THE Solar & Wind Power Thread (merged)

[Graeme]

Solar Leases Attracting New Demographic

The sun is shining on homeowners in less affluent neighborhoods who are discovering they can afford solar energy after all — by leasing rather than buying the panels on their roofs.

The new business model lets homeowners save money the very first month, rather than breaking even a decade after an initial investment of $5,000 to $10,000.

Analysts with the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) found that the solar lease business is surging in southern California. And the model is being adopted in less affluent neighborhoods that had avoided customer-owned systems.

The NREL study found a positive correlation between customers outright buying solar energy systems and customers living in neighborhoods where the average household income was $150,000 or more.

But for third-party-leased solar panels, that positive correlation appeared in neighborhoods where the average household income was just $100,000 or more.

The study did not look at individual adopters, who can have many different reasons for installing solar. Still, the study strongly indicates an attraction for third-party leasing in neighborhoods with less affluence than those most likely to go for the customer-owned option.

If what's true in southern California proves true for the nation, it means that rooftop solar power could attract an additional 13 million Americans — and that could push solar energy into the mainstream.

Leasing Opens Solar to New Markets

NREL's Easan Drury is the lead author of the Energy Policy report "The Transformation of Southern California's Residential Photovoltaics Market through Third-Party Ownership."

"What is so interesting about the southern California data is that the strong decrease in PV prices — from lower retail costs and stronger federal incentives — didn't pick up a new demographic," Drury said. "But a new business model — leasing — did pick up a new customer demographic."

renewableenergyworld

[Graeme]

Los Angeles approves trail-blazing solar feed-in tariff plan

The march of feed-in tariff incentives scheme around the globe is set to continue, after Los Angeles City Council last week voted through a measure that will allow the city to launch a trial incentive scheme for new solar installations.
The vote gives the city's Department of Water and Power (LADWP) the freedom to move forward with its proposed CLEAN LA Solar Program, which promises to support up to 10MW of solar PV capacity with feed-in tariff incentives that will provide installations with guaranteed payments based on how much energy they generate.
The small scale trial will support projects with up to 3MW of capacity, providing installations with payments of up to $0.30/kWh.
If the initial 10MW of installations prove successful the LADWP has the authority to expand the scheme to support 65MW of additional capacity this year and a further 75MW through to 2016.

businessgreen

[Graeme]

Revolutionary New Solar Panel Kit Could Change Everything For Homeowners Looking for Easy, Affordable Solar Solutions

Solar Sphere announced this week that they have discovered new technology for homeowners looking for simple, affordable solar panel solutions for their home.

These new solar panel kits simply plug into any standard wall outlet. Now homeowners with little or no electrical experience can enjoy lower electric bills and the satisfaction of knowing that they are generating clean energy.

These new systems also install onto any deck railing, or can simply be set and secured on any flat surface.

Old systems required roof work, master electricians, and expensive building permits for installation. Now solar is more accessible to everyone.

Systems start at around $1000 and can be expanded as needed. Check out the links below for more information.

webwire

Energy efficiency retrofit work is an excellent example of green technology at work in communities across the country. Thanks to incentives offered by utilities as well as state and federal programs, homeowners are investing in insulation upgrades, super-efficient water heaters and new HVAC systems. Many of the technicians performing these upgrades are tradesmen who lost their jobs in the housing downturn. Ten years ago they were building new houses; today they’re working for companies like Dr. Energy Saver ( www.drenergysaver.com ). And let’s not overlook the multiplier effect of this energy conservation work. About 90% of the products used in home energy upgrades (insulation, ductwork, furnaces, etc.) are made right here in the U.S.A. For an up-to-date list of incentives available in your area, visit the Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency ( http://www.dsireusa.org/ ).

greentechgazette

[Graeme]

Solar Leasing & Solar PPAs — Some of the More Hidden Benefits

Last time I wrote on the popularity of going solar through a service (i.e. solar leasing or going solar through a PPA), someone from Sunrun (a leading solar service company) got in touch with me and we had a nice back-and-forth about more of the details of going solar through Sunrun. I’ve been meaning to come back to writing a post about that since then.
Basically, the discussion centered around some of the more hidden benefits of going solar through solar leasing or PPAs — in particular, for those who can afford it, going with a prepaid solar service vs. owning a system. One big benefit of going with a prepaid solar service is that companies like Sunrun are sometimes eligible for subsidies that individuals/households are not eligible for.


