But MIT spinout FastCAP Systems is developing ultracapacitors, and ultracapacitor-based systems, that offer greater energy density and other advancements. This technology has opened up new uses for the devices across a wide range of industries, including some that operate in extreme environments. 

Based on MIT research, FastCAP’s ultracapacitors store up to 10 times the energy and achieve 10 times the power density of commercial counterparts. They’re also the only commercial ultracapacitors capable of withstanding temperatures reaching as high as 300 degrees Celsius and as low as minus 110 C, allowing them to endure conditions found in drilling wells and outer space. Most recently, the company developed a AA-battery-sized ultracapacitor with the perks of its bigger models, so clients can put the devices in places where ultracapacitors couldn’t fit before. 

FastCAP's Vertically Aligned Carbon Nanotubes (VA-CNTs) are grown on Stainless Steel and Silicon substrates. 

FastCAP Systems' ultracapacitors (pictured) can withstand extreme temperatures and harsh environments, opening up new uses for the devices across a wide range of industries, including oil and gas, aerospace and defense, and electric vehicles. Courtesy of FastCAP Systems


In the late 2000s, the FastCAP founding team had a breakthrough: They discovered that a tightly packed array of carbon nanotubes vertically aligned on the electrode provided much more surface area. The array was also uniform, whereas the porous material was irregular and difficult for ions to move in and out of. 

In 2014, FastCAP deployed its first commercial product. The Ulysses Power System is an ultracapacitor-powered telemetry device, a long antenna-like system that communicates with drilling equipment. This replaces the battery-powered systems that are volatile and less efficient. It also amplifies the device’s signal strength by 10 times, meaning it can be sent thousands of feet underground and through subsurface formations that were never thought penetrable in this way before.

After a few more years of research and development, the company is now ready to break into aerospace and defense. In 2015, FastCAP completed two grant programs with NASA to design ultracapacitors for deep space missions (involving very low temperatures) and for Venus missions (involving very high temperatures).

In May 2016, FastCAP continued its relationship with NASA to design an ultracapacitor-powered module for components on planetary balloons, which float to the edge of Earth’s atmosphere to observe comets. The company is also developing an ultracapacitor-based energy-storage system to increase the performance of the miniature satellites known as CubeSats. 

FastCAP has pioneered extreme environment ultracapacitor technology. Today, FastCAP is the only company with ultracapacitors capable of high temperature (over 125°C), low temperature (less than -40°C), and hermetically sealed capacitors capable of enduring the space environment. FastCAP’s technology has been validated from -110°C to 250°C by Sandia National Laboratory.

FastCAP also offers capacitors ruggedized against extreme shock and vibration for energy, defense, automotive, and aerospace applications with vibration survival in excess of 20gRMS and shock survival of 500g.

FastCAP technology excels in environments where other energy storage fails.

If you’re looking to install new solar panels in your home, why not consider those created by the aptly-named SolarWindow Technologies, which transform regular windows into solar panels that are up to 50 times more efficient than the regular photovoltaics you’d attach to a roof?

“Just pick up your cell phone, look at the face without any power or image, and you’ll see a pretty good example of what today’s thin film looks like,” John Conklin, CEO of SolarWindow, told Digital Trends. “It’s heavy, it’s too dark to see through, and most thin-film is not flexible. This type of technology isn’t the type to build skyscraper windows.”

He, on the other hand, had a different idea.

This is where SolarWindow comes into play. As the term “regular windows” suggests, users don’t have to replace the existing windows in their home, but need only treat them with a special process developed by the company.

“We apply liquid coatings to glass and plastic surfaces at ambient pressure, and dry these coatings at low temperature to produce transparent films,” Conklin continued. “We repeat these processes, and then collectively these coatings — and thus the glass and plastic surfaces — generate electricity.”

Of these coatings, the most important is the so-called “Active Layer,” through which electricity is generated by the absorption of light, and the transparent conductors, which allow the electricity to be extracted. “[The] coatings are primarily organic, primarily from carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen,” Conklin said. “We are constantly refining each of the layers to improve on the power we’re able to extract from these coatings and enhance their manufacturability.”

In addition to buildings, Conklin notes that some of the possible applications of this tech include the automotive industry, where a sunroof, windscreen or even side view mirrors could be turned into solar panels. There are also aerospace and military use-cases, and even the possibility of a “flexible fabric” being developed.

In all, it’s an exciting area to be working in, with some impressive math on its side. What kind of math? By the company’s estimates, a 50-story building with solar windows could generate around 1.3GWh every twelve months. For those keeping track, that’s enough energy to power around 130 homes for an entire year.

The Spanish developer Solarpack Corp. Tecnologica won contracts to sell power from a 120-megawatt solar plant for $29.10 a megawatt-hour at an energy auction this week.

That’s the lowest price on record for electricity from sunshine, surpassing a deal in Dubai in May. It’s the cheapest to date for any kind of renewable energy, and was almost half the price of coal power sold in the same event. According to Solarpack General Director Inigo Malo de Molina, it’s one of the lowest rates ever for any kind of electricity, anywhere.

“Solar energy technology has evolved and proved it is competitive,” Molina said in a telephone interview from Santiago Thursday. “Prices for electricity generation have changed drastically in the last years. Solar energy in Chile is now the cheapest in the market.”

A key part of the low price is the ever-declining price for solar panels. The average price on the spot market declined this week to 44.7 cents a watt for standard polysilicon panels, a record low.

Ideal Location

The location for this particular power plant is also a factor, in northern Chile’s Atacama desert. It’s high in the Andes, close to the equator and is considered one of the sunniest and driest places on Earth. It’s ideal for solar energy, and will generate more electricity than projects in areas that get less sunshine.

Chile’s government is planning to complete transmission lines that will let the solar farm deliver power to the entire country, which prompted Solarpack and other developers to bid so low, Molina said.

“This is the lowest price ever seen, for any renewable technology,” Ana Verena Lima, a Bloomberg New Energy Finance analyst in Sao Paulo. “The auction was very competitive and such a low price wasn’t expected by the market.”

The Wednesday auction was Chile’s biggest ever for electricity, awarding contracts to provide 12,430 gigawatt-hours a year, a third of what’s needed for the country’s regulated customers. The average price declined 40 percent from a similar event last year.

Renewable-energy developers won more than half the contracts. The lowest price for wind power awarded in the auction was $38.10 a megawatt-hour, power from natural gas-fired plants sold for $47, coal came in at $57, hydroelectricity at $60 and geothermal at $66.

In Chile’s power auctions, developers offer to provide a certain amount of capacity at a specific price, without saying what type of power plant they’re planning to build. Bids are listed from cheapest to most expensive, and distribution companies select the lowest-cost proposals available until reaching their target capacity.

Dubai Deal

The Solarpack contract is cheaper than a solar project in Dubai, that sold for $29.90 a megawatt-hour in May, and for a March auction in Mexico that awarded solar contracts for $35.50 a megawatt-hour, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Solarpack has 37 megawatts capacity operating in Chile and another 21 megawatts under construction. The company will begin construction of the project in the Tarapaca region in 2018 and expects it to go into service in 2019. Molina declined to provide the expected cost.

The auction is “a strong warning sign that the energy business continues on the transition path to renewable power and that companies should adapt quickly to this transition process,” said Carlos Finat, president of Chile’s renewable association.

ology and the 12 MW solar plant's location in the ideal conditions of Chile's Atacama Desert.

The Clean Energy Standard requires 50 percent of New York’s electricity to come from renewable energy sources like wind and solar by 2030.

The standards will be phased in with 26.31 percent of the state’s energy load coming from renewable energy in 2017 and grow to 30.54 percent in 2021.

“New York has taken bold action to become a national leader in the clean energy economy and is taking concrete, cost-effective steps today to safeguard this state’s environment for decades to come,” Governor Cuomo said.

The governor’s office says the Clean Energy Standard is the state’s way to fight climate change, reduce harmful air pollution, and ensure a diverse and reliable energy supply.

The Clean Energy Standard will be enforced by requiring utilities and other energy suppliers to obtain a targeted number of Renewable Energy Credits each year.

The plan is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent (from 1990 levels) and by 80 percent by 2050.

According to the governor’s office, the plan will cost less than $2 a month to the average residential customer’s bill.

Solar cells made from compounds that have the crystal structure of the mineral perovskite have captured scientists’ imaginations. They’re inexpensive and easy to fabricate, like organic solar cells. Even more intriguing, the efficiency at which perovskite solar cells convert photons to electricity has increased more rapidly than any other material to date, starting at three percent in 2009—when researchers first began exploring the material’s photovoltaic capabilities—to 22 percent today. This is in the ballpark of the efficiency of silicon solar cells.

Now, as reported online July 4 in the journal Nature Energy, a team of scientists from the Molecular Foundry and the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis, both at Berkeley Lab, found a surprising characteristic of a perovskite solar cell that could be exploited for even higher efficiencies, possibly up to 31 percent

This atomic force microscopy image of the grainy surface of a perovskite solar cell reveals a new path to much greater efficiency. Individual grains are outlined in black, low-performing facets are red, and high-performing facets are green. A big jump in efficiency could possibly be obtained if the material can be grown so that more high-performing facets develop. (Credit: Berkeley Lab)



Using photoconductive atomic force microscopy, the scientists mapped two properties on the active layer of the solar cell that relate to its photovoltaic efficiency. The maps revealed a bumpy surface composed of grains about 200 nanometers in length, and each grain has multi-angled facets like the faces of a gemstone.

Unexpectedly, the scientists discovered a huge difference in energy conversion efficiency between facets on individual grains. They found poorly performing facets adjacent to highly efficient facets, with some facets approaching the material’s theoretical energy conversion limit of 31 percent.

The scientists say these top-performing facets could hold the secret to highly efficient solar cells, although more research is needed.

“If the material can be synthesized so that only very efficient facets develop, then we could see a big jump in the efficiency of perovskite solar cells, possibly approaching 31 percent,” says Sibel Leblebici, a postdoctoral researcher at the Molecular Foundry.

Leblebici works in the lab of Alexander Weber-Bargioni, who is a corresponding author of the paper that describes this research. Ian Sharp, also a corresponding author, is a Berkeley Lab scientist at the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis. Other Berkeley Lab scientists who contributed include Linn Leppert, Francesca Toma, and Jeff Neaton, the director of the Molecular Foundry.

Surprise discovery could lead to better solar cells

The resulting maps revealed an order of magnitude difference in photocurrent generation, and a 0.6-volt difference in open circuit voltage, between facets on the same grain. In addition, facets with high photocurrent generation had high open circuit voltage, and facets with low photocurrent generation had low open circuit voltage.

“This was a big surprise. It shows, for the first time, that perovskite solar cells exhibit facet-dependent photovoltaic efficiency,” says Weber-Bargioni.

Adds Toma, “These results open the door to exploring new ways to control the development of the material’s facets to dramatically increase efficiency.”

In practice, the facets behave like billions of tiny solar cells, all connected in parallel. As the scientists discovered, some cells operate extremely well and others very poorly. In this scenario, the current flows towards the bad cells, lowering the overall performance of the material. But if the material can be optimized so that only highly efficient facets interface with the electrode, the losses incurred by the poor facets would be eliminated.

“This means, at the macroscale, the material could possibly approach its theoretical energy conversion limit of 31 percent,” says Sharp.

SOURCE - Berkeley national lab

Original article appeared on www.huffingtonpost.com on 5/2/16 byt Ed Krapels. Click here to view the original article.

1. The train carries big rocks uphill, consuming electricity.
2. Then the train carries big rocks downhill, generating electricity.

That's it. The energy stored by going uphill is released by going downhill.

Pretty neat. The details are fun too — it's a clever, low-tech solution to some important high-tech problems.

Using gravity to store energy

Say the grid temporarily has more renewable energy than it needs — the wind is blowing, the sun is shining, and there's not enough demand to make use of it.

Advanced rail energy storage (thus "ARES") can absorb that excess energy, using it to power electric trains that pull giant slabs of concrete up a gentle slope. In effect, the trains convert the excess electricity to potential energy.

(ARES)

When the grid needs that energy, the same rail cars carry the giant slabs downhill, converting the potential energy back into electricity. (Thanks, gravity!)

The conversions are done by an electric motor. When it goes uphill, it consumes electricity. When it goes downhill, it runs in reverse, generating electricity (similar to how "regenerative braking" works in cars).

The company claims the process, end to end, is 86 percent efficient, i.e., 86 percent of the energy that's put into storage can be gotten back out. It hopes to improve that number as it dials in the technology.

ARES provides more than storage

ARES already has a test track in the Tehachapi, California, region, but earlier this month, itgot approval from the Bureau of Land Management for its first commercial-scale project.

That project, called ARES Nevada, will consist in a 5.5-mile track traveling up an 8-degree slope, covering 106 acres of public land near the delightfully named town of Pahrump, Nevada. It will boast 50 MW of power capacity and be capable of producing 12.5 MWh of energy. The company expects to start construction early next year and finish by 2019.

Here's the thing: This first project won't provide energy storage.

ARES says it can build three different kinds of projects.

The smaller ones (20-50 MW), like the one being built near Pahrump, will provide"ancillary services" to the grid — in this case, the California grid.

Ancillary services can get pretty technical (VAR support! grid inertia!), but the simple explanation is that the ARES system can ramp up and down quickly, smoothing out fluctuations in power supply on the grid. That's worth money.

Medium-sized ARES projects (50-200 MW) will provide both ancillary services and short-term storage, roughly two hours' worth. While the former smooths out minute-by-minute variations in wind and solar, the latter can smooth out longer (hourly) fluctuations.

The large ("grid scale") ARES projects could range from 200 MW to 3 GW, which is a hell of a lot of storage — enough, the company says, to provide four to 16 hours of power at full output. At that point, a project starts looking less like a way of smoothing out fluctuations and more like a full-fledged power plant of its own, capable of backing up an enormous amount of renewable energy.

The benefits of rail storage

Rail storage has a lot to recommend it.

For one thing, though ARES is the first company to apply it to the task of energy storage, rail itself is an extremely well-understood technology. Almost everything ARES uses is off-the-shelf — no experimental tech or breakthroughs required. That substantially reduces investment risk.

Rail also compares favorably to other forms of energy storage.

ARES systems do not respond quite as fast as batteries (five to 10 seconds, as opposed to effectively instant), but the company claims its capital costs are far lower. Also, rail cars and concrete slabs, unlike batteries, do not degrade over time.

And rail storage is faster, with lower capital costs, than its main rival in grid-scale storage, pumped hydro (which pushes water up and downhill just like ARES pushes slabs). It's also more scalable than pumped hydro — you can do it incrementally all the way from 20 MW to 3 GW — and can be located in more places. All it needs is some open land and a slope. Notably, it doesn't need water, which allows it to operate in the arid American West.

(ARES)Carrying a slab through the desert.

Finally, rail storage has a relatively small environmental footprint. CEO Jim Kelly has saidthat rail storage "produces no emissions, burns no fuel, requires no water, does not use environmentally troublesome materials, and sits very lightly on the land." He told trade mag SNL:

When you're done and it's time to decommission, you repurpose the railcars, you recycle the rails, you recycle the railroad ties, you rake up the gravel, you throw down grass seed," he said. "In a year no one knows you were there.

Challenges facing rail storage

There are few easy roads in the energy world. ARES will have to build its project in Nevada and prove that it can perform as promised, of course. And the bigger projects are still a question mark. Ancillary services are one thing, arbitrage — buying power when it's cheap, selling it back to the grid when its more valuable — is another. (UtilityDive has anice piece on ARES that delves into the financial challenges, among other things. See also ClimateWire and SNL.)

The vagaries of energy markets, especially in the fast-developing area of energy storage, make it unwise to predict success for any particular technology or company.

Still, rail storage has an appealing low-tech simplicity. It's not some breakthrough in a lab, it's just a clever way of repurposing existing materials. The train goes up. The train goes down. It's so easy to explain.

New York is among more than a dozen states weighing changes in the economics of rooftop power. Installations have surged more than 10-fold in five years, leading utilities to complain that customers avoid the cost of maintaining the power grid when they sell surplus electricity from solar systems under a policy known as net metering. State officials worry that rates will rise for other customers. Governor Andrew Cuomo wants renewable energy to meet half the state’s power needs by 2030.

“We are in the midst of one of the greatest energy transformations in history,” and the joint proposal developed with utilities will help more people have access to clean power, Tom Werner, chief executive officer of SunPower Corp., said in the statement. SunPower is a San Jose, California-based panel maker and provider of rooftop power systems.

The proposal offers “a more sustainable, equitable policy to support the growth of solar and other distributed energy resources,” Mark Lynch, chief executive of Avangrid Inc.’s NYSEG and RG&E utilities said in the statement.

SunEdison Inc. and utilities owned by National Grid Plc and Fortis Inc. are also backing the proposal, according to the statement.

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Webinar Overview

Learn how to work with the unique characteristics of shake, slate, and metal shingle roofs to install solar using roofing best practices and ensure that you maintain roof warranties, protect the roof, and reduce installer liability. Some installers avoid these roofs fearing the challenges of the unknown. This means less competition on these quality, durable roof types for the installer with the right products and the know-how to install them. We will review our Classic Shake Mount, QBase Shake & Slate Mount, andClassic Conduit Shake Mount.

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California needs somewhere to put all its solar energy

The story comes to us via an excellent report by Lauren Sommer at KQED Science. It's about a problem that's beginning to hit in California — and will hit in other places in years to come, as renewable energy spreads.

Every so often, solar panels in California produce more solar energy than the grid needs. When these oversupply events occur, grid operators manually "curtail" solar production, cutting some panels off from the grid, effectively letting clean, zero-carbon energy go to waste.

(KQED)The dreaded curtailment in California on March 27, 2016.

This doesn't happen all that often yet — roughly 2.2 GWh of renewable energy were curtailed due to oversupply in 2014, relative to the 44,000 GWh of renewable energy the grid used — but the problem is expected to get worse as wind and solar expand in the state.

This illustrates the key challenge that wind and solar (together known as variable renewable energy, or VRE) pose to self-contained grids: their intermittency. A lot of solar comes flooding in at midday, and then it all goes away at night. Sometimes it can go away all at once and come back a few minutes later (a phenomenon known as "clouds"). Wind can come all at once and then die down all at once.

It's a challenge for today's grids to handle both the quantities involved at peak VRE production times and the steep "ramps" up or down in supply and demand that come with VRE.

(CAISO)Fear the duck.

There are many ways to tackle the challenges of integrating VRE. I've written about the big picture here and more fine-grained, near-term solutions here.

But perhaps the easiest way to solve the problem, or at least postpone it, is to make the grid bigger. The larger the geographical area the grid covers, the more variations in supply and demand can be smoothed out. When one area is at peak VRE production, it can ship power to other areas rather than curtail it.

That's just what the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) wants to do: link up California's grid with those around it. "You’re operating your little piece of the system," CAISO VP Keith Casey told Sommer of KQED, "but if you can operate it as an integrated whole, you can just operate the system more efficiently."

Conceptually, this makes all the sense in the world. When it comes to the details, though, the politics can get sticky.

California's clean grid meets PacifiCorp's dirty one

There are a number of grid "balancing authorities" (grids run by particular utilities) near California, to which it could theoretically connect:

(WECC)

(Follow the link to see what all those acronyms stand for.)

CAISO's first partnership is with PacifiCorp, a utility that runs a grid in Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, and Oregon.

(KQED)CAISO and PacifiCorp.

(Earlier this year I wrote about Oregon's pledge to go coal-free and how it would affect PacifiCorp.)

There are already some (currently little-used) power lines strung between the two regions, which could be used for greater coordination between CAISO and PacifiCorp. So they are planning an integration of their operations, scheduled to be in effect by 2019:

(CAISO)

A PacifiCorp-funded study found that the integration would benefit ratepayers across both regions. And it would certainly help CAISO find a way to export (rather than curtail) its excess solar energy.

But there's a wrinkle.

If CAISO and PacifiCorp become one big grid, it opens up all sorts of regulatory and legal questions. Who manages an interstate grid? Who regulates it? Do California's laws apply to it? Can they, legally speaking?

PacifiCorp is a big owner of coal plants — 60 percent of its energy comes from coal. All that coal will now effectively be on California's grid. California has worked hard, economically and politically, to clean up its grid. What will happen to that progress?

These concerns led several state lawmakers to write the governor laying out a list of "significant unanswered questions" and requirements related to the integration.

(CAISO)California lawmakers' signatures. "Don't forget geothermal!"

They want to ensure that California's pollution and greenhouse gases continue to be reduced, that California's renewable energy mandates continue to be met, that California ratepayers benefit, and that investment not be shifted into PacifiCorp's territory at California's expense.

And because CAISO and its board were created by the legislature, presumably a new act of the legislature would be required to expand them, so these legislators will have to be heard and satisfied. (I asked a top staffer if their questions had been answered to their satisfaction; they have not.)

These parochial concerns make complete sense. These politicians are, after all, representing Californians.

But the bigger picture remains: Grid expansion has to happen eventually. The climate certainly doesn't care about California's emissions; it only cares about total emissions. If sharing VRE with PacifiCorp lowers overall emissions, it is to the good, even if Californians consume less VRE than they might otherwise have. Somehow, the economics and politics of grid expansion have to be worked out.

The perils of state-based climate and energy policy

California's experience reveals some of the dysfunctions that come with the US lacking a coherent national climate policy. When each state with green ambitions has its own regulations, its own targets, its own mandates, even its own grid, it can feel protective of its own progress and loath to dilute it by hooking up with more laggardly states.

(EIA)California has installed a lot of distributed solar PV.

And California legislators are not crazy to feel that way. Wyoming and Utah are fighting tooth and nail against Obama's Clean Power Plan. Wyoming is deeply invested in coal production. Oregon-based PacifiCorp is heavily invested in coal plants (though it ismoving away from them). Opening CAISO's grid to possible federal oversight also opens it to various federal lawsuits, many launched by laggardly states, meant to stop clean energy regulations.

Then again, it's the laggardly states that need the renewable energy, and the clean states that have got it — in California's case, at least temporarily, too much of it.

Hooking up into larger and larger grids is part of the logic of transitioning to clean energy. It is necessary in order for California to hit its ambitious 50 percent renewables target. And it's probably necessary in order for the US to hit the targets it promised in Paris.

On some time scale, a national grid is both necessary and inevitable.

(Shutterstock)More of these.

Transmission is a one-time fix

Variable renewable energy poses what you might call "whole system" challenges to energy grids. Once VRE rises to a certain level of penetration, it begins to swing between producing more energy than the system needs to and producing, in periods of extended calm or clouds, almost none.

Unless you can do something about those huge peaks and valleys, you need almost 100 percent redundancy — enough backup power plants to supply 100 percent of demand in the event that VRE is providing none.

But big coal and nuclear plants can't just turn off in the morning and turn on in the evening. Even where they are physically capable, it's too expensive. So you end up needing lots and lots of natural gas plants. Not ideal.

The way states and countries have achieved high VRE penetration to date is by cheating these whole-system problems. They cheat it by making the system bigger, hooking up transmission to surrounding grids so that they can offload the their occasional VRE surplus and import power to back up their VRE.

That's what Denmark did, linking its grid to Sweden, Norway, and Germany so that it can export wind power when it has more than it needs and import power when the wind is idle.

(Energienet.dk)Denmark, connected.

That's what CAISO is trying to do, linking to surrounding Western states.

But note that this is a one-time-only way to postpone the problem. Eventually states or regions are going to reach a point where there are no more bigger grids to hook up. And then the whole-system problems return. At that point, the system can't be made any bigger, so the problems have to be solved some other way.

We still have to sort out storage and shift demand

One way to tackle the problems is cheap and effective energy storage, to absorb the midday VRE surplus and return power at night or when it's cloudy.

(Shutterstock)

The other big one is figuring out ways to shift demand so that it coincides better with periods of peak VRE production. There are lots of ways to do that, from incentives that change human behavior to automated networks of electric vehicle batteries to ... water heaters.

California is smart to set its sights on a bigger grid. It will ease the immediate problem. But the state should also be pushing as hard as possible toward better storage and better demand shifting (and all the other strategies I covered here), because sooner or later the whole-system problems have to be solved, and the sooner they are, the greater the long-term payoff.

Each photovoltaic system is different. This is the reason why different inverter technologies have established themselves over the last few years. More than half of global demand is for large solar projects that are generally equipped with central inverters. On the other hand, medium and small-sized photovoltaic systems usually have string inverters. Particularly due to regulatory requirements in the USA relating to DC optimizers and AC-module inverters, an additional type of inverter technology has emerged over the last few years: module-level power electronics (MLPE). 

The Silicon-Valley-based Tigo Energy developed the patented TS4 smart module technology to increase the functionality of solar modules. For example, the chip-based solutions can augment partially shaded solar modules with an optimization function. As a result, the energy yield of the overall photovoltaic system can be increased on an economical basis. With previous solutions, all solar modules always had to be equipped with an optimizer regardless of whether this was even necessary. Not only existing but also new photovoltaic systems can be augmented with the TS4 product platform. The chip-based solution developed by Tigo Energy has the lowest number of components in the industry and offers a high level of reliability and efficiency for the solar module. 

“SMA is the only manufacturer of inverters worldwide that has a complete product portfolio for all solar applications and regions. In order to upgrade its portfolio in the area of MLPE, SMA entered into a strategic partnership with Tigo Energy, Inc. Around the world, over a billion solar modules have been installed that cannot be individually monitored. With this stake in Tigo Energy, we can for the first time give all solar modules intelligence—in both existing and new plants. For SMA, this information has great strategic relevance for data-based business models. Our customers benefit from the technically dovetailed solutions. We can thus provide the data obtained at module level in our Sunny portal for further assessment. What is more, our product portfolio now contains a technically superior solution that allows cost-effective performance optimization at module level. In this way, we can service the market even better than was previously the case,” said Pierre-Pascal Urbon, CEO of SMA. 

“The SMA participation is a confirmation of Tigo’s high level of innovation and architecture. A key feature of our TS4 platform is that not every module needs to be equipped with an additional function,” said Zvi Alon, CEO of Tigo Energy. “The customer pays only for the function that he actually needs for the maximum energy yield. Compared to other solutions on the market, our products allow greater efficiency and therefore a better energy yield at the lowest incremental cost. The solar power professional can easily adjust the photovoltaic system on site. We will now work together with SMA to integrate the communication link of our solution into the SMA products. This will make installation even easier in the future.” 

The transaction envisages that SMA will acquire a 27% stake in Tigo Energy in the context of a USD 20 million capital increase. SMA receives a seat on the Tigo Energy Board of Directors and exclusive sales rights to the TS4 Retrofit product platform for 30 months. Both companies will cooperate in the areas of research, sales and service. 

The SMA Managing Board anticipates that the transaction will impact positively from as early as the second half of 2016. However, at the current moment in time, it is not possible to assess precisely the impact of the transaction on SMA sales and profits. For this reason, the SMA Managing Board confirms its sales and profits guidance for the 2016 fiscal year. For 2016, the SMA Managing Board estimates sales between EUR 950 million and EUR 1,050 million and a considerable upturn in profits to between EUR 80 million to EUR 120 million.

About SMA
The SMA Group generated sales of approximately EUR 1.0 billion in 2015 and is the worldwide market leader for photovoltaic inverters, a key component of all photovoltaic systems and offers innovative key technologies for future structures of energy provision. It is headquartered in Niestetal, near Kassel, Germany, and is represented in 20 countries. The Group employs a staff of over 3,500 worldwide. SMA has a broad product portfolio that offers the suitable investor for every module type and plant size worldwide: for small roof plants, large solar parks and grid linked plans as well as island and hybrid systems. In addition, SMA offers system technology for various battery technologies and plant sizes as well as cooperating with renowned battery manufacturers and companies in the automobile industry. SMA technology is protected by some 700 patents. The product portfolio is supplemented by extensive services and the operating management of large-scale solar power plants. Since 2008, the Group’s parent company SMA Solar Technology AG has been listed on the Prime Standard of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (S92) and is currently the only company in the solar industry listed included in the TecDAX index.

About Tigo
Tigo is the market leader in smart module technology for the solar industry. Tigo shipped over 1.2 million units installed ranging from 2kW to 7MW systems worldwide. The Silicon Valley Company utilizes a patented technology to increase energy production, simplify design and installation, improve fire safety, and ensure the highest uptime and reliability with cloud-based monitoring. Tigo’s modular TS4 platform can be selectively deployed with different functionalities per module at different price points utilizing Predictive IV (PIV) technology to maximize energy harvest at minimal cost. Tigo’s integrated solution is the first and most successful smart module solution in the industry. Tigo was founded in 2007 by a team of experienced technologists. Tigo developed the first generation Smart Module Optimizer technology for the solar industry. Tigo has operations in the USA, across Europe, Japan, China, Australia and the Middle East.

SMA Solar Technology AG
Sonnenallee 1
34266 Niestetal
Germany

Head of Corporate Communications:
Anja Jasper
Tel.: +49 561 9522-2805
Presse@SMA.de

Press contact:
Susanne Henkel
Manager Corporate Press
Tel.: +49 561 9522-1124
Fax +49 561 9522-421400
Presse@SMA.de


Disclaimer:
This press release serves only as information and does not constitute an offer or invitation to subscribe for, acquire, hold or sell any securities of SMA Solar Technology AG (the “Company”) or any present or future subsidiary of the Company (together with the Company, the “SMA Group”) nor should it form the basis of, or be relied upon in connection with, any contract to purchase or subscribe for any securities in the Company or any member of the SMA Group or commitment whatsoever. Securities may not be offered or sold in the United States of America absent registration or an exemption from registration under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended.

This press release can contain future-oriented statements. Future-oriented statements are statements which do not describe facts of the past. They also include statements about our assumptions and expectations. These statements are based on plans, estimations and forecasts which the Managing Board of SMA Solar Technology AG (SMA or company) has available at this time. Future-oriented statements are therefore only valid on the day on which they are made. Future-oriented statements by nature contain risks and elements of uncertainty. Various known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors can lead to considerable differences between the actual results, the financial position, the development or the performance of the corporation and the estimates given here. These factors include those which SMA has discussed in published reports. These reports are available on the SMA website at www.SMA.de. The company accepts no obligation whatsoever to update these future-oriented statements or to adjust them to future events or developments.

America can address our largest environmental challenges by shifting to 100 percent renewable energy. Renewable energy makes us safer and healthier, protecting our communities from global warming and from hazardous air pollution. Renewable energy reduces the need for dangerous and destructive practices like shipping explosive fuels through our cities, fracking for gas near our water supplies, or razing our mountains to dig up dirty coal. 

An economy powered by 100 percent renewable energy is within our reach. First, we can reduce the total amount of energy we use through improved efficiency, even as our economy continues to grow. Second, we can tap America’s virtually inexhaustible supplies of energy from the wind, the sun, the land and the oceans.

Our transition to a clean energy system has already begun. But, with the need to reduce the pollution that causes global warming growing more urgent every day, we need to step up the pace. To maximize the benefits of moving to 100 percent renewable energy, leaders at all levels must act to accelerate our progress. America’s energy policy should facilitate mass deployment of clean energy solutions, support research and development of new clean energy technologies, and keep much of our coal, oil and gas reserves in the ground.

A shift to 100 percent renewable energy can limit the impacts of global warming.

• Clean, renewable energy sources such as wind and solar energy produce little to no global warming pollution. By transitioning to 100 percent renewable energy, we can replace the dirty fuels – including coal, oil and gas – that are causing our planet to heat up.
• Serious impacts of climate change are already underway. The faster we transition away from dangerous fuels, the better able we will be to protect our communities from harm. With rapid action, we can prevent large-scale catastrophes, including permanent flooding of coastal cities, more extreme storms, and widespread food and water shortages.
• In Paris in December 2015, the nations of the world made a historic commitment to protect our climate, pledging efforts “to limit [global] temperature increase to 1.5° C above pre-industrial levels.” In order to achieve that goal, America must transition to 100 percent clean energy before mid-century, and leave most of our remaining coal, oil and gas reserves in the ground.

Renewable energy improves our health, increases our safety, and puts our economy on a sound foundation.

• Moving to 100 percent renewable energy will eliminate air pollution from fossil fuels, making us healthier and longer-lived. Today, air pollution kills about 200,000 Americans a year, reduces our quality of life, and gives our children respiratory diseases like asthma.
• Renewable energy will make us safer. Reaching 100 percent renewable energy will protect our drinking water supplies from hazardous contamination by drilling and fracking. It will also protect our communities by eliminating the need to ship explosive fuels through our neighborhoods on train cars or in leaky pipelines. Generating renewable energy locally (as with rooftop solar panels) can also make our energy system more resilient.
• Dirty energy sources have no inherent economic advantage over renewable energy. On the contrary, expanding renewable energy creates local jobs that cannot be outsourced, reduces the impact of fossil fuel-induced harm to our environment and health, and safeguards the economy from the volatility of fossil fuel prices. 

America has vast renewable energy resources – enough to meet our needs many times over.

• America has massive, virtually inexhaustible reserves of renewable energy from the wind, the sun, the earth and the oceans. Just a fraction of these resources could power our entire society. According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the United States has the technical potential to meet its current electricity needs more than 100 times over with solar energy and more than 10 times over with wind energy. America also has massive potential to save energy. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) estimates that we can reduce our overall energy use by 40 to 60 percent below current levels by mid-century, even as our economy continues to grow.

Figure ES-1: Comparison of Renewable Energy Technical Potential and Current Consumption (Data: NREL)

Affordable 100 percent renewable energy is within our reach.

• There are no insurmountable technological or economic barriers to 100 percent renewable energy. At least seven detailed studies of clean energy systems – conducted by academics, government agencies and nonprofit organizations – suggest that we have the tools we need to make the transition. (See Table ES-1.)
• Over the past 15 years, growth in renewable energy worldwide – especially solar energy – has outstripped most forecasts, even those made by environmental advocates such as Greenpeace. (See Figure ES-2.)
• Economists predict that we can build a 100 percent renewable energy system at costs comparable to or less than what we would have to spend to continue our reliance on dirty energy. The International Energy Agency estimates that limiting warming to 2° C would require an additional investment of about 1 percent of global GDP per year. That investment would yield savings of more than $115 trillion on fuel by 2050 – a net savings of more than $70 trillion. [1]
• Including the health and climate costs of dirty energy in the equation makes it even clearer that renewable energy is cost-effective. 

Figure ES-2. Global Solar Photovoltaic Capacity (Green Line) versus Projections (data: Greenpeace)

Emerging technologies and new trends are opening the door for an unprecedented transformation of our energy system to 100 percent clean, renewable power.

• Renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies are quickly falling in price. Between 2009 and 2014, the cost of solar electricity in the United States fell by 78 percent and the cost of wind energy fell by 58 percent, according to Lazard. Since 2008, the cost of LED lighting has fallen by 90 percent. In many parts of the United States, wind is now the cheapest source of electricity, and solar power is on track to be the cheapest source of power in many parts of the world in the near future.
• Renewable energy technologies are continually improving in performance. For example, the U.S. Department of Energy estimates that improvement in turbine technology could expand the number of locations that can take advantage of clean wind energy.
• Promising new tools – for heating our homes, powering our factories, and moving people and goods over long distances with renewable energy – are either in development or beginning to make their way into the market. Experience with the current wave of renewable energy technologies suggests that supportive public policies can hasten the arrival of these low-carbon tools.

Figure ES-3. Recent Cost Declines in Clean Energy Technologies

Leaders at all levels of government should act to accelerate our transition to 100 percent renewable energy. Five key principles should guide America’s energy policy:

• Prioritize energy savings. Conserving energy and using it more efficiently can ease the transition from dirty fuels to clean, renewable energy.
• Promote steady and swift deployment of clean renewable energy sources. Solar and wind energy are poised to play a major role in every vision of a 100 percent renewable energy system.
• Transition those portions of our economy that rely on direct combustion of fossil fuels to electricity and other zero-carbon energy carriers.
• Provide reliable access to renewable energy by modernizing the electricity grid and enabling community microgrids and grid-connected energy storage.
• To protect the global climate and our health, keep much of our coal, oil and gas reserves in the ground and cease construction of new fossil fuel infrastructure.

The United States uses about 3.7 million gigawatt-hours of electricity each year. That’s an unfathomably huge number. But the next time someone tries to make the argument that 100 percent renewable energy is out of reach for the U.S., show them this image:

Environment America Research & Policy Center

All of U.S. electricity usage is down there at the bottom right. Everything else is the States’ renewable potential.

Earlier this year, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory released a report that said the United States’ upper ceiling on rooftop solar generation potential was around 39 percent of all U.S. electricity sales. That’s the tiny yellow circle in the middle. The potential of utility-scale solar? 350 times that li’l guy.

In a new report from Environment America Research & Policy Center — where this image appears — researchers lay out the achievability of a U.S. transition to 100 percent renewable energy. “There’s no question of whether or not there’s enough renewable energy,” said Rob Sargent, a program director at Environment America, on a press call. It’s more a function of how to achieve such a transition.

The recommendations in the report will sound familiar. If we want to make it to a100 percent renewable future, we need to start by ramping up solar and wind production, shifting toward electric vehicles, pumping dollars into energy storage research, and taking advantage of energy savings and efficiency programs.

But maybe more than anything, we need to take a good long gander at that bowling ball of renewable generation potential and convince ourselves that carving out a grape’s-worth is within our power.

This single move by government regulators will effectively kill the solar industry in Nevada and put an end to the surge of people seeking to detach from the grid by harnessing their own energy from the sun. Just as importantly, it serves to protect the profits of Nevada’s public utility company, NV Energy.

“It will destroy the rooftop solar industry in one of the states with the most sunshine…There is so much wrong with the decision,” said SolarCity CEO Lydon Rive. “The one beneficiary of this decision would be NV Energy, whose monopoly will have been protected.”

Two major solar companies, SolarCity and Sunrun, have already left the state, causing upwards of a thousand job cuts. Many more renewable energy jobs are at stake. Solar industry supporters and workers are planning to protest the new rates at a rally in Carson City and Las Vegas, as industry and public outcry may force regulators to reconsider their decision.

One Nevada resident wrote in the Las Vegas Sun that she feels “financially ambushed” after tapping into their retirement savings to become a solar household. Before the rate change, the system would have paid for itself in 14 years, but now that will never happen.

“With the new pricing for [net metering] customers, the value or price of the energy they produce will be vastly reduced. In addition, the flat service charge for NEM customers will rise to three times that charged to nonsolar residential customers, a kind of penalty for producing much of our own electricity. The people with solar on their homes feel cheated; solar businesses are closing or leaving.”

NV Energy—a regulated monopoly with an “authorized rate of return”—is unabashed in saying that the surge in renewable energy is cutting into their profits. Last year the company, owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, got Sen. Patricia Farley to draft the amendment that shifted the state’s net metering over to the PUC. In their view, solar customers “don’t pay their fair share to maintain the grid.”

With the rate changes, Nevada regulators are demonstrating the willingness and ease with which government can neutralize the “off-grid” movement while protecting their favorite utilities. Rooftop solar, along with innovations such as Tesla’s Powerwall, represents a huge opportunity for people to free themselves from an energy structure ruled by corporations and state co-conspirators.

Residential solar customers are not the only threat to the profits of NV Energy.

“A consortium of casinos and businesses is looking to leave NV Energy’s grid and start generating their own power, saying they’re being placed at a competitive disadvantage because they’re paying more for energy than their business rivals in nearby states. The state Public Utilities Commission has said it would charge hefty fees — $27 million in the case of Las Vegas data center Switch — to let industrial ratepayers leave the system.”

The fight between NV Energy and the solar industry may be a microcosm of a larger struggle involving the fossil fuel industry. The American Energy Alliance, a fossil fuel advocacy organization backed by the infamous Koch brothers, applauded the Nevada decision as a matter of national policy. They are pushing efforts in other states to curtail the rise of solar energy.

In this vein, the outcome of Nevada’s situation could have implications far beyond that state.

“Nevada could set a precedent for other states, Hugh Wynne, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., wrote in note Tuesday. Regulators across the country are grappling with how to spur the development of clean energy sources while ensuring operators can collect enough money to maintain and update their grids. – Bloomberg News”

The question must be asked, why does government protect the status quo? Why is it assumed that existing utility operators must be preserved in this rapidly changing energy landscape? Instead, consider that old utility grids are no longer applicable in the 21^st century.

This is a pivotal moment in the evolution of the energy paradigm. We have the ability to leave behind the dirty, corrupt legacy of fossil fuels and enter an era of localized, renewable energy. As The Free Thought Project reported in November, within 25 years we could have a complete energy transformation, as the cost of renewables declines and technology advances exponentially. Rooftop solar and localized systems will lead the revolution.

In order to achieve this, we must break from the grip of those who would keep us in the dark ages to satiate their thirst for power and wealth.

5270 Sycamore Avenue Bronx, NY 10471-2838 (917)974–4606  NYSES.org

What year was the company established?

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Help me understand the financing options: Lease, PPA, Loan, Cash  

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Will you perform a whole house audit and let me know how to reduce all my energy demands?

Can you quote a canopy system, a ground mounted system or a tracking system?

If I have an electric vehicle, how much solar energy is needed to charge it?

With Nevada rolling back net metering and solar company stock prices falling, one might think the solar industry is in big trouble. In fact, a recent New York Times article stated that SolarCity and other residential solar companies face a cloudy future. The article implies that the solar business model is based largely on subsidies (federal, state, and local), and therefore highly exposed to regulatory changes. Yet we believe the opposite is true: the solar industry will continue to have sustained and significant growth despite SolarCity stock woes and net metering policy changes. And here are ten reasons why:

1. PV COMPANIES ARE DIVERSIFYING

The PV industry is increasingly diversifying, making it more resilient to incidents of bad policy. “While the New York Times article focused on residential solar, that segment is less than 25 percent of the market,” according to RMI Associate Kevin Brehm. In fact, SolarCity, a company commonly associated with rooftop solar, is now building and owning utility-scale solar projects. As companies diversify they are less exposed to policy risk that may affect one segment, such as the Nevada policy change. 

2. THE PV INDUSTRY IS GLOBAL

On a global scale, new markets will enable the U.S. PV industry to grow despite short-term recessions in local markets. In October of 2015, global information and analysis company IHS predicted 2015 global PV demand would reach 59 GW, 33 percent higher than 2014, and 2016 would reach 65 GW. This growth is largely due to increased demand in China, India, and other emerging economies. “It’s a growing global market and U.S. developers are really well positioned to capture that market,” says Brehm. For example, SunPower has been diversifying into markets including the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa, and 50 percent ofSunEdison’s project pipeline is outside the U.S. First Solar is also going global with over 60 percent of its 2015 Q2 potential booking opportunities (16.7 GW) coming from international markets. “This global diversification mitigates local, state, and federal electricity policy changes to a great extent and helps to insulate the solar PV industry from microeconomic vagaries,” according to Anthony Coker, VP of Market Development for Hanna Solar. 

3. SOLAR PV IS A PROVEN AND ROBUST TECHNOLOGY 

Standard solar PV module warranties currently range from 25–30 years and product lifetimes are far exceeding manufacturers’ warranties. Many early off-grid adopters are still harvesting solar energy from modules installed in the ‘70’s. Even inverters are getting out of the reliability hot seat with over 20 year warranty extensions based on the belief that if products fail at 15 years they will delight customers with higher-efficiency longer-lifetime replacements. 

4. SOLAR PV COST IS BEATING FOSSIL FUELS

According to Lazard’s latest Levelized Cost of Energy Analysis (LCOE 9.0), the levelized cost of electricity for utility-scale solar PV without subsidies is beating conventional alternatives in many parts of the U.S.—even with current low fossil fuel prices. First Solar recently agreed to sell power from its 100 MW solar plant in Nevada for 3.87 cents per kilowatt-hour (escalating at 3 percent per year), thought to be the lowest electricity price ever. And last June, Austin Energy received bids for over 1.2 MW of PV projects under 5 cents per kilowatt-hour. 

5. COST OF SOLAR PV WILL CONTINUE TO FALL

PV costs in all segments are expected to continue down. According to LCOE 9.0, “The levelized cost of rooftop solar PV is expected to decline in coming years, primarily as a result of more efficient installation techniques, lower costs of capital, and improved supply chains.” Canadian Solar estimates that the cost of the modules will fall 25 percent in the next three years, and GTM Research predicts that through balance of systems cost reductions, PV system prices will fall an average of 40 percent by 2020. Economies of scale along with improved business processes in a newly emerging industry will continue to drive down costs.

6. THE INDUSTRY IS ATTRACTING TOP TALENT 

Forbes “Top 30 under 30” list of the brightest entrepreneurs and change agents under the age of 30 has a disproportionate share of PV talent compared to market cap. The new generation of leaders is bringing a pragmatic outlook honed in the 2007–2009 financial crisis. Yet, where previous generations largely fled green agendas this pragmatic generation has analyzed the long-term trends that will play out in our lifetime and see renewable energy and energy efficiency as sure bets for both job security and satisfaction.

7. DECOMMISSIONED COAL PLANTS WILL DRIVE SURGE IN PV DEMAND

Even with the unknown outcome of the challenge to the Clean Power Plan, a total of 46,000 MW of coal generation is on track to close in the ten years spanning 2012–2022. Just last July the 200th coal plant shut down in the U.S. As coal assets are decommissioned, solar PV is likely to step in and cover a large share of the capacity need. Solar PV is affordable, and with falling storage prices, it can be a great alternative to coal. According to Brehm, “The war on coal is over. Now it’s just a question of rebuilding and solar will be a large portion of that generation capacity.” Duke Energy, which installed over 200 MW of solar in 2015, has stated that despite what happens with the Clean Power Plan, any new generation it installs will be in natural gas and renewables. Coker adds, “No one is arguing for a single silver bullet—one generation source for the global economy’s electricity. Rather, we are seeing a displacement of coal by lower-priced gas, solar, and wind in many regions. Economics are dictating the change.”

8. COMPLETELY UNTAPPED MARKETS STILL EXIST

New solar business models will create access for more customers. There is currently a huge market for low-to-moderate income households in the U.S. Less than 0.04 percent of these families have solar PV systems, which we estimate at a $250 billion dollar market in the U.S. alone. And worldwide, over a billion people have no access to electricity at all. As PV costs continue to decline and more developing countries enact policies supporting renewable energy expansion and continue to push for electrification to drive economic development, the solar PV market is poised to grow at an incredible rate in those countries. Solar PV can reach these populations providing them with clean, reliable, and affordable electricity. 

9. NEW SOLAR MARKETS SEGMENTS ARE EMERGING IN MATURE MARKETS SUCH AS THE U.S.

Even if some currently active solar market segments stagnate, there are significant new markets opening up. Community solar is a large currently untapped market. There are currently 65 MW of community solar installed in the U.S. with an estimated 250 GW market potential. “Community-scale solar is an exciting segment of the market. Increasing demand from rural electric coops, community-based organizations, and local municipalities is driving developers and service providers to innovate new technology and business solutions,” according to RMI Associate Kieran Coleman. “Clearly this is a very early stage nascent sector that has huge potential to meet broader need.” 

10. BUSINESS MODELS ARE BEING CONTINUOUSLY INNOVATED

While the New York Times article makes it sound as though SolarCity and other companies’ business models have inherent flaws and risks, we believe that business models are continuously changing. Whether it is a non-profit organization like Clean Energy for Us, a for-profit solar company such as PosiGen, or a utility such as Kit Carson Electric Cooperative, there is continuous innovation to make solar more affordable, accessible, and profitable. Even large, conservative investor-owned utilities are adding more solar (e.g., Southern Company with its three military bases of over 90 MW under construction and several large utility scale solar farms publicly announced by Mississippi Power) forging new solar business models in highly regulated markets. “And regulators like the New York Public Utilities Commission play an equally important role in opening the field in business model innovation in current and emerging sectors,” adds Coleman.

A BRIGHT FUTURE

So while states like Hawaii and Nevada end net metering, and solar companies’ stock values fall with the market like oil and gas or banking stocks, we feel the solar industry does not face a cloudy future. Far from it. Policies, regulations, and the stock market can’t stop the continued growth of this clean, affordable, reliable technology; the future of solar PV is bright.

Photo courtesy of Living Off Grid via Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY 2.0).

Changes to policies which affect rooftop solar are being considered in most U.S. states. Flickr/orngejuglr

Utilities across the United States are stepping up efforts to dismantle retail-rate net metering and impose charges that undermine the economics of customer-installed solar, according to a new report.

NC Clean Energy Technology Center and Meister Consultants’ latest annual 50 States of Solar report finds that state policies are experiencing “considerable uncertainty and volatility” due to these utility-led initiatives.

“This report demonstrates that critically important state policies like net metering are experiencing unprecedented uncertainty, as many states considered drastic policy changes in 2015,” notes NC Clean Energy Technology Analyst Benjamin Inskeep, who co-authored 50 States.

According to the report, 27 states considered or enacted changes to net metering in 2015, with changes to net metering approved in 28 utility service areas in 17 states. Meanwhile, proposals by 35 utilities to increase fixed charges on residential customers were pending or decided.

Utilities have typically sought to shift compensation to wholesale rates for surplus generation from customer-owned solar, a policy which the report describes as “net billing”. But while Hawaii and Nevada became the first two states to shift their policies from net metering to net billing, utilities are not winning every battle.

California has passed a successor policy which preserves the basic features of retail-rate net metering while adding “non-bypassable” charges in the 2-3 cent per kilowatt-hour range, and Colorado and Iowa decided to retain their net metering policies.

The most frequent policy move by utilities to impose changes that impact the economics of customer-owned solar was to attempt to impose higher fixed charges.

61 utilities in 30 states proposed increasing fixed charges on all residential customers, which the report found “can significantly reduce the financial value of going solar”. Another 21 utilities in 13 states proposed extra charges or fees on solar or all forms of distributed generation.

Here again, utilities are not getting everything they want. The report finds that “few” of the solar-specific charges which were proposed were approved by regulators. And despite a particularly intense push for increases in fixed charges in the fourth quarter of the year, “approved increases in the quarter were considerably below the requested amount”.

While solar advocates typically see these changes in the context of a conflict, there is a intellectually valid question as to what the value of solar is on the grid. 50 States found that a number of states including New York, Arizona and Utah have opened proceedings to study the value of solar, which will influence future net metering policy developments and successor programs.

Original article appeared on www.greentechmedia.com on 2/22/16 by Mike Munsell. Click here to view the original article.

In yet another record-breaking year, the solar industry in the United States installed 7,286 megawatts of solar PV in 2015. GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association announced the historic figures today ahead of the March 9 release of the U.S. Solar Market Insight report.

FIGURE: U.S. Solar PV Installations, 2000-2015

Source: GTM Research / SEIA U.S. Solar Market Insightreport

For the first time ever, solar beat out natural-gas capacity additions, with solar supplying 29.5 percent of all new electric generating capacity in the U.S. in 2015.

Led by California, North Carolina, Nevada, Massachusetts and New York, the U.S. solar market experienced a year-over-year growth rate of 17 percent. Geographically, the market continues to diversify with 13 states installing more than 100 megawatts each in 2015. States that made major solar strides include Utah, which jumped in the rankings from 23rd to 7th place, and Georgia, which moved from 16th to 8th in the nation.

FIGURE: Ranking States by Annual PV Installations

Source: GTM Research / SEIA U.S. Solar Market Insightreport

• The residential solar market grew 66 percent year-over-year and, for the first time in history, eclipsed the 2-gigawatt mark. The residential solar segment now represents 29 percent of the entire U.S. solar market -- its largest share since 2009.
• For the fourth year in a row, the non-residential market broke the 1-gigawatt mark, but remained roughly flat year-over-year.
• The utility-scale sector, the mainstay of the U.S. solar market, grew 6 percent year-over-year and represented more than half of all solar PV installed in 2015.
• Cumulative U.S. solar PV installations have now topped 25 gigawatts, up from just 2 gigawatts in 2010.

Dive Brief:

• In a 5-4 ruling on Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Obama administration to hold off on any efforts to implement the Clean Power Plan (CPP) until legal challenges to the regulation have played out.
• The ruling came after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied a request to stay the federal carbon regulations in January. A coalition of 29 states and state agencies led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey then appealed to the Supreme Court to stay implementation of the CPP.
• The regulatory package, which targets a 32% reduction in carbon emissions from the power sector nationwide by 2030, will be put on hold until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit reviews the plan. A hearing is set for June 2, 2016.

Dive Insight: 

The plan, which was first proposed in 2015, was finalized in summer 2016. Efforts to block the regulatory package from taking effect have been in motion since then. Under the plan, states were supposed to submit their implementation plans by September 2016, with compliance slated to begin in 2022.

Opponents to the plan argue that the agency is overstepping its authority under the Clean Air Act by seeking to regulate pollution sources "outside the fenceline" of individual power plants. Morrisey said West Virginia and other states "will suffer irreparable harm" if the regulations go into effect. 

The ruling introduces uncertainty as to whether states and utilities will have to comply with the package.

Jody Freeman, a Harvard law professor and former environmental legal counsel to the Obama administration,told the New York Times that the ruling suggests a "high degree" of skepticism toward the CPP from five justices on the court.

Even if the rule is ultimately upheld, the Supreme Court's stay on implementation of the rule could significantly impact compliance timelines for states and utilities. As it stands, the EPA will be unable to enforce its September deadline for states to submit compliance plans or request an extension. Without enforcement from the EPA, states may have to decide on their own whether to comply.

It’s Jan. 13, a crisp desert morning with high, wispy clouds. Cars zoom by on a nearby freeway. Across the street, construction workers are leveling ground in front of a subdivision. Local TV news crews close in on the women as several hundred other protesters wave signs that read “Don’t hog the sun” and “Save our solar jobs.” Another poster takes a jab directly at the local power company: “Don’t be shady NV Energy.”

Many of the protesters are employees or customers of SolarCity. Started a decade ago by Tesla Motors Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk and two of his cousins, Lyndon and Peter Rive, SolarCity has brought renewable energy to the masses in more than a dozen states, generating about $350 million in annual revenue. The company designs, installs, and leases rooftop solar systems at prices that allow homeowners to save on their monthly power bills—and fight climate change along the way. For a 20-year commitment, SolarCity will set customers up with panels for no money down. After starting in California and expanding to Arizona and Oregon, SolarCity began selling in Nevada in 2014 and quickly became the state’s leading installer of rooftop panels.

SolarCity’s success is partly because the government provides subsidies and enables an arrangement called net metering, which allows homeowners with panels to sell back to the grid any solar energy they don’t use. This helps offset their cost of power when the sun’s not shining. Like more than 40 other U.S. states, Nevada forces utilities to buy the excess energy at rates set by regulators—usually the same rate utilities charge (hence, the net in net metering). In Nevada, it’s worked well. So well, in fact, that NV Energy, the state’s largest utility, is fighting it with everything it’s got.

First, NV Energy deployed its lobbyists to limit the total amount of energy homeowners and small businesses were allowed to generate to 3 percent of peak capacity for all utilities. Then it expertly argued its case before regulators, who rewrote the rules for net-metering customers. In December it scored a major win: Nevada’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) imposed rules that not only make it more expensive to go solar, but also make it uneconomical for those who’ve already signed up. Similar regulatory skirmishes are playing out in dozens of other states, but no other has gone as far as Nevada to undermine homeowners who’ve already installed solar arrays.

All this has enraged independent, free-market, and environmentally conscious Nevadans. All day on Jan. 13 people enter the hearing room to give the sole commissioner an earful. (Two more commissioners are piped in via video from Carson City, where the hearing is happening simultaneously.) The bureaucrats sit blankly behind their desks as employees from SolarCity and a competitor, Sunrun, explain that they’d been let go because the commission’s recent ruling killed their companies’ business in the state. Some of the roughly 18,000 customers who have already put solar panels on their roofs say the officials have rigged the game against the players. One homeowner threatens a $1 billion class-action lawsuit. Another compares NV Energy to King George III.

“Are you getting kickbacks?” demands one woman, who asks the commission for records proving it made its ruling in the public’s interest.

“Answer her,” shouts a man in the crowd.

“Resign!” yells another.

At one point, Mark Ruffalo shows up. The actor has flown in for the rally and makes his way into the commission office flanked by two SolarCity employees. A half-dozen camera crews follow him to the mic, and he receives a standing ovation after he calls the commission the “anti-Robin Hood” for taking from the people and giving to a monopoly. “The utility has the whole pie,” Ruffalo adds. The citizens, he says, “just want a tiny, little slice.” A local TV reporter, realizing she just got the Hulk on film for her segment, pumps her fist.

None of it sways the commissioners, and at around 4:30 p.m. they make a show of cross-examining each other before voting unanimously to deny requests to delay the new rules. It’s another victory for NV Energy and its owner, Berkshire Hathaway, the investment company controlled by Warren Buffett. He didn’t respond to requests for comment.

“The outcome was horrendous” in Nevada, says SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive. Homeowners no longer have any financial incentive to put panels on their roofs, and those who already did may end up paying an additional $11,000 over the next two decades, he says. “We will fight this. We will fight it legally, and I’m highly confident we will win.”

Not that long ago, things were far more cordial between SolarCity and Nevada officials. “They sold themselves as being solar-friendly,” Rive says. “It was, ‘Hey, we are for solar. We want to make solar work.’ ” It probably didn’t hurt that SolarCity also had created scores of jobs wherever it went and that it was a no-brainer to tap the sun’s potential in a state that’s largely desert.

In 2004, Rive, his wife, and Musk were in an RV on their way to Burning Man. Rive was casting about for a business idea that could “have an impact on humanity,” and Musk suggested that his cousin look into solar power. “He didn’t say how or what, but just get into the industry,” Rive told the San Jose Mercury News in December. When Rive got back from the festival, he told his brother about the conversation. They founded SolarCity on July 4, 2006. The company’s mission: to help people leave fossil fuels behind. Musk, who had made a fortune on PayPal and was dreaming up rocket ships and electric cars, put up some capital and became chairman. Musk didn’t reply to an e-mail seeking comment.

SolarCity grew into one of the country’s largest solar operators in the years that followed. In the markets it entered, it hired hundreds of people to sell, maintain, and install its systems. But Rive didn’t enter Nevada. To make its contracts work, SolarCity needed the right policies in place. For years the state provided rebates for homeowners who wanted to go solar through a lottery system. The randomness turned potential customers off, he says.

Nevada’s legislature had been gradually changing incentives for solar customers for years and, in 2013, it did away with the lottery for rebates, so anyone could get one. The state also set a new cap on installations—3 percent of the utility’s peak demand. Such provisions usually appease utilities and give regulators a chance to study what it means to have more small solar systems on the grid.

SolarCity had begun a national search to figure out where to open a call center in late 2012 and considered Nevada. Governor Brian Sandoval’s office offered a sweetener, Rive says. Nevada had set up something called the Catalyst Fund to encourage companies to locate operations in the state. In the economic development trade, “it’s called ‘love money,’ ” says Ross Miller, a former secretary of state, who served on the board that doled out the funds. SolarCity’s grant was announced in March 2013. The company would get paid as much as $400,000 annually for three years if it met certain hiring targets. “You had me at Elon Musk,” Miller told Vegas Inc., a business news outlet, at the time.

In August of that year, SolarCity had an opening ceremony for its Vegas office, which was to serve as its main call center and handle sales and administrative functions nationally. Sandoval called the opening a “watershed moment” for the state and joined with Democratic U.S. Senator Harry Reid in cutting a green ribbon with a giant pair of scissors. “Nevada is going to be your home for a long time,” Reid said. “And we’re going to do everything we can to make it one that’s a happy, happy home.”

With the new net-metering and rebate policies in place, SolarCity began taking applications on May 1, 2014. Charlie Catania called that same day. Catania, who resembles Regis Philbin, came to Vegas in the 1970s and spent most of his career at Caesars Palace working in the baccarat pit. “I wanted to be a good steward of the environment,” but going solar was always too expensive, he says. By signing with SolarCity, he anticipated saving money over time, because his energy rates would be locked in for 20 years. That would help him minimize the impact of any increases NV Energy might make. “I’m 71,” he says. “If I live to 91, when my lease is up, hallelujah.”

Thousands more followed Catania, signing contracts with SolarCity, Sunrun, and other providers. They were retirees, computer programmers, bartenders, young, old, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian. Most were in southern Nevada. By and large, the homeowners who went solar cared about the environment. But the thought of saving a few bucks—and sticking it to NV Energy—didn’t bother some of them, either.

To meet the demand, Rive opened more operations centers in the state, where its crews of installers would grab panels and other supplies before going out on a job. The company had created something called the Chairman’s Cup—after Musk—to honor the most productive warehouse nationally. In 2015 its two locations in the Las Vegas area dominated the competition, winning almost every month.

The growth was good. But another problem was looming: Rive and his staff thought their industry was about to reach the 3 percent cap.

Buffett got into utilities in 1999. While many investors chased the latest Silicon Valley IPO, he bought a nice electric company in Des Moines. Building power plants and maintaining the grid offered almost endless opportunities to reinvest cash, which he had a lot of. And, as a monopoly providing an essential service, the local power company wasn’t going away anytime soon. Owning utilities isn’t “a way to get rich,” he later said. “It’s a way to stay rich.”

By 2013 the energy unit at Berkshire had expanded to include power companies serving parts of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah. It had also invested billions of dollars in wind farms in Iowa and giant solar arrays in California andArizona. Two months after SolarCity got its love money from Nevada, Buffett offered$5.6 billion to buy NV Energy. Soon after Berkshire completed the purchase, NV Energy accounted for about a fifth of the company’s energy revenue.

Because power companies operate in a highly regulated industry, they stay close to elected officials. NV Energy’s ties in Nevada were particularly strong. Two of its lobbyists—Pete Ernaut and Greg Ferraro—have been friends with Sandoval for decades. Sandoval told the Reno Gazette-Journal that the lobbyists had first suggested he run for governor in 2010. Both ended up serving as advisers to his successful campaign and have continued to lobby him in office.

The governor has tried to avoid favoritism—and, at times, has promoted policies that helped the solar industry and vetoed legislation that the utility wanted. Even Robert List, SolarCity’s lobbyist in the state, says Sandoval is “a man of total integrity.” Still, it’s difficult for the governor to get away from the perception that “he’s being influenced by them,” says Jon Ralston, the host of a political affairs show on Las Vegas’s PBS station.

As the 2015 legislative session opened in Carson City last February, the rooftop solar industry was focused on lifting the 3 percent cap. Buffett’s utility was set against it. “We had numerous conversations with the NV Energy lobbyists, and they were swarming all over the building constantly,” List recalls. “Nobody could seem to find a middle ground.”

On March 9, Ernaut sent a briefing document on net metering to two of Sandoval’s senior advisers, according to an e-mail that Sunrun obtained through a public records request. “Net metering is not about customer choice and competition,” it said. Rooftop solar customers, it went on, were already getting a subsidy, and it would only increase if the cap were lifted to 10 percent, as the solar industry wanted. All customers would have to pay higher rates if that were allowed, according to the document. Instead, the utility argued it would be more cost-effective to generate power from large-scale solar arrays.

A month later, Rive went to see the governor. Sandoval began the meeting by handing over a printout of his Wikipedia page, Rive recalls. Someone had just inserted information about NV Energy’s lobbying on net metering in the governor’s biography and wrote—erroneously—that he could lift the cap to prevent solar companies from cutting jobs.

“He was really upset, like fuming out of the ears,” Rive says. “He goes, ‘This is what you guys are doing. This is all you.’ … And I’m like, ‘Whoa. Hold on. Hold on. I’m here to talk about the solar future of the state. This is not us.’ ”

“The governor did not express frustration,” Mari St. Martin, a spokeswoman for Sandoval, says of the meeting. But he “did bring up the questionable, petty tactics of some members of the rooftop solar industry, which included misleading online postings about the governor’s authority on the issue.”

The debate dragged into May. SolarCity and the other installers needed a resolution. Only the state legislature could lift the cap, and the session was scheduled to end on June 1. After that, lawmakers wouldn’t convene for a regular session again until 2017. NV Energy, SolarCity, and other solar companies agreed to legislation that eliminated the cap. But it also required the utilities commission to study net-metering rates and eliminate any unreasonable shifting of costs to other customers. It set a Dec. 31 deadline for officials to review and approve new rates that the utility would submit. “We literally had a gun against our head to support it,” Rive says.

NV Energy made its case to the utilities commission in late July, kicking off a five-month process that culminated with the December decision. Staff spent hundreds of hours requesting data and reviewing information. There were four days of hearings. Nowhere in all this, Rive says, was there any hint of changing rates for people who had already gone solar.

Ultimately, the commission decided that everyone who put panels on their roofs should be treated the same. It also found that small commercial and residential net-metering customers were getting more than $16 million in subsidies a year from other people. To fix that, the commissioners agreed on New Year’s Eve to two rate increases and one decrease. A residential solar customer in southern Nevada, for instance, would see her monthly service charge gradually step up in annual increments from $12.75 to $38.51 in 2020. The amount she got paid for the electricity she produced would plunge by about 75 percent during the same period. She’d also get a slightly cheaper rate on the energy she drew from the grid.

NV Energy tried to explain the changes by posting sample bills on its website. A southern Nevada homeowner called Jane Doe residing at (the wishfully named) 1234 Happy Dr. in Las Vegas, for instance, would end up paying $94.64 for her January bill vs. $84.66 under the old rates. NV Energy’s sample bills also account for only the first year of changes the commission approved. SolarCity’s pricing undercut NV Energy by just a little bit in Nevada before the new rates, Rive says. So he knew immediately that he could no longer do business in the state.

A day after the ruling, Rive announced that SolarCity would cease sales in Nevada. Later, he said the company would have to dismiss 550 workers in the state. Sunrun and other solar companies followed suit. SolarCity still employs more than a thousand people in Las Vegas at its call center, but they mostly serve other states.

Throughout the process, says Kevin Geraghty, NV Energy’s vice president for energy supply, he’d been frustrated by how the solar industry has tried “to influence what is a technical, financial analysis with emotion.” If you go solar, he adds, “you have to pay your fair share” for the grid. He says rooftop solar customers will continue to enjoy “substantial” savings on their utility bills. A homeowner’s payback on a rooftop system ultimately depends on the trajectory for NV Energy’s rates, he says. Recently, the utility has managed to cut them several times.

Geraghty blames SolarCity for confusing customers. “That’s what they did in Nevada,” he says. “They’ve done it everywhere they’ve been.” The commission came out with a ruling that the solar companies didn’t like because “they didn’t challenge the facts and figures,” Geraghty says. “They rolled out the same tired, generic, rooftop solar arguments. And in the face of facts and information, they failed.”

“NVE is wrong—their data was flawed, and everyone except the commission recognized this,” Rive fires back.

The power struggle in Nevada is hardly unique. Solar is booming in the U.S., in part because of a stunning drop in the price of panels. Adjusting for inflation, it cost $96 per watt for a solar module in the mid-1970s. Process improvements and a huge boost in production have brought that figure down 99 percent, to 68¢ per watt today, according to data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Leasing from companies such as SolarCity has only sped up adoption. And a multiyear extension of the 30 percent federal solar tax credit in December has also helped.

In just a decade, solar has gone from an enviro’s dream to a serious lobby that will be fighting these kinds of battles nationwide for years. More than half of U.S. states werestudying or changing their net-metering policies in the third quarter of 2015, according to the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center. Just about everywhere solar companies go, the industry has stirred up popular support, often with help from celebrities. On Jan. 24 a pro-solar group arranged for musicians Michael Franti, Bob Weir, and Sammy Hagar to play a free, acoustic concert in San Francisco.

Power companies may not be winning any popularity contests, but they’re developing their own renewable energy to keep up with changing attitudes and to meet state mandates. In North Carolina, Duke Energy is spending $900 million on solar. Buffett’s company had committed $15 billion across all its operations through 2014 to all types of renewable energy. Last year it pledged to double that as part of an Obama administration climate pledge. Much of this money has gone to its Iowa utility, MidAmerican Energy, which can generate about 30 percent of its power from wind turbines.

Buffett’s company has also bought renewable energy through long-term contracts. Last year, NV Energy signed up to purchase power from a giant First Solar installation outside Las Vegas for $38.70 per megawatt-hour. Analysts said at the time that it was one of the cheapest rates on record. Commissioners cited projects like that for why it made no sense to continue encouraging net metering in Nevada. If the goal is to put more solar on the grid, it’d be far cheaper for NV Energy to procure it.

This, of course, is of little consolation for the Nevadans who’ve already blanketed their roofs with solar panels. The public outcry seems to have registered with NV Energy. On Jan. 25 it said it would ask the commission to allow existing net-metering customers to stick with the old system for two decades in some instances. “A fair, stable, and predictable cost environment is important to all our customers,” Paul Caudill, the utility’s president, said in a statement. The commission will soon rehear that portion of the case.

Even if the utility’s proposal is accepted, it may not go far enough for the solar industry. The December decision could be challenged in court—or taken straight to voters. SolarCity and other groups are trying to get the issue on the November ballot.

Caught in limbo are people such as Dale Collier. The day after the commission hearing, he showed off a 56-panel system on his home in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson. It cost him about $48,000 to install in 2011. SolarCity hadn’t yet set up shop in Nevada, so he paid for it by refinancing his house. The system took his NV Energy bill down to about $80 a month from the $330 it used to average, he says. One year, he got a $1,355 check from NV Energy because his solar power was helping the utility meet its renewable energy requirements. “It was the smartest thing I’d ever done,” he says. “Now, it’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”

Collier had planned to retire from his job flying small cargo planes. But he doesn’t want to stop working until he has a better handle on his monthly bills from Buffett’s utility. “If it goes totally haywire, I’m going to look at batteries,” he says. “I’d love to just go off the grid totally, and tell them to f--- off.”

