MORE AND APPLY.

UI-ISU Climate Change and Sustainability Innovation Labs: Our partners in the Office of the Vice President for Research and the University of Iowa Office of Sustainability and Environment are doing a survey and hosting three ideation sessions on the question: “What are the interdisciplinary climate change and/or sustainability research challenges that Iowa researchers are particularly well positioned to explore in the next three to five years?” Feb 23, Mar 2, and Mar 9 with a planning survey due Feb 4. LEARN MORE AND REGISTER

Event highlight: On the Front Lines of Energy Storage Deployment with Erin Hazen, Greenleaf Power

Event recording: https://uicapture.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=74600484-8fd5-476a-85cc-adf80166ec55

On December 8^th, Erin Hazen joined the Decarb 2040 Project to share her experiences and expertise with Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS). Hazen led the development of over 500 megawatts of BESS facilities with a combined capacity of 2 gigawatt-hours for GlidePath Power Solutions, and recently joined Greenleaf Power to build a development portfolio of BESS projects. She was formerly the Renewable Energy Business Development Manager at UI.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/erin-hazen-3a34974/

The event started off with an introduction from Dr. Charles Stanier of UI that outlined the current state of Iowa’s energy consumption and jumped into Hazen’s presentation on how the current market for energy storage works. Today’s market revolves around lithium-ion battery technologies and up until the last two years, these batteries were often prohibitively expensive, said Hazen. In part due to falling prices and increased necessity for energy alternatives, the pace and scale of energy storage development has grown, according to Hazen.

Hazen said that fluctuations in wholesale electricity prices happen constantly on micro-scales, and energy storage facilities can capitalize on this volatility. One moment, the prices for energy could be negative, meaning the suppliers would be paying users to take energy from the grid. However, this energy arbitrage is far from a potential get-rich-quick scheme for those with battery capacity since moments later the prices can be balanced out. Aside from energy arbitrage, battery energy storage has a strong role to play in providing vital ancillary services to the grid, in the form of capacity reserves, frequency regulation, and black start services. The uncertainty in market valuation of these services can hinder investments in energy storage. Increased battery storage capacity is well suited to offset the imbalances of demand for energy in the wholesale markets but currently it’s not being deployed as much at the level of individual consumers. “I don’t see widespread installation of customer-based storage because the economics don’t really support it yet,” said Hazen.

Uncertainty in zoning rules is also a challenge for BESS. Currently, Johnson County, IA, is one of the few jurisdictions in the nation that has specific energy storage zoning codes, and Hazen thinks Johnson County can be a model in this department for the rest of the Midwest. Though some concerns exist about BESS facilities and the noise they might make and how they will look, some of these concerns can be mitigated through fencing or tree planting nearby. In terms of safety, BESS facilities have robust protections to prevent fires, and they cause no air or water pollution.

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Hazen sees BESS as a potential solution to gas peaker-plants, which are significant sources of pollution. Gas-fueled peaker-plants are fired up to meet the peaks in electricity demand (“load”) that typically occurs in the evening. The supply of wind and solar power generation does not always correspond to electricity demand and their variable output can be challenging for grid operators. But with increased storage capabilities, the electrical grid can use storage to level out the variable generation and store any excess wind and solar energy and use it later, instead of relying on peaker-plants.

Due to the physical and regulatory complexities of electrical grid operation, Hazen pointed out many difficulties seen so far when individual municipalities have tried to decarbonize their own energy systems, while also highlighting some of the promise seen through Community Choice Aggregation legislation that has facilitated renewable energy development. Hazen also believes that maximal electrification would be beneficial.

“At any point if there’s a piece of equipment that needs to be replaced, replace it with an electric version. So that’s our cars, our furnaces, our power plants, [and] our peaker-plants,” said Hazen. She thinks that even if full decarbonization is not feasible in the short term, if nothing else, it’s realistic for battery energy storage to eliminate the need for gas peaker-plants. One important challenge for the battery energy storage industry is to address supply chain issues like the industry’s heavy dependence on cobalt.

Tell Us What You Think: Register your thoughts on Decarbonization and Associated Research Priorities at our Survey

Information about Decarb2040 Email Communications, and Unsubscribing: We will typically send one email per month about Decarb2040 activities, and we will never send more than one a week. To be removed from the email list, please contact cbe-decarb2040@uiowa.edu

Links to our Partners:

State Government

Iowa Economic Development Authority

Energy Companies

University of Iowa Energy Collaborative

Moxie Solar

Agriculture

Practical Farmers of Iowa

Iowa Farmer’s Union

Local government

Linn County

City of Dubuque