The POWER Podcast

Fusion Power May Be Closer Than You Think Fusion research and development have been ongoing for decades, and many people probably believe a fusion power system will remain out of reach for decades longer. But the truth is that more than 100 tokamaks have been constructed and the science behind fusion is well-understood. What has been elusive is generating net energy from a fusion reaction, that is, getting more energy out than goes in to heat the plasma. One company that believes it is on the cusp of a breakthrough is Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS). Bob Mumgaard, the company’s CEO, was a guest on The POWER Podcast and explained why he’s excited about the future. One big reason is that a groundbreaking series of seven papers were recently published and peer reviewed in a special edition of the Journal of Plasma Physics, validating CFS’s approach to commercial fusion energy. The papers, written in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT’s) Plasma Science and Fusion Center, are the first peer-reviewed publications from any private commercial fusion company that verify a compact fusion device will achieve net energy. Mumgaard acknowledged that his company, which is only about two years old, has capitalized on much of the previous research conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), universities, national labs, and other countries, to get to where it is today. In fact, CFS spun out from MIT and gained a lot of knowledge from the Alcator C-Mod project—a compact, high-magnetic field tokamak that the DOE funded at the university. In 2016, C-Mod broke its own record for plasma pressure in a magnetically confined device, an important measurement for fusion. “It’s a really interesting story of the long history of fusion and all these stepwise improvements that have been done. And, you know, most of these have all been towards making a machine, basically a fusion machine, that can create the conditions that are necessary inside of it, which is namely having a very, very small amount of fuel, like a grain of rice worth of fuel, that is at very hot temperatures—like 100 million degrees, so hotter than the center of the sun—and at densities where you get enough reactions, and insulated well enough so that it doesn't cool itself off, to the point where you can make more power from fusion than it took to heat it up. That's called breakeven or net-energy,” Mumgaard explained. CFS is now developing and testing new high-temperature superconductor (HTS) magnets, which will allow for smaller, faster, and less-expensive tokamaks using the science developed on Alcator C-Mod and other devices. “We’re now starting to assemble a full-scale first-of-a-kind, 20-Tesla, multi-ton magnet that will really push this technology way beyond what anyone has done before,” said Mumgaard. “That’s at the parameter range that you need to build these high-field compact fusion tokamaks.” Once the HTS magnets are finalized, CFS will utilize them in a demonstration unit called SPARC, which could be the world’s first fusion device to produce more energy than it consumes. Mumgaard expects construction on that machine to commence next summer. Once that system is complete, “You’ll be able to show up, push a button, and make a whole bunch of excess energy—more energy than it took to run the fusion plasma for the very first time. And that feels kind of like the Wright Brothers moment for fusion,” Mumgaard said.

Developing a Safer Lithium-Ion Battery. Most consumers know that lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries can get hot. People experience the phenomenon in devices such as cell phones and laptop computers. In extreme circumstances, the heat can cause fires with catastrophic consequences. One company that is working to remedy the problem is Burlington, Washington-headquartered LAVLE. The company’s COO Morten Pedersen and CTO Ben Gully were guests on The POWER Podcast. They explained how LAVLE is making Li-ion batteries safer. “The foundation of safety in the lithium-ion battery really comes from a good and effective thermal management system,” Gully said. “Another really critical component for safety actually ends up being the battery management system—the BMS. That’s kind of the electrical computer brains of the battery,” he said. LAVLE has put a lot of emphasis on incorporating reliable and redundant protection into its designs “that give the whole system a very high level of safety.” Heat is generated in Li-ion batteries due to the chemical reaction that takes place in the process, as well as from inefficiencies or losses. As battery systems become larger, operate at higher power levels, and are asked to charge and discharge at faster rates, additional heat is generated, making effective management systems even more important. “That’s really one of the key aspects of the lithium-ion batteries, especially of today, is managing that heat and getting them to make sure they operate in a safe and comfortable temperature range,” Gully said. LAVLE has made great strides in improving battery cooling systems. It has tested various materials and cell arrangements to figure out the most efficient and effective way to remove heat from each individual cell in the quickest way possible, using every accessible surface. The company has also experimented with different working fluids and heat exchange mechanisms. Still, Gully suggested more improvements could be made in a number of areas to make Li-ion batteries safer. LAVLE sees the marine sector as a prime market for Li-ion batteries, and its products in particular. Pedersen noted that the marine sector transfers much of the world’s cargo and releases between 2% and 3% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Incorporating batteries into the shipping industry could lessen that greatly. Nonetheless, much of the progress the company has made on battery technology also translates to other sectors. “As new power generating technologies come to market, the battery is probably a very good enabler to make those work efficiently as well, because many of the technologies we see are not very good at big peaks in power consumption,” said Pedersen. “So, the battery can kind of be the buffer that takes the big hits and the big changes in load. And then, those stable power generating technologies can help.”

