The Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA) has released its second annual report revealing which of the nation’s utilities have added the most megawatts of solar capacity in the past year, and which utilities have the most cumulative megawatts of solar capacity. The results for 2008 shouldn’t be too much of a surprise: the most solar integrated utility was Northern California’s PG&E, its 85 MW of new solar capacity blowing the competition out of the water–those 85 MW were over 44% of the total field. Second was California Edison; third, SDG&E. In fact, California utilities occupy 8 of the top 10 slots, with one each for Hawaii and Nevada.
The report makes it very clear that the relationship between utility companies and the solar market is going to become ever more important as we move forward. Specific installation projects and challenges are discussed. SEPA’s press release on the report notes that:
The report also documents a wave of utility-driven installations, pointing to the growing importance of utilities in the solar power market, and the growing importance of solar power to the business of utilities. Historically, the solar power market has been dominated by customer-driven installations.
“Residential and commercial photovoltaic projects will continue to be important stimulants for job creation and small business growth, but they will be complemented by large-scale photovoltaic and concentrating solar power projects,” said Mike Taylor, director of research and education at SEPA. “The variety of ways solar power is being implemented signals an increased maturity in the market.”
We can transform sunlight and wind into electricity. Why aren’t we using these free, limitless natural resources to provide all our power? Of course the answer to that is manifold, involving a lot of words like “deployment” and “technology to scale” and “existing model” and “lobbyists”. But all the little details aside, we actually couldn’t use renewable resources to power ourselves fully, and the one major hurdle standing in our way is storage.
Solar panels do a pretty decent job creating electricity during the daytime, but at some point, the sun does set. Likewise, wind turbines are kind of useless on a calm day. Without a way to store the energy produced by these technologies, the electricity can only be used at time of generation. We are still necessarily reliant on traditional energy sources to fill in the gaps (or nuclear, but let’s not open that can of worms right now). A recent Green Biz blog post points out that
Currently, electricity can’t be stored economically on a large scale except in systems that pump water uphill, then release it to generate hydropower. So-called pumped-storage systems, however, often consume more energy than they generate; they make sense only because water can be pumped uphill using cheap off-peak power, then released so the electricity can be sold during periods of peak demand when prices are higher.
Renewables call out for a better solution. Yet battery technology has lagged far behind energy production technology. With the pressure applied to the auto industry to find alternatives to the greedy combustion engine, some advances have finally been made as the all-electric car proceeds from futuristic fantasy to available at your local Chevy dealer with 0-percent financing for a limited time only.
Okay, you may be saying. So now we just plug our solar panels into car batteries? No, of course there’s a huge gap between electric car batteries and the kind of battery that would allow a power plant to operate solely on solar power or wind. R&D on this scale needs a great deal of money thrown at it. And who better to throw money at it than the richest man in the world? Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway owns 80% of MidAmerican Energy Holdings, a utility holdings company. At the behest of Buffett and his partner, Charlie Munger, Chairman David Sokol has navigated a relationship with the Chinese manufacturer BYD, which makes low-cost electric car batteries. Soon, MidAmerican will begin testing new batteries from BYD that could hold the key to utility-scale energy storage.
MidAmerican’s energy portfolio is 24% non-carbon emitting (solar doesn’t seem to play in, but wind and geothermal certainly do). Sokol has been working towards this goal for the past six years. His message on the MidAmerican website even comes out and says,
Global climate change solutions should be designed to encourage greater deployment of cost-effective energy efficiency programs and economically feasible renewable energy production. They should also provide adequate funding for research, development and deployment of a broad spectrum of innovative technologies targeting low or zero carbon emissions and carbon sequestration at reasonable costs.
You can take a tour on the website of where subsidiary companies’ renewable energy technologies contribute to the MidAmerican portfolio. This is a company that seems seriously committed to pushing a low-carbon future and additionally, has a vested interest in having first access to better energy storage. This partnership with BYD may produce a new wave of battery technology that can help make utility-scale renewable energy generation financially competitive at last. How long the R&D process will take is impossible to say, but the testing is set to begin “soon”, and BYD generally doesn’t waste any time.
How long it takes for this holy grail of storage to emerge on the residential solar PV and wind markets is another matter altogether. But it wasn’t so long ago that we all thought electric cars would go 15 miles per hour and look like Jetsonian bubble-cars–sometimes it’s nice to be wrong.
In anticipation of the 2009 World Games in July, Taiwan has recently finished construction on a $150 million sports stadium covered in a tiled carapace of 8,844 solar panels spread over a hefty 14,155 square meters. The Toyo Ito-designed stadium, built in the shape of a dragon—a Chinese symbol of prosperity and fortune—boasts a capacity of 50,000 and supposedly houses enough solar panels to produce 1.4 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually and thus power the facility’s 3,300 lights and two enormous TV screens, according to officials. If these numbers prove to be true, this gorgeous stadium, located in the city of Kaohsiung, would one-up the Stade de Suisse in Bern, Switzerland, which sports 7,930 solar panels and generates only 1,134,045 kWh a year.
