Company Overview
The principals of Bull Frog Green Energy, LLC have broad experience in all aspects of the development of natural gas and renewable energy projects. They have developed 6 green field and brown field projects all but one of which have been completed. One of the projects was sold prior to completion due to an attractive offer from British Petroleum. These projects are all located in California and total 270 megawatts of generating capacity. In 2007, the principals formed Bull Frog Green Energy LLC in order to focus their combined efforts on renewable energy development projects.
The development process involves many different elements which must be completed to create a successful project:
- Conceptualization
- Site selection
- Land purchase or lease
- Development financing
- Electrical interconnection
- Environmental permitting
- Power sales
- Thermal energy sales (if any)
- Local approvals
- Fuel supply or resource validation
- Fuel transportation (if any)
- Water supply
- Wastewater disposal
- Ash disposal (if applicable)
- Project financing
- Engineering, procurement and construction
- Operation and maintenance
Power project development requires a delicate weighing of technical, economic and political factors. Bull Frog Green Energy, LLC has the experience to orchestrate the development process by carefully balancing the competing needs of these various project elements.
Solar.
The southwestern U.S. offers an abundant solar resource on otherwise unusable land, and is located near to several of the largest population centers (Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Las Vegas) in the country. Due to the local geography, these areas are also very sensitive to air quality. Additionally, the cost of energy is already high as compared to other parts of the country.
While solar energy production is at the higher end of the energy cost spectrum for now, the same could be said for wind power not too many years ago. Concentrating solar thermal electric plants offer power at a price that utilities are now somewhat willing to pay. Concentrating solar thermal electric technology will continue to be improved. In the meantime, concentrating photo-voltaic technologies are being developed that will improve efficiencies and cost and ultimately displace the currently commercialized technologies.
The principals of Bull Frog Green Energy believe that the solar power industry will eventually outpace the wind power industry. We are in the early stages of identifying land and obtaining rights-of-way to construct utility size power stations. So far this land is in California. We are also looking to the neighboring states of New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada.
As we move from project conceptualization and land control over to transmission and environmental studies, we are seeking financial and strategic partners who are interested in the risk and reward associated with early stage solar development.
Wind.
In the last ten years, wind power has grown to a multi-billion dollar industry. Most of the key players from Europe have come to the United States with technology, production capacity, and capital. The challenge with wind is that it is a non-dispatchable energy source unless energy storage is added to the system. There were many small wind power developers, but now an increasing number of larger players are on the scene.
Wind power has many advantages. It has no fuel cost. It is a renewable resource, minimizing consumption of fossil fuels. It is clean and reasonably quiet.
The United States badly needs more renewable sources of energy to reduce our dependence on finite fossil fuel resources, which often come from hostile foreign countries. Wind power will play a big part in this vital transition to a more sustainable energy future.
Our most recent experience with wind power was the acquisition of an existing 11 MW wind power project that was outdated and underutilized. The existing PPA was for 20 MW and the existing substation was built for 20 MW. We bought the project and decided that the project was even more viable if we completely re-powered it with new, state-of-the-art wind turbine technology and built it out to the full 20MW capacity. In the process of seeking development funding, British Petroleum made an offer to buy out the entire project and complete the development. We sold the project which is now still under construction.
Natural Gas.
Natural gas-fired power generation is widely favored by the environmental community because of its minimal effect on air quality and high efficiencies when applied as a combined cycle. Our new gas-fired facilities utilize advanced combustion turbine generating technology operating in simple cycle or combined cycle mode. They use clean natural gas fuel and employ state of the art control equipment, resulting in air quality impacts that are only a small fraction of existing Rankine cycle power plants.
Natural gas-fired power plants are an attractive addition to many communities. They create many local benefits, including steady, good-paying jobs and large property tax revenues to support schools and other governmental services. These facilities fit harmoniously into their surroundings with little impact on the local area, since they are small in size.
A good example of our project development experience came from the California’s ISO Request For Summer Reliability Capacity in 1999. Our proposal was for seven (7) 49 MW gas turbine simple cycle peakers located around California and totalling 350 MWs. The ISO (independent system operator) accepted all seven proposals. We determined that a natural gas-fired project would best fit the market needs. We then searched the state for attractive locations, specifically sites which were at or near the intersection of major electric transmission lines and large natural gas pipelines. The development effort came to a close in 2001 as we delivered 250 MW to ISO. The development financing came from United Technologies as they had just introduced their new FT-8 Twin Pack Gas Turbine Power Package. The ultimate owner was CalPeak which has since been sold to another company.
The Principals.
Daniel Kabel is the owner of Blue Planet Power LLC (www.blueplanetpower.net), a management consulting firm offering technology, business, and organizational advisory to the energy and marine industries. Dan has 30 years of experience starting and running technical businesses. Formerly he has held the following roles: President, Wartsila North America; CEO, Clean Air Power; General Manager, GE Distributed Power; President, MKW Power Systems.
Darryl Franklin, P.E. is the owner of Energistics, Inc. (www.energistics.biz), an engineering and project management firm offering services to the energy industry. Mr. Franklin’s firm has been engineering and managing distributed generation projects for 30 years. He has also participated in a number power projects from the development stage through commissioning.
