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Fannie Mae’s Financing for Solar: A Game Changer for the Solar Industry
http://blog.rmi.org/blog_2016_06_01_fannie_maes_financing_for_solar
Mortgage companies play an important role in making solar photovoltaics (PV) more affordable and accessible for homeowners, which is a key component to unlocking the economic opportunities of home energy upgrades. Learn more about how this complements RMI’s Residential Energy+ initiative, which is working with top industry representatives to make better energy performance more accessible, affordable, and desirable for U.S. homeowners.
Mortgage giant Fannie Mae just unlocked the lowest cost of capital for new solar installations to date. This follows the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) recent decision to finance new solar installations within a first mortgage transaction, a potential game changer for the solar industry with the ability to bring about the next order of magnitude increase in solar installations.
Fannie Mae’s HomeStyle Energy Mortgage offers the lowest cost of capital for solar (currently a mid-three percent range fixed rate). To date, this market is the largest untapped source of low-cost capital that the solar industry can leverage for the benefit of homebuyers and mortgage refinancers. A new source of low-cost capital is increasingly important in order to accelerate solar industry growth, as some solar leasing companies have seen their own cost of capital rise in recent months or had access to capital shut off completely. This could be the game changer the solar industry has been looking for, with the capacity to change everything from the value proposition of solar ownership all the way to how solar is marketed and sold to current and future homeowners.
What is the HomeStyle Energy Mortgage?
The HomeStyle Energy Mortgage from Fannie Mae enables a homebuyer or mortgage refinancer to add a solar system after the mortgage loan has closed. This is done by allowing up to 15 percent of the “as completed” home value to be used to pay for the cost of a solar system with funds escrowed by the lender, and gives the homeowner 180 days after the closing date to have the solar system installed. The new mortgage requires a home energy report to determine the cost-effectiveness of the solar improvement. The report must show that the present value of energy savings is greater than the cost to install. The homeowner must also have an as-completed appraisal, which includes value for the not-yet-completed solar system.
The initial concept, including the benefits of financing new solar installations within a purchase or refinance mortgage, was first proposed in 2012 to industry stakeholders, including Rocky Mountain Institute. It was then presented in 2013 at the Photovoltaic Specialists Conference.
Methods for developing a value for solar using the appraisal industry’s income and cost approaches were proposed in 2010, and later published in the fall 2013 edition of the Appraisal Journal (a publication of the Appraisal Institute), and have been allowed by both Fannie Mae and HUD since 2015. Appraisers, realtors, homeowners, and lenders can now estimate the market value of solar by using the free online PV Value® tool that was recently developed by Energy Sense Finance with funding from the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) SunShot initiative.
Why This is a Game Changer
Adding solar when purchasing a home or refinancing a mortgage has the potential to become the default choice, like repainting a room, doing new landscaping, or any other minor improvement a homeowner makes when completing a new real estate transaction. Fannie Mae’s financing for solar can result in:
More captured value: As homeowners continue their shift away from leasing solar to owning solar, this new financing will allow homeowners to both capture more of the monthly savings (instead of paying it out to a third party), and capture the value of solar within their home’s appraised value.
Lower installation costs: This new financing method for solar will help drive down installation costs by allowing homebuyers and homeowners to consider small, local solar installation companies for a quote. Many smaller solar installation companies are currently unable to offer competitive low interest-rate financing arrangements, yet are properly licensed, trained, and able to offer very competitive installation costs without financing.
Solar as a commodity: Taking financing out of the equation will encourage healthy competition between installation companies and turn solar into a commodity, because homebuyers and mortgage refinancers can now have the cost of the solar installation included within their mortgage at their low, already agreed-upon interest rate. It’s like walking into a car dealership with a check in hand from the local credit union, knowing what the the value of the car is before purchasing, and eliminating the need for any dealer-provided financing.
Increased viability: As installation costs align with local marketplaces, solar will become competitive with traditional energy sources in more states, including those with lower utility rates, increasing the solar adoption rate in the process.
The Technical and Market Potential
The conforming mortgage industry currently averages just over four million purchase and refinance transactions per year. Meanwhile, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates that up to 89 percent of available small rooftops measuring less than 5,000 square feet are good candidates for solar and can support a minimum system size of 1.5 kW.