Furthermore, Lux Research forecasts energy storage will increase the global distributed solar market by 25 GW annually in 2026. The report says integrating storage adds costs, affecting revenue streams and addressable market size, but as installed solar system costs decline – from $3.83/W in 2015 to $1.87/W in 2035 – an attractive economic case will emerge in 2023, leading to strong growth.

“As the solar-plus-storage market matures, interesting developments will unfold on a number of fronts. There will be more vertical integration between the two industries, increased financing options and even a move toward energy-sharing between communities,” says Cosmin Laslau, Lux Research senior analyst and lead author of the report.

Some of the report’s key findings include the following:

Solar-storage partnerships begin to emerge. Partnerships between Stem and SunPower, Green Charge Networks and SunEdison, and Sonnen and Sungevity reveal the industry’s future. First Solar even joined a $50 million investment in Younicos, a leader in grid-scale energy storage integration.

Software is a key differentiator. Leaders like SolarCity and others are offering demand management software that can help integrate storage. Sunverge’s system can link to smart devices and electric vehicles, while Sonnenbatterie’s software can analyze weather data to optimize solar consumption and storage.

Policy support has big impact. Thanks to policy support, Germany has installed 12,000 solar-plus-batteries systems since 2013, with a recent growth rate of 35%. Japan has launched a subsidy program to cover two-thirds of the installation costs for lithium-ion battery systems at 1 kWh or larger, while California offers a $1.46/W incentive – and mandates utilities to install 1.3 GW of storage by 2020.

More on the report, titled “Helping Renewables Shine On: Analyzing the New Business Cases Where Batteries Make Sense for Solar Systems,” is available here.

Please note: This article’s chart, provided by Lux Research, covers the global market.

According to the school's executive director, the New York Institute for Special Education will likely save $14,000 a year on electricity as a result. "That's really important to improving the services at the school," Bernadette M. Kappen, PhD, said.

Solar, of course, is a great fit for schools of all kinds: It helps them lower their second-largest operational expense--energy costs--at the same time as it excites kids about science and math, and teaches whole school communities--students, parents, teachers, and staff--the increasingly vital skill of environmental stewardship. This new installation in the Bronx will have special benefits: reducing strain on the area's overburdened electric grid and improving the air quality in a borough that has some of New York State's worst asthma problems. "When we learned about" K-Solar, Dr. Kappen said, "it seemed like--why wouldn't we do it?"

K-Solar uses a model similar to highly successful Solarize model that has helped communities across the country get solar at costs 10-20% below market rate. Through what's called collective or aggregate purchasing, programs like Solarize and K-Solar bring together interested home and business owners, community institutions and others to build support for installing solar, provide technical expertise, cut costs and ensure quality. Here's how it works: An organizer--in this case, New York's public power provider, the New York Power Authority--puts out a call for parties interested in going solar. With the help of experts, they assess each property's solar needs and potential, and engage in a competitive process to find installers who can offer the best prices and timetables.

In this process, everyone wins. "If school districts wanted to go solar on their own, it would be quite a heavy lift," explains NYPA's Joseph Rende, who implements the program. Economies of scale help bring down solar costs for schools, and installers get a guaranteed, schedule-able work flow that enables them to deploy their crews most effectively.

Supported by the state's NY-Sun initiative, which will incentivize a full 3 gigawatts of solar power in New York by 2023, K-Solar is open to every elementary, middle and high school or district in the state--public or private. Already, almost half of New York's 695 public districts have signed up to learn more about how K-Solar can help their schools. And 13 districts are now poised to sign power purchase agreements that will get them solar at reduced rates, with no upfront costs. (There's no deadline for joining K-Solar. So, if your school or district is interested in finding out more about the program's advantages, pop on over to the NYPA website and check it out.)

Over at the New York Institute for Special Education last week, Dr. Kappen summed up the program's benefits: "It's important for the environment but it's important for us in a financial sense." With more projects on the way, that's a refrain we'll hear increasingly more of, as New York's K-Solar program brings solar benefits to school kids and communities across the state.

Original article appeared on www.greentechmedia.com on January 22nd 2016 by Jeff St. John. Click here to view the original article.

Back in June, the Department of Energy hinted at a new funding program in the works, aimed at supporting research and development of technology to integrate rooftop solar, energy storage, smart buildings and utility software controls at the edge of the grid. Last week, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz unveiled the fruits of this effort: a three-year plan to direct $220 million toward 88 projects across the country.

The Grid Modernization Multi-Year Program Plan will bring a consortium of 14 national laboratories together with more than 100 companies, utilities, research organizations, state regulators and regional grid operators. The scope of this work includes integrating renewable energy, energy storage and smart building technologies at the edges of the grid network, at a much greater scale than is done today.

That will require a complicated mix of customer-owned and utility-controlled technology, all of which must be secured against cyberattacks and extreme weather events. And at some point, all of this new technology will need to become part of how utilities, grid operators, regulators, ratepayers and new energy services providers manage the economics of the grid. 

DOE has already started releasing funds to 10 “pioneer regional partnerships,” or “early-stage, public-private collaborative projects that address specific near-term grid modernization issues that are important to specific states and regional stakeholders,” David Danielson, assistant secretary of DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, said in a conference call last week.

The projects range from remote microgrids in Alaska and grid resiliency in New Orleans, to renewable energy integration in Vermont and Hawaii, and scaling up to statewide energy regulatory overhauls in California and New York. Others are providing software simulation capabilities to utilities and grid operators around the country, or looking at ways to tie the country’s massive eastern and western grids into a more secure and efficient whole.

Another six “core” projects are working on more central issues, like creating the “fundamental knowledge, metrics and tools we’re going to need to establish the foundation of this effort,” he said

Original article appeared on www.solarindustrymag.com on January 21st 2016 by SI Staff. Click here to view the original article.

According to the governor, the fund will accelerate the growth of New York’s clean energy economy, address climate change, strengthen resiliency in the face of extreme weather, and lower energy bills for New Yorkers starting this year. Additionally, Cuomo says the fund will attract and leverage third-party capital to support his commitment to a 50% by 2030 renewable portfolio standard (RPS).

“New York is a national leader in combating climate change and growing the clean energy economy – and today we are taking the next big step forward,” remarks Cuomo. “This unparalleled $5 billion investment will leverage more than $29 billion in private-sector funding and open the door to new clean energy opportunities for years to come.

“We are raising the bar when it comes to increasing the use of renewable energy and reducing harmful carbon emissions, and I am proud that the Empire State is continuing to set the example for the future.”

The $5 billion Clean Energy Fund, to be administered by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), is projected to result in more than $39 billion in customer bill savings over the next 10 years through innovative projects and private-public partnerships. In addition to the $39 billion in overall customer savings, as a result of this PSC action, consumers and businesses are expected to see lower costs of $1.5 billion over the next 10 years, including an immediate reduction of $91 million from 2016 electric and gas costs compared to 2015.

According to the governor’s office, the fund will operate four major portfolios:

Market Development ($2.7 billion): NYSERDA will undertake a variety of activities to stimulate consumer demand for clean energy and energy efficiency while helping to build supply chains to meet that growing demand. At least $234.5 million must be invested in initiatives that benefit low- to moderate-income New Yorkers during the first three years of the fund.

"SunEdison solar power is a great way for cities across the U.S. to reduce their exposure to rising utility rates," said Steve Raeder, SunEdison's regional general manager of its Eastern U.S. solar business. "We're delighted to work with Watervliet to help them save money while advancing their sustainability initiatives. And, because we've installed hundreds of solar systems for municipal customers across America, we know how to do it quickly and cost effectively."

"As Mayor, I make it a priority to pursue all efficient, safe and affordable measures to save taxpayers money—now and into the future," said City of Watervliet Mayor Michael Manning. "With the rising cost of energy, the agreement with SunEdison is expected to save the city more than $1 million. It is a perfect example of looking outside the box and creating new initiatives that will save residents money and make us good stewards of our environment."

SunEdison will supply the city with solar power through a state-wide program in New York called "remote net metering" which allows customers to enjoy the savings and environmental benefits of solar even if they are unable install a system on site. The solar system is built in the same region as the customer, and the customer receives the solar farm's energy output as a credit on their monthly electricity bill.

The City of Watervliet was advised by Solomon Energy, a company that works with municipalities to identify opportunities for low or no-cost solar power to reduce and stabilize energy costs and to avoid future budgetary problems due to an extreme increase in energy cost.

"With no capital cost to the City and savings starting from day one, this solar power purchase agreement is a win-win for Watervliet," said Jeffrey Conrad, President of Solomon Energy. "The remote net metering agreement could save the City more than $1 million, money that they can use on more important things like public safety and economic investment."  

The solar power comes from an 868 kilowatt DC solar system which is expected to generate enough clean electricity each year to offset more than 83 percent of the city's electricity usage for city-owned buildings. The system should also reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 11 million pounds over the 20-year period—the equivalent to the annual amount of carbon sequestered by more than 4,000 acres of U.S. forest.

SunEdison intends to start and complete construction for the project in 2016. Operation and maintenance of the solar system will be performed by SunEdison Services, which provides global asset management, monitoring and reporting services.

They are reminding companies that the customers can’t be told they’re buying solar energy if the companies also sell the renewable energy credits to utilities.

Assistant Attorney General Justin Kolber says solar companies must follow the Federal Trade Commission’s guide for environmental marketing.

“It says if you’re selling the renewable energy certificates then it would be quote ‘deceptive’ to represent directly or indirectly that the consumer is using renewable energy. That’s what makes energy renewable is those credits, once those credits are sold it’s a deceptive practice to advertise that the consumer is consuming renewable energy,” Kolber said.

After reviewing the websites of a number of solar companies Kolber says he found differences in marketing, and some sites were more misleading than others. The problems were mostly found in community solar arrays, where companies own the panels and members get a share of the electricity produced.

If the companies then sell the renewable energy credits, called RECs, to utilities, the community solar members are legally getting what’s called null electricity, not renewable or solar energy.

Kolber says the burden is on the solar companies to be clear with customers whether or not RECs are sold.

SunCommon, Vermont’s largest residential and community solar business, does sell the RECs from their community solar arrays. Co-President Duane Peterson says the company is well-aware of the FTC guidelines and all of their marketing materials have been reviewed by legal counsel.

Peterson says SunCommon has 20 community solar arrays with more than 500 members who are saving money on their electric bills.

“I mean, put bluntly: Solar used to just be stupid expensive. A few well-to-do people, bless them, participated. Well, that wasn’t going to move the needle on the climate crisis. We need lots of these things,” Peterson said. “So at SunCommon, our mission was to make this easy and affordable. We offer membership in our community solar arrays at a discount to what that power would have cost from the utility.”

Peterson says getting money from utilities that are required to support clean energy is part of the financing that makes the arrays possible. 

But the Burlington-based Vermont Community Law Center disagrees. Attorney Jared Carter says it's investigating whether Vermont's Consumer Protection Act has been violated.

Carter says he’s concerned about more than just what a company’s website says, it’s what the reasonably objective consumer believes.

“I think there are plenty of consumers out there who believe that they are getting renewable energy when they’re going renewable really what they’re doing is in many ways, they are subsidizing the costs of these out of state utilities meeting their renewable energy portfolio requirement,” he said.

SunCommon’s Peterson says the market for RECs puts more renewable energy into the regional grid, and community solar members are helping to make that possible.

According to a recent release, this is the first Solar Ready Vets training program in New York and the eighth offered at military installations in the U.S.

"Soldiers and veterans have the experience and know-how to get the job done," Gov. Cuomo says. "The dramatic growth of solar in New York is creating a demand for highly skilled workers. Offering these heroes valuable training and the technical skills needed to work in this rapidly growing industry not only helps veterans succeed post service, but helps all of us create a more sustainable future."

The five-week classes will be taught by instructors from SUNY Canton and will also facilitate job placement with New York solar PV companies.

The DOE launched the Solar Ready Vets program in September 2014 to prepare veterans for post-military careers as solar installers, sales representatives, system inspectors or other solar-related occupations. Approximately 3,600 service members transition from Fort Drum each year, and this program intends to support them as they enter into civilian life.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority provided financial support for the startup costs. According to the release, there is no cost for Fort Drum personnel to participate in these first cohorts, and service members may use GI Bill benefits to cover the cost of training afterward.

According to the Solar Foundation’s Solar Job Census 2014, the solar industry is adding jobs more than 20 times faster than the overall economy and solar employment in New York grew more than 40% in 2014. Further, there are currently 359 solar companies in the state, employing more than 7,000 New Yorkers.

Pre-orders for the first, limited-edition batch of 50 Ecocapsules just launched, with each unit costing €79,000 (roughly $85,688). For intrigued potential customers sitting on the fence, the founders say the price is expected to drop in the coming years with an anticipated increase in production volumes and decrease in the cost of technologies used in the product.

Anyway, to recap: the shelter, which features an aluminum structure covered in insulated, fiberglass shells, can be transported via an average shipping container or trailer (the company is also developing a customized trailer for attaching the Ecocapsule). It offers about 67 square feet of usable floor space, a 750-watt wind turbine, 600-watt solar array, and 10-kWh battery capacity (which is expected to last at least four days.) The Ecocapsule also has a rainwater collection system with membrane filtering, a waterless composting toilet, as well as a built-in cabinets, racks, desk, folding bed with mattress, and kitchenette. It’s designed to meet all the safety regulations in countries of sale, which for now includes all of the European Union, U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

When we first featured the Ecocapsule, readers made remarks like “The modern yurt,” “Very Airstreamy,” “Perfect for Burning Man!” Well, how about now—any takers? Below, some recent photos.

Due to project cancellations and changes, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) is now sitting on over US$6 million in funds through a solar incentive program, which it plans to re-assign to other projects.

NYSERDA manages the NY-Sun MW Block incentive program, which provides rebates to residential, commercial and industrial installations. The MW Block program's per-watt rebate levels are set in “blocks” which decline in value over time as more solar comes online and the program hits targets, similar to the California Solar Initiative.

The $6 million in funds is being re-allocated to the both the Upstate Residential and Non-Residential programs, as well as to the Con Edison Residential and Non-Residential programs. This should allow an combined total of 12.5 MW of new solar PV.

NYSERDA also previously announced the addition of 18 MW for the Long Island Residential program, and Long Island Non-Residential is not included in the current reallocation.

The agency notes that the program has been very popular and that the progress of residential and small commercial MW Blocks is roughly six to seven months ahead of the administrator's internal projections.

For different regions of the state and market segments uptake is very different. The Upstate Small Non-Residential portion of the program has already advanced to the seventh block, whereas incentives are only on the third block in ConEdison and Long Island Small Non-Residential. Current incentive levels vary from $0.20-0.80 per watt, depending on region and market segment.

New York is currently planning an ambitious overhaul of the structure of its distribution grid through the Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) proceeding, and NY-Sun will be folded into that program.

NYSERDA says that interest in the NY-Sun MW Block program has been strong

Click here to view original article.

New York will see more clean energy, like the kind generated by this Saratoga Springs solar array, thanks to important new policies the state enacted in 2015. (Photo credit: Redi-Rock International, via Flickr)

The biggest news of 2015--the really big news--came this month, as world leaders met in Paris to create a historic climate agreement. As a direct contribution to that effort, Governor Cuomo charged the state's Public Service Commission, which regulates our utilities, with designing and enacting a new Clean Energy Standard that will ensure New York gets a full 50 percent of its electricity from renewable sources like solar and on- and offshore wind power by 2030. That's an impressive accomplishment, to say the least.

In terms of ambition, only California has a 2030 standard that's equal to New York's. That isn't just good news for our climate and our kids' lungs. The new standard, along with other important clean energy policies the governor has put in place this year, is spurring innovation and expanding job growth here in New York State, because clean energy companies now have the policy certainty they need to grow their businesses and their payrolls, too.

Let's review some of the other great clean energy and climate news that came out of the Empire State in 2015:

Helping Cities and Towns Become Clean Energy Leaders: In January, Governor Cuomo announcedtwo unparalleled programs designed to help cities and towns become clean energy leaders. The Five Cities Energy Plan assists Albany, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Yonkers in cutting their energy use and boosting renewable energy, with savings to total as much as $400 million annually. The New York State Community Partnership will help smaller communities cut their carbon emissions and increase their deployment of clean energy through centralized tools and resources. These efforts aren't just critical to achieving the state's climate and energy goals, they will also help spur economic development and community revitalization.

A New Wind Power Record: On March 2^nd, during the hour between 1 and 2 pm, wind power supplied a full 7 percent of the state's electricity--an all-time high. Installed wind power capacity has grown from a mere 48 megawatts in 2005 to 1,746 megawatts in 2015--enough to power about 400,000 homes. The new Clean Energy Standard, along with the recent extension of key federal clean energy tax incentives, will likely push those numbers far higher, especially if New York creates a new offshore wind set-aside in the Clean Energy Standard.

Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) Initiative Starts Redesigning Our Electric System To Meet 21^st Century Challenges: The much-watched REV proceeding, New York's effort to make the state's electric system cleaner, more resilient and more affordable, achieved significant progress this year, mapping out answers to deep-in-the-weeds policy questions, like whether there will be a system operator at the retail level, who can own distributed energy resources, and how to encourage a transition to electric vehicles. Of special significance, the PSC affirmed its commitment to ensuring REV outcomes benefit the efficiency needs of low- to moderate-income New Yorkers, who spend far more than average consumers on energy.

Increasing Commitments To Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy: In June, as part of the State Energy Plan, New York pledged to cut energy consumption in buildings by 23 percent by 2030. That's important because energy efficiency is the most cost-effective way to cut carbon pollution, and because the state, which was once a national efficiency leader, has recently slipped to a relatively lowly number 9 in the state rankings offered by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. The pledge dovetails well with the 50 x '30 directive, too. After all, meeting demand with "negawatts" means chasing 50 percent of a smaller overall energy pie in 2030.

In addition, the PSC launched a shared renewables program that will ensure that the benefits of clean energy are available to all New Yorkers. As part of the REV proceeding, the state is also poised to make major commitments to clean energy. Included in the 10-year, $5 billion Clean Energy Fund proposal is support for the NY-Sun solar initiative, New York's pioneering Green Bank (see below), and other programs. The state is also considering a $1.5 billion, large-scale renewables program. That, in turn, will jumpstart utility-scale solar and on- and offshore wind power development over the next 10 years. We expect PSC action on all of those initiatives in early 2016.

New York Green Bank Makes Its First Loans: The New York Green Bank aims to provide training wheels that will help unseasoned private lenders learn the advantages of lending to clean energy businesses. (Financial institutions often consider the clean energy field to be too new and too untested to loan in.) Leveraging as much as $178 million in private capital, the NYGB this October made its first $49 million in loans to solar, wind power and energy efficiency companies. They'll likely be just the first, but not the last, to benefit from this innovative, public-private approach to finance.

Governor Cuomo Signs The Under 2 MOU: States, cities, regions, and provinces hold many of the keys to keeping our planet's temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius, the amount scientists say is necessary to stave off climate change's worst effects. This October, with Nobel Prize-Winner Al Gore looking on, and an audience of Columbia University students, advocates and regular citizens on hand, Governor Cuomo added New York to the growing list of 123 states, countries, cities and other so-called sub-nationals that have committed to cutting greenhouse gas pollution by 80 to 95 percent by 2050.

Vetoing A Natural Gas Terminal That Would Have Blocked Offshore Wind Power Development:The wind blows hard off New York's coast. But utilities and other clean power developers wouldn't have been able to take advantage of it if a proposed offshore liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal were in the way. Citing efforts to ramp up offshore wind power among other compelling reasons to oppose the Port Ambrose LNG project, Governor Cuomo rejected it this November.

New York Supports Clean Transportation and Smart Growth: The transportation sector is one of the state's biggest sources of carbon pollution. Appropriately, then, New York joined four northeastern states and the District of Columbia in November in committing to a regional strategy to jointly reduce carbon emissions from their transportation sectors, including market-based possibilities that build on the success of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. In its State Energy Plan, New York also committed to providing investment incentives for smart growth and transit-oriented development (TOD) projects, as well as the creation of an interagency TOD working group to help further reduce vehicle miles traveled.

Attorney General Schneiderman Uses The Law To Protect Our Climate: November also saw important action by AG Eric Schneiderman. On the very same day he spearheaded 18 states' efforts to protect the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan in federal court, his office announcedan official investigation into whether ExxonMobil deliberately misled investors by downplaying climate change risks. Not only that, but in November as well, his office reached a settlement with the nation's largest coal company, Peabody Energy, that requires Peabody to disclose to investors more information about the risks climate change poses to its business.

Building on Success

As 2015 comes to a close, NRDC celebrates New York's many clean power accomplishments. These aren't just achievements in themselves. They're also models other states can use to increase their jobs numbers and save consumers significant money on energy, all while they help protect our kids and our country's future.

At NRDC, we look forward to working with the Empire State's leadership in the coming year, as we have in the past. In particular, we aim to help New York realize its considerable offshore wind power potential, to create an enforceable energy efficiency standard that slashes energy waste, and to promote the benefits of solar power and energy efficiency for low- and middle-income New Yorkers. In 2016, New York is poised to help lead the nation in clean energy again, just as it made 2015 a banner year.

The Alliance for Clean Energy New York (ACE NY) says the New York State Public Service Commission's (NYS PSC) decision to advance Gov. Andrew Cuomo's Energy Highway initiative will accelerate the state's clean energy agenda.

Anne Reynolds, executive director of ACE NY, says in a statement that the renewables industry is in support of the decision "because it will help pave the way for more renewable energy in New York."

"The commission decision declares that there is a public policy need for this portfolio of transmission projects. This is an important milestone in the multi-step process to get transmission upgrades proposed to and then evaluated by the [New York Independent System Operator] and subsequently reviewed and permitted.

“This action will ultimately allow for crucial updates to New York's transmission system. These are necessary investments that will facilitate further development of New York's renewable energy resources and help achieve the mandate of 50 percent renewables by 2030.”

Reynolds continues, “The state’s current transmission constraints are a significant obstacle to linking our abundant renewable resources - especially wind power in Upstate New York - with the areas of highest electricity demand and highest prices. Relieving this congestion will create important opportunities for new investments in renewable energy and allow clean, fuel-free power to flow easily to the downstate area - which will provide broad economic and environmental benefits throughout New York State.”

She adds that the NYS PSC’s decision “was based on lengthy analysis and public input” and is “a compromise that minimizes or eliminates any visual or environmental impact while still getting the grid improvements that New York needs.”

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Under Cuomo, New York has taken bold action to modernize its energy system through the Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) plan, which laid the groundwork for the state and private sector to aggressively add renewables. Now, the governor says, the clean energy standard provides a cost-effective, efficient and enforceable mandate to meet the goal of ensuring clean, resilient and affordable energy for all New Yorkers. It will result in lower costs for renewable energy and create new opportunities to scale large renewable energy projects, according to Cuomo.

The regulatory process to develop the clean energy standard will include the opportunity for full and complete public and stakeholder participation. State law requires that the Public Service Commission take all reasonable steps to meet New York’s goals set forth in the state’s energy plan.

The governor’s directive sets forth a time frame by which the commission should act. The new standard, which will be developed by the Department of Public Service to complement Cuomo’s REV plan, is expected to be presented to the Public Service Commission by June 2016.

“Climate change is one of the defining issues of our time, and we must act now,” the governor states. “As discussions continue in Paris, we are taking real, enforceable actions in New York to lay the foundation for a thriving clean energy economy. With one of the most aggressive renewable energy goals of any state in the nation, we are leading by example to ensure the possibility of a bright future for generations to come.

Additionally, the governor has directed the Department of Public Service to develop a process to prevent the premature retirement of safe, upstate nuclear power plants during this transition. As New York state continues to aggressively add new renewable resources, it cannot lose ground in the fight to reduce carbon pollution through the unnecessary retirement of safely operating nuclear power plants in Upstate New York, says the governor.

According to Cuomo, the early closure of those plants would result in increased carbon pollution from fossil fuel generators, reduced fuel diversity and unstable electric prices, as well as job losses and economic distress in upstate communities. Support for nuclear plants is separate and distinct from the 50% renewable energy mandate.

Richard Kauffman, chair of energy and finance for New York state and a participant in the COP 21 talks in Paris, says, “Today's announcement codifies New York's commitment to powering statewide economic development with clean, affordable energy. The creation of a clean energy standard is good public policy for the environment and our economy.”

The governor's full letter to the department can be found here.

Each box comes in 10-, 20- and 40-foot units and is pre-installed with a photovoltaic system comprising of 10 high-efficiency solar modules, off-grid inverters, a transformer and distribution box and deep-cycle batteries for energy storage. The array is backed up by a 3,000-watt generator.

Farm from a Box is a modified shipping container with a built-in WiFi, irrigation system, solar panels, weather tracking devices, batteries and more. It also contains seedlings, farming equipment and a training program to provide communities with the tools the need to feed themselves. Photo credit: Farm from a Box

It’s also equipped with high-efficiency LED lighting, secured storage, a mobile charging area, Wi-Fi and a remote monitoring solution. Oh, and seeds and farming tools of course.

Each unit is capable of producing crops for one hectare of land (2.47 acres), the company says.

“Farm from a Box is the ‘Swiss-Army knife’ of sustainable farming,” Brandi DeCarli, Farm from a Box co-founder, said in September.

While Farm from a Box seems ideal for many communities worldwide, it could be a food security solution for areas without reliable access to electricity or water.

“Based on extensive field research, we found that rural communities often lack the resources and infrastructure needed to access nutritious food,” DeCarli said. “We developed a toolkit that contains all of the core components needed to grow your own food, on a two acre plot of land, without the need for an existing grid. Imagine the good it can do by growing local, organic food for a school, or helping jumpstart food production after a disaster. ‘Farm from a Box’ enables and empowers communities to provide for themselves.”

Thinking outside the “box,” the farm also comes with a training program that covers ecological farming practices, technology use, maintenance and basic business and entrepreneurship. A fully operational pilot project is planned for deployment at a local women’s cooperative in the Rift Valley in Ethiopia later this year to help shape and refine the training and implementation program.

A prototype installation called the “Adam” has been running at Santa Rosa Junior College in Sonoma, California since September.

Launching of the Sonoma unit at Santa Rosa Junior College’s Agriculture and Natural Resources Department. Photo credit: Farm from a Box

The boxes are fully customizable and Fast Company reports that each unit costs between $25,000-$45,000, depending on its technology specs.

Last month, Farm from a Box announced a partnership with SMA America, a noted solar product manufacturer.

“SMA is proud to partner with a company whose goal is to bring independence to communities around the globe by providing the tools they need to sustain themselves, both nutritionally and financially,” said Marko Wittich, SMA executive vice president of sales for the Americas region. “Farm from a Box isn’t charity; it empowers and strengthens communities with sustainable solutions, powered by renewable energy.”

Millions of people have been told to stay indoors, and most factories and schools have been shut.

It comes as President Xi Jinping attends the opening of the UN Global Conference on Climate Change in Paris.

Celia Hatton reports.

Click here to watch the video

The coming step-down in federal tax credits for solar energy production will cast a shadow over the industry in 2017, but after that analysts expect the sector to return to strong growth, perhaps hitting 250 GW of cumulative installed capacity by 2030.

Residential electricity customers are responding enthusiastically to the solar opportunity, and utilities are increasingly seeing value too, according to the author of a recent GTM report titled "The Future of U.S. Solar; Getting to the Next Order of Magnitude."

"Distributed solar has a lot of momentum and is nowhere near its penetration limits, and utilities are just starting to consider centralized solar generation in their long term planning,” said Shayle Kann, GTM Research senior vice president and report author. “There is a meaningful role for both. How it will split depends on how the markets evolve.”

There was 2 GW of installed U.S. solar capacity at the end of 2010. Many thought it was too expensive to be an important part of the energy mix. But the residential installed cost has gone from $6.71/watt to $3.54/watt while the utility scale cost has fallen from $3.58 to $1.45. As a result, GTM estimates the U.S. will build 7.7 GW of solar in 2015 and have a 26 GW installed capacity at the end of the year. 

The question now is how much solar can make up the U.S. generation mix.

“There is a realistic path toward 10% over the next 10-15 years,” Kann wrote, making an installed capacity of 250 GW “a rough benchmark.”

The promise of growth

U.S. electricity prices are expected to keep rising, making the solar value proposition more appealing for home and business owners as well as for utilities. The Obama administration's Clean Power Plan will also open up a need for new low-emission generation as utilities close aging or expensive fossil fuel power plants close for compliance. 

What's more, Kann said, markets are being redesigned to incorporate solar and other distributed energy resources (DERs). Proceedings like New York’sReforming the Energy Vision (REV) initiative, California’s AB 327 reforms package, and Hawaii’s DER docket are creating regulatory transformations too extensive to be reversed.

“It is possible the big regulatory transformations will be centered on distributed generation,” Kann said. But utilities are including utility-scale solarin their Integrated Resource Plans (IRPs), too. Depending on how the markets are structured, plant retirements led by the Clean Power Plan may be replaced with centralized solar generation.

The 250 GW of solar projected by GTM accounts for PV a the residential, commercial-industrial, and utility scales, but it does not include concentrating solar power, which uses mirrors to super-heat liquid to create steam to run a turbine. It's unclear what proportion of each sector will be represented in that total.

“The number of suitable rooftops is not the limiting factor,” Kann said. The current supply of solar suitable roofs is far from saturated. NREL GIS-based research put the technical potential for rooftop solar PV at 664 GW, he explained.

Projections through 2020 show distributed solar increasing its share of the market because the scheduled sunset of the 30% federal investment tax credit is expected to have a greater impact on utility-scale solar growth. Unless Congrss takes action to prevent it, the ITC is slated to revert to its pre-2006 levels of 10% for commercial investments and zero for residential investments at the beginning of 2017.

It's also expected to produce “the first year-over-year downturn in the U.S. solar market in more than 15 years,” Kann wrote in the report.

No one can predict whether the overall impact of the ITC reversion will slow solar’s long-term march toward 250 GW, but it “certainly will not bring about the end of solar growth,” Kann writes.

The Clean Power Plan, meanwhile has “enormous potential to support the expansion of solar." Even in the 27 states challenging the plan's legality in court, utilities are clamoring for regulators to put together compliance plans for the rule — plans that will likely boost renewable generation, including solar.

Of the many compliance options available to meet the emissions mandates, solar may especially beneficial. 

The newest paper from utility-strategist Peter Kind recognizes utility-scale solar investments as a smart choice in long-term generation planning because they align the interests of utilities, customers, policymakers, and third-party providers.

The threat of rate reform

Almost all U.S. distributed solar has been built with a net energy metering(NEM) incentive. But Hawaii, ever a "postcard from the future" in the utility sector, just terminated its NEM program and California’s major utilities are asking their regulators for a similar reform.

If all states were to match the Hawaii reform — which reduced NEM credit by about 50% — the only state with a competitive solar value proposition would be Hawaii, due to its disproportionately high electricity rates.

Perhaps more significantly, some regulators have granted utilities approval for fixed fees and demand charges that can also erode the solar value proposition. A demand charge approved for Salt River Project (SRP) in Arizona earlier this year has cut down the amount of solar buyers  by about 50% and possibly as much as 95%, according to solar developers in the state. 

But change will not come suddenly and will not be universal, Kann explained. As NEM credits fall, the price of solar is likely to come down, too, keeping solar competitive. Fixed and demand charges may come with time-of-use rates that make solar more competitive. And as they are introduced, the falling cost of storage may offer new values.

Why market reinvention matters

Utility customers value distributed solar because it reduces their electricity bills, while utilities value centralized solar largely only for the kWh it sends to the grid. With electricity market reforms, DERs can offer multiple values to the grid while continuing to provide either bill reductions for customers or kWh for utilities. Paired with energy storage and load control, earnings from aggregated DERs' multiple revenue streams can be significant.

“This may sound overly futuristic and speculative, but it is already beginning to happen today,” Kann wrote.

The California Independent System Operator’s Distributed Energy Resource Providers (DERPs) program, the Electric Reliability Council of TexasDistributed Resource Energy and Ancillaries Market (DREAM) taskforce, and the New York REV initiative are plans that will allow DERs to earn “grid-service value streams…[and] may present the most significant new opportunity for distributed solar in years.”

If and when effective market rules that recognize DERs as grid assets are implemented, DERs will yield more value to the grid and earn more in wholesale markets.

“We are just into the first wave of this market reinvention,” Kann said. “It will be a totally different paradigm when both the current value of DERs and their value as grid services are recognized and remunerated.”

A recent Rocky Mountain Institute study affirmed Kann’s point about the potential value of multiple stacked services from aggregated DERs. 

With today’s cost structures, “batteries deployed for only a single primary service generally do not provide a net economic benefit,” RMI concludes. But those primary services require less than half a battery’s life. Stacking other uses on them “shifts the economics in favor of storage.”

The increasingly popular idea of a “prosumer” in a two-way interaction with the grid may soon be inadequate to the complex role that customers will eventually play, Kann wrote.

The most forward-thinking regulatory reforms are turning DERs into “grid-responsive assets,” he suggested. The customer of the future in a smart home connected to the grid with a simple interface will need only some form of generation, like solar, to seize big revenue opportunities. 

It's not clear when that future customer will arrive, but current plans for reinvented markets suggest there will be “an array of new opportunities to extract value for customers and the grid from on-site solar,” Kann wrote.

The threat of value deflation

The downside is that as solar becomes a bigger portion of the generation mix, its value and the revenue  begin to drop. Unless paired with storage, solar is non-dispatchable and must sell when it is generated. At some level of penetration, the grid will not need more, and solar’s value will fall.

“The more solar is placed on the grid, the less the grid needs power when solar production is highest,” Kann wrote. “As solar becomes a mainstream power source, regulators and utilities are more likely to align solar compensation more closely with wholesale market pricing.”

Value deflation is when compensation becomes the market price, and solar owners start seeing declining revenues.

“The next kWh is worth less than the previous kWh because the more you put on the grid, the less you need that new generation at that time,” Kann said.

This occurance relates to the bottom half of the infamous Duck Curve chart in which solar over-generation in the middle of the day precedes a fast ramp of load just as solar productivity drops off with the setting sun. 

Precise wholesale market modeling affirm the phenomenon of value deflation for utility-scale and distributed solar. A Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory study estimated "solar value to be 38% lower when solar is at 10% penetration of residential sectors of Los Angeles,” Kann wrote.

But, Kann noted that retail rate NEM credits can mask value deflation. Even so, a California study of residential solar showed that solar owners compensated at time-varying wholesale prices lose 35% of bill savings with a 15% solar penetration compared to solar owners with NEM and a zero solar penetration.

“That is where storage is incredibly valuable,” Kann said. “Storage mitigates value deflation by allowing the shift of solar generation from the time when it is less needed to the time when it is more needed.”

Storage, load control, and new possibilities

Storage can mitigate value deflation even if NEM is reduced and a high demand charge is imposed. SRP’s new residential rate structure for new PV system owners imposed a $9.25 per kW per month demand charge and reduced the NEM credit from the retail rate of approximately $0.09 per kWh to $0.05 per kWh.

Still, a GTM research analysis found solar-plus-storage economics, with certain parameters, could be superior to solar-only economics.

Behind-the-meter and in-front-of-the-meter energy storage can both supportsolar growth, Kann writes.

If NEM credits drop below the retail electricity rate and demand charges are imposed, distributed solar owners with behind-the-meter storage can retain over-generation instead of selling it back to the grid at low rates. Then, they can use stored, solar-generated electricity instead of costly peak period electricity that drives up their demand charges.

System level, in-front-of-the-meter energy storage can also head off value deflation. according to the report. 

At midday, when the solar irradiation is most intense, a utility-scale project’s bulk output can be stored instead of released to the grid when other solar production in flowing into the system. That can eliminate off-peak over-generation. The stored electricity is then available when the grid’s load increases, boosting its value to system.

That is the strategy behind the recent 13 MW solar PV array that Kauai Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) is installing with a 13 MW/52 MWh lithium-ion energy storage system, Kann writes.

The battery storage “will be used to shift the PV generation into the 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. evening peak, displacing expensive peaking plants, providing more value during peak hours, and minimizing stress on the existing baseload plant.”

Hawaii is unique because the solar penetration is as high as 30% of single family homes on some parts of the grid. In the rest of the country, “the economics aren’t there yet but the need is not there yet either,” Kann said.

The challenge of solar value deflation will increase. The ability of storage to mitigate it “will depend on the costs of solar and storage continuing to fall, which we expect,” Kann said.

What energy storage can do to support future solar growth on the supply side, load control can do on the demand side, the paper reported. The use of smart and networked appliances and services can offer a “demand flexibility” that an RMI study estimated could “reduce grid costs by $13 billion per year,” Kann  wrote.

“RMI did a good job of making the argument that load control is just as important and the potential is just as big as storage, depending on what controllable load the customer has and what the load profile is,” Kann added..

A bumpy ride to a bright future

The near-term outlook is likely to be a bumpy ride requiring much work by advocates of solar, which the paper describes as an “incentive- and regulatory-driven technology."

Though costs will continue to fall, it will be at a slower rate. Even utility-scale solar, which comes with economies of scale, will only see an installed cost drop of 11% between 2020 and 2030, the report projects.

But solar has the Clean Power Plan, market reinvention, rate design solutions, and storage and load control technologies on its side.

“I find it very difficult,” Kann concluded, “to conjure a realistic scenario that doesn’t include solar achieving the next order of magnitude by 2030, if not earlier.”

The plaintiffs, aged eight to 19, include the granddaughter of renowned climate scientist James Hansen, formerly of NASA and a well-known advocate of reducing the greenhouse gases that are causing the planet to heat up.

The plaintiffs want the government to commit to significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions and implement "a science-based climate recovery plan" that protects the Earth for future generations, according to the Oregon-based group, Our Children's Trust.

"This case will put indisputable science about climate change squarely in front of the federal judiciary," said the group, which filed its lawsuit against President Barack Obama's administration in August, and has filed multiple state lawsuits over the past several years.

They are calling on the US District Court of Oregon -- the state where most of the plaintiffs live -- to order the government to "swiftly phase down carbon dioxide emissions" so that atmospheric CO2 concentrations "are no more than 350 parts per million by 2100."

Atmospheric CO2 concentration is currently around 400 ppm, a level unprecedented in modern history and one that has raised alarm among many climate scientists.

Meanwhile, the planet is on track for its hottest year since 1880, amid key climate talks later this month in Paris that will reveal how much world leaders are prepared to do to save the environment.

In a sign that the kids' lawsuit is causing some concern to industry interests, powerful oil and coal companies filed earlier this month for permission to join the US government in opposing it.

They include the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers -- which represents ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, Koch Industries and more -- the American Petroleum Institute and the National Association of Manufacturers.

 

The Obama administration has issued a Clean Power Plan which aims to reduce CO2 emissions by 32%

"The fossil fuel industry doesn't want additional pressure on the federal government to run a stricter climate change program," said Cornell University law professor Gerald Torres, an expert on environmental law who is not involved in the case.

"It does suggest they are taking this lawsuit seriously. And I think it ought to be taken seriously," Torres told AFP.

- Dangers ignored -

The plaintiffs say the federal government has known about the danger of carbon emissions since 1965, but has not done enough to stem them.

Specifically, pledges in the 1990s by Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency to significantly reduce CO2 emissions and stop global warming were "never implemented."

This lack of action shows that the "federal government has violated the youngest generation's constitutional rights to life, liberty, property, as well as failed to protect essential public trust resources," Our Children's Trust has said.

In other words, the government has jeopardized such vital natural resources as the air, seas, coastlines, water and wildlife.

Instead, the US government has "continued to permit, authorize and subsidize fossil fuel extraction, development, consumption and exportation -– activities producing enormous quantities of CO2 emissions that have substantially caused the rise in the atmospheric concentration of CO2," said the legal documents.

The political atmosphere in the United States is also contentious, with many Republican lawmakers skeptical of -- or outright denying -- the existence of human-caused climate change.

"At the national level, the debate is pretty much stuck," said Torres, adding that he thinks the kids' case "is legally sound."

He said it raised "the fundamental question which every person in a democracy ought to ask every day when they wake up: What is government for?"

The Obama administration has issued a Clean Power Plan which aims to reduce CO2 emissions by 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. And the US president has rejected the controversial Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, a project many environmentalists had opposed.

But Hansen and the children involved in the suit say these measures do not go far enough.

According to Alex Loznak, a youth plaintiff in the case from Oregon, the intervention of fossil fuel companies "makes it clear that the industry is scared."

"As Mahatma Gandhi once said, 'First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.' The fight has begun, and we will win," he said in a statement.

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       Marijuana growing is becoming so mainstream — and is consuming so much energy — that electric utilities and their regulators from coast to coast are sitting up and taking notice.

Earlier this month, Utility Dive reported that Pacific Power experienced 7 localized outages due to demand overloads attributed to marijuana grow operations. And this week, a Seattle utility warned of a potential 3% load growth in coming months — just from marijuana operations. Earlier this year, we reported that 45% of Denver, Colorado’s load growth was coming from cannabis growing operations. Many utilities, due either to ideological aversion to the industry or fear of running afoul of the federal government, have taken a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach to handling marijuana-related load growth.

Those trends and others throughout the U.S. have reached the ears of the nation’s utility regulators. At their annual conference in Austin, regulators, utilities and efficiency experts discussed how the sector should respond to the explosive growth of what many are calling the most energy-intensive crop in the country.

“When I first heard about this panel, the first thought that popped into my head was ‘Why do I care?’” said Commissioner Willie Phillips of the District of Columbia. “Why do we care about marijuana more than any other plant, any other customer?”

“Are they different?” he asked. “I think they are.”

The District of Columbia and 24 other jurisdictions have legalized marijuana in some capacity, he said, and “if that legalization continues, we’re looking at a $35 billion dollar a year industry, and a third of that is related to energy consumption.”

Just growing four mature marijuana plants, he said, consumes about as much power as running 29 refrigerators around the clock. And marijuana cultivation is becoming increasingly commonplace. In D.C., Phillips said, some developers are offering marijuana grow closets as an option in new condominiums.

“We can debate the numbers,” he said, “but we know it’s high … We know the load growth is real.”

Marijuana's side effect: Load growth

Across the nation, different utilities have taken different approaches to dealing with marijuana cultivation.

Xcel Energy — with its service area in Colorado, where recreational use is legal — has seen significant load growth due to the cannabis industry, said Alice Jackson, vice president for rates and regulatory affairs.

“We now have, on an annual basis, over 300 GWh consumed from our customers that are doing growth of marijuana or cannabis in their areas,” she said. “There are increased revenues that come in from the industry growing, as it would be with any other industry.”

The energy consumption of even a single operation can be immense, said John Morris, director of policy and regulatory affairs at energy efficiency provider CLEAResult.

Morris described one of his clients who built a 90,000 square foot warehouse to provide growing space to 4-12 marijuana cultivation companies. The warehouse sported a $2 million solar array on the roof, all LED lights, and the latest and most efficient HVAC and insulation products. The owner also worked with an energy services company to ensure all the products worked in one seamless system.

“On top of all that,” he said, “he’s expected to be paying $1 million per month” just for electricity.

But not all grow operations behave the same way, Morris said. In his observations, medical grow operations tend to be more intensive than recreational ones.

"I went and visited a medical grow operation in Oregon that was going to convert to recreational grow as soon as it was passed in October,” he said “[The grower] could only acquire 6 medical cards and that gave him a total number of 32 plants. What’s not capped is how big he can actually grow those plants, so basically his strategy is to grow trees.”

Medical grow operations generally have a cap on how many plants they can grow, so they sometimes grow bigger plants to cultivate more marijuana under the cap. Those big plants use a lot more energy than a bunch of small ones lower to the ground, Morris said, because LED lights don’t filter down to the base of the plants. Instead of more efficient bulbs, his client was using 1000-watt halogen lights for every tree, with a fan below to ensure they did not catch on fire.

“He himself looked like he had been on a cruise line for about 6 months, literally tanning from the light, and was talking about going to 3000 watts per tree,” Morris said. “So energy efficiency, energy intensity — not exactly a top priority for growers today.”

Handling the load growth — or not

The lack of focus on energy efficiency from many smaller growers would logically open up opportunities for efficiency and demand response for the sector, but Xcel's Jackson said her utility has not moved to offer specific advice for marijuana cultivators specifically.

“It is an intensive operation; however, we do not have plans to put tips on how to or how to not grow marijuana,” she said.

In fact, Jackson questioned whether efficiency dollars collected from utility ratepayers should be used for the marijuana industry at all, even in places where growing is a legal industry under state law.

“Is it appropriate for us to take the dollars that are collected for EE as a whole and provide EE programs for this particular industry?”

After internal discussions, Jackson said Xcel decided that grow operations should be able to access efficiency funding as long as they pay into the program themselves.

Other jurisdictions have opted for some surcharges for marijuana usage or fees on growers, but in Washington, D.C., legalization is still too young for utilities to have thought much about it, Phillips said. He told the audience he had reached out to his local utility — Pepco — to see how they were preparing for new load growth. 

“Not surprisingly, really not much has been done,” he said. “They’re just viewing this like any other customer."

Some utilities in states where legalized growing has been around longer have established new rates for marijuana growers.

Morris gave the example of one small utility, Mason County PUD #3 in Shelton, Washington:

“They have established a TOU rate for their indoor growers, and they’re not getting any pushback. They’re doing good outreach to these communities and that’s serving them well.”

Other companies have moved to make growers take more of a financial stake in their grid demands upfront, Morris said.

“Other utilities in Washington are establishing that these growers pay upfront for transformer upgrades if they need so they kind of protect themselves,” he said. “One grower came in, said I need this size transformer, and a week later he blew through it — so the question was, who pays for that?”

The key to that strategy is balance, according to Morris. If the upfront cost for grid upgrades is too high, he said, growers may start small and then scale up quickly, creating reliability problems on their local circuits.

There’s a danger in putting too many fees and regulatory restrictions on cannabis growing operations, Commissioner Phillips said. “Because you have this new industry that is already coming out of the shadows, there’s a concern that if you regulate too much you could force it to go back down.”

Legal and ideological concerns hamper utility involvement

Today, marijuana is still considered a Schedule 1 controlled substance by the federal government, making utilities across the nation a bit apprehensive — if not outright afraid — to take a proactive role in making the industry more efficient.

CLEAResult's Morris told the audience that he works with the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), a federally-owned transmission and generation utility, and the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (NEEA) to give guidance to industries on energy efficiency out West. Typically, both BPA and NEEA would be the platform by which the utilities would run efficiency and market transformation programs for cannabis production, but federal law gets in the way.

“BPA, because this is still federally illegal, they can’t touch this with a ten foot pole,” he said. “So, they have issued some guidelines that state that the utilities themselves can provide the power to this market, but they cannot provide BPA dollar incentives to make them more energy efficient.”

Morris said his company continues to do education and outreach on efficiency for the marijuana sector, but its legal status makes it more difficult.

“Traditionally, CLEAResult would do a regional program with 50 to 60 utilities at a time, but now, because BPA is constrained, you have to do one-off programs,” he said.

Legal issues are even more pronounced in Washington, D.C., Phillips said. While District voters passed the legalization referendum in 2014 with more than 70% of the vote, Congress has acted to block any implementation of the law. So while consumers in the District can grow up to three plants, possess up to two ounces of weed for personal use, or even give one ounce away as a gift— the so-called 3-2-1 rule — there is “no situation in place where you can sell, tax and distribute marijuana commercially,” Phillips said.

Not having any large, commercial grow houses to target for efficiency programs makes the situation difficult enough for Pepco, the District’s utility, but that’s not the worst of their worries. Because Congress still gets to approve all expenditures of tax dollars in the District, Republicans have threatened legal action against those in public positions that try to make legalization work better for the city.

“Congress, when they acted to block the D.C. law, they actually said that D.C. could not take any steps or use any funds to implement the law that was unanimously passed by our D.C. Council,” Phillips said. “They actuallythreatened to arrest our mayor and our council if they took any steps to actually implement the law.”

“So in terms of ideology, it’s all around,” he said. “Congress’ action did not stop the growing of marijuana in D.C., so I think that utilities are really stuck in place. We don’t know what to expect because it’s still in the shadows.”

With a Republican majority in at least one house of Congress likely to persist after the 2016 election, the chances to alter the federal law on marijuana appear slim. But as legislators and the Justice Department figure out how to handle the growing wave of state decriminalization and legalization initiatives, Phillips said utilities need to be proactive, not reactive.  

“”I think this is an opportunity. That’s the way I view it and that’s the way other states and jurisdictions should view it,” he said. “You have a clean slate. For one of the first times, you have a new product coming online, we know that it’s very energy intensive, and we can either sit back on our hands and be reactionary or we can look outside the box and say, what can we do that’s fair? What can we do that will both help the growers and achieve our goals?”

“It’s not ‘Why do we care, why are we here?’” he concluded. “It’s ‘Why not think critically about how we do this?’”

1. North Carolina is constructing more utility-scale solar than California

It's true. While California was the undeniable first mover and front runner on solar power, its solar energy growth has hit a plateau as other states have soared. According to SNL Energy, North Carolina has almost 4,000 MW of utility-scale solar power under development, compared to 3,700 MW in California. While the Tarheel state is sunny, it's regulation that has really revved things up -- by 2021, utilities will be required to pull 12.5% of their power from renewable sources. Duke Energy Corporation (NYSE:DUK), North Carolina's largest utility, has 13 solar farms in the state, and is about to build its biggest yet (40 MW) with the help of California-based manufacturer First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR).

2. Solar subsidies are set to subside

The federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC) has been a major boon to solar growth, allowing commercial installers to write off 30% of their total investment costs. The credit is currently set to expire at the end of 2016, however, and no one's sure whether Congress will renew it. The impending deadline is causing a surge in solar installations, which many analysts believe will be followed by a major dropoff in the years that follow. In First Solar's latest annual report, the company stated that:

Reduced growth in or the reduction, elimination, or expiration of ... economic incentives ... could reduce demand and/or price levels for our solar modules, and limit our growth or lead to a reduction in our net sales, and adversely impact our operating results.

3. New energy = solar

IMAGE SOURCE: THE WHITE HOUSE 

In the first half of 2015, 40% of all new electricity generating capacity came from solar. For 2015, overall, the Solar Energy Industries Association expects photovoltaic (PV) installations to hit 7,700 MW, around 25% above 2014 installation numbers. Those are huge numbers, considering that solar energy still accounts for just 0.4% of our nation's total electricity generation.

4. Prices are plummeting

In the energy economy, bottom lines matter more than any environmental aspirations. Solar technology has made significant strides in the past few years, becoming increasingly price competitive with other fuels. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, average installed PV system prices fell 6% from 2013 to 2014, and have dropped around 53% from 2010 to 2014. Utility-scale systems, in particular, have enjoyed great success reaching cost parity. First Solar claims that its own modules are on par with coal, nuclear, and natural gas combined cycle plants in the United States.

5. Rooftop solar is the fastest growth there is

Utility-scale solar projects are grabbing a lot of attention with their cheap costs and supersized projects. First Solar alone has installed more than 10,000 MW worth of major projects worldwide. But 2014 marked a record year for residential solar as well. In 2014, residential installations broke the 1,000 MW mark, hitting 1,200 MW of rooftop solar systems. It's enjoyed greater than 50% annual growth for the past three years, and is ramping up faster than either utility-scale or commercial solar energy.

6. California's solar count is ridiculous

According to the latest estimates, there are 291,513 solar panel systems in California. That's about one system for every 130 people. In second place, Arizona's count clocks in at 49,498, equivalent to a measly 17% of California's. And with less than 10 total counted panels, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, and North Dakota bring up our nation's renewable energy rear.

7. Solar is cheapest in Maine

While California is leading the way in capacity, it's 32^nd when it comes to average cost per watt. At $4.16 per watt, Maine is home to the cheapest solar installations in the states. But with only 700 modules generating 7 MW of capacity, that price point hasn't convinced many Mainers. For states with more than 100 MW installed, Texas is the most affordable at $5.38 per watt. And for the priciest panels around, head to South Carolina, where residents currently pay an average of $9.27 per watt.

Original article appeared on www.sma-america.com in August 2015 by Hannes Knopf, Head of Commercial Business and Portfolio Strategy, SMA Solar Technology / Dr. Michael Mendik, General Manager U.S. Technology, SMA America Production / Matt Marx, Strategic Marketing Manager, SMA Solar Technology. Click here to view the original article.

ESTABLISHING A BASELINE FOR SAFETY

With 2014 NEC adoption in full swing—it has been implemented in 22 states as of April 14, 2015—many are anticipating what the next version of the code will hold for the PV industry. The highest-profile addition to the photovoltaics section of 2014 NEC was the rapid shutdown requirement outlined in 690.12, which arguably became the most debated revision to that edition. However, the proposed 2017 NEC may drastically modify that rule to effectively require shutdown at the module level, which would have a dramatic impact on how systems are designed and installed moving forward. While this change was certainly developed with first responder safety in mind, it has left many to wonder if module-level shutdown really is safer.

In order to measure an increase in safety, there should be a baseline for comparison. What data exists to demonstrate that safety increases are required? What past incidents involving first responder injury could have been avoided with module-level shutdown? The number of PV-related fatalities of first responders is zero. According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health database, between 1984 and 2013, there have been seven first responder deaths due to electrocution, and all were related to AC medium-voltage overhead or downed power lines. Without a basis for comparison, how can it be said that we have achieved a safety improvement? How could we convince ourselves that this is worth the effort, when there are other, more effective means of ensuring the safety of first responders without providing a false sense of security?

As is often the case with the evolution of PV in North America, we can look to European markets to offer some level of experience and guidance. A German study conducted by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs & Energy, TÜVRheinland, and Fraunhofer was completed in March 2015 and titled “Assessment of the Fire Risk in Photovoltaic Systems and Elaboration of Safety Concepts for Minimization of Risks.” The study concluded that PV systems do not pose any particular threat to fire department personnel, provided they comply with safety clearances just as with any other voltage-carrying electrical equipment. Moreover, the vast majority of European PV systems do not utilize module-level electronics and there has never been a governing body that has enforced a code mandating module-level shutdown.

An additional report issued by Fraunhofer, Europe’s largest application-oriented research organization, was completed in May 2015 and titled “Recent Facts about Photovoltaics in Germany.” The report offered updated statistics regarding first responder safety and revealed a considerably successful record. With more than 1.4 million PV plants installed in Germany, to date no firefighter has been injured by PV power while putting out a fire. This significant fact becomes even more telling when you consider it was achieved in a market that does not mandate rapid shutdown at all, let alone module-level shutdown. The report goes on to state, “Comprehensive training courses for the fire brigade could eliminate any uncertainties firefighters may have. As with every electrical installation, depending on the type of electric arc it is also possible to extinguish a fire using water from a distance of one to five meters. Based on investigations to date, all of the claims stating that the fire brigade could not extinguish a house fire due to the PV system have been found to be false.” So as 2017 NEC is being drafted and debated we must ask ourselves: who is driving the revisions to 690.12 and what is their motivation?

The current code is fairly inclusive of all PV architectures and technologies and prescribes a keep-out zone outside of which the PV system voltages must be reduced to less than 30 volts in 10 seconds. This is commonly known as the “10-foot rule,” as illustrated in Figure 1.

The 2017 NEC language proposes reducing the 10-foot keep-out zone to a one-foot boundary, which is a minor change of the wording that results in a major change in the way PV systems will be designed and built. However, on top of this, an additional requirement of this section is already generating concern throughout the industry due to the inclusion of an additional 80V limit stipulation inside the one-foot boundary, effectively requiring a modulelevel disconnect. Figure 2 shows the proposed modifications to boundaries and voltage limitations.

Figure 3: Module-level shutdown reduces voltage below 80V, but potentially exposes responders to more than 300VA if a module is damaged.

Figure 4: The current PV inverter landscape (Source: GTM Research) is represented by numerous manufacturers other than the three module-level power electronics focused companies who are sponsoring this proposed code revision, and who have the most to gain by its passage.

That means renewables, especially solar and wind, both of which face fewer constraints to growth than more established clean energy: a river can be dammed only so many times, and nuclear remains expensive and controversial.

But humanity has dithered for so long in the fight against global warming, experts say, that the window of opportunity for decarbonising the global economy fast enough to avoid devastating climate change is barely ajar.

"The cost and difficulty of mitigating greenhouse gases increases every year, time is of the essence," Maria van der Hoeven, executive director of the International Energy Agency, said in a special IEA report on energy and climate change released earlier this year.

The world's nations -– gathering in Paris in a month to ink the first-ever universal climate pact -- have set a target of limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.

Cross that red line, scientists say, and there will, almost literally, be hell to pay.

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US President Barack Obama speaks with Commander Col Ronald Jolly as he tours a solar array at Hill A …

Science also tells us that, if we are to respect the 2 C limit, future greenhouse gas emissions cannot exceed a total "budget" of about 1,000 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide.

Carbon-cutting pledges from nearly 150 nations, unveiled on Friday, put us on track for a 3 C world.

This is a vast improvement on doing nothing. But even this unprecedented effort would use up three quarters of that carbon budget by 2030, leaving very little margin for closing the remaining gap.

That's where the transition from fossil fuels to renewables comes in.

"The economics have been shifting on both sides of the equation," said Alden Meyer, a veteran climate specialist with the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington. "The least-cost global strategy is to rapidly reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and switch into the clean-energy economy."

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Future greenhouse gas emissions cannot exceed a total "budget" of about 1,000 billion tonn …

- Scaling up quickly -

Energy production accounts for two-thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions, and thus transformation of this sector is crucial, he and other experts said.

"Decarbonising energy is probably the quickest way to decarbonise the world," Adnan Amin, director general of the International Renewable Energies Agency, told AFP.

The question, however, is whether solar, wind and other clean energy options can scale up quickly enough.

According the UN climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), low-carbon energy must account for at least 80 percent of global electricity production by 2050 to have a better-than-even chance of staying under the 2 C threshold.

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The question is whether solar, wind and other clean energy options can scale up quickly enough to co …

The good news is that renewables are expanding rapidly and attracting investment.

Nearly half of all new installed power generation capacity in 2014 was in renewables -- 37 percent wind, a third solar and a quarter hydro, according to the IEA.

Investment in the sector totalled more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in the same year, an 8.5 percent increase over 2013.

"Capital markets have already begun to shift away from dirty technology to clean technology," Christina Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, told journalists Friday in releasing an analysis of national emissions-reduction pledges.

Confounding predictions only a decade ago, the cost of solar and wind energy has plummeted.

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India has invested massively in clean energy, and vows to install 175 gigawatts of renewable capacit …

"Generating electricity from renewables is cost competitive on the grid or beating most conventional sources" is some areas, said Amin.

- Fossil fuels highly subsidised -

In poor countries, this holds out the possibility of skipping past the fossil fuel stage of development, much in the way some regions went from no phones to cell phones.

"I think India" -– where 300 million people are without electricity -– "is realising that it may be easier and more cost effective for them to provide sustainable energy services to hundreds of millions of villagers through a decentralised renewable-based strategy," said Meyer. "They and other countries are poised to leapfrog the fossil fuel age."

India has invested massively in clean energy, and pledged to install 175 gigawatts of renewable capacity by 2022.

But renewables only account for about 20 percent of global electricity generation, and three-quarters of that is hydro. Of total energy consumption -– overwhelmingly dominated by coal, oil and gas –- less than five percent comes from clean technology, excluding nuclear.

The transition towards a low-carbon economy is also hampered by fossil fuel subsidies totalling more than half-a-trillion dollars every year, four times the amount allocated for renewables.

Which is why, experts say, the Paris climate summit, which starts at the end of this month, is so crucial.

"COP21" -– the Paris climate summit -– "needs to give a global and long-term signal to the world economy that is relevant to investors," said Martin Kaiser, a climate analyst from Greenpeace.

Initially released in 2014 and finalized in August 2015, the Clean Power Plan aims to increase the efficiency of coal-fired power plants; shift generation from existing coal- and oil-fired power plants to gas-fired power plants; and up the electricity generation from non-emitting renewable sources, including wind and solar.

The original goal was to cut carbon emissions from the power sector 30% below 2005 levels by 2030, but in the August revision, the EPA upped it to 32%.

Although the plan is expected by many to be a major boon for U.S. renewables, some states and other stakeholders, such as utilities, argue that the changes would be too drastic.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who is leading the coalition of states against the plan, says it "unlawfully expands the federal government's regulatory power over electricity production and consumption in nearly every state in the U.S."

"EPA claims to have sweeping power to enact such regulations based on a rarely used provision of the Clean Air Act, but such legal authority simply does not exist,” Morrisey explains.

Besides West Virginia, the states challenging the rule are Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming, as well as the Arizona Corporations Commission and the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.

According to their lawsuit, the states believe the rule could have "devastating impacts upon the states and their citizens":

"The Section 111(d) rule exceeds EPA's authority by unlawfully forcing states to fundamentally alter state resource-planning and energy policy by shifting from coal-fired generation to other sources of power generation, with a significant emphasis on renewable sources. The rule is also illegal because it seeks to require states to regulate coal-fired power plants under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act, even though EPA already regulates those same plants under Section 112 of the Act."

"As attorney general, I have a responsibility to protect the lives of millions of working families, the elderly and the poor from such illegal and unconscionable federal government actions," Morrisey adds.

According to a report from The Hill, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy says in a statement that the Clean Power Plan "is clearly within EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act" and that the EPA is confident the agency will "prevail against these challenges."

In a separate statement, Anna Aurilio, director of the Washington, D.C., office of Environment America, says, "No matter how deep the pockets of the polluters or how many lawsuits they or their government allies file, the Clean Power Plan will prevail, and if we're going to ensure a safer climate for future generations, it must."

His prediction is based on new research, published this week by Go Ultra Low, a UK government-funded organization for promoting greener motoring. It finds that today’s 14-to-17-year-olds are already fantasizing about owning their first car, and that it is going to be of the electric, rather than the gas-powered variety.

When asked, 81% of British 14-year-olds said that their first car would be electric. What’s more, 88% of all respondents said they believed more people should already be driving a hybrid or plug-in electric car in order to protect the environment.

“Young people are very aware of environmental issues and it is great that they also notice that electric cars will be cheaper to run, so it is a clear win-win,” said Dr Pearson. “Battery technology continues to improve, and the amount of resources needed to make an electric car will continue to fall. These technology developments will all add up, greatly reducing the environmental impact of cars while making them safer and cheaper. If current trends towards electric cars continue this means that, by 2026, demand for electric cars will almost certainly outweigh demand for ‘traditionally fuelled’ cars.”

Presenting a ‘future technology’ as a concrete reality

Although the environmental and financial benefits of an electric car are clear, presenting that message to the current generation of drivers is challenging, meaning that car companies need to go to great lengths to promote their greener offerings.

For example, on Wednesday, British luxury marque Aston Martin used a Chinese presidential visit to the UK in order to draw attention to its first plug-in electric car, the RapidE.

Across the Atlantic, Toyota went even bigger. As part of Back to the Future Day – October 21, 2015 – it hosted a special event where it unveiled an equally special version of its Mirai hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. It had been heavily customized to resemble the time-traveling DeLorean, made famous by the film, complete with gullwing doors.

“A piece of the future is now a reality with the Toyota Mirai,” said Christopher Lloyd, the actor who played Doc Brown in the trilogy and who attended the event in California. “Compared to some other technologies predicted in the film, like rehydrated pizza or self-tying shoes, this technology has the real potential to change the world.”

But if Dr Pearson’s forecast is accurate, such events will soon be consigned to the history books, and maybe with them, the internal combustion engine itself.

The prevailing sentiment that I heard multiple times during the event was that the storage industry is in the nascent stages and ready to break out shortly. Many said that it feels much like the solar industry did ten years ago.

The amusing thing was that I heard that exact same comment last year from the mouths of many attendees. I didn’t expect anybody in San Diego to actually say “This feels like the solar industry did nine years ago” as that would be somewhat unusual and perhaps too precise. But while we appear to be stalled in the impression of a ten year time warp, I also got the very distinct impression that a lot has happened in just 365 days.

Last year, the conference was smaller, with about 1,500 attendees compared with over 2,000 this year. And last year it felt a lot more like inside baseball, with vendors, technologists, and regulators talking to each other. This year, the discussion was less theoretical and more practical. And perhaps most important of all, in November last year, Southern California Edison (SCE) injected some steroids into the conversation with its award for 235 megawatts (MW) of battery storage projects to be installed by 2021. Real money at stake tends to change a lot of things.

Representatives at the numerous storage companies’ booths told me that this year more business was being discussed. There were also more conversations about financing, and about experience gained by practitioners with the first of actual projects in the ground (utility scale is somewhat ahead of customer-sited storage in that regard).

Another fact struck me as quite interesting: many of the attendees – more than half in one breakout session on finance that I attended – identified themselves as having been in the solar industry at some point. There are a lot of parallels between the solar and storage industries. These include:

1)   the ability to deploy at utility-scale or on-site.

2)   multiple technologies competing for primacy in the early days of the industry (these include lithium ion, advanced lead acid, flow batteries, and other new entrants).

3)   a sharply declining cost curve with advanced technological developments and economies of scale (indeed, Bloomberg NewEnergy Finance has a slide from April 2014 showing that the slope of cost declines for storage and photovoltaics are roughly parallel. Many analysts, such as UBS , expect prices to decline by 50% or better in the next five years.

4)   the imperative to reduce both hard costs (hardware) AND soft costs (such as financing, permitting, and interconnection).

5)   the need for third-party financing models to help the industry take off.

Image: Bloomberg NewEnergy Finance
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The body of experience is only going to grow in the coming year, as the storage awards from SCE begin to move from concept to projects on the ground and as markets in New York and Hawaii develop from a few projects to something more significant (in Hawaii, there are already reports of ‘rogue’ solar/storage combinations being installed without the utilities being notified, which should tell you something).

At the same time, while the future appears extremely bright and the ascendance of storage would appear inevitable over some timeframe, there are still many challenges in front of the industry:

1)   each market is still very vulnerable to the stroke of a regulatory pen. The vulnerability is both at a state and a federal level (the current Supreme Court Case on demand response and FERC 745 may have a long-term impact on how and whether customer-sited storage resources can interact with wholesale power markets).

2)   the economics of storage are still highly reliant on subsidies until costs decline further. Only a few states such as New York and CA CA -3.70% have subsidies at present. If more states enact subsidies (as was the case for solar), markets could rapidly increase.

3)   absent subsidies, costs really do need to fall significantly in order for the industry to prosper.

4)   finance needs to become increasingly comfortable with the storage industry. In the solar industry, customer-sited installations didn’t take off until third party financing sent the industry on a trajectory that supported up to 75-80 percent of total installations through leases and power purchase agreements. Since the physical assets and the economic models are somewhat different, this will take some time to mainstream.

That said, many companies are forging ahead, confident that a confluence of tailwinds will drive them towards prosperity. Solar was the same at one point: costs were falling, technologies were battling it out, subsidies were being put in place, markets were developing, and banks and financiers were eying an emerging opportunity that eventually translated into billions of dollars. It’s a similar level of uncertainty and opportunity. Just like the solar industry felt nine years ago…

2013 File Photo/Zuma Press

About 300,000 mirrors in California’s Mojave Desert focus sunlight on three towers, where water is turned to steam to generate electricity.

“In the U.S., we’ve known that wind energy can be cheaper than [natural] gas in some states, but solar is now inching toward that same milestone,” said Jacqueline Lilinshtein, U.S. analyst for Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a firm that advises industry clients on energy issues.

Texas leads the U.S. in wind power, with about 10 percent of its power from wind. California, Nevada and North Carolina are the nation’s top solar states and dominate the market.

The federal government expects a surge in renewable energy in the coming year, especially as solar expands from its traditional base of home rooftop panels to major utility-scale production.

“U.S. solar and wind power generating capacity is expected to see double-digit growth in 2016,” said Adam Sieminski, the head of the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

This comes as America’s fracking boom is starting to falter. The crash in oil prices is shrinking the profits for drillers. Estimated U.S. crude oil production dropped by 120,000 barrels a day last month and is forecast to keep going down for most of the coming year at least.

Coal continues its downward spiral. Even coal areas that weathered past hard times, such as Indiana and western Kentucky, are having a tough year, and major coal companies are going bankrupt.

“Production is expected to decrease in all coal-producing regions in 2015, with the largest decline on a percentage basis occurring in the Appalachian region,” according to the Energy Department.

Costs of generating electricity from coal and natural gas are rising as renewables penetrate the market and fossil fuel plants run less, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

In the meantime, the cost of wind and solar continued to go down this year, signaling “a significant shift in the generating cost comparison between renewable energy and fossil fuels.”

“Onshore wind and solar are both now much more competitive against the established generation technologies than would have seemed possible only five or 10 years ago,” said Luke Mills, an energy economics analyst for Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

The average U.S. price of coal and natural gas power is still cheaper than renewables at $65 a megawatt-hour, compared with wind at $80 and photovoltaic solar — generating electricity from sunlight — at $107.

But that gap is shrinking, and renewable costs can be even lower with federal subsidies. Ethan Zindler, head of policy analysis for Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said he saw a solar power purchase agreement in Texas for $50 per megawatt-hour.

“There are definitely markets where solar is competitive,” Zindler said.

