Archive for April, 2009
A recent USA Today article corralled details of the US airports that currently have, or are planning to have, renewable energy systems installed to help with their staggeringly high electric needs. Solar electric panels and innovative wind turbines are the two technologies the article considers. There are other ways to save energy–Boston Logan, for example, has a terminal that makes clever use of passive solar and gray water recycling–but these are definitely the splashiest.
This niche market maybe shouldn’t be so niche. Solar panels on the large, flat, sunny roofs of transportation facilities–huge consumers of electricity–if they reduced operating costs enough, could perhaps help combat the ever-rising costs of vehicular fuel. It is the sheer volume of the electricity consumed that makes this a hard proposition; for example, 2,800 solar panels installed at SFO provide enough power for just the daytime lights of one terminal. 12,000 panels installed on an empty 20-acre field in Fresno, however, manage to offset about 50% of the entire airport’s usage, saving the airport about $.3 million in electric costs last year alone–exceeding projected savings for the project. Think about the surfaces at an airport, the warehouses, terminals, expanses of fields cordoned off by miles of runway. Not all airports have Fresno’s convenient 20 acres, but they do all have the kind of surfaces that make excellent homes for solar.
I travel a great deal. This means I have a lot of extra baggage in the form of carbon guilt…and maybe that’s why the idea of clean energy-powered transit facilities pleases me so much. We don’t have replacements for jet fuel yet, and biodiesel for trains and trucks comes with a slew of questions about the greater environmental and agricultural effects of relying too heavily upon it. So “clean” travel almost has to start elsewhere.
We learned from Icarus that it’s not such a great idea to fly too close to the sun–but no reason at all why we can’t bring the sun down to power our wings.
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American photovoltaic manufacturer Evergreen Solar recently unveiled a solar-powered electric vehicle charging station in a major commercial district of Frankfurt, Germany, an event that may seem banal given Germany’s solar pedigree yet marks a small milestone in the slow convergence of solar panels and electric vehicles. The fueling station, which is free of charge, provides electric power to small-scale electric vehicles such as scooters, Segways and electric bikes via six charging ports, all of which are completely powered by an array of roof-mounted solar panels. The Marlboro, Massachusetts-based solar photovoltaic manufacturer spent €65,000 (US $85,229) on the installation, which is expected to produce approximately 21 kilowatt-hours of electricity “on a summer day” and “enough annually to power 115,000 kilometers of travel for the average e-scooter.”
We can only assume that Evergreen is receiving some sort of hefty subsidy from the German government in order to recoup the installation costs, though in environmentally-conscious U.S. cities such as San Francisco and Portland such a venture is certainly worthy of consideration, if only for municipal vehicles right now. After all, both of the aforementioned cities, in their battle for title of greenest city in America, have already installed electric-vehicle plug-in stations around town—with San Francisco’s in front of City Hall (how’s that for a statement?)—though, surprisingly enough, Chicago beat both of them to install America’s first solar-powered electric automobile charging station. As of right now, Chicago’s Solar Plug-In Station serves only the City of Chicago Department of Fleet Management, but with enough consumers driving electric vehicles, who knows what an enterprising manufacturer might do? While a boom in American moped use seems unlikely (even the cute Vespa couldn’t convert us), if the popularity of Hybrids is any indicator, electric cars do have a market, and as they become increasingly price-competitive, that market can only grow.
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We often remark that the right mix of state and federal incentives — like tax credits, rebates and renewable energy credit (REC) schemes — can make a HUGE difference in determining if solar PV is a cost-effective solution for individuals and businesses. These types of incentives help either, (1) by lowering upfront costs, (as is the case with rebates and credits), or (2) by guaranteeing that the PV system can generate respectable future cash flows (as is the case with REC purchase contracts, feed in tariffs, or FITs, and production-based incentives). Details aside, such incentives are key. In those states that offer scant support for solar energy, you’re likely looking at a low (perhaps even negative) ROI and a looong payback period. We’re talking, like, two decades here folks…
Anyway, up until very recently, Virginia counted itself among the states that put virtually no money towards supporting the adoption of solar and other forms of renewable energy. This is about to change. As reported last Friday by the Washington Business Journal, the state of Virginia
plans to set aside $39 million from its $70 million share of the federal stimulus package to help residents, businesses, nonprofits, schools and government agencies summon electricity and heat from the sun and wind.