Another somewhat hidden benefit is that people going solar through a third party generally don’t have to worry about maintenance of the system because the third party will often cover maintenance and monitoring of the system for the entire 20-year contract of the lease or PPA.

cleantechnica

[Graeme]

Buy an Electric Car, Get Rooftop Solar for Under $10,000

Yesterday, I test drove the Focus Electric, which Ford has quietly rolled out absent any major marketing push. [Contrast with: Volt, Leaf, Prius, each of which were hyped by a deluge of adverts]

But that should change fast: after holding two days of press conferences and test drives in New York, Ford has ensured that the nation's auto writers will start opining away, that car blogs and magazines will amplify that buzz. And aside from all of the fussing over the cars' specs and price tag and drivability, an interesting little deal might turn some heads too:

Ford has partnered with SunPower, one of the nation's largest solar companies, to offer Focus Electric buyers on home solar installation. Which makes for a intuitive pitch: Buy an EV, get a discount on a solar array that will power the car for under $10,000.

Here's SunPower's pitch from the horse's mouth:

"Under the 'Drive Green for Life' program, Focus Electric owners can reduce their total cost of ownership by generating enough energy from their high efficiency SunPower rooftop solar system to offset the electricity required to charge the vehicle at night," said Mike Tinskey, Ford director of Global Vehicle Electrification and Infrastructure...
The 2.5 kilowatt rooftop solar system is comprised of the SunPower E18 Series solar panels that produce an average of 3,000 kilowatt hours of electricity annually. These high-efficiency solar panels generate approximately 50 percent more electricity than conventional panels and utilize a smaller footprint on the roof. The system was sized to accommodate a customer who drives about 1,000 miles per month.

treehugger

[Outcast_Searcher]

Since American's believe a lot of illogical and contradictory things, this doesn't surprise me.

To wit:

1). Americans say solar energy is important, yet continue to use all the oil they can afford for things they "need" (and things they clearly don't like international pleasure flights and big vehicles and houses, for example).

2). Most Americans don't believe in evolution, despite an astounding amount of scientific evidence built up for over a century which strongly supports it. We even have plenty of current evidence -- we humans ourselves are evolving; moths are evolving (getting darker as trees darken due to soot). We even deliberately cause evolution ourselves. Dogs, flowering plants, and various species like foxes (in experiments) come to mind as obvious examples. The entire business of genetic manipulation would seem (to me) to be another clear example of this concept.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/114544/darwi ... ution.aspx

3). The vast majority of Americans continue to believe in God without a shred of scientific evidence supporting such a belief. (This makes me clutch my head, but that's a personal problem, I guess...)

http://www.gallup.com/poll/147887/ameri ... e-god.aspx

....

(FWIW, before the pitchforks come out, this athiest believes in being moral, whatever the state of supernatural entities may or may not be in the universe -- just as a matter of principle).

[cephalotus]

China dumped a pile of panels on the US the last couple years driving prices down (and US makers into the dirt) but the low prices might not last.

GTM research expects CIGS Modul prices as low as 50 USct/W in the next years.

http://www.greentechmedia.com/research/ ... 2012-2016/

Modules made from c-Si will already cost less than 1 US$/W

[Graeme]

Geostellar Plans Solar Power Map of Every Rooftop in the U.S.

Distributed solar power goes wild! Geostellar has teamed its rooftop solar power analytic toolkit with the satellite imaging company GeoEye to help realize its grand plan to assess the solar energy generating potential of every rooftop in the U.S. With this tool in hand, practically anyone with a roof can get a quick preview of whether or not a solar installation is a sound investment for their property.