Renewables could run into problems, though, as lawmakers push back against helping the industry. The federal solar tax credit is set to expire in 2016 unless Congress renews it.

In North Carolina, which has emerged as a national leader in solar power, the legislature is ending its state renewable energy tax credit at the end of the year.

There’s also debate in Congress over the wind tax credit, which allows a reduction in tax payments for the first 10 years of a project. Some lawmakers are targeting the incentive for extinction, but American Wind Energy Association CEO Tom Kiernan said he’s optimistic.

“The support we have on Capitol Hill is significant and enduring,” Kiernan said.

That's because of a new bill, signed into law late last week in the state, mandating a massive buildout in renewable power capacity, in a very short time frame.

The bill, S.B. 350, calls for California's utilities to move toward acquiring 50 percent of their electricity from renewable sources. And the state's power generators will have to work quickly -- they're required to achieve this renewables goal by 2030.

That gives utilities just 15 years to build up a substantial base of renewable energy. Currently, California generates about 25 peercent of its 18,400 gigawatt hours of electricity from renewables -- meaning the state will need to add about another 4,600 GWh of capacity in a decade and a half.

That will almost certainly mean California's utilities will be issuing calls for "power purchase agreements." Inviting owners of solar and wind (plus geothermal and maybe even run-of-river hydro) to submit their projects as potential suppliers to the state grid.

The new legislation also means utilities may be forced to pay premium prices to renewables suppliers -- in order to ensure these projects are economic, and able to stay in business long enough to meet the new 2030 goals.

Such purchase agreements are a key element in underpinning project finance for a wind farm or solar panel array. And with more power purchase agreements being handed out, project developers will have an easier time securing bank loans to build their facilities.

All of which adds up to a major opportunity for people holding the right projects. Watch for the results of coming power purchase calls to see who will be early beneficiaries from the new policy.

Today, the world tends to look at solar energy with a fairly narrow view. Solar companies put up solar panels on roofs, in fields, or in deserts and send electricity to the electric grid. That energy is intermittent, depending on when the sun is out, and fundamentally can't provide a base source of electricity for the grid.

But why does the view of solar energy need to be so narrow? Why not rethink energy as we know it, creating energy when it's cheapest and saving it for the time it's demanded by the market? That's where energy storage comes in. Simply put, it could reshape solar energy for many decades to come. Here are five technologies to watch:

TESLA MOTORS' POWERWALL COULD ADDRESS CONFLICTS BETWEEN SOLAR PRODUCERS AND THE GRID. IMAGE SOURCE: TESLA MOTORS. 

Lithium-ion batteries
When you think of energy storage for solar energy you probably think of lithium ion batteries, like the Powerwall and Powerpack Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA) is now building. The idea is simple enough: build a large bank of batteries that can store electricity from the sun for use at night or on a cloudy day.

Tesla Motors isn't the only one betting on batteries, either. Multiple gigafactory scale manufacturing plants are being built worldwide by companies like BYD, LG Chem, Samsung SDI, and more. This will likely be the first big energy storage technology, but it probably won't be the last.

Flow batteries
We know that lithium-ion batteries work on a small scale (think phones and computers), but it may not be the best way to store energy for large-scale electric systems. That's why companies like General Electric (NYSE:GE) have been working on flow batteries. A flow battery turns electric energy into chemical energy and back again. The chemical can then be stored for later use at a much larger scale than lithium-ion batteries.  

Flow batteries are actually similar to the way a rechargeable battery in your remote works, just on a much larger scale. Right now, flow batteries are in need of further research and testing before being launched on a large scale but they have the potential to be a great large-scale energy storage technology.

Liquid cooling
GE made an investment in Highview Power Storage last year, a start-up that's using liquid air to store energy. When air is cooled to -196 degrees Celsius it turns into a liquid and 700 liters of air can be stored in 1 liter of space. The advantage is that this doesn't require complex chemicals for storage -- it just requires insulated stainless steel tanks.  

When the energy is needed, it is warmed and expands, powering a turbine to produce electricity. This wouldn't be a technology to use for fast-acting energy needs, but for storing large amounts of energy, it could be a great option.

HYDROGEN FUEL COULD BE THE FUTURE OF ENERGY. IMAGE SOURCE: ITM POWER.

Hydrogen
In theory, the best energy storage medium in the world is hydrogen. It's a very abundant chemical, it's benign if it leaks, and it's fairly easy to turn water to hydrogen and then hydrogen to electricity.

The problem with hydrogen as a storage source is that it's inefficient and not very cost-effective today. So, batteries have caught on more quickly. But long-term hydrogen is still a highly attractive option for solar energy. ITM Power recently completed a project turning wind to hydrogen for vehicle fueling and energy storage, which could apply to solar projects as well. In theory, projects like this could store energy in hydrogen for months and even transport it around the country. Whether that happens remains to be seen.

Demand response
Maybe the easiest way to incorporate solar electricity to the grid seamlessly is through demand response, but it's still a relatively small component of the electric grid today. Demand response would allow the utility to have customers reduce demand when solar plants aren't producing energy and increase demand as they are. Demand could work on everything from small rooftop systems to large solar power plants.

Right now, the way utilities normally adjust to solar energy output is through spinning reserves at natural gas plants. But demand response could make the whole network more efficient and work directly with solar power plants.

Demand response is also a way battery companies like Tesla Motors are trying to make money from energy storage. A Tesla Motors project I visited in California was testing demand response this summer, and it may be a big revenue generator for the company's batteries in the future.

The opportunity for solar
The reason solar energy could be affected by energy storage more than any other source of energy is the way solar energy is created. Calculations from the Land Art Generator Initiative show that it would take just 115,000 square miles of solar energy, about the size of Arizona, to replace all energy sources used in the world today -- all oil, gas, coal, propane, etc.

Building that much solar wouldn't be trivial, but it's well within the realm of possibility in a decade or two. But there would be a need to store that energy and save it for later use. That's where the technologies above come in, and if they live up to their potential, it could change energy forever. 

On a barren, sun-baked plateau in southern Spain, row upon row of gleaming mirrors form one of the world's biggest solar power plants and harness the sun's power even after dark.

Near the town of Guadix, where summer temperatures often top 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), the main sound at the site is a whirring of motors to keep the mirrors - mounted on giant steel frames - tracking the sun as the Earth turns.

The Andasol plant, whose name combines the local Andalucia region with the Spanish word for sun - "sol", provides electricity for up to about 500,000 people from about 620,000 curved mirrors.

The glass alone would cover 1.5 square km (0.6 square miles) - the size of about 210 soccer pitches. Installed electricity generating capacity at this semi-desert site is about 150 megawatts.

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A view of a solar field at the Andasol solar power station near Guadix, southern Spain July 1, 2015. …

There is little sign of life here, at an altitude of 1,100 meters (3,600 feet) near the snow-capped Sierra Nevada range. Some hardy red and yellow flowers grow around the fringes, a few pigeons flap past and workers say that the odd fox lopes by at night.

The environmental benefits of clean energy are judged to outweigh the scar to the landscape from the mirrors, which are visible from space. The land is infertile, there is little wildlife and few people live nearby. The biggest regional city, Granada, with about 240,000 people, is 70 km (45 miles) away.

Andasol was Europe's first "parabolic trough solar power plant" when its first section opened in 2009 - California has the biggest.

Sunlight bounces off the mirrors to heat a synthetic oil in a tube to a blazing 400 degrees C (752 F). That energy is in turn used to drive a turbine, generating electricity.

At Andasol, some energy also goes into a "heat reservoir" - a tank containing thousands of tonnes of molten salt that can drive the turbines after sundown, or when it is overcast, for about 7.5 hours.

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The Andasol solar power station, near Guadix, is seen in this NASA satellite image taken in 2014. RE …

That gets round the main drawback for solar power - the sun does not always shine. The system is very different from better-known rooftop solar panels that transform sunlight directly into electricity.

OTHERWORLDLY SIGHT

I visited twice to shoot pictures, in June and August. The seemingly endless mirrors are an otherworldly sight and visitors have to wear special glasses against the glare. I used a drone to get an overview of the site - until it crashed after a problem with its flight controller.

Solar power has massive potential - one U.N. study estimated the world's electricity needs could be generated by harvesting solar power from an area of the Sahara 800 km (500 miles) by 800 km.

And in 2014, a report by the International Energy Agency said the sun could - with a radical shift in investments - be the world's largest source of electricity by 2050, ahead of fossil fuels, wind, hydro and nuclear.

Capacity just from solar thermal plants like Andasol could expand to 1,000 gigawatts a year from 4 gigawatts at the end of 2013, the agency said.

But solar power has been risky for many companies and investors. Low-price Chinese exports have hit rivals in other parts of the world, especially those dependent on subsidies by governments, many of which have been cutting support. Still, a sharp fall in prices of photovoltaic panels and improved technology that captures more power from the sun has placed solar energy on the cusp of a global boom, analysts say.

Andasol is made up of three almost identical units, each installed at a cost of about 300 million euros ($336.84 million). Andasol 1 and 2 are owned by ACS Cobra, a unit of Madrid-based construction company ACS Group, while Andasol 3 is owned by a consortium in which Germany's Stadtwerke Munchen is the main shareholder, with almost 50 percent.

According to new research from Wiser Capital, over 274,637 commercial buildings in the Northeast fit the site parameters required for a midscale commercial solar facility that collectively could produce 94,733 MW of renewable energy. The report defines a midscale commercial solar facility as being between 50 kW to 2 MW and, on average, capable of housing a 350 kW system.

The report says 29.71% of the commercial building sites optimal for solar in the Northeast are located in New York (28,401 MW) and 17.09% are in Massachusetts (15,975 MW). Taking costs and incentives into consideration, Wiser says these two states will lead a new solar energy boom in the Northeast.

The total number of suitable commercial solar sites in the Northeast and their percentage of the whole are as follows:

• New York - 81,604 (29.71%);
• Pennsylvania - 53,222 (19.38%);
• Massachusetts - 46,938 (17.09%);
• New Jersey - 36,963 (13.46%);
• Connecticut - 25,357 (9.23%);
• Maine - 9,388 (3.42%);
• New Hampshire - 9,327 (3.40%);
• Rhode Island - 7,417 (2.70%); and
• Vermont - 4,421 (1.61%).

The report also says that the Northeast’s commercial solar potential has the potential to deliver significant cost savings to corporations in these states, as well as environmental benefits. For example, a typical 350 kW system that covers 80% of the electricity usage for a commercial entity consuming approximately 38,500 kWh per month would achieve cumulative savings of $999,763 over a 25-year period, the report says. The returns are assisted by the commonwealth's strong solar renewable energy credit program and the considerably lower escalator rates of solar power purchase agreements over historical utility cost increases.

"The untapped solar potential, now being made possible by strong policies and unlocking the midscale commercial solar investment market, stands to deliver significant electricity cost savings and electricity price certainty to corporations in the Northeast," says Nathan Homan, executive director of Wiser Capital. "We expect to see considerable movement, growth and activity in the midscale commercial solar space in the coming year as corporations look to take advantage of the environmental and now even more compelling economic benefits."

Download Wiser Capital's "2015 Solar Economy Barometer" report here.

The emerging competition comes as utilities and smaller solar installers fight over the future of the U.S. energy system. While the market for residential solar power remains a financial drop in the bucket for a big utility, the installation of solar panels overall grew by more than 50 percent in 2014 and is on track for another record-breaking year at time when the traditional utility business is pretty flat.

"The whole theory is you need to serve your customer or someone will serve them for you," said Raiford Smith, a vice president at CPS Energy in San Antonio, Texas, where 3,000 customers are interested in getting utility-owned rooftop panels. "I think the entire market is in a race for rooftop."

These moves may have a range of effects for customers. The utilities experimenting in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Texas could make solar more affordable for average consumers by energizing competition and driving down prices. Some utility programs may be beneficial to people who cannot afford big up-front investments, get affordable loans or find existing solar leases too cumbersome.

Smaller solar companies fear the incumbents will use their power to drive competitors from the market. After all, every time an installer puts solar panels on a home, a utility company sells less power and makes less money.

These experimental programs are one part of a bigger, yearslong battle between the solar industry and utilities. Since 2013, legislation to limit rooftop solar has been introduced in nearly two dozen states.

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In this July 28, 2015, photo, electrician Adam Hall install solar panels on a roof for Arizona Publi …

Some utilities like NV Energy in Nevada and PNM in New Mexico have debated charging solar customers special fees since they still buy electricity from the traditional utility system but end up paying less money to support common infrastructure. Even small fees could have big consequences since the financial decision to install solar panels can be a close call for many consumers.

Solar panels remain pricey, at least upfront.

For example, Gregg Dufort said he wanted to install panels on his Phoenix home but couldn't justify spending $25,000 on an investment that he estimated would pay off in 20 years or more. He considered leasing solar panels, but found the multi-year leases would be difficult to end if he eventually sold or rented the property.

Instead, he became the first customer this year to lease part of his roof to Arizona Public Service Co., which installed all the equipment at its own cost. APS pays Dufort $360 in annual credits on his power bills. Arizona regulators capped the pilot program at 1,500 homes. So far, several dozen homes have been outfitted. Installations on another 500 homes are ongoing or will soon start.

"Somebody had to figure out a way to do it because we had this huge untapped energy source out here," Dufort said. "And the prohibitive part of it is the cost."

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In this July 28, 2015, photo, electricians Adam Hall, right, and Steven Gabert, install solar panels …

APS' manager of renewable energy, Marc Romito, said the utility will use the program to test new equipment, batteries and distribution systems.

Critics accuse APS of rigging the system by undervaluing the solar energy, which lowers prices and makes it difficult for rivals to compete. APS generally faces less risk than competitors since regulators grant the monopoly guaranteed profits on all investments, including solar panels.

Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power started in July helping customers interested in solar energy analyze their electricity usage. A utility website refers customers to multiple installers, including one run by an unregulated wing of Georgia Power itself.

Regulators will be watching to see if Georgia Power uses the advantages of its monopoly electric business — for example, customer databases, advertising budgets or staff — to subsidize its commercial solar venture. So far, no formal complaints have been filed.

In Michigan, Consumers Energy is asking that it get paid a referral fee anytime it successfully connects a customer with a solar installer. It's also offering financing for solar projects through a bank that specializes in home-improvement loans.

Bradley Klein, an attorney for the Environmental Law and Policy Center, said there should be a way for Consumers Energy customers to share their electrical usage data with any solar installer, not just those selected to participate in Consumer's program.

"As these markets are opening. We want to make sure there's full and fair competition and there's not an unequal playing field," he said.

• Connecticut Permit-to-Plugin Team, Rocky Hill, Conn.;
• Midwestern Solar, Poplar Bluff, Mo.;
• Northern and Central California SunShot Alliance, San Francisco;
• Sunrun, San Francisco; and
• The Solar Auditor, Los Angeles.

Increasing concentrating solar power. The DOE's SunShot program is announcing $32 million in awards for 14 projects to advance all technical systems of concentrating solar power (CSP) plants, including solar collectors, receivers and heat transfer fluids, thermal energy storage, power cycles, and operations and maintenance. The R&D projects will improve the performance and increase the efficiency of every component within a CSP plant to lower the cost of CSP electricity, including at night, when these systems continue to deliver electricity through energy storage.

• Abengoa Solar, Lakewood, Colo. (two awards);
• Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Ill.;
• Boston University, Boston;
• Brayton Energy, Hampton, N.H.;
• Ceramatec, Salt Lake City;
• Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H.;
• General Electric Global Research, Niskayuna, N.Y.;
• Oregon State University, Corvallis, Ore.;
• Purdue University, Lafayette, Ind.;
• SolarReserve, Santa Monica, Calif.;
• Southern Research, Birmingham, Ala.;
• Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, Texas.; and
• University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisc.

Improving the quality of solar panels. The DOE's SunShot is announcing $7 million in funding for six projects focusing on research in physics, chemistry and advanced data analysis that will improve the quality of solar modules, develop improved product tests and new rapid testing techniques or instruments that can evaluate module reliability, and improve data models to predict solar module performance over time.

• Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland;
• Electric Power Research Institute Inc., Palo Alto, Calif.;
• Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, Calif.;
• SunPower Corp., San Jose, Calif.;
• Underwriters Laboratories, San Jose, Calif.; and
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Ill.

Expanding access to solar in rural areas. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is awarding nine grants totaling nearly $8 million to help reduce energy costs for residents in remote rural areas that struggle with a higher cost of electricity by promoting clean energy technologies. The awards included more than $2 million for projects that will provide solar power for electricity, refrigeration and cooking, and a solar distillation kit to procure safe drinking water to native Hawaiians in Milolii and bring solar power to affordable housing in the Northern Mariana Islands.

Highlighting veteran heroes. The DOE is launching a video profiling of its Solar Ready Vets training program, which connects our nation’s transitioning veterans to the growing solar energy industry. As these active duty servicemembers prepare to enter the civilian world, the Solar Ready Vets program trains them for careers as solar system installers, sales representatives or system inspectors and then connects them to job opportunities with leading national and local solar companies.

Supporting states in advancing clean energy. The DOE's State Energy Program  recently awarded $5 million to 11 states to advance innovative approaches for local clean energy development that will reduce energy bills for American families and businesses, protect the environment by reducing carbon emissions, and increase our nation’s energy security. The states awarded are as follows:

• Alaska Energy Authority;
• The State of Maine;
• Minnesota Division of Energy Resources;
• Missouri Division of Energy;
• Nebraska State Energy Office;
• New Hampshire Office of Energy and Planning;
• New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department;
• New York State Energy Research Development Authority;
• Tennessee Office of Energy Programs;
• Vermont Planning and Energy Resources Division; and
• Virginia Division of Energy.

Installing a concentrating solar power system in Gila Bend, Arizona. The curved mirrors are tilted toward the sun, focusing sunlight on tubes that run the length of the mirrors. The reflected sunlight heats a fluid flowing through the tubes. The hot fluid then is used to boil water in a conventional steam-turbine generator to produce electricity. | Photo by Dennis Schroeder.

6. Solar energy is the most abundant energy resource on earth – 173,000 terawatts of solar energy strikes the Earth continuously. That’s more than 10,000 times the world’s total energy use.

5. The first silicon solar cell, the precursor of all solar-powered devices, was built by Bell Laboratories in 1954. On page one of its April 26, 1954 issue, The New York Timesproclaimed the milestone, “the beginning of a new era, leading eventually to the realization of one of mankind’s most cherished dreams — the harnessing of the almost limitless energy of the sun for the uses of civilization.”

4. The space industry was an early adopter of solar technology. In the 1960s the space industry began to use solar technology to provide power aboard spacecrafts. The Vanguard 1 — the first artificial earth satellite powered by solar cells — remains the oldest manmade satellite in orbit – logging more than 6 billion miles.

3. Fast track to today and demand for solar in the United States is at an all time high. In the first quarter of 2012, developers installed 85 percent more solar panels compared to the first quarter of last year. Total U.S. installations may reach 3,300 megawatts this year – putting the country on track to be the fourth largest solar market in the world.

2. As prices continue to fall, solar energy is increasingly becoming an economical energy choice for American homeowners and businesses. Still, the biggest hurdle to affordable solar energy remains the soft costs – like permitting, zoning, and hooking a solar system up to the power gird. On average local permitting and inspection processes add more than $2,500 to the total cost of a solar energy system. The Energy Department SunShot Initiativeworks to aggressively drive down these soft costs – making it faster and cheaper for families and businesses to go solar.

1. In California’s Mojave Desert, the largest solar energy project in the world is currently under construction. The project relies on a technology known as solar thermal energy. Once the project is complete 350,000 mirrors will reflect light onto boilers. When the water boils, the steam turns a turbine, creating electricity. The project is expected to provide clean, renewable energy for 140,000 homes and is supported by an Energy Department loan guarantee. More details on the Energy Department’s investments in large scale, innovative renewable energy projects in this slideshow.

Want more solar? The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Energy Information Administration, and Solar Energy Technologies Program are all great solar energy resources – for kids and adults alike.

Solar policies are closely correlated with solar ranking, the report says. All of the top 10 states in the report for solar capacity per capita - Hawaii, Arizona, Nevada, California, New Jersey, New Mexico, Vermont, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Colorado - have some combination of policies that directly contribute to the growth of solar capacity, the report found.

Policies among the top 10 states include the following:

• Nine have strong net-metering policies and, in most, consumers are compensated at the full retail rate for the excess electricity they supply to the grid;
• Nine have strong statewide solar interconnection policies;
• All have renewable portfolio standards (RPS) and eight have carve-outs that set specific targets for solar;
• Nine allow creative financing options, such as third-party power purchase agreements; and
• Nine allow property assessed clean energy (PACE) financing.

"Our analysis shows that policy choices are a key driver of solar energy growth," says Gideon Weissman of Frontier Group, co-author of the report. "State and local government policy leadership is closely aligned with success in growing solar energy."

Rhone Resch, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, says that over the last five years, the solar sector has become one of the fastest-growing industries in the U.S., with an estimated annual value of $18 billion and currently employing 174,000 workers. However, for this growth to continue, he says, stable and effective state and federal public policies, such as the federal investment tax credit, state RPS, PACE financing and net energy metering, need to be extended and even expanded.

"Environment America’s new report correctly points out that smart public policies and the development of clean, affordable solar energy go hand in hand," Resch says.

To download the report, click here.

The steps include an additional $1 billion in loan guarantees for new research projects and near-term savings for homeowners using renewable energy.

Speaking at the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, Obama argued fossil fuel proponents who say renewable energy is too expensive are being proven wrong as power sources like solar and wind become cheaper.

"For decades we've been told that it doesn't make sense to switch to renewable energy. Today that's no longer true," Obama said, laying out the cost savings realized by companies and states using more renewable energy.

The moves are part of Obama's broader plan for ameliorating the effects of climate change, which he will illustrate throughout the next week in trips to New Orleans and Alaska.

They come after Obama's announcement earlier this month to limit carbon emissions from U.S. power plants by 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030.

That plan mandated a shift to renewable energy from coal-fired electricity to fight climate change, which Obama has called the greatest threat facing the world. Critics have said moving away from carbon-producing energies will drive up costs.

Under the new rules, homeowners who adopt renewable energy will be able to do so with no cost upfront and pay back the cost of installation over time through property taxes.

Monday's announcement also called on Department of Energy to make an additional $1 billion out of an existing $10 billion available in loan guarantees for renewable energy projects

The Department of Interior on Monday approved the Blythe Mesa Solar project in California and its transmission line, expected to bring enough solar energy to power 145,000 homes.

Obama criticized fossil fuel companies lobbying against renewable energy, arguing they claimed to be for the free market "until it's solar that people are buying and suddenly you're not for it anymore."

Congressional Republicans are likely to balk at the White House's latest effort to promote renewable energy, although the regulations do not require lawmakers' approval.

Earlier this month Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who represents the coal-producing state of Kentucky, blasted the administration's plan to cut carbon emissions, saying it would shutter power plants and drive up electricity costs.

When utility giant Exelon built its pioneering inner-city solar plant on an abandoned factory site in Chicago’s West Pullman neighborhood, there was at least one unanticipated hazard: the shattering of glass photovoltaic panels by stray bullets falling from the sky. Exelon City Solar may not have resolved the deep-seated social problems of this crime-ridden South Side community, but it has demonstrated that solar power can breathe new life into polluted properties that have lain dormant and decaying for decades.

Surveying more than 35 million acres of abandoned mines, landfills, factories, and hazardous waste dumps, the US Environmental Protection Agency has identified a total of 5.5 trillion watts of solar potential – enough to produce about seven times the total electricity consumed by all US households. Site preparation costs may be prohibitive at some of these properties; cheap electricity from coal and gas may further inhibit solar development in certain areas; access to transmission lines may be a constraint at others. But already solar developers have overcome these constraints at hundreds of “brownfield” sites across the country, and hundreds of additional projects are in various stages of development. Huge clean energy prospects await us if we are willing to look anew at the wastelands we have long shunned as best forgotten.

In West Pullman, dozens of perfectly aligned rows of photovoltaic panels occupy the polluted acreage once used by International Harvester as an assembly plant. When the farm equipment manufacturer shut this factory down more than three decades ago, it turned its back on pools of polluted wastewater and soils loaded with asbestos. Even after the city took over the 41-acre parcel and began to clean it up, the site was far from safe for residential or commercial development. Solar power offered a path to redemption through reuse, but it took a combination of entrepreneurial daring, engineering savvy, and local political support to make the project a reality.

Today the Exelon City Solar plant generates enough clean energy for 1,500 Chicago area homes. Among the hundreds employed building the project, a local welding shop enjoyed a major bump in business, making thousands of steel pole mounts for the solar arrays. Today, instead of having to warn their kids away from a festering wasteland, abutting residents look out on a fenced-in field of neatly arrayed solar panels.

In the Chicago metro area, the non-profit Environmental Law and Policy Center is looking for ways to build on Exelon City Solar’s lead. Scouring the industrial landscape, its Brownfields to Brightfields or "B2B" team has evaluated the solar compatibility of some two hundred properties. “There are tremendous opportunities to unlock latent value in abandoned industrial brownfields and transform them into clean energy brightfields for the future,” says the center’s president Howard Learner.

Solar developers and environmental groups in the Windy City are by no means alone in seeking out ways to repurpose disused industrial real estate for clean energy development. Similar signs of change have appeared in places as diverse as the frostbitten Northeast and the sun-soaked Southwest.  (Photovoltaic technology captures energy from the sun’s light rather than its heat, and, surprising to some, it actually works better in colder weather.)  

Just across the Hudson River from southern Manhattan, a solar power plant now straddles the crest of a hill that was, until recently, part of the Meadowlands solid waste disposal complex, a huge repository for New York City’s garbage. It is one of several closed landfills that the area’s electric utility, PSE&G, has converted to solar power.  

Dozens of former waste dumps now play a similar role in my own state, Massachusetts. In New England’s former whaling capital, New Bedford, photovoltaic arrays occupy a stretch of land so polluted that it is on the EPA’s “Superfund” list of high-priority sites for decontamination. Together with other solar investments made by the city, the output of this power plant is expected to reduce municipal electric bills by about $1 million annually.

Across the continent in Sacramento, the Aerojet Rocketdyne Corporation has installed 20 solar fields at a factory complex so ravaged by rocket manufacturing that drinking water wells for miles around must be pumped and treated round-the-clock. Seeking to clean up its image along with its power supply, the company negotiated a deal with a solar developer and the local electricity provider, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD). Aerojet gave the land for free; SMUD offered investment rebates; and a 30 percent federal tax credit significantly reduced the project’s overall cost. Solar Power Inc., the company that owns the solar fields, sells the renewable power it generates to Aerojet at a lower rate than it has been paying to SMUD for its electricity.  Importantly, at this and other brownfield solar sites, project owners and operators are protected from pollution-related liability so long as they don’t aggravate existing environmental hazards.

To be sure, solar power’s prospects extend far beyond gritty sites like these. Our rooftops – from individual homes to giant warehouses and big-box stores – can contribute about a fifth of America’s total power needs, according to the government’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Additional solar heft can be had by building “utility-scale” solar power plants on fallow fields and open desert lands; about two-thirds of all new solar power today comes from these large facilities, often covering hundreds or even thousands of acres. 

Tapping all these solar resources, it’s no idle fantasy to imagine a third or more of America’s electricity coming from the sun by mid-century. Brownfield sites are a promising piece of this puzzle. The opportunities abound; we just have to step beyond often-forbidding factory fences and “Danger – No Entry” signs to find them.

Physical changes to the planet are setting off alarm bells for climate change worldwide, concerning scientists in the process. A study conducted by several scientists including famed climatologist James Hansen and Michael Mann concluded that a newly discovered feedback loop in Antarctica has the capacity to raise mean sea levels by 10 feet by 2065. That’s ten times faster than the rates previously predicted for sea level rise! Sea level rise is also occurring as the result of warmer global temperatures that melt sea ice.  As sea ice continues to melt, it flushes a vast amount of fresh water into the ocean which, by changing the salinity, results in slower ocean currents. And this in turn results in more extreme weather patterns in areas bordering the Atlantic Ocean.

In addition to the physical nature of the environment, ocean life has been another strong indicator of climate change’s rapidly expanding influence. Recently, warming ocean temperatures encouraged anchovies and krill to seek refuge in a cooler swath of water off the California coast. This attracted baleen whales to the area which showed up in record numbers.Walruses, over 35,000 to be exact, have also been observed cramming themselves into a shrinking cold habitat as sea ice melts in Alaska.

In tandem, ocean acidification, a growing problem resulting from increased carbon dioxide levels, has been observed weakening the shells of animals like snails as they dissolve in increasingly acidic sea water. And marine “dead zones” are increasing as warmer temperatures encourage more extreme algae blooms which will eventually choke out most marine life that stands in their way.

2014 was the hottest year on record based on global temperatures – that is, most likely until 2015 concludes. Given this new swath of climate concerns that have been raised by this new research, it can be easy to feel like the fight against climate change is not only out of our hands, but effectively over. This, Green Monsters, is hardly the case as there are many things you can do right now to help stave of the most extreme consequences of our climate disaster.

5 Actions to Address Climate Change NOW

It is important to remember how incredibly dangerous climate change is becoming to our planet and the threat it is posing to future generations. However, we must use that knowledge to not remain afraid and inactive, but instead to compel us to create the world needed to tackle this growing monster.

1. Push For A Planet That Is Free From Fossil Fuels

Fossil fuel use is contributing massively to the imbalance of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere and oceans. In addition to finding your own ways to reduce reliance on fossil fuels at home (mass transit, more efficient personal vehicles, walking or biking, etc), you can also pressure major fossil fuel users like the United States and China to take a drastic stance in reducing their fossil fuel output. A carbon tax in these two countries alone could stand to have dramatic positive impacts, and may encourage other countries to take a similar stance.

2. Plant A Tree!

To be certain, carbon dioxide is fine and good when its presence is balanced. But human activity is leading to an imbalance of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere where it is accelerating climate change, and in our oceans where it is lowering the pH of the water and making it more acidic. Remediation is the answer for a rogue toxin like carbon dioxide, and you can help the planet sequester the excess levels. Plant a tree- the planet can help absorb some of the extra carbon dioxide we’ve pumped out, but giving it a little help will do a world of good.

3. Boost The Organic and Local Food In Your Life

Adopting a diet that is free of animal products is already doing wonderful things for the planet. Take it a step farther now and aim for organic and locally grown produce. Organicveggies don’t utilize chemical fertilizers which carry a larger carbon footprint, and typically don’t require the massive fossil-fuel powered equipment used in conventional farming. If you can keep that organic produce as local to you as possible, you’ll also be cutting fossil fuels used in the transportation of getting your food from farm to table.

4. Trim Your Waste-Line

Garbage in landfills releases methane which is a greenhouse gas. With a little forethought and effort, you can eliminate some of those emissions. First, let less waste enter your life. Aim for less packaging where you can, and use reusable water bottles and shopping bags. Then address the waste you can’t avoid. Direct organic waste to a composting system, whether it is municipal or one you keep at home. Make sure anything and everything that can be recycled ends up in the recycling bin.

5. Most Importantly … Choose More Plant-Based Foods

This last point might be one of THE most powerful things that you can do to protect the future of the planet. One Green Planet believes that our global food system dominated by industrial animal agriculture is at the heart of our environmental crisis.

This destructive industry currently occupies over half of the world’s arable land resources, uses the majority of our freshwater stores, and drives greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, this system causes rampant air and water pollution, land degradation, deforestation and is pushing countless species to the brink of extinction. And yet, one in eight people still suffer from food scarcity.

“The real war against climate is being fought on our plates, multiple times a day with every food choice we make,” says Nil Zacharias, co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of One Green Planet, “one of the biggest challenges facing our planet, and our species is that we are knowingly eating ourselves into extinction, and doing very little about it.”

As the leading organization at the forefront of the conscious consumerism movement, it is One Green Planet’s view that our food choices have the power to heal our broken food system, give species a fighting chance for survival, and pave the way for a truly sustainable future.

We can all make a difference right now to help the planet step back from the point of no return by eating less of meat and dairy products and putting more plant-based foods on our plates. By choosing to eat more plant-based foods you can drastically cut your carbon footprint, save precious water supplies and help ensure that vital crop resources are fed to people, rather than livestock. With the wealth of plant-based options available, it has never been easier to eat with the planet in mind.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton just issued a renewable energy vision fact sheet that sets aggressive goals for solar and renewables as it acknowledges the challenge of climate change.

The document establishes Clinton as one of the few renewable energy advocates (and climate change conspiracists) in the 2016 presidential race.

Here are 5 takeaways.

1. Clinton announced a goal of boosting U.S. installed solar capacity from its current 20 gigawatts to 140 gigawatts by the end of 2020. The U.S. installed6.2 gigawatts of solar PV in 2014, up 30 percent over 2013, according to GTM Research (which had its PV forecast cited by the Clinton team). It's an ambitious goal that will require a new set of policy drivers and incentives.

2. Clinton also announced a goal of generating renewable energy to "power every home in America" by 2026 from a combination of wind, solar, hydro, geothermal and other renewables. 

3. Clinton will make it "a top priority to fight efforts to roll back the Clean Power Plan," calling the CPP "a crucial tool in our national strategy to reduce carbon pollution, level the playing field for and increase the deployment of renewable energy."

4. Clinton vowed to "fight to extend federal clean energy incentives and make them more cost-effective both for taxpayers and clean energy producers," as well as making investments in transmission, opening up solar power to low-­income households, expanding renewable energy on public lands and federal buildings and increasing public investment in clean energy R&D.   

5. The Clinton team looks to "reduce the amount of oil consumed in the United States and around the world, guard against energy supply disruptions, and make our communities, our infrastructure, and our financial markets more resilient to climate-­related risks," while making sure "that fossil fuel production taking place today is safe and responsible." 

Clinton's stance on the Keystone XL pipeline remains unclear. The candidate expects to lay out a more extensive energy and climate agenda over the coming months.

Clinton's fellow 2016 Democratic presidential candidate and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders opposes the Keystone XL pipeline and has urged the Senate to go on record to acknowledge climate change's existence and extent. Sanders recently introduced legislation establishing a solar program for low-income families.

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush supports ending all subsidies for renewables, as well as oil and gas. (Oil and gas incentives tend to be much more embedded and difficult to dislodge.) Bush has called himself a "skeptic" on climate change and is not a fan of the Pope's recent encyclical on climate issues. Bush has also referred to the building of Keystone XL as a “no-brainer.”

Scott Walker supports the Keystone XL pipeline and fracking, and has also come out strongly against the Clean Power Plan.

Energy doesn't register as a top issue on the Marco Rubio issue list. Rubio gave support to hybrids and solar power earlier in his career, but has also said, "I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it," on ABC's This Week in 2014.

Donald Trump is on record as being a supporter of the Keystone XL pipeline and fracking. The current leader of the Republican primary race told Jake Tapper in July, “I’m not a huge believer in the global warming phenomenon.”

Now that theory is turning into reality. The average solar-electric system costs half as much as it did at the beginning of 2010. Solar panels are cropping up everywhere, in cities and on farms, in suburbia and in small towns. And Tuesday was a red-letter day on the solar front, as the White House announced a batch of policies designed to open the door to solar power to all Americans who want it, including renters and middle-class and low-income families.

For the almost half of American families and businesses who rent their homes or don't have enough roof space to install solar panels, the new National Community Solar Partnership will promote shared solar systems. Families living in federally subsidized housing will see the number of clean-energy installations triple. And states, cities, charities and investors have committed more than half a billion dollars to finance solar and efficiency projects in low-income communities, which means the people who need it most start saving money day one. And the places they live get new jobs and cleaner air.

I started the Solutions Project because our country is in desperate need of solutions. In late June, we launched the 100% campaign because we want to make clean, efficient energy affordable and accessible for everyone. We see clean energy as a means, not an end -- a path to individual freedom and the common good. Imagine the freedom of being able to create and control your own energy. Imagine cleaner air and water, lower and less volatile energy prices, and a safer, more secure future for our kids. Clean energy can power something greater for all of us.

It certainly did for Krystal Ruiz, a young boxer from New York's Lower East Side. Working with an organization called GRID Alternatives, a major force in the President's program, she turned away from a life of drugs and trouble to become a leader in bringing solar power to her community. Now she's training others to work in the renewable-energy business (See video about Krystal).

And that represents real career opportunities. There are more solar workers than actors in California, according to Bureau of Labor numbers crunched by the Solar Foundation, which also counted more solar jobs in Texas than there are ranchers. Across the country, there are now more solar workers than there are coal miners.

They have a lot of work to do. Whether it's Apple, Google and Facebook powering server farms with solar and wind power, or Wal-Mart installing panels and turbines at stores and distribution facilities across the country, business is turning to renewable power. The U.S. military is installing solar, wind and geothermal generation on bases at home and overseas. And more and more families are eager to power their lives with clean, efficient energy.

Barriers remain. In many states, outdated regulations make it difficult to finance and install clean-energy systems. Up-front costs can stop people from jumping on the renewable bandwagon, even when they know they will save money in the long run. And there doesn't seem to be a simple way for renters and low-income consumers to join the clean-energy revolution. Until now.

Thanks in part to initiatives like the ones the White House just announced, those barriers are falling. This is a moment to celebrate. And cheer on leaders like our President, Grid Alternatives, Green For All and Vote Solar who are making it happen. Last year, our country added as much solar-power capacity every three weeks as it did in all 52 weeks of 2008. And worldwide, renewable energy's new capacity outstripped coal, oil and gas combined.

The door to a clean-energy future is opening. We aim to kick it wide open so that 100% of people have access to a healthier, more sustainable, better future.

New York-based actor and father Mark Ruffalo co-chairs the 100% campaign, a project of The Solutions Project, on whose board he sits. More information can be found at 100.org.

It's been quite a month for electric aircraft. First, the Solar Impulse 2 broke distance and duration records when it flew from Japan to Hawaii. Then, two competing teams both claimed to have made the world's first electric flight across the English Channel. Now, Germany's PC-Aero says that its Elektra One Solar has become the first solar-electric plane to cross the Alps in both directions.

According to the company, the single-person ultralight aircraft took off from the German municipality of Unterwössen on June 25th, crossed over the Grossglockner (the highest mountain in Austria), and proceeded to land in the Austrian town of Lienz. The whole flight took 2.5 hours.

On July 2nd, it flew back across the mountain range, facing strong headwinds and gusts. Climbing to an altitude of over 3,000 m (9,843 ft) and traveling 190 km (118 miles), it reached the Austrian town of Zell am See within two hours. The aircraft's stated range is 500 km (311 miles) or five hours.

One of five of its kind, the 180-kg (397-lb) Elektra One Solar was equipped with 280 solar cells on its upper wing surface, which provided about 30 percent of the electricity it required to fly. The rest came from its pre-charged 11.5-kWh lithium-ion battery pack. It has a continuous engine power of 16 kW, and can carry a maximum payload of 100 kg (220 lb) at a cruising speed of 100 km/h (62 mph).

For this trip, it was additionally equipped with a 3D landscape mapping camera.

PC-Aero also manufactures a non-solar (but still electric) version of the Elektra One, and is working on models that will seat multiple passengers.

Source: PC-Aero

Just two years ago, the villagers of Magadi, Kenya, had to light fires at night or burn expensive kerosene so their children could read and do their schoolwork—that is, when they weren't tasked with guarding the village livestock from leopards and hyenas making their stealthy attacks in the dark. Energy poverty is a major problem in this region; Magadi is so far off the country’s power grid that people have to walk almost 10 miles to charge their phones at a station that’s open only one day a week.

But these days, groups of Masai women are leading a renewable energy revolution. Hauling solar devices on donkeys from village to village, they’re transforming the lives of locals with light and power, thanks to a program launched by renewable energy developer Green Energy Africa. The women are provided with energy-efficient lights, solar panels, and rechargeable batteries at a discount, which they in turn sell for a profit. They are also trained to help install the panels and lights at individual homes. To date, 200 women are participating across five village groups; together, they’ve installed solar-powered units in more than 2,000 homes. 

Indeed, enlisting the sun is the perfect solution for this arid, sun-soaked African country.

“Kenya is blessed to be on the equator,” Edwin Kinyatti, CEO of Green Energy Africa, told CCTV Africa. “Even on rainy days, you get some sunshine.”

The program’s success depends on convincing locals that the power they get from solar devices is enough, Kinyatti says, making it crucial that the women are well versed and educated when it comes to explaining to fellow community members how solar power works. One thing that’s easy to get across: Solar energy is cheaper than buying kerosene and much easier than collecting wood from the forest.

“Others come to my house to charge their phones,” said Lorna Salau, one of the women selling solar panels. “Before, I used to go to the woods to look for firewood but not anymore. Also, the children use electricity to read during the night.”

So, Why Should You Care? Not only does the program help energy-deprived communities, but it also protects the environment and improves health. Solar power helps preserve the dwindling number of trees in the region and protects people from smoke inhalation, which leads to 1.6 million deaths worldwide every year, according to a 2014 World Health Organization report. Moreover, the program provides Masai women, who traditionally have few rights in their culture, a path to economic freedom. 

“We’ve really benefited from [the solar program],” Jackline Naiputa, head of one of the women’s groups, told the news station. “I can’t even say all the ways we’ve benefited. We are happier. As women, we’ve experienced profits, and our standard of living has improved. The animals that were eating our livestock have stopped. Once we light up our homesteads, the animals are scared away.” 

REUSING. 

Old bottles can become candleholders; empty egg cartons can store holiday ornaments. Reusing is all the rage for eco-conscious Americans. When it comes to the phrase “how to reuse,” a high cost of living may explain the top two results: California took the lead, followed by Hawaii. Washington State, Georgia, and Utah rounded out the top five.

WIND POWER

The East and Midwest breezed to the top for “wind power” searches. Maine, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, and Connecticut displayed the most interest in this unique power source. Maine’s wind power initiative (Wind for ME) helps explain its top spot. Iowa draws a quarter of its electricity from wind, Indiana is an up-and-comer in the wind power sector, and Kansas issecond only to Texas in terms of wind power potential. In Connecticut, wind power is a controversial topic: Attempts to construct turbines have met with local opposition, and in 2014, the Supreme Court weighed in to approve wind farms. (This could explain the high volume of searches.)

SOLAR POWER

The top five hotspots for “solar power” searches were Vermont, Utah, Idaho, Nevada, and Hawaii. Vermont is an up-and-coming solar champ, with a 63% increase in money spent on solar installations between 2013 and 2014. In rural Utah and Idaho, where running power lines to some remote locations can be too pricey, solar energy often is an ideal solution. Nevada is home to the most solar jobs per capita. Finally, in Hawaii, almost one in eight homes has installed solar power.

GARDENING

The top four states that searched for the term “how to garden” have something in common: Idaho, South Dakota, Montana, and Utah are all states with low population density. Presumably, that means many residents may have the space to garden.

COMPOSTING

Composting involves diverting kitchen waste from the landfill and instead tossing it into bins (possibly with worms) where it can decompose to become a rich additive to soil. “How to compost” was a popular search among Colorado and Washington residents. Colorado cities, such as Denver and Boulder, provide a great deal of outreach on the topic of composting. Washington State is no surprise, either, as a new policy forces Seattle residents to compost food waste or have it sent to a processing site to avoid warnings and even fines.

ELECTRIC CARS

In a search for “electric cars,” California and Hawaii were first and second respectively. These stats align with the number ofelectric car owners in the nation as well: As of 2014, approximately 5.5 out of every 1,000 registered vehicles in California were electric, while 4.2 out of every 1,000 registered vehicles in Hawaii were electric.

To see more of these maps, explore the infographic below:

It’s Easy Being Green

Saving the Earth is a hot topic these days – and one virtually all Americans would do well to familiarize themselves with. How can you do your part? Next time you have a minute to go online, try a search for some of these topics. You just may discover that you want to plant a garden, set up a compost bin, share tips on recycling, offer to carpool with a friend, or look into alternate energy sources.

In Japan, country club memberships famously went for millions of dollars in the late 1980s. Then, too many courses were built in 1990s and 2000s during a real estate boom. Now the nation faces the question of what to do with its abandoned golf courses. Meanwhile, Japan’s energy strategy in the aftermath of Fukushima calls for roughly doubling the amount of renewable power sources in the country by 2030. It is already building solar power plants that float on water. Perhaps inevitably, then, the nation has turned to building solar plants on old golf courses. Last week, Kyocera and its partners announced they had started construction on a 23-megawatt solar plant project located on an old golf course in the Kyoto prefecture. Scheduled to go operational in September 2017, it will generate a little over 26,000 megawatt hours per year, or enough electricity to power approximately 8,100 typical local households. The electricity will be sold to a local utility. In late May, the company announced an even larger project that will begin construction next year in the Kagoshima prefecture on land that had been designated for a golf course more than 30 years ago but subsequently abandoned. The 92-megawatt plant will include more than 340,000 solar modules and is expected to generate nearly 100,000 megawatt hours per year, or enough to power about 30,500 households when it goes operational in 2018. But Kyocera, also responsible for the floating solar plants, faces competition on the (former) links. Tokyo-based Pacifico Energy isbuilding a 42-megawatt solar plant on an old golf course in the Okayama Prefecture, with help from GE Energy Financial Services. It, too, will sell electricity to a local utility when it starts operation in the second quarter of next year, if all goes to plan. And the companies areworking on a 32-megawatt plant, also in Okayama, that should go live in the first quarter of next year. Japan is not alone in pursuing the idea. In the US, golf-course operators face declining interest in the sport and many have reacted by relaxing dress codes, adding family programs, and restructuring fees. But, as in Japan, some courses will go out of business. Plans to replace them with solar plants are already under way in New York, Minnesota, and other states.

Last weekend, First Solar's (NASDAQ: FSLR  ) CEO Jim Hughes said that $1 per watt is not only on the horizon, but is less than two years away. The government's progress toward achieving $1 per watt by 2017 and having it be a widespread commercial reality by 2020 is well ahead of schedule, and that bodes well for the future of solar energy.

Past the point of no return
The progress in reducing the cost of solar energy shouldn't be lost on anyone. Whether you invest in tech, retail, oil and gas, utilities, coal, or any other industry, this will affect the companies you own. And you're going to want the solar boom to be a tailwind, not a headwind for your business (see: coal over the last five years).

According to GTM Research, the cost of utility-scale solar projects has fallen 67% in the past five years; $1 per watt would be another 44% in the next couple of years.

Data source: GTM Research. Chart by the author.

The resulting cost structure is leading to highly competitive prices for solar energy versus fossil fuels. First Solar says that bids for solar projects are now in the $0.04-to-$0.05-per-kWh range, which is less than you can build a fossil fuel plant for, no matter the source of energy.

Since solar costs are beating those of competing energy sources, there are expectations of a boom in demand -- and it's going to be a global solar boom. GTM Research predicts that solar installations will triple to 135 GW annually by 2020.

Source: GTM Research.

These incredible cost reductions open up new markets in which solar will now be competitive, like Africa, South America, and the Middle East. First Solar, for example, just signed on for a 200 MW project in Dubai that will sell electricity for 5.84 cents per kWh. And that's without subsidies. Solar is past the point of no return in energy, and fossil fuels should be very worried.  

The way to profit from solar energy's growth
I've quoted First Solar above, and as a leader in the utility scale solar space, they're a great way to profit from the solar industry. Another great company to look at is SunPower (NASDAQ:SPWR  ) , which makes the world's most efficient solar panels and recently completed the world's largest solar project, the 579 MW Solar Star project in California. Combined, First Solar and SunPower built 39% of the solar plants in the U.S. between 2005 and 2014, and 11% in OECD countries.

For a lower-risk option, First Solar and SunPower recently launched a yieldco called 8point3 Energy Partners to own and operate solar projects. The company intends to pay off cash flow as a dividend, and has long-term contracts to ensure cash continues to come in for years to come.

SolarCity and SunEdison don't make their own panels like First Solar and SunPower do, but they're two of the largest installers in residential and utility solar respectively.

These four companies are the best bets for future growth in solar, and given the competitiveness the industry now has versus fossil fuels, there should be an explosion in demand.

We're past the point of no return -- solar energy will be the biggest new energy source in the future. 

To prove previous assertions that the next-generation Leaf could get more than “400 km” (250 miles) on Japan’s optimistic test cycle, a video was shown to shareholders of a Leaf driver who goes on an easygoing drive with 417 km on the odometer, and returns with more than 200 km remaining.

Whether Nissan will produce a 250–plus mile Leaf perhaps by 2018-2019 has yet to be announced, but the clear implication based on this and previous reports is it will.

Photo by Bertel Schmitt; Daily Kanban.

If so, it will be made possible as the automaker is testing “new materials and chemistry solutions in order to make thinner, lighter weight and less costly batteries.”

The goal is electric cars that do not rank behind internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, and recharge time too will be quicker, said Nissan’s technology-chief Hideyuki Sakamoto afterwards, to the Daily Kanban.

“[A] driving range equivalent to that of an ICE,” will be offered, said Sakamoto. “The charging time also will be much shorter.”

Ghosn’s talk, standing before a blue Leaf mule on the speaker’s platform added to previous reports it has a superior battery chemistry to what Tesla or anyone else is now using.

Basically, “there are only two reliable ways to increase range of an EV,” Ghosn said making a not-too-subtle reference to Tesla.

“First is to have a massive network of EV chargers. The other option is to put a larger battery pack into the vehicle,” said Ghosn, however “adding more battery means adding more cost.”

The message: Nissan has a new battery to solve this issue, and not long from now could have on the market an EV that will compete in price and range with an internal combustion vehicle.

2015 Nissan Leaf cutaway. The second-generation Leaf is supposed to be more mainstream in appearance. The Japanese test-mule driver shown driving in the video did so during “a day of scenic drives.” Harder usage, as always, will reduce ultimate range potential. Beyond this, mileage ratings on Japan’s test cycle are typically much more optimistic than by the U.S. EPA.

The 2018/2019 time frame is the read from the meeting by the Daily Kanban’s editor Bertel Schmitt who has lived in Japan, speaks the language, knows the culture, but ultimately Nissan has not said.

Ghosn meanwhile added to hints of a 30-kwh battery possibly for the Leaf pending for 2016. The Leaf, launched as a 2011 model is the global best seller, but no longer the highest range in class, and sales have slowed in recent months.

A slightly larger battery boosting range to over 100 miles for the existing car rated now for 84 miles may effectively be a stopgap measure before a full redesign possibly by 2017.

“Later this year, you will hear more about our initial steps to increase EV range,” Ghosn said, while leaving it in the air that an all-new battery chemistry is not a question of if, but only when.

1. Solar Prices Keep Crashing

The price of solar power will continue to fall, until it becomes the cheapest form of power in a rapidly expanding number of national markets. By 2026, utility-scale solar will be competitive for the majority of the world, according to BNEF. The lifetime cost of a photovoltaic solar-power plant will drop by almost half over the next 25 years, even as the prices of fossil fuels creep higher.

Solar power will eventually get so cheap that it will outcompete new fossil-fuel plants and even start to supplant some existing coal and gas plants, potentially stranding billions in fossil-fuel infrastructure. The industrial age was built on coal. The next 25 years will be the end of its dominance.  

2. Solar Billions Become Solar Trillions

With solar power so cheap, investments will surge. Expect $3.7 trillion in solar investments between now and 2040, according to BNEF. Solar alone will account for more than a third of new power capacity worldwide. Here's how that looks on a chart, with solar appropriately dressed in yellow and fossil fuels in pernicious gray:

  © BNEF Expect $3.7 trillion in solar investments between now and 2040, according to BNEF. Solar alone will account for more than a third of new power capacity worldwide.

3. The Revolution Will Be Decentralized 

The biggest solar revolution will take place on rooftops. High electricity prices and cheap residential battery storage will make small-scale rooftop solar ever more attractive, driving a 17-fold increase in installations. By 2040, rooftop solar will be cheaper than electricity from the grid in every major economy, and almost 13 percent of electricity worldwide will be generated from small-scale solar systems. 

© Bloomberg By 2040, rooftop solar will be cheaper than electricity from the grid in every major economy, and almost 13 percent of electricity worldwide will be generated from small-scale solar systems.

4. Global Demand Slows

Yes, the world is inundated with mobile phones, flat screen TVs, and air conditioners. But growth in demand for electricity is slowing. The reason: efficiency. To cram huge amounts of processing power into pocket-sized gadgets, engineers have had to focus on how to keep those gadgets from overheating. That's meant huge advances in energy efficiency. Switching to an LED light bulb, for example, can reduce electricity consumption by more than 80 percent. 

So even as people rise from poverty to middle class faster than ever, BNEF predicts that global electricity consumption will remain relatively flat. In the next 25 years, global demand will grow about 1.8 percent a year, compared with 3 percent a year from 1990 to 2012. In wealthy OECD countries, power demand will actually decline.  

© Steve Hockstein/Bloomberg Power transmission lines are suspended from electricity pylons in Kearny, New Jersey, U.S., on Thursday, Aug. 26, 2010.

5. Natural Gas Burns Briefly

Natural gas won't become the oft-idealized "bridge fuel" that transitions the world from coal to renewable energy, according to BNEF. The U.S. fracking boom will help bring global prices down some, but few countries outside the U.S. will replace coal plants with natural gas. Instead, developing countries will often opt for some combination of coal, gas, and renewables.  

Even in the fracking-rich U.S., wind power will be cheaper than building new gas plants by 2023, and utility-scale solar will be cheaper than gas by 2036.

Fossil fuels aren't going to suddenly disappear. They'll retain a 44 percent share of total electricity generation in 2040 (down from two thirds today), much of which will come from legacy plants that are cheaper to run than shut down. Developing countries will be responsible for 99 percent of new coal plants and 86 percent of new gas-fired plants between now and 2040, according to BNEF. Coal is clearly on its way out, but in developing countries that need to add capacity quickly, coal- power additions will be roughly equivalent to utility-scale solar.

6. The Climate Is Still Screwed

The shift to renewables is happening shockingly fast, but not fast enough to prevent perilous levels of global warming.

About $8 trillion, or two thirds of the world's spending on new power capacity over the next 25 years, will go toward renewables. Still, without additional policy action by governments, global carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector will continue to rise until 2029 and will remain 13 percent higher than today's pollution levels in 2040.

That's not enough to prevent the surface of the Earth from heating more than 2 degrees Celsius, according to BNEF. That's considered the point-of-no-return for some worst consequences of climate change. 

The report assumes there will be no further policies supporting renewable energy from 2018 onward. The EPA's Clean Power Plan and any unforeseen climate agreements could change the forecast. The share of total generation from renewables will be higher, at 46 percent. The world's power capacity mix will go from two-thirds fossil fuels today to 56 percent zero emissions, according to BNEF. 

To contact the author on this story: Tom Randall at trandall6@bloomberg.net To contact the editor on this story: Katie Drummond at kdrummond6@bloomberg.net

The findings are published June 19 in the journal Science.

The new design is inspired by the way that plants generate energy through photosynthesis.

“Biology does a very good job of creating energy from sunlight,” said Sarah Tolbert, a UCLA professor of chemistry and one of the senior authors of the research. “Plants do this through photosynthesis with extremely high efficiency.”

“In photosynthesis, plants that are exposed to sunlight use carefully organized nanoscale structures within their cells to rapidly separate charges — pulling electrons away from the positively charged molecule that is left behind, and keeping positive and negative charges separated,” Tolbert said. “That separation is the key to making the process so efficient.”

To capture energy from sunlight, conventional rooftop solar cells use silicon, a fairly expensive material.  There is currently a big push to make lower-cost solar cells using plastics, rather than silicon, but today’s plastic solar cells are relatively inefficient, in large part because the separated positive and negative electric charges often recombine before they can become electrical energy.

“Modern plastic solar cells don’t have well-defined structures like plants do because we never knew how to make them before,” Tolbert said. “But this new system pulls charges apart and keeps them separated for days, or even weeks. Once you make the right structure, you can vastly improve the retention of energy.”

The two components that make the UCLA-developed system work are a polymer donor and a nano-scale fullerene acceptor. The polymer donor absorbs sunlight and passes electrons to the fullerene acceptor; the process generates electrical energy.

The plastic materials, called organic photovoltaics, are typically organized like a plate of cooked pasta — a disorganized mass of long, skinny polymer “spaghetti” with random fullerene “meatballs.” But this arrangement makes it difficult to get current out of the cell because the electrons sometimes hop back to the polymer spaghetti and are lost.

The UCLA technology arranges the elements more neatly — like small bundles of uncooked spaghetti with precisely placed meatballs. Some fullerene meatballs are designed to sit inside the spaghetti bundles, but others are forced to stay on the outside.  The fullerenes inside the structure take electrons from the polymers and toss them to the outside fullerene, which can effectively keep the electrons away from the polymer for weeks.

“When the charges never come back together, the system works far better,” said Benjamin Schwartz, a UCLA professor of chemistry and another senior co-author. “This is the first time this has been shown using modern synthetic organic photovoltaic materials.”

In the new system, the materials self-assemble just by being placed in close proximity.

“We worked really hard to design something so we don’t have to work very hard,” Tolbert said.

The new design is also more environmentally friendly than current technology, because the materials can assemble in water instead of more toxic organic solutions that are widely used today.

“Once you make the materials, you can dump them into water and they assemble into the appropriate structure because of the way the materials are designed,” Schwartz said. “So there’s no additional work.”

The researchers are already working on how to incorporate the technology into actual solar cells.

Yves Rubin, a UCLA professor of chemistry and another senior co-author of the study, led the team that created the uniquely designed molecules. “We don’t have these materials in a real device yet; this is all in solution,” he said. “When we can put them together and make a closed circuit, then we will really be somewhere.”

For now, though, the UCLA research has proven that inexpensive photovoltaic materials can be organized in a way that greatly improves their ability to retain energy from sunlight.

Tolbert and Schwartz also are members of UCLA’s California NanoSystems Institute. The study’s other co-lead authors were UCLA graduate students Rachel Huber and Amy Ferreira. UCLA’s Electron Imaging Center for NanoMachines imaged the assembled structure in a lab led by Hong Zhou.

The research was supported by the National Science Foundation (grant CHE-1112569) and by the Center for Molecularly Engineered Energy Materials, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DE-AC06-76RLO-1830). Ferreira received support from the Clean Green IGERT (grant DGE-0903720).

The transformation was laid out by British magazine Autocar in January, which describes it as "the latest thinking from BMW's advanced engineering department."

And the new architecture will affect even BMW's core model, its high-volume 3-Series sport sedan. It would not be the next generation, expected in 2018, but the one after that--meaning a launch in 2022 or later.

The driving force is stringent European Union regulations that greatly reduce the average carbon emissions permitted from road vehicles.

Tougher than either North American or Chinese standards, the current EU limits extend only to 2021. Further limits through 2025 are expected to be lower yet.

As a result, BMW has concluded that it must convert all its vehicles to some configuration of plug-in hybrid, lower their weight dramatically to compensate for larger battery packs, and make them far more aerodynamic.

The bodies are to be built from a mix of high-strength steel, both stamped and cast aluminum, and carbon-fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP).

The first example of this new mix of materials is the 2016 BMW 7-Series, which has CFRP structural elements under the skin to replace what would formerly have been high-strength steel members.

The drivetrain of these future BMWs will consist of an electric motor on the rear axle, and another that powers the front wheels.

A front-mounted combustion engine both generates electricity as a range extender and can be clutched in to provide torque to assist the front motor under limited circumstances.

On Monday, Nissan plans to announce that it has teamed up with startup Green Charge Networks to reuse batteries from Nissan’s LEAF electric car to store energy for commercial and industrial buildings. The partnership is an important milestone because Nissan’s LEAF is among the best selling electric carswith over 70,000 sold in the U.S.

Reusing old car batteries isn’t as easy as it may sound. Batteries gradually lose their charge over time. At a certain point, they become too weak to power a car. But they still retain enough charge for lighter chores.

Until recently, the supply of old car batteries has been too small to be of much use. The vast majority of electric cars hit the road within the past five years and therefore didn’t require new batteries.

But the older among them are starting to hit middle age, at least in terms of electric cars. As such, a growing number of drivers are reaching the point when they need to replace their batteries — creating a ready supply of second hand batteries that can be reused for jobs like commercial energy storage.

Some of the first Nissan LEAFs, for example, are now four and five years old. Nissan offers an eight-year, 100,000 mile warranty on the LEAF battery pack.

Nissan isn’t the only big automaker with a plan to reuse old batteries. GM plans to announce a separate initiative Tuesday at the Advanced Automotive Battery Conference related to its electric car, the Chevy Volt. GM has been working on this issue over the years with power giant ABB and Duke Energy.

Green Charge Networks is among a handful of startupsthat are using low cost batteries to help corporate customers manage their energy use. When electricity rates are high, like during a hot summer afternoon, it automatically shifts customer energy use from the traditional power grid to batteries. The goal is to help clients lower their electricity bills. UPS, 7-Eleven, and Walgreens are among the companies that have signed on.

In many cases, battery management companies like Green Charge Networks install batteries for free for customers. To make money, they take a cut of the savings over time. By repurposing used LEAF batteries instead of buying new ones, Green Charge Networks can reduce its costs.

This isn’t Nissan’s first try at reusing LEAF batteries. Shortly after putting LEAFs on the market, Nissan created a joint venture with Sumitomo, called 4R Energy, to research how to give batteries a second life.

But the deal with Green Charge Networks goes further by using repurposed LEAF batteries commercially. Green Charge Networks CEO Vic Shao told Fortunethat the company will start installing reused LEAF batteries with customers by the fourth quarter. In prelude, the company plans to equip one of Nissan’s California facilities with used batteries.

Green Charge Networks wouldn’t comment in detail about the difference in cost between using second-hand LEAF batteries and new ones. But Shao called the economics “significantly more attractive” than using new batteries.

Freewire, a startup that uses repurposed batteries to build mobile charging units, has said that the recycled batteries it buys from companies like Nissan can be one sixth of the price of a new battery. If charged and discharged twice a day, their recycled batteries can last another five years, the company said.

If such numbers are accurate, then second life batteries could be a truly underappreciated asset for the growing energy storage market. As this market matures, it could also benefit companies like Tesla that will both make batteries, manufacture cars and produce battery packs to be used by utilities.

At the end of the day, squeezing as much life as possible out of batteries just makes sense both economically and environmentally. More often, electric car batteries will likely be recycled, or worse, thrown out.

Updated to correct that GM has been researching the second life of electric car batteries with ABB and Duke Energy, not Duke University.

With its goal of 33 percent renewable energy by 2020 now within reach, Governor Jerry Brown recently raised California’s bar, ordering the state to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below the 1990 level within the next 15 years — the most ambitious target in North America. To meet the new directive, planners say Californians will need to step up their energy transition even more: doubling energy efficiency, boosting electric transportation, and getting at least twice as much of their electricity from renewables. Energy experts caution that it will take effort, but they say it’s doable.

It’s difficult to remember that just 15 years earlier the state was experiencing an energy meltdown. Electricity prices skyrocketed, supply crashed and blackouts rolled, due mainly to a disastrous deregulation attempt and unscrupulous market manipulation. Fast-forward to 2014, and the state’s renewable capacity grew to an estimated 21,000 megawatts, including more utility-scale solar than all the rest of the states combined.

So how did California go from chaos to clean power leader in such a short time? And where does it go from here?

“Fifteen years out of a crisis — that’s kind of unprecedented,” said Daniel Kammen, director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. “For the world’s seventh-biggest economy, to be in such a solid and good climate position in a decade and a half is remarkable.”

California’s phoenix act stems from a combination of favorable geography, innovative policies, and businesses that saw the benefits of clean energy investments, Kammen said. Reeling off a list of California solar companies, he said, “All of these companies are creating wealth … and that is the most fundamental part of the whole equation.”

With bipartisan support, state legislators a decade ago enacted an ambitious Renewables Portfolio Standard requiring that 33 percent of electricity sold in California come from renewable sources by 2020. Governor Brown has called for that goal to be raised to 50 percent by 2030, and his administration has expanded efforts to boost energy efficiency and to significantly increase the use of electric vehicles and renewables, among other measures.

Wind energy production has doubled since 2009, and today California generates nearly 6,400 megawatts of wind power, providing around 7 percent of the state’s electricity. Massive new solar farms are also coming online, including two 550-megawatt photovoltaic plants added last year. By the end of 2014, California had roughly 5,400 megawatts of utility-scale solar installed and several more facilities, including a new 579 megawatt plant, are slated to open by the end of next year. California also leads the nation in small distributed, or “rooftop,” solar, with more than 2,300 megawatts now installed, and analysts predict continued strong growth through 2016.

On top of that, the state has ample geothermal energy production, with expansion on the way. All told, according to the California Energy Commission, commercial renewable energy facilities in the state, including small hydropower, now generate enough clean electricity to power more than 7 million California homes — and that doesn’t include home solar and other smaller, on-site production.

The push toward renewables has bumped up electricity prices — Californians pay around 14 cents per kilowatt hour across all sectors, compared to a little over 10 cents nationwide, according to 2015 figures from the U.S. Energy Information Agency. But thanks to a mild climate and successful energy efficiency programs, residents’ monthly bills are actually among the lowest in the nation — Californians rank 49th in energy use and 46th in per-person spending on electricity.

But as California’s clean power goals rise, new capacity could begin to slow. Some planned large projects are now on hold due to financial problems. Others face environmental challenges, such as threats to bird flyways and desert habitats. Large-scale solar plants, particularly those using solar thermal technology, are losing appeal to investors as photovoltaic panel prices plunge. And utilities, having largely reached their current renewable procurement targets, have few new projects in the pipeline. What’s more, the federal solar investment tax credit program for new utility projects drops from 30 percent to 10 percent after 2016, and ends completely for individuals.

Despite these obstacles, a number of enterprising alternatives are emerging.

In the past few months, both Apple and Google have announced they are developing their own grid-scale renewable energy projects. Apple is partnering with FirstSolar to build a 280-megawatt solar farm not far from its Silicon Valley headquarters. The facility, slated for completion next year, will power all Apple stores in California, as well as the company’s offices and a large data center — plus deliver 150 megawatts to the grid. Not to be outdone, Google has bought into a wind project to power its huge Mountain View campus. The company plans to replace outdated turbines that are inefficient and hazardous to birds with fewer, higher-efficiency, bird-friendly machines.

Another new approach is designed to stimulate small, local renewable energy projects. Under this program, Community Choice Aggregation (CCA), cities and counties contract with renewable energy producers to tailor their own clean energy supply. Electricity is still delivered through the area utility, which charges a transmission fee, but residents can choose whether to receive up to 100 percent clean energy from the CCA.

The state’s first CCA, Marin Clean Energy, opened in 2010 and now serves about 165,000 customers. The program keeps costs down by buying directly from several small, local energy projects it helped develop, including a solar panel array on city airport hangars and biogas from a county landfill, as well as agreements with commercial solar, wind, and geothermal producers.

California’s green energy aggregation model is now spreading to other states, including one starting up this summer in New York’s Westchester County. The Los Angeles-area city of Lancaster this month launched its own CCA, which, along with Sonoma County, brings California’s total to three, with more in progress.

In a testament to clean energy’s bipartisan appeal in California, Lancaster’s Republican mayor, R. Rex Parris, dreams of making his city “the Silicon Valley of Clean Energy.” His initiatives include requiring solar panels on all new homes in this fast-growing community and luring an electric bus manufacturer to town.

“We’ll be net-zero this year,” Parris said, enthusiastically. “We’ll be producing more electricity than we use."

In addition to slowing global warming — a cause Parris considers critical — he said becoming a clean energy community makes fiscal sense. The CCA’s direct purchase from solar farms will save Lancaster users 15 to 30 percent on their energy bills, he said.

“The free market is working,” Parris said. “There are my Republican principles!”

California’s three large investor-owned utilities will soon begin offering clean power choices as well. Under a state community solar development mandate, they’ll be required to purchase renewable energy from small, local producers in an effort to encourage such endeavors and let customers choose their own energy mix.

Meanwhile, unlikely allies from universities to county dumps are banding together and taking a new look around their properties, with an eye to unused space that can be repurposed for clean energy production. Earlier this month, standing on a closed landfill near San Francisco Bay slated to sport 19,000 solar panels by next year, U.S. EPA administrator Gina McCarthy said she hopes a pioneering Regional Renewable Energy Procurement arrangement by a group of public agencies will become a national model. Under that initiative, solar panels will be installed at 186 sites such as fire stations, city halls, libraries, college campuses, and sanitary districts across four northern California counties to produce energy than can be fed into the grid.

California’s energy transition still faces some daunting obstacles. A massive influx of new energy threatens to overwhelm the current transmission system. The sporadic nature of wind and solar poses a special challenge. In addition, the remote location of many new energy producers means the state will have to extend electrical wires.

The grid is already starting to experience oversupply episodes when wind and solar produce unexpected bursts of power, which forces the grid to shut down its energy feeds, said Steven Greenlee, a spokesman for the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), the state’s utility regulator. That wastes energy.

To address these problems and achieve California’s goals for a new energy future, CAISO envisions fleets of private and mass-transit electric vehicles that serve as batteries on wheels — plugging in and soaking up excess current when the load gets too high, and feeding it back into the grid through special charging stations when supply drops. The plan also calls for retrofitting the state’s sluggish old conventional power plants or building new ones that can ramp up production quickly when the sun sets or the wind dies, then stop when these sources become active.

A third component — a regional electricity-sharing grid where California and its neighbors can cut costs and increase efficiency by offloading surplus or acquiring extra within minutes of peak demand — was launched last year. So far, Western Energy Imbalance Market members include parts of Oregon, Washington, Utah, and Wyoming, in addition to California.