While the state must still apply for those funds from the U.S. Energy Department, the proposed dollar figure has astonished even the strongest advocates for incentives to support renewable-energy projects, especially in a state that has long trailed Maryland and the District in that department.
For those Virginia residents out there, hold on to your britches. The money is on its way, and in a relatively big way, but details on the application process and funding levels have yet to be determined. Here’s the Business Journal again:
The $39 million pot is expected to be divvied into three portions. One is for local governments to invest in schools and municipal buildings. Another is for state-owned buildings, including those at universities and prisons. The third portion, perhaps as much as $15 million, will reimburse homeowners, companies and nonprofit groups for their wind and solar power investments.
The state is still too early in the planning process to give many details on the incentives, but Virginia officials envision renewable-energy rebates, likely doled out after installation is complete and the bills are paid for residential and smaller commercial projects.
If their request to the Energy Department is approved, they expect some money to start flowing as early as July.
I gotta say, it’s great to see another state hop on the “put your money where your mouth is” bandwagon. Just last week, the Texas legislature voted overwhelmingly in favor of funding a state-wide solar rebate program. And the week before that, Pennsylvania announced it finally secured funding for its solar rebate program.
One last note: don’t forget that, in addition to state-level programs, individual homeowners can take a 30-percent tax credit when installing a solar PV system. Businesses can, too — or, for systems installed in 2009 and 2010, they can opt instead to get a grant from the Treasury equal to the 30-percent credit.
Ping us with your incentive-related questions. And let’s hope the pro-solar incentives keep rolling in.
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If you read this blog–or are otherwise invested in following solar in this country–you know that the cost of a residential solar installation can be intimidatingly high, even after the excellent incentives in many states have been applied. If you have a good site and live in a good state for solar, a PV system can be one of the smartest investments you can make in your home. But for many, they just can’t locate the capital or take on the increased debt burden, even to achieve the energy savings and increased energy security that solar offers.
Which is where solar leasing comes in. It’s an approach to solar financing with quite a mix of pros and cons, and it’s gaining some popular appeal in these times of economic hardship. Why? Well, as with any leasing program, it requires very little money down (comparatively speaking). For very little or even no money down, you can have a solar electric system installed on your roof and providing you with clean energy. This past week alone, solar installers in Arizona, Massachusetts, and Connecticut have come out with new leasing programs for their service territories.
With a solar lease, you pay a fixed monthly sum to the company that installed the system. That sum covers not only the cost of the lease, but the cost of your home’s electricity; the total figure is calculated to come out at less than what you had been previously paying for electricity alone.
Sound too good to be true? It is, and it isn’t. Say you were paying $150/month before your solar lease went into effect. Now you might be paying $120/month for lease and electric combined. Positive cash flow, predictable utility expenditure for the next decade or two, warm-fuzzies all around. But in most states, a solar PV system is eligible for a variety of tax credits, tax exemptions, and cash rebates (and in New Jersey, ownership of the Renewable Energy Credits accrued by your system). In a leasing program, you do not receive these benefits: the owner/installer of the system does. That’s why it’s a good deal for them, and why they’re able to make it a good deal for you.
You can usually opt to buy the remainder of the lease from the installer at any point. And when you sell your home, you can transfer the balance of the lease to the new owner. Solar leasing is a good option if you want to make clean energy a priority, and lock in energy prices for the future. Just keep in mind that if you can finance or outright pay for a solar electric system for your home, the benefits and ROI make it absolutely worth your while to do so. In states with good incentives, the correctly sized PV system can pay for itself in a handful of years and bring your net electric costs to a bare minimum–if not to zero.