If Freddie Mac follows Fannie Mae and HUD with a similar offering of its own, it could open up financing for new solar installations within 3.5 million residential mortgage transactions per year, allowing for solar systems to be installed after mortgage transactions close.
While several factors will have an impact on the actual market potential—age of roof, local utility rates, net energy metering policy, installation costs, available solar resource, and others—as utility costs continue to increase and the cost to install solar continues to decrease in many states, we estimate between 1 and 1.75 million homeowners will take advantage of the ability to finance solar installations at the lowest interest rate available.
This new market potential comes as the solar industry recently celebrated its one millionth installation, a milestone that took nearly 40 years to achieve.
Just one million installations of homeowner-owned solar per year at a value of $10,000 per system has the potential to add $10 billion annually to residential property values nationwide.
What About Lower Income, Low Down Payment Borrowers?
For those who can’t meet the typical Fannie Mae requirements for a higher down payment, income, or credit score, there is a similar product from HUD, referred to as the “solar and wind technology policy.”
It can be used with both purchase and refinance transactions, and allows for up to 20 percent of the “as-is” home value prior to the solar installation to be used to cover the cost of a solar installation. Additionally, it gives the borrower up to 120 days after the mortgage closing date to have the solar system installed.
What About New Home Construction With Solar?
For new home construction, the DOE’s SunShot initiative funded a working group, led by Sandia National Laboratories, that put together Solar Basics for Homebuilders, a guide that lays out the financing options available to both homebuilders and homebuyers who want to include a solar system with their new home.
Additionally, the Appraisal Institute, working in conjunction with the National Association of Homebuilders and the Building Codes Assistance Project, put together information for homebuilders to ensure that the new homebuyer receives an appraisal from a competent appraiser who has received specific training in valuing homes with solar.
There are now multiple sources of low-interest rate financing mechanisms in place for new solar installations that allow virtually all current or future homeowners to own their solar, maximize their monthly savings, and ensure the solar PV value is included in the appraised value of their homes.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Marketing to homeowners and homebuyers is the first step to ensuring they become aware of new low-interest rate financing options for solar. At the same time, appraisers need to be trained in how to properly develop value for solar systems before conducting an appraisal on a home with a solar PV system. Even further, underwriters need to be educated on allowable valuation methodologies. To assist with this effort, the Appraisal Institute offers a two-day course titled “Residential and Commercial Valuation of Solar,” developed with funding from the DOE’s SunShot initiative. There are additional educational efforts underway that will be announced later this year.
Solar installers may seek to work with real estate agents, home sellers, and homebuyers to educate them about these new financing options. They may also offer a solar installation quote with each new listing, along with an estimate of the value using the free PV Value® tool. Additionally, they may want to obtain a home energy rater designation and become a HERS or HES rater, if current guidelines remain in effect.
Energy Sense Finance plans on undertaking education efforts relating to valuation of solar with the free PV Value® tool, providing a national database of solar installations to appraisers, and addressing the valuation of energy storage with solar in the new Ei Value® platform that will be available later this year.
Providing a source of low-cost capital and enabling market value for solar were two missing pieces needed to enable a more rapid solar adoption rate and, now that those are coming into place, the solar industry can look forward to many sunny days ahead.
Jamie Johnson is the founder and CEO of Energy Sense Finance.
Rooftop solar is getting dirt cheap. That’s good news for consumers, but trouble for businesses
http://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/rooftop-solar-growing/
Solar energy has become dirt cheap, and the market is flourishing. GTM research says the solar market should grow by 119 percent in 2016 compared to the previous year. The low prices are making a lot of rooftop residents jubilant, but the same can’t be said about the largest solar contractors in the states whose stocks have plummeted by more than 50 percent.
SolarCity stocks have fallen more than 50 percent this year. Image: GigaOm
This model worked very well so far. Customers would lease an installation over 20 years and pay less or at least as much as they did to their local utility. The business would make a nice profit on the interest. Everyone won.
Now, many new customers can afford to pay all the upfront costs themselves. In 2014, 72 percent of all rooftop solar was owned by a third-party, but by 2017 this figure should plummet to less than 50 percent, says GTM. This forecast is backed by the current market fluctuations. SolarCity’s stocks were down 53 percent in 2016 while Sunrun was down nearly 50 percent.