Taking Lithium-Ion Batteries to the Next Level. Although the first lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery was conceived more than 50 years ago, the technology continues to be refined and improved today. Scientists and engineers are constantly modifying and testing electrolytes, anodes, and cathodes in an effort to make Li-ion batteries more energy-efficient, cost-effective, and safer. Chicago, Illinois-based NanoGraf Technologies is one company working to improve the technology. The company has demonstrated a novel high-energy-density silicon-based anode material that has the long-term potential to replace graphite-based anodes in Li-ion batteries. By some estimates, NanoGraf’s formulation may be able to increase the energy density of current Li-ion batteries by 20% to 40%, while also improving the usable life of batteries. Chip Breitenkamp, vice president of business development with NanoGraf, was a guest on The POWER Podcast and talked about progress being made by the company. He said NanoGraf has been working in collaboration with researchers at Northwestern University and Argonne National Laboratory to develop, optimize, and patent its proprietary technology. According to NanoGraf, current graphite-based anodes offer a capacity of about 372 milliamp-hours per gram (mAh/g). NanoGraf’s silicon alloy-graphene material architecture can be customized to achieve capacities from 1,000 mAh/g to more than 2,500 mAh/g, delivering higher cell-level energy density and best-in-class rate capabilities for high-discharge applications. “NanoGraf has been working on [overcoming] the challenges that are associated with silicon for about eight years now,” Breitenkamp said. “Those challenges are: as lithium is taken into silicon particles during charge and discharge cycles of the battery, it swells, it cracks, and it sort of falls apart. And what the co-founders of NanoGraf [Cary Hayner and Josh Lau] have been working on is a way to utilize graphene and other coating treatments to allow those particles to swell and contract, but hold them together. Graphene is a huge part of that.” Breitenkamp said some competitors rely on vapor deposition-based systems in their manufacturing processes, but NanoGraf utilizes a wet-chemistry process that is highly scalable, cheaper, and less complex. The company has already proven the process at a pilot manufacturing line in Japan, where it is producing at a 10-ton scale. Breitenkamp said the company expects to ramp that up in the near future. “We can get to cost-parity with graphite at only a 500-ton scale, which is where we’re getting to very soon. Once we get to that thousand-ton scale, we actually become cheaper than graphite on a kilowatt-hour basis,” said Breitenkamp.

