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LOL! Nice try. I had time to edit my answer...
Maybe AZ will be open?
It's A Big Year For The Future Of Arizona's Solar Energy Industry
http://kjzz.org/content/279566/its-big-year-future-arizonas-solar-energy-industry
State regulators are taking on five electric rate cases and those decisions will likely set the course for the growth of distributed energy here. The first case, for UNS Electric, began at the beginning of March.
Chair of the Arizona Corporation Commission Doug Little said they’re holding a full evidentiary hearing on the value and cost of rooftop solar, which will be the first time that has ever happened in the country.
“Up till now, the discussion has been largely political, emotional, and there have been very passionate advocates on both sides, but what we really haven’t done is get the facts," said Little.
According to Arizona Public Service, residential solar has grown leaps and bounds and an additional 80 to 100 megawatts is forecast to be added each year. The utility said that is forcing even more ratepayers to subsidize the solar customers who are hooked up to the grid.
The rapid deployment of rooftop solar panels drove Nevada to recently phase out net-metering, which reimburses solar customers at retail rates for their excess power.
David Noble is one of the regulators who oversaw those changes in Nevada. “I don’t think that was ever going to be sustainable in Nevada. It really was a gold rush boom and bust,” he said.
But Sanjay Ranchod with national rooftop solar company SolarCity said preserving net-metering is critical for Arizona and other states.
“If you do the math and look at not just the costs and revenue lost to utilities from more of their customers going solar, but look at the benefits," said Ranchod, "Net metering in fact does provide rough justice to all the ratepayers."
SolarCity is cautiously optimistic about the solar market here in Arizona, he said. But due to policy decisions, the state has fallen from second in the nation for solar jobs to seventh.
$2 billion loss for generators as a million U.S. roofs get solar - http://www.readingeagle.com/ap/article/2-billion-loss-for-generators-as-a-million-us-roofs-get-solar
Rooftop solar is casting a $2 billion shadow over power generators across the eastern United States.
With more than a million U.S. houses set to have solar panels by the end of next month, grid managers serving the eastern U.S. plan to cut the amount of electricity they buy from conventional plants by about 1,400 megawatts, starting in 2019, according to industry consultant ICF International Inc. That's enough juice to power about 780,000 households.
The result could be as much as $2 billion in lost revenue for generators that are already reeling from lower demand, tight environmental regulation and depressed prices. Power producers including NRG Energy Inc. warn that the growing reliance on solar may curtail investment in conventional power plants, threatening the reliability of the U.S. electricity system. That's already happened in Germany, they say, citing plans by EON and RWE to scrap existing or planned plants.
The decision "creates a risk you are going to repeat in the United States what's happening in Germany," said George Katsigiannakis, a principal at Fairfax, Virginia-based ICF, in a telephone interview. "The result of that is going to be that generating resources, reliable generating resources, don't make their money and they retire."
Under "Energiewende," a German transition plan designed to lessen fossil fuel use, about 30 percent of the country's power is now generated by renewables, sending power prices to their lowest levels in more than a decade. That spurred EON's Uniper unit to seek closure of two gas-fired units in Bavaria, and Essen-based RWE to scrap plans to start up its coal-fired Westfalen-D plant, valued at 1 billion euro ($1.1 billion).
While EON didn't respond to a phone call and e-mail seeking comment, an RWE spokeswoman said "nearly all of our stations are in the red" as a result of low prices.
"The considerable drop in wholesale electricity prices and the difficult political environment are weighing on us," Vera Buecker said in an e-mailed response to questions. "Many power plants are hardly being used and cannot cover their costs."
In the U.S., power availability is sold at auctions held by the operators of regional power grids such as PJM Interconnection, which serves more than 61 million customers ranging from Washington to Chicago, and ISO New England Inc., which manages a six-state system with 7.1 million customers. The grids estimate their power needs to meet peak demand, then gather supply commitments from generators who bid to sell their power.
This year, for the first time, PJM and New England have included solar growth in their estimates for 2019, spurring a national debate on how the nation's electrical system will be financed and managed moving forward.
The new grid estimates come as generators have been battling a toxic combination of low prices and increasingly stringent environmental rules. Wholesale power prices are largely determined by the cost of natural gas, now trading at a 17-year low. The newly approved federal rules, estimated to cost the industry $9.6 billion per year, now mandate the use of expensive "scrubbers" to curb emissions.