Companies need to adapt, and some do. SolarCity’s dropped its very popular MyPower solar loan program this year and is now running much shorter loan programs ranging from seven to ten years.
Great mention of JN/SUNW in this article. 2 days old....
RENEWABLE ENERGY
http://www.capecodtimes.com/article/20160531/NEWS/160539987
Cheap solar raises tough questions
System prices drop, putting leasing companies under pressure
A worker secures a solar panel to a residential rooftop during a SolarCity installation in Albuquerque, New Mexico Sergio Flores/Bloomberg
By Christopher Martin
Bloomberg
Posted May. 31, 2016 at 2:01 AM
It's tough to argue with free. That's why the no-money-down solar lease became the most popular choice for U.S. rooftop power.
Now, though, the equation is changing. Falling costs are making it easier for consumers to buy solar systems outright, and banks and solar installers are promoting loans with no upfront payments. That's a threat to companies such as SolarCity, Sunrun and Vivint Solar, which built their businesses on people signing decades-long contracts.
Installation growth is slowing for the big three U.S. rooftop solar installers, and GTM Research, an industry consultant, is forecasting the percentage of consumers buying rather than leasing residential systems will expand to 45 percent this year, from 38 percent in 2014. Shares in all three companies have plunged more than 40 percent this year, for a variety of reasons including a failed acquisition bid for Vivint and questions about SolarCity's strategy.
"Leasing was the major game but that's changing quickly," said Patrick Jobin, an analyst at Credit Suisse Group AG. "Consumers are starting to realize there are better options."
Greg Gill, a retired IBM employee, was looking for ways to cut his $400 monthly utility bill. He considered leasing but decided to pay $32,370 for a 7.3-kilowatt system that was installed in September at his home outside Sacramento.
Gill charged it on a credit card (to earn rewards) and then paid it off in cash, he said. His April utility bill was $1.18, he earned a $10,000 tax credit and he's expecting an 11 percent return on the investment.
"A tree-hugger friend of mine was dead-set on SolarCity," Gill said. After talking to five installers, he crunched the numbers and concluded that buying was a better deal.
"It really was a no-brainer," he said. "Even if you financed it at 3 percent, you still come out ahead over leasing."
He's not alone. By next year, customers who own their systems will make up the majority of the U.S. residential solar market for the first time since 2011, according to Boston-based GTM. Third-party companies, mainly lease providers, will account for the rest. And that shift is accelerating. Last July, Nicole Litvak, a GTM analyst, predicted that owning wouldn't become the top choice until 2020.
Leasing companies are aware of the trend, including SolarCity, the biggest U.S. rooftop installer, which rolled out a no-money-down loan program this month. That replaced a more complicated financing program introduced in 2014 that ended this year.
"We anticipate loans will continue to be very popular," Kady Cooper, a spokeswoman, said by e-mail. The financing deals offer returns to SolarCity that are comparable to leases, she said, in part because the company's volume helps it negotiate terms with lenders. A 10-year loan comes with a 2.99 percent fixed interest rate, and 20 years gets 4.99 percent.
SolarCity's growth is slowing. It expects to install about 1 gigawatt of panels this year, about 15 percent more than last year. In February, the company said 2016 installations would increase as much as 40 percent.
Vivint announced in November that it was offering loans in Utah, its home state, through a partnership with the financing company Solar Mosaic Inc., with plans to expand to other states.
"There is some increasing demand from customers that would like to own their own system," Casey Briggs, a spokeswoman, said in an e-mail, though leases remain "the primary driver in the market for residential solar."
At Sunrun, leasing will make up about 80 percent of its business in the fourth quarter, down from 85 percent now. It introduced a loan program in September. The San Francisco-based company installed 60 megawatts of panels in the first quarter, up 63 percent from a year earlier. In the fourth quarter, it added 68 megawatts, an 83 percent increase from the same period a year earlier.
Ownership offers advantages over leases, said Jeffrey Osborne, an analyst at Cowen & Co. Consumers don't get entangled in decades-long contracts, and because they own the panels they get all tax benefits and other incentives.
"When I put solar on my house it made so much more sense to buy," Osborne said. Leasing "made a lot of sense in the beginning. Now that there are a million solar rooftops, banks are more comfortable" financing the systems.
Installers say consumers are showing more interest in owning the panels on their roofs.