Geostellar’s solar power calculator

Geostellar’s signature analytic tool essentially stuffs a laborious manual process into a software package, significantly lowering the price of calculating the return on investment for a solar installation (or, for that matter, deciding whether the property is suitable for a solar installation at all).


So far, Geostellar has applied its model to areas where publicly sourced aerial imagery is available, including Washington D.C., Boston, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and New Jersey. The partnership with GeoEye will enable it to create a nationwide catalog of both residential and commercial properties.

cleantechnica

[Graeme]

Solar News

Solar Market Research
McKinsey & Company projects that solar is entering a period of maturation in its new report “Solar power: Darkest before dawn.” The report “finds that underlying PV costs are likely to continue to drop as manufacturing capacity doubles over the next three to five years. Indeed, the cost of a typical commercial system could fall 40 percent by 2015 and an additional 30 percent by 2020, permitting companies to capture attractive margins while vigorously installing new capacity.” And this is all with big projected cuts to solar subsidies.
Solar power is expected to explode in the coming 5 years, as solar becomes cheaper than grid electricity for consumers in more and more places. ”The awakening of the US solar market will be driven by grid parity within each region.


PG&E has been ranked the #1 utility in the US for solar power capacity, according to a new survey by the Solar Electric Power Association. “PG&E is first in the Annual Solar Megawatts category of the more than 240 utilities that participated in SEPA’s 2011 Utility Solar Rankings survey…. PG&E helped more than 12,000 customers in Northern and Central California connect 162 megawatts (MW) of solar at their homes and business in 2011, bringing the total number of customer solar installations to more than 63,000.

cleantechnica

[Graeme]

New Data Shows 97% of Americans Overestimate the Cost of Installing Solar Panels

Sunrun, the nation’s largest home solar company, today announced results of a nationwide poll assessing Americans’ beliefs about the desirability and costs of installing a home solar system. Among the results is data indicating 97% of Americans overestimate the cost of going solar, while nearly 8 out of 10 of those who do not already have solar panels say they would install solar if cost were not a factor. The study was commissioned by Sunrun and conducted online by Harris Interactive® in February 2012 among 2,211 U.S. adults, of whom 1,475 were identified as homeowners.

While only 3% accurately understand that installing solar can cost less than $1,000 upfront, 4 out of 10 U.S. Adults (40%) think it requires $20,000 or more in upfront costs, grossly overestimating the true cost of installing home solar.

In reality, installing solar can cost as little as zero dollars upfront because of an option known as solar power service. Sunrun invented this concept in 2007, and while dozens of companies now offer it, Sunrun remains the market leader. Sunrun owns, insures, monitors and maintains solar panels on a homeowner's roof. Families pay a low rate for clean energy and ensure predictable electric costs for 20 years.

businesswire

[KrellEnergySource]

"While only 3% accurately understand that installing solar can cost less than $1,000 upfront, 4 out of 10 U.S. Adults (40%) think it requires $20,000 or more in upfront costs, grossly overestimating the true cost of installing home solar."

OK, I'm confused as always. The true cost of installing home solar is.....what? I think I'm in the 'most Americans' category that could care less about upfront costs but sees things in terms of true costs in real time for labor, materials, and benefit. Looking at it any other ways is called 'borrowing' and not 'upfront costs'.


Brian

[Graeme]

DOE Seeks Plug and Play Solar Power in Five Years

The U.S. Department of Energy has launched a five year, $25 million “Plug and Play” photovoltaic research program that aims to make investing in residential solar power as simple as buying a new home computer. The new initiative, inspired by the ease with which households have adopted personal Internet-connected electronic devices, would enable a consumer to purchase solar equipment off the shelf, plug it into a dedicated circuit, and automatically establish a connection with their local utility.

The connection would enable consumers to sell excess power back to their utility, among other smart-grid capabilities. Though the program is aimed at the residential market, the benefits could easily ripple into the small business sector, making it possible for property owners to squeeze some extra income out of their real estate.

triplepundit

[Graeme]

Analysts urge governments to wake up solar’s competitiveness

The dramatic fall in the price of solar electricity is not being fully recognised by policymakers, according to new research from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) that argues solar power is far closer to becoming cost competitive with daytime retail power prices in a number of countries than is widely realised.

