The glass maker will partner with Hull & Associates Inc., an Ohio company that has specialized in the redevelopment of brownfields, waste management, industrial applications and energy and environmental engineering for over a quarter century.

Dubbed the Northwood Solar Energy Facility, the project will incorporate solar energy modules supplied by First Solar, the country’s largest manufacturer of thin-film solar energy panels. The $1.5 million site is being financed partly by a $700,000 Ohio Energy Office grant made possible by American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds. If all goes as scheduled, the Northwood solar energy plant should be operational by February 2011 and supply around 12 percent of Pilkington’s Ohio Research and Development Facility energy needs each year.

Aside from the State Energy Program, there are a number of energy-related incentive programs in Ohio suited for both home and business owners. The AEP Ohio Commercial Custom Project Rebate Program, for instance, provides rebates to residential and commercial customers who install energy-efficient refrigerators, lighting, lighting controls/sensors, chillers, furnaces, boilers, heat pumps, central air conditioners, CHP/co-generation, heat recovery, processing and manufacturing equipment. That’s a mouthful to remember. Find an easily read complete list of Ohio’s clean energy incentives here.

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We’ll start with the textbook definition: An SREC is a certificate representing the “green attributes” of one megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity generated from solar energy.

What does this mean in practice? If you install solar panels on your home, you roof will, in effect, start generating kilowatt-hours (kWh). As these kWhs add up, you’ll be on your way to making one SREC — which, as noted above, is the equivalent of one MWh, or 1,000 kWh.

How many SRECs does a system produce? It depends generally on the size of the system and the amount of sunshine available. By way of example, a 7-kW home solar energy system in Somerset County, New Jersey, would, according to our solar cost calculator, produce roughly eight SRECs over the course of a given year.

Now comes the good part. Once you’ve accumulated an SREC (or two or three), you’ll be able to sell your credits. Exact SREC prices vary from state to state, but the highest price recorded so far has been around $680 in New Jersey. At this price, SRECs would generate $5,440 in annual revenue for our hypothetical 7-kW solar array in Somerset County. Put differently, we would earn $0.68 for every kWh that our system produces — this in a state where the average residential price of electricity is around 16 cents. Clearly, SRECs in New Jersey provide a generous incentive!

To be fair, SRECs are traded actively in only a handful of states — but that number is growing. Also, it’s important to note that the going price of an SREC tends to fluctuate, and that $680 levels are likely the exception, not the rule. Finally, in some states, like Colorado, utilities offer an upfront payment for all the SRECs a given system is expected to generate — rather than buying them over time.

How did all this SREC business get started? Many states have passed a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), legislation requiring them to produce a certain percentage of their electricity from renewable resources by a certain year. For example, New Jersey’s requires the state to produce 22.5 percent of its electricity from renewable resources by 2020. State requirements vary based on their political support, baseline level of renewable electricity in use, and level of public investment. An RPS almost always includes a policy plan to incentivize renewable energy development and installation within their state. In the residential sector, this is most traditionally done though subsidies awarded based on the number of watts of renewable energy installed. California’s solar rebate programs, for example, award a per-watt payment to homeowners who install solar panels.

Many states include a provision specifically for solar energy, requiring a smaller percentage of total renewable energy to be met by solar photovoltaics. Each electricity provider that does not meet this percentage must purchase SRECs to correct their deficit, and non-compliance means a hefty fine. As a result, SRECs are sold for prices determined strictly by the market for RPS compliance. It’s a simple case of supply and demand: fewer solar installations means higher prices for available SRECs, creating an incentive for future solar installations.

So far, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, have funded and implemented SRECs to promote the level of solar energy development that their policies demand. To see how SRECs might affect your solar system, check out our solar cost calculator. Or, if you’ve got burning questions, post them below!

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The new solar power plant — appropriately named “Turning Point” — will feature a 239,400-solar panel array with a total generating capacity of 49.9 megawatts (MW). According to CNN, the plant will be adjacent to a 10,000-acre conservation area known as The Wild, which is home to several animals that are on the endangered species list.