"We're definitely taking market share," said Jim Nelson, chief executive officer of Sunworks Inc. "If you buy a solar system outright with cash, the benefits are twice as good as with leases."
The Roseville, California-based installer helps customers line up financing. While it's nowhere near the size of SolarCity — revenue this year is expected to almost double to $99 million — Sunworks has been profitable in two of the past three quarters, while the leasing giant has reported only three profitable quarters since its December 2012 initial public offering.
Nebraska aims for five-fold increase in solar generation this year
SOLAR: Nebraska is set to quintuple the amount of solar being produced in the state this year. (NET)
FREE POWER IS ADDICTING!
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Solar power on the rise in Nebraska
When people talk about renewable energy in Nebraska, they’re usually talking about wind power. But the use of solar power is on track to more than quintuple in the state this year, with the prospect of more to come in the future.
It’s a windy afternoon at a construction site on the western edge of Lincoln. Weaving through a field where thousands of metal posts jut from the ground, construction workers hoist tabletop-sized solar panels up and bolt them into place.
More than 15,000 panels are being installed over 20 acres here, in what will be the state’s largest solar installation, just north of the interstate.
“We’re pretty happy with the location, being right along Interstate 80. It should make a nice landmark for people coming and leaving Lincoln. You’ll be able to see it pretty well,” said Scott Benson, manager of resource and transmission planning for the Lincoln Electric System.
When it goes online next month, the project will generate 3.6 megawatts, which is enough to power about 900 homes. Benson says 1,300 LES customers have voluntarily agreed to contribute, starting at $3 a month, to bring the community solar project to Lincoln. A private company, Enerparc, is building and will operate the facility, and LES will buy the power that’s generated.
David Bracht, head of the Nebraska Energy Office, says the state started this year with only around 1 megawatt of solar power on line. That’s enough to power roughly 250 homes. The Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group based in Washington, D.C., ranked Nebraska 48th among the 50 states and the District of Columbia for installed solar capacity, ahead of only Alaska, North Dakota and South Dakota. But the Association’s research director, Shawn Rumery, says Nebraska has the potential to rank higher – 38th for rooftop solar panels in urban areas, 10th for bigger installations in rural areas.
“Nebraska ranks relatively low in rooftop pv (photovoltaic) potential, because you don’t have as many homes there as California or Texas would. But you rank relatively high in, I think, rural utility scale because you have a lot of land without any shade,” Rumery said.
Bracht said Nebraska’s relatively low rates for conventionally-generated electricity also play a role in other states taking the lead in solar power.
“In California, the retail rate that a residential customer would pay is probably more than double what a customer pays here. And so consequently, long ago that solar panel made a lot of sense to that customer in California,” he said.
But Bracht says a 30 percent federal tax credit on solar power investments, available to both homeowners and businesses, has spurred innovation and dropped the cost of generating solar power by almost 80 percent over the last six years. (For information on low-interest loans for solar projects, click here).
That and other factors have contributed to an increase in solar business in Nebraska, says Graham Christensen, who runs a solar consulting and contracting business.
“It’s been a long, kind of gradual process. I think the trends are that it is picking up. A lot of folks are really wanting to know how to make this work, both on an environmental side but also just on a business standpoint. All those trend lines appear to be good, whether it’s in the country or in Nebraska,” Christensen said.
Christensen says there are still some challenges. Nebraska’s “net metering” law requires utilities to buy any excess power generated by customers with solar panels, but only from systems up to 25 kilowatts. Christensen says that’s more than enough for the average homeowner, but not enough for others.
“If you’re a little bit bigger than a mid-sized farm, you’re over that 25 kilowatt threshold pretty easily. So you can’t really justify after that point to power your operation in an economical fashion,” he said.
When the net metering law was adopted in 2009, utilities argued that allowing it for larger solar generators could cost them more money for bigger lines to put the power on the grid.
Another factor that has spurred solar development in other states is a direct production credit for every kilowatt hour generated. That’s been proposed in Nebraska, but never passed.
Still, Bracht said he expects more solar projects in the future. Bracht says solar projects, which are built to produce much smaller amounts of power than even one wind turbine, could be an increasingly good fit for Nebraska’s smaller public power districts and communities.
“I think when it comes to solar, particularly community solar, the fact that we are 100 percent public power actually is supportive of community solar developments,” he said.
