YABUCOA, Puerto Rico, Aug. 11, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Eleven months since their three-building school was first plunged into darkness by Hurricane Maria, 140 students in Puerto Rico’s picturesque Yabucoa district have reliable power. Resilient electricity service was provided Saturday to the SU Manuel Ortiz school through an innovative scalable, plug-and-play sunshine-to-energy module pioneered by SunCrate Energy with Black & Veatch support. Known as a “SunCrate”, the unit is an effective mitigation measure to back up the traditional power supply from the grid. The SunCrate can also provide sustainable power in the face of ongoing system outages and future natural disasters without requiring diesel fuel.

The humanitarian effort to return sustainable electricity to the K-8 school, found along the island’s hard-hit southeastern coast, drew donated equipment and expertise from a collection of North American companies. Additional support for the Yabucoa project came from Tesla, Canadian Solar and Lloyd Electric.

“We are grateful for this initiative, which will equip this school with the technology needed to become a resilient campus and not dependent on the status of the power grid. This means that if we are hit with future harmful weather events, the school will be able to open more quickly and continue providing services to students,” Puerto Rico Secretary of Education Julia Keleher said.

The SunCrate harnesses a scalable rapid-response design developed by Black & Veatch and manufactured by SunCrate Energy. Electricity will be generated by an array of 325-watt CS6U-Poly modules from Canadian Solar, one of the world’s biggest solar power companies and a leading manufacturer of solar photovoltaic modules. California-based Tesla contributed advanced battery energy storage through various Powerwall units capable of storing excess solar power and delivering it outside peak generation periods. Lloyd Electric Co. of Wichita Falls, Texas partnered to support delivery and installation of the SunCrate.

“As families in the region begin to prepare for the school year, this community is still impacted by the longest U.S. power outage in history,” said Dolf Ivener, a Midwestern entrepreneur who owns King of Trails Construction and SunCrate Energy, which is donating the SunCrate. “SunCrate, with its rapid deployment and use of renewable energy, should give this school peace of mind and hopefully returns a touch of long-overdue normalcy to students and their parents. When it comes to consistent power, SunCrate is on duty.”

The SunCrate is a portable renewable energy system conceived by Ivener and designed and tested by Black & Veatch. Its modular design uses solar PV panels, inverters and batteries to store and provide electric power in support of critical services such as police, fire, schools, clinics and other community level facilities.

A SunCrate can generate 23 to 156 kWh per day, and store 10kWh to 135kWh depending on configuration. A SunCrate’s power generation and storage capacity can be easily scaled through daisy-chained configurations to accommodate larger buildings and loads. Leveraging resources from Tesla, Canadian Solar, Lloyd Electric and Lord Electric, the unit in Yabucoa will provide an estimated 52 kWh of storable power without requiring use of costlier diesel-powered generators and cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Its capabilities allow the school to strengthen its function as a designated Community Emergency Response Center in the event of future natural disasters.

“Canadian Solar has a long history of using solar power to support humanitarian efforts aiding victims of social injustice and natural disasters, including previous donations to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria,” said Dr. Shawn Qu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Canadian Solar. “We are pleased to make the difference for these schoolchildren in Yabucoa who have been without reliable power for too long.”

The SunCrate will also substantially lower the school’s ongoing electricity costs by providing a reliable source of renewable energy on site.

“Through our experience providing engineering services in Puerto Rico for nearly 50 years, including dozens of specialized projects for local government and industrial clients, we see great potential for SunCrate as a source of resilient power for the Commonwealth’s remote schools and communities at large,” said Charles Moseley, a Program Director in Black & Veatch’s water business. “We hope that the deployment of the SunCrate in Yabucoa sets a precedent for facility and municipal level migro-grid efforts on the island and beyond.”

SunCrate also has broad potential applications in conflict/post-conflict environments and in rural electrification efforts in the developing world, serving as a resilient source of electricity within hours of its arrival on site. Of particular benefit, the system’s flexibility cuts fuel costs to a fraction of a generator’s typical consumption when they are used around the clock with maintenance requirements.

About Black & Veatch Black & Veatch is an employee-owned, global leader in building critical human infrastructure in Energy, Water, Telecommunications and Government Services. Since 1915, we have helped our clients improve the lives of people in over 100 countries through consulting, engineering, construction, operations and program management. Our revenues in 2017 were US$3.4 billion. Follow us on www.bv.com and in social media.