Leaders in the Smart City Movement What is a “Smart City”? According to one definition, it’s an urban area that uses different types of electronic methods and sensors to collect data, with insights gained from that data used to manage assets, resources, and services efficiently. Clint Vince, chair of Dentons’ U.S. Energy Practice and co-chair of Dentons’ Global Energy Sector, was a guest on The POWER Podcast. Vince created the firm’s groundbreaking Smart Cities and Connected Communities Initiative and Think Tank, and he is one of the industry’s leaders on the subject. “We have been deeply involved with cities and communities around the country and around the world for decades,” Vince said. “My initial introduction in the Smart Cities concept was really through grid modernization for cities. But we quickly realized that the Smart Cities approach requires integration with many other sectors and subject areas.” Dentons system of working with power companies and other utilities to implement Smart City technology is quite innovative for a legal practice. “I think that our approach to Smart Cities is unique. I don't know of any other law firm with a think tank,” said Vince. “Our clients like it when we focus not just on legal issues, but on business and policy issues, and try to integrate all of those together.” Dentons’ Smart City Think Tank has 16 pillars, including every major sector in the law firm, such as cyber, transportation, communications, intellectual property, and so on. More than 500 thought-leaders from around the globe are involved, which allows insightful sharing of best practices from the various regions. The group feels creating a Smart City requires more than just harnessing technology, it involves modernizing infrastructure. Vince offered CPS Energy, the municipal electric and gas utility serving San Antonio, Texas, as an example of a company making great strides forward in the Smart City area. He said Dentons has helped CPS Energy develop innovation zones, modernize its grid, identify dark fiber in its networks to be used for advanced telecommunications, address cyber-related issues, and team with the joint military base in San Antonio for further collaboration. CPS Energy has invested heavily in renewable energy and on energy efficiency initiatives. “We would identify them as a real rising star,” Vince said. As a global firm, Dentons works with cities all over the world. Vince suggested many other countries are well ahead of the U.S. in Smart City adoption. “Singapore often is singled out as sort of the lead Smart City in the world,” he said. “They really are extremely advanced.” Vince said Singapore invested more than $1 billion into its Smart Cities approach in 2019. Some specific infrastructure and social advancements that Vince thought were notable included Singapore’s ubiquitous very-high-speed internet, which supports other initiatives. “They’ve got online voting down. They have an online system where any citizen can report into the city for maintenance repairs that are needed,” Vince said. Singapore’s pandemic response was also a model for the world, not just in terms of policies for limiting exposure, but also its testing and tracing methods. Vince also noted that Singapore has advanced beyond pilot projects for autonomous vehicles. “They are using autonomous vehicles in portions of their city very, very effectively. They have a government technology agency, which is allowing them to be one of the leaders on sensor technology and integration with the Internet of Things. So, they are of a scale and economic dimension that they can really teach a lot of other cities some impressive things,” Vince said.

Is Carbon Capture Technology a Viable Solution? Carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) is widely viewed as a necessary technology to facilitate the continued use of fossil fuels in light of climate change concerns around the world. One company that has been highly focused on CCUS research and development, as well as deployment of the technology, is Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI). Tiffany Wu, business development manager for MHI America, was a guest on The POWER Podcast, and talked about the technology and its future prospects. Wu has a degree in chemical engineering and began her career working intimately on CCUS projects, including at Alabama Power’s Plant Barry facility and on the Petra Nova project—POWER’s Plant of the Year in 2017. “I think that carbon capture is going to become an increasingly important part of the energy portfolio,” Wu said. “In the absence of any regulatory pressure in the U.S., what matters to the industry is whether or not these carbon capture facilities are going to be economic or not. So, our customers are trying to come up with not only environmentally friendly projects, but also economic projects.” Wu said there are reasons for optimism. “In the U.S., we have a really great environment for [viable projects], because one, we have all of this history with enhanced oil recovery [EOR]. And so, there’s a lot of infrastructure in place that they can build off of. And then the other thing is that there have been a lot of federal incentives such as the 45Q tax credit that can help bolster the technology and these projects.” Section 45Q provides a tax credit on a per-ton basis for CO2 that is sequestered. Beginning in 2008, an incentive of $20 per metric ton for CO2 geologic storage and $10 per metric ton for CO2 used for EOR or enhanced natural gas recovery was available. In February 2018, the credit increased to $35 per metric ton for EOR and $50 per metric ton for geologic storage by 2026. The $35 tax credit is also available for non-EOR CO2 utilization and direct air capture projects. MHI’s carbon capture process is known as Kansai Mitsubishi Carbon Dioxide Recovery (KM CDR). It has been installed on at least 13 commercial plants around the world. Wu explained how the KM CDR process works. “It’s very similar to other amine-based processes,” she said. “Flue gas is introduced into the system, and in one of the initial towers, which we call the absorber, we also introduce a solvent. known as an amine, and the CO2 attaches itself to the amine. So, through that process, we’re able to capture 90%—and in some cases, we can capture up to 95%—of the CO2 from the flue gas.” The process is a closed loop system, and the amine is reused. Wu continued, “We introduce the amine that’s rich in CO2 into another tower we call a regeneration tower, and in that tower, steam is introduced and the amine is heated up so that the CO2 separates itself from the amine.” The CO2 is compressed and the amine is sent back to the front of the process. This sort of technology is used by various industrial sectors, including for acid gas treatment. In each case, there may be different flue gas constituents, but the process is essentially the same.