The stadium’s reptilian solar panel skin isn’t the only sustainable aspect of the project, as the facility also utilizes permeable paving and reusable materials, and seven out of the 19 hectares of development space have been reserved for public use, such as bike paths and parks. On the stadium’s off days, the Taiwanese government plans to feed the unused electricity generated by the solar panels into the local grid, an endeavor that has the potential to meet 80 percent of the neighboring area’s energy requirements.
All this sounds dreamy, to be sure, but as this Treehugger post points out, the orientation and angle of each solar panel are of high importance to a panel’s efficacy, and shingling the panels like this might not be the optimum solution. How efficient do you suppose this stadium actually is? Considering how much money the government poured into this stadium, is it possible that the solar panels are more for aesthetic effect (and bragging rights) than actual energy savings? Either way, it’s thrilling to see solar panels both used so beautifully and incorporated into a facility as a building material—I can’t imagine any neighbors complaining about these PV panels polluting their visual atmosphere.
For some pretty sweet pictures, check out the Guardian slideshow.
There’s a big to-do at the moment about a certain state bill making the rounds of the California legislature. Bill AB-920 (full text here), sponsored by Democrat Assemblyman Jared Huffman, proposes revisions to the state’s current net metering laws. But before I go into that, let’s do a real quick crash course in net metering. The setting: your solar electric (PV) system generates electricity. Now, one of two situations apply:
It generates less electricity than your property consumes.
You make up the difference by drawing on conventional electricity from your regional utility
OR, it generates more electricity than your property can use at a given point; you suddenly have “net excess generation” (NEG)
Your meter runs “backwards”: your utility compensates you for this NEG, generally in the form of credits that appear on your next electric bill
When we use the term “net metering,” we’re talking about Scenario 2. Most states have net metering laws requiring utilities to offer such a program–the credits can be carried forward for a certain about of time before expiring. In some, it’s only month to month. For others, it’s 12 months. This is a much better deal because it gives you a better chance of achieving a zero balance, or close to it, on your electric bill. Those ten days of your summer vacation, when your PV system was sending kWh like mad into the grid, can essentially come back and cancel out ten days of low winter sun and Christmas lights.
Now back to the issue at hand. According to California’s current net metering laws (see DSIRE), NEG “is carried forward to a customer’s next bill for up to 12 months. Any NEG remaining at the end of each 12-month period is granted to the customer’s utility.” This is fairly SOP for net metering in this country–at the end of the year, if you haven’t used up your 65 kWh of NEG–because you were conscientous about your energy usage, or went on a really long vacation, or whatever–the excess evaporates. It’s like a rollover minutes plan from a cell phone company where the minutes expire.
However, the utility took that energy and made it part of its portfolio. In turn, those kWh were sold to other consumers. If the utility is making money from this electricity, you as the owner of the system should be too, without limitations–at least, that’s what the bill’s supporters believe. As this op-ed in the LA Times points out, utilities aren’t too crazy about this notion. After all, they point out, they’re already heavily subsidizing solar panel installations in California by offering cash rebates as well as current net metering incentives; why should they have to take this extra step?
The bill would require utilities to do one of two things: either provide a sort of endless rollover of NEG credit so that it could be carried over from one year’s electric bill balance to the next; or actually pay the customer for any remaining NEG credit on their bill at the end of the year. Either way, the customer would be aware that NEG would not go uncompensated. This would encourage greater energy conservation. If you see that you have 65 kWh of electric credits remaining on your bill, and you know that those credits are due to expire at the end of the month and be no good to you anymore, you might be less inclined to turn off the lights, or maybe you’ll turn the AC up a notch. After all, if you tack on another 40 kWh to your bill, you’ll still have 25 kWh of credit leftover…so why bother conserving?
But conservation of energy is in everyone’s best interests. Although revising California’s treatment of NEG will throw a wrench in the already straining works of utility profitability, it would be a step in the right direction for encouraging state-wide energy conservation–not to mention solar adoption. Let us know what you think of the bill’s potential effects, and we’ll keep you posted on its progress through the legislature.
With Memorial Day weekend upon us, it’s time to start thinking about beaches. And sun. And backyard BBQs. And everything else that makes summer, summer — including a proper reading list. (I can hear the groans…). This time last year, I put together a list of five books on an array of topics, including renewable energy, climate change, economic growth and innovation.
This year, I’m feeling a little more lazy — and a bit more dictatorial — so I’m only floating one solar-related title out there. I’ll look to you guys to fill in the rest. Here it is: Solar Power in Building Design: The Engineer’s Complete Project Resource, by Peter Gevorkian. I think you can buy it on Amazon for like 30 bucks.
Admittedly, my pick for this year is a little more technical (and way less sexy) than last year’s selections. But I’ve been meaning to bone up on my understanding of electrical engineering, solar photovoltaic (PV) technologies, and system design. So sue me.
