The first posts, the birth of an idea, Summer 2020
01 Project Stages
June 2020
There is a much ambiguity when it comes to define the development stages of a project. What do you consider the main milestones of development?
02 Energy Market
June 2020
Looking into doing a graphic representation of an energy market. What do you think is missing?
03 Preliminary Layout
July 2020
An important milestone in the development a renewable energy project is the preliminary Layout, here are shown the main elements a preliminary layout must have.
04 Continuous Monitoring
July 2020
The data flow and its analysis can be a complex and time consuming process, new algorithms now allow us to extract even more information and analyze it in real time.
05 LCOE
July 2020
The calculation of the cost of energy is subject of the selected variables, the basic equation allows us to add as many assumptions as we need to, generating an even more precise result.
06 LCOE (2010-2019)
July 2020
The evolution of LCOE energy prices for onshore wind and solar PV in the last 10 years, these data is based on IRENAS published results about energy prices.
The learning curve, Autumn 2020
16 Albedo
August 2020
A subject in which I have more experience is the measurement of albedo for bi-facial PV projects, the truth is that today we still don’t have enough standardized guidelines on hoy to measure or assess the production. It is always recommendable to measure at least one year and in conditions that are the most similar to the final project, there is a great number of factors that
17 Debt & Equity
August 2020
Going back to financial subjects, I’m trying to sum up the main financial instruments for renewable projects, it’s important to mention that according to IRENA, more than 90% of the total investment of renewables has come from private institutions, also most projects have a mixed debt to equity ratio, on average 70% debt against equity.
18 Grid Control
September 2020
What is going on inside grid control room? lately I decided to investigate about it, and this is what I have come up to. The control room is the brains of the operation and controllers are now able to monitor and control multiple and large regions simultaneously, besides generate valuable information by real time analysis, that allow us to plan and improve our grids.
20 Construction Stages
September 2020
Construction is without doubt one of the most fascinating phases of a project, with some developments presenting real challenges due to its remote location, complexity and supply needs, needing complete teams of experts in the matter, plus hundreds of specialized workers and machines. All constructions sites are different but in renewables wind farms often are
22 Market Regulation
October 2020
Where do our markets sit right now, and what is the next step?
Many countries have switched to liberalized markets as they see the clear benefits, in order to keep control and progress regulator entities have been created to moderate, control and direct progress, however a substantial failure is still common and its slowing down the deployment of new technologies,
Experimenting, Winter 2020
25 World Energy Markets El Salvador
November 2020
How do different world markets work?
For my 25th publication I want to start a new series about global electricity markets starting with a neighbor country that stands out for having a modern and competitive market, El Salvador, even though it is geographically small it has vast resources as large geothermal areas, excellent solar radiation and hig
26 SODAR’s & LIDAR’s
November 2020
What will we do now that new turbine heights are unreachable for met masts? The solution may lie on new technologies such as SODAR’s and LIDAR’s that are now allowing us to complement the measurement campaigns, study the behavior of existing WTG’s and even reach out into new sites that previously where to difficult or expensive to access. SODAR and LIDAR technolog
27 Ancillary Services
November 2020
I consider ancillary services a critical market that will enable renewable deployment, there are multiple busines opportunities in these services but first, we need to understand a couple of concepts that are essential to grid operation, the first is AC frequency and the second Power factor, for this last one I needed a lot of research so please let me know if I
28 Met Data analysis
December 2020
Now What? Once we installed the MET stations and the data starts to flow, what do we do with all that information? On average a MET station generates 6 packages of information every hour, each package contains the 10min average reading of about 10 to 15 sensors, when we start to add up the amount of information that a group of stations generate on a year it can be
29 PPA
December 2020
What do you think will be the dominant business model in years to come, PPA´s or spot market?
The Corporate PPA is one of the enabling schemes that has allowed a rapid deployment of renewable energy, in the last decade near to 60GW of PPA’s have been signed worldwide, PPA’s can vary between different markets and technologies but there are some common elements that most PPA´s s
30 Soil Mechanics
January 2021
Probably nothing affects the construction costs as much as the type of soil beneath it, we tend to forget how important is to study soil before and during a project, poor knowledge of the soil can lead to construction accidents, environmental damage, erosion, dust, floods, sinkholes, and even structural failure. We are entering deep into the realm of civil engineering
Formalizing the project, Spring 2021
35 Wind
May 2021
Breaking down the flow of air over the blades, is critical to determine the optimal blade design, mainly two things must be considered, an airfoil that has a high lift vs drag coefficient and can also be easily manufactured, and the ideal angle of attack that airfoil must have in the different parts of the blade, most blades have a combination of airfoils through their blades with d
36 Power output and efficiency
May 2021
An oversimplification of how WTG generate energy, is partially given by the power formula which is derived from the kinetic energy formula. However, the turbine components efficiency must be considered to obtain the final power output. The power formula is dependent of 3 main things, rotor diameter, air density and wind speed.
The overall efficiency of the tur
37 Blade design
June 2021
Will we see two bladed turbines again?
We might, as new structural materials develop, we might see two blade turbines mainly in offshore or remote areas where noise is not a constrain, so longer and slim rotors could spin faster, the instability issues can be fixed by additional structure, these costs can be offset by the reduction in blade material, construction, and trans
38 The Electricity market
July 2021
And old post reimagined, the electricity market. This post is the result of a series of combined graphics that I have created with Northland Power Energía. The illustrations are meant to explain the electricity market to big consumers, and how Northland Power Energía as an IPP can help large consumers improve their status by switching to alternative energy sources
39 Blade length
July 2021
What is limiting the increase of length in blades? Mainly, the available materials, as longer blades require an increase in structural strength, these materials can come heavy or costly, it’s possible than in a near future the increment on material costs could be upset by the benefits of longer rotor diameters, especially in offshore application where noise is not such a bi
40 Demand curve
July 2021
The Demand Curve. One of my favorite analogies here is to understand the vast difference between the different energy prefixes (wh, Kwh, Mwh...) we hope that this small analogy han help many as a quick guide to comprehend magnitudes.