Sustainable Building at Heart of Collaborative Project. The South Landing project in Spokane, Washington, has been called “the five smartest city blocks in the world.” The development is said to feature “the most sustainable large building in North America.” Known as the Catalyst Building, it is intended to anchor a planned “innovation hub.” The five-story, 150,000-square-foot building features two wings around a light-filled collaborative atrium. Catalyst will host dry labs, offices, classrooms, and common study areas. The Catalyst design team reportedly emphasized sustainability as a core value. The building features cross-laminated timber (CLT)—a mass timber building material made of laminated wood panels—for major structural elements. The design reduces the buildings environmental footprint by reducing energy use and prolonging the expected lifespan of the building. The Catalyst Building connects to Spokane’s growing University District by way of the Gateway Bridge, designed to accommodate pedestrians and cyclists. The South Landing project is a joint development of Avista Development and South Landing Investors LLC. Other stakeholders include Katerra (maker of the CLT), Eastern Washington University, McKinstry, and Michael Green Architecture. The sustainable features include an energy-efficient radiant heating and cooling system throughout the building, heat recovery of all exhaust air, high-performing building envelope design, LED lighting, sun shading in the lobby, and a smart building management system to maximize building operations efficiency. Heather Rosentrater, senior vice president of Energy Delivery and Shared Services with Avista Utilities, and Ash Awad, Chief Market Officer from McKinstry, were guests on The POWER Podcast. They explained why the project is important for the community and the many ways all the stakeholders collaborated to make it a success. “As a utility, we recognize that a healthy community creates a healthy utility,” Rosentrater said. “And so, that’s at the core of being involved in this kind of a development is recognizing the value that it can bring to the community in terms of attracting businesses and just providing economic development in this area. So, that’s a big piece of why we’re involved.” “Typically, when a development is happening, the developer and the general contractor and the architect are really working from a top down perspective,” Awad said. However, the South Landing stakeholders worked together in atypical ways. He said Avista and McKinstry collaborated “to think differently about how energy moves.” The two also worked closely with Katerra to bring CLT strategies into the building. “But then, we actually worked with the community, and we thought a lot about ‘What does this southern part of the University District need?’ and working quite closely with the higher ed community and the greater Spokane area to think about some of those elements,” Awad said.

How to Find the Lowest-Cost Option for Electricity in Competitive Markets. How electricity is delivered to customers in the U.S. is complicated. Consumers in some states have no choice who supplies their power; state commissions regulate utilities as vertically integrated electricity providers. Other states utilize a competitive model in which power producers can openly access transmission infrastructure and participate in wholesale electricity markets. Yet, there isn’t complete consistency among states within the two general models. The entire system is a complex mechanism where different technologies, jurisdictions, and regulatory designs must interact. Free-market proponents will tell you that having competition is the preferable alternative, but that is debatable if you look at power prices in different areas. According to a study published by the American Public Power Association, the average revenue per kWh in regulated states has been less than in deregulated states. Currently, 15 states and the District of Columbia have deregulated electricity markets. The states are Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, and Virginia. But for consumers, understanding and choosing the best option to meet their needs can be difficult. That’s where a company like WattBuy comes in. WattBuy is an online electricity marketplace that helps customers save on electricity costs by identifying the best option and switching users to the cheapest electricity provider. “So, the way that we work is we have an algorithm that looks at how your home uses electricity down to 15-minute increments, and we take into account all sorts of data,” Naman Trivedi, co-founder and CEO of WattBuy, said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. Among