Reaching the state’s aggressive new energy target likely will raise costs. A recent study by the consulting firm Energy+Environmental Economics and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimated that the steps needed would add an average of $14 to monthly household bills. But Berkeley energy professor Kammen points out that the effort also will spur innovation, stimulate the economy, and create jobs.

Lancaster Mayor Parris agrees. “Once you release the creative forces like that,” he said, “it doesn’t stop.”

In Japan’s Hyogo prefecture, a solar station was recently launched that floats on a reservoir and will produce about 2,680 megawatt hours per year—enough for 820 typical households. Kyocera plans to build dozens of such stations on reservoirs around Japan, especially in areas lacking available land for utility-scale generation.

With construction completed in late May and operations begun this week, the new installation measures 333 by 77 meters (1,093 by 253 ft) and will sell the energy it produces to Kansai Electric Power in Osaka for about ¥96 million ($780,000) annually, according to the Japan Times. Helpful, as Japan’s energy strategy in the aftermath of Fukushima calls for roughly doubling the amount of renewable power sources in the country by 2030.

It employs nearly 9,100 waterproof solar panels and a float made of high-density polyethylene. It’s Kyocera’s third such installation, the first two being smaller versions launched on ponds earlier this year.

One advantage of floating solar stations is efficiency. The water cools the system and thereby helps it generate power more efficiently (pdf) than if it were on the ground. Such installations also work particularly well on reservoirs. By shading the water, they also reduce evaporation and algae growth, two common concerns with reservoirs.

Kyocera will next launch a particularly large floating solar installation in the Chiba prefecture’s Yamakura Dam reservoir next March, which will generate an estimated 15,635 megawatt hours per year—more than five times as much as the plant that just went online.

Jacobson is well-known for his ambitious and controversial work on renewable energy. In 2001 he published, with Mark A. Delucchi, a two-part paper (one, two) on "providing all global energy with wind, water, and solar power." In 2013 he published a feasibility studyon moving New York state entirely to renewables, and in 2014 he created a road map for California to do the same.

His team's new paper contains 50 such road maps, one for every state, with detailed modeling on how to get to a US energy system entirely powered by wind, water, and solar (WWS). That means no oil and coal. It also means no natural gas, no nuclear power, no carbon capture and sequestration, and no biofuels.

Why exclude those sources? And what does that do to costs? More on that in a minute.

The road maps show how 80 to 85 percent of existing energy could be replaced by wind, water, and solar by 2030, with 100 percent by 2050. The result is a substantial savings relative to the status quo baseline, in terms of energy costs, health costs, and climate costs alike. The resulting land footprint of energy is manageable, grid reliability is maintained, and more jobs will be created in renewables than destroyed in fossil fuels.

Here's how it looks:

(Jacobson et al., Energy & Environmental Science, 2015)

Sounds pretty great! So how should we feel about this?

Remember when I discussed scenarios that showed humanity limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius? I made a point of saying that the scenarios demonstrated technical and economic feasibility, but represented enormous, heroic assumptions about social and political change. (Which is another way of saying that purely as a matter of laying odds, they were unlikely.)

Well, the same goes here. No one can say any longer, at least not without argument, that moving the US quickly and entirely to renewables is impossible. Here is a way to do it, mapped out in some detail. But it is extremely ambitious. Let's take a look at some of what's required.

Electrify everything

The core of the plan is to electrify everything, including sectors that currently run partially or entirely on liquid fossil fuels. That means shifting transportation, heating/cooling, and industry to run on electric power.

Electrifying everything produces an enormous drop in projected demand, since the energy-to-work conversion of electric motors is much more efficient than combustion motors, which lose a ton of energy to heat. So the amount of energy necessary to meet projected demand drops by a third just from the conversion. With some additional, relatively modest efficiency measures, total demand relative to BAU drops 39.3 percent. That's a much lower target for WWS to meet.

Switching from liquid fuels to renewable electricity would also virtually eliminate air pollution, thus avoiding health costs to the tune of $600 billion a year by 2050. Meanwhile, moving everything to carbon-free electricity would avoid about $3.3 trillion a year in global climate change costs of US emissions by 2050. Estimating health and climate damages is notoriously difficult, of course, involving a number of assumptions about discount rates, the value of human lives, and second-order effects of better health. These figures are averages drawn from very wide ranges of estimates.

Still, the potential health and climate gains of a WWS-based system are one of the big stories here: they are enormous, enough that in and of themselves they "pay for" a clean-energy transition.

So how could the economy be electrified on this ambitious timeline? Brace yourself:

Heating, drying, and cooking in the residential and commercial sectors: by 2020, all new devices and machines are powered by electricity. ...

Large-scale waterborne freight transport: by 2020–2025, all new ships are electrified and/or use electrolytic hydrogen, all new port operations are electrified, and port retro- electrification is well underway. ...

Rail and bus transport: by 2025, all new trains and buses are electrified. ...

Off-road transport, small-scale marine: by 2025 to 2030, all new production is electrified. ...

Heavy-duty truck transport: by 2025 to 2030, all new vehicles are electrified or use electrolytic hydrogen. ...

Light-duty on-road transport: by 2025–2030, all new vehicles are electrified. ...

Short-haul aircraft: by 2035, all new small, short-range planes are battery- or electrolytic-hydrogen powered. ...

Long-haul aircraft: by 2040, all remaining new aircraft are electrolytic cryogenic hydrogen ... with electricity power for idling, taxiing, and internal power. ...

Like I said: ambitious.

Build lots and lots (and lots) of new power plants

Here's what the paper says:

Power plants: by 2020, no more construction of new coal, nuclear, natural gas, or biomass fired power plants; all new power plants built are WWS.

One of the big challenges here is that wind and solar power plants have a much lower"capacity factor" than plants that run on fuel. A fuel-based plant can run around the clock (with breaks for maintenance), while wind and solar plants produce energy only when the wind is blowing or sun is shining. Although a nuclear plant and a wind farm might have the same "nameplate capacity" of 1 gigawatt, you'd actually need three or four wind farms that size to produce the same number of MWh as the nuclear plant. (EIA info on US capacity factors here; nuclear is highest, producing around 90 percent of the time, while solar PV is lowest, at around 20 percent.)

The upshot of this is that to meet most energy demand with wind and solar, you have to radically overbuild electrical generation capacity. To wit: the authors estimate that total US energy demand in 2050 will average 2.6 terawatts. To produce that much energy, they propose building power plants with a total of 6.5 TW of capacity. By way of comparison, the US currently has about 1.2 TW of installed electric generation capacity, so this plan would involve expanding generation capacity fivefold in 35 years.

Here's what that would require:

... 328,000 new onshore 5 MW wind turbines (providing 30.9% of U.S. energy for all purposes), 156,200 off-shore 5 MW wind turbines (19.1%), 46,480 50 MW new utility-scale solar-PV power plants (30.7%), 2,273 100 MW utility-scale CSP power plants (7.3%), 75.2 million 5 kW residential rooftop PV systems (3.98%), 2.75 million 100 kW commercial/government rooftop systems (3.2%), 208 100 MW geothermal plants (1.23%), 36,050 0.75 MW wave devices (0.37%), 8,800 1 MW tidal turbines (0.14%), and 3 new hydroelectric power plants (all in Alaska).

That will meet average demand. Then you need 1,364 additional new CSP plants and 9,380 50 MW solar-thermal collection systems ("for heat storage in soil") "to produce peaking power, to account for additional loads due to losses in and out of storage, and to ensure reliability of the grid."

"This," the authors note, "is just one possible mix of generators." But no matter what mix you pick, if you're confining yourself to WWS, you're going to be building a huge amount of generation capacity.

Would this power be reliable?

One common criticism of renewables is that because they are variable, they are not reliable. There will be times, critics say, when there's no sun shining and no wind blowing. Then we'll all be shivering in the dark!

Jacobson and colleagues, however, say that the grid they propose will be not only reliable, but more reliable than today's grid. They've got a detailed grid modeling and reliability study coming soon that makes the case in more detail, but the short story is that reliability is assured through three measures.

First, there's some nonvariable generation involved, namely hydro, geothermal, and CSP with storage. Those sources are "always on" and can be ramped up and down to "firm" variable power.

Second, there's energy storage. Interestingly, the authors mostly eschew stationary batteries, which they dismiss as too expensive (though they include electric vehicle batteries). Instead they prioritize "storage for excess heat (in soil and water) and electricity (in ice, water, phase-change materials tied to CSP, pumped hydro, and hydrogen)."

Third, there's "demand response," which refers to shifting energy demand to times of high production and away from times of low production.

There's also a concern about frequency regulation on the grid, which is too nerdy to get deep into, but:

Frequency regulation of the grid is proposed to be provided by ramping up/down hydroelectric, stored CSP or pumped hydro; ramping down other WWS generators and storing the electricity in heat, cold, or hydrogen instead of curtailment; and using demand response.

How to get there from here

What sorts of policies could produce these enormous shifts in energy technology and practice? Helpfully, the authors list a few. And by "a few," I mean 28. Here are the recommendations just for the transportation sector:

* Promote more public transit by increasing its availability and providing compensation to commuters for not purchasing parking passes.

* Increase safe biking and walking infrastructure, such as 5 dedicated bike lanes, sidewalks, crosswalks, timed walk signals, etc.

* Adopt legislation mandating BEVs [battery-electric vehicles] for short- and medium-distance government transportation and use incentives and rebates to encourage the transition of commercial and personal vehicles to BEVS.

* Use incentives or mandates to stimulate the growth of fleets of electric and/or hydrogen fuel cell/electric hybrid buses starting with a few and gradually growing the fleets. Electric or hydrogen fuel cell ferries, riverboats, and other local shipping should be incentivized as well.

* Ease the permitting process for the installation of electric charging stations in public parking lots, hotels, suburban metro stations, on streets, and in residential and commercial garages.

* Set up time-of-use electricity rates to encourage charging at night.

* Incentivize the electrification of freight rail and shift freight from trucks to rail.

These recommendations — indeed, all 28 — would require coordinated action from Congress, federal agencies, state legislatures, and local officials. Together, they represent an unprecedented level of government activism, a skein of incentives, mandates, standards, and laws unmatched in US history.

Much of that government activism is scheduled for the next five to 10 years, while Republicans, who fervently oppose nearly every one of these goals, are expected to control the House of Representative and well over half of the 50 state legislatures.

Is that realistic?

Uh, no. No it isn't. The authors inadvertently give away the game:

We do not believe a technical or economic barrier exists to ramping up production of WWS technologies, as history suggests that rapid ramp-ups of production can occur given strong enough political will. For example during World War II, aircraft production increased from nearly zero to 330,000 over five years.

The phrase "given strong enough political will" is open-ended enough to allow virtually anything through. But what would create this political will, equal to what gripped the US in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attack? The authors don't say much about it, other than a hopeful note at the end that their quantification of the benefits of such a transition "should reduce social and political barriers to implementing the roadmaps."

Hm. Maybe a paper can help kick-start a WWII-scale mobilization. But it's probably going to take a whole lot more than that.

Is it wise?

This is, in many ways, the more interesting question. Assuming we could conjure up the political will for this kind of wholesale transformation to WWS ... would we want to?

The authors make the case that the resultant total-system costs would be lower than the business-as-usual scenario. Which is great, since BAU sucks, as most everyone agrees (except the people profiting from BAU). What they don't try to show is that the resultant system is the optimal system, i.e., the optimal balance of costs and benefits.

Insisting on 100 percent WWS — excluding nuclear, biomass, cogeneration, natural gas, etc. — almost certainly raises the total-system costs relative to a broader portfolio of low-carbon options. Just a little bit of nuclear or biomass power, for instance, would reduce the amount of power-plant overbuild necessary.

Lots of people are extremely skeptical of Jacobson's work for just this reason. They say, Why not accept a little bit of asthma, or some nuclear waste, in exchange for a cheaper system?

But I think that misses the point. Jacobson has set out to create a benchmark: this is what we could do if we aimed to create an entirely sustainable, pollution-free energy system. After all, the cost-benefit trade-offs of less sustainable systems almost always mean higher benefits for the already privileged and more costs for the already less privileged.

Jacobson's approach is more like political philosopher John Rawls's famous "veil of ignorance" approach. What kind of power system would you choose for society if you had no idea where you might be placed in that society? If you didn't know whether you'd be rich or poor, living in a gated suburb or right next to a power plant or waste dump? You'd probably design a system that is equitable and healthy for everyone.

That's our highest aspiration, and the one Jacobson's work speaks to. Whether we pursue our highest aspirations is up to us.

The sight of mobile food stands selling hot dogs, tacos and burgers on street corners is synonymous with the city but they can be an environmental burden, with many using generators powered by fossil fuels, creating noise and fumes. Queens-based MOVE Systems have designed and developed a mobile food cart that they hope will be cleaner and greener than those currently being used. 

"MOVE is built around a vision of greening the urban environment and creating a platform for small business success," James Meeks, President and CEO of MOVE Systems, told CNBC.com in an email.

The MOVE trailer has been installed with a hybrid system that uses solar, battery and natural gas power. The company states on its website that the system, "reduces generator noise by half and decreases climate change emissions by two-thirds."

The vehicles will have refrigeration, a sink as well as a fully functioning kitchen. "Our MRV100 dramatically improves air quality," Meeks said. "Each vehicle removes the pollution equivalent of nearly 200 automobiles," he added.

New York City's Department of Environmental Protection estimates that air pollution contributes to 6 percent of deaths in the city. This month, City Hall announced a pilot program that will see 500 of MOVE's carts – called MRV100s – provided to vendors across the city over the coming year. The first 500 vendors to sign up for the new, greener model, will receive it free of charge.

"New Yorkers encounter air pollution every day and in some communities like mine, there is an undeniable direct correlation to some of the highest asthma rates in the country," Councilman Donovan Richards, chair of the Environmental Conservation Committee, said in a release.

"I'm pleased that the carts being provided will reduce emissions, improve air quality and increase safety on our streets," Richards added.

The first 100 MRV100s are set to go to disabled veterans and for Meeks – who served two tours in Iraq and received both a Purple Heart and Bronze Star – the pilot program in New York is just the beginning.

"MOVE is currently in conversations with multiple cities, both nationally and internationally, to introduce our MRV100 to other markets," he said.

The program was launched in the fall, and is currently in its second session, with a third session beginning on July 6. Students participate in several classes of lab work, followed by up to 240 hours in a paid internship. Karl Kunker, who teaches the course, taught Chemistry and Physics for 25 years. He provides students with hands-on experience that teaches them not only how to install solar panels, but also about the science behind this renewable energy.

A number of students from the first session of the program are now employed by the companies that hosted their internships. “You certainly want to get your foot in the door, and you are more than likely to get hired somewhere if you have this certification,” said Kunker, noting that there is a high demand for photovoltaic installers right now, with a growing interest in moving away from fossil fuels toward more sustainable sources of energy.

Students also undergo Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) training by Mike Veeder, an instructor with Questar III’s safety team. While students are at their internships, they prepare for their field exam, which is offered through Questar III and is certified through the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners (NABCEP).

Student internships are currently hosted by Sundog Solar in Chatham, Veteran Solar Systems in West Sand Lake, and Kasselman Solar in Albany. Lessons take place at Century Solar Supply, offering students an opportunity to learn in a real industry-based environment. The course is currently made available through a grant from NYSERDA.

“The Questar solar interns integrated seamlessly into my install teams from day one,” said Steve Kasselman, president and CEO of Kasselman Solar. “They were highly motivated, eager to learn, and trustworthy which is why all four interns are now all full-time employees including benefits. They worked out so well we even paid them a performance bonus during their internship! We look forward to working with Questar again in the near future.”

The third session of the course will take place from July 6 through July 16 on Monday through Thursday from 8:30 to 2:30, with the internship portion from July 17 through August 19.

To find out if you are eligible to enroll, or for more information about the program, please contact Rebecca Collins at (518) 479-6913.

Analysis from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) says 20 GW of solar capacity were installed in the U.S. by the end of 2014, compared with 500 MW of total capacity in 2004.

According to SEIA, 97% of that capacity was added after the passage of the federal investment tax credit (ITC).

Over the same time period, the cumulative investment in installed solar installations in the U.S. soared from $2.6 billion to $71.1 billion, the report says.

The video report includes the following highlights:

• In 2004, approximately 15,500 homes had solar photovoltaic installations across the U.S. Through the end of 2014, that number had grown to 600,000;
• From 2004 to 2014, the number of utility-scale solar projects in the U.S. - both PV and concentrated solar power (CSP) - increased by more than 10-fold, growing from 100 projects to nearly 1,100 projects in 30 states;
• From 2004 to 2014, the amount of installed utility-scale solar capacity in the U.S. increased by more than 30 times - from 365 MW to 11,440 MW; and
• Over the 10-year period studied, the average price of an installed residential PV system dropped by more than 60%, and utility-scale prices dropped by more than 73%.

Rhone Resch, CEO of SEIA, says the growth of the U.S. solar sector has produced corresponding job growth. In 2004, there were fewer than 20,000 people at work in the U.S. solar industry. Through 2014, that number had risen to 174,000.

Resch credits public policies, such as the solar ITC, net-energy metering and renewable portfolio standards, as helping to drive the growth of solar energy. 

"Because of these polices, we should be generating enough clean electricity to power more than 8 million American homes by the end of 2016," Resch says.

Citing the importance of the ITC, SEIA has been pushing for legislation that would extend the incentive for residential and commercial solar installations.

In the last few weeks, state-level stakeholders around the country have been busy reforming renewable portfolio standards, proposing changes to net metering policies, and studying the potential effects of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. Also, in an unprecedented move, the Hawaii state legislature voted to make electricity generation 100 percent renewable by 2045.

More on these developments in our state dispatch below.

As action unfolds in the states, there’s also been some meaningful activity on clean energy at the federal level in recent weeks. Sen. Angus King, an Independent from Maine, introduced a bold piece of legislation last week designed to promote personal energy independence through advanced technologies. The bill would ensure that distributed energy resources are able to be connected to the grid in a reasonable timeframe for a reasonable price, and with reasonable compensation for the benefits they offer utilities. Also last week, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) introduced legislation that would boost funding for smart grid technology.

In other federal news, the Supreme Court announced that it would hear the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's Order 745 demand response case. Also in the courts, judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia Circuit appear likely to dismiss the first legal challenge to the Clean Power Plan.

And now to the states. (You can find last month’s state news roundup here.)

Hawaii

Lawmakers in Hawaii passed legislation last week (in a 74-2 vote) requiring the state to generate 100 percent of its electricity from renewable energy resources by 2045. If HB 623 is signed into law by Governor David Ige, Hawaii will become the first U.S. state to attempt complete decarbonization of the power sector.

Today, Hawaii’s energy mix is more than 80 percent fossil fuel, with oil providing the majority of electricity generation on the islands. However, renewables are growing fast. Hawaiian Electric Company, the state’s sole privately owned utility company, previously determined it would be feasible to reach 40 percent renewables by 2030. Getting to 100 percent by 2045 will be difficult, but not entirely far-fetched.

“As the first state to move toward 100 percent renewable energy, Hawaii is raising the bar for the rest of the country,” said Chris Lee, the Chairman of the House Energy and Environmental Protection Committee and introducer of HB 623, in a statement. “Local renewable projects are already cheaper than liquid natural gas and oil, and our progress toward meeting our renewable energy standards has already saved local residents hundreds of millions on their electric bills.”

Hawaiian regulators are now working to adapt electricity rates to accommodate an increasingly renewable-centric grid. At the same time, there are concerns bubbling up around NextEra’s proposed acquisition of HECO and what it would mean for renewables in the state.

New Mexico 

In December, Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) proposed applying an $18-$30 per month interconnection fee on distributed solar starting in January 2016. In recent weeks, the New Mexico state attorney general has come out against the proposal, backing the position of solar advocates like The Alliance for Solar Choice. The rate case is likely to continue through the year.

The solar sector in New Mexico also saw a loss last month when Governor Martinez vetoed Senate Bill 391, which would have extended the state’s solar tax credit through 2020. As it stands now, the tax credit will expire at the end of 2016.

With 325 megawatts of solar energy installed at the end of 2014, New Mexico currently ranks 11th in the country in installed solar capacity, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).

As PNM has been working to reform its solar tariffs, it has also been weighing what to do with the iconic San Juan coal power plant that was set to close in 2017. On May 1, PNM and mining company BHP Billiton announced they had reached an agreement with regulators to keep the coal plant open through 2022, the Santa Fe New Mexican reports.

Utah

As a largely coal-powered state with no renewable portfolio standard, Utah may be an unexpected place for a solar boom. But it’s happening nonetheless, as Breaking Energy reports.

SunEdison announced last month it has signed agreements to build three new utility-scale solar power plants in Utah, with a total capacity of 262 megawatts. SunEdison now has more than 720 megawatts DC of solar energy in development and 306 megawatts AC of wind power in operation in the state.

Washington 

The Washington state legislature is currently in a special session with a long list of energy-related bills still on the agenda. A Senate bill (SB 5735) that would give utilities alternative ways to comply with the state’s 15 percent renewable portfolio standard has been reintroduced. And a House bill (HB 2045) that would effectively eliminate net metering in the state is being held at the present status.

Washington is also considering the implementation of a carbon market with bills in both the House (HB 1314) and Senate (5283).

The Senate is considering an extension of its alternative fuel tax credit through 2025 (SB 5445) with similar legislation in the House (HB 1396). The nonprofit group Solar Washington regularly updates a list of legislation in the state that pertains to solar and other energy-related topics.

Oregon

In Oregon, Idaho Power has proposed changing the terms under which the utility enters into PPAs with qualifying resources under the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act. The proposal would set the standard contract eligibility cap for wind and solar projects to 100 kilowatts and change the contract term length from 20 to two years.

With increasing amounts of renewable energy coming on-line, Idaho Power says the changes are needed so that “customers are not exposed to unnecessary and unneeded risk.” Renewable energy advocates in the state believe the changes would add crippling costs to small projects. The Oregon Public Utility Commission is currently reviewing the proposal. The Idaho PUCapproved contract changes in February.

In the near term, SEIA expects to see significant solar market growth in Oregon and Washington. The two Northwest states combined are expected to install more than 200 megawatts of solar electric capacity by the end of the year, which is enough to power roughly 25,000 homes.

In other renewable energy news, Oregon is considering a bill (HB 2187) that would explore extending net metering to ocean renewable energy. The state’s net metering law currently allows utility customers that have installed a PV or wind system to be compensated for the electricity they send to the grid.

Montana

Montana lawmakers are delaying action on a net metering policy until amandated study has determined the cost effectiveness of the program. The state’s dominant utility, NorthWestern Energy, supports the delay.

Nevada

Nevada is bumping up against a net metering cap. According to solar advocates, the cap threatens to bring Nevada’s solar industry to a grinding halt, putting 5,900 solar jobs at risk.

NV Energy, owned by the utility conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway Energy, argues that net metering should be allowed to lapse, not only because it unfairly favors solar customers, but also because solar is not able to compete without the subsidy, which is valued at 7 cents per kilowatt-hour.

Governor Brian Sandoval is now quietly weighing his course of action after meeting with stakeholders on both sides of the issue. Nevada only holds legislative sessions every two years, so any reforms to the cap will need to pass before the end of May this year.

California

The California Public Utilities Commission proposed major reforms to the state’s residential electricity rates last month, including flattened tiers, time-of-use rates and minimum bills. The proposed changes are a mixed bag for solar. The CPUC is also engaged in an ongoing effort to reform the state’s rules on demand response.

The push for regulatory reform comes as California is seeing accelerated adoption of renewable energy and distributed energy resources. California’s three major investor-owned utilities recently topped the list of utilities that added the most new solar capacity in 2014. According to the Energy information Administration, California is the first state to generate more than 5 percent of its annual electricity generation from utility-scale solar power.

Arizona

Last month, Arizona utility APS proposed increasing grid access fees on residential solar customers "from 70 cents per kilowatt -- or approximately $5 per month -- to $3 per kilowatt, or roughly $21 per month for future residential solar customers.”

The Arizona Corporation Commission, the regulatory body overseeing APS, determined that a $21 fee would be reasonable back in 2013, but ultimately settled on the lower number amid pushback from solar supporters. According to APS, the $5 fee has done nothing to curb rooftop solar deployment. Last year, the first year the fee was put in place, was a record year for rooftop solar in APS territory -- up 10 percent from 2013.

APS believes $67 per month is a truly fair interconnection fee to charge residential solar customers and will slowly work toward that goal, Barbara Lockwood, general manager of regulatory policy and compliance at APS, recently told Greentech Media. “We know that solar can adapt as we move forward into the future,” she said.

Last week, APS reported improved first-quarter earnings due to a rate increase to cover the costs of a new coal generation, according to AZ Central.

Tucson Electric Power proposed last month to reduce net metering credits for residential solar in its territory, bringing the purchase price the utility pays for excess rooftop solar down to what it pays for electricity from large local solar arrays. Meanwhile, SolarCity has pulled 85 workers out of Arizona in response to new demand charges Salt River Project imposed on solar customers. SolarCity filed a lawsuit against the Arizona utility earlier this year.

Maine

House representatives in Maine voted overwhelmingly last week (138-1) to fix a typo that would restore $38 million in energy efficiency spending, the Bangor Daily News reports.

In March, the Maine Public Utilities Commission voted to cut funding for the Efficiency Maine Trust, an independent organization that implements efficiency upgrades across the state, from $60 million down to $22 million. The issue stems from a missing “and” in a 2013 law. Legislation passed in Maine’s Democratic-controlled House restores efficiency funding by fixing the typo. LD 1215 now goes to Maine’s Republican-controlled Senate.

New York

New York’s ambitious Reforming the Energy Vision proceeding has been delayed, Capital New York reports. Two deadlines were delayed by at least a month, according to documents filed with the PSC.

“Considering the critical importance of this initiative, extending the self-imposed deadlines for submittal of certain filings makes perfect sense,” PSC spokesperson James Denn said.

Last month, New York announced $160 million for large-scale clean energy projects to help meet the state’s renewable portfolio standard.

New Jersey

Hawaii isn’t the only state moving toward zero-carbon electricity. Legislation currently being considered in the New Jersey Senate (S 2444) would require the state to get 80 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2050. The state’s current policy is 22.5 percent renewable energy by 2022.

But while the bipartisan bill has been voted out of committee, it’s a long shot at best. Even if the bill passed the legislature, Gov. Christie would likely veto it, NJ.com reports.

Massachusetts

A new study by the Massachusetts Net Metering and Solar Task Force, a group created by the state legislature last year, determined that raising the net metering cap is key to continued growth in the state’s solar sector. The net metering caps for solar projects over 25 kilowatts in National Grid’s service territory have already been hit. The Task Force found that unless the legislature acts to raise the caps, the development of hundreds of solar projects throughout the state could come to a halt.

“With hundreds of jobs already at risk, the consequences of failing to provide near-term relief from the net metering caps are profound,” said Fred Zalcman, managing director of government affairs for the Northeast states at SunEdison and SEIA’s representative on the Task Force. “That said, SEIA also strongly supports a transition to a long-term sustainable net metering and solar incentive program and looks forward to continuing to work with the legislature and other stakeholders to responsibly manage that transition.”

Connecticut

New York clean energy firm Allco Finance Limited is suing Connecticut over its energy subsidy program for discriminating against out-of-state business, theHartford Courant reports.

Vermont

Solar advocates in Vermont want to reform the state’s net metering policy to allow for larger, grouped projects to benefit from the incentive, Utility Divereports. The current policy limits net-metered projects to 500 kilowatts.

Pennsylvania

The Pennsylvania PUC is moving to set limits on net metering in the state, thePittsburgh Post-Gazette reports. The initial proposal would have prevented distributed energy generators from producing more than 110 percent of their annual electricity demand. The PUC recently proposed increasing the cap to 200 percent. Solar advocates argue the change is unnecessary because Pennsylvania already has a 50-kilowatt cap on residential generators.

Maryland

Tesla Motors may soon have an opportunity to sell its electric vehicles directly to consumers in Maryland, following a recent legal victory on the same issue in New Jersey. The state legislature passed a bill allowing direct-to-consumer sales last month. Gov. Larry Hogan could sign the bill any day.

At the Maryland Public Service Commission, attention will be focused on the proposed $6.8 billion Exelon-Pepco merger. The utility regulator currently hasuntil May 15 to make a decision. Regulators in New Jersey and Delaware have already approved the deal. In addition to Maryland, regulators in Washington, D.C. -- where there’s strong opposition -- will also have to sign off on the merger in order for it to move forward.

Washington, D.C. 

As D.C. regulators wait to act on the Exelon-Pepco merger, utility officials in D.C. and the surrounding area are investigating the cause of a widespread outage that took place last month, RTO Insider reports. The failure, which affected about 2,000 people, stemmed from a small explosion at a substation in Maryland.

Texas

The Texas Senate passed a bill (SB 931) last month to eliminate the state’s successful renewable portfolio standard, which is now headed to the Texas state House, Law 360 reports. Members of the clean energy industry and their supporters fear the bill could force them out of the state.

In other news highlights, the Texas Senate recently passed a bill preventing local fracking bans; the state attorney general has vowed to challenge the EPA Clean Power Plan; Oncor completed work on a sophisticated microgrid with S&C and Schneider Electric; and Austin Energy has issued a request for 600 megawatts of utility-scale solar. The Environmental Defense Fund is trackingseveral other news items pertaining to energy, water and the climate in Texas.

Mississippi

Mississippi’s PSC announced last month that it’s forging ahead with a new net metering policy. Regulators are now collecting public comments on the policy, with a deadline of July 1. The plan has strong backing from many solar groups.

A recent study commissioned by the PSC found "it is in the best interest of ratepayers to proceed with the development of proposed net metering and interconnection rules.”

North Carolina

A bill (HB 760) that would lower North Carolina’s RPS target from 12.5 percent to 6 percent has passed the state House and is now making its way through the Senate. The bill also restricts the amount utilities can rate-base to support renewable energy to $12 per year, the AP reports.

While the legislature looks to ease renewable energy requirements, North Carolina is experiencing a solar energy boom. But proponents of the industry want to see more action. To facilitate market expansion, a lawmaker introduced a bill (HB 245) that would allow for third-party-owned solar, although it has been sitting in the House since March. Greenpeace is holding a campaign around Duke Energy’s shareholder meeting to stop the utility, which opposes 245, from blocking the bill.

Louisiana

Louisiana’s House Ways and Means Committee has introduced several bills that would roll back tax credits for solar projects. House Bill 510 would move up the sunset date for the state’s solar tax credit by more than two years, from December 2017 to July 1, 2015. House Bills 779 and 817 would cap the tax credit to the first $20,000 of a solar system’s cost; current law gives homeowners that choose to go solar a tax credit equal to 50 percent of the first $25,000 of the system cost.

Earlier this year, a contentious report released by the Louisiana PSC determined that the state’s current net metering policy would shift $31 million onto non-solar customers by 2020. The Green Tea Party, a pro-solar free market group, is actively working to prevent the erosion of net metering and tax credits for solar in the state.

Florida

Solar advocates from across the political spectrum are continuing their push to put the issue of third-party-owned solar on the state’s 2016 election ballot. The initiative, led by the group Floridians for Solar Choice, received the signatures it needs to seek authorization for the petition from the Supreme Court. However, the campaign still has several hurdles still to overcome, notes Jim Pierobon of the website The Energy Fix.

Kentucky

Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities recently dropped their proposal to increased fixed monthly charges on all customers by 67 percent. In a settlement reached between the utilities and clean energy advocates, customers will see an increase in some of their usage rates, Public News Service reports. These changes will give KU an additional $125 million in annual revenue, and LG&E an additional $7 million.

Also, lawmakers in Kentucky came together to approve the innovative energy efficiency financing tool known as property-assessed clean energy (PACE).

Virginia

Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe signed several bills into law last month on Earth Day that are designed to expand the clean energy industry and create jobs in the state. HB 1950 increases net metering from 500 kilowatts to 1 megawatt; HB 2237 allows utilities to recover costs for solar projects larger than 1 megawatt and establishes that projects with a capacity of 500 megawatts are in the public interest; HB 1446 expands financing options for energy efficiency projects.

Separately, a new report by the Advanced Energy Economy Institute found that implementing the EPA Clean Power Plan could create between 5,700 and 12,600 jobs (temporary and permanent) in Virginia.

Illinois

The Illinois state legislature is currently considering several controversial pieces of legislation.

There’s HB 3328, a bill backed by ComEd, which would encourage utilities to invest in renewable energy, smart grids and other grid-edge technologies. The bill would also change net metering policies and implement demand charges starting in 2018, which is a concern for solar companies.

“We have serious reservations,” said Amy Heart, senior manager of public policy at Sunrun and TASC representative. “It’s not that a conversation on demand charges doesn’t need to happen; it does, but not through legislation. Those are conversations that need to happen at the PUC and in rate cases. It’s an unprecedented change throughout the region for a utility to propose legislation without knowing the impacts.”

Then there’s HB 2607/SB 1485, a “Clean Jobs Bill” that looks to achieve a 20 percent reduction in energy use through efficiency measures, as well as increasing the RPS from 25 percent renewable energy generation by 2025 to 35 percent by 2030. The bill would create an estimated 32,000 jobs and couldsave Illinois homes nearly $100 per year.

Another piece of contentious legislation in Illinois concerns Exelon’s nuclear power plants. HB 3293/SB 1585 would create a Low Carbon Portfolio Standard (LCPS) that would allow Exelon to keep three nuclear plants operating.

Labor groups rallied in support of the nuclear facilities last week, delivering 10,000 signatures in support of the LCPS. The AFL-CIO estimates closing the station would put almost 8,000 people out of work. A state of Illinois report released in January found that closing the three nuclear plants would cost the state $1.8 billion each year in lost economic activity, up to $500 million each year in increased energy costs, and as much as $1.1 billion each year due to increases in carbon and other pollutants.

Others see the situation differently. A study by the non-profit BEST Coalition determined that the LCPS bill “designed to boost revenues for Exelon’s Illinois nuclear plants” would ultimately cost ratepayers $1.6 billion dollars.

According to Exelon, lawmakers must make a decision on HB 3293/SB 1585 this session. If the bill fails to pass, the plants need to be turned off to meet PJM requirements and cannot easily be turned back on at a later date. All three of these energy bills currently sit with the Illinois House rules committee.

Minnesota

Xcel Energy recently announced it plans to strictly limit the size of community solar projects in Minnesota, preventing developers from collocating multiple 1-megawatt projects at a single site. "Developers are proposing projects that look and act like utility-scale solar projects, and at the same time, the participant credit has been set at a value intended to facilitate the financing of much smaller community-based projects," Xcel Energy wrote in a letter to the PUC. The move would cancel more than 80 percent of proposed projects, which has sparked a backlash from solar developers.

Wisconsin

Wisconsin recently became the 14th state in a group of states suing the EPA over the Clean Power Plan. Opponents say the proposed carbon cuts are far too costly. 

Michigan

Democratic state legislators introduced a package of bills last month to reform Michigan’s energy policy, ahead of its expiration at the end of the year (HB 4055, HB 4518, HB 4519, SB 295, SB 297). The “Powering Michigan’s Future” legislation would increase Michigan’s renewable energy target to 20 percent by 2022 (doubling a 10 percent target by 2015 that was established in 2008), double the energy efficiency standard, and eliminate the renewable energy surcharge.

“[The] time to act is now to make electricity more affordable and grow our economy,” said Rep. Sam Singh (D-East Lansing) in a statement. “We have a real opportunity to grow Michigan businesses that are already manufacturing and installing products like energy-efficient appliances and windows, and components for wind turbines and solar panels.”

As the Democrats’ bills make their way through various committees, Michigan Republicans have made it clear they do not support increasing the state’s renewable energy targets and will seek to remove efficiency standards, Midwest Energy News reports. The Republican governor and leaders in the legislature are developing several alternative plans; the commonality is that they all want to move away from mandates.

Ohio

Ohio’s Energy Mandates Study Committee, established last year by SB 310, which put a two-year freeze on the state’s RPS, is engaged in an ongoing fact-finding quest to determine the future of Ohio’s alternative energy standard. Most recently, data presented to the committee shows that energy-efficiency programs are cost-effective for ratepayers, Midwest Energy News reports. Proponents of renewable energy say they’re concerned the committee is not properly considering the benefits of renewable energy or energy efficiency, and is instead focusing solely on the weaknesses.

Indiana

Nonprofit groups in Indiana are suing Indiana House Republicans for allegedly corresponding with utilities in secret over a controversial solar bill, theIndianapolis Star reports. The bill (HB 1320), which would have cut net-metering credits and added fixed charges on solar customers, appears to have died this session.

Kansas

Kansas Governor Sam Brownback unveiled a plan in early May to weaken the state’s target of 20 percent renewable energy by 2020. Under the proposed plan, the state mandate would be changed to a voluntary goal.

Environmentalists are concerned about letting utilities off the hook, as well as the alleged back-room negotiations that lead to the deal. They also oppose the 10-year limit the plan would place on property tax credits for wind projects. Members of the wind industry, however, view the plan as a reasonable compromise. Wind already provides 21 percent of the electricity used in Kansas, surpassing the current renewable energy requirement.

“This isn’t bad. This is long-term tax certainty for us,” said Jeff Clark, executive director of the Wind Coalition, told the Wichita Eagle.

Changes to Kansas’ RPS come as Texas and North Carolina are considering similar action. Taken together, this could signal a broader shift in stakeholder attitudes toward renewable energy policies.

Tesla got a lot of attention last week for its new batteries for solar-equipped homes. But there’s an even bigger business opportunity for batteries to help commercial buildings shave peak load, manage demand charges and improve the economics of rooftop solar systems, according to GTM Research.   

Tesla and sister company SolarCity are only one of a number of contenders in this space. Startups including Stem, Green Charge Networks and Coda Energyhave installed megawatts' worth of behind-the-meter batteries in commercial buildings. The market potential is big enough to draw mainstream players like electric equipment distributor Gexpro, which is bundling storage systems for installers and energy services companies to compete with the vertically integrated offerings we’ve seen so far.  

But controlling pumps, fans, HVAC systems and industrial processes to manage the ups and downs of peak demand or rooftop solar output is still a lot cheaper than batteries -- at least, if you consider the real costs involved, and not the no-money-down financing deals that behind-the-meter energy storage players are offering. That means that commercial building owners will want to tap that “virtual storage” before they start looking to batteries to flatten their demand profiles and slash their utility bills.

So says Kevin Klustner, CEO of Powerit Solutions. The Seattle-based company has hundreds of industrial and commercial sites using its Spara technology platform to shift and shape on-site energy consumption. Powerit’s main customer base is industrial sites, where it connects and controls systems ranging from cold storage facilities to steel smelters to avoid peak demand charges, take advantage of shifts in wholesale power prices, and earn revenues for demand response or other grid programs.

As Powerit’s customers start to add solar PV to their sites, that energy management equation becomes more complex, Klustner said. Solar can help reduce energy bills, but it can also fade away at the moments when overall building energy demand is rising, causing new peaks that have to be managed. And because solar power is intermittent, it increases the volatility of a facility’s demand for grid power -- and volatility is something that can really jack up utility charges for big commercial and industrial customers.

That’s led several of Powerit’s existing customers, such as big avocado and asparagus packer Mission Produce, to start installing behind-the-meter battery systems, he said -- “we’ve worked with Tesla, we’ve worked with Stem” at several sites in California, which has lucrative state incentives for on-site energy storage. Indeed, Powerit’s new Microgrid Controller platform, launched in February, is designed specifically with these new solar-and-storage-equipped customers in mind.

But the bottom line remains: “Based on our experience, it’s much better economically to plan the use of storage on site with demand management, because the cost is exponentially less per kilowatt-hour than the cost of storage,” he said.

Specifically, Powerit has seen battery project proposals at customer sites at costs between $1,600 and $500 per kilowatt, he said. That’s a reasonable range for today’s all-in costs for lithium-ion battery systems, although Tesla can be expected to push its lower boundary with its new commercial storage products.

Even so, that’s a lot more than the $125 per kilowatt it costs Powerit to identify, connect and control on-site equipment to shave peak loads during 15-minute intervals, or the $240 per kilowatt it costs to enable multi-hour demand response load reduction, he said. Plus, adding software to a building doesn’t require adding new equipment and working through unfamiliar permitting processes, as adding batteries does, he said.

This isn’t a case against batteries, he clarified. But it is a reminder that customers should take all the available demand-side capabilities into account before deciding how much battery storage to buy.

“Using demand management in conjunction with renewables and storage really brings the cost of ownership down, in a way that makes the cost of storage plus demand management much more attractive,” Klustner said.

We’ve seen other demand management companies make similar points, even as they start adding batteries to the mix of building loads they’re controlling. Companies like Enbala Networks, Tangent Energy, Blue Pillar, Innovari andDemansys are some good examples.

On the other hand, energy storage does offer some key benefits compared to demand management as “virtual storage.” One is the relative simplicity of how batteries work to inject power into buildings, compared to the complexity of altering energy use in industrial processes and commercial building systems. Another is the fact that many behind-the-meter battery companies are offering no-money-down, shared-revenue deals that can erase customers’ upfront costs.

Demand management and energy storage are “absolutely complementary,” Paul Detering, CEO of Coda Energy, said in an interview this week. At the same, companies like Powerit face the challenge of “going in and getting their solutions in and running, which requires a fair amount of upfront work, with a fixed cost to figure out what processes, what machines, you've got,” he noted.

Coda Energy’s upfront cost, by contrast, is “zero,” he said. “We are willing to own and operate the asset, and share the savings with the customer.”

Of course, any battery system that’s going to earn its keep will have to come with significant pre-installation analysis of how the building uses electricity, when its load is triggering excessive charges, and how much storage capacity is needed to manage those problems, he said. It also has to predict upcoming facility peaks and keep abreast of ever-changing utility and energy market prices an ongoing basis.

Powerit's Klustner noted that the company does offer financing for customers, "and in a number of cases, [we] finance a system for a net positive cash flow from day one." At the same time, lots of its industrial customers prefer to finance the installation as a capital project with a payback that's measured in 15 percent to 30 percent reductions in utility bills per year.

Tesla’s behind-the-meter battery partners include SolarCity, which has built its own Demand Logic software for commercial solar-storage customers, and EnerNOC, which also recently partnered with SunPower to merge solar systems with its demand response business and energy management software portfolio. Other energy storage vendors come with their own software, or use platforms from companies like Greensmith, Younicos or Geli to manage their interplay with building loads.

At the same time, building control systems will increasingly start to incorporate rooftop solar and behind-the-meter batteries, as they become an increasingly common feature of the built environment. These combined systems could be called microgrids, or virtual power plants -- or they could be called business as usual. It's all a part of the shift of the energy landscape from the central generation model toward a "grid edge" future, where what happens inside buildings is as important as what happens on the utility side of the meter.

State-based solar energy organizations and the Pace Energy and Climate Center (PECC) have formed theNortheast Solar Energy Market Coalition (NESEMC) in an effort to improve market conditions in the region.

The group claims to represent more than 500 solar product makers, suppliers, installers and other solar-related businesses in the region. Their common goal is to synchronize state-level solar permitting, inspections, net metering, interconnection, value of solar and other solar policies that are important to consumers and the industry alike.

The PECC, part of the Pace University School of Law in White Plains, N.Y., has received a $600,000 cooperative award from the U.S. Department of Energy's SunShot Initiative to support its NESEMC work. The PECC and NESEMC solar business groups will also team up with solar policy experts at the State University of New York-Albany's Atmospheric Science Research Center.

Included in the NESEMC roster of state-based solar business associations are groups from Connecticut (SolarConnecticut), Massachusetts (Solar Energy Business Association of New England), New Hampshire (New Hampshire Sustainable Energy Association), New Jersey (Mid-Atlantic Solar Energy Industry Association), New York (New York Solar Energy Industry Association), Pennsylvania (Pennsylvania Solar Energy Industry Association) and Vermont (Renewable Energy Vermont). Solar industry representatives from Maine and Rhode Island have also agree to participate.

"When solar was still a fledgling industry and limited to only a few states around the country, it was entirely appropriate for states to develop their own solar policies," says Michael Trahan, executive director of SolarConnecticut and project co-leader of the NESEMC. "But now that every state in the Northeast is pursuing solar, it is time to consider the benefits of a coordinated, regional policy effort."

Karl R. Rabago, executive director at the PECC and co-lead on the NESEMC project, says that the group will identify and address those factors that are amenable to policy and regulatory change and that will improve the market environment.

"We will focus on addressing the problems resulting from widely divergent policy and lack of effective cooperation between solar market stakeholders," Rabago says. "NESEMC will educate and inform policy and market leaders throughout the region about ways to grow an integrated, vibrant and self-sustaining solar market. We will work with policymakers, utilities, government officials and other regionally focused organizations."

Solar water heaters — also called solar domestic hot water systems — can be a cost-effective way to generate hot water for your home. They can be used in any climate, and the fuel they use — sunshine — is free.

HOW THEY WORK

Solar water heating systems include storage tanks and solar collectors. There are two types of solar water heating systems: active, which have circulating pumps and controls, and passive, which don’t.

ACTIVE SOLAR WATER HEATING SYSTEMS

There are two types of active solar water heating systems:

• Direct circulation systems
  Pumps circulate household water through the collectors and into the home. They work well in climates where it rarely freezes.
• Indirect circulation systems
  Pumps circulate a non-freezing, heat-transfer fluid through the collectors and a heat exchanger. This heats the water that then flows into the home. They are popular in climates prone to freezing temperatures.

PASSIVE SOLAR WATER HEATING SYSTEMS

Passive solar water heating systems are typically less expensive than active systems, but they’re usually not as efficient. However, passive systems can be more reliable and may last longer. There are two basic types of passive systems:

• Integral collector-storage passive systems
  These work best in areas where temperatures rarely fall below freezing. They also work well in households with significant daytime and evening hot-water needs.
• Thermosyphon systems
  Water flows through the system when warm water rises as cooler water sinks. The collector must be installed below the storage tank so that warm water will rise into the tank. These systems are reliable, but contractors must pay careful attention to the roof design because of the heavy storage tank. They are usually more expensive than integral collector-storage passive systems.

STORAGE TANKS AND SOLAR COLLECTORS

Most solar water heaters require a well-insulated storage tank. Solar storage tanks have an additional outlet and inlet connected to and from the collector. In two-tank systems, the solar water heater preheats water before it enters the conventional water heater. In one-tank systems, the back-up heater is combined with the solar storage in one tank.

Three types of solar collectors are used for residential applications:

• Flat-plate collector
  Glazed flat-plate collectors are insulated, weatherproofed boxes that contain a dark absorber plate under one or more glass or plastic (polymer) covers. Unglazed flat-plate collectors — typically used for solar pool heating — have a dark absorber plate, made of metal or polymer, without a cover or enclosure.
• Integral collector-storage systems
  Also known as ICS or batch systems, they feature one or more black tanks or tubes in an insulated, glazed box. Cold water first passes through the solar collector, which preheats the water. The water then continues on to the conventional backup water heater, providing a reliable source of hot water. They should be installed only in mild-freeze climates because the outdoor pipes could freeze in severe, cold weather.
• Evacuated-tube solar collectors
  They feature parallel rows of transparent glass tubes. Each tube contains a glass outer tube and metal absorber tube attached to a fin. The fin’s coating absorbs solar energy but inhibits radiative heat loss. These collectors are used more frequently for U.S. commercial applications.

Solar water heating systems almost always require a backup system for cloudy days and times of increased demand. Conventional storage water heaters usually provide backup and may already be part of the solar system package. A backup system may also be part of the solar collector, such as rooftop tanks with thermosyphon systems. Since an integral-collector storage system already stores hot water in addition to collecting solar heat, it may be packaged with a tankless or demand-type water heater for backup.

SELECTING A SOLAR WATER HEATER

Before you purchase and install a solar water heating system, you want to do the following:

• Estimate the cost and energy efficiency of a solar water heating system
• Evaluate your site’s solar resource
• Determine the correct system size
• Investigate local codes, covenants, and regulations.

Also understand the various components needed for solar water heating systems, including the following:

• Heat Exchangers for Solar Water Heating Systems
• Heat-Transfer Fluids for Solar Water Heating Systems

INSTALLING AND MAINTAINING THE SYSTEM

The proper installation of solar water heaters depends on many factors. These factors include solar resource, climate, local building code requirements, and safety issues; therefore, it’s best to have a qualified solar thermal systems contractor install your system.

After installation, properly maintaining your system will keep it running smoothly. Passive systems don’t require much maintenance. For active systems, discuss the maintenance requirements with your system provider, and consult the system’s owner’s manual. Plumbing and other conventional water heating components require the same maintenance as conventional systems. Glazing may need to be cleaned in dry climates where rainwater doesn’t provide a natural rinse.

Regular maintenance on simple systems can be as infrequent as every 3–5 years, preferably by a solar contractor. Systems with electrical components usually require a replacement part or two after 10 years. Learn more about solar water heating system maintenance and repair.

When screening potential contractors for installation and/or maintenance, ask the following questions:

• Does your company have experience installing and maintaining solar water heating systems?
  Choose a company that has experience installing the type of system you want and servicing the applications you select.
• How many years of experience does your company have with solar heating installation and maintenance?
  The more experience the better. Request a list of past customers who can provide references.
• Is your company licensed or certified?
  Having a valid plumber’s and/or solar contractor’s license is required in some states. Contact your city and county for more information. Confirm licensing with your state’s contractor licensing board. The licensing board can also tell you about any complaints against state-licensed contractors.

IMPROVING ENERGY EFFICIENCY

After your water heater is properly installed and maintained, try some additional energy-saving strategies to help lower your water heating bills, especially if you require a back-up system. Some energy-saving devices and systems are more cost-effective to install with the water heater.

In an industrial park on the outskirts of Pullman, Wash., 10 white storage trailers sit side by side, neatly arranged in two rows.

These are no ordinary storage units. Arranged on racks inside are the guts of a large rechargeable battery, the kind of device that can store and release utility-scale amounts of electricity.

But this is no ordinary storage battery, either. In contrast with the typical lead-acid batteries used to start car engines or the lithium-ion cells that power electric vehicles — both of which are largely solid — this battery is mostly liquid.

The chemicals that react to produce electricity are dissolved in water and circulated into and out of the heart of each cell, where the reaction occurs. For that reason, it is called a flow battery, and the one in Pullman, a demonstration project that will be tested over the next year and a half, is one of the largest in the world. It can store about 3.2 megawatts of energy and discharge a megawatt of power for three to four hours — enough to keep 500 average homes going for an afternoon.

Flow batteries are not new (and they are similar, in some ways, to fuel cells), but they have never really caught on. They were invented in France in the 19th century and studied by NASA in the 1970s as potential power sources in space or on the moon.

Now, flow batteries are being viewed as a possible way to help the electrical grid handle greater amounts of renewable energy, and they are being developed further by companies like UniEnergy Technologies, the maker of the Pullman battery, and academic and government researchers.

Because solar panels and wind turbines produce varying amounts of electricity during the day, utilities and system operators must work harder to integrate the renewable sources into the grid. Batteries are one way to do this, by storing excess electricity from solar panels during the middle of the day, for example, and releasing it in the evening.

Such batteries are being used mostly for purposes other than integrating renewables into the grid — for example, by providing short infusions of electricity to keep the grid stable. Only 60 megawatts of storage were in use in the United States last year. But storage is expected to grow rapidly as prices of batteries and related control equipment fall.

Other battery technologies — notably lithium ion, by virtue of its widespread use by Tesla Motors and other electric-car makers — have a head start in the market.

Experts say, however, that flow batteries have some advantages that make them well suited to grid storage.

“I see flow batteries as being increasingly important,” said Imre Gyuk, who manages an Energy Department program to help develop technologies for utility-scale electricity storage.

Lithium-ion and lead-acid batteries pack more power for their size, which makes them especially useful for tasks like turning over a gasoline engine or getting an electric car moving from a full stop. And watt per watt they are smaller than flow batteries, which have tanks for the liquid chemicals and equipment to pump them into the cells.

But on the grid, batteries do not need to supply a lot of power at once; instead, they need to provide energy steadily over time. And compact size is not as important.

“A smaller footprint is not as useful in a stationary battery,” Dr. Gyuk said.

Because the electricity-producing reactions take place in the liquids, increasing the size of the tanks allows flow batteries to store larger amounts of electricity. While there are practical and economic limits to their capacity, flow batteries are seen as having potential for situations where a battery system has to discharge a large amount of electricity for more than a few hours.

“If you’re talking six-hour batteries, you’re probably going to be looking at flow batteries,” said Matt Roberts, executive director of the Energy Storage Association, an industry group.

Rick Winter, chief operating officer of UniEnergy Technologies, which is based in Mukilteo, Wash., said flow batteries had other advantages as well. Compared with other batteries, which lose capacity as they go through many charge-discharge cycles and must eventually be replaced, flow batteries have much longer life — the company warrants the battery for 20 years and unlimited cycles. Flow batteries can also be completely discharged — something that is not recommended for lithium-ion and other types because it affects their longevity.

“There’s no physical mechanism for degrading the system,” Mr. Winter said. “It’s going to have the same power and energy rating no matter how many times you cycle it.”

The Pullman battery uses vanadium salts for its energy-producing reactions, a chemistry that was developed at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. (At a White House business forum four years ago, President Obama mentioned the vanadium process and commented, “That’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever said out loud.”)

The demonstration project, which cost $7 million, was paid for by the region’s utility, Avista, and a grant from a state clean energy fund. It will be used to add electricity to the grid in times of peak demand, but because it is on the campus of a large electrical engineering company — a big user of electricity — it will also be tested as a large uninterruptible power supply. It will kick in nearly instantaneously in a power failure to keep the company’s sensitive digital equipment running.

“It will be fast enough that the equipment won’t notice the outage,” Mr. Winter said.

2015 should prove to be a watershed year for the “de-carbonization” of the US power sector, with record volumes of coal-fired capacity to be shuttered, renewables capacity to be built, and natural gas to be consumed. The result: CO2 emissions from the power sector should drop to their lowest level since 1994.

Three factors will combine to make 2015 one for the record books according to new BNEF research and forecasts:

In 2015, the US will install more renewables than ever before, with 18 new gigawatts (GW) coming online. BNEF forecasts new solar installations to reach an all-time annual high of 9.1GW in 2015 – with half of that built in California. Wind build should total 8.9GW (third-most all-time) with a third of that coming in Texas.

It will be a record year for coal retirements in the US with 23GW forecast to come offline. That represents no less than 7% of all current US coal capacity. A confluence of factors is driving the change, including lower priced natural gas, new standards on mercury emissions, and the old age of many coal-fired units.

The power sector will burn more natural gas in 2015 than ever before – more even than in 2012, “the year of no winter”, when Henry Hub prices fell consistently below $3/MMBtu. Gas burn will rise to back-fill lost generation from retiring coal; but also, remarkably low gas prices have boosted burn totals by allowing efficient gas turbines to undercut the cost of coal-fired electricity.

Please click here to download the full white paper in PDF.

Tesla will announce a new product at the end of April that’s not a car, CEO Elon Musk recently announced without revealing any further details. Even so, most people are expecting the secret product to use some of the technology developed by the company for its electric vehicles. Specifically, Tesla is said to launch a battery that’s big enough to power an entire home, and one analyst has apparently found out everything there is to know about it.

As per Benzinga’s report, Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry said Tesla will announce an in-home battery that can harness solar energy, power the house, and even send energy back to the grid.

The battery has apparently been in testing in 230 houses in California, with 100 more Tesla Stationary Batteries being placed in homes out of the state.

Interestingly, one tester operated such a battery for a year and a half from his garage. According to Chowdry, a 10kWh battery could cost $13,000 with a 50% rebate from PG&E. The buyer who talked to the analyst purchased his unit for $1,500 down, followed by 120 monthly installments (10 years) of $15 each.

The battery has to be installed 1.5 feet above the ground and should have an open space of at least 1 feet around it. Once placed in the house the battery will work without any kind of maintenance, and it shouldn’t make any noise. The battery “is about 3 feet tall and 2.5 feet wide and looks good,” and Tesla might sell it in multiple versions including 10kWh and 15kWh.

The battery can be controlled via smartphone or web apps, and the battery system software is currently receiving over-the-air updates every month. The Tesla battery can be charged from solar, the grid and generators, but it can also feed back electricity to the grid, with the interviewed user saying he’s making between $10 to $12 each month from the extra energy his unit produces.

at Free TEC-SMART Event in Malta on Saturday, March 28

Girls in the fourth to eighth grades are invited to Girls in STEM, a free educational event featuring hands-on workshops designed to illustrate the fun side of science and technology. Workshop sessions will be mentored by women leaders and educators in STEM professions.

The program runs from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 28 at Hudson Valley Community College's TEC-SMART facility at 345 Hermes Road in Malta. Check-in begins at 9 a.m.

The goal of this innovative program is to expose upper elementary- and middle-school girls to the many educational and career opportunities open in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math, while also showing them STEM learning can be fun and exciting.

Participants will complete workshop projects focused on wind power, nanotechnology and other clean energies.

Girls in STEM is sponsored by Hudson Valley Community College and New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), along with partner support from Ballston Spa Central School District, GE, Women of Wind Energy (WoWE), Society of Women Engineers (SWE), Center for Economic Growth (CEG), CNSE Children's Museum of Science and Technology (CNSE CMOST), Museum of Innovation and Science (miSci), Century Solar, Girls Inc., SD Atelier Architecture, LLC and WMHT.

STEM fields are wide open to women, who in turn are creating new career paths that deviate from traditional routes, according to studies by the Atlantic Monthly Report.  Women engineers, for instance, are seeking to use their education and skills as a means to improve the world.

“As we move forward with 21^st century education, we must target girls who have an interest in science and technology and show them how they can put that into a career that is rewarding and satisfying,” said Carolyn Curtis, Vice President for Academic Affairs at Hudson Valley Community College. “We hope to start them thinking about STEM career directions while they are in the lower grades, so they can explore all the opportunities that exist for them and begin early to develop their interests.”

Regional job growth is steadily headed into occupations that require Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education, and is expected to continue this way for at least five more years, reports the New York State Department of Labor.

"New York, under Governor Cuomo’s leadership, is seeing a tremendous growth in tech-related business and innovation. A STEM education will prepare students for the rapidly growing opportunities available in New York’s clean tech economy," said Janet Joseph, Vice President for Innovation and Strategy, NYSERDA. "We are building the clean energy workforce of the future, and through these educational programs girls will have the opportunity to create a solid foundation upon which to build a STEM career."

Just days after SolarCity (NASDAQ:SCTY) and cousin company Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA) said they've teamed up to build entire tiny power grids using electric carmaker Tesla's batteries, heavyweight Samsung SDI strode in with a strategic alliance along similar lines, with global automation technology firm ABB. And both announcements followed a key grid-related acquisition by solar power company SunEdison (NYSE:SUNE).

The world's top supplier of lithium-ion batteries, Samsung SDI on Wednesday announced a strategic alliance with power and automation technology provider ABB (NYSE:ABB) to develop and market microgrid systems for energy storage solutions.

Samsung and SolarCity (with Tesla) already provide lithium-ion battery packs to homes and businesses. These can accumulate power made by, say, a rooftop solar energy system — to be used when the sun isn't out. Some are compact and wall-mountable. Samsung also markets its packs as an uninterruptible power supply for data centers.

Link up a bunch of these power packs with some sophisticated controls and you get a microgrid. Along with potential uses for businesses and housing developments, such at-the-ready power is seen as a key way utilities could smooth out the spiky timing of renewable energy fed into the regular grid by solar, wind and other systems.

Samsung, ABB Alliance

ABB has what Samsung calls a global presence and knowledge in microgrid technology, allowing Samsung better access to microgrid systems and markets, and says Samsung's expertise in the battery field will benefit ABB partly by helping it get into energy storage systems.

"The alliance with ABB provides Samsung the basis to expand our global No. 1 position into the microgrid market," Namseong Cho, CEO of Samsung SDI, said in the announcement. "Together with ABB, we will make our utmost effort to develop new products and to pioneer new markets to keep on being the world's best ESS company."

Tesla is building what is expected to be the world's largest lithium-ion battery factory, the multibillion-dollar gigafactory, in Nevada. For now, it needs batteries for its electric vehicles. To that end, it is a partner to Panasonic and is also believed to be sourcing from Samsung.

Solar power company and power plant developer SunEdison got some bullish analyst comments after the March 5 announcement that it acquired the energy storage project origination team, project pipeline and (pending agreements) four operating storage projects from Solar Grid Storage, so that it "now offers battery storage solutions to complement solar and wind projects worldwide."

Bloomberg also reported Wednesday that SunEdison is buying 1,000 batteries from Imergy Power Systems in order to build microgrids to power rural villages in India, and that it aims to develop 5,000 such systems by 2020.

SolarCity's microgrid work is "not a needle-mover" on sales yet vs. SunEdison's India project, Robert W. Baird analyst Ben Kallo told IBD. Both will get experience they'll need once microgrids pass the early stages of adoption, he said.

Utilities are interested in microgrids as the next extension of their smart-grid tech efforts, a recent Navigant Research paper said of so-called utility distribution microgrids. The UDM market will total more than $46 billion in implementation revenue from last year through 2023, it projects.

"UDMs are a networking platform that utilities can both aggregate and optimize," Navigant analyst Peter Asmus wrote. "For example, similar to advanced metering infrastructure, key microgrid components can be easily integrated into existing smart grid deployments and help send the right price signals so that customers become part of the solution with proactive responses, rather than remaining passive reactive components with little awareness of their impact on the power grid."

The UDMs are a small part of the microgrid market but are gaining traction, Asmus says. He says U.S. government programs that have arisen due to big power outages from extreme weather set a stage for regulatory reforms that could enable both customer-owned microgrids and the utility type.

The Asmus report cites "potential for significant investment opportunities for both the regulated and unregulated business units of utilities."

The Tesla Model S, a sumptuous, four-door electric sedan with a sticker price of $71,000, has a waiting list that stretches to months. Vincent Bollore can get you behind the wheel of an electric with “far superior” technology this afternoon. For just 20 cents a minute.

Bollore, the French billionaire who is the biggest shareholder of Vivendi, has created Autolib, a car-sharing service in France stocked with hatchbacks called Bluecars. The result is something of an anti-Tesla: bug-like, no-frills electrics rented by the minute, with no big upfront investment for drivers. Tesla Motors Inc., by contrast, is following in the tire tracks of the traditional auto-industry, making vehicles and selling them to individuals.

Aside from bottom-up approach to emission-free transport, the technology that powers the cars through Paris traffic is different. Bollore insists his batteries are more durable and safer -- and that they represent the best path to profit.

“The key element in an electric vehicle isn’t the vehicle, it’s the electrical systems,” said Bollore, 62, who turned his family’s 193-year-old paper-making operation into an $11 billion conglomerate called Groupe Bollore, with stakes in dozens of businesses ranging from shipping to palm oil. “We think that our technology is far superior” to Tesla’s.

After spending three years and 3 billion euros ($3.2 billion) developing the cars and batteries used in Paris (as well as Lyon and Bordeaux), Bollore is preparing to take the idea global. First stop: Indianapolis in June, then London later this year. He says he has also applied for a permit in Singapore and is eyeing Los Angeles.

Weekend Jaunts

Autolib, modeled after the French capital’s Velib bike-sharing program, is the best way to overcome consumer resistance to electrics, Bollore says. City-dwellers can use the cars for shopping, hauling kids, or weekend jaunts to the countryside without worrying about where to plug in at night. The Bluecar is a long way from the sleek luxury of a Model S. Those made for Autolib are a single color -- metallic gray -- and adorned with ads for the service in red and blue letters.

Autolib has about 3,000 Bluecars and 900 stations in and around Paris, with 500 more cars and 200 stations expected this year. Roughly 70,000 people have paid 120 euros for a year’s access to the cars, which then cost them 18 euro cents per minute to drive. Bollore says the Parisian operation can break even with about 10,000 more subscribers. Occasional users can also pay 9 euros per half-hour for one-off rides.

The cars were designed and built by Pininfarina SpA, the Italian auto designer and contract manufacturer. In June, France’s Renault SA will start making them in the English Channel port city of Dieppe. Bollore has sold about 450 of the $20,000 cars to consumers and companies. Last year, Bluecar introduced a convertible called Bluesummer and a commercial variant with a cargo area instead of rear seats.

Bollore says he chose Indianapolis for Bluecar’s first foray into the U.S. because of the city’s strong automotive culture -- think Indy 500 -- and the Midwest’s extremes of winter cold and summer heat, which will test the vehicles’ durability. By year-end, he expects to have 500 Blueindy cars and 200 charging stations across the sprawling city.

“Indianapolis shouldn’t be more complicated than Paris,” Bollore said at his grandparents’ manor house in suburban Paris, which serves as the headquarters of Blue Solutions SA, the company that oversees the effort.

Blue Solutions, which went public in 2013, developed its batteries using a technology called lithium metal polymer. Unlike Tesla’s lithium-ion batteries, they don’t need liquid electrolytes to store electricity, which makes them lighter -- important in electric cars, where the battery can account for more than a quarter of the weight.

Nevada Factory

Bollore says his batteries remain stable at temperatures as high as 170 degrees Celsius, while lithium-ion has a greater fire risk. And he says his batteries can be recharged 3,000 times, at least triple the life of lithium-ion. Tesla declined to comment.

To date, no car company has adopted Bollore’s technology. And the number of times car batteries can be recharged is of little importance because they’re not hard to replace and prices are likely to fall, said Andrew Lee, an auto consultant at Frost& Sullivan Inc.

“The number of cycles isn’t that relevant for automotive applications,” Lee said.

A factory Tesla is building in the Nevada desert is poised to change the math in its favor. The company says the $5 billion facility will open next year and produce a half-million batteries annually by 2020. Blue Solutions expects to make about 5,000 batteries a year by 2017.

Tesla predicts its plant will help cut the price of lithium-ion batteries by at least 30 percent. Lee says the figure is closer to two thirds, a huge advantage, since batteries represent about half of the cost of electrics.

Bollore is the first to admit there’s no assurance he’ll be successful. With automakers and tech companies worldwide working on electrics, he faces intense competition on all fronts. Yet he says that given the extent of his other holdings -- Bollore is worth $6.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index -- it’s a bet he’s willing to make.

“If this thing works, we’ll be very rich,” Bollore said. “If it doesn’t, we’ll still be very rich, and we’ll stop spending 300 million euros per year.”

Blue Solutions posted a net loss of 4.9 million euros in the first half of 2014 on revenue of 46 million euros, and its shares have fallen 30 percent since July. The company will issue financial results on March 19.

“Nobody understands the value of this business,” Bollore said. “Electricity storage is a market that can be measured in hundreds of billions of dollars.” 

Tesla Motor Inc said on Friday that construction of its giant $5 billion battery plant in Nevada remains on schedule despite a newspaper report saying the electric carmaker's project was delayed.

The Reno Gazette-Journal earlier on Friday reported a project delay at the site, citing two union job postings.

"The project is progressing and the gigafactory is on schedule," Tesla spokeswoman Alexis Georgeson told Reuters. She added that Tesla is acting as project manager for the gigafactory and works with a number of companies and unions.

A national job board for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers updated its listing for "Project Tiger" - the initial code name for the factory - to indicate a change in demand for electricians, according to the Reno Gazette-Journal.

"The Tiger project has been cut back by 80 percent at this time," the newspaper quoted the IBEW post as saying. "This is all subject to change."

A local branch of the union in Reno, Nevada, also posted a message about the plant on its job referral page, the paper said. "The major project in the area has been delayed at this time. Further updates will be posted as soon as we know more," the paper quoted a post by the IBEW Local 401 site as saying.

Tesla told the Reno Gazette-Journal the project was on track and disputed reports of delays.

Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk said last month the company remains "on plan" to begin battery production in 2016 at the plant outside Reno.

A spokesman for the local IBEW union declined to comment to the Reno Gazette-Journal. An officer with the Building & Construction Trades Council of Northern Nevada told the paper there had been a reduction in hours but declined further comment.

The paper said the common reason for the delay was a change in design plans for the plant. An unidentified source told the paper the situation is more of a short-term delay.

Barclays analyst Brian Johnson said in a research note on Monday, citing company regulatory filings, that most of Tesla's capital spending so far has been focused on the Model S sedan and the Model X SUV under development and little has been spent on the battery plant.

Caitlin Rouse of SUNY Polytechnic Institute, Clare Gaffey of Century Solar Supply and Peg Zokowski, founder of SmartKids NY at Poestenkill Elementary Wednesday, March 4th 2015.

The role that sustainable energy will play in the United States will get much larger, and developments in the sector during 2014 are setting the table for that new role.

That is the overall theme of a new report, Sustainable Energy in America, the 2015 Factbook on sustainable energy development produced by Bloomberg New Energy Finance and sponsored by the Business Council for Sustainable Energy.

The report especially noted four developments:

• New policies, the most important of which were the Obama administration’s new rules on power sector regulation and the bilateral climate agreement between the U.S. and China.
• Energy-intensive industries have “gravitated to the U.S.”
• Major new infrastructure projects have progressed to accommodate the influx of new businesses.
• Capital flows to financial vehicles like yieldcos and green bonds have paved the way “toward raising [the] huge sums of capital needed for the sustainable energy future to come to fruition.”