New Harvest Ventures and Agile Energy will build the plant, while American Electric Power (AEP) will purchase the electricity through a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA). The project is expected to create 300 new jobs and, it is hoped, will generate interest in clean-energy-related education and manufacturing activities throughout the region.

When announcing the new plant, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland took care to note that two Spanish manufacturing companies will soon open facilities in Ohio to help construct the Turning Point array. Zane University and Hocking College, both in southeastern Ohio, have clean-energy course offerings.

In his comments, Strickland emphasized the unique, homegrown nature of the Turning Point project:

“One of the largest solar farms in the nation is going to be built here in Ohio, with solar panels and solar trackers made in Ohio, built by Ohioans with the know-how taught in Ohio colleges.”

To get the Spanish companies to open shop in Ohio, Gov. Strickland took a page out of Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s playbook. Last week, for instance, he signed an executive order doing away with the state’s personal property tax and real property tax for renewable energy facilities.

In 2008, Strickland signed SB 211, a bill requiring that 25 percent of all energy consumed in Ohio to come from renewable sources by 2025. One-half percent of that figure must come from solar power. If all goes according to plan, the Turning Point solar project should go a ways toward meeting that goal.

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Dayton Power & Light Company (DP&L), a utility, today announced the opening of a 1.1-megawatt (MW) solar installation at its Yankee substation in Montgomery County in southwestern Ohio. Comprised of over 9,000 thin-film solar modules from Sharp, the “Yankee Solar Array” is expected to generate enough electricity to power the equivalent of 150 homes.

“Exploring solar technology is just one way DP&L is diversifying our sources for electricity generation to support our compliance with Ohio’s renewable energy requirements,” said Paul Barbas, president and CEO, DP&L.

Under state renewable energy mandates, 25 percent of Ohio’s electricity is to come from renewable resources by 2025 — and, of that amount, half a percent is supposed to come from solar energy technologies.

A number of firms assisted with the financing, engineering and construction of the project. Ameridian Specialty Services, Inc., of Cincinnati, led the construction team, which, according to the press release, had a roster that looked like this:

– Miller-Valentine Commercial Construction of Dayton handled the overall site construction.

– Schneider Electric of West Chester supplied the ac/dc inverters for the solar panels.

– ESI Electrical Contractors of Dayton provided electricians to wire the solar panels.

– Inovateus Solar of South Bend, Indiana handled the procurement of the solar panels from Sharp USA and developed the overall solar site design.

– Schletter, Inc. of Tucson, Arizona supplied the solar panel racks and installed the posts that support the panels.

Seeing the project through, in other words, took a lot of hard work:

“In spite of all obstacles the project was completed successfully, on time and we are exceptionally proud of the end result,” said Betty Owens, president and CEO of Ameridian. “Construction took over 13,000 man hours to complete, with more than 80% of this labor provided by local Ohio contractors. Those workers installed equipment containing 73 tons of aluminum, 67 tons of steel and 164,000 feet of wire.”

If that’s not cooperation in the heartland, I don’t know what is. Ron Kenedi of Sharp seems to agree:

“It is tremendous that Dayton Power & Light, Ameridian, Inovateus, Schneider Electric and their partners have deployed this landmark solar power system,” said Ron Kenedi, vice president, Sharp Solar Energy Solutions Group.  Sharp is pleased to be meeting the growing demand for thin film utility-scale solar power plants with our high efficiency amorphous silicon thin film PV modules.”

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Juwi completed the installation three months ahead of schedule. Located in the north-central part of the state, the project is comprise of some 160,000 ground-mounted modules made of cadmium telluride (CdTe), a semiconductor compound that’s seen as a promising alternative to silicon-based solar technologies.