The analyst firm says in a new white paper (PDF) that average PV module prices have fallen by nearly 75 per cent in the past three years, which has helped spur record levels of deployment.

The report also reveals that new solar installations rose 54 per cent in 2011 to 28.7GW of capacity, 10 times the new build level of 2007.
BNEF cites International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) data that states grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) panels in Africa have already become competitive with diesel-generated power, while tumbling costs mean solar is similarly replacing oil burning for electricity generation in the Persian Gulf.
The white paper also predicts the trend for falling prices is likely to be sustainable, even though overcapacity in the market has caused severe pain for manufacturers, because the price falls are primarily a reflection of reductions in manufacturing costs.

businessgreen

[Graeme]

Cost of Solar Energy Generation to Compete with Traditional Sources as US and China Reach Grid Parity by 2017

The cost of energy generation from clean sources such as solar power is edging ever-closer to those attributed to traditional sources, fostering growth in the renewable energy sector, according to a new report by energy experts GlobalData.

The new report shows that the global cumulative installed solar PV capacity increase of 100% demonstrated during 2009-2011 is likely to grow even further as mass power consumers China and the US reach grid parity within the next few years.

In the US, solar PV technology is expected to reach grid parity for some PV projects in 2014, and by 2017 most regions in the country are expected to reach grid parity in alignment with average electricity prices in the residential sector. China is also due to witness similar developments, with grid parity for solar expected to reach in most regions by 2015-2016.

electricenergyonline

[Graeme]

Local Solar Could Solve 'Massive Supply-Demand Imbalance' in Renewable Energy Financing

In the next two years, the U.S. may get a lot less solar and wind power than it could.

It’s not a shortage of solar panels or the cost of turbines. Rather, it’s a problem of the perverse nature of federal incentives for renewable energy. Right now, the owner of a solar or wind energy project can get a federal tax credit based on the value of the project or the electricity it produces. But many owners don’t have enough tax liability to make use of the entire credit, and their search for a “tax equity” partner has created a logjam in the renewable energy market.


But there are millions more Americans who could invest a few thousand dollars in community-based solar and wind power. In 2009, American taxpayers cumulatively paid $865 billion in federal income taxes. If just 1 in 100 could invest in a renewable energy project, it would nearly quadruple the tax equity market (from $3.2 billion to ~$12 billion). And since 1 in 3 Americans will be able to get electricity from rooftop solar for less than their utility provides in the next decade, policy makers should find a way to open the small investor floodgates

The answer is community-based solar and wind projects, for three reasons:

Economies of scale (without excessive size)
Smaller investment increments (financed with bank loans and paid back with energy savings)
Much greater political support

But there are three policy solutions needed to enable community power:

renewableenergyworld

[Graeme]

How to put solar panels on your roof, even if you don’t have a roof

A bill advancing through the California legislature would change all that and make it easy for anyone who pays a utility bill to become a solar customer. Senate Bill 843 has passed the state Senate and just got approval from a key committee in the Assembly. As GigaOM reports:

The bill … aims to enable people who don’t own homes, or own homes that don’t have suitable roofs for solar panels, to buy clean power and offset their utility bills. They could sign contracts with owners of solar power projects for a portion of the power produced, and the amount they pay for would show up as credits on their utility bills. The proposed program would be available not only to consumers but also businesses who are customers of the three big investor-owned utilities.

grist

[Graeme]

Solar: Life, Liberty And The Pursuit of Energy Independence

This guest post was written by General Wesley Clark (ret.), a senior fellow at UCLA’s Burkle Center, and Rhone Resch, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association.

No energy source is more American than solar. Technologies to convert sunshine to electricity were pioneered in the U.S. half a century ago at Bell Labs, and quickly became a source of inspiration and imagination. In the last several years, solar energy has awoken from yesterday’s dream to today’s reality.

Last year, the U.S. solar energy market more than doubled in size, creating jobs in every state. You can harness solar energy in every city and county in the country, and even in every Congressional district – although you wouldn’t know that given the way candidates in this year’s elections have misconstrued and abused the facts about solar.