Bracht said with the Lincoln project and other smaller ones built or under construction this year, Nebraska will add around five times as much solar power this year as it had at the end of 2015. For information on solar projects in Nebraska, click here.
Solar PV Prices Will Fall Below $1.00 per Watt by 2020
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/solar-pv-prices-to-fall-below-1.00-per-watt-by-2020
GTM Research describes how the U.S. will achieve the ambitious SunShot target.
by Mike Munsell June 01, 2016
http://www.greentechmedia.com/research/report/us-solar-pv-price-brief-h1-2016
According to GTM Research’s latest report, U.S. Solar PV Price Brief H1 2016: Pricing, Breakdowns and Forecasts, pricing for fixed-tilt ground-mount PV systems will hit $0.99 per watt by 2020. This would achieve the Department of Energy’s ambitious SunShot target of $1.00 per watt by the end of this decade.
The report provides a detailed breakdown and forecast of solar costs by component and segment.
FIGURE: Utility Fixed-Tilt PV Systems Pricing by Cost Category
Source: U.S. Solar PV Price Brief H1 2016: Pricing, Breakdowns and Forecasts
http://www.greentechmedia.com/research/report/us-solar-pv-price-brief-h1-2016
GTM Research estimates the price for a utility-scale fixed-tilt ground-mount PV system to hover around $1.25 per watt today. Modules represent half of the cost, additional hardware such as inverters and balance-of-system components represent 22 percent, and the remaining 28 percent is made up of soft costs.
The report notes that soft costs present the both biggest opportunity, but also the largest hurdle for future cost reductions, particularly in the residential and commercial market segments where prices are much higher than in the utility-scale segments.
Residential PV prices in the U.S. average $3.00 as of the first half of this year. According to the report, soft costs make up 64 percent of residential system costs today, and despite system prices falling by a third by 2020, soft costs will still account for 60 percent of the total system price.
Average U.S. commercial solar prices just dipped below $2 per watt, but the report highlights additional opportunities for further cost reductions.
Google’s Project Sunroof Expands to 42 States and Millions More Rooftops
image description
Tesla Discontinues 10-Kilowatt-Hour Powerwall Home Battery
image description
The End of SunEdison: Developer Now Looking Into Liquidating Its Assets
White Papers
Storage 101 for Solar Installers
Solar Power Plant Reliability – Why Should We Care?
“Commercial PV installers need to find more ways to shorten the length and de-risk aspects of the project cycle in order to substantially reduce origination and overhead costs,” said Ben Gallagher, GTM Research solar analyst and lead author of the report.
He notes that solar-specific software tools and simplified business modes will also help lower solar costs. GTM Research forecasts U.S. commercial solar pricing to fall 25 percent between 2015 and 2020.
FIGURE: U.S. PV Systems Pricing
http://www.greentechmedia.com/research/report/us-solar-pv-price-brief-h1-2016
Sunworks Inc (SUNW) Downgraded to Sell at Zacks Investment Research
Must mean that it is going up! 
http://zolmax.com/investing/sunworks-inc-sunw-downgraded-to-sell-at-zacks-investment-research/666735.html
Zacks Investment Research downgraded shares of Sunworks Inc (NASDAQ:SUNW) from a hold rating to a sell rating in a report published on Tuesday.
According to Zacks, “Sunworks, Inc. provides solar power solutions. The company focused on the design, installation and management of solar power systems for commercial, agricultural and residential customers. Sunworks, Inc., formerly known as Solar3D, Inc., is based in Roseville, United States. “
Separately, Aegis reaffirmed a buy rating on shares of Sunworks in a research note on Friday, February 19th.
Eventually they learn!
Australia brown coal warriors switch to solar, disruptive technologies
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/australia-brown-coal-warriors-switch-to-solar-disruptive-technologies-22350
By Giles Parkinson on 30 May 2016
This must be a sign of the times: The two men who ran Australia’s two dirtiest brown coal generators, and who were one-time trenchant critics of climate and renewable energy policies, have switched sides. They have now thrown in their lot with the solar industry and other disruptive technologies.
One brown coal generator that could no longer compete in the modern market – thanks to the enormous wind and solar capacity in its local grid – was the Northern plant in Port Augusta, South Australia.