Juwi had incentive to finish the plant as soon as possible. Back In September 2009, the plant already had a buyer. The New Jersey-based Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG), an energy service company based in New Jersey, bought the rights to the project from Juwi. PSEG then secured a 20-year power purchasing agreement (PPA) with American Electric Power (AEP), an energy provider. Under the agreement, AEP will receive all of the renewable-energy credits that come from the project.

AEP provides energy for 11 states, including Ohio. The Wyandot County plant is now producing energy for Columbus Southern Power and Ohio Power Co., both of which are AEP subsidiaries.

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[Solar] start-ups, wind turbine companies and electric carmakers from California and the Southwest migrate to the nation’s industrial heartland. They’re looking to tap its manufacturing might and legions of skilled workers, hit hard by the near-collapse of the United States auto industry and eager for work.

California-based car maker Fisker Automotive will be manufacturing its next plug-in electric hybrid car at a non-operational General Motors assembly plant in Delaware, whereas Silicon Valley solar power plant builder Skyline Solar has plans to produce its solar panels’ metal arrays through a subsidiary of automotive giant Magna International, located in Michigan. Stirling Energy Systems has already inked deals with two automotive companies to make components for its giant, mirrored solar dishes, not to mention the $30 to $40 million it has invested in the Detroit area over the past year. And the solar companies aren’t looking to the Manufacturing Belt just to save a few dollars here and there, or simply out of a sense of altruism—the connection to automobile manufacturing is closer than it appears.

The back of the mirror facet is a piece of stamped metal, and if you raise the hood of your car, what you see is a stamped metal frame,” said Ian Simington, chief executive of the solar division of NTR, the Irish company that owns Stirling Energy Systems, based in Scottsdale, Ariz. “Nobody stamps metal better than automotive manufacturers. So in a sense the choice to go to high-volume suppliers in the greater Detroit area was an easy one for us.”

And that’s not all—there are some even more fundamental similarities present.

For all of green tech’s futuristic sheen, solar power plants and wind farms are made of much of the same stuff as automobiles: machine-stamped steel, glass and gearboxes.

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Going further, some states specify targets for particular forms of renewable power. Delaware, for instance, has an RPS requiring that, by 2019, 20 percent of the state’s electricity come from renewable resources. Of that 20 percent, the state mandates that at least 2 percent must come from solar technologies. Such carve-outs ensure that the state’s energy mix (i.e., its “renewable portfolio”) is somewhat diversified.

On this topic, CleanBeta relays a clever forecast of U.S. installed solar power capacity:

Most Aggressive State Solar Energy Policies

Notably absent is California, which has an aggressive RPS but doesn’t mandate a solar carve-out. (California — being the solar power behemoth that it is — would probably be off the above chart, anyway. Literally.)

Another noteworthy point: how would existing state-level RPSs be impacted by the creation of national standards? The American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), which squeaked by the House on June 26, includes (among other things) a provision for the creation of a national renewable energy standard (RES). As written, it would require all investor-owned utilities to produce or buy at least 15 percent of their energy from renewable resources. The provision provides some flexibility, allowing states to meet a considerable portion of the 15-percent requirement through energy efficiency measures. (For a great overview of ACES as it stood before the June 26 vote, read here.)

As is often the case with nationwide policies, some states are ahead of the curve, and some are behind. Accordingly, my guess is that states with more aggressive RPS targets would maintain them, selling their excess renewable energy certificates (RECs) to states that are falling short of the 15-percent minimum requirement. All others would be required pony up for the new national standard by (1) buying RECs, (2) increasing in-state renewable energy generation, and/or (3) promoting in-state energy efficiency.

Facts? Thoughts? Opinions?

UPDATE: The national RES is bound to be one of the topics covered at the Intersolar Conference, being held this week in downtown San Francisco. If you attend, drop us a line.

UPDATE #2: Check out this reprinted article from Kevin Eber at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. It reviews four states that have recently added or updated renewable energy standards: Kansas, West Virginia, Nevada and Maine.

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