BP 2008 Annual Report Download - page 39

BP Annual Report and Accounts 2008
Performance review
More than 70% of our sales volume is through third-party distributors in
the residential markets in Europe, the US and Australasia. We have
continued to roll out our Certified Installer Programme (CIP), first
established in Germany, to ensure the safe, high-quality installation of
products by third parties. The CIP has grown rapidly in Germany and this
year has been rolled out in Spain and Australia.
In the US, in 2008, we continued to supply large corporations with
sustainable energy solutions, completing a second solar system
for FedEx Freight in California and a further six installations for Wal-Mart.
In Europe, we expanded the relationship with Banco Santander to jointly
build and finance a number of solar plants in Spain, with the construction
of an 8 megawatts-peak (MWp) solar farm in Toledo and a 6MWp project
in Tenerife. In Asia, we completed the installation of a solar power
demonstration project (SolarSail) at the Guangdong Science Center; the
SolarSail absorbs sunlight to produce power, while providing cool shade
for visitors. In Australia, the largest roof-top solar system (100 kilowatt) in
New South Wales commenced operation in February 2008, representing
the first commercial solar power installation for the Blacktown Solar City
Project. The Solar Cities Programme is a government initiative to
implement distributed solar and other energy efficient technologies in
seven Australian cities.
We are developing a new silicon growth process named
Mono2TM , which will increase cell efficiency over traditional
multicrystalline-based solar cells. We have moved from a prototype to
low-volume production and have converted our casting stations in
Frederick, Maryland, delivering 1.2MW Mono² TM. From the trials, we are
seeing significant improvement in power and generated kWh when
compared with multicrystalline-based solar cells particularly when
modules are used where sunlight is low.
BP Solar has long-term relationships with world-class universities
and invests in research programmes with organizations including the
University of Delaware, California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech) and
the Fraunhofer Institute (Germany). BP Solar was selected for the Solar
America Initiative (SAI) award from the US Department of Energy – a
$40-million research and development programme aimed at decreasing
the cost of solar cells and increasing their efficiency. BP Solar is also a
member of the broad consortium led by DuPont in conjunction with the
University of Delaware, funded by the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA), to develop high-efficiency solar cells.
Biofuels
BP has a key role to play in enabling the transport sector to respond to
the dual challenges of energy security and climate change. Our
investments are focused on sustainable feedstocks that minimize
pressure on food supplies and on research into advanced technologies
and practices to make good biofuels even better.
We have embarked on a focused programme of biofuels
development based around the most efficient transformation of
sustainable and low-cost sugars into a range of fuel molecules. These
include bioethanol from Brazilian sugar cane, more efficient fuel
molecules like biobutanol and advanced biofuels like lignocellulosic
bioethanol produced from non-food energy grasses and ‘for-purpose’
feedstocks such as miscanthus and energy cane.
BP has announced it has plans to invest in excess of $1 billion in
building our own biofuels business operations, including partnerships
with other companies to develop the technologies, feedstocks and
processes required to produce advanced biofuels.
These investments include: a 50% stake in Tropical BioEnergia, a joint
venture with Santelisa Vale and Maeda Group, to produce bioethanol
from sugar cane; and a $90-million investment and strategic alliance
with Verenium Corporation to accelerate the development and
commercialization of biofuels produced from lignocellulosic bioethanol.
We have been working with DuPont since 2003 to explore new
approaches to the development of biofuels. The first product from this
collaboration will be an advanced fuel molecule called biobutanol, which
has a higher energy content than ethanol. We have partnered with
ABF (British Sugar) and DuPont to construct a world-scale biofuels plant
in Hull.
Innovation begins with research. In 2006, we announced plans
to invest $500 million over 10 years in the Energy Biosciences Institute
(EBI), at which biotechnologists are investigating applications of
biotechnology to energy, including advanced fuels. This amount is
incremental to the $1 billion of investments mentioned above. Our
partners are the University of California, Berkeley and the University
of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and the Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory. The EBI is focusing on the integrated development of better
crops, better processing technologies and better biofuels, leading to
cleaner energy.
Hydrogen power
In May 2007, BP and Rio Tinto announced the formation of a new jointly
owned company, Hydrogen Energy International Limited, which will
develop decarbonized energy projects around the world. The venture will
initially focus on hydrogen-fuelled power generation, using fossil fuels and
CCS technology to produce new large-scale supplies of clean electricity.
Hydrogen Energy is working on developing low-carbon power
plants with projects in Abu Dhabi and California – manufacturing
hydrogen for power generation. In both instances, the captured CO2 will
be transported to nearby oil fields for use in enhanced oil recovery, with
the CO2 stored deep underground. General Electric and BP have formed
a global alliance to jointly develop and deploy technology for hydrogen
power plants that could significantly reduce emissions of the greenhouse
gas CO2 from electricity generation.
Through these initiatives, BP intends to continue to shape
the development of the CCS value chain and to seek to minimize
the carbon footprint exposure of the BP group as carbon pricing and
policy develops globally.
Gas-fired power
Our gas-fired power activities comprise modern combined cycle gas turbine
plants, which emit around 50% less CO2 than a conventional coal plant of
the same capacity, and several low-carbon co-generation gas power
facilities. We have stakes in eight plants worldwide and this year increased
the total power they are capable of producing from 5GW to 6GW and,
where possible, we integrate plants with other BP production facilities. The
Whiting Clean Energy facility, acquired in July 2008, now provides a reliable
source of steam for our Whiting refinery and we are adding a 250MW
steam turbine to our existing plant at our Texas City refinery. Our combined
cycle plants are providing base-load demand for BP’s major upstream gas
production developments.
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