Take a look at Adam’s concise, helpful guide to the major three financing choices for solar (Buy, Borrow, or Lease) to see how leasing stands up against the other options, and take a look at our white paper (PDF) on solar financing to dig a little deeper.
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Interested in installing a solar energy system but not quite sure how to best finance it? In this white paper, we introduce five common approaches: low-interest loans; energy efficient mortgages (EEMs); power purchase agreements (PPAs); leasing; and collective purchasing.
Here it is, available for download (PDF): “Getting Solar: 5 Things Buyers Should Know About Financing a Solar Energy System.”
If you’ve got any questions about financing your solar project, post them here. We’re happy to try to provide answers. Happy reading!
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Against the backdrop of Washington’s furor about climate change legislation this week, Texas made the very welcome decision to jump into the solar game by voting overwhelmingly in favor of funding a state-wide solar rebate. A monthly surcharge on all electric bills ($0.20 individual, $2 small business, $20 corporate) will pave the way for the $500 million initiative. The rebate will pay for up to one-third of residential solar installations out of a dedicated $30 million per year. Another $70 million per year–at least–will go towards commercial projects.
The rebate will be managed and handed out by regional utilities; there are already a couple doing so under their own steam in Texas (Austin has a good program, for instance) but this will make solar a viable option for everyone in the state.
Additional provisions in the bill include solar easement laws, low-cost loans to encourage schools to go solar, and a requirement for developers to offer solar as an option in subdivisions of 50 or more homes. Texas has long taken advantage of its vast windswept spaces to harness wind power, but this is the first concerted movement towards making use of the state’s equally bountiful sunshine. Nice job, Lone Star.
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Scoff at my corny title if you must, but this is an endeavor with a whiff of more Isaac Asimov than Nikola Tesla: Californian utility giant Pacific Gas & Electric said last week that it would seek approval from regulators to purchase 200 megawatts’ worth of solar power starting in 2016, beamed down to Earth from a solar paneled satellite in outer space. The project would be developed by solar power startup Solaren, which says it will launch a satellite 22,000 miles above the earth’s equator using current rocket technology and convert the collected sunlight into radio-frequency transmissions. (The Solaren link didn’t work when I tried it, but perhaps you might have better luck.) Then, the radio waves would be picked up by antennae in Fresno, California, where the waves would be converted into electricity and pumped into the regular power grid, according to PG&E.
Various online sources discussing the project have expressed thinly-veiled amusement or consternation, and not without reason—unless you’re NASA or Sir Richard Branson, sending a rocket into space doesn’t typically figure into one’s list of (realistically) justifiable expenditures, and solar installations are costly enough as it is. Yet, Solaren and PG&E seem to know what they’re doing: Solaren was founded by former spacecraft engineer Gary Spirnak, and boasts a staff with decades of experience in the aerospace industry, and PG&E already has significant investments in renewable energy and has spent the past 18 months negotiating this deal, though it also hasn’t put any money into Solaren. After all, if there’s anyplace where sunlight is in undeniable abundance, it’s outer space, where it’s a lot stronger too—your kids could probably tell you this. And, as NASA and the Pentagon have been studying the concept of orbiting solar farms for decades, with solar panels already in use on satellites, perhaps it’s only a matter of time before this technology finally trickles down to the commercial market.
The main hurdle, now, is of course money. From the Guardian:
But [Solaren CEO and founder] Gary Spirnak will face a challenge raising funds for his project during a recession. He said he was seeking in the low billions of dollars in investment, under $5bn. But that is still much higher than the usual $100m (£67m) to $200m costs for projects in renewable energy.