Last year, revenue from electricity sales in the U.S. fell 1.3 percent to $388.1 billion, and the industry retired almost 18,000 megawatts of generation, according to the Energy Information Administration. A decision by the grids to factor in power from rooftop solar arrays in the future would be "a double punch on the conventional power plants," Katsigiannakis said.
Abe Silverman, the assistant general counsel at NRG Energy, says the grids are trading reliability for low costs by including weather-sensitive resources such as wind and solar.
If the grids are allowed "to suppress prices below economically sustainable levels, the region will experience premature resource retirement and the inability to attract new" power plants, Silverman said in an emailed response to questions.
The $2 billion in losses identified by ICF International breaks down three ways for 2019. Generators stand to lose as much as $716 million in New England's auction, where demand for conventionally-generated power has been cut by 390 megawatts, according to ICF. It's a figure that takes into account both the amount of new solar expected to be in use by 2019, and estimates for the power lost when the sun isn't shining. At the PJM auction, the loss is about $754 million, and in New York it's about $523 million.
"It's certainly possible to see rooftop solar growing to a level where it becomes a serious issue for regulated utilities and merchant generators," said Swami Venkataraman, vice president and senior credit officer for infrastructure finance at Moody's Investors Service Inc. "It compounds all the other issues if solar is also going to cause demand to go down."
To be sure, there is another side to the issue. Rooftop solar has been a bonus for consumers. Last year, the average solar panel system generated enough electricity to meet the needs of 80 percent of the average household's electricity, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. At the same time, utilities in about 30 states pay for the exports at the full retail price of electricity, aiding their rapid deployment.
The practice, known as net metering, is being fought by power providers, who say customers should pay more for the costs of maintaining the overall electrical system.
"This is only going to get more sizable in the future, because this is real capacity," said Sanem Sergici, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based analyst at the Brattle Group Inc., in a telephone interview. "The bottom line is that most of the grid operators are now really relying on these distributed energy resources as long-term reliable resources."
solar
They must like the new CEO....
SCTY vs SUNW Mkt Cap by Revs puts us at $350M
Or $17.70 per share!
It also sounded like Jim-Bob had some more news ready to release soon, just wasn't ready right now...
So ANYTHING can happen in the next couple of weeks.......
I will be out tomorrow raising hell, at least in the morning...
https://www.facebook.com/events/696116803825008/
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=501953739994530&set=a.121704838019424.1073741827.100005397247232&type=3&theater
Iran boosting oil output. Energy stocks are down....
They still don't understand that we are different....
With VSLR and SUNE and SCTY in debt, they don't see us little people...
http://www.marketwatch.com/%28S%28rnrsydaynixa5x55oiibxm45%29%29/story/sunworks-exceeds-2015-revenue-guidance-with-537-million-in-revenues-a-166-increase-reports-profit-with-diluted-eps-of-005-2016-03-14
-- Revenue of $53.7 million, up 166%, compared to $20.2 million in the
prior year
-- Organic revenue growth was approximately $25.0 million, or 124%,
while $8.5 million, or 16% of growth, was acquisition related
-- Gross margin of 31.7% of total revenue compared to 27.8% in the prior
year
-- Operating income of $2.4 million, up 660%, compared to $312,000 in the
prior year
-- Net income of $1.1 million compared to a net loss of $24.9 million in
the prior year
-- Cash and cash equivalents of $12.0 million as of December 31, 2015
compared to $414,000 the prior year
-- Backlog of $47.5 million as of December 31, 2015 compared to $3.1
million a year earlier
“I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that. I wish I had more years left.”
Thomas Edison
“Long before this consummation, coal and oil must cease to be important factors in the sustenance of human life on this planet. It should be borne in mind that electrical energy obtained by harnessing a waterfall is probably fifty times more effective than fuel energy. Since this is the most perfect way of rendering the sun’s energy available, the direction of the future material development of man is clearly indicated.”
Nicola Tesla
Great, filing for the patents. NOW lets get some products!
Tanks? We are green.
In NV the big boys are fighting back!
Sin City's solar blues: Las Vegas casinos face resistance to green power plans
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/07/las-vegas-casinos-solar-power-nevada-energy
Las Vegas’s power drama captures an ongoing dilemma in the new energy economy. While corporations have been encouraged to go green, their efforts pass the burden of subsidizing old utility regimes on to retail consumers, which regulators cannot allow.
“They need to maintain the grid. You cannot let these utilities go bankrupt or else every business in the city dies,” said Bill Ellard, an energy economist for the American Solar Energy Society. “What will happen if they don’t maintain the grid properly and the transformers blow?”