the things WattBuy considers are a home’s square footage, number of bedrooms, number of bathrooms, and historic usage data. It also compares a customer’s data to that of other consumers in the same area. With the information, “We can get pretty accurate at predicting what your home's electricity usage will look like,” Trivedi said. Understanding usage is only the first piece of the puzzle. Then, WattBuy looks at plans offered by power companies to see which one fits best for the customer in question. That includes evaluating tier-pricing options, which comes into play when a different rate applies to different usage thresholds. For example, rates could differ from 0–500 kWh, 500–1,000 kWh, and greater than 1,000 kWh. Other things that may need to be considered include available rebates, promotional incentives, loyalty plans, time-of-day usage, and renewable energy preferences of the consumer. There’s obviously a lot to consider, but Trivedi said WattBuy can save customers as much as 40% on their electric bills. “We have that machine learning model that assures that we’re going to be very accurate,” he said. “The best part about it is that it continues to improve over time.” Trivedi has an interesting background. He was included on the 2020 Forbes “30 Under 30” list in the Energy category. On the podcast episode, Trivedi told about some of the past projects he’s been involved in, which include working with the Silicon Valley Leadership Group promoting a policy initiative for community choice aggregation, working for the White House Office of Science and Technology under the Obama administration, and working on renewable energy projects in Haiti and Paraguay.

Amicarella ‘Demystifies’ the Role of CEO for Women. The power generation industry has historically been a male-dominated industry, but today there are a number of women who have risen through the ranks to positions of leadership. Ana Amicarella, CEO of EthosEnergy, is one of them. EthosEnergy is a leading independent service provider of rotating equipment services and solutions to the power, oil and gas, and industrial markets. Amicarella was appointed CEO last December after spending 22 years with GE and eight with Aggreko, where she was managing director for its Latin America business prior to taking on her latest role. Speaking as a guest on The POWER Podcast, Amicarella explained how her career evolved. “I started in engineering. I moved to sales. I did strategy. Then I did operations roles,” Amicarella said. “For the past 18 years, I’ve been running different businesses, which is what I love to do and likely will continue to do,” she said. Amicarella’s first seven months at the helm of EthosEnergy have been interesting to say the least. In December, COVID-19 was not yet a major concern to most people around the world, but that quickly changed. Amicarella was forced to deal with the situation. “We reacted swiftly and decisively,” she said. “We built a plan—a strategic plan that we developed as a team—and we just accelerated the execution of the plan, and adapted to the new environment and the different working rules that we had to face.” EthosEnergy has 20 facilities scattered throughout the world, and the company was able to keep them all open, even during the height of the pandemic. Amicarella said keeping people safe was a top priority, so new protocols were created and workplace adjustments were made. “We essentially sent our office personnel home, but we were already users of virtual technology, so our IT team made sure that we had the proper infrastructure to support remote workers,” she said. Concerning women in the workforce, Amicarella said, “All the companies I've work for, I think they valued women, and I think they really tried to do the best they could to retain and develop women.” Still, she suggested there’s a lot more work to be done. “We need definitely more diversity in our industry,” Amicarella said. “I think a lot of it starts at home. We have to encourage girls to do more problem-solving, more involvement in sports to develop that competitive spirit, and then take it into schools and encourage girls to get into math and sciences. Make it fun—hands-on—demystify things,” she said. “When you start seeing that women are in powerful positions then it demystifies the role,” said Amicarella. It allows other women to say, “If she can do it, I probably can do it!” When recruiting personnel, Amicarella looks for the combination of diversity and talent. She suggested the key is to have a diverse slate, and then pick the top candidate. “My leadership team from seven months ago to today is a very diverse leadership team, and it’s not by accident,” she said.