About SunCrate EnergyAs a Midwestern entrepreneur who owns King of Trails Construction and Hog Power Energy in Sioux City, Iowa, Dolf Ivener has been an established solar installer for more than six years largely in the rural application arena. After developing a turnkey microgrid system in a shipping container, Ivener realized its potential applications were far broader as a mobile electricity source fully functional within hours of its arrival.

About Canadian Solar Founded in 2001 in Canada, Canadian Solar is one of the world’s largest and foremost solar power companies. As a leading manufacturer of solar photovoltaic modules and provider of solar energy solutions, Canadian Solar also has a geographically diversified pipeline of utility-scale power projects in various stages of development. In the past 17 years, Canadian Solar has successfully delivered over 27 GW of premium quality modules to over 100 countries around the world. Furthermore, Canadian Solar is one of the most bankable companies in the solar industry, having been publicly listed on NASDAQ since 2006. For additional information about the company, follow Canadian Solar on LinkedIn or visit www.canadiansolar.com.

About Lloyd Electric

Founded in 1984, Lloyd Electric Company is a full-service electrical construction company that has partnered with industry leaders on government and commercial projects across North America and in various countries overseas. Services include overland, primary and secondary power distribution, complete inside electrical installation and solar systems, as well as energy remediation projects. Lloyd Electric has been working in the Caribbean for more than 22 years, including on six islands after three different hurricanes.

Black & Veatch Media Contact Information:JIM SUHR | +1 913-458-6995 P | +1 314-422-6927 M | SuhrJ@bv.com 24-HOUR MEDIA HOTLINE | +1 866-496-9149

Copyright 2018 GlobeNewswire, Inc.

The born-again, century-old “Old Main Heating Plant” on the Minneapolis campus of the University of Minnesota is a proxy for a greener Minnesota’s economy.

That’s a job-producing, smog-reducing trend that also combats climate change that’s warming the planet and driving weather volatility.

“Old Main,” a dirty, once-shuttered, coal-fired plant, was relaunched last December as a natural gas-fired combined heat and power producer that, at 83 percent, is twice as efficient as the old facility and generates enough steam and electricity to power and heat the huge campus.

“We have lowered the campus energy bill by $2 million annually,” said Mike Berthelsen, the U’s vice president of university services, “It cuts our campus carbon emissions by 50 percent and lowers the university’s overall carbon footprint by 10 to 13 percent.”

The $113 million project is projected to easily retire the debt through energy savings over the next 25 years.

“Over 30 years, we estimate more than $150 million in savings to the university,” Berthelsen said.

That doesn’t include a $2 million rebate from a CenterPoint Energy conservation program that the U is using for campus-conservation projects.

The four-year resurrection of Old Main, including a new boiler and 22.8 megawatt turbine, was also a significant economic-development project that employed as many as 135 workers for weeks at a time. And the U no longer needs to buy electricity from Xcel Energy.

Old Main has become the base­load uninterrupted power provider for the university’s classrooms, hospital, research facilities and more; it is supplemented during winter peak-demand periods by a small gas-burning peaking facility, which also is near campus on the Mississippi River.

Green technology, from fast-growing wind and solar power, to energy-efficiency products is growing faster than the overall Minnesota economy.

Clean Energy Economy Minnesota, an advocacy group that ranges from small solar outfits to the gigantic likes of Cargill and Cummins Power, said this month that Minnesota clean-energy jobs grew 2.6 percent to 59,079 jobs last year, not counting the biofuels trade such as ethanol. That’s nearly twice the overall growth rate. And more than 40 percent of the new jobs are created outside the Twin Cities.

“Because of the state’s commitment to improving energy efficiency we are able to develop and attract talent to help us with our mission to reduce energy consumption of new and existing commercial buildings,” said Kevin Bollom, vice president of Wisconsin-based energy-equipment maker Trane, which employs 300 in White Bear Lake, including a digital studio that monitors 10,000 commercial buildings around the country. “We’re investing in new products and solutions that will help our customers reduce their energy footprint and greenhouse gas emissions.”

Minnesota’s big power generators, such as Xcel — the nation’s largest producer and buyer of wind power — and Great River Energy are producing more than 25 percent of their energy from low-carbon, declining-cost renewable forms of energy. Their carbon footprints have dropped even more over the past decade as they also have shuttered old, inefficient, dirty plants.

Utilities in the 15-state midcontinent region, including Minnesota and North Dakota, have cut carbon emissions by about 20 percent over the past decade, a trend accelerating in recent years.

