a Feasibility Study for Transitioning Louisville, Kentucky’s Transportation and Electricity Generation to Renewable Sources The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Darst, Timothy. 2016. a Feasibility Study for Transitioning Louisville, Kentucky’s Transportation and Electricity Generation to Renewable Sources. Master's thesis, Harvard Extension School. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:33797349 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA A Feasibility Study for Transitioning Louisville, Kentucky’s Transportation and Electricity Generation to Renewable Sources Timothy J. Darst A Thesis in the Field of Sustainability and Environmental Management for the Degree of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies Harvard University May 2016 © 2016 Timothy J. Darst. Abstract Climate change is caused mainly by humans and there is a great risk of “severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems” (IPCC, 2014). It has been proposed by many that America can address climate change by simply buying electric cars and then obtaining all electricity from renewable sources (Deutch, & Moniz, 2010; Freeman & Parks, 2016). This “silver bullet” is appealing; however, without detailed study it is not known whether this is a viable solution in many communities across the United States. Louisville, Kentucky was chosen as a case study to determine if it is feasible for conversion to a 100%-renewably-sourced electricity grid and all-electric transportation model. Louisville is in one of the largest coal producing states, is heavily dependent on coal for electricity production, and has a high per capita number of vehicle miles driven annually. In this study the amount of energy needed to power all of the city’s vehicles using electricity was measured, and the amount of electricity that the community would be able to produce from renewable energy sources was estimated. The results indicate that while still monumental in cost and scope, it is possible to convert Louisville’s electricity grid to 100% renewable energy while replacing all of its vehicles with electric vehicles by 2050. To reduce the cost and magnitude of this conversion, conservation and efficiency measures are needed that result in a 26.5% decrease in electricity and a 15.6% reduction in transportation by 2050. Hydroelectricity, wind energy, electricity produced from biomass, and energy storage can meet nighttime base load demand and provide the dispatchability needed for grid stability. After conservation and efficiency and producing energy from other renewable sources, this conversion would require more than 48 million solar panels, enough to cover 36.5 square miles or 9.1% of the city. A transformation of this magnitude will require a large commitment from the community and full participation of the governmental, business, and non-profit sectors. Acknowledgements Many thanks to those who helped me along the way in my research and writing, listed here alphabetically, Stacy Bogan, Junior GIS Specialist at the Harvard Center for Geographic Analysis for help in learning to work with GIS data, Dr. Kate Bulinski, Associate Professor of Geoscience at Bellarmine University’s School of Environmental Studies, for taking on the difficult task of being my thesis director, Andrea Chaves, business technology analyst at Deloitte Consulting LLP in Denver for help with the LiDAR data and ArcGIS programs, George Clark, research librarian at Harvard’s Lamont Library for help in researching and finding documents, Sarah Lynn Cunningham, Executive Director of the Louisville Climate Action Network for technical consulting, Susan Dresley, librarian at the U. S. Department of Transportation Volpe Library for her help in finding sources, Philip Gerstein, librarian at the Harvard University Godfrey Lowell Cabot Library for assisting me in research, Geoffrey Hobin, Capital Program Administrator for the Transit Authority of River City for help with finding transit data, Matthew Jolly, for his work using GIS and LiDAR data, Lori Kelsey, transportation planner at KIPDA for her help in finding census data, Mark Leighton, Harvard University’s Extension School for advising me for this thesis, my wife Angela Lincoln, for being patient with me and being understanding about the many hours of work that was needed for this research, Doc Manning ,for help in understanding the complexities of electricity production, Randy Simon, transportation planner at KIPDA for help in v locating data, Elizabeth Youngblood, for pointing me to sources about solar energy, and Barry Zalph, for proofing and giving me advice on research. vi Table of Contents Acknowledgements v List of Tables xii List of Figures xiii Definition of Terms xiv I. Introduction 1 Research Significance and Objectives 1 Background 2 Base Load and Peaks: Balancing Demand and Supply 7 Ramping 10 Surplus Energy 12 EV Charging 13 Operating Reserves and Storage 18 Limitations for