Thursday, December 18, 2014

Demand Response Management Program

A Powerful Opportunity For Managing Your Electricity Costs

For organizations looking for new ways to manage their electricity costs, DEMAND RESPONSE can make perfect sense.  Demand Response is increasingly being recognized as an effective way to reduce the cost of power and the need to build additional electricity generation capacity. 


What is DEMAND RESPONSE?

DEMAND RESPONSE programs compensate participating industrial and commercial businesses for reducing their energy demand at specific times of power system need.  During such times wholesale market prices for electricity may be high, the power system is experiencing large peaks in demand, or there is a greater risk to the reliability of the electricity grid.

DEMAND RESPONSE can be incorporated into your business’ energy cost-management strategy in several different ways by reducing your equipment electricity use, generating your own power or shifting production to an off-peak period.

You can participate in Ontario’s DEMAND RESPONSE program in two different ways, depending on your facility’s electricity demand: 

DEMAND RESPONSE DR3

This contractual initiative offers higher incentive rates to large businesses in return for your firm commitment to take part in activation notices.


peaksaver 
PLUSTM For Small Business

If your business has central air conditioning and an annual electricity demand of less than 50kW, you’re invited to participate in this load management initiative.

Depending on which initiative you choose and where you are located in the province, you may also have the option to participate through your local electric utility or through a Demand Response Provider. Demand Response Providers are organizations that manage the demand response capacity of a number of facilities as an aggregated group.

 

Friday, December 12, 2014

Biochar Is a Valuable Soil Amendment

chartreeBiochar is a solid material obtained from the carbonisation of biomass. Biochar may be added to soils with the intention to improve soil functions and to reduce emissions from biomass that would otherwise naturally degrade to greenhouse gases. Biochar also has appreciable carbon sequestration value. These properties are measurable and verifiable in a characterisation scheme, or in a carbon emission offset protocol.
This 2,000 year-old practice converts agricultural waste into a soil enhancer that can hold carbon, boost food security, and increase soil biodiversity, and discourage deforestation. The process creates a fine-grained, highly porous charcoal that helps soils retain nutrients and water.
Biochar is found in soils around the world as a result of vegetation fires and historic soil management practices. Intensive study of biochar-rich dark earths in the Amazon (terra preta), has led to a wider appreciation of biochar’s unique properties as a soil enhancer.
Biochar can be an important tool to increase food security and cropland diversity in areas with severely depleted soils, scarce organic resources, and inadequate water and chemical fertilizer supplies.
Biochar also improves water quality and quantity by increasing soil retention of nutrients and agrochemicals for plant and crop utilization. More nutrients stay in the soil instead of leaching into groundwater and causing pollution.

Biochar is a Powerfully Simple Tool to Combat Climate Change

The carbon in biochar resists degradation and can hold carbon in soils for hundreds to thousands of years. Biochar is produced through pyrolysis or gasification — processes that heat biomass in the absence (or under reduction) of oxygen.
In addition to creating a soil enhancer, sustainable biochar practices can produce oil and gas byproducts that can be used as fuel, providing clean, renewable energy. When the biochar is buried in the ground as a soil enhancer, the system can become "carbon negative."
Biochar and bioenergy co-production can help combat global climate change by displacing fossil fuel use and by sequestering carbon in stable soil carbon pools. It may also reduce emissions of nitrous oxide.
We can use this simple, yet powerful, technology to store 2.2 gigatons of carbon annually by 2050. It’s one of the few technologies that is relatively inexpensive, widely applicable, and quickly scalable. We really can’t afford not to pursue it.