Total is a global, integrated energy producer and provider, the world’s fourth-largest international oil and gas company1 and second-largest solar operator
If other energy companies would have woken up earlier, we wouldn't have such a war!
http://us.total.com/en-us
Renewables Become New Baseload For Power In South Australia
May 26th, 2016 by Joshua S Hill
.Only a week after South Australia closed its last coal-fired generator, renewables are stepping up to act as the state’s power baseload
The imaginatively named southern Australian state of South Australia recently closed its last coal-fired generator earlier this month, with Alinta Energy’s Port Augusta brown coal power generator switched off on the morning of May 9th. RenewEconomy‘s Live Generation figures show coal’s absence, leaving gas, wind, and solar to pick up the slack.
South Australia’s power generation will necessarily flex, as is the nature of renewable energy, and you can see that gas is likely to serve immediately as the reliable energy generator for the immediate future.
However, the Melbourne Energy Institute believes that, “already a new pattern is emerging that points the way to a new energy system” in South Australia “built around wind and solar and other renewables,” rather than coal, gas, or nuclear. RenewEconomy‘s live figures show things as they are at the time I’m writing, but a graph provided by Dylan McConnel from the Melbourne Energy Institute shows the first week of electricity production in South Australia after the Port Augusta coal plant was switched off.
As can be seen, wind energy (the green in the middle) provided a substantial majority of the state’s power for the week.
The Melbourne Energy Institute believes this is to be the likely pattern in the future for electricity generation in South Australia. Energy systems with high renewable energy penetration will rely first on variable electricity providers such as wind and solar, and then resort to “flexible” or “dispatchable” sources such as gas, as is the situation at the moment, or looking forward, hydro, solar towers with storage, and emerging technologies such as geothermal or ocean energy.
This means in the near future, South Australia may need to rely on gas from in-state, or brown coal from Victoria. Looking forward, however, South Australia may need not worry, with plans for 100% renewable energy by 2030 in the cards.
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Renewable Energy: Southern Australia Leads Take-Up
by Graham Pierrepoint
The concept of renewable energy is one which continues to provoke debate the world over – with those in favor keen to emphasize its clean nature and effective energy production over existing power sources such as coal and nuclear plants – however, wind farms and hydro-electric dams are yet to be taken up in the majority worldwide. South Australia, however, appears to be leading the movement towards widespread take-up of renewable energy.
The closure of the state’s last coal power station has seen South Australia convert to renewable sources for the bulk of electricity provided to citizens, with over 50% of energy produced accounted for from solar and air power – with the remaining half accounted for from combined cycle gas plants. The transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy comes largely as a result of the coal plant – that had been in operation for over three decades – no longer being able to compete financially with the lowering rates of renewable energy. As a result, the planet closed down despite having been in operation since the mid 1980s – making it the end of an era, and a large contribution to South Australia’s RenewablesSA initiative.
The initiative was set up to promise investment of $10 billion in low carbon initiatives leading up to 2025 – and this latest move shows that the state is unafraid of seizing the promise with both hands just seven years into the initiative. The Independent further states, however, that a dependency upon renewable energy generation may not yet be forthcoming as current systems need to adapt to the new sources of power. It is clear that South Australia is committed to moving forward with a gradual conversion to cleaner power sources in future – but it will mean concerted work to ensure that existing frameworks are able to fall back on natural resources.
The use of natural resources for power continues to inspire a debate that takes into account financial viability, long term effectiveness and just how feasible it will be to replace existing fuels – and it is clear that there are a number of nations throughout the world that continue to commit to such causes. With South Australia and Portugal recently leading such initiatives, it will remain to be seen if the world can eventually convert to air or solar power full-time – but, rest assured, we will aim to be amongst the first to let you know of any developments!
Renewable energy jobs continue to rise even as employment in the broader energy sector falls
IRENA Press Release:
Abu Dhabi, U.A.E., 25 May 2016 – More than 8.1 million people worldwide are now employed by the renewable energy industry – a five percent increase from last year – according to a report released today by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) at its 11th Council meeting. The report, Renewable Energy and Jobs – Annual Review 2016, also provides a global estimate of the number of jobs supported by large hydropower, with a conservative estimate of an additional 1.3 million direct jobs worldwide.