The Great Plains Institute the nonpartisan clean-energy initiative, is developing with the Midcontinent Power Sector Collaborative, major and small power producers, as well as environmental stakeholders, a “road map” to power plant “decarbonization” — cutting carbon emissions by 80 percent below 2005 levels by 2050.

Xcel alone said recently: “Our goal is to reduce carbon emissions 60 percent from 2005 levels by 2030.” At the same time, it is increasing renewable-energy fuel sources from 27 percent in 2017 to nearly 50 percent in 2022, including 12 new wind farms across seven states.

Lower-cost battery storage makes it possible for power generators to store wind energy overnight for release during daytime peak demand.

Minnesota has proved we can grow by squeezing more juice out of each btu of energy, and using lower carbon sources, from natural gas to wind and solar.

“I’ve seen what this growth does for Minnesota by the number of jobs we’ve been able to create and communities we’ve been able to assist,” Eric Pasi, chief development officer of IPS Solar, the 25-year-old solar-energy contractor, said last week.

Cleaner energy and technology grow an economy less threatened by a hotter planet and billions of dollars in environmental-health costs, from childhood asthma to cancer, which is traditionally not tabulated into the real cost of carbon-based fuels and pollution.

Neal St. Anthony has been a Star Tribune business columnist and reporter since 1984. He can be contacted at nstanthony@startribune.com.

John Lindsey is Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s Diablo Canyon Power Plant marine meteorologist and a media relations representative. Email him at pgeweather@pge.com or follow him on Twitter @PGE_John.

NEW ORLEANS — Pumping carbon dioxide into the air makes the planet greener; the United Nations puts out fake science about climate change to control the global energy market; and wind and solar energy are simply “dumb.”

These are among the messages that flowed from the America First Energy Conference in New Orleans this week, hosted by some of the country’s most vocal climate change doubters — and attended by a handful of Trump administration officials.

The second annual conference, organized by the conservative think tank the Heartland Institute, pulled together speakers from JunkScience, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, and the Center For Industrial Progress, along with officials from the US Department of the Interior and the White House for panels that included “Carbon Taxes, Cap & Trade, and Other Bad Ideas,” “Fiduciary Malpractice: The Sustainable Investment Movement,” and “Why CO2 Emissions Are Not Creating A Climate Crisis.”

The day-long conference reflected the political rise of global warming skeptics in Donald Trump’s America that is occurring despite mounting scientific evidence — including from US government agencies — that burning oil, coal and natural gas is heating the planet and leading to drought, floods, wildfires and more frequent powerful storms.

A similar conference blasting the link between fossil fuels and climate change last year drew then-Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt, who was appointed by Trump to reverse Obama-era climate initiatives and roll back regulations hindering drillers and miners, but who has since resigned amid a flurry of ethical controversies.

The US officials who joined included White House special assistant Brooke Rollins, Interior Department Assistant Secretary Joe Balash, and Jason Funes, an assistant in the office of external affairs at Interior. They praised the administration’s moves to clear the way for oil industry activity, and steered clear of commenting on climate change.

But their presence gave climate change doubters at the conference a boost: “It’s a step in the right direction,” said self-described climate change doubter Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama, referring to the US officials in attendance.

In an email, Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Swift said department officials “speak at thousands of conferences every year and share ideas with a diverse group of individuals.” A White House spokesperson did not immediately comment.

Tim Huelskamp, president and CEO of the Heartland Institute, said the views presented at the conference — once on the fringes of US politics — would be proven right.

“The leftist claims about sea level rise are overblown, overstated or frankly just wrong,” he said in an interview. Regarding the United Nations’ findings on climate change, he said it was “fake science” motivated by a desire for “power and control.”

“Coming Soon!”

Evidence of sea level rise, however, is strewn across the state that hosted the conference.

New Orleans has been ravaged repeatedly by hurricanes that scientists say will become stronger and more frequent due to climate change. And the rest of Louisiana is losing coastline at one of the fastest rates on the planet due to sea level rise and encroaching industry, according to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

“It’s a nice world they live in,” said Steve Cochran, campaign director of Restore the Mississippi River Delta, an environmental consortium involved in coastal restoration programs, referring to the attendees at the America First Energy Conference. “It’s not the world we live in.”

The Governor’s Office of Louisiana, a state that has earmarked tens of billions of dollars to fend off coastal erosion and relocate a Native American tribe from a sinking offshore island, did not respond to requests for comment about the conference.

In the conference exhibit hall, the words “Coming Soon!” in big orange letters framed a Heartland Institute advertisement for the fifth volume in its “Climate Change Reconsidered” book series. Attendees also passed around a book titled “Dumb Energy: A Rant Against Wind and Solar Energy.”