According to the report, the U.S. power sector is “de-carbonizing” as natural gas replaces coal, with production and consumption of natural gas at record levels in 2014.

The U.S. economy is becoming more energy productive, using less energy to generate more growth. Measured on the basis of gross domestic product (GDP) per unit of energy consumed, U.S. energy-productivity has increased 54% since 1990, by 11% since 2007 and by 1.4% year-over-year from 2013 to 2014. The most telling example is the lack of growth in electricity demand, which grew at an annual rate of 6% from 1950 to 1990, falling to an annual growth rate of just 1.9% between 1990 and 2007. In the years since 2007, demand for electricity has posted no growth — none, zero.

Since 2007 a total of $386 billion has been invested in the U.S. clean energy sector. Bloomberg notes that the key drivers here were the brief window of renewed support for wind projects, the acceleration of the rooftop solar business and the emergence of publicly traded companies that own and operate renewable energy assets, aka yieldcos.

The report notes that gasoline consumption is down 8.6% since 2005, largely as result of federally mandated fuel-efficiency standards, increasing consumer demand for more fuel-efficient vehicles, fewer vehicles on the road and fewer miles driven and increased blending of biofuels.

From a sustainable energy viewpoint, not all the news was positive, however. Coal consumption for power generation, for example, rose from 37% of all U.S. electricity generation in 2012 to 39% in both 2013 and 2014. Natural gas prices rose in the past two years, making coal more cost competitive, but the report notes that the structural change of retiring coal plants “will probably lead to long-term increased market share for natural gas.”

The rise in coal consumption over the past two years has increased U.S. carbon emissions, but the silver lining is that tougher rules on power plants and rising fuel-economy standards on light vehicles are projected to push emissions down.

Another headwind is the slowing adoption — and in some cases rollbacks — among the states on energy efficiency legislation and standards has allowed emissions rates to tick higher.

The 2015 Factbook, like its two predecessors, contains approximately a zillion data points on the sustainable energy landscape in 144 PowerPoint slides. Happy hunting

From 2009 through 2014, U.S. solar PV installations grew at a compound annual growth rate of over 60 percent. This resulted in a 2014 market that was 12 times larger than it had been five years earlier, and 108 times larger than a decade prior.

This year will be an exciting one for the U.S. solar market, and GTM Research is already discovering new insights. But before we get too far into the year, here is one final set of 2015 predictions.

In order to stay true to my inner analyst, I’ve tried to construct predictions that are both objectively measurable and not blindingly obvious. No room for me to weasel my way into half-credit here. As a result, I could easily go zero for seven. Here we go anyway.

1) At least three utilities will propose new programs that include utility ownership of rooftop solar in their regulated territories.

There are many facets to the increasingly complex relationship between utilities and rooftop solar, but direct utility ownership has historically been rare.

California utilities had a program to own commercial/industrial assets beginning in 2009, which was ultimately scaled back because the utilities’ costs exceeded those of third-party solar installations. In Arizona, APS and TEP caused a stir in 2014 with proposals to own residential solar. And a handful of other utilities have signaled their interest in rooftop solar ownership.

Without placing any judgment on the merit of these ideas, I do believe many utilities are considering proposals of their own, and I predict at least three of them will be announced this year. Whether they are ultimately implemented is another question entirely.

2) There will be at least two more acquisitions of distributed solar companies by utility affiliates (unregulated subs or competitive retailers).

Over the last three years, there has been a slow progression of unregulated affiliates of utilities purchasing distributed solar developers. NRG (I know, I know; arguably not a utility) bought Solar Power Partners and Roof Diagnostics; NextEra bought Smart Energy Capital; Edison International bought SoCore Energy; and just last month Duke Energy purchased a majority stake in REC Solar.

Note that all of these acquisitions (save NRG/Roof Diagnostics) were in the commercial space, where investment activity in residential solar has come more from competitive electricity retailers (e.g., Direct Energy/Astrum Solar) or minority investments (e.g., Clean Power Finance’s big utility equity round).

I don’t think this trend has run its course. There are still a number of both residential and commercial solar developers that would benefit from a parent with a bigger balance sheet and a lower cost of capital, and dozens of unregulated utility affiliates without any major investment to date in the burgeoning distributed solar market. I predict two more acquisitions this year, one of which will be the first full acquisition of a residential solar company by a true U.S. utility affiliate.

3) Loans for residential solar will gain incremental market share, but third-party ownership will remain >60 percent of the residential market.

Last year brought many residential solar loan announcements. Big funds were raised by Sungage Financial and Mosaic, banks such as EnerBank and Admirals Bank scaled up, and SolarCity made a huge splash with its MyPower loan product.

This year, we will see these products start to gain real traction and reverse the trend toward third-party ownership that had been in place since 2009. But some clear-eyed realism is warranted here, too. Most residential solar installations (in fact, over 60 percent) will still be third-party owned in 2015, down from around 70 percent in 2014. Despite their arguably preferable customer economic profile, loans do still have some barriers to overcome -- particularly with regard to complexity and comprehensibility. We’re believers that it will happen, but it will take time.

4) Annual solar installations will grow in 75 percent of states this year.

We track the solar market in 32 individual states each quarter as part of our U.S. Solar Market Insight research program. Looking out across all these markets, we see reason to expect annual growth in nearly all of them.

Growth could be incremental in some states (Arizona, Massachusetts), and in others substantial (Georgia, Utah). But we expect an overall downturn in only five states, with a few others right on the cusp. We predict that solar installations will grow in three-quarters of all states we track in 2015. Among the contenders for an annual downturn: Indiana, Missouri, Tennessee and Vermont.

5) A solar company will acquire a U.S.-based energy storage company.

Energy storage is the next big thing for solar companies. Despite a very nascent market (details to be announced on Thursday), energy storage has captured the attention of nearly every major solar company in the U.S. And many companies have already made an investment in the space.

But there is a growing crop of small, venture-funded energy storage companies that will look increasingly attractive to larger solar companies, whether for their hardware, their software or their development skills. I wouldn’t be surprised to see one of the large, vertically integrated solar companies (SunPower, SunEdison, First Solar or SolarCity) make an aggressive move into the energy storage market through an acquisition. My money’s on SunPower.

6) Solar will account for over 40 percent of new electricity generating capacity in the U.S.

Solar made up over 30 percent of new generating capacity in 2014, up from just 10 percent in 2012. According to the EIA, there are 9.6 gigawatts AC of non-solar projects with regulatory approvals slated for 2015 completion. Based on our forecast for the solar market this year (see the forthcoming U.S. Solar Market Insight report), we predict that solar will make up over 40 percent of new generating capacity -- a new record.

7) More than 250,000 solar projects will be completed this year.

Installers completed nearly 200,000 solar projects in 2014, up from 145,000 the year before. This year, thanks largely to continued rapid growth in the residential market, we expect to see over a quarter-million solar projects connected to the grid.

This will bring the cumulative total number of installations within striking distance of 1 million, and if the market exceeds our expectations, it could foreseeably surpass that mark late this year. If not, the U.S. solar industry will truly have something big to celebrate in early 2016

Earlier this week, during a disappointing Tesla earnings call, Elon Musk mentioned in passing that he’d be producing a stationary battery for powering the home in the next few months. It sounded like a throwaway side project from someone who’s never seen a side project he doesn’t like. But it’s a very smart move, and one that’s more central to Musk’s ambitions than it might seem.

To understand why, it helps to look not at Tesla, but at SolarCity, a company chaired by Musk and run by his cousin Lyndon Rive. SolarCity installs panels on people’s roofs, leases them for less than they’d be paying in energy bills, and sells surplus energy back to the local utility. It’s proven a tremendously successful model. Founded in 2006, the company now has 168,000 customers and controls 39 percent of the rapidly expanding residential solar market.

When you have a lot of solar, you need a lot of batteries

Fueled by financing systems like SolarCity’s, government subsidies, and a rapid drop in the price of photovoltaics, solar has been growing fast. But with that growth, some of solar’s downsides are coming to the fore. Obviously, the sun isn’t always shining when you need power, and sometimes the sun is shining when you don’t need power. The former is a problem for the user, who needs to draw on the grid when it’s cloudy or dark; the latter is a problem for the grid, which needs to find a place for that excess energy to go. When there’s a lot of solar in the system, it can get hard to keep the grid balanced.

That’s part of the reason that California, with one of the most aggressive renewable energy mandates in the country, recently declared the most aggressive energy storage mandate as well, with a goal of 1.3 gigawatts of storage by 2020. As other states adopt intermittent renewables like solar and wind, they’ll need to install energy storage too, providing a ready and waiting market for Tesla’s batteries.

Forecast storage market from GTM Research.

This has been part of the plan for the Gigafactory all along. At an event in New York last fall announcing plans for SolarCity to build a gigantic PV-panel factory, Musk and Rive mentioned that every SolarCity unit would come with battery storage within five to ten years, and that the systems would supply power at a lower cost than natural gas. Those batteries will come from the gigafactory, currently being built in Nevada. Once the factory comes online, the strong demand for energy storage will allow it to immediately ramp up production and achieve economies of scale. Tesla CTO JB Straubel (who has said that he "might love batteries more than cars") says that the market for stationary batteries "can scale faster than automotive" and that a full 30 percent of the gigafactory will be dedicated to them.

Indeed, SolarCity has already begun installing Tesla batteries, mostly on commercial buildings like Walmart stores, which have to pay higher rates when they use lots of power during peak hours. Tesla’s batteries let them store up solar power when they don’t need it, then use it when rates are high, shaving 20-30 percent off their energy bills, according to Ravi Manghani, an analyst at GTM Research.

SolarCity is also running a pilot project with 500 homes in California, according to the company’s director of public affairs, Will Craven. The project uses Tesla’s 10-kilowatt-hour battery packs and can power homes for about two days in the event of an outage, Craven says.

The prospect of cheap solar panels combined with powerful batteries has been a source of significant anxiety in the utility sector. In 2013, the Edison Electric Institute, the trade group for investor-owned electric companies, issued a report warning that disruption was coming. "One can imagine a day when battery storage technology or micro turbines could allow customers to be electric grid independent," the report said, likening the speed of the coming transition to the one from landlines to cellphones 10 years ago. Suddenly regulated monopolies are finding themselves in competition with their own customers.

Utilities have been anxious about this for years

They haven’t had to deal with this on the residential side yet, primarily because people can sell excess power back to the utilities at fairly high rates — a practice called net metering. But that’s hurting utilities, too, and some have tried to lower the price at which they buy back power, which has been met by furious protests from people leasing panels. If utilities lower the buyback rate too much, however, and batteries get cheap enough, people may just unplug from the grid altogether — or more likely, install systems that let them rely on it only rarely — prompting what those in the industry call "the utility death spiral." It’s quite a bind: by fighting net metering, utilities would help make battery storage more economically viable, driving the transition to a distributed grid.

Manghani believes utilities aren’t doomed, but they may undergo a radical transformation, becoming something closer to service providers and minders of an increasingly distributed grid rather than the centralized power producers they are today. Such a system would require lots of batteries to help balance the load and supply extra power during peak times, which is why GTM estimates the market will grow from $48 million today to about $1 billion in 2018.

This is the position SolarCity is taking as well. Last April, Peter Rive, SolarCity’s CTO, wrote that the company had no interest in prompting mass defections from the grid. "When batteries are optimized across the grid, they can direct clean solar electricity where (and when) it is needed most, lowering costs for utilities and for all ratepayers," he wrote. Utilities are in the best position to direct that electricity, he said, inviting utility operators to contact him. Will Craven, Solar City’s director of public affairs, calls it "infrastructure as a service."

Utilities aren’t doomed, but they may undergo a radical transformation

It would be a tricky transition, but some utilities may be open to it. During an earnings call last year, Straubel, Tesla’s CTO, said they were working with utilities. "The long-term demand for stationary energy storage is extraordinary," he said. "We’ve done a huge amount of effort there and have talked to major utilities and energy service companies."

Another potential bright spot for utilities is Tesla itself. If electric vehicles take off, demand for power will go up, helping compensate for people whose homes are relying less on the grid.

"They’re part of the electricity network."

All this is very good news for Musk, who starts to look less like a carmaker and more like the architect of a vertically integrated energy company, with SolarCity making solar panels that send power to Tesla batteries, both in the home and on the road.

"They’re not just carmakers," Manghani says. "They’re part of the electricity network. At least folks in the energy industry are very well aware of Tesla as a battery maker."

Tesla is on track to open its new battery factory in 2016, according to several statements from the company.

Construction on the Gigafactory, located outside of Reno, Nev., began last fall. Originally, Tesla had anticipated it would be ready in 2017 or 2018.

The first progress update came last week, accompanying Tesla’s 2014 earnings statement.

“Significant steel fabrication of the structure started about two months ago,” said Tesla in a letter to shareholders. “We remain on plan to begin equipment installation later this year and for the start of battery pack production in 2016, in partnership with Panasonic.”

The Gigafactory’s fast-tracked construction status was confirmed by Tesla Director of Battery Operations Kurt Kelly, during a trip to Osaka, Japan this week.

“The plant’s launch will be accelerated to bring down production costs through economies of scale,” the Nikkei Asian Review quoted Kelly as saying.

Production will begin at a metered pace once the factory is open, with plans to ramp up over the next few years. By 2020, Tesla has announced that the Gigafactory will be capable of building batteries for 500,000 vehicles per year.

Some have speculated that by turning out half a million batteries every year, Tesla is staging itself to provide battery stacks for other electric vehicles, such as the Chevrolet Bolt. To date, officials from Tesla, General Motors and other automakers haven’t confirmed this and it’s believed by others GM has lined up another supply line.

Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO, also talked briefly last week about a new residential product Tesla will soon offer.

“We’re going to unveil the Tesla home battery [indiscernible] consumer battery that will be for use in and [sic] people’s houses or businesses, fairly soon,” said Musk in a financial earnings webcast last week. “We have the design done and it should start going into production probably about six months or so.”

Musk hasn’t elaborated further, though it’s probable that the Gigafactory will also takepart in manufacturing these residential batteries.

The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) has announced the end of the Commonwealth Solar II program, which will have provided $36 million in rebates for more than 13,000 solar electric systems valued at $407 million since 2010.

Created to stimulate adoption of small-scale solar systems, the rebate program was funded by MassCEC and the Department of Energy Resources (DOER). MassCEC says small scale solar systems have stimulated expansion of the commonwealth's solar sector, creating more than 12,000 high-quality jobs.

Under the life of the Commonwealth Solar II program, installation prices for small-scale solar systems have dropped dramatically, falling nearly 30% since the program’s inception. Corresponding to these falling prices, MassCEC has scaled back rebate levels over time, from an average of 20% of project costs in the program’s first funding block to an average of 5% of project costs in the program’s last funding block.

"This program was launched to help drive down the price of small solar electric systems in Massachusetts, and with prices dropping significantly over the past several years, the time is right to phase out this successful program," says Alicia Barton, CEO of MassCEC. "This program has met its ambitious goals of increasing the adoption of solar electricity and creating high-quality local jobs."

MassCEC is partnering with DOER to launch Mass Solar Loan, a new $30 million program to connect homeowners who seek to install solar electric systems with low-interest loans to help finance the projects.

As soon as next month, a single-seat, solar-powered plane with a wingspan longer than that of a Boeing 747 will take off on a five-month journey around the planet. This morning, the team behind Solar Impulse 2, the 5,000-pound plane powered by nothing but sunshine, announced the route pilots Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg will follow, starting and ending in Abu Dhabi.

The solar panels that cover the wings and fuselage of Solar Impulse 2 charge up four extra-efficient batteries, which make up a quarter of the plane’s weight. Those power its 17.4-horsepower motors, enough to move the plane at 20 to 90 mph (hey, this isn’t exactly the Concorde). The plane and its predecessor, Solar Impulse 1, have already completed flights across the United States and overnight. But this journey will send it across oceans for the first time.

The key to staying aloft for up to five days at a time—necessary when flying across the Pacific at the speed of a professional cyclist—is charging up the batteries during the day time and cruising at up to 28,000 feet. When the sun sets, the plane descends to about 5,000 feet, converting altitude into distance. Also key: the cockpit seat reclines so the pilot can sleep, and doubles as a toilet. All told, Piccard and Borschberg will cover 22,000 miles and spend about 500 hours in the air, the equivalent of three weeks. The 60-person support team will be monitoring weather systems to change the route as necessary.

In late February or early March, they will take off from Abu Dhabi and head east, stopping first in Muscat, Oman, then in Ahmedabad and Varanasi, India. After stops in Mandalay, Myanmar, and Chongquing and Nanjing in China, the plane will cross the Pacific, landing in Hawaii en route to Phoenix. Next up is a stop somewhere in the Midwest (TBD based on weather conditions), then a touchdown at New York’s JFK airport. From there, Solar Impulse 2 will cross the Atlantic, landing in either Southern Europe or North Africa, and then head back to Abu Dhabi.

The point of the flight isn’t to produce commercially viable solar-powered planes. Battery-powered aircraft are in their infancy, even those that can charged up with a cord and an outlet. It’s all about proving what’s possible. “When the Apollo astronauts went to the moon, it wasn’t to launch tourism on the moon and open hotels and make money,” Piccard says. “It was to inspire the world.”

The U.S. solar industry continues to expand, with its workforce growing by 22 percent in the past year, according to a report the Solar Foundation released Thursday. Since 2010 solar employment has almost doubled from 93,000 jobs to 173,807.

“It’s just really indicative of a very strong, increasingly mature, increasingly specialized and consolidated and global industry,” said Andrea Luecke, executive director of the Solar Foundation.

Almost 90 percent of the new solar jobs in 2014 came in the installation sector. Americans are turning to solar power for environmental as well as economic reasons. The costs of solar panels have fallen dramatically, and third-party financing and leases have made switching to solar power even more appealing.

“That has made it a no-brainer for a lot of people to go solar,” Luecke said. “If you can get solar installed on your roof for zero down and pay less than what you’re currently paying your utility and not have to worry about maintenance, it’s a pretty easy sell.”

The report did caution that solar employment may slow or shrink in 2017, as a 30 percent federal tax credit is scheduled to expire at the end of 2016.

The Solar Foundation is a non-profit dedicated to increasing understanding of solar energy. It received 12 percent of the funding for the report from the solar industry. The study was based on data gathered from 66,986 phone calls and 25,655 emails to solar companies around the United States. It defined a solar employee as a worker spending the majority of his time on solar-related work.

Hawaii is a perfect test bed for the proposition that solar and wind power, backed by a significant amount of energy storage, can become the primary source of electricity for an entire island grid -- or at least a luxury resort or two.

Take this week’s announcement of what could be the biggest battery ever ordered up by a private citizen -- a 1 megawatt-hour system from startup Aquion, backing up the residence and working farm of Medtronic founder Earl Bakken. The off-grid property will replace two propane generators with 176 kilowatts of solar, and enough battery capacity to keep the Kona coast property running for up to three days of cloudy skies.

It’s the biggest order yet for Aquion, which has brought in more than $150 million in equity, debt and grant financing to fund development and production of its sodium-ion battery systems. The Pittsburgh-based startup claims its batteries can achieve a round-trip energy efficiency of 85 percent, last for more than a decade, and come in at an eventual price point of less than $300 per kilowatt-hour -- an aggressive target, although that’s just for the batteries, not for the inverters and other balance-of-systems costs.

A megawatt of batteries for 176 kilowatts of solar is still an expensive way to stay off-grid in comfort, however, no matter how cheap the batteries. “This really shows if you want to have grid-quality power at your house, this is the kind of system that allows you to do it,” Ted Wiley, vice president of product and corporate strategy for Aquion, said in an interview this week. The partners, including local developer Renewable Energy Systems (RES), didn’t disclose financial details on the project, but it’s likely out of reach for most grid-connected customers.  

Still, with retail electricity rates in Hawaii running from 45 cents for average users to as high as $1 per kilowatt-hour for power-hungry commercial and industrial customers, the state is one of the few energy markets where battery-backed solar as an alternative to the grid is starting to make sense, he said.

“There are instances where the sun is good enough, and the batteries are getting to the right price point,” he said. Aquion is working with local distributors or dealers in every utility jurisdiction in Hawaii right now, looking for smaller-scale battery-solar opportunities, he said.

Hawaii’s growing market for grid batteries is being driven by the high price of electricity, largely generated by imported oil, and by the growing disruptions of wind and solar power. Multi-megawatt batteries on Oahu and Maui are backing up wind farms and helping to balance grid power at key distribution substations. Hawaiian Electric is soon to announce up to 200 megawatts of energy storage projects to help integrate wind and solar on Oahu, and it’s also deploying 1 megawatt of distributed batteries with startup Stem.

The Rocky Mountain Institute identified Hawaii as the first U.S. market to face “grid defection” by customers able to pay less for their own solar-generated, battery-banked power than what the utility is charging. The tricky thing about this concept is that it doesn’t make sense for a grid-connected customer to buy the hours of battery storage they’d need to live off-grid.

As RMI noted, it’s better for each battery to be sized and located just right, to help the utility and customers alike. The lithium-ion batteries from solar providers like Sunrun and SolarCity are designed to provide a few hours of backup, not 24/7 operations, and Stem’s batteries pay their way by shaving peaks in power usage, not keeping a building running all day.

Hawaii has a few more microgrids in the works. Larry Ellison has hired University of California, San Diego microgrid expert Byron Washom to remake his resort on the island of Lanai as a solar-powered paradise that desalinates its own water. On the Big Island, the Parker Ranch, a working cattle ranch, is collaborating with the town of Waimea on a plan to tap geothermal, solar and wind resources to power their own grid.

In a larger sense, each of Hawaii’s islands is its own microgrid, whether it’s a virtually private one, or one shared by millions of Honolulu residents. The Hawaii Public Utilities Commission has demanded that Hawaiian Electric, the state's biggest investor-owned utility, improve its approach to solar PV integration, develop a demand response plan, and improve grid reliability on Oahu and other islands are taking on similar challenges. It will be interesting to see how NextEra Energy, the big solar and wind developer that’s buying HECO holding company Hawaiian Electric Industries for $4.3 billion, will take on these challenges -- and how Hawaii's increasing number of semi-energy-independent customers will play a role.

• What are the environmental benefits of solar power?
• How much land does solar energy use?
• What does cloudy weather mean for solar potential?
• What is the cost of solar energy?
• How is the U.S. solar industry faring?
• Can the U.S. compete with Chinese solar companies?
• Are solar subsidies a good investment?

Explore real evidence backing the answers to these questions. For the full article click here.

The Department of Commerce slapped high tariffs on solar products from China and Taiwan yesterday in a decision intended to address dumping and unfair subsidization of imports to the United States. The final ruling marks another victory for petitioner SolarWorld Americas in a lengthy solar trade battle.

Imports of certain crystalline silicon photovoltaic products from China were issued duties averaging 52 percent. China’s Trina Solar, the world's largest PV module maker, and ReneSola/Jinko received final anti-dumping duties of 26.71 percent and 78.42 percent, respectively.

Commerce also announced anti-subsidy rates on solar products from China ranging from 27.64 percent to 49.79 percent, for an average of 38 percent.

The determination marks a tariff increase from a separate SolarWorld case that concluded in December 2012, with duties on solar cells from China averaging 31 percent.

SolarWorld filed a second anti-dumping and countervailing duty petition in December 2013 to prevent Chinese solar panel producers from sidestepping the 2012 duties by using cells manufactured in Taiwan. U.S. officials agreed to launch new investigations earlier this year.

In the Taiwan investigation, Commerce issued Gintech Energy Corporation and Motech Industries Inc. final dumping margins of 27.55 percent and 11.45 percent, respectively. All other companies in Taiwan received a final dumping margin of 19.50 percent.

The Commerce Department made a preliminary ruling to impose tariffs on solar products from China and Taiwan in July. Yesterday’s announcement increases tariffs on Chinese products by roughly 10 percent and decreases tariffs on Taiwanese products by 5 percent, compared to the preliminary decision.

SolarWorld and its allies in the Coalition for American Solar Manufacturing (CASM) heralded the Commerce Department’s decision.

“These remedies come just in time to enable the domestic industry to return to conditions of fair trade,” said Mukesh Dulani, U.S. president of SolarWorld, in a statement. “The tariffs and scope set the stage for companies to create new jobs and build or expand factories on U.S. soil.”

The Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy (CASE), an industry group representing mostly downstream U.S. players, responded that the new anti-dumping tariffs will inhibit competition and increase solar panel prices, making it harder for solar technology to compete against fossil fuels.

With Commerce’s decision to further tax solar panels from China, “the U.S. government is actually creating a module shortage that will make it hard for the U.S. solar industry to reach it’s 2015 and 2016 goals,” said Jigar Shah, cleantech entrepreneur and CASE president.

The decision now goes before the International Trade Commission. If the commissioners find that the U.S. industry has been harmed by Chinese and Taiwanese imports, the tariffs will become permanent on February 1. If not, the tariffs will be thrown out. The ITC is expected to make its final decision on January 20.

Are the tariffs working to bring back U.S. manufacturing?

CASE urged the U.S. and China to attempt to reach a negotiated settlement. However, yesterday’s Commerce ruling makes that option increasingly unlikely.

Arguably, the rift between different segments of the U.S. solar industry has grown in recent months, rather than mended. Despite winning preliminary duties in July, SolarWorld President Mukesh Dulani penned a scathing letter to Rhone Resch, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), stating that the U.S. organization has a bias toward Chinese manufacturers that is “both inappropriate and wrong.”

PetersenDean, a privately held roofing and solar company, has called for the resignation of SEIA’s CEO and board of directors because “the trade association’s support for China and Taiwan in these matters is a clear conflict with its own stated purpose to keep America competitive.”

U.S. panel manufacturers, meanwhile, claim that the tariffs imposed to date have already begun to stabilize and grow the domestic market.

In October, SolarWorld announced it will add a new production line to its facility in Hillsboro, Ore. that will boost the factory’s panel-assembly capacity from 380 megawatts up to 530 megawatts. SolarWorld will also add 100 megawatts of advanced cell production capacity for a total of 435 megawatts. The expansion is expected to add 200 jobs, bringing the total number of SolarWorld’s U.S. employees to 900.

Suniva Inc. is also expanding its U.S. presence by opening a second U.S. manufacturing plant in Michigan. The facility will add 200 megawatts of capacity and employ an additional 350 people. In June, SolarCity took over Silevo’s project to build a 1-gigawatt factory in New York.

“Once you address the unfair trade, the U.S. industry can come back and compete and thrive in the U.S. market, where demand is continuing to grow,” said SolarWorld counsel Timothy Brightbill. “That’s how these trade cases are supposed to work…and why we need the duties to stay in place.”

If the latest round of tariffs are finalized by the ITC, all solar panels made in China will be subject to some form of tariff, regardless of where they’re assembled.

“That basically removes any value chain strategy involving China that averts import tariffs,” said Shayle Kann, senior vice president of GTM Research. "This erodes the price advantage that Chinese suppliers have historically benefited from in the U.S. and is likely to impact their market share, as well as average module prices, in 2015."

The broad scope of the new tariffs will dissuade Chinese manufactures from importing solar panel components from Taiwan and other countries, Kann said. Instead, they’re likely to make and assemble all components domestically and pay the lower (31 percent) 2012 tariffs, or to set up manufacturing outside of China.

Chinese manufacturers started to adopt these strategies after the preliminary margins were set in July. So far, solar module prices in the U.S. haven’t spiked as some warned. However, the U.S. hasn’t benefited from module price decreases being seen in the rest of the world, said Kann.

Nick Blitterswyk, CEO of UGE International, which works in more than 90 countries, said that when his company does a solar project in the U.S., material costs are now 5 percent to 25 percent higher than in other countries.

“The U.S. solar market is growing rapidly, and these anti-dumping policies are actually just slowing the growth of the industry,” he said. “It's making electricity costs comparatively higher in the U.S., making it advantageous for businesses to open facilities in countries that don't have these tariffs in place.”

Earlier this month, the Canadian government opened a separate anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigation into solar modules and laminates from China.

The current collapse in oil prices has to be worrisome for those of us hoping to see more capital come back into the clean energy sector.

To be clear, many clean energy technologies aren't really competing directly against low-cost oil, at least in the world's biggest economies. The vast majority of oil used in the U.S. goes to transportation, dwarfing the very small amount that goes to electricity generation, for example. Low-cost natural gas is a much more direct "competitor" to solar, energy efficiency, batteries, etc., and that's been in place in the market for the past few years already, hindering but certainly not stopping growth. Low-cost oil, if here to stay for a while, would suggest a need to shift emphasis within the sector, not a need to shift away from clean energy altogether.

But in my experience, limited partners and other generalist investors don't seem to pay much attention to that nuance. "Energy prices are falling" tends to be the headline that leads to dampened investor enthusiasm for clean energy solutions overall. For proof, look no further than the fact that solar company share prices are surprisingly closely correlated with oil prices. This has somelogic when it comes to solar panel manufacturers that may be looking for growth in emerging economy markets where solar is indeed cannibalizing oil as an electricity generation fuel, but that would seem to be on the margin. And it certainly shouldn't apply to downstream solar plays like SolarCity, which have almost zero competitiveness with oil. If anything, all the increased disposable income that American homeowners are now enjoying thanks to lower gasoline prices could end up boosting demand for solar on rooftops.

At least, it should -- if logic applies.

But too often, logic doesn't apply to how alternative energy solutions are viewed as "expensive" in relation to oil prices. Especially when the oil price change is very rapid, leading to lots of uncertainty, like right now.

So the upshot is, collapsing oil prices is a bad headline to see if you're hoping to get more limited partners to put capital into clean energy private equity. From what I hear from people deeply experienced in the oil market, there's some expectation that prices will stabilize before too long, but realistically, no one knows -- that's the nature of such a volatile commodity market. So this probably pushes back the timeframe a bit for LPs getting back into what is actually an obvious market opportunity right now.

An obvious market opportunity? Yes, because the growth in several key clean energy markets is quite evident, and the potential is even larger. Because several key tipping points have been achieved over the past couple of years, and the educated projection is that several more will be breached in the near future.

Change always seems to take much longer than it should -- and then when it happens, it happens much faster than you expect. This can often be attributed to non-linear effects. Thanks to experience curves and more general market transparency, analysts have gotten pretty good at projecting cost declines for technologies. This often leads to market growth forecasts that are assumed to be somewhat linear in their relationship to cost/performance, or at least pretty conservative (see Exhibit A: The Energy Information Administration). But in reality, of course, we end up seeing a key threshold (or several) being breached, and then there's a major inflection in demand.

Rooftop solar started taking off in various states within the U.S. market as 1) cost declines of 40 percent since Q1 2011 moved subsidized system cost closer to grid parity; 2) solar on homes became a more common sight, leading to peer influence; and 3) financing and development platforms emerged which made it much easier for anyone to make the decision to adopt.

We knew the costs were going to come down like this, but still no one (except Greenpeace!) predicted the rapid pace of adoption that would result from key thresholds being reached in these three factors. Now that we better understand these dynamics, analysts are much more bullish. In their October 2014 Initiating Report of Vivint Solar, Credit Suisse projected (sorry, no link) the U.S. residential solar market to grow at a 36 percent CAGR through 2020. The report includes some nifty analysis showing just how much the potential solar market grows as much as 3X as pricing falls just a cent or two per kilowatt-hour from current levels -- an instance of nonlinearity in action. Canaccord Genuity this week came out with a research report (again, no link; ask them directly) that was a bit less bullish (thanks to anticipation of the ITC going away in 2017), but still sees the market as growing rapidly even as subsidies are pulled back.

The same tipping-point story seems to be happening in LED lighting. Even just a couple of years ago, analysts were still waiting for a big demand inflection point, guessing that it would come as residential light bulb prices dropped into the single digits (I suppose as a proxy for the broader market as well).

Well, we're here.

Prices continue to fall rapidly, and you can buy that under-$10 bulb at Home Depot. As importantly, the quality has come up -- just two years ago, I felt obligated to do a bunch of testing of available LED bulbs for the home, because so many were of pretty low quality. Now not only are the bulbs pretty much just like an incandescent in terms of performance, but the price of the few bulbs I liked has also fallen by something like two-thirds. My old bulb reviews feel like ancient history, only two years later. The same effect is happening in lighting for commercial and industrial buildings as well, just not as obviously, and as a result, Credit Suisse is now projecting that more than half of all lights sold in 2016 will be LEDs, up from 31 percent this year. It's another amazing market growth story.

We're on the cusp of seeing similarly big cost drops in energy storage. Based on these trends, what can we expect to happen as a result? And then what would be the resulting impact on utilities? On solar markets? On transportation? These are questions to examine in another column. But you have to feel excited about the prospects.

The point is, while collapsing oil prices will result in many generalist investors remaining on the sidelines, key tipping points are being breached across multiple clean energy technology opportunities. Cost declines march forward, new channels and financing platforms are being launched, and market acceptance via peer influence is overcoming reticence around what used to be curiosities. If you're a fan of investing into high-growth markets, it's a great time to be jumping in. Because not even today's oil market turmoil will be able to hold back these market inflection points for long.

Most of the attention may be focused on domestic oil and gas production, but it could be solar power that really helps the United States on its path to energy independence.

Aside from the high-profile bankruptcy of Solyndra—the solar panel maker that defaulted on a $528 million federal loan in 2011—the industry has been on a tear over the last couple of years. Solar installations are up more than 75 percent, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association, which projects another 65 percent increase in 2013. The industry's rapid expansion has made solar the fastest growing energy source in the United States, according to the SEIA.

Much of those gains are thanks to a combination of tumbling installation and equipment costs—photovoltaic solar costs dropped almost 30 percent in 2012, the SEIA reported—and the rise of an innovative approach to financing expensive rooftop solar panels called third-party-owned solar.

With this approach—also known as solar service—homeowners no longer have to pony up tens of thousands of dollars to enjoy the long-term cost savings of solar power. Instead, a solar service company purchases the rooftop solar panels—which run about $30,000 on average—and installs and maintains them. The homeowner then purchases power generated by the panels from the solar service company at about a 20 percent discount of what they would pay for power from a utility, according to some estimates. At night or when it's cloudy, the homeowner is still hooked up to their local utility and purchases power from there.

"Homeowners used to be slaves to their utility," says Edward Fenster, co-CEO of Sunrun, a California-based solar service provider. "The only way to get power was from a centrally generated source. Now solar service is providing the average consumer, for the first time, choice in how they want to get their electric power."

But not everyone is excited about the increasingly competitive solar sector and its applications in the residential market. In 2012, the residential solar market grew a staggering 62 percent, with solar service accounting for half of all new residential solar installations in California, Arizona, Colorado and Massachusetts, according to market analysis firm GTM Research. After 2013, the growing adoption of third-party-owned solar will "start to erode the utility sector's market share," the report added, a trend that's making utilities increasingly nervous.

A lot of the angst has to do with how utilities make money. Instead of relying on the amount of power sold, most utilities earn a rate of return based on the assets they own, such as power plants and transmission lines. The larger the asset base, the more potential to increase their profit with the expansion of generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure.

But with less demand on the grid thanks to increased adoption of solar power and other factors such as more energy-efficient appliances, utilities have less and less justification to build more infrastructure that would increase their asset base and revenue. "It's nothing if there are just a few of these [rooftop systems], but utilities see them spreading and that poses a big problem," says Michael Burr, editor-in-chief of Public Utilities Fortnightly, a trade publication for the utility and energy industries. "[Company executives] are taking this seriously on a level they never have before. If the trend continues with solar being increasingly economic, as it has been on an accelerating basis, within five years solar will reach grid parity."

But utilities aren't standing idle in the face of a burgeoning threat from rooftop solar. According to Sunrun's Fenster, they're reacting "aggressively," threatening potential rate increases and villainizing solar service for shifting higher costs onto non-solar users. Other utilities are responding by phasing out solar energy incentives and putting caps on how many homes, schools, and other facilities using solar can participate in net metering, an arrangement that allows customers using solar to earn credits while their home or business uses solar-generated power. "Arizona Public Service sent a note to customers that said because people installed energy-efficient devices and recycled refrigerators, they had to raise electric rates," Fenster says. "Utilities have never faced competition and they're so used to having a monopoly, they're being very aggressive about it."

The situation isn't quite so black-and-white, according to other industry experts who say that while the rise in customer use of rooftop solar is a concern it isn't a death knell for utility companies. That's because there's plenty of work to do updating the nation's 100-year-old electricity grid infrastructure, says Gary Stern, director of regulatory policy at Southern California Edison. "There is potentially less need for new transmission lines as a result of local generation," Stern says. "But we're not hungry for new investment—there's plenty of opportunity dealing with and upgrading the existing distribution system."

Nevertheless, a fundamental sea change is occurring when it comes to the principles that have governed the power industry for more than a hundred years. Until recently, electricity generation has been almost solely wed to large, centralized power generation plants with transmission and distribution lines connected to demand centers because that was the most economical way to produce and deliver power to customers.

But that predictable, century-old formula is crumbling, as a new economy of scale emerges in the manufacture of solar panels, which have become increasingly cheaper in recent years. "Now the economy of scale is in manufacturing, putting out larger and larger volumes of things that look more like a silicon chip," Burr says. "It's an approach to the economy of scale that caught utilities blindsided."

Despite the steep drop in equipment and installation costs, the solar industry still faces hurdles in expanding adoption, not least of which are state regulations that prevent or make it very difficult for solar service companies to operate in certain states. Although those in the industry welcome a more coherent national strategy when it comes to the place of renewable energy in electricity generation, the reality is oversight of utilities has historically been left up to state and local governments. That has resulted in drastically different policies across the country with just 22 states plus Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico that authorize or allow third-party solar power purchase agreements, according to the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency.

In other states, third-party-owned solar is limited to certain sectors, and burdensome permitting processes and costs associated with connecting panels to the electricity grid can be a deterrent to the adoption of rooftop solar. "It's funny because Florida has 'Sunshine State' plastered everywhere as their state motto and yet they don't allow solar service," Sunrun's Fenster says.

Nevertheless, he is confident that options such as third-party ownership have the potential to fundamentally transform the way Americans get their electricity while also saving consumers money and helping the environment. Solar makes up only about 1 percent of the power used on grid now, but by 2016 Fenster expects solar power will be able to undercut about $30 billion a year in electricity sales to homeowners.

"Residential has always been the best end market for solar because homeowners pay the most for power, and they stretch the transmission and distribution network the most," Fenster says. "There's a significant transfer in consumer power arising from solar because now homeowners can generate their own power at a lower cost."

For years, Americans have seen commercials touting “clean coal,” while politicians on both sides of the aisle have extolled its promise. The technology to capture carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants has been tried and tested. Yet today almost none of the nation’s coal-fueled plants are “clean.”

Why the delay? The biggest problem for “clean coal” is that the economics don’t work. Carbon capture and storage, or CCS, is extremely expensive. That gives the power industry little incentive to implement it in the absence of a substantial carbon tax.

Why would implementing CCS be so expensive? For starters, capturing and storing the carbon from coal combustion is estimated to consume 25% to 45% of the power produced, depending on the approach taken. That translates to not only higher prices for coal-generated electricity but also the need for more plants to serve the same customers. Other technologies designed to make carbon capture more efficient aren’t commercial at this point, and their full costs are unknown.

And there’s more. Capturing and burying just 38% of the carbon released from current U.S. coal combustion would entail pipelines, compressors and pumps on a scale equivalent to the size of the nation’s oil industry. And while bolting CCS technology onto existing power plants is possible, it is inefficient. A new generation of plants would do the job much better—but that means replacing roughly 600 current-generation power plants.

Altogether, the Energy Department estimates that wholesale electricity prices with the initial generation of CCS technology would be 70% to 80% higher than current coal-based power.

The discussion of CCS technology in a recent assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change contains too many qualifiers to be interpreted as a declaration that clean coal will be competitive with renewable fuels.

Long term, the economics of coal are likely to get worse, with or without CCS. Coal is nonrenewable, finite in quantity and therefore subject to depletion. Rates of production from most regions of the U.S. are in decline. And as depletion forces the mining of lower-quality resources, production prices will rise because of the need for more-sophisticated extraction technologies. Declining output is inevitable sooner or later.

Meanwhile, the price of electricity produced from solar and wind power is steadily dropping. The only thing that keeps coal-based electricity cheap today in relation to power from renewable sources is the industry’s ability to shift the hidden costs—environmental and health damage—onto society. If, as climate regulations inevitably kick in, the coal power industry adopts CCS as a survival strategy, any lingering economic advantage over wind and even solar will disappear.

CCS also doesn’t address the full range of coal’s impact on society. It won’t banish high rates of lung disease, because it doesn’t eliminate all the pollutants from the combustion process or deal with the coal dust from mining and transport. It also doesn’t address the environmental devastation of “mountaintop removal” mining.

This is not to say that “clean coal” has no future whatever. Coal plants with CCS will be built where captured carbon dioxide can be used to generate extra income—for example, by using it to stimulate old oil wells or make cement. But even a dramatic increase in such uses would put only a small fraction of carbon from coal to work.

A full transition of today’s coal power industry to CCS is extremely unlikely unless the economics substantially change for some currently unforeseeable reason. And other technological advances, like more-efficient coal-fired plants, can only slow the growth of harmful emissions at best.

In all likelihood, the real future lies elsewhere—with distributed renewable energy.

Science has spoken: Fossil fuels should be phased out by the end of the century.

The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on Sunday released the final installment of its four-part assessment, published over the past 13 months. The report, which draws on the analysis of 800 scientists, will serve as a guideline for government officials to come up with a global treaty on climate by 2015.

According to the grim conclusion, the planet will face “severe, pervasive and irreversible” damage if we don’t switch to zero- and low-carbon sources of electricity by 2100. Humans and ecosystems could suffer unprecedented losses from more severe and frequent weather events.

What can we do? The report suggests that we grow our use of renewable energy from its current 30 percent share of the power sector to 80 percent by 2050. Combined with technological and structural change, “behavior, lifestyle and culture” could have a considerable impact.

“We have the means to limit climate change,” IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri said at the launch of the report in Copenhagen. “All we need is the will to change, which we trust will be motivated by knowledge and an understanding of the science of climate change.”

In the United States, President Obama has pledged to battle climate change and has proposed cutting carbon emissions from power plants by 30 percent by 2013. But the results of the midterm election could hamper similar efforts. The GOP, notorious for challenging climate science, is expected to take control of the Senate.

“If Republicans take back the Senate, I don’t see there being a lot of willingness to allow the administration to cede any authority to the U.N. on climate policies or elsewhere, and I don’t really think that kind of a position will hurt us politically going into 2016,” a Senate GOP aide told theWashington Examiner.

Secretary of State John F. Kerry, in his comment on the IPCC’s report, said that government officials need to act beyond politics.

“We can’t prevent a large-scale disaster if we don’t heed this kind of hard science,” he said in a statement. “The longer we are stuck in a debate over ideology and politics, the more the costs of inaction grow and grow. Those who choose to ignore or dispute the science so clearly laid out in this report do so at great risk for all of us and for our kids and grandkids.”

China and "probably one or two" other countries could shut down critical computer networks that could force U.S. power and water grids, aviation systems, and financial services offline.

National Security Agency director Adm. Mike Rogers said on Thursday in testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives' Intelligence Committee that hackers have performed "reconnaissance" missions in order to work out how networks function.

Those missions can be used to determine weak spots, Rogers hinted. 

"What concerns us is that access, that capability can be used by nation states, groups, or individuals to take down that capability," he said, according to a Reuters transcript.

He named China as one of the countries with that capability, but declined to expand to others, saying only that the information is classified.

Rogers, who took over from Gen. Keith Alexander as the spy agency's head in the months following the Edward Snowden leaks first came to light, said such an attack was "a matter of when, not if."

The testimony comes in the same week the counter-surveillance Freedom Act was shot down in the U.S. Senate, partly in thanks to Republicans voting against the bill. However, some — notably Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) — voted against the bill because the bill contained an extension of the controversial Patriot Act, which was signed into law a month after the September 11 attacks in 2011.

The Patriot Act drove a number of the NSA's powers in collecting billions of phone records, a program dubbed the "215 Program" for its namesake space in the law books, which remained secret until Snowden revealed the program as his debut leak.

The U.S. agency was also found to have, in subsequent reports, snooped on world leaders, and forced technology companies to hand over data it stored on its customers — all in the name of national security.

The EPA has dubbed the all-electric 2014 BMW i3 the most efficient production car sold in the U.S., with an impressive 125 MPGe rating--the best of any electric vehicle.

By comparison, my 2013 Tesla Model S with an 85-kilowatt-hour battery is rated at only 89 MPGe.

That's a hefty 39-percent efficiency advantage for the i3, at least on paper.

Even the BMW i3 REx fitted with the optional range-extending engine is rated at 117 MPGe, giving it a 31-percent advantage over the Model S.

What I wanted to know was: How do the two cars stack up in the real world?

I decided to take advantage of BMW's new three-day test-drive program for the i3 to find out.

2013 Tesla Model S and 2014 BMW i3, Hudson Valley, NY, Nov 2014

Familiarity breeds sales

To its credit, BMW understands that electric cars in general--and the i3 in particular--can take a while for new drivers to get used to. 

The i3's strong regenerative braking, for example, can be initially off-putting to a novice electric-car driver. And the charging process, both at home and at public stations, can be intimidating to newbies.

But after a few days and a few dozen miles, most people quickly get comfortable with the charging process, and actually come to like the strong regen. (I'm a perfect example of the latter.) 

So most BMW dealers now allow potential i3 buyers to take one home and drive it around for as long as three days.

Wheel-to-wheel comparison

Two days after a phone call to my local dealer, Orange County BMW in Harriman, New York, I pulled out of their parking lot in a shiny new white BMW i3 REx.

While I would have preferred to test the battery-electric version, this was the loaner I got. About 60 percent of the i3s sold to date have been REx models, according to BMW.

I wasted no time getting down to business: The goal was an extended in-use comparison test drive between the i3 and my Model S, with a careful eye on the efficiency readouts of both cars.

To be fair to the i3, and get a true apples-to-apples comparison, I would adjust my test car's efficiency rating upward by 7 percent to correct for the difference between the REx and battery-only versions of the car.

Conditions were identical for both vehicles: I used the same 54-mile route, at the same speed, in the same temperature and wind conditions. Cabin temperature was set at 70 degrees in both cars. 

To equalize battery and cabin warm-up conditions, both cars were fully plugged in at the time of departure. (The ambient temperature was a nippy 40 degrees--winter is coming to the Hudson Valley.)

The i3 was set in Normal mode rather than its performance-sapping Eco-plus mode. The Tesla has no such "eco" option.

2013 Tesla Model S and 2014 BMW i3, Hudson Valley, NY, Nov 2014

With my wife Lisa at the wheel of the i3, we left our house and headed out for lunch in Warwick, New York, 27 miles away.

We chose Warwick partly because it has one of the few public charging stations in our neck of the woods. 

The route consisted mostly of two-lane suburban roads with occasional stoplights, plus a 9-mile stretch of Interstate highway.

I led the way in the Tesla, driving at my normal slightly-faster-than-average pace and with my usual slightly-more-aggressive-than-normal acceleration. (Hey, it's a Tesla. I'm only human.)

No drag racing, but no hypermiling either. 

Lisa followed close behind, precisely mimicking my route, speed, and acceleration profile. The i3 is quite peppy; she said she had no trouble keeping up all the way to Warwick.

After lunch and some i3 recharging at the public station, we retraced our steps home.

The envelope, please

The two cars read out their efficiency in different ways.

The i3 measures miles per kilowatt-hour (more is better), while the Tesla indicates watt-hours per mile (less is better). So it took few clicks on a calculator to convert the units.

At the end of the 54 miles, the i3 was showing that it had traveled 3.4 miles/kWh. Adjusting for the REx factor, the equivalent number for a battery-only i3 would be 3.6 mi/kWh. The Tesla displayed a reading of 322 Wh/mile.

2013 Tesla Model S and 2014 BMW i3, Hudson Valley, NY, Nov 2014

Converting the units, the Tesla traveled 3.1 miles on a kWh (vs. 3.6 for the i3), while the i3 used 277 Wh/mi of energy (vs 322 for the Tesla). 

Bottom line: The i3 was only 16 percent more efficient than the Tesla--not the 39 percent the EPA says.

Consider that the Tesla is a ton heavier (4600 lbs vs. 2600 lbs), has more than triple the range (rated ranges of 265 miles vs 81 miles), vastly more rear-seat room and cargo space, and far superior performance. 

For all that, only 16 percent more real-world energy use? That's pretty amazing, if you ask me.

For all the i3's high-tech carbon fiber and clean-sheet technology, its efficiency advantage over the much bigger, faster Model S amounts to a piddling $8 a month in electricity costs (assuming 15,000 miles per year and the national average electricity cost of 11 cents per kWh.)

And that's not even counting any free electricity from Tesla Superchargers.

I happen to have driven 21 percent of my Tesla miles on free Supercharger energy--which more than wipes out the money saved by the i3's 16-percent efficiency advantage. 

So I've actually spent less on my electric "fuel" than an i3 driver would have to cover the same distance.

The ultimate electric efficiency machine?

Not quite.

A nearly seven decade old Collar City company has always been ahead of the curve in the energy industry.

 Since 1945, when George Bejian initially founded his heating and cooling business, to its new identity as a solar pioneer, the Bejians have always been energy trendsetters.

 Century Solar Supply is a locally owned and operated renewable energy distributor located at 2600 Sixth Ave. in Troy, near the approach to the Collar City Bridge. It is the first renewable energy supply company of its kind in the entire state.

In September of 2012, Bejian Century Supply, now owned and operated by Bejian’s son - also George Bejian, started a renewable energy division called Century Solar Supply to help New York continue developing and integrating renewable energy in the state.

The company actually began building solar panels at its facility in the 1970s, “but then when the crisis kind of went away, so did much of the solar industry. It went into hibernation basically,” Bejian said. But then it came back into play again after the turn of the century and “We knew the time was right to get into it,” he continued. “About the last seven or so years it’s really started to become very feasible and realistic to do.”

 Bejian said the solar industry at large is still in its “wild west” phase. “It’s the beginning of a whole new game,” he said. This is why the company puts plenty of time and effort into educating people about solar energy, how it works, and how it makes sense financially. Century Solar Supply is active in renewable energy educational initiatives around the Capital District. Clare Gaffey, director of training and marketing has not only presented to third grade classrooms as part of a local initiative called SmartKids NY, but also given demonstrations career-day fairs.

 Century Solar Supply also has its own training facility on site with a working system as well as demo trainers and demo roof with big plans on expanding. The company achieved a NYSERDA grant with Questar III BOCES to provide free training for unemployed or underemployed individuals to become solar installers. Internships through this program often lead to jobs, which in turn helps the industry to grow locally.

Bejian said that the U.S. is in a stage of the solar industry that he equates to when his father was installing oil heat systems and thermostats, which people were extremely hesitant about at the time. But with proper education, Bejian believes solar will become less scary and quickly be the norm.

Century Solar Supply is committed to reducing dependence on non-renewable energy and creating a sustainable environment. With solar power, individuals and commercial and public entities are given the power to reduce their impact on the environment, energy costs, and reliance on others. Century Solar Supply’s goal is to bring what they believe to be a socially and economically incredible resource to New York state and beyond.

While there is buzz about renewable energy growth in Troy, as far as jumping on with the larger solar movement in the country, Bejian said Troy is doing alright. “I would say we’re probably not as aggressive a lot of other areas, but we’re not as passive either.”

 Moneywise, Century Solar Supply encourages people to buy and own their systems. Though it’s an expensive initial cost, the system helps customers save in energy costs over the years, and right now there are federal and state incentives that save customers money as well.

Solar energy systems last decades, especially with new technology. “We see solar as an investment in your total electricity cost for the next 40 years,” Gaffey said.

As the region continues in a tech-heavy direction, the nearly 70-year old company seems to have a bright future ahead. “There’s a ton of room for growth,” Gaffey said.

For more information, visit www.centurysolarsupply.com

To reach Century Solar Supply call 326-3565.

Lauren Halligan may be reached at 290-1443.

Energy storage has become this year’s cause célèbre.

The main selling point for storage, forged into a meme by story after story in the press, is that storage is needed to compensate for the variable output of wind and solar. “Today, the power grid isn’t able to easily handle the rapid fluctuations in the production of wind and solar power,” is just a random sample quote.

But this claim is not true now, and will not be true for quite some time. The electricity grid is by far the most cost-effective and reliable way to deal with the variability of wind and solar, just like it deals with the variability of demand.

Storage may have a business case, but backing up wind and solar is not it for now. And a number of recent studies are raising uncomfortable questions.

To understand why, we need to start with a few fundamental facts about the grid. 

First, everything backs up everything else. There is no need to have one thing dedicated to backing up one other thing (e.g., battery to solar panel, gas turbine to wind turbine) because every generator and every source of load is connected.

Second, and related, the electricity network takes advantage of the awesome power of statistics. The bigger the sample size, the less likely variations will correlate with each other, meaning their variability will be smoothed out. Also, a bigger pool reduces the consequences of any one thing failing. A more interconnected grid is itself a solution to variable generation.

Third, from the perspective of the grid operator, supply and demand are increasingly interchangeable. The grid operator’s task is to match supply and demand at every microsecond. Controllable demand is just as effective as a dispatchable power plant in this regard. In other words, storage will have to compete not just with generation but with increasingly interactive demand.

From these facts flow a host of tools and tactics that grid operators use to balance supply and demand. The easiest solutions are simply refinements or extensions of existing tactics. 

The most common is, of course, power plants that are ramped up and down to meet demand. The energy in fossil fuels is the original storage, converted to heat and power as needed. Large amounts of wind and solar will increase the need for these plants to become more flexible, including capabilities such as faster start-up, lower minimum operating levels (called "turn-down levels"), and more nimble ramping up and down. 

(Another meme to be addressed at another time is the notion that natural gas is the only kind of power plant that can follow load. This is also not true, as evidenced by a region like the Upper Midwest that was 88 percent coal and nuclear in 2011 and only 5 percent gas. Coal is now and always has been used for load following -- although there is an emissions penalty with this approach.)

Larger control areas are another easy solution to variability. Wind has constituted more than 60 percent of Xcel’s Colorado power supply at times, and more wind and solar is on the way. The quickest and easiest solution for Xcel is to combine its balancing operations with neighbors. The energy imbalance market (EIM) that starts operations this month is aggregating the balancing functions of California with the six-state region of PacifiCorp, and Nevada’s NV Energy will be included next year. 

NREL has estimated that adoption of the EIM across the Western U.S. would save $150 million to $300 million per year. Similarly, the Midwest grid operator MISO found that adding Entergy to its system will save an estimated $1.4 billion over ten years, simply by pooling operations.

Better forecasting, both in the day-ahead and hour-ahead time periods, along with the simple change of dispatching power plants every five or fifteen minutes instead of every hour, has greatly increased the accuracy and reduced the cost of integrating wind and solar. NREL estimates that moving from hourly to ten-minute intervals for dispatch would save $1.3 billion a year if it was implemented across the West as part of the EIM.

Demand response is another tough competitor to battery storage, offering many of the same grid and customer services, at a fraction of the cost. It is much cheaper to put a switch and wireless control on an appliance than to install a lithium-ion battery system.

These basic facts are borne out by recent studies that have called into question the need for energy storage to integrate very large amounts of renewable energy.

The cost of many integration options were quantified in a paper for the 21st Century Power Partnership, a project of the Clean Energy Ministerial, which is a forum of the energy departments of twenty-three countries. Creating a sample supply curve, the report cites changes to system operations and market design as the least-cost options. These are followed by demand response and flexible generation, then by “advanced network management” and transmission. 

Last on the list is storage. Even within storage, “chemical storage” in the form of batteries falls well behind thermal and pumped hydro. While the authors take care to point out that “option costs are system-dependent and evolving over time,” batteries clearly have a long way to go to be a competitive option against the twenty-two others on the list.

Another study, released by NREL last November, found that storage wasn’t cost-effective until variable generation reached at least 40 percent of annual energy. The study points out that only surplus renewable energy would be used to charge storage, since selling it as it is produced would have a higher value. As long as there is demand for the power, it will displace other generation rather than be put into storage.

The study also found that the value of energy arbitrage -- shifting production from low-value times to high-value times -- “is relatively low and by itself is unlikely to yield a positive cost-benefit ratio for most existing storage technologies.”

Another value of storage, providing operating reserves like regulation and contingency reserves, is worth more, but the overall market size is small. And perversely, even a small amount of storage can collapse the prices for those services, undercutting its own value. A common analytical mistake is to use historic market data when evaluating the value of storage and renewables, the study authors say, “because the introduction of [variable generation] would fundamentally affect market prices and system operations.”

One shortcoming of the NREL study is that it does not place a value on avoided generation, transmission and distribution, or other services, including the ability of storage to address forecast errors and the increased deployment of operating reserves.

No major region of the U.S. is close to 40 percent wind and solar, but Germany hit 17 percent in the first three quarters of this year (out of 31 percent total renewables). Still, Agora Energiewende, the Berlin-based think tank devoted to the German energy transition, recently commissioned a report from four research institutes that found storage to be unnecessary in Germany until renewables hit at least 60 percent of the power supply.  When renewables reach 90 percent, they calculate Germany will need 10 gigawatts of storage capacity.

“There are cheaper ways of adding flexibility than storage,” Daniel Fuerstenwerth, project manager at Agora Energiewende, told PV Tech. “For example, you can just turn off coal- or gas-fired power plants; you can use electricity for power-to-heat; you can exchange with neighboring countries. [...] There are other opportunities that are cheaper than storage, from the overall system perspective.”

But storage may thrive for other reasons, according to Agora, such as at the distribution level, for the benefit of customers.

They point out that feed-in tariff payments last twenty years, while PV systems may last longer. As customers reach the end of their tariff, a battery system will help them use all of their own PV output, rather than losing it to the grid. Batteries on the low-voltage distribution grid can also help smooth out production peaks” from distributed renewables, solving the back-feed problem that Hawaii is grappling with. And like NREL, they point out the cost-effective use of storage for ancillary services, though this application has a limited market size.

Then there is an increasing list of niche applications where storage makes sense today, or will soon, like off-grid, village power and islands. Developers are also combining different services to make storage pencil out, using the same system to reduce demand charges through peak shaving, provide ancillary services, deal with load pockets, and provide backup power for grid failures. 

If batteries get as cheap as optimists say they will, even more opportunities will open up, such as competing head-to-head with gas-fired peaker plants. These combustion turbines are typically used only a fraction of the time, for meeting peak demand and providing some ancillary services, with capacity factors in the 5 percent to 10 percent range. When not deployed for these uses, they just sit there. A battery system that can provide supply at peak times, but also provide other services throughout the year, would have more opportunities to earn revenues.

Of course, the best-case scenario is if the batteries are already paid for. The “vehicle-to-grid” concept uses electric cars to both buy and sell power to the grid. It is being tested now by the University of Delaware and NRG Energy.

Even so, battery storage will have to compete with other emerging uses for the surplus renewable power. Agora points out the opportunity of “power-to-X,” converting surplus electricity to heat, chemicals and synthetic natural gas. While power-to-X is still in the research phase, it may be pushed by climate policies outside the electricity sector, creating low-GHG fertilizers, for example.

So while there may be a rationale for energy storage, integrating wind and solar into a modern power grid is not one of them.

There is one exception: to have a truly zero-carbon power system, we will have limited ability to rely on even the cleanest and most efficient gas-fired power plants. In a look at achieving California’s 80 percent carbon reduction goal, the California Council for Science and Technology found that the state would have to eliminate carbon emissions from the power sector completely -- while doubling in size -- to compensate for the inability of other sectors to reduce emissions as much.

Even if high-efficiency natural gas plants were used to follow load only, it would bust the carbon budget.

The report identifies the need for “zero-emission load balancing” (ZELB), where load balancing should be required to reduce emissions just like any other energy technology. “We will need major advances in energy storage and the construction and management of a smart grid to do this,” the authors conclude.

This may have been a mistake.

The panels are pointed that way because under the rules that govern the electric grid, panel owners are paid by the amount of energy they make. But they are not making the most energy at the hours when it is most needed.

Solar panels thus illustrate how the rules add cost and reduce environmental effectiveness, critics say, because they are out of step with what the power grid actually needs from intermittent renewables like wind and sun, and from zero-carbon nuclear power.

With the existing price structure, “we incentivize maximum power generation,” said James Tong, the vice president for strategy and government affairs at Clean Power Finance, an investment firm. But in most parts of the country, there is plenty of electricity available from other sources in the morning and midday. Crunch time is late afternoon, when temperatures are higher and air-conditioners are working hard, and inefficient plants running on natural gas or even coal are cranked up to the maximum. That is obvious from the wholesale power market, where prices reach a peak in the late afternoon. But at that point, the declining sun is hitting the panels at an oblique angle, reducing power output.

“The needs of the grid may mean that they should be pointed west,” more toward the setting sun, said Mr. Tong. That way, a bigger portion of their production would come at the hours when electricity was most needed. But their total production would be a bit lower, and that would hurt panel owners, at least under current rules.

The problem of solar panel orientation is simple compared with other emerging difficulties in the grid.

Some involve the difference between energy and power. The two terms are often used interchangeably, but they are distinct aspects of electricity. A quantity of energy is a bit like the number of gallons of gasoline in a fuel tank, and power is the horsepower of the engine. If four people want to drive from New York to Los Angeles with a load of luggage, 100 gallons might be enough energy for the journey. But if all they have is a motorcycle with a 500-cc engine, they lack the power to make the trip.

With the electric grid, the situation is similar. A small hydroelectric generator tapping a very large lake would produce a lot of energy, but its power is not enough to keep a lot of air-conditioners running. Likewise, solar and wind will produce a lot of energy, but the power they make often does not match the system’s demand, so the contribution to its power needs may be much smaller.

The debate is over how to pay contributors to the grid so the system has an adequate amount of both energy and power. This is not a discussion likely to engage the ordinary consumer with a home electricity bill, but it is crucial to maintaining the stability of the system as the shift from fossil fuels proceeds to ones lighter on carbon.

Solar panels and especially wind turbines produce vast amounts of energy, but on their own schedule, when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. The more conventional installations — coal, natural gas and especially nuclear plants — earn their keep by selling energy around the clock. Put enough wind and solar units on the grid during the hours when they are running and they flood the market and push down the hourly auction price of a megawatt-hour of energy.

Sometimes the price goes to zero. Oddly, it can go even lower. When demand is very low in the middle of the night and the wind is blowing hard, there may be too much electricity on the system and grid operators will charge generators that want to add more. Nuclear plants cannot quickly modulate their output so they are, in effect, fined for production. But wind farms still make money because they earn a tax credit for each kilowatt-hour they generate.

The problem is especially acute for nuclear reactors because their costs for fuel are roughly the same whether they are running or not. They are refueled on a fixed schedule, not when the uranium is used up. Their labor costs, mortgage costs and maintenance costs are roughly the same, too. But if the hourly price for energy is suppressed by wind and sun, suddenly the nuclear plants can’t make enough money to keep running.

Thus some have already closed and more are threatened, even though carbon dioxide limits are unlikely to be met without them. Even relatively clean natural gas plants are hurt; they are generally on the margin, the first to shut when new solar comes on line.

Revenue at the Robert E. Ginna Nuclear Power Plant on Lake Ontario in upstate New York is down because cheap natural gas and expanded renewable energy have depressed the market. Credit Heather Ainsworth for The New York Times

The 40-year-old Robert E. Ginna Nuclear Power Plant on the shores of Lake Ontario in upstate New York is becoming an example of an emerging trend. Its income from selling energy is down because cheap natural gas and growing sources of renewable energy have depressed the market.

But the reactor provides a second service beyond energy: dispatchable power, meaning the ability to support electric load on demand. And its owner, Exelon, argues that it is not paid enough for it.

“When we devote so many of our economic resources and our policies to the type of energy that produces power but not power on demand, we end up in a place where we start losing the megawatt we can control,” said Joseph Dominguez, Exelon’s senior vice president for governmental and regulatory affairs. “We’ve moved to a system focused on resources that provide energy when they want to.”

Not everyone agrees. Most electricity markets have auctions not only for energy but also for capacity; utilities serving homes and businesses make what amounts to payments to assure that electricity will be available when needed.

“No planner, no regulator and no utility is going to leave themselves capacity-short,” said Ron Binz, an energy consultant, renewable energy advocate and former head of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. What the renewables are really doing, he said, is “changing the valuation of baseload plants,” like nuclear and coal plants. A nuclear plant can barely change its output, and a coal plant can do so only within certain limits. A system that must compensate for rising and falling wind and solar generation makes the flexible plants, like those using natural gas, more valuable, he said.

And he and others noted the emergence of a substitute for generating capacity: “Demand response” providers, which sign up customers willing — in exchange for a payment — to have their air-conditioners or industrial machines turned down or turned off by remote control at peak hours. These providers are paid by the companies that have to buy capacity. Conventional generators, eager to maintain their revenue, persuaded one big electricity market to limit the use of demand response.

The argument over how to value capacity and how to value energy has an echo in the debate over payments to the owners of solar panels at the retail level. In most states they get “net metering” — that is, if a utility charges them 15 cents a kilowatt-hour for energy, it pays them at the same rate when they produce. The payment relieves the panel owner of all the other costs of electricity — maintaining capacity for hours when the sun does not shine, and moving the electricity from the producer to the consumer, all wrapped into the retail rate that consumers traditionally paid, and that now the utility pays the panel owner.

The homeowner with panels on the roof may think he or she is disconnected from the system, when in fact the connection has become stronger, making the household a supplier as well as a consumer of energy, and a consumer of all the grid’s other functions, like capacity, transmission and distribution.

All the various generators connected to the grid — now including rooftop solar, and “microgrid” owners who generate on their own but use the grid for backup — are going to have to share some of the costs, predicted Martin E. Shalhoub, manager of business development for ABB’s Power Consulting business. But with utilities trying to maintain profitability, and green advocates trying to encourage solar and other distributed generation, the argument will be complicated.

“Not everybody is going to be happy,” he said.

This article is originally posted by the New York Times.

But only a few states allow a lesser-known policy that is critical for the expansion of distributed renewables, particularly community-scale solar -- also known as aggregate, virtual, or group net metering. And there are a lot of good reasons to want to see its expansion.

The basic premise is that the output of a renewable system can be shared among accounts. An extension of this policy is allowing multiple electric customers to share in a net metered system’s output. This is often referred to as 'community net metering,' 'aggregated net metering,' 'virtual net metering,' or 'group net metering.'

Whatever you want to call the policy, looking at the small number of states that permit such net metering reveals a myriad of unnecessary exclusions and caveats which limit their effectiveness -- and the amount of net metered solar that exists.

For example, New Jersey’s policy adopted this month is restricted only to public projects. Pennsylvania’s version is called “aggregate virtual net metering” and is limited to individual customers who own multiple meters within a two-mile radius.  California allows for sharing of credits for multi-tenant properties and also for local governments, but only if all participating accounts receive a time-of-use rate.  

But for something shared so virtually as an electron, one needs to ask why these policies include so many unnecessarily restrictive caveats based on things like geographic distance and customer class.

It’s an important enough issue that the net metering report Freeing the Gridrecognizes aggregate and group net metering policies as key ranking indicators when evaluating states.

It’s Vermont that has the most advanced and solar-conducive policy. Started first with the concept of allowing multiple farm buildings to join a “group” for on-site generation, Vermont’s expanded “group net metering” law allows offsite generation up to 500 kilowatt (2.2 megawatts for military). The only requirement is that members be in the same electric utility. That’s it. Groups may be mixed among residential, commercial, and government customers. Local utilities must reward credits and bill net metering customers within a group directly. And, notably, Vermont’s law recently provided time-of-use customers a consistent method for crediting their net metered production. The system has proven efficient, easy, and most importantly encourages net metering.

Why is getting this policy right so important? The expansion of policies like group net metering help dissolve the traditional boundaries of distributed electric generation and are critical for facilitating the expansion of solar net metering:

Choosing the most productive sites: Group net metering allows installers, investors, and customers to choose the best possible site for a renewable energy system. Rather than being boxed into a less-than-adequate roof or a geographic space too small or too shaded for the most cost-effective net metered projects, group net metering allows for ideal siting, making for a better investment with higher financial returns. Group net metering allows for greater flexibility when considering local planning, zoning, or historical requirements. Take for example two homeowners with roofs that are inadequate for solar. Under Vermont’s group net metering law, those two homeowners could easily join with a third neighbor or business and share the energy from a solar system installed at a more productive, economical site.

Achieving economies of scale: While traditional net metered solar often makes a lot of financial sense, group net metering laws allow for economies of scale in larger project development. According to the Department of Energy, the average residential cost of solar is approximately $6.00 per watt nationally. [GTM Research's U.S. Solar Market Insight has the U.S. average system price as $4.44 per watt in the first quarter of 2011 -- ed.].  Meanwhile, larger scale distributed solar projects cost $3 per watt (for fixed solar) or even below. Consider also that land values vary dramatically even within the same electric utilities' coverage area, and you see how installing a site a little way down the road can also have a significant impact on financials of a project.

Creative solar finance: Group net metering policies facilitate community solar projects and third-party ownership models, expanding opportunities for customers. As Sunrun, Sungevity and other third-party ownership modelshave demonstrated, innovative solar financing has proven widely successful in deploying residential net metered solar.  This innovation continues with companies like Solar Mosaic which are creating mechanisms for “crowdfunding” projects, where individuals can directly make renewable energy investments. Promising new initiatives are enhanced by conducive local policies.  