Using Autonomous Drones in the Power Sector. Drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), have been dabbled with throughout the power industry for years. POWER featured a drone on its cover in April 2014, and it has published many articles on drone technology since then. Yet, the technology has been used more as a novelty in the power sector up to this point. As a guest on The POWER Podcast, Reese Mozer, CEO and co-founder of American Robotics, suggested that could change in the very near future. “We’ve all been talking about this for a very long time—you know, a decade plus—and despite all that, we really are not even scratching the surface yet of the scale that drones will be implemented and the value that will come from them,” he said. “But we are about to enter a very different generation of drone technology—and really robotics in general—and, you know, I think the next decade is going to look quite a bit different.” According to Mozer, American Robotics has developed the next generation of drone technology. The company offers a fully automated drone system that’s capable of continuous unattended operation. Mozer explained that the autonomous drones work in conjunction with automated base stations to capture, process, analyze, and transfer data remotely to a user. The base stations charge and house the drones to prepare them for their next flight. He said this level of automation is key to finally unlocking drones as a viable tool for the energy sector. “The reality is that until we can remove the human from the loop, drones will not be able to scale to the levels that everybody has imagined,” Mozer said. “Once we can, [that] changes the economics of working with a drone. That changes the logistics. Not only does it make it affordable and practical to actually scale, it actually unlocks a whole different type of data collection, and thus, analysis that we can do on that data.” There are still some challenges to overcome, however, such as getting Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations updated to allow autonomous operation. “That is the primary hurdle stopping this technology from taking off,” Mozer said. “American Robotics has developed the technology, the automation, the machine vision, the AI [artificial intelligence] that’s required to actually conduct these automated operations reliably in the real world. And the last step for us, and for the rest of the industry, is to overcome FAA regulations. “Beyond line of sight is probably the most key. There’s also a list of other ones that would prohibit this kind of automated operation,” he said. “And that's one of the reasons that we don't see drones flying all over the place right now.” There is reason for optimism. “We expect it in the near future,” Mozer said. “This topic is something that has been debated over and worked on from both a technology perspective and a policy perspective for really the past decade, and we think that that change is coming quite soon.”

What Is DERMS and How Can It Help Utilities? A distributed energy resource management system, or DERMS, is a software platform used to manage a group of distributed energy resource (DER) assets—such as rooftop photovoltaic solar panels, behind-the-meter batteries, or a fleet of electric vehicles—to deliver vital grid services and balance demand with supply to help utilities achieve mission-critical outcomes. As a guest on The POWER Podcast, Seth Frader-Thompson, CEO of the DERMS provider EnergyHub, said aggregating DERs can offer a number of benefits to power companies. For example, they may be used to support frequency or voltage on the grid, shift load, or provide emergency demand response. Although many utilities manage DERs through a relatively manual process today, Frader-Thompson said some companies are shifting to a more automated framework, in which computers are identifying issues in the system, proactively forecasting how DERs could be manipulated to mitigate the problem, and executing the strategy. “The utility grid operator does not want to think about a million individual batteries, rooftop solar systems, electric vehicles, smart thermostats, industrial process controllers, etc. They essentially want a virtual power plant and sort of a virtual knob for that plant that they can operate,” Frader-Thompson said. EnergyHub’s Mercury DERMS uses advanced machine learning-based artificial intelligence to manage resources. “We have invested many millions of dollars in a bunch of artificial intelligence that allows the system to take 100,000 resources that happen to be clustered around a certain city and stitch them together in a closed-loop way into something that allows the utility to sort of specify exactly the outcome they want,” said Frader-Thompson. “The DERMS is basically built to allow them to do either something very specific, or something very general, and kind of dial it into exactly what works for them.” In addition to complicating grid operation, the growth in DERs would seem to pose a business challenge for utilities too. For example, if more customers are generating their own power, that means the local electric company is selling less. But Frader-Thompson suggested DERMS could provide new revenue streams for power companies to tap into. “There are other ways to make money and the concept of a DERMS creating grid services from a big group of aggregated DERs is in and of itself another revenue opportunity for utilities,” he said. “Increasingly, you’re seeing regulators say, ‘You know what? This is really valuable to the grid. In many ways, this is preferable to ratepayers—to the community—over a traditional, capital-intensive infrastructure upgrade.’ And you're seeing those regulators say, ‘You—the utility—are able to make a regulated rate of return on that.’ ”