The more than 40 speakers praised Trump for withdrawing from the Paris climate accords, a global agreement to fight climate change mainly by cutting carbon emissions; and for rolling back regulations to allow oil companies to lead the biggest energy surge in the nation’s history.

But they warned that proponents of the US oil and gas boom are still locked in an epic struggle with climate activists in academia and within federal agencies.

“The deep state is real,” said Congressman Clay Higgins, a Louisiana Republican, addressing the conference. “They’re certainly anti-fossil fuel.”

Higgins joked about renewable energy sources, like wind and solar, saying there is probably a conference somewhere in the United States where people are talking about “how the future of the world’s engine will be provided by rainbow dust and unicorn milk.”

David Legates, professor of climatology at the University of Delaware, argued that increased carbon dioxide emissions will not only leave the planet unharmed, but benefit plant life by allowing it to consume water more efficiently.

“So, you would expect, therefore, that this will be a greener planet,” Legates said.

Funes of the Interior Department spoke on a panel called “The Future of Coal, Oil, and Natural Gas,” alongside Joe Leimkuhler, vice president of drilling at LLOG Exploration Co., and Fred Palmer, who joined Heartland in 2016 after retiring from coal company Peabody Energy.

“Oil production under President Trump has increased 2 million barrels per day since the beginning of his administration,” Funes said. “The US is exporting four times as much oil as it exported a decade ago.”

On the sidelines of the conference, Funes said he only attended the conference to speak about the nation’s surging oil production, and he refused to comment about the views of other speakers.

Efforts to reach Balash and Rollins were unsuccessful.

But in the dinner keynote address, Balash embraced the most obvious mutual terrain between the conference organizers and the Trump administration — the US deregulation push.

“Last year, this administration rolled back 22 regulations for every one that it proposed,” Balash said. “Unfortunately, I think we need about a decade of that to get back to a reasonable place.”

BMR Energy, a clean energy company owned by Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, is taking over St. Croix’s four-megawatt solar farm in Estate Spanish Town.

BMR officials say they are “set to receive approval from the utility to purchase another hurricane-damaged USVI solar project in the coming weeks.” The company’s announcement does not name the second facility, but the only currently-existing facility with a contract with the V.I. Water and Power Authority is the similar, but more damaged facility in Estate Donoe on St. Thomas.

Damaged in last year’s storms, the Spanish Town plant is operating at 45 percent of its capacity, according to BMR. The new owners plan to have it fully restored by sometime in October.

The St. Croix plant was owned by Toshiba International Corp. The one in Estate Donoe on St. Thomas is owned and operated by Main Street Power, in conjunction with Morgan Stanley. Both were initiated during the tenure of Hugo Hodge Jr., WAPA’s former executive director.

Both had 20-year power-purchasing agreements with the Water and Power Authority. BMR will take over the power purchase agreement and restoration efforts of the St. Croix solar farm, which sustained significant damage during last year’s hurricane, according to a statement from BMR.

The Estate Spanish Town solar farm received some damage during the storms, while the St. Thomas facility was blown apart, leaving smashed solar panels strewn about.

“For jurisdictions in the Caribbean looking to meet clean energy goals, building hurricane-resilient renewable energy infrastructure is crucial to long-term success,” WAPA Executive Director Lawrence Kupfer said in the BMR statement.

“We look to these resiliency-focused projects and our work with BMR Energy as a critical part in our goal to reach 60 percent fossil fuel reduction by 2025,” Kupfer said.

According to BMR, a construction manager is already on-site repairing damage and replacing inverters at the St. Croix solar facility. BMR says its goals for the restoration process are to get the site restored for the most competitive price and as quickly as possible to accommodate WAPA’s planning needs.

When fully restored, it should power about 1,600 homes.

Richard Branson’s Virgin Group bought BMR Energy in 2016 and works extensively in the region. In 2016, they flicked the switch on a 36-megawatt solar farm in Jamaica. And they bought a 7 megawatt facility in Guatemala.

“BMR Energy is an expert in developing clean energy – the team also acts as a long-term partner and is working to make a huge difference in the region,” Branson said in the company statement.

“The world needs to find ways to introduce more resilient clean energy. The Caribbean has an abundance of clean energy sources, and BMR are taking great strides towards helping create zero-carbon energy supplies for years to come,” he continued.

WAPA had no additional comment at present on the news. BMR CEO Bruce Levy was out of the office when called Thursday.