Energy Innovations: Dominion, Tesla, Amazon & More

Can a $160 million investment in offshore wind transform the energy landscape for Dominion Energy? Tune in as we unpack this and more, including Virginia Electric and Power Company's ambitious offshore project and Calpine's groundbreaking carbon capture initiative at Baytown. Our discussion explores how Amazon is setting new standards in sustainability, pressuring its suppliers to follow its impressive strides in cutting carbon emissions. We'll also cover Tesla’s explosive growth in energy storage deployments and the drastic price reductions for their megapack systems, highlighting a seismic shift in the storage market.

We’ll delve into BP’s latest energy outlook, which predicts the imminent peak of oil demand and carbon emissions, and what this means for future energy trends. Finally, get acquainted with Rondo Energy's thermal industrial heat batteries, a promising solution for decarbonizing hard-to-abate sectors. From the world’s largest data center cluster to industrial heat innovations, this episode offers a comprehensive look at the pivotal developments shaping our energy future. Don’t miss out on these crucial insights!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello, I've got your energy stories for this, the third week of July 2024. And in the first one, dominion Energy subsidiary Virginia Electric and Power has agreed to acquire the 40,000 acre 800 megawatt Kitty Hawk Northwind offshore wind lease for close to $160 million. For the nearly 40,000 acres, detailed costs and in-service estimates are still to be developed and Dominion is under considerable pressure to access new generating supplies, in large part to serve its growing data center cluster, which is by far the largest on the planet. Virginia Electric and Power Company's first offshore project, a 2,600-megawatt endeavor, remains on time and on budget, with commissioning expected in 2026. The first 25 monopiles have been installed since May, with a total target of 70 to 100 monopiles by the end of October.

Speaker 1: 0:52

Calpine has signed a cost-share agreement with the US Department of Energy's Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations for a full-scale carbon capture demonstration project at its Baytown site near Houston. The Baytown decarbonization project is intended to capture 95% of the CO2 emissions from two of three turbines at the company's Baytown energy facility. As demonstrated by NRG's Petronova, however, carbon capture has been both difficult and expensive to date. Maybe we'll see a new chapter here, but call me a skeptic for now. Amazon announced it's years ahead of schedule in cutting its carbon emissions and has now exceeded the 100% target. Moreover, it's now putting the heat on suppliers to do the same, with the higher emitters responsible for 50% of supply chain emissions now required to develop and explain their plans to do so. The ones who do better will benefit, as Amazon's 2023 sustainability report noted, saying, quote we will prioritize our business towards those who provide their plans and results on their path to net zero carbon emissions. Unquote. It's not all sick, though. Amazon's carrot includes a newly established website called Amazon Sustainability Exchange, offering case studies and playbooks to help, and the company's collaborating directly with numerous suppliers to develop emissions reduction roadmaps.

Speaker 1: 2:11

Tesla deployed 9,400 megawatt hours of energy storage in Q2 of 2024, up 131% over the previous quarter and 157% over Q2 of last year. That 9,400 megawatt number equates to almost two-thirds of last year's total deployment numbers for Tesla. Meanwhile, the company's pricing has fallen 44% over the last 14 months for its 1.9 megawatt 3.9 megawatt-hour megapack, which currently stands at $1.039 million about $266 per kilowatt hour, down from $1.88 million $482 per kilowatt hour number in last April. To put that Tesla number in perspective that 9,400 megawatt hours last year, the entire United States installed 24,000 megawatt hours for the whole year. Well, bp's annual energy outlook may surprise some, as it foresees oil demand peaking next year at close to 102 million barrels per day in each of its two main scenarios. Carbon emissions are also predicted to peak in the mid 2020s in both scenarios. It will take a long time for those numbers to then start to show big declines with so much inertia baked into the global energy system. But it's a start. And finally, canary Media reports that Rondo Energy's thermal industrial heat batteries are starting to find their way into industrial applications, including six US and European sites, with end uses ranging from food and beverage processing to chemicals and cement production.

Speaker 1: 3:46

End uses ranging from food and beverage processing to chemicals and cement production. Rondo's tech uses resistance heating and brick blocks that can be heated with electricity to 1500 degrees centigrade. Canary noted that project economics were favorable enough to entice Portuguese clean energy developer EDP to finance as much as 2,000 megawatt hours of heat batteries, tied to 400 megawatts of wind and solar projects. All this is notable because to date, nobody has really had success in decarbonizing the hard-to-abate industrial sectors in which heat has previously been furnished by coal or gas. So there could be some real green shoots here, and though it may be premature to celebrate, I will note that among facilities served are two distilleries in Illinois and Kentucky, backed by the US Department of Energy support. I'll drink to that. Well, thanks for watching and we'll see you again next week.