In December, Nevada’s three-member PUC effectively destroyed a thriving rooftop solar industry by approving NV Energy’s request to drastically lower the rate at which solar users are compensated for excess energy they provide to the grid.
“This is what I call a death spiral for utilities,” said Ellard. “They make it hard to go solar because once you defect from them, that affects revenue. Then they increase rates on everybody else, forcing them to defect.”
MGM Resorts has already hurt utility profits though an ambitious energy conservation effort. In addition to building a solar array strong enough to power 1,000 homes for one year, the corporation is replacing 1.3m light bulbs in its properties with LEDs.
But to power multi-thousand-room resorts which house nightclubs, pools, theaters and slot machine-packed casinos would require more solar panels than the companies have rooftop space. They are consequently joining a trend in big energy consumers requesting to buy electricity outside the utility system.
“They are all very concerned with their bottom lines,” said Rebecca Wagner, a former member of Nevada’s PUC. “The energy market in the west is great right now, so they are seeking to curb costs by getting in that market.”
Cheap natural gas is probably driving the initiative more than anything else, Wagner says. But according to Ellard, the antipathy casinos have for NV Energy’s monopoly also previews the next phase in an energy economy where renewables are competitive with fossil fuel prices.
“It’s complex because it’s not just electricity,” he said. “It’s natural gas, wind, coal, smart grid, big data, oil – it’s all connected. We’re at this next change point where wind and solar [battery] storage and smart software are going to start to replace all those energy sources.”'
If the resorts do decide to separate from NV Energy, it will still cost them a combined $126.5m, a price set by the PUC which they say is necessary to prevent broad consumer rate hikes and to compensate the utility provider for losses incurred on power plants and other assets purchased with casino demand in mind.
The resorts have complained that this “exit fee” is too high – and perhaps even illegal. “The PUC has simply made up rules as it goes along so as to discourage any applicants from exiting [NV Energy’s] service,” Wynn lawyers stated in a January judicial appeal. (MGM and the Las Vegas Sands are considering their options.)
Wynn’s president, Matthew Maddox, also noted in PUC testimony that NV Energy is owned by Warren Buffett’s company, Berkshire Hathaway (based in Omaha, Nebraska), and is therefore, in his estimation, more concerned with maximizing profits than with maintaining Nevada’s grid. Maddox pointed out that their money doesn’t even stay in Nevada, saying: “it goes to Omaha”.
Data storage company Switch faced a similar situation last year when it announced plans to use 100% renewable energy to power its giant computer servers. NV Energy was not able to meet those energy demands, and the PUC said the company would have to pay $27m to break up with the utility provider since its large data centers amounted to nearly 3% of NV Energy’s electricity sales. As a compromise, Switch is paying the utility company to build a new solar array in North Las Vegas to meet their sustainability goals.
The city of Las Vegas, too, is planning to use 100% renewable energy to power its municipal buildings, fire stations, city parks and streetlights by 2017. That would make Las Vegas the largest US city to achieve such a goal. But to get PUC approval, it also had to promise to buy most of the power from an NV Energy solar plant in nearby Boulder City. Nevadans are thus subsidizing NV Energy’s green investments while it lobbies against private rooftop solar installations by their customers.
MGM Resorts’s sustainability chief, Ortega, would not comment on her company’s wrangling with NV Energy and the PUC. But she did endorse the broad push toward sustainability as a way to combat notions that Sin City lacks a conscience. “The more we can dispel the myths around Las Vegas the better destination it is,” Ortega said.
“We have the ability to educate a wide variety of stakeholders on how we can exponentially reduce environmental impacts,” she added. “Las Vegas is the perfect place to do that because we have 40 million people come here every single year, and so what better place to start telling that story.”
Or math has been bad.... It's 54¢/WH not KWH... $54 per KWH is the goal.
It's old lead acid tech, but Solar one batteries are near $26 per KWH... $25K for a 95KWH (usable) battery.... They have extra thick plates so they are designed for extra abuse....
http://www.hupsolar.com/buy-HUP-batteries-prices-pricing
While we are talking green. Here is a GREAT 1.5GPM low flow showerhead!
http://www.conservationmart.com/p-2138-sava-spa-15-gpm-chrome-showerhead-n2515ch.aspx?gclid=CjwKEAiApOq2BRDoo8SVjZHV7TkSJABLe2iDagwGRo1Tb3ccGnHTq4SKDTSA3F-k-RjDp2Er76lQnhoCG2Lw_wcB
If the batteries get down to 54¢/KWH batteries will become so huge that utilities will not be needed.. Eventually I see 100KWH to 1 MWH systems... Bigger batteries for those with EVs. In WI we will need bigger batteries too because or our dark Dec/Jan...