Let’s set the record straight: solar isn’t an issue of the right or the left, conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat. In fact, solar isn’t an issue at all – it’s a set of smart technologies that today power hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses across this nation. Solar is a domestic, reliable, renewable, abundant solution that helps ensure our nation’s energy independence and security. Solar is American.

Politicians on both sides of the aisle should open their eyes to the fastest growing energy source in America, surging ahead against hard economic times. They should understand that solar affords Americans – at homes, workplaces and businesses – the ability to generate heat and power cleanly, safely and affordably. As they ready for debates and town hall meetings, they surely should know that solar now employs 100,000 Americans at more than 5,600 companies – the vast majority of them small businesses – across all 50 states.

One of the largest users of solar in the world is our own military. Army, Air Force, Coast Guard, Marines and Navy all rely on strong, reliable solar power. The industry is proud to provide the solar equipment our armed forces need to power bases, run overseas operations, and defend our nation. Meanwhile, solar companies are actively recruiting servicemen and servicewomen returning from overseas, while still other veterans establish and grow solar companies in their own hometowns.

Yet, we are in danger of losing our lead in our own homegrown solar technologies. After being recognized for decades as the worldwide leader in solar, America has fallen behind Germany, Italy and China. While we dawdle in misinformed mudslinging as some politicians sow lies and mistrust over solar, other nations embrace the sun to power their economies.

forbes

[Graeme]

Cut The Price Of Solar In Half By Cutting Red Tape

This guest post was written by Barry Cinnamon, a widely recognized solar energy expert and consultant and former chief executive of Westinghouse Solar.

A myth persists that solar power is too pricey. The reality is that in many states _ such as California, New York and Hawaii – solar is already cheaper than utility power on a dollar per kilowatt-hour basis. Not surprisingly, by far the biggest factor in the cost of electricity generated by solar is the installation costs for a system.

We can cut these prices in half everywhere simply by eliminating the excessive paperwork it takes to install a photovoltaic or solar thermal system.

Prices have plummeted so much over the past two years that the solar panels and associated supplies cost about $8,000 for a typical 4,000-watt residential system. A qualified solar specialist or electrician should be able to install these panels for about $2,000 given that it’s only about a day of work. The total installed price should be about $10,000, without any tax credits or incentives. That is about the price of a comparable system in Germany.

But the average price of a residential system in the U.S. is about $20,000. So where does the extra $10,000 go? I can assure you that it is not the result of greedy installers, paranoid utilities or greater German installation efficiency.

Studies by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and by the University of California, Berkeley both confirm that these higher prices are almost exclusively related to the paperwork it takes to “officially” install a standard rooftop system in the U.S. That’s right, government red tape -‐ local, state and federal.

forbes

[Graeme]

'Solar could supply the world'

New solar plant technology may take up a lot of space, but it can easily deliver enough energy to power the world, a researcher has said.

Concentrated solar power (CSP) has emerged as a potentially efficient technology that may be able to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels for electricity generation.

"They take up space but when you actually calculate it, it's a small amount of space. One hundred by 100 miles in the Sahara would actually be enough to power the whole world. It's not total insanity," Paul Gauché senior researcher and director of the Solar Thermal Energy Research Group (Sterg) in the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering at Stellenbosch University told News24.

news24

[prajeshbhat]

Now, mainstream economic thinking makes you believe that the only technologies worth investing in are the ones that can be scaled up. If it cannot be made bigger, better, faster, its not worth considering. But I think that we should start considering technologies that can be scaled down. Forget multi GW scale projects and start thinking at household scale. Like solar panels. They can be built in modules. They can just be installed on your rooftop and then you need occasional maintenance. No moving parts. So a single household can own and maintain its own solar panels. Maybe 500-700 W power is enough to run most of your appliances (unless you run them all at the same time). CSP is probably not very good for this. And I don't think we live in times where we can count on grandiose techno miracles to provide the basic needs. We need to learn how to make things smaller, simpler, slower and more managable.