Scoring Returns with Renewables

by Luke Geiver (Ethanol Producer Magazine) ... More broadly, plants working to lower their respective carbon scores are helping the biofuel sector graft onto the leading edge of climate change mitigation and the quest for net-zero emissions. The challenge for producers directing both mind- and monetary-capital to their carbon scorecards is complex. But, as a handful of early adopting facilities have shown, adding wind, solar, combined heat and power (CHP), carbon accounting or other carbon score reduction strategies can not only yield bottom-line results, but be accomplished without impeding daily operations.

Regional Renewables
In 2019, Western Plains Energy’s team running the ethanol plant in Oakley, Kansas, committed to lowering its carbon intensity score.

Although (Derek) Peine and his team had identified several pathways to lower the plant’s carbon score, supplementing a portion of the plant’s fossil-based energy with wind offered the quickest option. In 2019, WPE created a separate entity focused solely on the wind project, allowing its shareholders and investors to participate. Because the site’s capacity factor—or its ability to produce wind—was high, the team knew harnessing the power of the Kansas plains would not present any major daily hurdles. The issue, Peine explains, was in the size of the wind project and the location.

“Everyone wants to do industrial size wind farms or a residential size project,” Peine says. “There are not a lot of wind turbine installation projects in the ones and twos.”

To overcome the sizing issue, WPE turned to FTI and Juhl. “This is a unique niche in the market. What we are talking about here is using a full-scale industrial turbine in an installation that is onsite for [industrial application],” says Clay Norrbom, president of Juhl Energy. “That is where it is pretty unique.”

As Peine explains, in WPE’s part of the country, wind energy is abundant and, in some cases, reverting wind energy production back to the grid can actually cost money.

For the entire system to act as a carbon intensity score reducer, it had to be connected behind the ethanol plant’s electrical meter. According to Charlie Fredrickson, vice president of EnTech Solutions (a division of FTI), doing that makes a project inherently difficult.

While some industrial facilities can “greenwash” their systems by purchasing wind or other renewable energy offsite to show they are participating in renewable energy production, ethanol facilities do not have that option when it comes to carbon intensity score reduction. “The energy has to be produced and consumed onsite,” Norrbom says.

Peine is proud that his team, including FTI and Juhl, were able to provide a blueprint for producers across the country looking to get into wind power installation onsite. “The ethanol industry is good at process technology improvements,” he says. “With wind, understanding the turbine industry and how to work with your local utility is important. And like most things, the key to all of this is to get good partners.”

Over the last six months, Aemetis, led by CEO Eric McAfee, has been busy with several projects. The plant has signed an agreement to purchase a new expansion site, signed MOUs with eight airlines for the supply of renewable fuel, completed a seven-mile biogas pipeline and also started or completed projects involving solar and battery storage.

To help power the plant’s operations, a roughly 2 MW solar array was constructed with an additional 1.9 MW battery storage set-up.

Other producers are on the same track with renewables. In 2018, Alto Ingredients became the first ethanol producer in the country to utilize solar to power one of its plants, installing roughly 5 MW of onsite power. Other biofuel companies have also turned to solar, including Gevo and POET, which installed a 400-kilowatt solar array at its company headquarters last year.

At Aemetis’ Keyes, California, plant, natural gas power has been substituted for a combination of solar and hydroelectric power. In addition to solar, battery storage and hydroelectric, Aemetis utilizes a Mitsubishi Chemical Zebrex ethanol water separation system which uses electricity instead of molecular sieves. McAfee says the facility is also utilizing mechanical vapor recompression that uses electrical fans to recompress steam. A series of heat exchangers helps to more efficiently provide heat and help with energy use. The theme, he says, is to change out as many systems as possible to impact the CI score.

“Decarbonization of fuels relies on enforcement of federal laws (RFS) and state law (LFCS),” he says, stressing that the risk with renewables is not in technology, financing or construction. “The risks reside in the ongoing violation of federal law by not announcing blending percentages, and not enforcing the federal gallon mandate, [allowing waivers] … [and not] increasing the usage of federal LCFS credits.”

Like McAfee in California, Peine in Kansas sees a case for renewables on many fronts. WPE has identified three components to its carbon intensity score. The first is carbon sequestration. Many entities are looking at the Oakley site as an opportunity for sequestration due to favorable geologic conditions. The second area WPE has identified for CI reduction is linked to grain (i.e., the grain coming into the plant). The team is currently working with corn suppliers to better assess each farm’s own CI score, which in turn will help WPE’s overall CI score. Part of that process also involves WPE petitioning CARB to use a CI score on a per-farm basis for its grain inputs, as opposed to a nationwide-based average score already assigned by CARB. And like Aemetis, Peine says WPE is also focusing on new operational efficiencies. To start, his team has focused on ways to reduce natural gas inputs, followed by efficiency improvements, to drive down overall demands. READ MORE