“The continued job growth in the renewable energy sector is significant because it stands in contrast to trends across the energy sector,” said IRENA Director-General Adnan Z. Amin. “This increase is being driven by declining renewable energy technology costs and enabling policy frameworks. We expect this trend to continue as the business case for renewables strengthens and as countries move to achieve their climate targets agreed in Paris.”
The total number of renewable energy jobs worldwide rose in 2015 while jobs in the broader energy sector fell, finds the report. In the United States for example, renewable energy jobs increased 6 per cent while employment in oil and gas decreased 18 per cent. Likewise in China, renewable energy employed 3.5 million people, while oil and gas employed 2.6 million.
As in previous years, enabling policy frameworks remained a key driver of employment. National and state auctions in India and Brazil, tax credits in the United States and favourable policies in Asia have all contributed to employment increases.
Countries with the most renewable energy jobs in 2015 included China, Brazil, the United States, India, Japan and Germany. The solar photovoltaic (PV) sector remains the largest renewable energy employer worldwide with 2.8 million jobs (up from 2.5 at last count) with jobs in manufacturing, installation and operations & maintenance. Liquid biofuels was the second largest global employer with 1.7 million jobs, followed by wind power, which grew 5 per cent to reach 1.1 million global jobs.
“As the ongoing energy transition accelerates, growth in renewable energy employment will remain strong,” said Mr. Amin. “IRENA’s research estimates that doubling the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix by 2030 – enough to meet global climate and development targets – would result in more than 24 million jobs worldwide.”
Select report findings:
Solar PV is the largest renewable energy employer with 2.8 million jobs worldwide, an 11 per cent increase from last count. Employment grew in Japan and the United States, stabilised in China, and decreased in the European Union.
Strong wind installation rates in China, the United States and Germany drove a 5 per cent increase in global employment to reach 1.1 million jobs. Wind employment in the United States alone rose by 21 per cent.
Jobs in liquid biofuels, solar heating and cooling, and large and small hydropower decreased due to various factors including increased mechanisation, slowing housing markets, the removal of subsidies and the drop in new installations.
With more than a third of the global renewable energy capacity additions in 2015, China led employment with 3.5 million jobs.
In the European Union, the United Kingdom, Germany and Denmark were the global leaders in offshore wind employment. Overall, job figures in the EU declined for the fourth year due to weak economic growth. Jobs fell 3 per cent to 1.17 million in 2014, the last year for which data is available. Germany remains the highest European Union renewables employer– employing nearly as many as France, the United Kingdom, and Italy combined.
In the United States, renewable energy employment increased 6 per cent driven by growth in wind and solar. Solar employment grew 22 per cent – 12 times faster than job creation in the United States economy – surpassing jobs in oil and gas. Employment in wind industry also grew 21 per cent.
Japan experienced impressive gains in solar PV in recent years, resulting in a 28 per cent increase in employment in 2014.
In India, solar and wind markets have seen substantial activity, as the ambitious renewable energy targets are translated into concrete policy frameworks.
Africa has also seen many interesting developments leading to job creation, including solar and wind development in Egypt, Morocco, Kenya and South Africa.
IRENA’s early research indicates that the renewable energy sector employed larger shares of women than the broader energy sector.
Download Renewable Energy and Jobs – Annual Review 2016: http://bit.ly/1TrVO5o
What a day!
Clean-Energy Jobs Surpass Oil Drilling for First Time in U.S.
Green workforce rose 5% worldwide in 2015 to 8.1 million
Irena expects as many as 24 million in clean energy by 2030
The number of U.S. jobs in solar energy overtook those in oil and natural gas extraction for the first time last year, helping drive a global surge in employment in the clean-energy business as fossil-fuel companies faltered.
Employment in the U.S. solar business grew 12 times faster than overall job creation, the International Renewable Energy Agency said in a report on Wednesday. About 8.1 million people worldwide had jobs in the clean energy in 2015, up from 7.7 million in 2014, according to the industry group based in Abu Dhabi.
Fed by state initiatives to spur clean energy and innovative financing measures offered by companies such as SolarCity Corp., developers are adding workers at record rates to install rooftop panels. Oil and gas producers by contrast have slashed 351,410 jobs worldwide since prices began to slide in the middle of 2014, according to Houston-based Graves & Co.