Renewable Energy Production 19 Capacity Factor 22 Local Sources 23 Louisville, Kentucky 24 Research Questions and Hypotheses 27 II. Methods 30 Transportation 30 Increase in Demand from Electric Vehicles 31 Conversion of the Existing Grid to Solar 32 vii Population and Growth 33 Conservation and Energy Efficiency 33 Other Renewable Energy Sources 34 Bioenergy 34 Wind and hydroelectricity 35 Land Usage for Solar Panels 35 Storage Capacity of Electric Vehicles 36 III. Results 37 Transportation 37 Increase in Demand from Electric Vehicles 38 Conversion of the Existing Grid to Solar 39 Population and Growth 40 Conservation and Energy Efficiency 41 Other Renewable Energy Sources 42 Land Usage for Solar Panels 44 Storage Capacity of Electric Vehicles 47 IV. Discussion 49 Increase in Demand from Electric Vehicles 49 Solar Conversion Grid to Solar 50 Efficiency and Conservation 53 Buildings 53 Lighting 54 Appliances 55 viii Heat pumps 56 Observer effect and feedback loops 57 Other conservation and efficiency solutions 59 Transportation 61 Other Renewable Energy Sources 66 Bioenergy 66 Dedicated crops 68 Urban wood waste 69 Lumber mill waste 69 Industrial, commercial, and institutional food waste 70 Manure 71 Agricultural residues 72 Sewage 72 Landfill gas (LFG) 72 Geothermal 74 Hydroelectric 75 Wind 77 Energy Storage 77 Batteries in EVs (V2G) 79 Batteries in Homes 80 Pumped Storage in Hydroelectric Reservoirs 84 Utility Scale Battery Storage 86 Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) 87 ix Capacitors and Other Short-term Storage Devices 89 Flywheel Energy Storage (FES) 91 Other Strategies 93 Smart Grid 93 Demand Response 94 Mitigating Curtailment 97 Flattening the Duck Curve 98 Recommendations 99 Government Sector 99 Business Sector 100 Non-profit Sector 103 Policy Issues 105 Portfolio standards 105 Feed-in tariff 106 Building codes 106 Financing mechanisms 106 Net-metering expansion 107 Land use regulations 107 Conclusion 108 References 110 x List of Tables Table 1 LG&E power plants and production 26 Table 2 Electric vehicles weighted average kWh per mile 38 Table 3 Solar electricity demand based on current levels of usage 40 Table 4 Calculation of weighted average energy efficiency savings, Louisville, Kentucky 41 Table 5 Solar electricity demand after employing conservation or efficiency in buildings and the transportation 42 Table 6 Electricity generation potential from renewable energy sources other than solar 43 Table 7 Solar electricity demand after employing other renewable energy sources 44 Table 8 Largest parking lots in Louisville, Kentucky 45 Table 9 Electric vehicles weighted average battery capacity 47 Table 10 Biomass generation from dedicated corps of switchgrass and trees 69 Table 11 2012 census of cattle, calves, hogs, pigs, and poultry in vicinity of Louisville, Kentucky 71 Table 12 Bioenergy resources Louisville, Kentucky and surrounding counties 73 Table 13 Summary of potential new hydropower resources in Region 5 75 Table 14 Comparison of battery technologies 84 xi List of Figures Fig. 1 How to cut U. S. global warming emissions in half 5 Fig. 2 Sources of greenhouse gas emissions 6 Fig. 3 Hourly electricity demand 8 Fig. 4 Illustrative daily load in 2020 11 Fig. 5 Potential transformer overloading due to L2 EV charging 15 Fig. 6 Shape and transition of fixed hourly aggregate load profile for PEVs 16 Fig. 7 Artist depiction of solar array along highway as proposed for I-264 near the Dixie highway interchange 46 Fig. 8 Average household electricity savings by feedback type 59 Fig. 9 Boulder, Colorado cumulative investment in alternative transportation infrastructure compared with increases in mode share. 63 Fig. 10 Potential new hydropower capacity in Region 5 76 Fig. 11 Capacity of U.S. grid storage projects 78 Fig. 12 Comparison of environmental impacts of five EV batteries using LCA 82 Fig. 13 Pumped storage hydro 85 Fig. 14 Isothermal compression diagram 87 Fig. 15 Schematic of the PowerSouth Energy Cooperative compressed air energy storage facility in McIntosh, Alabama 89 Fig. 16 Flywheel diagram 91 Fig. 17 Comparison of storage devices 92 xii Definition of Terms Base load: Utilities use certain sources of electricity to provide a consistent level of electricity that does not fluctuate throughout the day or night. This minimum amount of electricity is necessary to meet the basic electricity demand of the customers. This demand is called the base load. Bioenergy: Energy produced from plants, such as the electricity and or heat from burning wood, or the energy produced from burning ethanol, or the heat or electricity produced from burning landfill gas. Efficiency: For the purposes of this research, efficiency is the reduction in use of electricity that is achieved by a change in the technology to perform the same task while using less energy. An example of this would be changing to a car that has greater miles per gallon (MPG) or miles per gallon equivalent (MPGe).