Reduced default risk: For states that allow third-party or Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) investors to offer group net metering, these policies reduce the risk to an investor because should a net metering customer suddenly not have an electric load (a school closes, for example) or not be able to pay (in the case of a bankruptcy), the PPA agreement could be fashioned so that the energy output from the project could simply be transferred to a new customer within the utility if allowed under group net metering law.  

More solar for more customers: Group net metering policies help enable non-homeowners to invest in solar and have also facilitated the proliferation of solar programs for affordable housing tenants. For example, California’s Multifamily Affordable Solar Housing (MASH) Program was designed in 2008 specifically for low-income affordable housing, and the California Public Utility Commission reported earlier this month that virtual net metering has allowed thousands of low-income tenants to receive the direct benefits of solar as reductions in their monthly electric bills.

In sum, aggregate, virtual, and group net metering polices allow for the expansion of more economical projects to provide renewable energy to an increasingly diverse customer base. The key is to get the policies right.

State policies and individual utilities should look hard at how to dissolve the traditional, unnecessary boundaries in this industry. Such a policy shift could quickly usher in a brighter distributed renewable energy future.

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/guest-post-dissolving-traditional-energy-boundaries-with-group-net-metering

Hosted in part by Questar III BOCES, expo participants visited more than 30 representatives from various companies around the capital region to lean about careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM).

Company representatives showed participants real-life examples of how science and technology affect all professions, and provided information about local education and job opportunities.

Representatives from GE Health Care were in attendance to speak with students about the jobs available at their organization in Advanced Manufacturing, Semi-conductor Manufacturing Technology, Chemical engineering, Industrial engineering and more.

“Tech Valley is growing; there are positions available now and will continue to be available in the future,” said GE Health Care Business Team Leader Paul Janiszewski.

“We’re here to get the word out answer questions about careers in the Biotech field,” said Amy Sanderson, senior supervisor in the health diagnostic Lab at Taconic in Rensselaer. “We have entry-level, hands-on jobs all the way up to scientists with Ph.D.’s.”

The Expo also featured two panel discussions called Careers in Technology and Careers in Healthcare for a more in-depth conversation on the two topics.

Career Expo’s sponsors also include, Brunswick CSD, Lansingburgh CSD, Schodack CSD, Troy CSD, Troy Riverfront P-Tech and the Northeast Advanced Technology Education Center/Hudson Valley Community College.  It was made possible by the New York State Education Department with federal funding under the Carl Perkins Vocational and Applied Education Improvement Act of 2006.

http://news.questar.org/?p=2963

HILLSBORO, Ore., Dec. 31, 2013 – SolarWorld announced today that it is taking further steps to counter ongoing, anticompetitive trade practices that the U.S. government conclusively determined one year ago were unfairly harming the U.S. domestic solar industry. The largest U.S. producer for more than 35 years, the company said it was acting on behalf of the domestic industry as a whole, a broad coalition of installers and other industry businesses, and the promising future of an industry and technology pioneered in America.

Today, the company submitted anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases with the U.S. International Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Commerce against China and Taiwan to close a loophole in trade remedies issued a year ago this month. The loophole enables Chinese producers to evade duties averaging about 31 percent by assembling modules from cells manufactured in third countries. As a result, the company said, China has continued to improprerly subsidize its export-intensive campaign and sell below production costs in the U.S. market to seize market share. Research, including a National Renewable Energy Laboratory report, concludes China has no solar production cost advantage.

“We’re finishing the job of presenting the facts to our trade regulators to prevent China from further damaging yet another manufacturing industry and another rich base of employment,” said Mukesh Dulani, president of SolarWorld Industries America Inc., based in Oregon. “China obviously recognizes the key importance of solar-technology manufacturing to future economic competitiveness. But we do, too. Therefore, we are once again simply asking our trade regulators to investigate the facts and apply the well-established laws that enable free trade, robust competition and lower long-term pricing. If fair competition can be restored, the U.S. industry will return to growth.”

SolarWorld is acting not only on behalf of the domestic industry and its promising future but also with support from the Coalition for American Solar Manufacturing, a broad cross-section of solar employers united in their support for free and fair trade according to well-established laws and rules, sustainable manufacturing according to the West’s high environmental and quality standards, and domestic manufacturing industry and employment for Americans. All told, CASM’s 241 member organizations employ about 18,350 Americans. Since SolarWorld filed the first cases, China’s anti-competitive campaign has forced a number of additional CASM members out of business.

http://www.solarindustrymag.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.13504#utm_medium=email&utm_source=LNH+11-20-2013&utm_campaign=SIM+News+Headlines

The investment is Google's 14th in renewable energy. The company has so far put more than $1 billion behind solar and wind projects since April 2010. Google is partnering with investment firm KKR for the venture; the lead developer is Recurrent Energy.

Google currently gets 33% of its energy from renewable sources, but hopes to be 100% renewable at some point.

http://mashable.com/2013/11/14/google-solar-plants/

The measure, approved by the Arizona Corporation Commission in a 3-2 vote, was intended to serve as a compromise between APS and the solar industry, which had fought to stop the utility's efforts to change a solar incentive that has buttressed the rapid growth of rooftop systems in one of the nation's sunniest states.

The fee of 70 cents per kilowatt would equate to about $5 a month for the average solar customer in Arizona - an amount the solar companies at the hearing said they could live with. The charge will only apply to customers who install solar systems after Dec. 31 of this year, meaning the 20,000 APS customers who already have solar panels will not see changes to their bills.

The debate over the little-known solar subsidy called net metering was being watched closely by utility and solar players far beyond the Grand Canyon state. The two industries are increasingly at odds over allowing homeowners with rooftop solar systems to sell the power they don't use back to their utilities at retail rates.

Rhone Resch, the head of the U.S. solar trade group, the Solar Energy Industries Association, said in a statement following the vote that he was "deeply troubled by today's precedent-setting action," while at the same time applauding the decision to allow customers to continue selling unused solar power back to the utility.

Arizona is considered to be the biggest battleground on the net metering debate, and APS spent $3.7 million on lobbying and advertising efforts leading up to the net metering hearing.

Because of net metering, solar customers can end up with a credit on their utility bills at the end of the month. Typically, however, they still pay some amount to their local utility.

Throughout the proceedings, APS argued that net metering allows solar customers to avoid paying their fair share of the cost to maintain the electric grid - thereby passing $18 million in annual costs onto non-solar customers. The issue has come to a head recently because of the dramatic recent growth in rooftop solar. Systems are being added to APS' service territory at a rate of about 500 a month, said APS, a unit of Pinnacle West Capital Corp. Arizona was the nation's No. 2 state for solar installations in the second quarter of this year.

Company representatives at the hearing said a charge of 70 cents a KW was not nearly enough.

"We are very concerned with the cost impacts of this policy," APS' senior vice president of customers and regulation, Jeff Guldner, told the Commission ahead of the vote. "We don't think this proposal is in the best interest of our customers."

The compromise was hammered out between representatives for the solar industry and the state's ratepayer advocate, the Residential Utility Consumer Office, during the hearing on Thursday in Phoenix. APS, however, never agreed to the terms.

The Alliance for Solar Choice, which represented a coalition of solar financing and installation companies including SolarCity Corp, Sunrun and Sungevity, had initially pushed for any decision to be delayed until APS' next rate case in 2015.

In the end, however, the solar companies decided that they could still be competitive with a monthly charge of 70 cents a KW. The average size of a solar system in Arizona is 7 to 8 KW.

Still, Bryan Miller, vice president of public policy and power markets at solar financing company Sunrun, testified during the hearing that even a $5-a-month charge would eliminate the ability of some customers to save money by leasing solar panels. He estimated that solar leasing companies, which dominate the market in Arizona, are able to save their customers between $5 and $10 a month, on average.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/15/solar-arizona-idUSL2N0J003A20131115

http://www.solarindustrymag.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.13478#utm_medium=email&utm_source=LNH+11-13-2013&utm_campaign=SIM+News+Headlines

A utility’s integrated resource plan (IRP) “is a long-term view to balance resources and ensure reliable service for fifteen to twenty years into the future,” explained report co-author and Solar Electric Power Association Utility Strategy Director John Sterling during a SEPA webinar. “The two key factors are load growth and available resources.”

Utilities look at a wide range of factors to determine “the best set of future decisions” to serve customers “at the lowest possible cost.” 

More recently, IRPs have begun to consider renewables mandates and generation diversification. Though such factors may not meet least-cost standards, NREL’s report says that they address “non-cost metrics” like emissions requirements and risk reductions. “Some utilities note that an exclusive focus on ‘least-cost’ may not yield the optimal portfolio of resources.”

Most planners anticipate more distributed and utility-scale solar coming into their systems, but they need more data to do long-range modeling.

How utilities will work with increasing levels of solar will be one of the themesof the upcoming U.S. Solar Market Insight Conference. The panel "Tomorrow's Utility in a Distributed Generation World" will include FERC Chair Jon Wellinghoff, while "Innovation at the Grid Edge: The Foundation for a High-Penetration PV Future" will include PG&E Renewable Integration Senior Manager Michael Avidan.

The newest edition of the GTM Research/SEIA U.S. Solar Market Insight quarterly report will be released at the conference.

Planners have solar generation profiles from existing plants and sources likePVsyst and NREL’s PVWatts program, which provide a year's worth of typical data, albeit limited in scope. Cost information is the “key uncertainty,” the survey found. Some planners “believed that U.S. Department of EnergySunShot goals for PV may be achieved by 2020; others said costs will continue to go down but at a slower pace, and still others said that solar costs have reached their minimum and will flatten out.”

Planning assumptions, which reflect that range of cost forecasts, could slow solar growth. “It is a chicken-and-egg problem. They may see solar as too expensive,” said report co-author Karlynn Cory, an NREL Senior Energy Analyst. “But some of the recent cost reductions are the result of deployment. If planners wait for prices to drop, prices won’t drop because deployment won’t grow.”

Planners, however, are charged to protect their customers and stockholders. “If a lot of solar is procured at a high cost and the price drops,” Sterling said, “it could trigger a prudency review.”

MidAmerican Holdings protected itself from such a review in a recent wind buy, Cory said, by getting pre-approval from regulators.

Solar’s capacity value is identified as a “key question” for planners. “A solar generator’s capacity value is the percentage of its nameplate capacity that is anticipated to be reliably available to meet daily and seasonal peak demand,” the report explains. Utilities count on “fully dispatchable conventional generation” as load fluctuates. “In contrast, the most commonly deployed solar technology, fixed-axis solar PV, generates only when the sun is available…so solar energy may not correlate perfectly with a utility’s need.”

Between 60 percent and 76 percent of the planners assigned a capacity value of 0 percent to 60 percent for fixed PV and up to 80 percent for PV with tracking. Only 26 percent to 44 percent of utility planners assigned any capacity value to CSP with or without storage, PV with battery storage or concentrating photovoltaics. Between 56 percent and 74 percent of planners used a 0 percent capacity value for solar.

Utility planners also use values ranging from $2.00 per megawatt-hour to $11.00 per megawatt-hour for the cost of integrating variable solar into the grid. The combination of storage and PV is not included in modeling by the majority of planners because of a “lack of credible data and analysis.”

The majority of utilities treat customer-sited solar as “a net load impact,” Sterling explained, but it may be more accurate to treat it as “a resource option.” Though it is difficult in a twenty-year planning study, he said, modeling solar capacity value on an intra-hourly basis could allow planners to “put the price curve on the resource side of the equation at a zero-fuel cost and see how much lower the overall revenue requirements are.”

“Separating DG out of the load provides more granularity into one of the key drivers of planning decisions, which is load,” Cory added, “and allows the utility to better understand the impact of the DG.”

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/what-utility-planners-need-to-know-about-solar

But the Framingham-based company also ranks high on another list: It’s the ninth largest user of solar power of any non-utility business in the U.S.

Wal-Mart Stores was by far the leader in the Solar Energy Industries Association’sranking of the top 25 solar-using companies, with nearly 90 megawatts of installed solar capacity. Costco and Kohl’s were a distant second and third.

Staples remains in the top 10, with roughly 14 megawatts of capacity, ranked below Johnson & Johnson and McGraw-Hill but above Campbell’s and U.S. Foods. Staples is regularly honored by the Environmental Protection Agency for its work in the solar business, and this report offers new insight into how the company stacks up against other big firms. (It’s the only Massachusetts-based company in the top 25.)

For Staples, the journey to becoming a major solar power player dates back to 2004, when it hooked up with SunEdison, a California-based developer and operator of photovoltaic systems. So far, at least three dozen solar projects have been installed at various Staples sites. Many are stores, although some are offices or warehouses. Staples owns some of the properties, but most are leased.

The most recent installations included a 2.2-megawatt project on land next to Staples’ London, Ohio, warehouse, and a 0.7-megawatt installation on a garage roof at its Framingham headquarters. Both went online at the end of 2012.

Staples avoids major upfront costs by agreeing to 20-year power purchasing agreements with SunEdison. The solar company then gets financing from a bank, often Wells Fargo & Co., to build the panels and sell their power to Staples. Jeff Bower, director of strategic accounts at SunEdison, says if more power is produced than Staples needs at a particular site, the excess goes to the local electric utility and Staples gets a credit for use on a future bill.

Mark Buckley, vice president of environmental affairs at Staples, says that in the case of the Framingham location, all the solar power remains on site to support the 650,000-square-foot headquarters complex and the 3,500 people who work there. Solaire Generation designed and installed the Framingham project.

Buckley said Staples is still looking at other potential projects. Predominantly, these solar panels are going up in states like Massachusetts that have requirements that a certain percentage of the electricity come from renewable energy. These solar panels are also going up in places with relatively high power prices. (Again, Massachusetts fits the bill.) Staples, Buckley says, views these projects as part of broader strategies to keep costs contained and to reduce the chain’s environmental impact.

“It’s a model that’s really transformed the solar industry,” Buckley says. “In the early days, systems were purchased by building owners or tenants, tying up a lot of capital. This is a way for us to solarize our buildings and build long-term price certainty in our power supply without having to make capital investments.”

http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/techflash/2013/11/staples-ranked-as-top-solar-user.html?page=all

http://solarprofessional.com/articles/products-equipment/product-launches/sma-introduces-high-capacity-3-phase-string-inverters

Lower prices. Solar panels are a sizeable investment, but according to a recent report from the Solar Energy Industries Association, the average national price for a solar electric system is now less than $5 per watt installed. That’s a notable drop since 2009, when prices averaged $8 per watt. Ten years before that, they were about $12 per watt. A small home solar electric system might be 2 kilowatts (kw) — or 2,000 watts. At $12 per watt, the system would have cost $24,000. At $5 per watt, it’s more like $10,000.

Federal incentive. You can receive a large federal tax credit for purchasing a home solar electric system. This tax credit — which is available through 2016 — is 30 percent of the price of the system, with no upper limit. So for that same 2-kw, $10,000 system, the cost would now be down to $7,000. (For more information, visit Energy Star.)

Local incentives. As energy prices climb and the public’s understanding of climate change deepens, many states are taking steps to support renewable energy, including tax incentives and grant programs. Twenty-nine states have adopted Renewable Portfolio Standards, which set specific quotas for how much of a utility’s power must come from renewable sources. To comply with these policies, many utility companies offer rebates to customers who install grid-connected solar electric systems, and those rebates can add up.

Kansas City, Mo., for instance, has a big local rebate — $2 per watt. Jeff Droz is a solar installer in the area, and his company, Roof Power Solar, installs systems that are about $4.50 per watt, or $9,000 for a 2-kw system (before rebates). The local rebate and the federal tax credit would bring that cost to $3,500.

When the costs are that low, solar panels pay for themselves relatively quickly in lower utility bills. For residential home solar power projects, Droz says the payback period is typically five to six years. A similar project without any local incentives would take roughly twice as long to pay for itself. For businesses, the incentives are even bigger, and the payback period can be less than two years. Quite the bargain, says Droz: “Very few investments will return your money in a couple of years and continue to save thousands of dollars each year for 25-plus years.”

Getting the rules right. While incentives are enticing, they’re not the only factor in small-scale solar’s growth, says Jim Kennerly, a solar policy analyst at the North Carolina Solar Center. “Incentives are important, but they’re going to become less important than rules. Rules are what will allow you to sell your power,” he says. Most utility companies allow homeowners to connect to the utility’s grid and sell their excess power. Related policies include interconnection standards (technical, legal and procedural requirements that customers and utilities must abide by), net-metering regulations (which essentially allow you to “bank” your excess electricity production on the grid), and feed-in tariffs (long-term contracts with a utility to buy your power at a set price).

Click the link below to read more.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/renewable-energy/home-solar-power-zmgz13onzsto.aspx?newsletter=1&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=SLCS+eNews&utm_campaign=10.23.13.+SLCS#axzz2iZHH6DS9

Trojan’s battery sizing calculator is designed to simplify the task of properly sizing a battery bank for off-grid renewable energy systems. A battery bank is a vital component of a system, so careful attention must be paid to battery sizing to ensure maximum battery performance and longevity. Three factors must be considered when sizing battery banks for renewable energy systems: 1) the electrical power required, or load, of a particular application, 2) the maximum depth of discharge (DOD) the battery will be allowed to go down to and 3) the autonomy desired, or the number of days the battery will be used to power the loads.

“Failing to properly design the system to meet specific load requirements, leads to improper sizing of the batteries which can reduce the life of the battery bank. Therefore, it is important to optimize systems to meet the load requirements of a customer’s particular application requirements,” said Kalyan Jana, technical product manager at Trojan Battery. “Not fully understanding the system’s load profile for both the real energy demands and the duty cycle can have a dramatic impact on system performance. It also can potentially cause the system to lose power or require a replacement battery bank sooner than necessary. Trojan developed its battery sizing calculator to simplify this process and make it more convenient for our customers to determine their battery needs.”

Trojan’s battery sizing calculator is an easier way to determine battery capacity than manually calculating load requirements and then converting them to battery capacity. Customers simply fill in the appropriate information on the electronic form such as battery voltage, desired to depth-of-discharge (DOD), days of autonomy, AC and DC loads, device types with power ratings, and hours per day or days per week used, and the application automatically determines the required battery capacity. It then recommends the Trojan battery models for their particular set up. The calculator also allows customers to run “what if” scenarios to find specific battery options to meet their budget or configuration requirements.

“It is important to optimize battery systems to meet the load requirements of the application,” Jana said. “If manufacturer’s data is not available for a particular load, steps should be taken to measure actual power use before calculating the total energy storage requirement. Equally important is the need to truly understand the specific nature of the application and customer expectations.”

http://www.trojanbatteryre.com/About_Us/Press_Releases/BatterySizingCalculatorPR.html

As it stands, almost every solar panel is made by slicing a 200-micrometer-thick (0.2mm) wafer from a block of crystalline silicon. You then add some electrodes, cover it in protective glass, and leave it in a sunny area to generate electricity through the photovoltaic effect (when photons hit the silicon, it excites the electrons and generates a charge). There are two problems with this approach: Much in the same way that sawdust is produced when you slice wood, almost half of the silicon block is wasted when it’s cut into 200-micrometer slices; and second, the panels would still function just as well if they were thinner than 200 micrometers, but silicon is brittle and prone to cracking if it’s too thin.

This is where Twin Creeks’ ion cannon, dubbed Hyperion, comes into play. If you look at the picture above, 3-millimeter-thick silicon wafers are placed around the outside edge of the big, spoked wheel. A particle accelerator bombards these wafers with hydrogen ions, and with exacting control of the voltage of the accelerator, the hydrogen ions accumulate precisely 20 micrometers from the surface of each wafer. A robotic arm then transports the wafers to a furnace where the ions expand into hydrogen gas, which cause the 20-micrometer-thick layer to shear off. A metal backing is applied to make it less fragile (and highly flexible, as you see on the right), and the remaining silicon wafer is taken back to the particle accelerator for another dose of ions. At a tenth of the thickness and with considerably less wastage, it’s easy to see how Twin Creeks can halve the cost of solar cells.

According to Technology Review, ion beams have been considered before, but particle accelerators were simply too expensive to be commercially viable. This is the flip side of Twin Creeks’ innovation: It had to make its own particle accelerator which is “10 times more powerful” (100mA at 1 MeV) than anything on the market today.

When all’s said and done, if you buy Twin Creeks’ equipment, it is promising a cost of around 40 cents per watt, about half the cost of panels currently coming out of China (where the vast majority of solar panels are made). At that price, solar power begins to encroach on standard, mostly-hydrocarbon-derived grid power — but, of course, we still need to create batteries that can store solar power over night. Maybe Stanford has the answer to that problem, though, with its everlasting nanobattery — and then there’s Nortwestern University’s graphene-doped lithium-ion batteries, and, perhaps most realistically, electric cars like the Nissan Leaf that can double up as a glorified house battery.

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/122231-solar-panels-made-with-ion-cannon-are-cheap-enough-to-challenge-fossil-fuels

http://www.solarindustrymag.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.13293#utm_medium=email&utm_source=LNH+10-04-2013&utm_campaign=SIM+News+Headlines

Were you one of the more than 35,000 people who attended electric vehicle (EV) promotion events in 98 cities this past weekend? Thanks to the third annual National Plug In Day, organized by the Sierra Club, Plug In America, the Electric Auto Association, and many local groups, the EV-curious got to learn what all the fuss is about when it comes to electric vehicles.

The future is here is what folks got to see up close: EVs are more fun to drive, cheaper to fuel, and cleaner to operate than conventional gas guzzlers.

California Governor Jerry Brown proclaimed Saturday Plug In Day and signed several EV bills into law, including those which:

http://sierraclub.typepad.com/compass/2013/10/electric-vehicle-events-plug-in-day.html

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2013/09/virtual-power-plants-a-new-model-for-renewables-integration

But now Nova Scotia is heading to the polls and electricity prices are a key issue because they have ‘rocketed’ to 0.15 $/kWh (Canadian). That is indeed high by Canadian standards, but it is a bargain globally.

Out of curiosity I thought I’d crunch the numbers to see who really is paying a lot for their power.

Electricity prices around the world in $/kWh

It doesn’t matter where you go in the world, people love to moan about the cost of electricity.

This begs the question, where is electricity actually expensive and where is it cheap. Or better yet, is my electricity cheap or expensive?

To try and answer this question I’ve collected average electricity prices from 17 countries around the world, and converted them to $/kWh (US). All the data is based on average prices and exchange rates for 2011, and I’ve graphed them in US cents/kWh to keep it tidy.

Let’s start with the obvious. Denmark, Germany and Spain have expensive electricity. In fact in straight dollar terms Denmark is trumped only by small island countries dependent on imported diesel for power.

Canadian electricity is cheap at 10 US cents per kilowatt hour, which is reflected in their high average electricity usage. US electricity prices at 0.12 $/kWh are also quite cheap internationally. In India and China they are very cheap.

I find this comparison pretty useful. And the reasons behind the differences are quite diverse. But there are two issues with this. One, electricity prices are on the move in many places, South Africa, Australia and Nigeria come to mind. And secondly, basic exchange rate conversions aren’t always the best measure of how expensive something really is.

The first is just something to be aware of.  And despite my best efforts I couldn’t gather consistent data for 2012. The second however can be accounted for by considering purchasing power parities.

The relative price of electricity

Our initial comparison of electricity prices didn’t account for the fact that price levels vary a lot between countries. For example a US dollar will go a lot further buying goods and services in relatively cheap India than it will in relatively expensive Australia.

If we look at the same average electricity prices for 2011 but this time adjust them to US dollars using purchasing power parity the picture look slightly different.

Once you adjust for the different price levels between countries Canadians have the cheapest electricity and Germans the most expensive.

Places like Nigeria and India have jumped up the list due to their lower price levels, while countries including Denmark, Australia and Japan have fallen because they are relatively expensive places to live. In general accounting for purchasing power lessened the difference between countries, but significant differences remain.

Which brings me back to Nova Scotia. Paying 12 US cents/kWh is expensive in Canada.

Just don’t moan about it abroad!

http://theenergycollective.com/lindsay-wilson/279126/average-electricity-prices-around-world-kwh?utm_source=tec_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter&inf_contact_key=f86cc7ba818e04fc14aa6efc9447c7250896f774a8c4b94d7996f6e48a1f0aa9

http://www.solarindustrymag.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.13263#utm_medium=email&utm_source=LNH+09-27-2013&utm_campaign=SIM+News+Headlines

GM yesterday unveiled a massive expansion of its Global Battery Systems Laboratory at the GM Technical Center outside Detroit, tripling the facility’s size and making it the largest battery lab in North America owned and operated by an auto manufacturer.

The $20 million, 50,000 square-foot expansion increases the size of the facility to 85,000 square feet and adds a host of new technical and material testing capabilities that could unlock the full potential of electric vehicle battery performance and range.

(Full disclosure — while GM sponsored my trip to tour the facility, it had no involvement in the editorial process of this post)

Building A Better Electric Vehicle Battery

The Global Battery Systems Laboratory opened in 2009, and has been the home for testing and validating battery cells and battery packs for all of GM’s electrified vehicles, including the Chevy Volt, the Cadillac ELR, and the brand-new Chevy Spark EV.

Researchers have already completed 2.5 million hours of battery testing and developed breakthroughs like system updates that added three miles of EV range to the 2013 Volt, but that’s all old news compared to the new testing capabilities.

To start, the new expansion has increased the number of pack-level test channels from 64 to 112 and cell-level test channels from 96 to 120. It’s also added dedicated equipment for testing future technologies like charger and cord set systems, increased the capacity to build battery packs for new vehicle development programs, and will serve as the hub for validation and testing for all battery systems designed for GM vehicles around the world.

By combining advanced testing and battery performance analytical capabilities at one location, GM’s engineers can run simulations and determine how a battery’s design will perform in various temperatures while new vehicles are being developed to streamline vehicle production. Small-scale welding, mock-up, and assembly stations also allow engineers to build prototype battery packs and test experimental designs.

Limiting Impacts Of Heat, Cold, And Vibrations

But beyond testing battery designs, the GM facility also focuses on understanding two major environmental factors that can limit battery performance -– temperature and road vibrations.

One expansive test room features climate chambers that can replicate any environment on Earth from minus 40 to plus 80 degrees Celsius, and 0-100% relative humidity, for up to 40 battery packs at one time. Nearby battery cyclers rapidly charge and discharge battery packs to simulate 10 years of average use in roughly 2 years of test time.

Two other test rooms features “shaker tables” that mimic how vibrations from various real-world road surfaces impact battery pack behavior over a vehicle’s lifetime. GM’s battery lab is the only one in the country with shaker tables that combine vibration testing with a thermal chamber, chiller, and a battery cycler to test how extreme temperature and power discharges can exacerbate driving wear-and-tear.

Toward A Next-Generation Breakthrough

From predicting how fast a vehicle can accelerate, to how much range a battery will provide, to how long the battery will perform before wearing down, GM’s battery lab is all about building the best EV battery.

“In the past four years, the competitive landscape in the electrification space has grown exponentially,” said Doug Parks, GM’s vice president for global products. “This additional real estate is filled with new capability that will help us improve speed to market for our next generation of battery systems.”

While all the research and testing facilities promise battery breakthroughs, the lab’s promise is best shown not by advanced machines, but by a simple side-by-side display of the Chevy Volt and EV-1 battery packs.

Considering how much smaller and more powerful GM was able to make its batteries from one vehicle generation to another, the potential future breakthroughs that make an EV-powered future a reality for drivers worldwide seem nearly limitless.

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/09/17/gm-opens-50000-square-foot-electric-vehicle-battery-laboratory/

By Maria Gallucci, InsideClimate News

SolarWorld’s grievances are twofold. Their first argues that numerous Chinese solar PV producers were unable or unwilling to show that they operated free from government control. Their second claims that Commerce erroneously undervalued the classification of Chinese aluminum frames, leading to significantly understated antidumping duties.

The company led a 240-strong coalition of U.S.-based solar producers, financers and installers called the Coalition for American Solar Manufacturing in challenging what it claimed was China’s anticompetitive campaign to illegally flood the U.S. market with solar products at dumped, artificially low prices, backed by massive government subsidies.

Towards the end of 2012, the U.S. government introduced duties on Chinese suppliers ranging between 31% to 250%. But in appeals to the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York, SolarWorld argues that those companies that failed to show they were free of Chinese government ownership or control should have been subjected to a China-wide rate of 250%, rather than the separate antidumping rates they received.

"U.S. costs to make and deliver solar technology for the U.S. market are lower than those of Chinese producers," added Brinser, "Our better record of solar-equipment reliability, R&D and quality is also far longer. Moreover, we have the law – and history – on our side: free trade is not trade without rules.

"But to fairly compete, we need our federal trade-law enforcement system to show fortitude in applying that law. It is not enough to adjudicate cases without attention to the underlying industry and market realities of resulting remedies. We are still asking for these thoroughly investigated illegal trade practices to be actually stopped."

SolarWorld has also alleged that Commerce mistakenly waived a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) ruling that was intended to determine the proper classification of aluminum frames being introduced to the U.S. market by one of China’s largest solar producers. Commerce failed to use proper classification, argues SolarWorld, resulting in a substantial undervaluation of the frames, leading to understated antidumping margins against the companies in question.

Since a previous smuggling and dumping case in June, aluminum extrusions originating from China are subject to substantial trade duties. Commerce has been investigating such trade-duty evasion matters since April, and had asked the CBP to introduce enhanced import reviews and enforcement based on the evidence gathered.

However, some Chinese producers have begun claiming their solar panels use non-Chinese cells in an effort to legally avoid trade remedies. Their actions are a result of a loophole created by Commerce when it ruled that Chinese producers could import solar panels duty-free provided they were made in China from solar cells manufactured in third-party countries. 

This so-called scope ruling has also been appealed by SolarWorld, and will be addressed by the Court of International Trade once the antidumping appeals have been investigated.

http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/solarworld-lodges-two-trade-case-appeals-to-court-of-international-trade-in-new-york_100012646/#axzz2egGyG4na

http://solarprofessional.com/articles/products-equipment/product-launches/sma-introduces-non-isolated-inverters-for-the

Secretary Moniz set the Obama administration's Climate Action Plan as the backbone of his speech and set the stage for his tenure at the DOE.

Here's the gist of the speech.

Grid Resilience 

The first thing Moniz brought up was Hurricane Sandy, its impact on energy infrastructure, and the need for "resilience" on the grid. He said, "We have to help this rebuilding in a smart way."

Preparing for a Changing Climate

The Energy Secretary was not wishy-washy on the topic of climate change. He cited the increase in extreme weather events and said, "These recent events, unfortunately, are likely harbingers of things to come, scenes that will likely be repeated as carbon emissions from human activity threaten to alter the global climate consistent with the longstanding expectations of the climate science community."

He said, "I'm not here to debate what's not debatable. The evidence is overwhelming. The science is clear -- certainly clear for the level that one needs for policymaking -- in terms of the real and urgent threat of climate change."

The Secretary added, "The overwhelming conclusion, certainly for the policy world, is that prudence demands strong, commonsense, near-term policy actions to minimize the risk of global warming -- and that's what the president's Climate Action Plan does in the absence of legislative remedies."

A Focus on Energy Efficiency

Moniz noted that his first official event as Secretary was an Alliance to Save Energy meeting and that efficiency remains crucial in taming CO2. He spoke of an improved dialogue between DOE and OMB that has helped speed enactment of new appliance efficiency rules for ovens, metal halide lamps, commercial walk-in coolers, and electric motors. Expect more appliance efficiency rules from the Moniz DOE.

Cutting Emissions From New and Existing Power Plants 

Moniz tackled the issue of fossil fuels, saying, "Another key provision of the president's Climate Plan directs EPA to issue rules for cutting carbon emissions from both new and existing power plants. The power sector is the single largest source of CO2 emissions in the United States, and as such, this action has been applauded by many as the most significant step the president can take to reduce carbon emissions, absent legislative action. This directive has also been derided by some as an action that is tantamount to a war on coal."

He rejected that claim.

"We must reduce CO2 emissions. [...] 'All-of-the-above' means we will invest in the technology -- research, development and demonstration -- so that all of our energy sources can be enabled as marketplace competitors in a low-carbon energy world."

He spoke of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) and the up to $8 billion in loan guarantees to demonstrate new fossil fuel technologies. He said, "This is not a war on coal. It is preparing the way for coal to potentially have a place in the low-carbon world."

A Successful Loan Guarantee Program

Moniz said that despite the reflex to think "Solyndra" when the term "DOE loan guarantee" is mentioned, the loan program has supported "a large and diverse $34 billion portfolio" of wind, solar, nuclear and automotive ventures. Moniz noted the program's New York connections in Richard Kauffman and Peter Davidson, and hailed some of the program's accomplishments:

• Jump-starting utility solar in the U.S.
• Manufacturing the Tesla Model S (which he called "pricey" but an appropriate business model at this stage of the market). Tesla has paid its loan back early.
• Providing a provisional loan guarantee for the first permitted U.S. nuclear plant in decades

"The portfolio was supposed to take some risks; not every investment is going to succeed. The track record is quite remarkable," said Moniz.

Driving Down the Cost of Low-Carbon Solutions

Moniz cited the recent cost reductions in wind power, solar panels, EV batteries, and LED lighting.

"A harbinger of what is coming is when energy incumbents start to seriously reexamine their business models in the face of what is happening," said Moniz, citing the current "discussions" on how power from distributed PV systems is valued. "It was only a few years ago when nobody cared. The message is the future may not be always ten years away. I believe these technologies are beginning to establish their positions."

Microgrids, Resilience and Developing 21st Century Infrastructure

The Secretary noted that before making this speech, he was in Secaucus, N.J. signing an MOU with Governor Christie and the New Jersey Transit Association to develop a 50-megawatt microgrid. He called it "a perfect model of rebuilding" and returned to his earlier theme of building grid resilience in the face of extreme weather and cyberthreats. 

Q&A

During the question-and-answer session, the Secretary diplomatically responded to questions on natural gas export permits and nuclear power, as well as some heckling on the issue of fracking. He spoke of the substitution of natural gas for coal as being a bridge to renewables. He noted that during his time at MIT, the answer to the question of whether natural gas was a problem or the solution was "Yes."

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/DOE-Head-Ernest-Moniz-Delivers-First-Major-Policy-Address

A representative of Sunrun wrote to me, “A memo from the top national law firm (Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP) reveals that solar Feed-in-Tariffs (FITs) and Value of Solar Tariffs (VOSTs) have major hidden tax implications for consumers.”

As I wrote in our previous article, Sunrun is firmly opposed to FiTs and VOSTs as opposed to net metering for other reasons. This clearly amplifies its opposition to those alternative policies.

Here are more details on the tax news from the Sunrun rep:

• The memo explains:
  • FITs and VOSTs make residential solar customers ineligible for a 30% federal tax credit toward their rooftop installations
  • The payments a consumer receives for solar power generated under these arrangements will likely be considered taxable gross income.
  • This is true even when the compensation to the homeowner is a credit rather than a payment
• This affects thousands of customers in FIT programs across the country, including ratepayers of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), Sacramento Municipal Utilities District (SMUD), and the City of Palo Alto.
• The memo was filed in Arizona by TASC (The Alliance for Solar Choice) in response to a proposal Arizona Public Service submitted with a suggested FIT arrangement for replacing net metering.

“We didn’t want to have to file, but felt it was imperative given the implications of these hidden taxes for consumers nationwide,” Bryan Miller, President of TASC and Vice President of Public Policy & Power Markets at Sunrun, states.

“Utility opposition to net metering and their efforts to shift away from NEM toward a FIT is not new. Utilities should be ashamed of pushing a policy that imposes more taxation on customers.”

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/08/26/us-solar-feed-in-tariff-value-of-solar-tariff-beneficiaries-may-face-more-taxes/

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2013/08/microinverters-make-a-move-on-multi-mw-solar-power-installations

The White House official, who asked not to be identified because the installation is in process, wrote in an e-mail the project is “a part of an energy retrofit that will improve the overall energy efficiency of the building.”

http://www.seia.org/news/white-house-solar-panels-being-installed-week

Washington, DC – SEIA President and CEO Rhone Resch issued the following statement today after learning the White House has begun installing solar panels “to improve overall energy efficiency” of America’s most famous building:

“It’s only fitting that today’s great news comes on a beautiful, sunny day in our nation’s capital.  We applaud President Obama for, once again, leading by example.  Today, solar is generating enough electricity to power more than 1.3 million American homes, and we’re extraordinarily proud to be adding the White House to this constantly-growing list. 

“Installing solar panels on the First Family’s official residence, arguably the most famous building in America, underscores the growing popularity of solar energy nationwide.  Today, more than 30 utility-scale, clean energy solar projects are under construction – utilizing both concentrating solar power (CSP) and photovoltaic (PV) technologies – putting thousands of electricians, steelworkers and laborers to work, while also helping to reduce carbon emissions from power plants.  These facilities, along with rooftop solar on homes, businesses and schools, will generate electricity for generations to come.

“Presently, there’s more than 8,500 megawatts (MW) of cumulative solar electric capacity installed in the U.S.  What’s more, in the first quarter of 2013, nearly half of all new generating capacity added to the grid was solar.  All totaled, it’s expected that more than 5,300 MW of new solar electric capacity will come online this year.  In addition, innovativesolar heating and cooling systems are offering American consumers cost-efficient, effective options for meeting their energy needs, while lowering their utility bills.

“Solar now employs nearly 120,000 Americans at more than 5,600 companies, most of which are small businesses spread across the United States, making solar one of the fastest growing industries in America.  Part of this amazing growth is attributed to the fact that the average cost of a solar system has dropped by nearly 40 percent over the past two years.

“We applaud the President for making solar a shining symbol at the White House for clean, renewable energy.  We look forward to working with the Administration and Congress on even more ways to expand the use of solar throughout the federal government.”

http://www.seia.org/news/seia-applauds-president-obama-continued-commitment-solar

The SSMR industry has used this attachment technology for many years, and most SSMR manufacturers endorse and recommend this method when making attachments of various ancillaries to their roof systems. It is of prime concern to all parties - building owner, roof manufacturer, PV integrator and S-5! Attachment Solutions - that the integrity of the roof system is maintained and attendant warranties, if any are in place, are not jeopardized. The result is a PV-to-SSMR marriage that provides maintenance freedom for the expected service lives of both the PV system and the roof. When properly executed, these methods are not only dependable and expedient, but also cost effective - saving up to $1.00 per watt when compared to other roof types and mounting systems.

To achieve the perfect marriage between a PV system and the SSMR using S-5! clamps, follow the best practices described below.

Click the link below to read the entire article.

http://solarprofessional.com/articles/products-equipment/racking/q-a-best-practices-for-using-s-5-clamps

The Sunny Boy 240-US offers leading efficiency, design flexibility, simplicity and module-level optimization, all backed by SMA’s unrivaled bankability and service support. It also features exclusive SMA Sunny Multigate technology, which maximizes system reliability. Watch this short video to learn more about the Sunny Boy 240-US.

Click here to find out “Where to Buy” the Sunny Boy 240-US.

http://www.smainverted.com/2013/08/01/smas-highly-anticipated-micro-inverter-now-shipping/

Photovoltaic module manufacturer SolarWorld has extended its "Freedom Plan" financing program to six other U.S. states, namely Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey. The program was initially only available in California.

Residential solar customers in California have been enjoying the benefits of SolarWorld's financing program "Freedom Plan" since February this year. The program is now available to Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey as well. The company is also planning on introducing the program in other states like Arizona and New York in the coming months.

Under the plan, which is dedicated exclusively to U.S.-made solar products, homeowners are able to replace a portion of their electricity bill with a low monthly solar power payment.

The Freedom Plan, according to SolarWorld, offers zero-down, low-down and prepaid options. These options give homeowners the freedom to choose how they finance their solar investment and minimize their upfront costs. The plan is offered in conjunction with SolarWorld’s complete solar-electric systems, which include photovoltaic equipment, installation, monitoring services, system insurance and maintenance for up to 20 years.

"From coast to coast, solar financing is changing the way American families consume energy, enabling many more to incorporate sustainability while saving money," said Rusty Pittman, head of marketing for SolarWorld Americas. "SolarWorld’s Freedom Plan not only makes the decision to go solar easier and more affordable but it also gives homeowners a way to support U.S. jobs and the national economy by selecting high-quality, American-made solar products."

Homeowners can find an authorized installer in their area at SolarWorld's website. The Freedom Plan is available via the company's network of authorized installers.

http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/us--solarworld-extends-financing-program-_100012226/#axzz2aicAuRS7

http://www.nacleanenergy.com/articles/16515/renewables-provide-25-of-new-electrical-generating-capacity-in-first-half-2013

“The solar PV industry continues to transition from a European-dominated environment to a global market, with a wide range of countries contributing to growth in the overall PV market,” said Michael Barker, Senior Analyst at NPD Solarbuzz. “Until this transition phase is completed, however, the PV industry remains highly dependent on a small group of countries currently at the multi-GW level.”

Global PV demand during 1H'13 reached 15 GW, up 9% compared to the same period in 2012. More than 60% of 1H'13 demand came from four countries: Germany, China, Japan, and the US. Global PV installations were led by large-scale utility and commercial ground-mount applications, which provided 45% of first-half PV demand. Residential rooftop applications accounted for approximately 20%, with the remainder coming from non-residential rooftop installations and off-grid applications.

During 2H'13, PV deployment from just two countries—China and Japan—is forecast to account for more than 45% of global PV demand. While the European region accounted for almost half of global PV demand during 2H'12, this figure will decline to less than 30% during 2H'13.

“Just three years ago, solar PV installations in China and Japan were contributing less than 10% of the second-half global market-share,” added Barker. “In 2013, the number of large-scale PV projects completed in these two countries alone will determine the level of annual growth from the industry, and by how much global demand can exceed the 35 GW mark.”

http://www.solarbuzz.com/news/recent-findings/explosive-growth-japan-and-china-drive-annual-solar-photovoltaic-demand-above-3

Under the NY-Sun initiative, launched by Governor Cuomo last year, the state adopted the goal of quadrupling the amount of photovoltaic capacity installed in 2013 over levels installed in 2011. To advance this goal, Governor Cuomo proposed expanding the NY-Sun initiative to provide long-term funding of $150 million annually over the next 10 years ensuring the growth of the solar industry across the state. 

“New York has seen an unprecedented upswing in the amount of solar power being installed by homeowners and businesses under Governor Cuomo’s far-reaching NY-Sun initiative,” said Commission Chairman Garry Brown. “The changes we made today will ensure that the growth of solar installations, which spurs the creation of jobs in New York, continues well into the future.”

 With the Commission’s decision today, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) is authorized to revise the design of the Renewable Portfolio Standard solar photovoltaic programs for residential and small business owners to accelerate the installation of solar systems to help meet the NY-Sun goals. 

Specifically, NYSERDA is being allowed to offer direct incentives for commercial systems larger than 50 kW up to 200 kW and will correspondingly raise the minimum project size for the competitive bid solar program to systems above 200 kW up to 2 megawatts. In addition, NYSERDA will implement a temporary incentive to allow for capacity additions up to the new 200 kW maximum size in the commercial systems program, and it will increase the residential size cap from 7kW to 25 kW.

The Commission’s decision today, when issued, may be obtained by going to the Commission Documents section of the Commission’s Web site at www.dps.ny.gov and entering Case Number 03-E-0188 in the input box labeled "Search for Case/Matter Number". Many libraries offer free Internet access. Commission orders may also be obtained from the Commission’s Files Office, 14th floor, Three Empire State Plaza, Albany, NY 12223 (518-474-2500).  If you have difficulty understanding English, please call us at 1-800-342-3377 for free language assistance services regarding this press release.

http://apps.cio.ny.gov/apps/mediaContact/public/view.cfm?parm=77B81F1B-B4C8-0FEA-31508234B5070F89_851CD280-5056-9D2A-100C842E8E821B89

As research and real-world performance demonstrates, however, PV technology has met successes and challenges over time. One drawback of the conventional photovoltaic module is that once the surface temperature of the glass laminate starts to rise, the module’s ability and efficiency in producing power begins to decline.

In fact, for every degree above 77° F (25° C), efficiency of a module declines by 0.5%. If the surface temperature rises high enough, a module will completely stop producing electricity.

Beyond rising temperatures
In an attempt to overcome increases in temperatures and its limiting effect on solar modules, engineers have developed a module that incorporates liquid cooling capabilities. By circulating liquid across the back of the module laminate, heat from the surface of the module is transferred to the liquid and transported away. This circulation ensures maximum output by not only counteracting the sharp fall of voltage, but also by counteracting the significant loss of power that occurs when crystalline modules face higher cell temperatures.

The resulting combined photovoltaic-thermal (PV-T) module represents a major leap forward in the evolution of solar energy, allowing for the capture and utilization of more of the sun’s energy. On a summer day, the temperature behind a conventional PV module can exceed 180° F (82° C), resulting in a 25% to 30% drop in electrical output. PV-T essentially extracts heat from the PV portion of the module, raising the module output dramatically, while simultaneously providing useful thermal energy.

As can be seen in Figure 1, the increase in output of a module is a fairly substantial once cooling is initiated. Cell efficiency can increase up to 30%, and overall electrical output is up to four times greater than a conventional photovoltaic module. And, much like conventional PV systems, PV-T systems use direct and indirect sunlight; therefore, they can be installed in any climate zone.

A working model
Advantages to the combine PV-T system are many, and include:

• Production of thermal energy. Including the availability of significant amounts of “free” thermal energy.
• Increased life expectancy of the module. By cooling and holding a module at a more constant temperature, it isn’t subjected to harsh up-and-down temperature cycles.
• Better space utilization. The combination of higher output and higher efficiency means better utilization of limited roof or rack space, allowing for more modules to be installed with fewer installation costs.
• A cooler roof surface. Extracting heat from the back of a module lowers a building’s cooling load during the summer months and extends the life of the roof.  

An additional benefit to this system is that once the thermal energy has been captured in the circulating liquid, this energy can be transferred into various other energy systems—simply and directly (such as the heating of hot water through a heat exchanger in a water tank). Furthermore, the energy can be used to create heating and cooling through adsorption technologies and drying operations.

This technology is equally suited for all climate zones, including those zones in which the potential for ice and snow build-up have long been reasons not to utilize solar power. The captured and stored heat can be used to melt off the snow from the module by simply reversing the flow of the liquid. In climate zones where the modules face very high ambient and glass surface temperatures, the cooling effect will keep modules at optimum energy production temperatures, extending the life expectancy of the modules.

Conclusion
Though we’ve come a long way since the days of Edmond Becquerel, it is very much to his credit as the researchers and engineers of today are still working with his initial scientific discovery. Newer challenges might have arisen related to photovoltaics, as we attempt to maximize their efficiency and generating power, but the PV effect is now allowing many to benefit from the renewable power of the sun. The combination module PV – Therm was developed to counteract the sharp fall of voltage and the significant loss of power of crystalline PV modules, when faced with higher solar cell temperatures. 

As energy costs soar and the environment faces an uncertain future, protecting the global climate has become one of the greatest challenges facing modern society. Through a combination of past research and findings, and future solutions and technologies, we might one day find ourselves progressing full-speed ahead to a healthy, energy efficient climate.

http://www.nacleanenergy.com/articles/16086/technology-upgrades-combined-photovoltaic-thermal-modules

Well, not necessarily. A recent study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University offered another way to look at the issue. A solar panel built in cloudy New Jersey can actually offer more overall benefits than one built in Arizona — when you take into account all the carbon dioxide and other pollutants that get reduced. Likewise, a new wind farm in West Virginia can deliver more health benefits than one built in California, at least in the short term.

The reason, say the researchers, is that you have to take into account the sort of energy that's likely to be displaced by the new solar panels and wind turbines.

Out in Texas or Oklahoma, wind turbines would crowd out relatively clean natural gas-fired plants. That would cut down on carbon-dioxide emissions and other pollutants. But it's not quite as big a deal as, say, building a wind farm in Ohio — where the wind would displace coal power and lead to a 20 percent bigger reduction in pollutants that are heating the planet or causing respiratory problems.

The regions with the biggest wind or solar resources aren't always the most beneficial places to build renewable energy, at least in the very near term. Here's a map of the most wind-rich areas in the United States (the redder the breezier):

And next we have a map of where wind power would deliver the most benefits, once you factor in the reductions from pollutants like sulfur or particulates, which have been linked to health problems from asthma to heart attacks:

By the same metric, here are the most beneficial places to stick solar panels:

Note that California sees somewhat fewer benefits — in part because the state hasalready spent so many years cleaning up its energy supply compared with other states.

Now, to be clear, the researchers aren't saying that California's clean-energy spree in recent years has been pointless. Switching from natural gas to renewable energy has still led to a drop in carbon-dioxide emissions, which helps slow the pace of climate change at the margins and curbs other pollutants. The authors note that "the social benefits from existing wind farms are roughly 60% higher than the cost of the Production Tax Credit, an important federal subsidy for wind energy."

But the authors do suggest that Congress could take these regional variations into account when structuring tax benefits for clean energy. "[T]hat same investment," they note, "could achieve greater health, environmental, and climate benefits if it were differentiated by region."

One final point: This study largely takes into account the existing power grid in the United States and focuses on near-term benefits. But in theory, it would also be possible to build gigantic wind farms in the Great Plains and then transmit that electricity all over the United States, to places like Ohio and West Virginia, through new high-voltage transmission lines. That would be a way of developing the most promising resources and delivering high benefits.

But there's a big hitch. As Matthew Wald explained in the New York Times this weekend, these grand schemes always run afoul of the balkanized nature of the power grid. "The technology, the engineering skill and even the money are all available, experts say, but the ability to reach agreement on such a grid is not," Wald wrote. "For now, there is simply no momentum for a transmission system that would connect the best sites for renewable energy with the biggest areas of demand."

Further reading: All credit to David Biello for the link to the Carnegie Mellon study, which was written by Kyle Siler-Evans, Inês Lima Azevedoa, M. Granger Morgana, and Jay Apt and published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences. Hereare some of the assumptions the study made.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/15/these-maps-show-the-best-places-to-put-solar-and-wind-power-its-not-where-you-think/

http://www.solarindustrymag.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.12940

While the manufacturer’s installation instructions generally take precedence over other requirements, many local or state jurisdictions have additional requirements beyond those found in the National Electrical Code. Furthermore, when a PV system is utility owned and operated, the installation is technically outside the scope of the NEC. But what exactly is a utility? This is a very important distinction because the NEC generally requires the use of equipment listed to UL standards. However, if a PV installation is not subject to the NEC, the use of equipment designed to meet other standards, such as those established by the IEC, may be permitted.

Since the standards to which PV equipment must conform vary by context, as do the applicable codes, it is incumbent on designers and installers to understand the regulatory context within which they are working. This regulatory context influences what equipment and installation practices are likely to be acceptable to the AHJ and the interconnected utility. Because there is no universal set of requirements, system designers and installers must be proactive about communicating with AHJs and utilities to streamline project permitting, inspection and commissioning.

Click the link below to continue reading the article.

http://solarprofessional.com/articles/design-installation/electrical-codes-and-standards-applicable-to-pv-installations

http://www.ases.org/survey-shows-that-most-small-firms-say-going-green-eased-pinch-of-most-recent-recession/

Apparently inspired by the folding roofs of convertible cars, students fitted a wheelchair with a custom-built 1-sq m (11-sq ft) solar panel which the team of students claims allows the wheelchair to travel indefinitely at 1 mph without drawing power from the battery.

At 5 mph, the wheelchair can run for 4.5 hours, which the students say is a range increase of 40 percent. They also point out that the panel brings the added benefit of providing shade to the user. The wheelchair is also fitted with USB ports for the charging of electronic newfangledom.

The team takes away a prize of US$20,000 which the team will use to perfect the chair, before shipping to Alper Sirvan in Turkey, who came up with the suggestion for the project. Any remaining prize money will be returned to United Cerebral Palsy.

In November 2010, inventor Haidar Taleb set out to cross the United Arab Emirates in a solar-powered wheelchair over the course of 11 days.

There's more technical info on the University of Virginia's wheelchair in the video below.

http://www.gizmag.com/solar-wheelchair/27822/

The U.S. installed 723 MW of PV in the first quarter of 2013, representing a 33% increase from the same period last year.

Photovoltaics continue to be the largest component of solar market growth in the U.S. The U.S. Solar Market Insight report finds that cumulative operating PV capacity in the U.S. currently stands at 7,962 MW. The residential market grew 53% to 163.5 MW capacity compared to the first quarter of 2012, continuing its consistent incremental quarterly growth.

The non-residential market shrank 20% on both a quarterly and annual basis for a first-quarter total of 242.1 MW capacity, reflecting slow demand across a number of major markets.

The report says the development is in line with its outlook for the year and predicts "significantly stronger growth in the residential market than the non-residential market."

The average price for residential PV systems fell below $5.00/W, while the average non-residential system price dropped below $4.00/W.

The utility market more than doubled year over year, with 24 utility PV projects completed between January and March and a total capacity of 317.7 MW.

While residential and non-residential solar grew substantially in the U.S. between 2010 and 2012, the growth rate paled in comparison to that of the utility market, which saw PV installations grow 670% in the period -- a development the report describes as "the most dramatic transformation in the U.S. solar market." In 2012 alone, utilities connected 1,769 MW of PV to the grid – 59% more than the cumulative total in all previous years.

Examining concentrating solar power (CSP and CPV), the report says the U.S. installed 6 MWac of concentrating solar capacity, including SunPower’s first commercial deployment of its C7 low-concentrating PV tracker technology. Cumulative operating CSP and CPV capacity in the U.S. now stands at 552 MWac.

The report also predicts that 2013 will see the most CSP commissioning in history, with more than 900 MWac expected to come online. BrightSource Energy’s Ivanpah project is on track to be completed in 2013. Abengoa Solar and BrightSource energy signed a partnership for the construction and operation of the 500 MWac Palen Solar project.

Looking forward, the GTM Research/SEIA report predicted "that the next four years will be marked by a new solar revolution in the U.S., this time driven by the distributed generation (DG) market."

While residential and commercial solar markets have historically been capped by the availability of state and utility-level incentives, solar has now become cost-effective in some markets with only the federal investment tax credit (ITC), accelerated depreciation and net metering.

The report highlights the shift in California, where a number of installations have been completed without California Solar Initiative incentives, which have been that market’s main driver since 2007.

California leads the way in solar, boasting lion's share of U.S. capacity with 408 MW.

http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/us-pv-installations-rise-33-in-first-quarter_100011672/#axzz2VwAsHuRx

“The Pacific Northwest Smart Grid Demonstration Project is a successful public-private partnership involving 17 organizations across five Northwest states,” said Patricia Hoffman, assistant secretary for DOE’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, which oversees regional smart grid demonstration projects. “It is a highly innovative project demonstrating transactive energy management, which is a promising, cost-effective way to integrate variable renewable energy, energy storage and demand response at scale. The celebration of the Salem Smart Power Center makes it clear that Oregon is helping to lead the way on energy storage commercialization and grid modernization.”

The 5 MW lithium-ion energy storage system was developed by Portland General Electric as part of its contribution to the Battelle-led Pacific Northwest Smart Grid Demonstration Project. Half of the facility’s development cost of $23-million-dollars was covered by the US Department of Energy. As a whole, the Pacific Northwest Smart Grid Demonstration Project is a five-year, $178-million project that launched in 2010.

The press release gets into the specifics of the new system: 

The energy storage system will respond to regional grid conditions with the help of a key aspect of the demonstration called transactive control. Transactive control is based on technology from DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which is managed by Battelle. The technology helps power producers and users decide how much of the area’s power will be consumed, when and where. This is done when producers and users automatically respond to signals representing future power costs and planned energy consumption. The cost signals originate at Battelle’s Electricity Infrastructure Operations Center in Richland, Wash. They are updated every five minutes and sent to the project’s participating utilities, including PGE.

The automated signals allow project participants to make local decisions on how their piece of the smart grid project can support local and regional grid needs. Participants are now gathering data to measure how the signal can help deliver electricity more effectively, help better integrate wind power onto the power grid and more. The Salem battery will use the signal to coordinate its charge and discharge cycles with the power grid’s supply and demand.

The new energy storage system should give grid operators the information they need to design better, larger systems and offers a means of exploring different ways to integrate wind power with the grid.

Energy storage systems of a much-larger scale are currently in the planning stages in the Pacific Northwest — most utilizing relatively unconventional systems, such as underground compressed-air energy storage in porous rock, or abandoned mines. The Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory recently released a comprehensive report on two particularly attractive sites for compressed air energy storage in Eastern Washington.

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/06/09/5-mw-lithium-ion-energy-storage-system-unveiled-in-oregon-will-provide-storage-for-intermittent-renewable-energy-sources/

Demand for PV panels in the U.S. is expected to grow significantly this year, reaching a record high of 4.3 GW, an increase of nearly 20% compared to 2012, according to the latest NPD Solarbuzz North America PV Markets Quarterly.

PV demand in the U.S. currently accounts for more than 12% of annual global demand compared to just 5% three years ago.

NPD Solarbuzz estimates demand in the second quarter of 2013 to reach 1 GW, with more than 70% coming from California, Arizona, New Jersey and North Carolina.

Demand for residential and small commercial rooftop PV installations will account for 18%, with another 14% from large commercial rooftops. The utility-dominated ground-mount segment is expected to make up the remaining 68% of new PV demand this quarter.

Large utility-based solar PV projects in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas will drive U.S. demand above 2.5 GW during the second half of 2013. Hawaii, Massachusetts, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, and Ohio will also deliver strong year-end contributions. PV demand in the U.S. is forecast to exceed 5 GW in 2014, representing a 70% compound annual growth rate since 2009.

"The strong commercial and utility-based solar PV being deployed in the U.S. is stimulated by state specific mandates that require solar to meet target levels, or carve-outs, of total energy production," said NPD Solarbuzz analyst Chris Sunsong, adding that new third-party ownership models that allow homeowners and businesses to install PV systems with minimal upfront commitments were driving residential demand.

New solar PV incentive policies and additional utility-scale projects are also starting to diversify PV demand across a greater number of U.S. states, moving away from "the traditional strongholds limited to the East and West Coasts," according to the NPD Solarbuzz report.

Six of the 10 fastest-growing U.S. states for solar PV demand in 2013 are located in the South and the Midwest, providing annual growth rates averaging above 180%.

The U.S. PV market remains heavily dependent on strong demand from a small group of states, according to NPD Solarbuzz. Just nine states will account for more than 85% of all U.S. PV demand in 2013. As a result, the U.S. market remains highly vulnerable to any abrupt policy changes in the leading PV states.

"The success of federal incentives and aggressive renewable portfolio standards that were intended to stimulate domestic solar PV installations in the U.S. is now coming under increased scrutiny at the state level," Sunsong added. "Additionally, states such as New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania that are heavily dependent on solar renewable energy certificates, or SRECs, are at risk of continued over-supply that threatens to limit new solar PV investments."

http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/us-pv-demand-to-grow-20-to-43-gw-in-2013_100011556/#axzz2VFV7racF

This is a big hit for the Chinese solar industry and some of the biggest players in solar. Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Europe was poised to put a 48.6% tariff on Suntech Power's  panels, 55.9% on LDK Solar's , and 51.5% on Trina Solar's. Companies who cooperated with the investigation on dumping would be slapped with a 47.6% tariff and those who didn't would be taxed at 67.9%.  

No matter how you slice it, tariffs this large are terrible for Chinese solar companies trying to sell into Europe. This used to account for a majority of sales for most companies, but now China will likely have to fill the gap.

A silver lining

There are a few companies this is good for, something the market isn't recognizing right now. Europe has been a huge drag for both SunPower andFirst Solar over the past few years and this may be a chance to turn that momentum around.

SunPower generated a gross margin of -32.2% in Europe last quarter, compared to 32.5% in the U.S. and 18.2% in Asia-Pacific, leaving a ton of upside for improvement. First Solar has been all but pushed out of Europe, but a new high-efficiency product from acquisition TetraSun, and higher tariffs on Chinese modules, may bring the company back to competitiveness.

SolarCity won't see a change in what it pays for Chinese modules -- and that's a good thing today. Part of a potential negotiation among the U.S., Europe, and China could have led to China raising prices on all solar modules here at home. That could have resulted in higher costs for SolarCity, something that will be averted for now.

Foolish bottom line
The U.S. put tariffs on solar cells from China last year; sometime in June we're expected to hear about more expansive tariffs in Europe. The bad news is piling up for Chinese solar manufacturers, who are now relying on China for growth in demand. That's a tough position to be in, and it may force the country to pick which companies will survive and which won't.

Tariffs are another reason to stick with high-quality U.S. solar companies. SunPower, First Solar, and SolarCity are at the top of the list and they will all benefit from Europe's pending tariff actions.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/05/24/the-solar-trade-war-is-on/

http://solarprofessional.com/articles/products-equipment/product-launches/hellermanntyton-adds-module-cable-clip

“Overall, GTM Research estimates that 2012 global cell and module production totaled 32.2 gigawatts and 35.9 gigawatts, respectively, a 2 percent decline from 2011 levels,” Shyam Mehta writes. “The contrast between 2012 and the preceding five years could not be any sharper: from 2006 to 2011, cell production grew at a compounded annualized rate of 68 percent.”

Here’s the visual:

Image Credit: GTM Research

Key factors that led to this included:

• global overcapacity of solar cells and modules;
• manufacturer profits being squeezed away due to the overcapacity, competition, and extreme cost cutting;
• 2012 solar installation capacity just being a tiny bit larger than 2011 installation capacity.

Naturally, most solar cells and modules were produced in Asia, especially China.

• 86% of global solar module production occurred in Asia in 2012;
• 95% of global solar cell production occurred in Asia in 2012;
• 64% of global solar module production occurred in China in 2012;
• 63% of global solar cell production occurred in China in 2012;

Similar to lists from Solarbuzz and IHS reports, GTM Research’s top solar manufacturer list was dominated by Chinese or China-based companies. Yingli Green Energy, Suntech, Trina Solar, Canadian Solar, JA Solar, Jinko Solar, and Hareon Solar were all in the top 10.

Here’s GTM Research’s top 15 listing:

Image Credit: GTM Research

“In total, the top 15 cell and module firms produced 55 percent and 50 percent of the 2012 total respectively, compared to 50 percent and 47 percent in 2011. This suggests that slowly but surely, market share in the industry is beginning to consolidate, and we expect this process to accelerate in 2013 and 2014,” Mehta adds. “Eight firms produced over 1 GW of cells in 2012 compared to only one in 2009, reflecting that the age of the gigawatt fab is well and truly underway.”

Interestingly, First Solar (the only thin-film manufacturer on the list, and one of only two US-based companies) was #2 on Solarbuzz and IHS’s lists but #3 on GTM Research’s. Also, GTM Research made special note of thin film’s sliding share of the market.

Crystalline silicon (c-Si) technology made up 89 percent of module production, compared to 86 percent in 2011. This means thin film, after years of steady increases, has lost production share for three years in a row, falling from 21 percent in 2009 to 11 percent in 2012, which is similar to 2007 levels. While overall c-Si module production remained essentially flat at around 31.3 gigawatts, thin film output was down by 18 percent from 2011. This reflects the challenges faced by thin film given the steep cost reductions and efficiency improvements experienced by c-Si in 2011 and 2012. Going forward, we expect thin film share to erode further, with a number of market exits expected from smaller and mid-size firms over the course of 2013.

Image Credit: GTM Research

Interestingly, First Solar recently inched into the conventional PV market. However, that’s no indication it’s dropping its thin-film domination. And as I’ve noted previously, there’s huge potential for efficiency improvements in thin-film solar modules that could see it rise again, as well as unique developments and applications.

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/05/11/solar-module-manufacturing-trends-in-2012/

Mounting solutions and combinations provide varying clearances between the roof and the modules, which can impact aesthetics, cell temperatures and access beneath the array. Suitable roof attachment options vary based on the roofing material and the type of substructure under the array. Racking system features may include colors and finishes, preassembled components, universally sized module clamps, click-in-place hardware, telescoping rails, streamlined hardware sizes and types, and clampless and railless designs.

This article provides overviews of  pitched-roof attachment and racking product lines and identifies key features to consider. Several racking systems have been tested for use with integrated bonding and grounding hardware per UL 467, or UL 2703, which specifically addresses PV racking systems, module clamps, module frames, and grounding and bonding components.

Rail-Based Mounting Systems

About a decade ago, the introduction of rail-based mounting systems that employ top-down module fastening resulted in a significant reduction in installation time for pitched-roof arrays. The availability of these systems roughly coincided with module manufacturers’ shift to quick-connect module leads that simplify array wiring and facilitate the use of top-down racking systems. Today, rail-based racking systems are used in most pitched-roof applications, and manufacturers are introducing increasingly refined products.

Click the link below to read about the different types of pitched roof racking systems by manufacturer.

http://solarprofessional.com/articles/products-equipment/racking/module-racking-and-mounting-systems-for-pitched-roof

“We are very pleased to add top-tier companies such as RDI and Trinity to our extensive list of solar professional partners,” said Robert Prigge, Chief Commercial Officer of Clean Power Finance. “These partnerships demonstrate the attractiveness of Clean Power Finance’s model.  In less than two years, virtually every single major partner of the early residential solar finance providers has left exclusive relationships to be able to work with CPF. Our pending expansion into new markets underscores demand by solar companies for finance products they can brand and market to homeowners.”

The unbranded solar finance products available on the CPF Market™ allow partners to put their brands in front of homeowners. This is especially important in an industry that still relies heavily on referrals for business. Partners also benefit from access to a variety of finance products: product choice helps solar professionals close more deals because they can tailor the financing to an individual homeowner’s needs.

Clean Power Finance manages more than half a billion dollars of project financing on behalf of third-party solar investors. The company provides solar professionals with CPF Tools™, the leading solar sales SaaS application, and connects solar pros with institutional solar finance investors through the CPF Market, the online business-to-business marketplace for distributed solar financing.

Clean Power Finance entered the residential solar financing market in California in April 2011. Since then, the company has expanded into eight other states around the U.S. and now works with up to 80 percent of the top residential solar companies in major solar markets.

About Clean Power Finance

Clean Power Finance is driving the mass-market adoption of residential solar by building the online, business-to-business CPF Market™, which connects the solar industry and the capital markets. The company provides solar professionals, manufacturers and distributors with access to a variety of unbranded residential finance products and easy-to-use solar sales quoting and design tools. For investors and lenders, the company makes it easy to invest in residential solar projects that provide reliable rates of return with managed risk. Founded in 2007, Clean Power Finance is funded by Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers (KPCB), Google Ventures and Claremont Creek Ventures. To learn more about how Clean Power Finance can accelerate the growth of your business, please visit www.cleanpowerfinance.com.

http://www.ases.org/clean-power-finance-partners-comprise-up-to-80-percent-of-major-u-s-residential-solar-companies/

However, when the dust cleared on April 26, First Solar and SolarCity continued to lead the sector, followed by SunPower (up 30.7%for the last full week of the month), JinkoSolar (up 45.8%); and Canadian Solar (up 33.5%). Yingli Green Energy held its own (up 16%); while LDK Solar, amazingly enough, remained listed.

Tax advantages

On April 24, a bipartisan group of four U.S. federal lawmakers – Senators Chris Coons (Democrat-Delaware) and Jerry Moran (Republican-Kansas), along with Representatives Ted Poe (R-Texas) and Mike Thompson (D-California) – unveiled The Master Limited Partnership Parity Act.

Why a "parity" act? Since 1987, firms that mine oil, gas, and coal resources have been able to form master limited partnerships (MLPs) under Section 7704 of the U.S. Tax Code; however, renewable energy generation firms have not been eligible for the same tax relief.

Coons described the legislation as "a straightforward, powerful tweak to the federal tax code that could unleash significant private capital into the energy market," noting that, "The legislation, which is just over 600 words long, would level the playing field between traditional and new energy businesses by helping energy-generation and transmission companies form master limited partnerships, which combine the funding advantages of corporations and the tax advantages of partnerships."

Rhone Resch, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), stated that the bill would accord solar project developers with the same tax advantages enjoyed by "long-entrenched energy sources in America." He noted, "SEIA applauds [Senator Coons] for putting forward an idea that has the potential to attract private sector investment for critically-important solar projects. This bill represents smart public policy."

Following news of the legislation, SolarCity shares lifted 5.6% on April 24; SunPower’s rose 10.5%; and China's JinkoSolar climbed15.3%.

Votes of confidence

The solar sector also received several votes of confidence that increased market momentum during the month, including:

• ABB’s acquisition of Power-One;
• Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s (BNEF’s) elevation of Japan to the number-one market for installations; and
• R.W. Baird’s upgrade of SunPower to Outperform from Neutral.

On April 22, the Zurich-based power and automation technology group, ABB, announced it was in the process of acquiring Power-One, Inc., a Camarillo, California-based provider of solar inverters, in a transaction ballparked at US$1 billion (€763 million) equity value, or $6.35 (€4.85) a share. The deal – already approved by the companies’ boards of directors – is expected to close during the second half of this year, at which time, Power-One will be integrated into ABB's Discrete Automation and Motion division.

The transaction would position ABB as a leading global supplier of solar inverters to a market forecasted by the International Energy Agency to grow by more than 10% per year until 2021. Solar inverter industry revenues reached $7 billion (€5.3 billion) last year, according to England-based IMS Research.

But the move also challenged current industry wisdom: ABB’s closest competitors – Germany's Siemens and Bosch – both recently curtailed solar ventures after a module oversupply and a weak economy resulted in a ripple of insolvencies in the sector. ABB’s show of confidence may help stimulate investor interest in solar portfolios.