(Matt, I know you’ve literally got a library of these types of titles, so we’ll look forward to hearing some suggestions. Everyone else, let’s hear your input!)
The installed cost of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels is partly a product of solar energy incentives designed to lower out-of-pocket costs and boost adoption. These incentives include: (1) a 30-percent federal renewable energy tax credit; (2) any solar tax credits, rebates or production-based incentives available in your state. Given that these kinds of solar incentives can help lower costs by between a third and half, depending on the state and/or utility, it’s no wonder that some state programs — like Connecticut’s — are regularly oversubscribed.
Well, as it turns out, solar just got more affordable — for more people — in Wisconsin. As reported by the Milwaukee Business Journal, Madison Gas & Electric will be more than tripling the size of its Clean Power Parnters program:
Clean Power Partners encourages customers to install solar photovoltaic systems on their homes or businesses and then sell the energy back to MGE for 25 cents per kilowatt-hour. The solar energy is part of MGE’s green pricing program — Green Power Tomorrow.
The utility received permission last week from the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin to increase this pilot program from 300 kilowatts to 1 megawatt, said Gary Wolter, chairman, president and CEO, at the 2009 MGE Energy Inc. annual meeting. Madison-based MGE Energy (NASDAQ: MGEE) is the parent company of Madison Gas and Electric.
In 2008, the program’s capacity was doubled from its original 150 kilowatts. Clean Power Partners is now fully subscribed with a total of 62 solar installations — 40 residential and 22 commercial/industrial projects.
Pretty cool news for WI residents and businesses who are customers of MGE. For more inofrmation on Wisconsin solar programs, check out our WI solar incentives page.
What we do at GetSolar.com is educate consumers of all kinds about the values of solar energy and help them determine if solar is right for them. Then, we connect those consumers with qualified, experienced solar electric or solar thermal installers who can provide competitive quotes. This means the consumer doesn’t have to worry about whether or not the installer behind the quote has a good service record, or up to date insurance and licensing, or good business credit: we’ve taken care of all that already.
If you want to hear an industry insider talking about the paramount importance of qualified installers, watch this Renewable Energy World interview with Jane Weissman of the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC). This is from just a couple days ago at the ASES conference in Buffalo, NY. She talks about how very difficult it is to get properly certified, and discusses some of the different training methods and types of certifications currently available. She also talks about the next level up: how to ensure that the folks doing the training are themselves certified to train. Watch (or listen), and be enlightened–and gain new respect for the solar panel installers who have to navigate this difficult path.
The industry cheer raised over news of Italy’s meteoric rise toward grid parity and its quest for photovoltaic dominance has been dampened lately by concerns from analysts that a speculative bubble may be forming and that the Italian solar PV market may follow the “stop-and-go story” of Spain’s. Italy’s solar incentives, among the most generous in Europe, include a feed-in tariff that guarantees investors up to 0.49 euros per kilowatt-hour of produced power for 20 years and a 1,200 MW cap on the capacity able to be covered by the incentives. Sector experts expect to see a total installed capacity of 1,200-1,300 MW by 2010, up from 450 MW today, and some even believe grid parity possible by next year. Sounds too good to be true? A number of analysts seem to think so: they doubt that the Italian government will be able to sustain this fairy tale scenario, and are expressing their alarm by raising comparisons to the cautionary tale offered by Spain.
Amidst their optimism, a variety of industry leaders have thrown cold water on the heated excitement of their peers. Anton Milner, chief executive of Germany’s Q-Cells, stated that “Italy must stop the overheating and abuse of the market, a stop-and-go story we saw with Spain,” while forecasting cost reductions of 40 to 50 percent in producing solar energy within six years. And, according to this Financial Times article, the relative lack of long-term clarity “over the level of tariffs to be set after 2010” and the exodus of investors unleashed by the “collapse of the Spanish market,” caused by the credit crunch and property slump, are contributing to the dangers of this bubble. Does the word “speculative bubble” remind you of a certain problem in 2007 and 2008?
“Solar is the new real estate in Italy,” complained one project developer, saying that all sorts of property companies were piling into the sector.
While measures have been taken—
Gerardo Montanino, head of GSE, the state-run power management agency, said incentives were too high in Italy at 68-75 cents a kilowatt hour, about double the level in Germany. Tariffs are expected to decrease in 2010 by 2 per cent.
—“hefty” financial penalties have been introduced to ensure the timely completion of solar projects and government officials have declared themselves up to their necks trying to separate the genuine investors from the speculators (as well as from suspected Mafia involvement), the death of Spain’s own glorious-and-costly subsidy scheme offers a lesson many have taken to heart. Yet, as history has shown again and again, we can only learn from our mistakes, and, while it takes time to find a working scheme, it’s certainly not the end of the day for the Spanish PV market—and neither, hopefully, will it be for the Italian solar sector. Thoughts?