The battery market will be so huge that there will be room for MANY players...
I'll say it a gain.
The SUNW solar panel, and the BSRC battery would be an unbelievable combination...
We could rival Exxon!
Now it's Utah's turn to screw solar....
Utah Senate approves bill critics say is a gift to Rocky Mountain Power, hurts solar
http://www.sltrib.com/news/3618367-155/utah-senate-approves-bill-critics-say
Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Brandy Smith, communications coordinator for Utah Clean Energy is joined by opponents of SB115, the sustainable transportation and energy plan act, which passed in the Senate and now goes to the House for a vote. Opponents cite the bill for raising raising rates and favoring Rocky Mountain Power at the expense of customers along with the potential to kill hundreds of solar jobs in the state.
The Utah Senate approved legislation Friday, that would make significant changes to the way electricity rates are calculated — a move that opponents contend would devastate Utah's rooftop solar industry and mean major increases in electricity bills.
Senate Majority Whip Stuart Adams, R-Layton, said his intent was to have the Legislature set policy that would benefit Utahns and use money more effectively to clean up the air.
"We need to be able to move to solutions that are environmentally friendly," Adams said. "If we're going to spend those monies, we ought to be doing it to protect the air quality we need."
But opponents argue the effect is that the bill could raise rates for consumers, decrease what solar users can recoup from commercial and residential solar panels, and let Rocky Mountain Power avoid having to go to the Public Service Commission to increase rates.
Adams' SB115, third substitute, would do the following:
• Would allow Rocky Mountain Power to use $10 million from customers for the utility's "Sustainable Transportation and Energy Plan," to fund charging stations for electric cars, research on clean-coal technology and alternative energy programs
• Would eliminate a solar-power incentive program for residential and large-scale solar users
• Would allow the utility to recoup 100 percent of the cost of buying power, as opposed to the current 70 percent level
Sen. Jim Dabakis, D-Salt Lake City, called SB115 an attempt to "judge shop," because Rocky Mountain Power recognizes it can't get the rate increases it wants through the normal path of the Public Service Commission.
"This is a powerful utility saying, 'You know what, we don't think we're going to like what's coming down the track [with the PSC] … we want to short-circuit it because we want a different result,'?" Dabakis said.
Adams said he thinks the bill would actually keep energy prices down because Rocky Mountain Power wouldn't have to pay retail rates to buy solar power produced by rooftop arrays and can instead buy cheaper watts from other sources, and the money saved can go to other clean energy.
"We're stopping that so rates should actually go down, and we're redirecting that money … into clean fuel vehicles, at least part of it," Adams said.
Sen. David Hinkins, R-Orangeville, said there is a disparity now where most of the subsidies go toward renewable energy that provides minimal benefit, while the coal industry — a major business in his central Utah district — struggles.
"Think about the jobs that [have] been lost in the coal business as well," Hinkins said. "The poor people, the ones who can afford it, don't need tax credits — they have no benefits. … The only ones that can afford [solar] are the businesses and rich people."
South Jordan resident Michael Acton invested $22,000 to put solar panels on his roof, in part because the ability to sell electricity back to Rocky Mountain Power allowed him to recoup part of the cost on his utility bills. Acton fears the bill would change how much he and others would be credited for any excess power they produce, leaving it up to the utility to decide how much they'll be paid.
"It made financial sense to me. The other reason is I wanted to be more self-sufficient," he said. "It's going to affect my investment. It's going to affect all these solar companies out there. There are going to be hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs lost."
Tom Mills, who works for Alpenglow Solar, a Utah solar company, said a similar bill in Nevada has been devastating for the solar industry, and he fears Rocky Mountain Power will hike fees so high that "it won't be cost effective and basically nobody can put in solar" until battery technology evolves.
"You'll see the solar industry dry up here just like it did in Nevada," said Mills. "Overall, what they're doing is they're circumventing the Utah Public Service Commission. Every item that is in that bill would normally be brought to the Public Service Commission for review," Mills said.
$54/KWH is WONDERFUL...
Now DELIVER!
It didn't collapse.
With good numbers coming out in a week...
I was out all day. Nice work guys!
SLTD now SUNW paid off nicely for me......