Pavel Molchanov, senior vice president and equity research analyst for Houston, Texas-based Raymond James & Associates, told pv magazine in a recent interview, "This was a good acquisition. I think very highly of Power-One. I actually had a Strong Buy on it. It was my only Strong Buy in the solar sector. ABB got a very good deal."

In another show of industry "chutzpah," earlier in the month, BNEF became the first and only analyst group to identify Japan as the number-one market for solar installations this year. In a research note on April 4, it remarked, "Japan will probably become the largest solar market in the world after China this year, boosted by an incentive program that offers above-market rates for energy from renewable sources."

Earlier forecasts from sources such as Solarbuzz and Deutsche Bank placed Japan at number four,behind China, the U.S., and Germany. Maxim Group and Lux Research saw Japan squeaking into third place. Then, late in March IMS Research stuck its neck out, and ranked Japan at number two.

BNEF now explains that, "The upward revision was done because of the rapid increase in shipments seen last quarter, as well as the fact that the pipeline of projects is even stronger than previously expected."

The forecast reflects the push by Japan to find alternative sources of energy following the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, after which all but two of the nation’s nuclear reactors were shuttered. Japan on July 1 began offering incentives through feed-in tariffs to encourage investments in renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.

That uptick in Japanese shipments, as well as anew respect for and recognition of the island nation as an emerging power in the solar industry, helped to catapult SunPower shares up on April 26.

In fact, analyst Ben Kallo of Robert W. Baird & Co., a private equity and asset management firm cited the solar panel manufacturer’s business interests in Japan as one of the factors behind his decision to upgrade SunPower’s rating to Outperform from Neutral. Kallo also alluded to SunPower’s blockbuster parent company, Paris-based oil and gas conglomerate, Total S.A., as a reason for the solar producer’s financial stability and stronger rating.

Shares of SunPower immediately soared 14% on the Outperform rating and other solar firms bounced as well during the last week in the month.

Revisionist history?

Meanwhile, at its 2013 Analysts Meeting on April 9, First Solar revealed its decision to recognize revenue sooner rather than later, thus boosting its income outlook and the company’s guidance for the rest of the year. The company noted that revenue recognition for the 550 MW Desert Sunlight project in California will now begin in the second half of 2013 and conclude by late 2014. This assumption is reflected in the First Solar’s 2013 guidance and 2014 outlook.

For the current 12-month period, First Solar projected net sales between $3.8 billion (€2.9 billion) and $4 billion (€3 billion), including about $3.6 billion (€2.7 billion) in system sales. Total module shipments have been pegged at between 1.6 GW and 1.8 GW. Diluted earnings per share are expected to yield between $4.00 (€3.05) and $4.50 (€3.44); and in an industry where razor-thin margins have been the rule, the company’s consolidated gross margin is anticipated to be between 20 and 22%. According to industry analysts, this guidance was well above forecasts.

In fact, Gordon Johnson, managing director of Axiom Capital Management in New York City, told pv magazine, "What First Solar has done is extremely misleading. Previously, they stated very clearly that they would not start recognizing revenue on the Desert Sunlight project until the first quarter of 2015. Excluding that project, their EPS [earnings per share] numbers for 2013 and 2014 would have been significantly below the Street [forecast] and their stock would have tanked. We are seeing ‘financial shenanigans,’ this quarter."

The company also revealed a new acquisition that will provide it with a threefold advantage: access to the Japanese market, a new technology to sell, and the opportunity to move into rooftop installations. First Solar divulged that it will purchase San Jose, Calif.-based TetraSun from Tokyo-based JX Nippon Oil and Energy (JX Energy) and other investors. TetraSun is a photovoltaic technology startup that has developed a breakthrough cell architecture capable of conversion efficiencies exceeding 21%, with commercial-scale manufacturing costs comparable to conventional multicrystalline silicon solar cells.

Terms of the transaction, which is expected to close in the second quarter of 2013, were not disclosed. First Solar tentatively plans to begin commercial-scale manufacturing of the new technology in the second half of 2014.

Ben Schuman, senior research analyst at Pacific Crest Securities in Portland, Oregon, advised pv magazine, "This Japanese purchase is an interesting proposition … First Solar also tried to develop a CIGS [copper indium gallium selenide] technology and wasn’t successful doing that. Strategically, it is not a bad move. I don’t think it shows panic [about the prospects for thin film technology] at this point; I think that the company line would be that there are certain parts of the market … where thin film can’t compete. Our view is that there is an element of hedging to this. If the company can’t be cost-competitive with thin film, this gives them an alternate route into the market. It isn’t like they are investing a substantial amount of money."

The next day, on April 10, Bloomberg reported that JX Energy was in talks with First Solar to distribute the U.S. panel manufacturer’s products in Japan. JX Energy is seeking exclusive sales rights for First Solar’s photovoltaic panels using technology developed by TetraSun, the company said in a statement. In final trading that day, First Solar’s share price was still going strong, despite a poor Q4 2012 earnings report from China-based JinkoSolar. First Solar fell by just 7.70% in daily trading, with an end position of $36.72 – leaving the shares 39.2% higher than they had been a week earlier.

A fail-safe policy

Finally, Yingli Green Energy managed to beat the odds again, Suntech was buoyed up – but only briefly – by news of a potential buyer; and LDK lost even more ground, if that were possible.

On April 26, Yingli announced that the company had signed two loan agreements with China Development Bank (CDB) with an aggregate of $165 million (€126 million). Under the terms of the agreements, CDB will provide Yingli China with a one-year loan of $110 million (€84 million) and a three-year loan of $55 million (€42 million) to complement its working capital needs and support the procurement of raw material.  

According to Liansheng Miao, chairman and CEO of Yingli Green Energy, "With the new financing in place, we're confident to continue to solidify and reinforce our leading position globally. At the same time, as our operating cash flow position is on track to gain improvement, we expect to continuously optimize our balance sheet."

Gordon Johnson of Axiom gave a thumbs-down to this maneuver. "The Yingli loan is … horrible news for the solar sector. They are getting money from a state-owned bank. These banks typically fund startups. This money is being used to repay the debts that Yingli has with other banks. The government in China has shown an uncanny willingness to loan to solar companies … China is doing this because you can’t just simply let Yingli default on millions in debt. It’s bad for the economy. They don’t want to report losses on loans. They don’t want Yingli’s workers to be laid off and go out in the street protesting. Instead of letting the business cycle play out, China just keeps funding [a failing company]."

Ben Schumann of Pacific Crest added, "The conventional wisdom is that China still views solar as strategically important. The government is going to do what it can to drive consolidation and a shakeout in the market. Yingli, Trina, and Canadian Solar are those that will emerge as long-term viable players."

Solar scuttlebutt

Two weeks earlier, on April 9, shares of Suntech Power Holdings were up 29.2%, to $0.62 (€0.47), as New York’s equity markets closed. The stock had rallied behind rumors from Asia that MidAmerican Energy Holdings – a unit of U.S. über-investor Warren Buffett's conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway – had shown interest in the cash-strapped company.

A number of other Chinese solar stocks also jumped following the news. LDK was up 23.4%; Yingli, 21.1%; and JA Solar, 19.5%. Trina Solar, which separately had announced that it would return to profitability during the second half of the year, also saw its share price rise 14.6%, to $4.40 (€3.36).

However, several analysts were stumped by MidAmerican’s unanticipated move. Known as a shrewd and skillful investor, Buffet has rarely placed a bet on a company in freefall. 

Pavel Molchanov of Raymond James & Associates told pv magazine, "I think this rumor is absolute nonsense. Berkshire Hathaway absolutely does not need to own a solar power manufacturer in China and, even if they did, I don’t think that Suntech is the way to do it. Suntech had very depressed gross margins even in the best of times; I can understand why potentially some strategic investors might be interested in buying a distressed asset on the cheap. But to think that Berkshire Hathaway would do so is simply the ultimate in wishful thinking. If Suntech is talking it up, that suggests that the deal is not real, because if Suntech were in serious conversations with Warren Buffet, the last thing they would do would be to talk about it."

Gordon Johnson agreed. "Warren Buffet is absolutely not interested in Suntech. When you look at the type of companies that Warren Buffet buys, they represent the exact opposite of what Suntech is today. Buffet has a history of buying stable high-cash-generating companies that pay a low dividend. Suntech is none of those things."

And as the month drew to a close, LDK, which according to Bloomberg is burdened with at least $3 billion (€2.3 billion) in debt, agreed to sell a second 15% stake to Fulai Investments Ltd for $25.8 million (€19.7 million) following their first share sale deal in January. Fulani, incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, is owned by Chinese businessman Cheng Kin Ming.

Molchanov commented, "Similar to Suntech, LDK is a zombie company with a completely broken balance sheet. Yingli and Trina are no healthier, but still have a lot of leverage."

http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/solar-stocks-rally-following-tax-advantage-news_100011094/#axzz2RwoUQRgb

Courtesy of Solar Impulse http://www.solarimpulse.com/en/multimedia/pictures/

Next month, a very odd looking plane will take off from Moffett Field in Mountain View, Calif., and head east to New York. The Solar Impulse — the world's first solar-powered plane — is capable of flying nonstop all day and all night. Its creators plan to fly it across the U.S. this spring, and by 2015 they hope to fly a similar aircraft around the world.

Its wingspan is longer than a 747 Boeing, but the entire plane weighs less than a car.

"That was the challenge," says Andre Borschberg, one of the creators and a pilot. He says the wings are so large in part to generate lift and in part to create a bigger surface "to integrate solar cells."

Without Fuel And With An Idea

The idea to try to build a solar-powered plane that could fly nonstop through the night began with Borschberg's partner, Bertrand Piccard, who became internationally famous in 1999 after circumnavigating the world in a balloon. But while on the trip, Piccard nearly ran out of fuel.

Design work on the plane began 10 years ago. Today, standing under buzzing fluorescent lights inside a huge hangar, the Solar Impulse looks like some kind of giant, space-age great egret on steroids.

Its long, delicate wings are covered in photovoltaic cells. They tilt up at the ends. The plane has four electric engines and a narrow little cockpit that seats just one person.

A Purposeful Design

Everything about its design was dictated by the size of the wings and the power of the sun striking them. Borschberg says through physics and aerodynamics the developers discovered they couldn't make it heavier than the weight of a car if they wanted to operate it over 24 hours. "That was the starting point," he says.

To keep the weight down, they used a carbon-fiber frame and as few batteries as possible, and stripped the cockpit bare. In this plane the toilet is built into the pilot's seat.

"There is no heating, there's no pressurization, so we need an oxygen mask," Borschberg says. "So, yes, it's more difficult and maybe less comfortable than flying through an airliner."

But the designers succeeded in creating a plane capable of flying continuously — without using any fuel.

"The contact with the external world is much more intense," Borschberg says. He describes the ride as a close relationship with the environment — you can hear more and feel more of the outside compared with a regular aircraft.

Two years ago, Borschberg kept this plane aloft over the Swiss Alps for 26 straight hours. And last summer, he flew it from Spain to North Africa.

Its Flight Intricacies

But it's tricky to fly.

The plane isn't at jet speed yet — it can only fly at 40 or 50 mph. It travels so slow that sometimes when it turns into the wind, it appears to float in place on radar screens, or occasionally even slide backward.

During long daytime flights, the pilots will climb to almost 30,000 feet and then slowly descend during the night. It's one more way to conserve energy.

"We had to learn to do things very slowly, to wait to see the reaction, to be patient," Borschberg says.

And to also be careful, because the wings are so long and the plane is so slow, even a slight bank can cause the tip of the inside wing to lose lift.

Pilots only turn a few degrees when flying the plane, because if they turn too sharply, the Solar Impulse could tumble out of the sky. So designers created a unique physical warning system that vibrates the pilot's arm when a turn is too steep, Borschberg says.

When Piccard and Borschberg attempt to fly around the world, one of them will need to remain in the pilot's seat over the Pacific Ocean for four or five days straight. The makers recognize that solar will never power commercial flights, but Borschberg said this flight was meant to push people's assumptions about what solar technology can do.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/03/27/175371800/solar-powered-plane-uses-its-lightness-to-fly-in-the-dark?ft=1&f=1001&sc=tw&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2013/03/energy-storage-series-making-the-case-for-batteries?cmpid=WNL-Wednesday-March20-2013

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2013/02/net-metering-debate-rages-on-despite-calls-for-calm?cmpid=WNL-Friday-February15-2013

Here’s how January 2013 compares to January 2012 in terms of new capacity:

Notice anything? Let’s spell it out directly. Here’s how new capacity broke down last January. Brownish sources are fossil fuels. Green are renewable.

And here’s this January.

That’s right: Every single megawatt of new generating capacity added in the U.S. last month was renewable. Every single one.

The full dataset from FERC is here [PDF], outlining the constituent additions: 958 megawatts of wind, 267 of solar, and 6 little megawatts of biomass. In total, 1,231 megawatts of capacity were added in January of this year compared to 1,693 in January 2012. The amount of wind and solar added last month was greater than the amount of coal and natural gas added a year ago.

Experts (aka me) do not expect this no-new-fossil-fuel-generation trend to continue. Sorry.

http://grist.org/news/100-of-electric-capacity-added-in-u-s-last-month-was-renewable/

The improvements are in line with “Build Smart NY,” the new initiative by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to increase energy efficiency in state buildings by 20 percent in seven years by strategically accelerating priority improvements in energy performance. The statewide initiative will save millions of dollars for taxpayers and create thousands of jobs while significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

“The energy efficiency upgrades at the Albany campus herald the significant benefits under our Build Smart NY initiative for reducing utility bills and carbon emissions and spurring jobs from the manufacture, installation and maintenance of new energy savings equipment,” said Governor Cuomo. “These energy efficiency projects are representative of the importance we’re placing on managing the costs of the state’s higher educational facilities to free up resources for their core mission of providing a first-class education for our students.”

NYPA spearheaded a newly completed $4 million lighting replacement project at UAlbany’s Uptown Campus. NYSERDA awarded $1.3 million in incentives for various energy efficiency upgrades at the university, including $274,000 for the NYPA lighting project. Other projects supported by NYSERDA include a complete renovation at century-old Husted Hall and new construction at the University Data Center and College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering. 

“We’re pleased to once again partner with NYSERDA and NYPA to bring energy efficiency savings to the campus,” said Robert J. Jones, president, University at Albany. “The Governor’s Build Smart NY energy incentive program is a superb example of forward-thinking collaboration between higher education and government for the benefit of the University and our environment.”

“Governor Cuomo has made clear the importance of energy efficiency through his Build Smart NY initiative, to lower electric bills while supporting jobs through new clean energy systems,” said Gil C. Quiniones, NYPA president and chief executive officer. “The Power Authority financed nearly $270 million worth of energy efficiency projects in 2012, including the SUNY Albany lighting project.”

“Opportunities for reducing energy usage at colleges and universities can result in significant savings, as these projects at the University at Albany demonstrate,” said Francis J. Murray Jr., president and CEO, NYSERDA. “Governor Cuomo’s commitment and investment in energy efficiency in public buildings, as well as in homes and businesses, is why New York is recognized as a national leader in energy efficiency.”

NYPA’s UAlbany lighting upgrade encompasses nearly 1,750 classrooms and other spaces at nine Uptown Campus buildings, to lower utility bills while improving illumination. The improvements are expected to save the university $225,000 annually and remove more than 1,100 tons of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere every year.  The installations required custom-made light fixtures, which were manufactured by LSI Lightron of New Windsor, Orange County. 

The energy efficiency project at Husted Hall received a High Performance Building Plaque from NYSERDA, an honor reserved for buildings performing at least 30 percent above New York State energy code. This project included a whole building energy analysis and the installation of new storm windows; energy efficient lighting design and a HVAC system; and an incentive for achieving LEED^® Silver certification. The kilowatt hours saved is equivalent to the amount of electricity consumed by 101 single-family homes annually.

NYSERDA is working with UAlbany on its new University Data Center, which will be located in a building to be constructed in 2014. The facility will be designed with energy efficiency and information technology productivity measures that enable it to process information faster using less energy.

Energy-efficiency improvements at UAlbany’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering include clean room fan filter units, high-efficiency lighting, a chilled water system, a water-side economizer and high efficiency motors.

“The significant and positive impact of Governor Cuomo’s innovative Build Smart NY initiative is demonstrated through the cleanroom expansion project at the College of Nanoscale Science  and Engineering,” said CNSE Vice President for Clean Energy Programs Dr. Pradeep Haldar. “By improving energy efficiency while lowering the cost of doing business, this program is truly an investment in New York’s energy, environmental and economic future.”

Build Smart NY will carry out the Governor’s 20 percent increased energy efficiency goal through the application of energy data to prioritize state government building projects that will deliver the greatest energy savings per dollar spent. The largest and most inefficient state buildings will be addressed first and undergo comprehensive whole-building improvements. Build Smart NY will accelerate projects that produce the greatest savings and coordinate all spending. The program will also ensure that cost-effective improvements for energy savings are considered in all the state’s capital project planning.

In addition to its energy savings goals, Build Smart NY supports Governor Cuomo’s larger NY Works program and economic development agenda, which coordinates state funding to accelerate projects that will create jobs and improve the state’s infrastructure. NY Works is designed to expedite select projects with maximum economic impact, allowing them to begin as soon as possible and reduce project costs by hundreds of millions of dollars.

A Build Smart NY web platform posts progress reports, case studies, energy savings, project costs, and other information to the public, providing greater accountability and transparency on government spending and performance. For more information on this initiative, visit www.buildsmart.ny.gov.

NYPA has committed to provide $450 million in low-cost financing for Build Smart NY and an additional $350 million for other energy efficiency programs benefiting county and local governments.

http://www.nyserda.ny.gov/About/Newsroom/2013-Announcements/2013-2-11-Energy-Efficiency-Projects-At-UAlbany-Support-Governor-Cuomo.aspx

The 101,774-square-foot solar PV array at the Sunrise store is a 1,057-kW system, built with 4,368 panels. IKEA Sunrise’s store will produce approximately 1,554,600 kWh of clean electricity annually, the equivalent of reducing 1,181 tons of carbon dioxide.

This installation represents the 35th completed solar project for IKEA in the U.S., with four more locations underway, making the eventual U.S. solar presence of IKEA nearly 90 percent of its U.S. locations with a total generation of 38 MW. IKEA owns and operates each of its solar PV energy systems atop its buildings — as opposed to a solar lease or power purchase agreement (PPA) — and globally has allocated $1.8 billion to invest in renewable energy through 2015. Consistent with the company’s goal of being energy independent by 2020, IKEA has installed more than 250,000 solar panels on buildings across the world and owns/operates approximately 110 wind turbines in Europe.

For the development, design, and installation of the Sunrise store’s customized solar power system, IKEA contracted with REC Solar Inc., a national solar electric system designer and installer with more than 9,000 systems built across the U.S.

“IKEA Sunrise now has added to the IKEA mission of creating a better everyday life for the many people,” said Peter Steinweg, store manager. “This solar array will reduce our carbon footprint and represents another investment by us in this community. We appreciate the support of the city of Sunrise, Florida P&L, and REC Solar Inc. our partners in this project.”

http://www.achrnews.com/articles/122379-feb-15-2013-with-new-florida-store-system-ikea-becomes-states-largest-non-utility-solar-owner

“In being selected for the HGACBuy program, SolarWorld has been pre-qualified and evaluated in a stringent, competitive and public bid process. We stand ready to rapidly deploy our American-made solar panels, balance-of-systems components and technical services to government agencies from coast to coast.”

SolarWorld was selected as an approved vendor by HGACBuy (Helping Governments across the Country Buy), a 35 year-old cooperative-purchasing program of the Houston-Galveston Area Council.

HGACBuy is composed of 6,106 local and state government agencies and nonprofits in 47 states, including cities, counties, utilities, community colleges, universities, school districts, transportation agencies, port authorities and fire protection districts.

One of only four HGACBuy-approved solar-energy providers, SolarWorld received the highest score in HGACBuy’s evaluation of responses to its competitive solicitation for its high-quality, American-made solar panels, complete solar systems, and engineering and construction services.

“HGACBuy just made it easier and faster for state, county and municipal governments to go solar,” said Kevin Kilkelly, president of SolarWorld Americas. “In being selected for the HGACBuy program, SolarWorld has been pre-qualified and evaluated in a stringent, competitive and public bid process. We stand ready to rapidly deploy our American-made solar panels, balance-of-systems components and technical services to government agencies from coast to coast.”

On behalf of its members, HGACBuy reviews and selects products, such as solar systems, that require detailed technical specifications and procurement through a public, competitive bid process. Last year, for example, HGACBuy members collectively purchased more than $123 million of goods and services through the organization’s radio communication equipment contract and $120 million of goods and services through its fire services apparatus contract.

“SolarWorld’s installer partners will benefit from our inclusion in the HGACBuy program,” Kilkelly said. “They can pursue solar-installation contracts with HGACBuy’s member agencies knowing that their panel manufacturer has been pre-qualified and competitively priced for use in government projects.”

About SolarWorld (www.SolarWorld.com):

SolarWorld manufactures solar power systems and in doing so contributes to a cleaner energy supply worldwide. The company, located in Bonn, employs about 2,700 people and carries out production in Freiberg, Germany, and Hillsboro, Oregon, USA. From raw material silicon to the solar module, SolarWorld manages all stages of production ‒ including its own research and development. Through an international distribution network, SolarWorld supplies customers all over the world with solar modules and complete systems. The company maintains high social standards at all locations across the globe and has committed itself to resource- and energy-efficient production. SolarWorld has been publicly traded on the stock market since 1999 and is quoted in the technology index TecDax. SolarWorld achieved sales of about 1 billion Euros for the fiscal year 2011

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20130131006306/en/Public-Sector-Group-Buy-Program-Speeds-SolarWorld-Panels-Local

The solar industry got a huge boost during President Obama's first term when the stimulus package threw billions of dollars in subsidies at solar power companies in hopes of dramatically increasing production. Generation has increased in that time -- but now federal, state and local incentives are being slashed, leading some to conclude the future of solar power in the U.S. is dimming. 

"The fundamental problem is it's not economically sustainable," said Todd Myers of the Washington Policy Center, a think tank in Washington state. 

Federal stimulus incentives have run out and are not being renewed. States are also slashing their solar power subsidies. Oregon recently cut its solar business tax credit by 99 percent. And utilities all over the country are complaining about lost revenue. 

One major issue is that homeowners have been taking advantage of subsidies and the dropping price of solar panels thanks to cheap imports from China. But as those customers buy less electricity, utilities are being forced to raise rates on non-solar customers to pay for infrastructure. Southern California Edison will reportedly transfer $400 million in annual costs to people without solar systems. 

The solar industry is keenly aware of the subsidy issue and acknowledges some incentives may need to be tweaked, but leaders argue that cutting too much runs the risk of throwing the brakes on a growing industry. 

"The industry's cognizant that some of the subsidies need to be adjusted to reflect the decline in cost," said Carrie Cullen Hitt, vice president of the Solar Energy Industries Association. "At the same time you don't want to have a hard stop on these, not just because you'd stop installations, but you'd impact that economic growth." 

At the heart of this dilemma are what's known as net metering customers. These homeowners and businesses produce solar power which they use, but then they're able to sell power they don't use back into the grid. They're compensated at retail rates and can currently receive a check at the end of the year. 

In Idaho, the largest utility in the state -- Idaho Power -- is trying to change the rules. And net metering customers like Courtney White are angry. 

"We're insubstantial in terms of affecting other ratepayers," says White. 

She and her husband put solar panels on their house last year and anticipate breaking even in 14 years, but if the Idaho Power changes go through, they may never recoup the $25,000 solar panel investment they made. 

The utility wants to quadruple the monthly fee net metering customers pay for being on the system, and it plans on ending the practice of cutting checks at the end of the year. Instead, any benefit from leftover credits would be shared by all ratepayers. Idaho Power officials say it's about fairness. Because net metering customers buy substantially less electricity than other customers, they pay less for the utility's fixed costs. 

Idaho Power argues that being forced to buy solar power at the more expensive retail rate amounts to a subsidy that is paid by all other ratepayers. The utility has plenty of support in the state legislature. 

"To me, the test is how cost effective it is," said state Rep. George Eskridge, vice chairman of the Energy Committee. "When solar is more expensive than other resources, I don't think the other consumers in the system should have to subsidize that power resource." 

While Idaho's solar generation is tiny, California is another story. The Golden State now has 116,000 net metering customers who are producing 1,200 megawatts of electricity. That's nearly half of the solar power generated across the entire country. New Jersey is a distant second. 

Critics point out even with the growth in recent years, solar power is still by far the smallest contributor to the grid supplying just one-tenth of one percent of the country's electricity. Coal remains the biggest chunk at 36 percent, followed closely by natural gas. As for renewable sources, wind is at the top at 3.2 percent. 

Germany, by contrast, has been held up as a solar leader. On some days, solar power has nearly met the country's energy needs by itself. Yet, even with 1 million solar systems in the country, they account for less than 5 percent of the electrical generation. The price of electricity is high in Germany, and the country just slashed subsidies paid to generators. 

"Everywhere you go, solar energy requires massive subsidies, which eventually blow a hole in the federal or state budget, and then are dropped," said Myers. "Solar is a bad way to go."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/06/cutbacks-in-subsidies-indicate-future-solar-may-be-dimming/

The program is designed to support solar in the state through a 10-year, US$150 p.a. solar job initiative, the establishment of a $1 billion Green Bank and the creation of a cabinet level energy advisor to coordinate the programs.

The NYSEIA has come out in support of the measures and called for further measures to in support of photovoltaics. The measures are:

• Expansion of "On Bill Financing" to include PV;
• Facilitating remote net metering to facilitate community solar;
• A bill to "clean up" net metering technologies; and
• Change the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) cap for residential consumers.

NYSEIA President R. Sail Van Nostrand said that the organization will seek to maintain solar’s prominent place in public policy debate in the state. "Already, several legislative leaders have indicated their recognition that NY-Sun needs to have a longer commitment to attract the investment that is waiting to be unleashed," Nostrand said. "Our neighboring states are clear evidence of how fast solar can scale up."

http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/nyseia-throws-weight-behind-ny-sun_100010226/#axzz2KuGaVIfS

The fact annual installed capacity failed to grow to any significant extent is indicative of the troubles associated with a global oversupply of polysilicon and the trade disputes between China and the U.S., and Europe, but amid the gloom, Germany was still a world leader with 7.6 GW of solar capacity added and Italy was still the world's third largest market, with 3.3 GW.

China installed between 3.5 and 4.5 GW – EPIA expects to announce final figures in its annual report in May – to come in second behind Germany, with the U.S. fourth with 3.2 GW, Japan fifth with 2.5 GW and France sixth with 1.2 GW.

"The photovoltaic industry clearly faces challenges but the results of 2012 show there is a strong global market for our technology. Even in tough economic times and despite growing regulatory uncertainty, we have nearly managed to repeat the record year of 2011," said EPIA President Winfried Hoffmann.

He added, "The key going forward will be to address these new market challenges and continue policies that help PV technology to grow sustainably, continuing its evolution to a mainstream electricity source."

http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/world-passes-100-gw-installed-pv-capacity-mark_100010145/#axzz2Kbkzsmgx

The PDG5 features front and back layers of special heat-strengthened glass, and is among the first such crystalline silicon (c-Si) modules. By replacing the traditional backsheet materials of conventional solar modules with heat-strengthened glass, the PDG5 provides a heavy-duty solution for environments of high temperature and humidity, conditions that can accelerate performance degradation. The resulting module has increased resistance to micro-cracking, potential induced degradation (PID), module warping, and degradation from UV rays, sand, alkali, acids and salt mist.

By reducing the module's glass thickness from the industry standard of 3.2mm to 2.5mm, and applying an antireflective coating to the front glass, transmission is enhanced by an estimated 2.5%. MC4PLUS photovoltaic connectors increase system reliability. Additionally, the modules are designed for higher 1000V IEC and 1000V UL applications, which enables longer installation runs to enable improve cabling, hardware and  labor installation costs. Additionally, by eliminating the aluminum frame of conventional modules, grounding requirements are eliminated, which can extend Balance of System (BoS) cost savings for Trina Solar's customers. The new modules are backed by the Company's 25-year linear power warranty.

"The new PDG5 continues the Company's commitment to provide better solutions for Trina Solar's commercial and utility partners," said Zhiguo Zhu, Module Business Unit President of Trina Solar. "Our customers have expressed significant interests in PDG5 due to its numerous value propositions."

The dual-rated PDG5 has been designed to meet the requirements of both commercial rooftop and utility-scale applications in all major markets.

The combination of diverse product offerings and services as well as continued investment in innovative industry first products,  clearly demonstrates Trina Solar's industry leadership and expanding commitment to provide a full range of solar solutions to its partners throughout the value chain.  The PDG5 will also be available as part of the Trinamount III DG system, a fast-installing and non-penetrating PV module and mounting system for flat rooftop applications.  

PDG5 is being readied for worldwide shipments in the second half of 2013. Those interested in learning more about Trina Solar's new PDG5 or other product offerings should contact their regional sales representative, Trina Solar distributor or visit www.trinasolar.com.

http://ir.trinasolar.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=206405&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1780849&highlight&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRokvanJZKXonjHpfsX56uslUKG3lMI%2F0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4DTMNkI%2FqLAzICFpZo2FFMCOmbfZNP9vRP

Large-scale grid failures inevitably lead to surges in demand for PV systems with battery-backup capabilities. However, many solar design and installation firms have determined that battery-based systems are too expensive to sell effectively or too complex to design, install and service. As a result, many firms have little, if any, experience with these systems. Offering battery-backup options to residential customers is profitable for integrators who invest the time, resources and training to come up to speed with, and stay current on, battery-based system equipment selection, design and installation. The falling costs of PV modules, and ongoing advancements in battery-based inverter and BOS technologies, can make PV with battery backup an attractive offering for integrators who serve the residential market.

The owner of a grid-tied PV system with battery backup gets the best of both worlds: a reduced electric bill and the ability to live comfortably and safely without the grid when necessary. Installers of backup systems can access a market with fewer competitors, better margins and higher equipment and installation values than installers who offer grid-direct systems only. In this article, we introduce electricians and integrators who are new to battery-based grid-tied PV installations to basic system topologies and the power-conditioning equipment used to build these systems. While the learning curve may seem steep, experienced installers will need very few additional skills or tools to design and install battery-backup PV systems, particularly if they employ a preconfigured and prewired powerconditioning system.

Primary System Configurations

Integrators can configure a battery-backup PV system as either dc coupled or ac coupled. Each of these primary system configurations has benefits and drawbacks to consider, and each influences equipment selection as well.

DC coupling. Traditionally, the majority of battery-backup PV systems have been dc coupled. In dc-coupled systems, PV array source circuits are typically configured at relatively low dc voltages of less than 150 Vdc maximum. Individual source circuits are routed to a combiner box that provides overcurrent protection for each string and combines the individual dc inputs, allowing a single pair of larger transmission conductors to be run from the combiner box to the system’s dc charge controller. Because the charge controller is usually installed in close proximity to the system’s inverter/charger and battery bank, the wire run distance between the array combiner and the system’s charge controller can be significant, especially if the array is ground mounted rather than on the roof. With a groundmount system, the conductor cost may be significant due to the transmission distance and the dc-coupled array’s relatively low-voltage and high-current characteristics.

In dc-coupled systems, the output of the charge controller is connected to the system’s main low-voltage (typically 48 Vdc nominal) dc bus via overcurrent protection and disconnect equipment. When the utility grid is functional, the system’s utility-interactive battery-based inverter converts the dc energy generated by the PV array to alternating current, synchronizes the ac waveform with the utility grid and exports any surplus energy to the utility. During power outages, the battery-based inverter disconnects from the utility grid and energizes select household electrical circuits using energy stored in the batteries or provided by the PV array. To prevent battery overcharging, the charge controller regulates the dc current that the PV array generates during daylight hours.

AC coupling. In ac-coupled systems, a grid-direct string inverter effectively replaces the PV charge controller that is used in dc-coupled systems, and typically the source-circuit combiner box as well. In these systems, the PV array is configured at relatively high voltages of up to 600 Vdc, and the string inverter converts the array output to 240 Vac. In accoupled systems, the string inverter’s ac output is connected to the battery-based system’s ac bus. When the utility grid is functional, ac electricity provided by the string inverter supplies energy to household loads, and excess energy is exported to the utility grid. In the event of a grid failure, the battery-based inverter disconnects from the utility grid and energizes select household electrical circuits using energy stored in the batteries or provided by the PV array via the string inverter.

Because ac-coupled systems do not use charge controllers to regulate battery charging during a utility outage, alternate means of array charge control are required. In accoupled systems that utilize battery-based inverters and string inverters from the same manufacturer, battery charge regulation can be seamless. When components from multiple manufacturers are used, battery charge regulation can become considerably more complicated in these systems. (See “AC Coupling in Utility-Interactive and Stand-Alone Applications,” SolarPro magazine, August/September 2012.) In addition, while most battery-based inverters are capable of ac coupling, some string inverter manufacturers do not permit, support or offer a warranty on the use of their string inverters in ac-coupled systems.

Compared to dc-coupled systems, accoupled platforms have the advantages of higher array voltages, streamlined array wiring and lower transmission conductor size and cost. While the string inverter used in ac-coupled systems is more expensive than the charge controller it replaces, the elimination of the source-circuit combiner box and lower array wiring labor and equipment costs can make the overall installed outlay for these systems roughly equivalent. In retrofit installations that are adding battery backup to an existing grid-direct system, ac coupling is often the preferred approach because the array wiring does not need reworking to operate at the lower voltages that most dc charge controllers require.

Click the link below to read the enitre article

http://solarprofessional.com/articles/products-equipment/inverters/power-conditioning-equipment-for-residential-battery-backup-pv

Implementing a safe, reliable and Code-compliant wire management system for exposed PV conductors is not an easy task. PV module leads can be too long or sometimes too short, requiring site-specific solutions for supporting and interconnecting the cables. Equipment grounding, PV source-circuit and inverter-output conductors from microinverters and ac modules must also be managed to ensure protection from potential damage. Within the PV array, these various conductors are often secured to module frames, support rails and other racking system components. While securing array wiring seems like it should be a straightforward exercise, the reality is that integrators continue to face numerous challenges.

UV-rated plastic wire ties provide a flexible, convenient and low-cost solution for bundling and fastening array conductors, but they are not a permanent answer and require regular inspection and replacement. Stainless steel cable clips work well for attaching conductors to the module frame, but this solution is often limited to supporting only one or two conductors at a time, and not all modules have frames. Structural channels or integrated cable management solutions within the module support rails assist with protecting and routing conductors, yet precautions must be taken where conductors enter and exit the channels to protect them from sharp edges that may compromise their insulation. In addition, module rails tend to run either east-west or north-south, so they may not provide support where conductors run perpendicular to the rail alignment.

Unfortunately, the PV industry lacks consistent, standardized wire management solutions for free-air conductors within the array. Coupled with the harsh environmental conditions that PV array conductors are exposed to—UV radiation, high winds and extreme ambient temperatures, and ice, snow and other debris—wire management continues to be the Achilles heel of the majority of PV installations. In this article, I check in with several PV industry experts—from Code gurus and inspectors to installers and O&M providers—to better understand the industry’s current challenges, considerations, Code requirements and needs when it comes to managing and protecting exposed conductors within the PV array.

Click the link below to read the rest of the article. 

http://solarprofessional.com/articles/products-equipment/racking/pv-array-wire-management

http://www.ases.org/japans-plan-to-build-the-worlds-largest-wind-farm/

Beginning January 1, 2013, thanks to legislation and Governor Andrew M. Cuomo's support, the State's 4% sales tax won't be charged on the sale or installation of commercial solar energy systems equipment.  The exemption also applies to the 3/8% sales tax imposed in the Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District.

The new law also allows cities and counties, including New York City, to provide a similar exemption from their local sales taxes. 

"This measure builds on the existing solar exemption for homeowners to encourage businesses statewide to use clean, renewable resources," said Commissioner Thomas H. Mattox. 

The new law is described in detail on the Tax Department's Web site, www.tax.ny.gov.

http://www.tax.ny.gov/press/rel/2013/solartaxbreaks010413.htm

http://www.nacleanenergy.com/?action=article&id=15491

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2013/01/renewable-energy-provides-half-of-all-new-us-electrical-generating-capacity-in-2012

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2013/01/why-the-renewable-energy-industry-needs-green-banks

Overall, the two systems will generate about 10 million kWh of electricity and save the Army about $930,000 each year.

Yep, World’s Largest Low-Concentration Solar Power System

At 4.1 megawatts, the new White Sands array easily beats out the previous record holder for low-concentration solar power, which is (was) a 2 megawatt installation that went online in Puglia, Italy just last spring.

Though low-concentration systems are not as efficient as high-concentration systems, they make economic sense for utility-scale operations where real estate is cheap and plentiful.

For U.S. Army Solar Power, Such Thing as a Free Lunch

The $16.8 million White Sands system, which covers about 42 acres of the 3,200 square mile missile range (plenty of room for more!), cost the Army nothing up front.

The project was developed as a power purchase agreement, which is familiar ground in the solar industry. Basically, a power purchase agreement makes real estate available to the solar installer, whether it’s an individual rooftop or a utility-scale power plant. The property owner doesn’t pay anything up front for the solar equipment, but commits to purchasing the power it generates at an agreed-upon rate for a certain period of time (in this case, 25 years).

Siemens, Inc. built the system at White Sands, and the company will operate it and be responsible for its maintenance. The actual ownership belongs to Bostonia Bank, which financed the installation in partnership with the Army Corps of Engineers.

The Army has been pursuing this type of power purchase agreement hand over fist for the past couple of years. Back in 2011 it established a special Energy Initiatives Task Force to streamline the pipeline for utility-scale installations at Army facilities, relieving individual base commanders from having to reinvent the wheel with each project.

The White Sands Solar Power Plant

The bulk of the installation consists of more than 15,000 solar panels mounted on proprietary STS-Azimuth trackers developed by Solaria Corporation, which also provided the solar modules for the previous record-holder in Italy. The trackers enable each module to continuously adjust to the most advantageous angle, and squeeze more energy out of the sun throughout the day.

The Azimuth tracker consists of a single vertical axis which supports 20 solar modules. Unlike horizontal-mounted trackers, the Azimuth tracker permits the panels to rotate rather than simply tilt.

Solaria estimates that the Azimuth tracker enables it to yield about 30 percent more energy than horizontal trackers.

The single axis configuration also helps reduce cost by cutting down on the need for site preparation, which in turn enables it to be installed fairly quickly compared to other types of energy systems. The White Sands project broke ground in April 2012 and it was ready for action in December 2012.

Solar Power is Only Half the Battle

Impressive as it is, the new solar power plant will only supply about 10 percent of the energy needed by the White Sands facility, and that underscores another critical aspect of the Army’s emerging energy policy.

Rather than focusing narrowly on new sources of energy, the Army has also embarked on an ambitious energy “culture change” initiative called “The Power is in Your Hands.”

The goal of the new initiative is to merge new technology with new behaviors, resulting in an “energy-informed culture” in which energy users are keenly aware of their responsibility for reducing the real life-and-death risks involved in providing energy to military facilities overseas.

Given the risks and impacts of energy production here at home, that’s a lesson the civilian sector can take to heart, too.

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/01/17/army-gets-biggest-ever-solar-array-largest-in-world/

The fund, which would combine public and private capital, would be designed to provide several mechanisms to spur investment in new renewable technologies, and encourage private investment in the sector. The idea comes along as federal funding for clean energy is evaporating.

Since the bankruptcy of solar energy start-up Solyndra became a GOP talking point during last year’s election, climate change has not been a captivating issue for Democrats in national politics. It failed to get even one mention in the three presidential debates.

Deployed correctly, the Green Bank wouldn’t even necessarily cost more than existing supports for renewable energy, as Pew reports:

The idea represents a shift away from one-time subsidies, which are still the most common means of state support for renewables and efficiency projects. New York, for instance, currently spends $1.4 billion each year on renewables and energy efficiency, putting about $1.15 billion toward subsidies, as it pursues an ambitious goal of deriving 30 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2015. “In spite of this level of spending,” Cuomo said, “the State is far from realizing its clean energy goals.”

New York isn’t the only state pushing this kind of financing, but the proposal does signal a vote of confidence in green energy’s potential to create jobs and reduce the use of fossil fuels. Connecticut, for example, has a green bank but it’s a comparably paltry $30 million.

Cuomo, who’s on everyone’s shortlist of possible Democratic presidential candidates in 2016, has a reputation for policy caution but he appears to be staking out a position as a champion of progressive causes.

http://www.salon.com/2013/01/15/ny_gov_cuomo_pushes_for_green_energy_bank/

Now, Cuomo has put forward a plan to expand the NY-Sun solar job initiative at a rate of $150 million annually for 10 years, in order to increase solar panel installations by homeowners and businesses. The governor also has proposed programs that would spur the use of grid-tied, renewable, distributed energy  –among them:

• NY Green Bank: Establishment of a $1 billion Green Bank will match public and private funding  to spur the clean economy;

• Charge NY Program: Installation of a statewide network of charging stations, along with provision of charging infrastructure tax credits; and

• Cabinet-Level Energy Czar: To coordinate the state's clean-tech agenda and oversee the state government's energy portfolio, Governor Cuomo named Richard Kauffman, a senior advisor to the nation’s Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, to serve as a member of his Cabinet as the "Energy Czar." Prior to joining the US Department of Energy, Kauffman was CEO of New York City-based Good Energies, Inc. a leading investor in renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies.

A strong comeback after the storm

Following an epic storm that leveled much of the New York region’s electrical infrastructure in late October, Cuomo commented this week, "New York is on its way – coming back stronger than ever before, rising to meet some of the biggest challenges in our history, remaining as a progressive beacon of light to the rest of the nation, and standing out as a model of effective government."

To reduce dependence on centralized power plants and avoid future power outages, he proposed increasing the use of alternative local power (distributed generation of electricity) using renewable sources, including solar plants, as well as natural gas, and energy storage.

Cuomo also announced that the state will use various strategies to assist home and business owners whose properties were damaged by Hurricane Sandy. The Recreate NY-Smart Home program will provide critical financial assistance to property owners to mitigate future threats to their properties. The Governor also said he intended to update the State Building Code to promote smarter, resilient building performance, as well as increased survivability.

A haven for high technology

As many of the country’s most significant high-tech economic clusters owe their success to technology transfer, the governor has outlined steps to accelerate the commercialization of good ideas and the creation of new businesses to take them to market–among them:

• Innovation Hot Spots: Ten higher education/private sector high-tech incubators will be selected as “Hot Spots” through a competitive process. Inventors and entrepreneurs will be offered support to grow their operations in a tax-free zone, where start-ups will not be subject to business, real property, and sales taxes.

• Innovation NY Network: To break down barriers to commercialization of academic ideas, Cuomo intends to create an Innovation NY Network. The network will be mandated to build collaboration among academics, venture capitalists, business leaders, patent lawyers and other professionals, in order to facilitate and grow the commercialization process.

• Innovation Venture Capital Fund: A $50 million Innovation Venture Capital Fund will provide incentives for successful start-ups to stay in the state and grow. Support from the Innovation Venture Capital Fund will help these entrepreneurs to make the transition from research to prototyping— and, ultimately, to the creation of marketable products.

Industry support

In reaction to the speech, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), the national trade association of the U.S. solar energy industry, was quick to laud the Governor’s strategies.

"Today’s announcement shows New York State is making tremendous strides in its commitment to expanding solar deployment and growing its clean energy economy," said Carrie Cullen Hitt, senior vice president for State Affairs at SEIA.

"We applaud Governor Cuomo for advancing policies that promote clean energy innovation, create jobs, protect the environment, and help ensure our nation’s energy security and independence," Hitt stated.

She added, "The NY-Sun Initiative has put New York State at the forefront of new solar deployment, creating clean economy jobs while containing energy costs for consumers. This expansion of the NY-Sun Initiative, the creation of a $1 billion green bank, as well as the appointment of former Department of Energy official Richard Kauffman as New York State’s chairman for energy policy and finance, will ensure that solar becomes an increasingly significant component in New York’s energy portfolio; while supporting solar’s affordability for more New York State families and businesses."

New York State currently is ranked 12th among U.S. states in terms of installed solar capacity, according to SEIA’S U.S. Solar Market Insight report. There are approximately 3,300 solar professionals working at 338 companies in New York.

http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/new-york-state-looks-to-the-sun-after-a-year-of-severe-weather_100009823/#axzz2HhJnSKm9

According to a fall report by Environment California Research and Policy Center, the state’s K-12 schools spend an estimated $132 per student each year on electricity. When totaled across the entire school system — the largest in the country—the energy expenses amount to $700 million.

One of the first to make the investment is the Golden Valley Unified School District, which serves approximately 2,000 students in Madera. 

In June, Cupertino Electric of San Jose finished up on various solar systems installed at the district’s school sites — Liberty High School, Ranchos Middle School, Webster Elementary School as well as several adult, vocational and continuation schools.

Totaling around 1.12 megawatts, the systems will produce approximately 1,700 megawatt-hours of electricity annually through ground-mounted solar panels ranging from 31 kilowatts to 550 kilowatts as well as solar parking structures at the district’s main office and Webster Elementary.

The $5.1 million project, funded in part by a $3 million low-interest loan and a school district bond, will be offset by net energy savings projected at more than $250,000 by 2017 and potentially up to $9 million over the 25-year lives of the systems.

As well, rebates of $973,531 for five years from Pacific Gas & Electric Co. will allow the district to pay for the solar panels without impacting its general fund.

Another small school district, the Firebaugh-Las Deltas Unified School District, which has some 2,300 students, will realize savings of $9 million over the next 25 years through solar panels at three of its five schools.

Installed by SolarCity of San Mateo, Calif., the systems cost the district about $5 million but Superintendent Russell Freitas said he looks to have it paid off in 15 years thanks to electricity savings while fulfilling some other hard-fought goals.  

“During these past ten years, school districts have experienced the most difficult financial times, and because of the savings this solar project has created, we are able to bring music instruction back to the district,” said Freitas, referring to budget cuts beginning in 2009 that led the district to eliminate music instruction for grades six through 12.

A few months ago, San Jose-based SunPower finished installing solar power systems totaling 3.7 megawatts for the Porterville Unified School District.

The district, which enrolls around 20,000 students, will be able to save $44 million over the next 25 years thanks to solar panels set up as ground-mounted and elevated sun-tracking systems at six schools.

At a cost of $23 million, the district’s facilities director Owen Fish said the project was well worth the price, covered in full through $25 million in construction bonds approved in 2009.

“We had already started design on a 400-kilowatt system at the adult school and these bonds became available and we transferred to a much larger project,” Fish said. “When we looked at payback 10 years out, it seemed a reasonable payback for solar.”

SunPower also worked with Porterville Unified this summer when it introduced 16 students to hands-on instruction in solar technology during its weeklong career pathway program, the SunPower Solar Academy. 

Since its founding in 1985, SunPower has installed 45 megawatts of solar power systems at more than 90 schools. In California alone, the company has installed systems for 10 school districts.

“Today, on-site solar systems at California K-12 schools are delivering millions of dollars of savings that help districts retain teachers and avoid cuts to valuable programs,” said SunPower Corporate Communications Director Ingrid Ekstrom.

IES (Indoor Environmental Services) of Sacramento is currently in the process of building a $13.5-million solar energy project encompassing eight of the 11 campuses in the Selma Unified School District.

With nearly 6,500 students, the district expects to reap $34 million in gross savings over the next 25 years in addition to receiving a $1.4 million rebate from Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and a $125,000 state rebate.

The Clovis Unified School District is looking ahead to a $24-million solar energy project using money from its nearly $300-million Measure A bond passed by voters in June.

Installed as parking structures and a few on play areas built at around 18 of the district’s 47 campuses, the 5.4-megawatt project would take around a year and a half to build. 

“Our current energy bill is $7.5 million and we estimated this 5-megawatt system would save about $2 million a year,” said Don Ulrich, assistant superintendent of facility services with Clovis Unified.

Around 90 California school systems, including some colleges, have installed solar panels as a way to save money on energy costs.

According to the California Solar Initiative, a state program that offers rebates to those who install solar power systems, California schools with on-site solar systems are expected to save up to $1.5 billion over the next 30 years, equivalent to 667 new school buses or 46,296 new laptops purchased every year.

http://www.thebusinessjournal.com/news/education/4301-schools-go-solar-to-save-cash-revive-programs

"Improving energy efficiency in our buildings is a smart investment in our present and future," Governor Cuomo said. "Through Build Smart NY, state government can produce significant savings for New York taxpayers and generate thousands of jobs, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions by more than eight million metric tons - which is the same as taking one million cars off the road for one year. Furthermore, most of the projects will pay for themselves as their energy savings will cover their costs, making this initiative a financial and environmental win-win for New Yorkers."

To meet the goal of increasing energy efficiency by 20 percent in seven years, the administration designed Build Smart NY, a strategic implementation plan that will use state building energy data to prioritize projects that will deliver the greatest energy savings per dollar spent. The largest and most inefficient buildings will be addressed first and undergo comprehensive whole-building improvements. Building improvements include measures like new lighting fixtures and controls, heating, ventilating and air-conditioning systems, electric motors, and automated energy management systems.

Build Smart NY supports the Governor's larger NY Works program and economic development agenda which coordinates state funding to accelerate projects that will create jobs and improve the state's infrastructure. NY Works is designed to expedite select projects with maximum economic impact, allowing them to begin as soon as possible and reduce project costs by hundreds of millions of dollars.

Similarly, Build Smart NY will accelerate projects that produce the greatest savings and coordinate all spending. The program will also ensure that cost-effective improvements for energy savings are considered in all of the state's capital project planning.

The New York Power Authority (NYPA) has committed to provide $450 million in low-cost financing for this initiative. Additionally, for most projects, no upfront capital spending will be required because agencies will be able to repay the loans through the projects' energy savings. Also in support of Build Smart NY, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority's (NYSERDA) comprehensive array of energy efficiency programs provide objective and customized information to help state agencies and others make informed energy decisions and also provide attractive financial incentives to help offset the costs of energy efficiency improvements.

Significant progress has already been made in the last few months. Data has been collected on over 180 million square feet of buildings and campuses - about 95 percent of the State's building stock, and work has started on 30 million square feet of real estate.

To support Governor Cuomo's efforts to increase energy efficiency, a new web platform was launched today that posts progress reports, case studies, energy savings, project costs, and other information to the public, providing greater accountability and transparency on government spending and performance. With this site, New York State is also pioneering the use of big data and social networking technologies to create transparency around building energy efficiency, drive innovation, and accelerate projects. The platform is powered by technology from New York City start-up, Honest Buildings, Inc. For more information, visit www.buildsmart.ny.gov.

Tony Malkin, President of Malkin Holdings, Supervisor of the Empire State Building, said, "The Governor is demonstrating strong leadership in his Build Smart NY initiative to increase energy efficiency throughout the state's property. New York State is using the best lessons from private practice and creating a large scale public policy initiative based on real data to determine investment and return. The program will prioritize projects and apply resources to the buildings that can deliver the biggest bang for taxpayer dollars, while making sure to share case studies and building information with the public. I applaud the Governor for this initiative which will create jobs and save New Yorkers money."

"Today Governor Cuomo has moved New York one step closer to being the most energy efficient state in the nation," said Jackson Morris, Director of Strategic Engagement for the Pace Energy & Climate Center. "Leading by example in making state buildings more energy efficient will save taxpayers money, create thousands of local jobs, and bolster New York's broader efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. This is precisely the sort of leadership the state and nation needs to move to a 21st century clean energy economy, and we commend the Governor for launching this groundbreaking initiative."

"Governor Cuomo's Build Smart NY Initiative is a prime example of public-private sector collaboration," said Greg Hale, Director of Efficiency Finance at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "New York State's investment in cost-effective energy efficiency upgrades to the state's buildings will create thousands of jobs for local businesses, while also helping to jumpstart a private sector market for efficiency renovations like this in communities across the state. The energy savings generated by these efficiency improvements to state-owned buildings will not only repay the state's initial investment in a few years, but will continue to save millions of taxpayer dollars for years to come."

"By scaling up use of energy efficiency and renewable energy resources, New Yorkers can effectively limit pollution, reduce harmful carbon emissions, slash energy bills, and create new jobs. Governor Cuomo's leadership and commitment to reducing energy usage by State agencies, authorities and commissions by 20% by 2020 makes New York State a model for others around the country," said Mary Barber Environmental Defense Fund's Energy Program chief of strategy and regional director of EDF's New York office.

"Governor Cuomo's Build Smart NY initiative is an innovative and practical approach to energy efficiency, expediting the completion of cost-saving measures and prioritizing work to ensure efficient implementation," said Gil C. Quinones, president and chief executive officer, New York Power Authority. "Improving the energy efficiency of state buildings will save hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, create new jobs from the capital investments in energy-saving projects, and benefit the environment."

"The Build Smart NY initiative is another example of Governor Cuomo's serious commitment to increasing energy efficiency across New York State," said Francis J. Murray Jr., President and CEO, NYSERDA. "NYSERDA is proud to take part in this effort as we work with partners in government and the private sector to effect a permanent transformation in the way new buildings are designed and constructed, and existing building are retrofitted through innovative, cost-effective energy efficiency measures. Projects under Build Smart NY will decrease government energy use, reduce energy costs and increase jobs in our growing energy-efficiency sector."

"Governor Cuomo's Build Smart NY initiative makes sense for the environment and taxpayers," RoAnn Destito, Commissioner, Office of General Services (OGS) said. "We know what a tremendous impact this initiative will have when implemented in buildings statewide, because OGS has seen the results of the energy efficiency programs we have put into place in state office buildings."

The Executive Order is below:

DIRECTING STATE AGENCIES AND AUTHORITIES TO IMPROVE THE ENERGY EFFICIENCY OF STATE BUILDINGS

WHEREAS, New York is dedicated to the mutually compatible goals of environmental protection, energy security, and economic growth; and

WHEREAS, increasing energy efficiency has been identified as among the most cost-effective methods for reducing greenhouse gas and other environmental pollutant emissions and increasing energy security; and

WHEREAS, increasing energy efficiency can lead to increased jobs and a reduction in building operating expenses; and

WHEREAS, New York is committed to implementing new policies to promote the efficient use of energy and natural resources in the interest of the long-term protection and enhancement of the State's environment, economy and public health;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Andrew M. Cuomo, Governor of the State of New York, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the Laws of the State of New York, do hereby order as follows:

I. DEFINITIONS

For the purposes of this Executive Order, the following terms are defined as follows:

A. "Affected State Entities" means (i) all agencies and departments over which the Governor has Executive Authority, and (ii) all public-benefit corporations, public authorities and commissions, for which the Governor appoints the Chair, the Chief Executive, or the majority of Board Members, except for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

B. "Average Source Energy Use Intensity" or "average EUI" means the average source energy use per square foot for all state-owned and managed buildings.

C. "Source energy" means all the energy used in delivering energy to a site, including power generation, transmission and distribution losses.

II. ENERGY REDUCTION TARGET

By April 1, 2020, all Affected State Entities shall collectively reduce the average EUI in State-owned and managed buildings by at least 20% from a baseline of the average EUI of such buildings for State fiscal year 2010/2011 ("Target").

III. OBLIGATIONS TO MEET TARGET

A. Central Management and Implementation Team: The New York Power Authority ("NYPA") shall establish a central management and implementation team ("CMIT") to administer this Executive Order.

(1) The CMIT is hereby directed and authorized to:

(a) Take all appropriate measures to ensure that the Target is met;

(b) Direct Affected State Entities to comply with the requirements of this Executive Order;

(c) Create guidelines ("Guidelines") within nine months of the issuance of this Executive Order to assist Affected State Entities in complying with this Executive Order, and thereafter update such Guidelines as necessary;

(d) Provide strategic, technical, and other assistance to each Affected State Entity to support implementation of this Executive Order;

(e) Develop annual milestones for achieving the Target over the next seven years within 12 months of the issuance of this Executive Order;

(f) Develop and implement reporting requirements to document each Affected State Entity's progress toward meeting the Target;

(g) Develop a comprehensive operations and maintenance plan for the State's building portfolio to help achieve no cost and low cost efficiency improvements and ensure that efficiency savings are sustained; and

(h) Submit an annual report to the Governor by January 15th of each year, beginning in 2014, detailing the overall progress Affected State Entities are making toward meeting the Target. Requirements for the annual report shall be contained in the Guidelines.

(2) The Office of General Services and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority are hereby directed to provide technical assistance to the CMIT and each of the Affected State Entities with respect to complying with and implementing the requirements of this Executive Order and those established by the CMIT pursuant to this Executive Order.

B. Affected State Entities

In addition to the requirements established above, each of the Affected State Entities shall comply with the following:

(1) Benchmarking. For each State fiscal year, each Affected State Entity shall measure the energy use in State-owned and managed buildings having an area greater than 20,000 square feet. Buildings on master-metered campuses shall be benchmarked at the campus level until they are sub-metered at the building level, after which point those buildings shall be benchmarked at the building level.

(2) Audits. Buildings that receive low benchmark scores, as defined by the Guidelines, shall undergo an American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-Conditioning Engineers ("ASHRAE") Level II energy audit, or any other comparable audit that the CMIT approves. Campuses that have above-average EUIs or poor benchmark scores, as defined by the Guidelines, or are otherwise prioritized by the Affected State Entities and the CMIT, shall undergo a campus-wide ASHRAE Level II energy audit or any other comparable audit approved by the CMIT. In addition to energy efficiency measures, the audits shall identify opportunities for cost-effective on-site renewable generation and high-efficiency combined heat and power.

(3) Required Capital Projects and Energy Optimization Measures. Affected State Entities shall implement a cost-effective portfolio of measures identified and recommended in the audit and shall complete or make substantial progress toward completion of such measures within two years of completion of the audit. A portfolio may include, but shall[LM1] not be limited to, no- and low-cost operational improvements, retrocommissioning, capital energy efficiency retrofits, on-site renewable and high-efficiency combined heat and power, and other measures identified by the CMIT.

(4) Submetering. Affected State Entities shall work with the CMIT to prioritize sub-metering for all relevant energy sources of buildings larger than 100,000 square feet on a master-metered campus to identify ways to finance such sub-metering. All buildings having an area larger than 100,000 square feet on master-metered campuses shall be sub-metered for all fuels and other energy sources by December 31, 2016, to enable individual building benchmarking, unless the Affected State Entity that owns or operates the building can demonstrate to the CMIT that it is not cost-effective or feasible to do so.

(5) Incorporating Energy Efficiency Analysis in the Capital Planning Process. As part of the capital planning process, all Affected State Entities shall include an energy efficiency analysis in the design phase of all capital project plans. The capital project should include energy efficient measures or technologies determined to be the most cost-effective, as defined by the Guidelines.

(6) Credits. Affected State Entities may receive credit towards the Target for increasing energy efficiency in leased space. In addition, Affected State Entities may receive credit towards meeting the Target for installing on-site renewable generation if the host site for such renewable generation has deployed all cost-effective energy efficiency improvements consistent with the goals of this Executive Order. Affected State Entities shall consult with and apply to the CMIT concerning such credits.

(7) Reporting. No later than October 1st of each calendar year, each Affected State Entity shall submit all information requested by the CMIT on all State-owned and managed buildings having an area over 20,000 square feet, as well as any other information related to assessing compliance with this Executive Order.

C. Exemptions

Electric usage attributable to vehicle charging shall not be included in the Target and requirements of this Executive Order. The CMIT is authorized to provide other exemptions for good cause shown pursuant to criteria and procedures established in the Guidelines, including exceptions associated with buildings that have obtained and maintained ENERGY STAR or similar certification, or have benchmark scores placing such buildings in the top quartile of comparable buildings for the particular year at issue. Affected State Entities shall submit requests for annual exemptions to the CMIT. Any such request for exemptions and resulting determination by the CMIT shall be included in the annual report.

IV. Repeal of Prior Executive Orders

Executive Order No. 111, promulgated on June 10, 2001, is hereby revoked and superseded by this Executive Order as of the date hereof.

http://www.governor.ny.gov/press/12282012-smartny

True, a layer of snow can cause a solar-cell blackout for awhile. But not many locales enjoy heavy snow for more than a few months. And even in the bleak midwinter, panels don't usually stay snow-covered for long.

"Sometimes snow actually helps solar cells," says Michigan Tech's Joshua Pearce. He's referring to the albedo effect, when sunlight reflects off snow. It can make a panel generate more electricity in the same way that it gives skiers sunburn on sunny winter days.

With researchers from St. Lawrence College and Queen's University, in Kingston, Ontario, and a team of 20 industry partners, Pearce studied the effect of snow on the Open Solar Outdoors Test Field. They created a computer model to predict how much power generation would decline in various amounts of snow cover and on different types of solar modules mounted at different angles, from flat to steeply pitched. Then they validated their model with data from many of Ontario's huge commercial solar farms.

"In most cases power losses are minimal, even in snowy Canada," Pearce said. However, the group has developed a model that can be used to design the most efficient photovoltaic systems, no matter how much snow is in the area.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121024175236.htm

The report, "Energy [R]evolution: A Sustainable World Energy Outlook", provides a detailed blueprint for cutting carbon emissions while achieving economic growth by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy and energy efficiency. This phase-out of fossil fuels offers substantial benefits such as energy security, independence from world market fuel prices as well as the creation of millions of new green jobs.

“Our Energy Revolution scenario shows how to eliminate unpredictable fossil fuel costs, destructive mining and oil exploration and with it catastrophes such as the current BP Gulf oil spill,” said Sven Teske, Greenpeace International’s Senior Energy Expert and co-author of the report. “Investing in people, rather than dirty and dangerous fossil fuels not only boosts global economic development but stems catastrophic climate change.”

The Energy [R]evolution scenario shows how to create about 12 million jobs, that is 8.5 million in the renewables sector alone, by 2030. Under business as usual global renewable energy jobswould be only 2.4 million of the global power sector’s 8.7 million jobs.

By implementing the Energy [R]evolution 3.2 million or over 33% more jobs globally will be created in the power sector, the groups say.

"While many additional ‘Just Transition’ policies will be needed to ensure workers will reap the benefits of a new low-carbon economy -skills, social protection, quality of jobs; the Energy Revolution report introduces ideas to scale up investments in renewable energies, something crucial if we want to fight future unemployment in the energy sector and avoid the poorest of the planet, whose jobs depend on natural resources, paying the costs of business-as-usual" said Guy Ryder, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).

The sustainable future of the planet is rooted in the investment in people and local communities who can install and maintain renewable energy sources, rather than further subsidising dirty and finite fossil fuels. The overall annual market for renewable technology will increase from around US$100 billion today, to more than US$600 billion by 2030.

Key to making the Energy [R]evolution a reality is creating a system in which investment costs are shared fairly under a global climate regime. One such mechanism, discussed in the report, is the Greenhouse Development Rights framework (GDR) which calculates national shares of global greenhouse gas obligations based on a combination of responsibility (contribution to climate change) and capacity (ability to pay).

“The 2010 Energy Revolution report outlines pathways towards a 100% renewable energy supply for the world. It demonstrates that there is no technological barrier to achieving this vision and reaping its many benefits in terms of the environment and jobs. The barrier is political. All that is now needed to set sustainable energy future for our planet is the political will,” said Christine Lins, Secretary General of the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC).

Global CO2 emissions under the Energy [R]evolution scenario would peak in 2015 and drop afterwards. Compared with 1990 CO2 emissions will be more than 80% lower by 2050 if the energy supply is based almost entirely on renewable energies. By 2050 around 95% of electricity could be produced by renewable energy.

Copies of the “Energy [R]evolution: A sustainable World Energy Outlook” report can be downloaded at the link below.

Website: www.greenpeace.org/energyrevolution

http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/20458

Last week, Reuters reported that 29 Democrat and Republicans are proposing changes that gives renewable energy projects (including: biofuels, wind, solar, and others) “special” tax treatment through master limited partnerships (MLP’s).

Notably, these structures are already often used by various energy companies to help them raise capital:

“The structures allow companies to raise money in the stock market, while having income taxed only at the unit holder level, thus avoiding corporate income taxes.”

The new idea being floated around in the US capital comes at a time when Congress has until the beginning of January to straighten the financial situation or face the impending “fiscal cliff.”

Meanwhile, the financial uncertainty due to the fiscal cliff is causing some problems within the wind industry, such as the potential expiration of the Production Tax Credit, which has helped boost the nation’s wind industry considerably but may expire on January 1st.

Could this renewable energy MLP idea fly, considering some Democrats would like to have fossil fuel subsidies done away with, and most Republicans are weary about giving any help to renewable energy projects.

Could MLP be a way to boost cleantech investment while limiting government spending?

The group of 29 bi-partisan lawmakers on both sides of the spectrum thinks so.

Delaware Democratic Senator Chris Coons said in the article that the policy would not hamper oil, gas, or pipeline investment, while helping to support cleantech projects because of the MLP tax structure.

“Why not have a predictable, clear, long-term tax advantage financing vehicle for both, for a genuinely all-of-the-above energy strategy?” Coons said to journalists last week.

Coons, along with Kansas Republican Senator Jerry Moran and the leading Republican on the Senate Energy committee Lisa Murkowski, are three of the bill’s co-sponsors in the Senate.

Meanwhile, a similar bill in the House of Representatives co-sponsored by Democrats Mike Thompson (California), Peter Welch (Vermont), and Republican Ted Poe (Texas) is targeting a similar tax vehicle to advance renewable energy projects.

Whether these bills get through the Senate and the House of Representatives remains to be seen. However, keep your eyes peeled, as this could be one tool that could help move the investment structure of renewable energy forward in the US.

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/12/20/us-lawmakers-target-tax-changes-for-renewable-energy-projects-in-2013/

http://www.timesargus.com/article/20121220/NEWS03/712209959

A study from the University of Delaware counters the usual argument that renewable energy is too expensive and unreliable to fully power the US electric grid. 

According to researchers, by 2030, renewable energy can supply electricity 99.9% of the time at costs comparable to today's prices. 

The key is the combination of renewable energy sources and energy storage, "which we did by an exhaustive search - and to calculate costs correctly," says Willett Kempton, professor at Univerity of Delaware's College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment. 

Using a computer model of the PJM Interconnection, which covers the grid in 13 states from New Jersey to Illinois - 20% of the US grid - researchers analyzed 28 billion combinations of renewable energy sources and storage mechanisms. They were tested for four years of historical hourly weather data and electricity demands. 

Rather than trying to match electricity generation with demand, researchers focused on how to best minimize costs. It's cheaper to produce more electricity than what's needed during periods of average demand than to store excess power to be used during periods of high demand. 

That's because storing energy adds a lot of cost to the system. For every additional hour of energy stored, bigger batteries or hydrogen tanks are required. 

"For example, using hydrogen for storage, we can run an electric system that today would meet a need of 72 GW, 99.9% of the time, using 17 GW of solar, 68 GW of offshore wind, and 115 GW of inland wind," says researcher Cory Budischak at Delaware Technical Community College.

200 large wind turbines or 250,000 rooftop solar systems produce 1 GW of electricity. 

Researchers achieved reliability of renewables by using diverse sources over a larger geographic area and employing storage solutions. Fossil fuels were need as a backup for just the last few percent of the time. 

In terms of achieving cost parity without government subsidies, researchers included fossil fuel costs projected in 2030 that encompass the cost of fossil fuels and their documented external costs such as human health effects from air pollution. Projected capital costs for wind and solar in 2030 are about half of what they are today. 

"Aiming for 90% or more renewable energy in 2030, in order to achieve climate change targets of 80%-90% reduction of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the power sector, leads to economic savings," conclude the authors.

The research enhances that released by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) a few months ago that shows renewable energy can supply 80% of US electricity demand by 2050. "Thetechnology needed is available today and is more than adequate combined with a more flexible electric system," they concluded. Another report shows how the world can get 95% of electricity from renewables by 2050.

Here is the study: 

Website: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378775312014759

http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/24375

Yet, it was clear to SolarWorld that the Chinese government was illegally underwriting its industry’s export drive, its state-sponsored industry was selling at dumped U.S. prices to seize market share and the combination was both damaging the pioneering U.S.industry and eroding solar’s potential to boost American energy independence.  By 2010, China’s drive had forced at least a dozen U.S. manufacturers to downsize or close, even as the U.S. market was producing big annual gains in demand.

SolarWorld resolved that it owed its shareholders, its employees and its industrial heritage to stand up toChina.  On Oct. 19, 2011, SolarWorld filed anti-subsidy and anti-dumping trade cases.  Nine months later, the company has won both anti-subsidy and anti-dumping duties on Chinese products totaling between 35 percent and 250 percent.  But SolarWorld remains in uncharted territory:  For the duties to fully neutralize market distortions from China, the company must not only bar Chinese producers from circumventing duties, as some have pledged to do, but also explain to the industry how the duties work.

The mechanism for calculating anti-dumping duties is complex, partly because they are initially estimated based on trade predating the cases.  For that purpose, the Department of Commerce studied the second and third quarters of 2011. Commerce used the difference, or margin, between China’s production costs and its U.S. pricing to calculate preliminary estimates of duties. For most Chinese manufacturers, preliminary estimated duties of about 35 percent are being collected now on imports since Feb. 25, 2012. Commerce will announce its final estimates of duty margins on Oct. 9, 2012.