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For anyone interested in climate change, energy and/or the American economy, this is shaping up to be quite a week. Above all else, keep an eye on Washington, DC, where a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee begins hearings on a draft bill that addresses climate-change legislation. Here’s a prelude, courtesy of House Minority Leader John Boehner, talking Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” with George Stephanopoulos :
BOEHNER: …the idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know, when they do what they do, you’ve got more carbon dioxide. And so i think it’s clear…
STEPHANOPOULOS: So you don’t believe that greenhouse gases are a problem in creating climate change?
BOEHNER: We’ve had climate change over the last 100 years — listen, it’s clear we’ve had change in our climate. The question is how much does man have to do with it, and what is the proper way to deal with this? We can’t do it alone as one nation. If we got India, China and other industrialized countries not working with us, all we’re going to do is ship millions of American jobs overseas.”
At the start of this sound byte, Boehner is referring to an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finding, anounced last Friday, that may clear the way for the Agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. In brief, it works like this: the EPA can’t just regulate anything it wants — there has to be a connection between the paritcular issue and the damages it causes. Specifically, the particular activity — be it emitting sulfur dioxide and causing acid rain, or selling leaded gasoline — has to shown to endanger public health and welfare. This is, in effect, what the EPA announced on Friday — evidence supporting the so-called “endagerment finding.” Here’s an excerpt from the press release:
EPA’s proposed endangerment finding is based on rigorous, peer-reviewed scientific analysis of six gases – carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride – that have been the subject of intensive analysis by scientists around the world. The science clearly shows that concentrations of these gases are at unprecedented levels as a result of human emissions, and these high levels are very likely the cause of the increase in average temperatures and other changes in our climate.
On this point, I gotta say that I kind of side with Boehner (despite the obtuseness with which he makes his case — check out this video). Historically, the EPA has regulated harmful substances that stem from a relatively narrow set of activities and that create clear, fairly immediate damages. The same cannot be said of GHG emissions. Pretty much everything we do releases carbon. What’s more, the nexus between these activities and future damages is not nearly as tight as in other cases. In other words, the public health argument is much stronger for substances like atmospheric sulfur dioxide: the acid rain it causes leads to fairly immediate, quantifiable damages. Yes, climate change will undoubtedly cause lots of damages, many of them irreversible. But much debate remains on how to value them. And, finally, some states rely more heavily on high-carbon industries — like oil and gas, steel or manufacturing — than others. These differences raise legal, economic and logistical questions about whether the EPA should be the forum through which emissions are regulated. In short, an accross-the-board, command-and-control regulatory framework from the EPA would be a burden for many. So, I can understand Boener’s refutation of the Agency’s decision.
Then again, I “get” why the EPA acted the way that it did. Though the timing of the announcement feels more like political maneuvering than pure science. As Juliet Eilperin from the Washington Post suggests,
[t]he agency’s proposed finding is likely to intensify pressure on Congress to pass legislation that would limit greenhouse gases, as President Obama, many lawmakers and some industry leaders prefer. But cap-and-trade legislation, which would limit emissions and allow emitters to trade pollution allowances, is fiercely opposed by a coalition of Republicans and Democrats from fossil-fuel-dependent Midwestern states who fear that such a system would raise energy prices and hurt the nation’s economy.
Bottom line for me, I suppose, is that: (1) Yes, we need climate legislation that puts a price on emitting carbon — though I’m in the camp that favors a tax over a cap-and-trade system, (2) Yes, I think Rep Boehner sounds waaay out of touch when he hems and haws about the extent to which humans have altered the globe’s climate. The time for splitting hairs and flirting with climate change denial has passed. Now is the time for meaningful action. (3) Yes, I remain cautiously optimistic (bordering skeptical, depending on the day) about the prospects of large emitters in the developing world taking on some sort of economy-wide emissions reduction targets. Just check out this bit on China from the Yale Environment 360. Not that this will gurantee progress at the international climate negotiations scheduled for December… (4) Yes, I think DC can be a wacky town. Only here will you hear someone reference cow farts in the hope of generating a sound byte that actually advances their position.
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