What's the future for Energy Alternatives?

Desert dwellers live at the upper end of the thermometer during the summer. With the cost of keeping cool steadily climbing, the demand for some relief is heating up. What's the Future for Energy Alternatives?

Phoenix Mayor Terry Goddard arrived late at a conference on the population shift to the Sun Belt. Flashing his winsome smile, hizzoner said he had been stalled in traffic. The ironic explanation also contained a hint of prophecy because the conclusion of the conference was, in effect, “You ain't seen nothin' yet.” The population of Arizona, the conferees predicted, very likely will double from the present two-and-seventenths million by the end of the century, only sixteen years away. That would suggest even heavier traffic and the need for more of everything, especially the electricity to make stoplights operate and keep homes comfortable.

Although the conference did not deal with the outlook for electrical energy, the forecast from the two utilities serving Phoenix and the Salt River Valley is for an adequate supply, but at higher prices. Utility rates have been doubling every seven years and, apparently, will continue to increase.

Electric costs reported by Arizona Public Service Co.-the state's largest privately owned electric utility-in its 1983 annual report averaged about seven-and-eight-tenths cents per kilowatt hour last year for residential customers, but the company was trying for a substantial rate increase. Like other utilities which have started to build nuclear plants, APS is in deep financial stress.

Salt River Project, the other electric supplier, is a public utility whose rates are set by a board of governors. That utility reported its residential customers paid slightly less than seven-and-onetenth cents (7.064) per kilowatt hour during the fiscal year which ended April 30, 1984. Both utilities produce most of their electricity with coaland gas-fired generators. Between the generating plants now in operation and those under construction by Salt River Project, as well as APS's Palo Verde nuclear plant fiftyfive miles west of Phoenix, there should be an ample supply of electricity. Despite the chain of lakes and dams it is tapping northeast of Phoenix, SRP generates only about ten percent of its electricity with waterpower.

Because Central Arizona lives at the upper end of the thermometer, cooling accounts for most of the annual household energy bill. Monthly bills in summer frequently exceed $150.

With rate increases sure to come, the future is getting brighter for solar and other alternate sources of energy. In fact, the state now leads the nation in the number of solar devices per capita, according to the Arizona Solar Energy Commission. Water heaters lead the list.

Business and industry, generally holding to the belief that the most uncomplicated way to produce electricity is with photovoltaic cells, is playing a waiting game. The ASEC estimates, meanwhile, that a PV system, cost-amortized over twenty years can now produce electricity for about twentyfour cents per kilowatt hour. That would include storage batteries for overnight and the few days the sun does not shine in Arizona.

As a comparison, an ASEC official said, electric rates of utilities with nuclear plants-particularly in the Northeast-are expected to go to eighteen cents per kilowatt hour by the end of this year.

Homebuilder John F. Long, who is experimenting with a variety of solar technologies, likens the waiting game on photovoltaics to the development of the pocket calculator. “At first they cost more than $300 each, but now are down to less than ten dollars,” he said.

Industry is reluctant because of known technology that will be put to use in the near future. Technology combined with mass production and distribution brought down the price of the pocket calculator to where it was in reach of everyone. Manufacture of photovoltaics will follow in time," said Long.

Don Aadland, a Scottsdale professional engineer who has designed many and varied solar energy systems, agrees with Long's analogy, but adds that industry seems to be hung up on photovoltaics being the only way to utilize solar energy.

Aadland contends that there are many other ways of harvesting solar energy more efficient for such processes as heating water or drying materials. "All of the technology exists," he said. "It's just a matter of taking existing components and harnessing them, but a lot of people are reluctant to do it.

Thermal solar energy from flat plate collectors is more cost-efficient for heating water, he continued, and the more sophisticated sun-tracking concentrators can produce temperatures of more than 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Concentrators are parabolic troughs which focus sunlight on tubes carrying liquids or gases. Liquids go through heat exchangers which boil water and make steam to operate turbines. Gases such as Freon go directly from the tubes into Rankine cycle engines. A few of these solar-operated engines are in operation in Central Arizona now, pumping irrigation water.

Biomass, such as garbage and stable sweepings, is another source of energy, feasibility for which Aadland is investigating for two California clients. One, a municipality, plans to burn garbage to generate electricity and reduce its need for landfills. The other client plans to pelletize race track stable sweepings to fuel generator engines.

In Higley, southeast of Phoenix, the Arizona Dairy Company uses methane gas from cow manure to fuel a generator that supplies part of its electrical needs and puts the waste heat to work in other dairy applications. This use of excess heat is called cogeneration.

A few miles away in Mesa, the Empire Machinery Company, which sells and services heavy road building equipment, has its own generating plant which it installed in 1969. The company buys natural gas from the City of Mesa to operate its generator engine and siphons off waste which it also puts to a variety of uses in the plant. Empire is totally independent of any utility company, joining a new trend among large electricity users.

While both Arizona Public Service Company and Salt River Project have some experiments going in solar power generation, both downplay their expectations. APS has one photovoltaic installation at Sky Harbor International Airport that could supply thirty homes and has a one-house project going at Yuma.

Salt River Project has two solarpowered refrigeration systems. One is a Rankine fifty-ton cooling system used on a large office building; it has proven effective, albeit costly. The second is a three-ton unit on a home. While it has experienced some problems, they are not considered insurmountable.

John F. Long, who has built some 34,000 houses, most of them in the Phoenix area, has a model home park where he is testing several energy savLong, who plans to build a solar community, where no one will have to pay an energy bill, meanwhile is collecting valuable information from his experiments with convection, conduction, radiation, and evaporation.

After traveling much of the world, looking for energy-saving ideas to incorporate in his homes, he observes philosophically, "There's really nothing new. It's just a matter of recycling ideas and adapting them to the conditions and needs of today."

Former newspaper science and medical reporter Dennis B. Farrell's pursuits now include free-lance writing, woodworking, and travel.