But Chinese production costs and pricing have continued to change since the 2011 study period. Commerce will reassess the antidumping and countervailing duty rates every year to make sure they reflect how the margin between Chinese costs and pricing have changed.  If current prices are falling faster than costs, as appears likely, then actual duty rates will be revised higher – potentially much higher.  In addition, appeals to U.S. courts and the World Trade Organization can also affect duty rates, often years after the fact.

Bottom line: Actual, final duties are moving targets. To employ a dense but accurate legal term, Chinese manufacturers and importers face an “open-ended contingent liability.”  No one can say how much liability for duties that Chinese manufacturers are accruing now.  For that reason,U.S.solar importers and purchasers should be extremely wary about imports fromChina.

With the trade remedies, it is hoped that fair and robust international competition will return to the U.S. marketplace, the U.S. industry will recover sales volume lost to unfairly traded Chinese goods and pricing will find a natural equilibrium between supply and demand without massive distortions from illegal Chinese government interference in theU.S.market.

Such is the goal of the SolarWorld-led Coalition for American Solar Manufacturing (CASM), which represents 215 companies employing nearly 18,000 workers.  About 85 percent of member companies is made up of downstream providers, such as installers.

The membership believes competition, not Chinese federal export targets, best serves U.S. solar industry manufacturers, installers and consumers long term. To read members’ comments or register support as an associate member of CASM, go to www.americansolarmanufacturing.org.

The  opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not represent any position by the American Solar Energy Society or Solar Today.

http://www.ases.org/solar-tariffs-how-theyll-work/

Did We Mention The Electric Cars?

My personal favorite part of next year’s guide is the number of electric and hybrid cars evaluated. More hybrids and EVs are available each year, and the EPA is faithfully testing them all. There is, of course, also a wealth of information regarding vehicles that run on more traditional fossil fuels, including (most importantly) evaluations of their fuel efficiency and emissions.

The most fuel-efficient and low-emission vehicles available are, of course, the electric cars and the plug-in hybrids — but in order to offer the widest range of useful information possible, the EPA has released two top-ten lists for fuel efficiency. One list involves the super awesome EVs and hybrids, and the other is for vehicles powered by a standard gas or diesel ICE.

Regarding the 2013 guide, Administrator Lisa P. Jackson says:

“This Administration has been working to foster a new generation of clean, fuel-efficient American vehicles, and part of that effort is ensuring that Americans have access to the best possible fuel economy information when they’re choosing a car. The 2013 Fuel Economy Guide provides Americans information about which car on the lot offers the greatest fuel economy and the lowest environmental impact. These are important considerations that can help families save money while protecting their health and the environment.”

How Do You Drive? (Also With Interactive Assessments)

Annual fuel costs can be personalized with local fuel prices and individual driving habits. Along with greenhouse gas ratings for each vehicle, personalized fuel cost estimates can help consumers make an informed decision when purchasing a new vehicle. Consumers can also see how their fuel costs would change if driving habits were altered, which helps make it a great tool.

With the release of the new guide, Energy Secretary Steven Chu hit the vital points of just why it’s so important to drive a fuel-efficient and low-emission car:

“The Fuel Economy Guide gives consumers easily accessible information to help them choose the vehicle that’s right for them. Fuel efficient vehicles help American families save money at the pump, continue to deliver on vehicle performance, and help reduce our dependence on foreign oil while limiting carbon pollution.”

Here’s the Top 10 list based on fuel economy:

1.		2013 Scion iQ EV	Combined 121	City 138/Highway 105
		Electric Vehicle, Auto (AV)
2.		2013 Honda Fit EV	Combined 118	City 132/Highway 105
		Electric Vehicle, Auto (A1)
3.		2013 Mitsubishi i-MiEV	Combined 112	City 126/Highway 99
		Electric Vehicle, Auto (A1)
4.		2013 smart fortwo EV cabriolet	Combined 107	City 122/Highway 93
		Electric Vehicle, Auto (A1)
		2013 smart fortwo EV coupe	Combined 107	City 122/Highway 93
		Electric Vehicle, Auto (A1)
5.		2013 Ford Focus Electric	Combined 105	City 110/Highway 99
		Electric Vehicle, Auto (AV)
6.		2013 Tesla Model S (60 kW-hr battery pack)	Combined 95	City 94/Highway 97
		Electric Vehicle, Auto (A1)
7.		2013 Tesla Model S (85 kW-hr battery pack)	Combined 89	City 88/Highway 90
		Electric Vehicle, Auto (A1)
8.		2013 CODA Automotive CODA	Combined 73	City 77/Highway 68
		Electric Vehicle, Auto (A1)
9.		2013 Chevrolet Volt *Ranked by combined gas/electricity rating of 62 MPGe	Combined 62	City 63/Highway 61

The guide is online at www.fueleconomy.gov and will be updated as more 2013 vehicles hit the market. What are you waiting for? Go look at it!

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/12/07/is-your-new-car-fuel-efficient-the-epa-has-spoken-with-the-2013-fuel-economy-guide-10-most-fuel-efficient-cars/#XYFC5OOGUgk0ioMw.99

After one of our dozens of Chevy Volt posts, a Volt driver dropped us a note that he had bought the car and had a blog going on his experiences with it. I was interested, so subscribed to the blog. Yesterday, “Volt Owner” posted an update showing his stats, including savings, after 1 year of driving the Volt. Here’s his full post:

“I am not going to do a big write-up on this one.  I think the numbers speak volumes.  At the end of the year, I will calculate the yearly average price of fuel (will likely be about 20 cents higher than  he current rates listed) and give a total.  Look for that post around the one year anniversary mark, which will be January 7, 2013.

“If you drive a car that gets 23 MPG (the national average), the yearly savings based on my driving habits and electricity costs are going to be around $3000 PER YEAR.”

Kudos to this driver, for sure — 980 MPG! (And a savings of about $2000-3000 to reward him for that.)

But some others are actually fairing even better. “Volt Owner” would rank 58th on the Volt Stats site right now, based on MPG. (In actuality, my hunch is that this driver is #54 — @Voltdriver — but that’s just a hunch.)

The current top 10 Volt drivers based on MPG (on that site) are as follows:

1. Rocky Volt (100% electric so far!) — 15167.95 MPG! (92.45 MPGe)
2. CT GM-Volt — 9789.12 MPG (92.28 MPGe)
3. Millenium Falcon — 6565.84 MPG (91.95 MPGe)
4. Volt — 4534.24 MPG (91.34 MPGe)
5. PLUG1N — 4375.99 MPG (91.70 MPGe)
6. Gary and Lisa’s Volt — 3928.43 MPG (90.95 MPGe)
7. Red-Volt — 3696.61 MPG (90.91 MPGe)
8. Mike’s Volt — 2966.31 MPG (90.50 MPGe)
9. MaxVoltage/BudClary — 2774.73 MPG (90.77 MPGe)
10. TrunkMonkey — 2729.27 MPG (90.84 MPGe)

Pretty amazing ratings, eh? All of those drivers are driving at 99% electric or higher. Of those, PLUG1N has the most EV miles – 19657.43 — while Mike’s Volt has the fewest – 1731.76.

If you love to look at stats (and who doesn’t), check out Volt Stats for other interesting tidbits.

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/11/30/chevy-volt-drivers-savings-after-one-year-getting-980-mpg/

The River Garden Apartments encompass eight blocks that cover about one square mile of New Orleans. The brightly colored homes are topped with solar panels and according to Clean Technica, the development is Louisiana’s largest solar project to date.

SolarEdge reports that the residents of the River Garden Apartments should expect to save roughly $50/month in utility bills.

Micah Galy of Pontchartrain Mechanical Co., which assisted in the River Garden efforts, told Clean Technica, “We overcame many challenging issues, specifically installing modules on multiple roofs and different angles, in a safe manner and with reduced maintenance costs. This revitalized community is now able to sustain itself with reliable energy and will be able to stabilize their energy costs for the long term in a clean and sustainable way.”

But Louisiana isn’t the only city dedicated to bringing sustainable energies to its housing developments. Oakland, CA may not have faced a natural disaster in recent years, but it has historically maintained a long-standing battle against poverty and a lack of affordable safe housing.

In order to bridge the gap between some much-needed shelter and sustainable building practices, California’s PG&E and Habitat for Humanity are currently building a 12-unit low-income housing development which will also be powered by solar energy. The project is part of PG&E’s Solar Habitat Program, which funds the full cost of solar PV systems on every Habitat-built house in the area.

Green Global USA reports that these are just a few examples of the solarizing of housing developments which not only helps to lessen their environmental impact, but can end up saving residents up to $500 a year on utilities. 

If going sustainable is really our answer to reversing the damage done to our planet, then renewable energy needs to be accessible to all income levels in all markets, and the "greening" of housing developments goes a long way in getting us there. 

http://www.takepart.com/article/2012/11/10/katrina-ravaged-neighborhood-reemerges-largest-solar-development-us?cmpid=ait-fb

Under the programs Solarize Massachusetts and Commonwealth Solar, which made their final installations of the year this month, residents and businesses bought or leased solar equipment at subsidized prices, then sold any unused power back to an electric company. The total amount of state expenditures — $5.7 million in 2012 — was relatively high, but as more homes and businesses convert to solar energy, others will be compelled to try it, creating the economies of scale necessary to drive down the price.

The 2008 Green Communities law requires that 7 percent of power purchased by electric utilities must come from renewable sources by 2016. The conversion is starting to happen. At its current rate of installations, Massachusetts will be sixth-highest among all states in putting solar panels on top of homes, and third, behind only New Jersey and California, in placing panels on the roofs of offices, schools, and big-box stores such as Kohl’s, Walmart, or Whole Foods.

In the 17 cities and towns that signed up for Solarize Massachusetts, which include Boston, homeowners and businesses that installed solar-energy panels are receiving electricity at rates well below the 15 cents per kilowatt hour for traditional gas, coal-fired, or nuclear energy. Arlington locked in a rate of 5 cents per kilowatt hour; Millbury and Sutton locked in 5.5 cents. Boston has an 11-cent rate. (Variations depend on the type of housing, the price the city negotiates with installers, and the number of homes and businesses involved.)

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2012/11/23/solar-energy-investments-are-paying-off-mass/QMOoe5M6Cc3TNoHiriBUMJ/story.html

Iceland today generates 100% of its electricity with renewables: 75% of that from large hydro, and 25% from geothermal. Equally significant, Iceland provides 87% of its demand for hot water and heat with geothermal energy, primarily through an extensive district heating system.

Altogether, hydro and geothermal sources meet 81% of Iceland’s primary energy requirements for electricity, heat, and transportation. This must be a record in the modern era. Certainly Icelandic politicians think so, because they frequently make reference to it.

What Icelandic politicians don’t mention as often is that half of all the electricity the country produces is provided at low cost to aluminum smelters. And no, there’s no bauxite in Iceland. The country uses the low cost of its renewably-generated electricity–and just as importantly the stable price it represents over the long term–to lure smelters to the island. Iceland profits from the value added by smelting the aluminum ore from other countries.

In the spring of 2011, my wife Nancy Nies and I passed through Iceland on our way to Europe. We chose to spend a few days in Reykjavik to see first hand what modern geothermal power plants and geothermal heating look like–and to take a plunge into that famous Blue Lagoon.

Despite its economic collapse in 2008, Iceland still has one of the world’s highest standards of living.

As anyone who tried to fly to Europe in the spring of 2011 knows, the island of Iceland is geologically active–very active. The island is in the midst of an active spreading zone: half of the country lies on the North American tectonic plate, the other half lies on the Eurasian plate.

Yes, Iceland is a very small country. Despite a land area of 100,000 km², only 300,000 people inhabit the island, two-thirds of those in the capital Reykjavik. Yet, Iceland shows what can be done when a nation puts its mind to the task of eliminating fossil fuels.

Until the extensive development of the island’s hydro and geothermal resources, the country was dependent upon coal and oil for providing transportation, fueling its fishing fleet, and heating its homes. The latter is not something to take lightly in a nation just south of the Arctic Circle. Iceland’s older residents can remember a time when coal smoke, not steam from the island’s famed fumaroles, shrouded the capital.

Iceland is a leader in geothermal development and exports its technical expertise worldwide. The country, along with the Philippines and El Salvador, is among countries with the highest penetration of geothermal energy in electricity generation worldwide. On a per capita basis, Iceland is an order of magnitude ahead of any other nation in installed geothermal generating capacity.

Travelers in transit through Iceland may know nothing about the country’s geothermal resources, but as their flight arrives at the Keflavik the airport they may look askance at their seatmates. They might sniff the air and wrinkle their noses. But it’s not the passengers that stink. It’s Keflavik. And that rotten-egg smell is characteristic of geothermal areas around the world. The airport sits near the end of theReykjanes peninsula, one of the geothermal fields serving the capital, an hour’s drive southwest of Reykjavik.

You know you’re in Iceland when you can see the steam plumes from fumaroles and vents along the road from the airport to Reykjavik.

Icelanders use geothermal energy in two ways: for generating electricity, and for heating. They generate electricity in what is, for all practical purposes, conventional thermal power plants. Instead of burning coal in a boiler to create steam, Icelanders use steam directly from the earth.

Iceland also heats most of its domestic water, swimming pools, and buildings with geothermal fluids. In older systems, they use the geothermal fluids directly. In more modern applications, they use heat exchangers that transfer the heat of geothermal fluids to fresh water.

Maybe because of their rugged Viking roots, Icelanders swim all year–outdoors as well as indoors–in heated pools, to be sure. They’ve taken their national pastime and the waste heat from one geothermal power plant and turned it into a tourist attraction.

Only minutes from the international airport at Keflavik is the Blue Lagoon, a posh spa built on the waste fluids from Svartsengi geothermal power plant. It’s common for transit passengers to spend a few hours luxuriating at the Blue Lagoon before catching their next flight.

We met up with Guðmundur Ómar Friðleifsson, chief geologist with HS ORKA, the company that operates Svartsengi and another plant nearby on the Reykjanes peninsula.

Guðmundur, or Omar for short, picked us up in Reykjavik and took us by the hot springs and swimming complex of Laugardalur near our hotel. (Because everyone is related to everyone else, Icelanders go by first or middle names.)

Formerly with the Icelandic Geologic Survey, Omar speaks English with a Scottish brogue from his years in Edinburgh pioneering the study of resistivity in rock for locating high-temperature geothermal resources. The silver-haired geologist could be a stand-in for Professor Lidenbrock in Jules Verne’sJourney to the Center of the Earth. (Icelanders are quick to point out that Jules Verne’s novel is eerily similar to an earlier Icelandic tale.)

On the drive to Reykjanesvirkjun–the Reykjanes power plant–at the end of peninsula jutting into the North Atlantic, Omar explained how within one generation, following the oil crises of the 1970s, Iceland moved almost completely from heating with fossil fuels to geothermal energy.

Before deregulation and privatization swept over Iceland, HS ORKA was a municipal utility that generated electricity and provided heat to nearby communities on the Reykjanes peninsula. HS ORKA was eventually privatized and the communities leased the geothermal resource to the company. In turn they now receive royalties for the sale of electricity and heat.

The area around the plant at Svartsengi, or “black meadow” in Icelandic, was open to the public. There were no chain-link fences. No guards. And at one fumarole field, there was an open boardwalk for tourists. With the exception of the wind, the cold, and the gray sky, you could imagine you were in Yellowstone National Park.

Originally the Svartsengi site was developed to heat the nearby harbor town of Grindavik after the oil crisis, but geologists found a much greater resource than expected and the plant has steadily grown.

The plant now produces 75 MW of electricity from 12 wells. Svartsengi also produces an equivalent amount of thermal fluids for district heating.

HS Orka pumps the waste geothermal fluids back in into 12 recharge wells, and of course, feeds some of the waste geothermal fluids to the popular Blue Lagoon.

The evaporation pond of the Blue Lagoon has become the pearl of Iceland, receiving some 500,000 visitors per year.

What is most striking to an American visitor is the appearance of the plants-not just the interior but also the exterior. The interiors of most power plants today are spotless, even polished. Managers–and, more importantly, insurers–learned that if you can’t keep the floor clean, you’re not likely to do much of anything else right, ultimately endangering employees and expensive equipment.

Iceland’s power plants go beyond spotless. They are works of art.

Iceland takes architecture seriously. And this is evident in the most utilitarian of structures, their power plants.

Both Svartsengi and the nearby Reykanes plant are stunning examples of modern industrial architecture. Rather than being a blot on the landscape, they are literally shining examples that Iceland takes renewable energy and its place in the landscape seriously. It’s a lesson that power-plant developers should take to heart outside Iceland.

Heat

While Iceland has become famous for generating electricity with its geothermal resources, it has achieved even greater success with using geothermal energy for heating.

We next met up with Einar Gunnlaugsson at Orkuveita Reykjavikur, the municipal utility serving Reykjavik with electricity and heat.

Geothermal heating in Reykjavik began at the Laugardalur hot springs, where women took their laundry.

To this day the main shopping street of the capital, Laugavegur, remains the “road to the hot springs,” and is now a part of the city and the site of a major swimming, sport, and hotel complex, including the Hilton Nordica.

There are ten wells on ¼ km² centers providing low-temperature (120 C at an average flow rate of 330 l/s) water for the district. Here, the hot springs were at the surface, and geothermal development used the water directly, in the process drawing down the water table.

In the complex dance between surface springs and urban development, geothermal exploitation allowed the city to expand to new building sites. Now that the district is urbanized, the wells must continue pumping not only for the heat they provide, but now also for dewatering the district. Einar points this out as an illustration of the challenge faced by those who want to build sustainable cities.

Reykjavik has come a long way. In 1933 only 3% of the capital’s population was served by a district heating system. Nearly everyone used coal to heat, and the sky was black as a result.

By the 1960s, says Einar, half of the city was heated by oil and the population was vulnerable when the oil crises hit in the 1970s.

Following the first oil crisis, most buildings were switched to the district heating system. One unexpected benefit was a dramatic drop in emissions. The fall in emissions continued into the 1990s as more of the city, and even rural areas converted to geothermal heating.

Einar proudly points to the near elimination of global warming gases in Iceland, noting that emissions of CO2 from electricity generation and heating are now only found in some off-gases from the city’s newly developed high-temperature geothermal field.

No other city has developed district heating on the scale of Reykjavik. As a result, city residents benefit from low-cost heat at a stable price not dependent upon the volatility in the price of fossil fuels. Einar argues that the cost of heating in Reykjavik is one-fourth that of heating in Copenhagen. For example, he lives in a 180 m² (2,000 ft²) home and pays only 60,000 IKR (€400, $500 USD) per year for heat.

Of the geothermal fluids used for heating, 85% is used to heat buildings and the remainder for domestic hot water. Einar says that the volume of geothermal fluids used for heating has steadily decreased since the 1980s as Iceland tightens up building insulation standards.

Like their counterparts at HS Orka, Orkuveita Reykjavikur takes the architectural appearance of its well sites and power plants seriously. Only a well trained eye can detect a faint wisp of steam from its stainless-steel well enclosures in the Laugardalur hotel district.

Orkuveita Reykjavikur operates two plants in a large high-temperature geothermal field southeast of the capital: Nesjavellir, and Hellisheiði. Both plants generate electricity and in 2010 a 30-kilometer insulated pipeline was completed that carries geothermal fluids to Reykjavik.

The plants are big by geothermal standards and are continually being expanded. Two more units were added in 2011, bringing total electrical capacity to more than 300 MW, and an equivalent amount of geothermal heat for the capital.

Power House for Britain?

Iceland not only points to its success in meeting its own needs with renewables but also aggressively markets its renewable resources to energy-intensive industries. Now it wants to go even further–specifically, to the British Isles.

In an ambitious–some might say foolhardy–move, Iceland has injected itself into Britain’s Electricity Market Reform debate by proposing an unprecedented 700 mile sub-sea cable to Scotland. The $2 billion project would carry 5 TWh of Iceland’s renewable electricity to Britain’s energy market reportsBloomberg. That’s a third more electricity than produced in all of Iceland today and as much as all the currently developed geothermal on the island.

Iceland’s proposal is roughly equivalent to the target of Britain’s microgeneration feed-in tariff of 8 TWh per year, but is less than half that generated by wind in Britain in 2011. More controversial, the 5 TWh is also roughly equivalent to the output of a typical nuclear reactor and Britain is struggling to find a way to justify new reactors.

Whether such a project is technically feasible or economically viable remains to be seen. Iceland certainly has the untapped geothermal potential to do so. But it’s an open questoin as to whether geothermal resources developed in Iceland and transmitted such a long distance would be cheaper than if Britain developed its own geothermal resources.

And if Britain launches its EMR as planned, what would be the “strike price” of Icelandic geothermal energy delivered to Britain? Would it be cheaper than new nuclear? Intriguing questions all.

Regardless of whether such a mega-project is feasible or whether Iceland’s citizens would be willing to tolerate the financial risk of developing the project after all they’ve lost in the country’s banking boondoggle, Iceland remains a model of what can be accomplished with renewable energy both in electricity generation–and equally as important in heating–when a nation puts its mind to it.

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/iceland-a-100-renewables-example-in-the-modern-era-56428?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=iceland-a-100-renewables-example-in-the-modern-era-56428

 The Solar One building, which was completely submerged by a 14-foot wave, underwent many significant renovations, including new mold-free sliding doors, sheetrock and linoleum tile, as well as a brand new stage and back deck. Sandy, and the new flood plan, also necessitated changes to the plans for Solar 2, a new state-of-the-art 8,000 square foot educational facility, designed to replace Solar 1. The first floor has been raised 15’ to allow storm surges to pass underneath, and the new design follows Passive House guidelines, creating the most energy efficient building possible. Solar 2 will be New York City’s first fully resilient, LEED Platinum, energy positive, water reuse demonstration facility that will serve as a hub for Solar One’s web of programs as well as a renewably powered refuge center in the event of future disasters. You can learn more about the Solar 2 building here.

Solar One has also been active in trying to help other communities become more resilient and prepared for the next storm. After finishing the Solar Sandy Project, which brought mobile solar generators to 17 sites in neighborhoods badly damaged by the storm, our Energy Connections program expanded to include our first community solar initiative in central Brooklyn. This program helps residents organize together to install solar pv systems as a group and aggregate their collective purchasing power. Nationally, the community solar model has been very effective in helping to make 2012 the biggest year ever in the US for new solar installations. A decentralized generation movement puts less stress on the grid and creates more energy-independent communities when the grid fails – ultimately building the resiliency of communities to prosper amid the range of circumstances that they are likely to face as a consequence of climate change.

And speaking of the post-Sandy grid, our most recent Clean Energy Connections panel discussion focused on the state of the grid one year after Sandy.  You can see the whole presentation online here. 

The Solar Sandy Project has concluded Phase 1. Our report on what we accomplished appears below:

The Solar Sandy Project began with a phone call to Solar One on November 5th. Chris Mejia of Consolidated Solar had mobile solar generators that he usually leased to construction sites, and he wanted deploy them to areas without electricity following Superstorm Sandy. Solar One, unsure what to do with this amazing offer, posted the request on Facebook. SolarCity saw it, contacted Consolidated Solar, and deployed the first generator. SolarCity then brought Solar One back into the fold, asking for help to expand the project and find more sites. Solar One built this website and launched the project on November 10th.

Over the course of 44 days, the Solar Sandy Project brought solar-powered electricity to 17 blacked-out sites in the Rockaways, Red Hook, New Jersey, Staten Island and Long Island. With these solar-powered generators, communities charged cell phones, powered lights, ran laptops, and even hosted a Thanksgiving dinner. To see all the locations we powered, check out the map below. And very big thanks to our partners SolarCity, Consolidated Solar and NYSERDA, and to our funders HSBC and the 11th Hour Project.

WHERE SOLAR WAS DEPLOYED 

These are the locations where Solar Sandy generators were deployed:

Belle Harbor Yacht Club 533 Beach 126th Street, Belle Harbor
Veggie Island/Rockaway Taco 95-19 Rockaway Beach Blvd, Far Rockaway
NY Cares Relief Center Rockaway Beach Blvd between Beach 123rd and Beach 124th St, Rockaway Beach
Medical Clinic Beach 106th Street, Rockaways
Boarders Surf Shop and Yoga/Massage Studio 198 Beach 92nd Street, Rockaways
VFW Post 2179 One Veteran Lane, Middletown, NJ (2 10kW generators)
SI Recovers Midland Beach Hub 1128 Olympia Blvd, Staten Island
Staten Island Jewish Community Center 1466 Manor Road, Staten Island

http://www.solar1.org/solar-sandy-project/

The Grand Opening was a great event not only for the renewable industry but for the City of Troy, which has experienced recent revitalization in its Central Historic District. The event brought a diverse bunch to the city, including reps from the solar thermal and wind energy camps, and NABCEP and NYSERDA.

Once the colder months set in and the year draws to a close, we are eager to spread the word about that Perfect SOLAR Storm of incentives and low prices. With every year, as more people reap the benefits of renewable energy, government programs that facilitate its economic growth start to retract their resources. In 2012, although we did not see a total elimination of state and federal incentives, it became clear that they will not be as aggressive as they were in previous years.

That is why we are excited to announce that we are hosting a mini green workshop at the Jewish Community Center of Dutchess County in Poughkeepsie on November 7th. We like to have face-to-face time with the public because we find that there are always a ton of questions about every aspect of solar energy systems.

The workshop will include information on solar energy for residential and commercial buildings as well as how to receive a free energy audit for your home or business. We also have a special guest who will speak about the work of the locally-based Sacred Earth Project. Please see ourJune 22nd post for more information about that project and stay tuned this week for more details on the event.

http://www.vanguardenergies.com/weekly-news/weekly-news-october-26-2012/

Officials also believe the proposed system, which would require little to no upfront costs from the state, will eventually be able to generate surplus power with profits that could go back into schools.

In the first year of implementation alone, the DOE estimates it could cut its spending on electricity by as much as $5 million.

Within five years the DOE hopes to have slashed its $47 million annual power bill in half, and believes a number of schools will be able to get most of their energy needs from solar power.

The plan comes as the DOE is spending more on electricity, even as its energy use declines.

In the 2007-2008 fiscal year, DOE schools and facilities used 147 million kilowatt-hours of electricity at a cost of $38 million.

By 2011-2012, usage had declined by nearly 11 percent — to 131 million kilowatt-hours — but the DOE's electric bill had climbed 24 percent to $47 million.

Ray L'Heureux, DOE assistant superintendent for facilities and support services, said after studying similar solar power projects around the country, he concluded the Hawaii plan is feasible — and unprecedented. "Nobody has done this yet to this size and scale," he said.

The plan would also include efforts to install more energy-efficient components in schools, and dovetail with a more robust sustainability curriculum for all students and career and technical training for high-schoolers.

Hawaii's school system isn't alone in eyeing solar power. In recent years hundreds of elementary and secondary schools and university campuses around the nation have turned to photovoltaic systems to cut electricity costs, pouring the dollars they save into other expenses at a time when education funding is shrinking.

Monique Hanis, spokes­woman for the Solar Energy Industries Association, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group, said Hawaii's plan is "one of the most ambitious we've seen."

She said she was unaware of any other case of an entire school district moving to solar power.

But, she noted, other states have emerged as leaders in installing solar power systems on school campuses.

In California, 123 schools have solar power, and 40 more are installing the technology, according to the association. New Jersey has 259 public and private schools with solar power, and more than 40 schools in Arizona have installed photovoltaic systems.

Earlier this year Hawaii announced solar power pilot projects at schools on Kauai and Oahu. In all, solar panels will be installed or have already been installed at nearly 40 schools.

The pilots were developed under power purchase agreements, with the DOE paying no upfront costs. Instead, a third-party financing company owns the solar power systems and sells the electricity to the department over the 20-year life of the agreement.

On Oahu the DOE is paying 19 cents per kilowatt-hour for power under the agreement, well below the 33.6 cents per kilowatt-hour Oahu residents paid this month.

On Kauai, schools are paying 17 cents per kilowatt-hour, compared with a residential rate of 44.9 cents a kilowatt-hour this month.

Gilbert Chun, DOE auxillary services branch administrator, said while the cost savings are important, key to the new statewide project is the education element: Every school, he said, will be able to take advantage of the solar "laboratory" on its rooftop.

He noted that the plan also calls for the installation of small wind turbines when possible.

"You can see where they (students) can start to learn about energy efficiency and generation," Chun said.

Elias Ali, principal of Radford High, one of the schools in the Oahu pilot program, said his campus is already looking into opportunities to weave the solar panels into the curriculum. "There is a potential beyond being a money saver," he said.

Like the pilots under way, Hawaii's statewide plan calls for signing a master power purchase agreement with a vendor for a 20-year period, after which time the panels will probably need to be replaced.

The vendor, who will likely be selected before the end of the school year, will install panels at all 256 Hawaii schools by the fifth year of the agreement.

The project is scheduled to kick off in the coming school year with an audit of schools to pinpoint potential measures to increase energy efficiency, such as by replacing energy-hogging appliances.

Under the agreement, the DOE will buy solar power from the vendor at a reduced rate. And because of the size of the planned project, the DOE also believes the plan will generate revenue when excess power is sold.

But officials do not yet have good estimates of how much the excess power will yield. L'Heureux said projections put the profits anywhere from $16 million to $88 million annually, but stressed those figures are preliminary.

He noted that the plan would put the DOE well on its way toward a goal of using 90 percent clean energy by 2040.

The DOE has met with the state Public Utilities Commission to discuss the plan, and will sit down with Hawaiian Electric Co. soon, L'Heureux said.

HECO spokesman Darren Pai had no comment on the plan because HECO had not yet reviewed it, but said, "We support the DOE's overall goals of controlling its energy costs."

http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/hawaiinews/20121031_State_plan_puts_solar_in_all_public_schools_.html?id=176543991

Solar panels cover a 35-acre field that once produced corn, tobacco and other crops. When the sun shines, the panels generate enough electricity for hundreds of homes.

“I initially thought this was a pipe dream,” said farmer Billy Dean Hunt, recalling discussions with a solar company about using his cornfield for a sun farm. “But I started talking to them. They convinced me they would honor what they said. So I did it.”

The scene near Rowland – about 115 miles southeast of Charlotte – is found increasingly across North Carolina. Solar farms dot the landscape from the Blue Ridge mountains to the sandy coastal plain – the result of an emerging renewable energy industry.

In many cases, solar farms are replacing cropland that doesn’t generate enough income from traditional farming. Other times, solar farms are being placed on vacant industrial sites or land that hasn’t grown crops in years.

Unlike many other Southern states, North Carolina has encouraged the development of solar power through generous tax incentives and a state law requiring electric utilities to use some renewable energy. These policies are a key reason North Carolina often rates high in national rankings of solar-friendly states – and why solar farms are growing steadily.

“This shows we are progressive,” said Thomas Parker, mayor of Laurinburg, whose community has a solar farm similar to the ones in nearby Rowland. “Any time we can add a dollar to the tax base, we are interested. I believe in it. I think this will be more prevalent in the future.”

Since 2007, when North Carolina began requiring power companies to use renewable energy, about 100 solar farms have registered to open, according to the N.C. Sustainable Energy Association, a group that tracks the solar energy business.

Some of those may not have cranked up yet, but the association says the number of companies registering with the state gives an indication of the interest. Before the law passed five years ago, North Carolina didn’t have any solar farms, the association reports.

The increase in solar farms reflects a larger trend in North Carolina, where investor-owned utilities must provide up to 12.5 percent of their power from renewable sources.

North Carolina’s renewable and energy-efficiency industry employs more than 15,000 people and has generated some $3.7 billion in gross revenue this year, the association says. Companies providing solar energy services have increased 76 percent since the renewable energy requirement passed the General Assembly five years ago, according to surveys by the Sustainable Energy Association.

Reducing coal dependence

The idea behind North Carolina’s solar effort is to diversify energy sources and stimulate the economy with a relatively new type of industry.

Solar power will never replace traditional power sources because the sun doesn’t shine all the time. But solar boosters say efforts like North Carolina’s can reduce dependence on coal and nuclear power and stabilize electric bills for customers. Coal and nuclear power plants, both of which create toxic waste, buy fuel from out of state to make energy, and fuel supplies such as coal are subject to price variability.

Solar farms are large-scale projects intended to provide power for the electrical grid, which historically has relied almost entirely on coal, nuclear, hydro and natural gas. Solar farms provide far more energy than solar panels on homes, which also feed power to the grid.

Solar farms periodically spark questions about whether they are appropriate in some communities. Some people say they are unsightly and take up too much space, while others ask whether it’s a good idea to replace productive farmland with solar farms.

Conservative lawmakers also question the wisdom of adopting government policies to encourage an industry they say would have trouble surviving on its own. Efforts are under way in North Carolina and, possibly at the federal level, to scale back incentives and requirements for renewable energy.

‘Too good to pass up’

To siblings Helen and Tom Livingston, solar farms are a great idea.

They decided last spring not to replant a 47-acre cotton field their family has owned for generations. For much of the next three decades, their family will be paid to rent the land to solar energy-power developer Strata Solar.

Details of the arrangement were not available, but Strata typically pays $500 to $600 per acre annually. That would be more than $20,000 each year for the 47-acre plot in Robeson County.

“It is almost too good to pass up,” said Helen Livingston, 71. “For us, it wasn’t just the money. It was the excitement of having a solar farm. But I think people would see that it does pay more than farming.”

Livingston said producing energy from the sun helps reduce dependence on fossil fuels, such as coal and natural gas, which hurt the environment when they are extracted from the earth.

“All of our family is environmentally conscious,” she said. “We were the right contact for a solar farm because we knew the importance of this.”

Hunt said his reasons for leasing to a renewable energy company were almost purely financial.

“It is guaranteed money,” said Hunt, 63, a Marine Corps veteran. “Farming is a risky business. If you can take some of the risk out and the liability, you are ahead of the ball game. If I die, my wife will have income because she couldn’t farm the land anymore.”

http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/11/11/2478266/farmers-grow-profits-with-a-new.html

Although a layer of snow can cause a solar-cell blackout for a period, not many regions experience heavy snow for more than a few months, they said, and even in midwinter panels don't usually stay snow-covered for long.

"Sometimes snow actually helps solar cells," Michigan Technical University researcher Joshua Pearce said, referring to the albedo effect, when sunlight reflects off snow.

It can make a panel generate more electricity in the same way that it gives skiers sunburn on sunny winter days, he said.

Pearce worked with researchers from St. Lawrence College and Queen's University, in Kingston, Ontario, and industry partners to study the effect of snow on the Open Solar Outdoors Test Field, a fully grid-connected test system that monitors the output of more than 100 photovoltaic modules and correlates their performance to meteorological readings.

They created a computer model to predict how much electricity production would decline with various amounts of snow cover on solar modules mounted at different angles from flat to steeply pitched, a Michigan Tech release said.

"In most cases power losses are minimal, even in snowy Canada," Pearce said, noting the model matched data from a number of Ontario's commercial solar farms.

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Technology/2012/10/25/Solar-power-said-viable-in-snowy-regions/UPI-94371351188291/#ixzz2jKY1ZxUb

A Commerce Dept. WTO panel on Oct. 10 issued its final determination on anti-dumping duties to be imposed on imports of silicon PV cells and panels from China. The ITC’s ruling on Chinese government subsidies to its domestic manufacturers brings to a close what’s been a controversial, fiercely debated issue that’s divided the U.S. solar manufacturing industry into opposing camps represented by CASM on the one side and the Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy (CASE) on the other — at least in terms of U.S. international trade litigation.

Gaming International Trade

“Today’s unanimous vote by the International Trade Commission confirms what has been apparent in the marketplace for the past two years – Chinese manufacturers, with the enthusiastic support of the Chinese government, have attempted to game the international trading system in order to gain a virtual monopoly on solar cells and modules sales in the U.S. market,” commented Gordon Brinser, president of SolarWorld Industries America, the lead litigant in filing the two WTO petitions with the Commerce Dept.

“We have seen the results of this campaign in the marketplace, with more than a dozen companies either shutting down manufacturing facilities or significantly cutting back production and employment in the United States and a Chinese industry, led by LDK Solar and Suntech, having to increasingly turn to its national and provincial governments for help to survive.

“With this relief, combined with an aggressive domestic enforcement regime, there is hope that the United States can maintain a viable solar manufacturing base, conduct ongoing research and development and continue to make solar an increasingly viable part of the American renewable energy portfolio. On behalf of the membership of CASM, I want to thank the commissioners and the ITC staff for the hard work on this case.”

Encouraging Dialogue

“Today’s expected decision by the ITC marks the end of a distracting and politically-charged trade case between the U.S. and China regarding imports of solar cells. Although this ruling was anticipated given the ITC’s low threshold for injury determinations, we are nevertheless disappointed that they have left in place the Commerce Department’s tariffs on solar cell imports. Fortunately, the scope of the decision is unchanged and is limited to solar cells produced in China, thereby minimizing harm to the U.S. solar industry,” CASE president Jigar Shah, a partner in Inerjys, a $1 billion fund that invests in clean energy via growth capital and project finance, stated in response to the ITC’s final determination.

“We will continue to encourage dialogue and negotiation between the U.S. and Chinese governments to seek a constructive resolution. Unilateral tariffs and a trade war in today’s interconnected global marketplace are unnecessary and detrimental to effective and efficient business competition.

“Going forward, we must avoid a repeat of the SolarWorld saga, as the growth of the solar industry here, in Europe, and around the world is too important to be upended by one company’s self-serving crusade. Fortunately, the scope of the decision is unchanged and is limited to solar cells produced in China, thereby minimizing harm to the U.S. solar industry.”

Commenting on the ITC’s finding against CASM’s claim of critical circumstance, CASE commented, “We are pleased that the ITC has determined that there were no critical circumstances, and thus no reason to apply the tariffs retroactively. This means that tariffs will not apply to modules made with Chinese cells that were imported into the U.S. during the period of the investigation.”

Solar PV & International Trade Litigation: More to Come

We haven’t heard the last on this issue, however. The European Commission on Sept. 7 decided it has received sufficient evidence from the EU ProSun group of European solar PV manufacturers to investigate claims that Chinese silicon PV wafer, cell and panel manufacturers are dumping product in the European Union (EU) market. Results are expected around June.

The Chinese government, for its part, on Nov. 5 filed a complaint with the WTO asserting that some European governments’ subsidies are in “violation of WTO prohibitions on import replacement subsidies, seriously affect Chinese exports, and harm China’s rightful interests as a WTO member,” according to a BBC News report.

Following, courtesy of CASE, is a table summarizing the preliminary and final determinations on anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties imposed on Chinese silicon PV cell and panel imports to the US made by the ITC and Commerce Dept. panels.

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/11/08/us-international-trade-commission-votes-unanimously-in-favor-of-anti-subsidy-duties-on-chinese-silicon-pv-imports/

The Wall Street Journal wrote, “China is complaining that power generated in Europe that uses solar-energy components made in the EU receives a subsidy. In a statement on its website on Monday, China's Ministry of Commerce said EU subsidies have affected China's solar exports and violated China's rights as a WTO member.”

Although the complaint did not cite any specific companies, it did contend that EU members Italy and Greece provide subsidies to photovoltaic installations only if the components are manufactured in Europe. "Every nation should take a long-term view and strengthen cooperation in the industry, be open to the international trade, and avoid protectionism," a Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesman said in a statement cited by The Wall Street Journal.

On Friday, November 2, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce also launched an investigation into the dumping by EU manufacturers of solar grade polysilicon used to make solar cells. The Chinese government is clearly taking an aggressive stance toward protecting its solar panel industry and its access to the European market.

Chinese solar panel makers have been charged with unfair trade practices by both the EU and the United States. According to The Wall Street Journal, the EU began an investigation into whether Chinese companies are selling solar panels at unfairly low prices in Europe.

Back in May, the U.S. found Chinese companies guilty of dumping solar panels in the United States and imposed a 31 percent tariff on solar panel imports from China. Tomorrow the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) will vote on whether Chinese dumping has harmed the American solar panel industry. If the ITC finds that there has been harm done, punitive tariffs of up to 250 percent will be imposed on Chinese solar panels, according to the AP.

The major issue in the global solar panel market has been falling prices. According to Bloomberg, “Trade disputes are escalating as the solar industry struggles with a supply glut and shrinking profits. The global average spot price of polysilicon in the week beginning Oct. 22 dropped to a record of $18.3 a kilogram…”

What does this mean for Suntech Power Holdings (NYSE: STP [FREE Stock Trend Analysis]), Trina Solar (NYSE: TSL) and the other U.S.-listed Chinese solar panel makers?

Clearly, a vote tomorrow by the ITC in favor of imposing punitive tariffs of up to 250 percent would not be good for business.The average anti-dumping tariff that would be imposed if the ITC finds that the U.S. solar industry has been harmed is 31.73 percent for Suntech Power, 18.32 percent for Trina, 25.96 percent for LDK Solar (NYSE:LDK) and JA Solar Holdings (Nasdaq: JASO) and 15.42 percent for Yingli Green Energy (NYSE: YGE). In addition, countervailing duties of between 14.78 percent and 15.97 percent will be imposed, according to Solar PV Investor.

But the issue is that there are too many solar panel makers and not enough demand for solar panels. Global pricing remains below average production cost.

The Chinese solar panel makers are preparing for a possible ITC vote against them by assembling panels using solar cells manufactured outside of China, which would be exempt from the punitive tariffs. Hanwha SolarOne (Nasdaq: HSOL) is using this strategy after its parent company, Hanwha Holdings, purchased bankrupt German solar cell maker, Q Cells, which makes solar cells at a plant in Malaysia. Rene Sola (NYSE: SOL) is following a similar strategy, only shipping panels made with non-Chinese solar cells to the U.S. market.

Would a finding against Chinese solar panel makers help U.S. companies First Solar (FSLR) and SunPower Corporation (Nasdaq: SPWR)? While it may ease some of the downward pressure on solar panel prices in the U.S., both companies still need to cut costs as both continue to look overseas, particularly to Asia, for future growth. American companies will compete with the Chinese head-on in these markets.

The outlook for the solar panel industry, regardless of where it is based, depends upon increasing demand. In all of the hubbub over the presidential election, don't overlook the ITC vote on solar panel tariffs tomorrow.

http://www.benzinga.com/news/12/11/3061026/will-u-s-listed-chinese-solar-shares-rally-after-wto-complaint

(Press release, Oct 23) — Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today received the Energy Highway Task Force’s Blueprint, a comprehensive plan that will add up to 3,200 megawatts (MW) of additional electric generation and transmission capacity and clean power generation through up to $5.7 billion in private investments. The 3,200 MW outlined in this blueprint would provide enough energy to power approximately 3.2 million homes.

“As we work to grow New York’s economy, we need reliable, affordable, and clean power to leverage significant private sector investments, to allow businesses to grow, and to create jobs,” Governor Cuomo said. “The energy highway will ensure that businesses and residential consumers across New York State have access to the affordable power they need to plan for not just today, but also for the future. An economy built to last requires a power infrastructure that gives businesses the confidence and security they need to hire new workers and plan for years to come, and this Blueprint continues to position New York State as a national leader in clean energy production and investment.”

The Blueprint includes specific actions designed to add up to 3,200 MW in new generation and transmission, including plans to:

• Invest $1 billion for 1000 MW of new electric transmission capacity
• Initiate $250 million in new renewable energy projects, leveraging $425 million in private investment and creating 270 MW of new power
• Modernize and repower existing inefficient, high emission plants to create 750 MW of power, enabled by approximately $1.5 billion investment. (Editor’s note: We assume most of this will be conversion of coal to natural gas)
• Generate 1,200 MW of additional capacity through approximately $1 billion investment to help meet reliability needs to address retiring power plants across the state. (Editor’s note: We assume much of this will involve natural gas)
• Accelerate $1.3 billion of investment in existing transmission and distribution projects to enhance reliability, improve safety, reduce cost to customers and reduce emissions.
• Invest $250 million to develop Smart Grid technologies and create the most advanced energy management control center in the country.
• Initiate field studies of Atlantic Ocean offshore wind development potential

The interagency Energy Highway Task Force will begin swift implementation of the proposed actions. These steps will significantly reduce the time required for development of energy infrastructure and includes a first-of-its-kind solicitation of new transmission projects by the Department of Public Service.

The Blueprint reaches every corner of the state with both locally focused and statewide actions to provide system reliability and economic development benefits. In Northern New York, strategic investments in transmission system upgrades will facilitate access for renewable energy projects to electricity markets. Western New York will undergo an immediate review of the viability of repowering options for power plants that have announced retirement plans and could benefit from a new Community Support Plan in the event plants are closed. Repowering, reducing transmission congestion, and offshore wind initiatives in the downstate region will help to green the power plant fleet supplying the highest energy demand area of the State. Upgrades throughout the state will support regional job growth and economic development.

The Energy Highway Task Force created the Blueprint after reviewing 130 responses provided by 85 entities including investor-owned utilities, private developers and investors in response to its Request for Information (RFI), issued in April. Public comments submitted on the RFI responses were also considered in the development of the plan as were publicly available reports and analyses. In April, along with the issuance of the RFI, the Task Force convened two conferences—an Energy Highway Summit at which power industry leaders explored the State’s energy issues and challenges, and a Conference of RFI Respondents and Interested Parties.

Governor Cuomo provided his vision for the Energy Highway in his 2012 State of the State address. He named Gil C. Quiniones, president and chief executive officer of the New York Power Authority, and Joseph Martens, commissioner of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation as co-chairman of the Task Force. Joining them on the Task Force are Kenneth Adams, president, chief executive officer and commissioner of Empire State Development; Garry A. Brown, chairman of the New York State Public Service Commission; and Francis J. Murray, Jr., president and chief executive officer of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

To view the Energy Highway Blueprint, visit www.NYEnergyHighway.com.

http://www.ases.org/ny-plans-5-7-billion-for-3-2-gw-of-energy-upgrades/

The work began Wednesday, the Bend Bulletin reported (http://bit.ly/VaABhN ). It will continue over the next month at Newberry Volcano, 20 miles south of Bend.

The idea is to create reservoirs of boiling water, as much as 20 million gallons worth, by cracking open fissures in the deep rock.

Drawn to the surface, the boiling water would create steam to spin electricity-generating turbines.

The heat in the earth's crust has been used to generate power for more than a century. To tap that heat — and grow geothermal energy from a tiny niche into an important source of green energy — engineers are working on a new technology called Enhanced Geothermal Systems.

Most of the locations where hot rocks and water come together naturally to make steam that can turn a turbine have been exploited.

Davenport Newberry and AltaRock Energy of Seattle hope to open a new frontier, where new technologies can create reservoirs of tiny cracks in hot rocks, where cold water can be pumped in to create steam.

Until now, those enhanced reservoirs have not been big enough to power commercial power plants. They have also been dogged by fears of earthquakes.

The project has gotten $21.5 million in federal stimulus funds. Private investors, including Google Inc., have put in a like amount.

The developers hope to generate as much as 50 megawatts of power, but they say an operating power plant is six years away at least.

The water for the cracking process is drawn from a well 600 feet beneath the test site at around 48 degrees. That's cool enough to contract the 600-degree rocks 10,000 feet below, opening small fissures where the water can boil.

"The colder this water is that we can get in the ground, the better this works," said Doug Perry of Davenport Newberry.

The process will create small earthquakes. A network of 15 seismic sensors encircles the test site, allowing the depth and location of the small quakes generated during stimulation to be pinpointed.

Project officials say any earthquakes will be too small to be felt, even by the crew at the test site.

___

Information from: The Bulletin, http://www.bendbulletin.com

http://washingtonexaminer.com/geothermal-test-under-way-at-newberry-volcano/article/feed/2040261#.UIrNE4aOvAw

Two charging stations on Crafts Avenue, two more at the fire station on Carlon Drive and another in the E. John Gare Parking Garage were turned on Monday. The parking garage actually has two charging stations, but one is not yet online because of communication problems with an off-site data center, according to Energy and Sustainability Director Chris Mason.

In all, Northampton will offer eight charging stations. The final two will be installed in the new parking garage at the police station on Center Street, which is under construction.

There are some all-electric vehicles now on the market as well as hybrids that use both electric power and gasoline. Mason said he does not know how many such vehicles there are in Northampton but has gotten eight telephone inquires about the charging stations in the past few weeks. City officials believe electric cars will become more popular, however.

“It’s kind of a chicken-and-egg thing,” Mason said. “During the transition we want to provide some way to charge up in town.”

Although Mason could not say exactly how cost-efficient electric vehicles are, he estimated they are less than half as expensive as gasoline vehicles. He estimated that it costs $2 dollar in power to fully charge a car. Owners who use the charging stations inside the municipal parking garage will have to pay for the space during their charging time.

The Transportation and Parking Commission approved the arrangement while city staff monitors the use of the stations. The city-owned stations will remain free until commercial charging stations become available, or until the cost to the city rises dramatically, Mason said.

http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2012/10/northampton_goes_on-line_with.html

By the end of the year, the town is set to activate its first solar-powered electric vehicle charging stations at the Saugatuck station. A 27-kilowatt solar-panel solar array on the roof of the rail depot's eastbound terminal will feed electricity to the charging stations.

To advance the project, the Board of Selectmenapproved Wednesday an installation and maintenance contract for the solar-panel system.

"I think it really puts Westport on the forefront of solar technology innovations and alternative energy," Building Official Steve Smith said. "It will be a blueprint for other communities."

The Stratford-based energy-solutions firm Encon will install the solar array. ECI Energy, which has the same owners as Encon, will run and maintain the solar-panel installation and cover its costs. The project will not require town funding. ECI will bill the town for the electricity the solar panels produce -- a rate expected to cost 30 percent less than if the town bought that power from a major utility.

The Saugatuck station's EV charging center is scheduled to open by the end of this year, according to Smith. It will open with four charging stations -- two for train station parking permit-holders and two for daily users. Solar power at the Saugatuck station could eventually service up to 20 charging stations, Smith added.

"It's a very significant project," said Glenn Cucinell, Encon's solar division manager. "We're able to not only put in solar to save the town money, but we're also going to incorporate charging stations for electric cars which is perfect for a transportation hub like the town of Westport."

Construction of the railroad station's solar array is scheduled to begin within the next month, Cucinell added. The EV hub at the station will comprise the first solar-powered charging station for vehicles along Metro-North's New Haven line.

During the last 18 months, several electric vehicle charging facilities have switched on in Westport, as the town has emerged as a leader in renewable energy use in Fairfield County. In July 2011, the town's first EV charging center opened at a commercial building at 495 Post Road East. A month later, the town's first public charging station debuted in a Saugatuck Railroad Station parking lot next to Luciano Park.

Local EV dealers also hope to tap into the town's enthusiasm for solar energy.

Peter Kirby, business development manager at Scap Auto Group in Fairfield, said his dealership may host a demonstration day at the station to show off the Mitsubishi i-MiEV that it sells.

"What we're trying to do is to be a good influence in the community to help it go green," Kirby said. "It gives us exposure as a dealership that we're here and supporting the green environment. It's a really a win-win for both sides."

Charging sessions will be free during the first six months after the EV stations are activated. After that period, the town may charge a nominal fee to cover the cost of electricity.

The solar array will also provide electricity for tenant businesses at the eastbound terminal and its platform lights.

pschott@bcnnew.com; 203-255-4561, ext. 118; twitter.com/paulschott

http://www.westport-news.com/news/article/Solar-power-outlook-brightens-with-vehicle-3959186.php

The grant, from the SunShot Initiative, will enable Miller and his team of graduate and undergraduate student researchers to take a lab-scale model and, over the next four years, develops a full-scale model that will be tested at the National Solar Thermal Testing Facility in New Mexico.

Using air instead of water

Miller and his team have developed a receiver, which sits atop a solar thermal tower and helps drive the turbine that generates electricity in a more efficient way. In a typical plant, the receiver heats a pressurized fluid – usually water - to drive a turbine. Because these plants are located in the middle of the desert, that cooling water needs to be imported. Miller's solution is to heat air particles, rather than water, similar to how an aircraft engine works.

In the design of the receiver, a window is applied to the front, and carbon nano particles are released into the air inside the receiver. Developing this quartz window at full scale, according to Miller, will be the most important, and most challenging part of the project.

"Because it's not an off-the shelf item, and because the material is very difficult to work with, the window is going to be difficult to get just right," Miller said, noting that L3 Brashear will be helping with the design and fabrication of the window. "We're going to have to keep the temperature of the window below 800 centigrade."

The carbon nano particles inside the receiver absorb the sunlight from a field of mirrors surrounding the plant and quickly transfer that energy to the surrounding gas. The particles then burn up in the hot gas, which is used to drive the turbine.

National Solar Thermal Testing Facility

To date, Miller has been running experiments on a lab-scale receiver. Many of the components used in his experiments are the result of his students' senior projects. Taking his experiments to the NSTTF, run by Sandia National Labs, is a great step forward.

"They've got a five thousand to six thousand kilowatt testing facility," Miller said. "It will be much different running it at that level than at the three kilowatts we've been testing at."

Miller and his team, which also includes consultants from Rocketdyne, Solar Thermal Technologies and Solar Turbines, will spend 18 months designing the large scale receiver. They will spend another 18 months building it. The final year will be spent in New Mexico testing it.

Proving the theory

"The hope is we prove the concept on a scale actually used to generate electricity," Miller said. "Five megawatts is a good scale to prove the component works as expected. These solar plants today are competing with cities and farmers and other users for water. We're trying to prove there's a better way to do this."

Miller's research began with a grant from Google's RE

Source: http://www.sdsu.edu/

Principal Solar, Inc (PSI; OTC Pink : PSWW ), a publicly traded solar energy holding company, backs educational organization dedicated to solar industry

DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- The Principal Solar Institute, an online reference center and resource guide for the commercial and utility scale solar market, today announced the introduction of the PSI PV Module Rating, the first-of-its kind approach that allows easy, unbiased, comprehensive analysis and comparison of photovoltaic (PV) modules. PSI Ratings are designed to allow solar consumers to make informed, intelligent comparisons and decisions when selecting PV modules.

The Principal Solar Institute Advisory Board consists of these highly influential academic and industry experts:

• Govindasamy (Mani) TamizhMani, Ph.D., President, TUV Rheinland PTL (Photovoltaic Testing Laboratory), involved in R&D activities related to photovoltaics and fuel cells for over 25 years, and PV module testing and certification activities for over 13 years.
• Robert Birkmire, Ph.D. (Physics), Director, Institute of Energy Conversion (IEC), University of Delaware, Professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Department of Physics, University of Delaware, principal investigator on numerous government and industrial contracts on amorphous and polycrystalline thin film solar cells.
• Robert P. H. Chang, Ph.D. (Astrophysics), Professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University, recognized innovator in materials research, interdisciplinary science education and international networking.
• David Williams, Chief Executive Officer of solar developer dissigno, peer reviewer for the US Department of Energy's SunShot program and lead for National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Quality Assurance Communication task force.

"Until now, there was no accepted standard for comparing the critical characteristics of PV modules between different manufacturers, or even across a single product line," says Matthew A. Thompson, Ph.D., executive director of the Principal Solar Institute. "The PSI Ratings elevate the solar industry in a rigorous approach similar to the financial sector, which turns to Standard and Poor's Ratings for investments, and the air conditioning industry, which relies upon SEER Ratings. We are closing the gap in the solar power industry's urgent need for a method to uniformly evaluate PV modules in order to make technologically and financially optimal decisions."

PV modules produce electrical power under a wide range of environmental conditions, such as irradiance, nominal operating cell temperature and ambient conditions causing the electrical power output to differ between modules of the same nameplate wattage. The PSI PV Module Rating is a comparative number that can be used with pricing information, providing power plant designers and buyers with a consistent basis for choosing a particular PV module.

"Significantly, this method goes beyond simply tabulating results provided by the manufacturers in their specification sheets," adds Dr. Thompson.

Michael Gorton, CEO and chairman of Principal Solar, Inc (PSI; OTC Pink:PSWW), explains, "No industry can be considered mature until it has adopted standards. As tireless, passionate promoters of solar as a near-term solution to so many energy-related issues, the Principal Solar Institute is committed to driving solar energy to the forefront of the national energy debate. These standards will help to build the solar industry's solid foundation of credibility in the minds of energy leaders, investors and industries around the world."

About Principal Solar

Principal Solar, Inc (PSI; OTC Pink: PSWW), is a publicly traded solar energy holding company executing a unique roll-up strategy to create the world's first distributed solar utility. PSI concentrates its resources on the acquisition, finance, development and management of solar power companies. The Principal Solar Institute, an educational organization created by Principal Solar, Inc., is dedicated to spreading solar knowledge to the critical stakeholders in the ongoing energy debate. Follow us on Twitter: @PrincipalSolar. Visitwww.PrincipalSolar.com.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Statements in this press release that are not statements of historical or current fact constitute "forward-looking statements." Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other unknown factors in the solar energy generating industry (market risk, government regulation, operational risks, etc.) that could cause the Company's actual operating results to be materially different from any historical results or from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. In addition to statements that explicitly describe these risks and uncertainties, readers are urged to consider statements that contain terms such as "believes," "belief," "expects," "expect," "intends," "intend," "anticipate," "anticipates," "plans," "plan," to be uncertain and forward-looking. The Company does not assume a duty to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law.

CPR for Principal Solar, Inc.
Joelle Caputa, 201-641-1911 x54
Jcaputa@cpronline.com

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/10/15/principal-solar-institute-launches-industrys-first/

http://www.solarfeeds.com/the-u-s-department-of-energys-apps-for-energy-challenge/

New York State's electric-vehicle charging stations are supported by a joint effort by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA)'s Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment Demonstration Program and the U.S. Department of Energy.

With high gas prices, EVs provide a fuel-efficient alternative to gas- and diesel-powered vehicles while helping reduce the nation and state’s dependence on fossil fuels. A diverse infrastructure of EV charging stations will create new jobs and business opportunities across the state, as well as helping promote the sale of electric cars, trucks and other vehicles.

"With New Yorkers facing higher prices at the pump, the state is stepping up to make owning an electric vehicle an affordable and convenient option," Governor Cuomo said. "Creating an infrastructure to accommodate electric vehicles will create jobs and new economic development across the state, while reducing our carbon footprint and helping protect the environment."

New York's transportation sector has considerable potential for energy efficiency. Transportation makes up about three-fourths of the state’s oil consumption, and nearly 40 percent of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Francis J. Murray Jr., President and CEO of NYSERDA, said, "Electric vehicles offer a cleaner alternative to combustion engines, helping reduce the consumption of fossil fuels and the emission of greenhouse gases. NYSERDA supports the Governor’s continued leadership in creating an electric-vehicle future in New York State, and advancing technology that will not only stimulate the economy but lessen our impact on the environment."

Last year, NYSERDA received a $1 million U.S. Department of Energy grant on behalf of the Transportation and Climate Initiative, a collaboration of the transportation, energy, and environment agencies of 11 Northeast states and Washington, DC to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector. The goal of the initiative is to accelerate the introduction of EV charging stations throughout the Northeast making the region a hub for electric vehicles through public and private partnerships. President Barack Obama has called for 1 million plug-in vehicles to be on the street nationwide by 2015.

U.S. Senator Charles Schumer said, "Sky-high gas prices and tight budgets have left many New Yorkers struggling at the pump, but there is hope in new technology, like electric cars, that can free us from our dependence on foreign oil. By finally making electric cars more accessible to the general public, we are taking a huge step towards giving consumers another viable and affordable transportation option, and I'm proud to have fought for money for this program from the U.S. Department of Energy."

U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said, "In this tough economy we need a do-it-all approach that expands our energy portfolio to provide middle class New Yorkers with relief at the pump. By creating an infrastructure for electric vehicles, we can cut energy costs, cut pollution to protect the air we breathe, and reduce our dependence on foreign oil which strengthens our national security."

U.S. Representative Eliot Engel, a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said, "America needs to end our dependence on foreign oil, and our reliance on such hostile nations as Iran and Venezuela to power our cars and homes. Alternative technologies exist, such as electric cars, and their widespread use will go a long way towards ending this reliance. I am the author of the Open Fuel Standard Act, (along with Rep. John Shimkus, R-IL) that would require 50 percent of new automobiles in 2014, 80 percent in 2016, and 95 percent in 2017, to operate on nonpetroleum fuels in addition to or instead of petroleum based fuels. Between electric cars and alternative fuels, we can eventually reach a point where we no longer have to put money in the coffers of our enemies."

U.S. Representative Paul Tonko, who is also the former President and CEO of NYSERDA, said, "Drivers across New York, and indeed the nation, are sick and tired of giving tax breaks to Big Oil companies while at the same time paying record prices at the pump. One competitive alternative is electric vehicles. I applaud Governor Cuomo for installing these new charging stations and for partnering with the federal government to advance clean energy technology, create jobs and provide drivers options they so urgently deserve."

NYSERDA will also be managing a $10 million fund that offers vouchers of up to $20,000 per vehicle for the purchase of EV commercial trucks weighing more than 10,000 pounds.

EV charging station projects announced today include:

Access Technology Integration Inc. – Plans to install charging stations with innovative reservation and payment systems at seven locations around the Albany area, including St. Peter’s Hospital, Albany-Rensselaer Train Station, Times Union Center, universities, supermarkets, and other locations. NYSERDA funding: $244,000.

Beam Charging LLC – Company will install a total of 28 charging stations, each one in a separate public parking garage around Manhattan, for the purpose of gathering data to determine how well such charging stations are used. $400,000.

Car Charging Group Inc. – Plans to install charging stations at up to 15 high-traffic locations in New York City, directed toward apartment dwellers who do not have parking at home. Sites would go in parking garages that are used primarily for monthly parking. NYSERDA funding: $200,000.

City of Rochester – Plans to install 24 charging stations at seven highly-visible and busy locations around the city, including municipal parking garages, City Hall, the Port of Rochester and the Rochester Public Market. NYSERDA funding: $228,000.

Coulomb Technologies Inc. – Partnering with National Grid, Coulomb will deploy 81 dual charging stations with Coulomb’s ChargePoint software. The technology will demonstrate a web-based demand response program, a new low-cost installation method and a customized reservation system. NYSERDA funding: $1 million.

EV Connect Inc. – Plans to install EV charging stations at five Marriott hotels around New York State that make use of a unique reservation and payment system. Project would make it possible for overnight visitors to charge their vehicles while staying at a hotel. NYSERDA funding: $250,000.

Golub Corp. (Price Chopper Supermarkets) -- Plans to install 12 charging stations at four locations, each equipped with a weather canopy and lighting to make them visible. This is the first phase of an intended statewide rollout. NYSERDA funding: $325,000.

New York Port Authority – Plans to install seven experimental charging stations for fleet vehicles and public use that practice demand-response (aligning charging times with times of low power demands, reducing charging cost and impact during peak demand to the grid). NYSERDA funding: $720,000.

New York Power Authority –Plans to install 124 charging stations at train and bus stations, airports and municipal parking lots. Three sites would be powered in part through on-site solar power. NYSERDA funding: $989,000.

Plugin Stations Online – Plans to install charging stations at three apartment complexes in Albany, Rochester and Buffalo, as well as one at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy. NYSERDA funding: $64,000.

Another round of the program is currently underway with proposals due July 25, 2012. Visit PON 2301 - Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (ESVE) Demonstration and Support Program for more information.

http://www.nyserda.ny.gov/About/Newsroom/2012-Announcements/2012-06-06-Governor-Cuomo-Announces-Deployment-of-325-Electric-Vehicle-Charging-Stations.aspx

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/et-cetera/solar-cooling-in-siemens-office-soon/articleshow/16602594.cms

This week at Solar Power International 2012, Clean Power Finance plans to unveil the initial prototype of the National Solar Permitting Database that it has been working on.

The National Solar Permitting Database is designed to streamline the process of acquiring permits to install solar technology by gathering permitting data and stands from Authorities Having Jurisdiction (AHJs) around the United States in one single location.

Solar professionals and anyone installing solar equipment will be able to search the database for complete and accurate information on permitting requirements for their particular location.

“Permitting is a widely recognized pain point in the solar sector, but we think this project can change that,” said James Tong, director of government programs management at Clean Power Finance. “Collecting permitting information in a database that is available to all solar integrators without charge will dramatically improve time and cost savings for both solar professionals and AHJs and help lower the overall installed cost of solar.”
 
The Database will be available to the entire industry for free, thanks in part to a $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s SunShotInitiative. The Database will be relying on solar professionals and AHJs submitting their permitting information for the locations in which they operate, and already a number of leading industry companies have pledged their support, including Paramount Solar, SunWize Technologies, Next Step Living, B.E. Solar, PvPermits, and Real Goods Solar, Inc.

“We’re very happy to help Clean Power Finance with the National Solar Permitting Database,” commented John Schaeffer, founder and residential president at Real Goods Solar, Inc. “We believe this program will help significantly in sorting out the confusion from numerous jurisdictions around the country, thereby reducing cycle time, design and administration costs. Ultimately, we will be able to set better expectations with customers, which will foster profitable growth in new solar markets.”

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/09/10/clean-power-finance-to-unveil-national-solar-permitting-database/

An article in Rolling Stone reports that the San Francisco Outside Lands Festival's Panhandle Stage has been retrofitted with solar panels from Alternative Power Productions (APP) to power up the speakers to entertain crowds of up to 10,000 festival goers. Pumping 120 amps of power at 120 volts, the self-contained Panhandle Stage is the largest solar-powered hybrid stage in the country.

APP will be doing more work for another festival, Treasure Island, in October according to Rolling Stone. The company "has a competitive edge in the production of environmentally sustainable concerts, as they know both green business practices and the music promotion business," Another Planet Entertainment producer Bryan Duquette said in a statement.

The way the APP solar panels are incorporated in the stages is identical to traditional staging, so artists performing onstage sometimes don't even realize their speakers are being powered by the sun. They are becoming popular with artists, too; Switchfoot asked the company to retrofit their stage at Bro-Am, the band's yearly outdoor benefit concert and surf contest in Encinitas, California.

"We love our beach, we love our ocean, and we love the planet. Thanks to APP we get to play our songs on a stage that loves the environment as much as we do," Switchfoot front man Jon Foreman said in a statement.

San Diego based APP says on its website “Alternative Power Productions has invested in the future by “utilizing the renewable energy sources of the sun to deliver 100% pollution free concerts. Our solar powered stages, sound, and lighting systems are fully-functioning examples of a complete design. Our solar stages give performers an opportunity to educate the community about the benefits of renewable energy while delivering a concert with state of the art sound quality.”

According to an article in Mother Jones, these solar stages work. Kevin Lyman, who created Warped Tour in 1995, tells me that this last round of touring the stages didn’t even need the backup generators that automatically kick in when power's low—the stored solar energy in the giant batteries was enough.

"The panels have gotten more efficient," Lyman tells me over the phone. "And the surface space and the batteries have become much more compatible and last longer.”

There are challenges, however. Weight, however, remains a problem. Hauling the massive batteries requires its own energy-suck, and there are still back-up generators to deal with. Warped Tour buses run on biodiesel, but the total festival effort requires 5,000 gallons of it on site per day. "I don't think we can make a festival completely green," Lyman says. "But I'm hoping that eventually solar panels get so efficient that we run our main stages on it. I'm hoping someone brings me that technology." McLarry, too, is hoping the batteries one day will shrink, in addition to the cost. "If lithium technology could get a little more affordable, that's another step."

The experience of APP and these solar stages open new opportunities for innovation in the use of solar energy. Solar could also be used by travelling carnivals, for example, to reduce the amount of electricity they must use, and reduce the pollution from on-site generators.

Food festivals, Renaissance Fairs, art shows, and other events could also use solar panels and batteries in much the same way as APP does at concerts. This could open up a new outlet for creative entrepreneurs in the solar industry.

If we are going to become energy independent and reduce carbon emissions, these creative applications are necessary. Hats off to future-thinking businesses.

http://www.examiner.com/article/san-francisco-festival-features-a-solar-stage-is-this-wave-of-the-future

The charging stations are located in Garage Market (at Seventh and Morton streets) and Garage Band (at Seventh and Walnut streets), and are already in operation and available for use.

"These new EV charging stations will improve access to downtown, particularly for out-of-town visitors that may not have any other option for charging their electric vehicle," said Mayor Mark Kruzan.

Funding for the equipment was provided entirely by Energy Systems Network's Project Plug-IN initiative, which was awarded American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) grant funding through the Indiana Office of Energy Development (IOED) to expand charging infrastructure. Bloomington was chosen along with several other cities across the state to provide public charging stations for electric vehicle owners.

Electric vehicles (EVs) require little or no gasoline and instead rely largely on batteries - charged by plugging the cars into an electrical outlet - for power. They cause less pollution and have lower emissions than most other vehicle types, and help reduce dependency on oil. Maintenance costs are also expected to be lower than many standard vehicles.

"There aren't many EVs in Bloomington yet, but rapidly changing electric vehicle technology, increasing gas prices, and other factors will likely result in a higher number of electric vehicles in Bloomington in the coming years," said Sustainability Coordinator Jacqui Bauer. "The new stations will allow both the City of Bloomington and Duke Energy to develop a better understanding of the demand for public charging stations and evaluate local trends."

After the two-year pilot project, the City of Bloomington and Duke Energy will evaluate usage levels and other data to determine whether to continue, expand, or end the program.

Both parking spaces will be dedicated to electric vehicle parking only. Users of the spaces will be required to pay both the standard parking fee of $0.50 per hour and an additional charge of $0.50 per hour for use of the charging station.

http://www.wbiw.com/local/archives/2012/09/two_public_electric_vehicle_ch.php