“The continued job growth in the renewable energy sector is significant because it stands in contrast to trends across the energy sector,” said Adnan Amin, director-general of Irena, which is based in Abu Dhabi. “This increase is being driven by declining renewable energy technology costs and enabling policy frameworks. We expect this to continue as the case for renewables strengthens and countries move to achieve climate targets.”
The pace of jobs growth worldwide slowed last year from 18 percent in 2014 mainly because of lower investment in biofuels following the oil price slump, which made alternative fuels less economically attractive, Irena said. Brent crude prices slipped 35 percent last year, the third consecutive decline. Biofuels made from crops such as sugar and corn employed 1.7 million workers, second to solar with almost 2.8 million jobs.
The group projects the workforce in clean energy will grow to 24 million by 2030 if United Nations targets are met on climate change and development.
The 58 percent slide in oil prices since June 2014, triggered by Saudi Arabia’s grab for market share, has prompted reductions in employment in the fossil-fuels industry. Many higher-cost producers in the U.S. shale industry, Canada’s oil sands and Brazil’s deepwater-drilling projects have become unprofitable. The transition to clean energy spurred by a landmark deal in Paris involving almost 200 nations is reflected in the global labor market for renewables.
China installed the most new renewable capacity in the world in 2015 with 65 gigawatts. It employed 35 percent more people in its clean energy industry than in oil and gas.
China, Brazil and the U.S. were at the front of the pack for renewable energy jobs. Asia is home to 60 percent of the world’s renewable energy employees, up from just over 50 percent in 2013. Japan saw jobs in its solar PV industry gain by 28 percent in 2014.
Most of Brazil’s clean energy workers were in the liquid biofuels industry, which was the second-largest job market in renewables after solar PV.
Nanomaterials could double efficiency of solar cells by converting waste heat into usable energy
Posted 25 minutes ago by Devin Coldewey
http://techcrunch.com/2016/05/24/nanomaterials-could-double-efficiency-of-solar-cells-by-converting-waste-heat-into-usable-energy/
An experimental solar cell created by MIT researchers could massively increase the amount of power generated by a given area of panels, while simultaneously reducing the amount of waste heat. Even better, it sounds super cool when scientists talk about it: “with our own unoptimized geometry, we in fact could break the Shockley-Queisser limit.”
The Shockley-Queisser limit, which is definitely not made up, is the theoretical maximum efficiency of a solar cell, and it’s somewhere around 32 percent for the most common silicon-based ones.
You can get around this by various tricks like stacking cells, but the better option, according to David Bierman, a doctoral student on the team (and who is quoted above), will be thermophotovoltaics — whereby sunlight is turned into heat and then re-emitted as light better suited for the cell to absorb.
Sound weird? Here’s the thing. Solar cells work best with a certain wavelength of light — perhaps ultraviolet is too short, while infrared is too long, but let’s say 600nm (orange visible light) is perfect. Only some of the broad-spectrum radiation emitted by the sun is at or around 600nm, which limits the amount of energy the cell can pull out of that radiation — that’s one of the components of the Shockley-Queisser limit.
What Bierman and the others on his team did was to add a step between the sun and the cell: a carefully engineered structure of carbon nanotubes. “The carbon nanotubes are virtually a perfect absorber over the entire color spectrum,” said Bierman in the MIT news release. “All of the energy of the photons gets converted to heat.”
The team’s thermophotovoltaic cell in action.
Normally heat is undesirable in a solar cell, as it’s just waste energy that can interfere with normal operation. But in this case, the heat is not allowed to dissipate; instead, the carbon nanostructure converts the heat back into light — at the exact optimum wavelength of the photovoltaic cell.
The result is a huge increase in efficiency, and that’s not the only benefit. Heat, unlike light, is easy to store and move. If the day’s sunlight was entirely converted to heat and stored away, it could be converted to light on demand — like, say, at night. In other words, this technique essentially allows sunlight to be saved for later.
Experimental results bore out the theory, and a prototype TPV cell performed as expected. But the tech still needs to make it out of the lab, and manufacturing the complex carbon nanomaterials in bulk is no simple task. So you won’t be using thermophotovoltaics next year or the year after — but the technique is a tremendously promising one and unlikely to be left on the shelf.
The team’s research was published in the journal Nature Energy.
So why does it appear sunw is in recovery mode now?
It wasn't.... * Development of software and procedureal advancements to reduce Residential Install Time by 50% With Software and Procedural Advancements
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