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It looks like Utah cam up with a compromise.
Utah industry reaches solar tax-credit compromise
With lawmakers claiming the solar income-tax credit was costing the state $60 million per year, the solar industry agreed to a phase out of the credits by 2021 in lieu of severe caps that would have limited the number of Utahns able to take advantage of it.
February 6, 2017 Frank Andorka
Californians are paying billions for power they don't need
We're using less electricity. Some power plants have even shut down. So why do state officials keep approving new ones?
By Ivan Penn and Ryan Menezes | Reporting from Yuba City, Calif.
Feb. 5, 2017
The bucolic orchards of Sutter County north of Sacramento had never seen anything like it: a visiting governor and a media swarm — all to christen the first major natural gas power plant in California in more than a decade.
At its 2001 launch, the Sutter Energy Center was hailed as the nation’s cleanest power plant. It generated electricity while using less water and natural gas than older designs.
A year ago, however, the $300-million plant closed indefinitely, just 15 years into an expected 30- to 40-year lifespan. The power it produces is no longer needed — in large part because state regulators approved the construction of a plant just 40 miles away in Colusa that opened in 2010.
Two other large and efficient power plants in California also are facing closure decades ahead of schedule. Like Sutter, there is little need for their electricity.
California has a big — and growing — glut of power, an investigation by the Los Angeles Times has found. The state’s power plants are on track to be able to produce at least 21% more electricity than it needs by 2020, based on official estimates. And that doesn’t even count the soaring production of electricity by rooftop solar panels that has added to the surplus.
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To cover the expense of new plants whose power isn’t needed — Colusa, for example, has operated far below capacity since opening — Californians are paying a higher premium to switch on lights or turn on electric stoves. In recent years, the gap between what Californians pay versus the rest of the country has nearly doubled to about 50%.
This translates into a staggering bill. Although California uses 2.6% less electricity annually from the power grid now than in 2008, residential and business customers together pay $6.8 billion more for power than they did then. The added cost to customers will total many billions of dollars over the next two decades, because regulators have approved higher rates for years to come so utilities can recoup the expense of building and maintaining the new plants, transmission lines and related equipment, even if their power isn’t needed.
How this came about is a tale of what critics call misguided and inept decision-making by state utility regulators, who have ignored repeated warnings going back a decade about a looming power glut.
“In California, we’re blinding ourselves to the facts,” said Loretta Lynch, a former president of the California Public Utilities Commission, who along with consumer advocacy groups has fought to stop building plants. “We’re awash in power at a premium price.”
California regulators have for years allowed power companies to go on a building spree, vastly expanding the potential electricity supply in the state. Indeed, even as electricity demand has fallen since 2008, California’s new plants have boosted its capacity enough to power all of the homes in a city the size of Los Angeles — six times over. Additional plants approved by regulators will begin producing more electricity in the next few years.
The missteps of regulators have been compounded by the self-interest of California utilities, Lynch and other critics contend. Utilities are typically guaranteed a rate of return of about 10.5% for the cost of each new plant regardless of need. This creates a major incentive to keep construction going: Utilities can make more money building new plants than by buying and reselling readily available electricity from existing plants run by competitors.
Regulators acknowledge the state has too much power but say they are being prudent. The investment, they maintain, is needed in case of an emergency — like a power plant going down unexpectedly, a heat wave blanketing the region or a wildfire taking down part of the transmission network.
“We overbuilt the system because that was the way we provided that degree of reliability,” explained Michael Picker, president of the California Public Utilities Commission. “Redundancy is important to reliability.”
Some of the excess capacity, he noted, is in preparation for the retirement of older, inefficient power plants over the next several years. The state is building many new plants to try to meet California environmental standards requiring 50% clean energy by 2030, he said.
In addition, he said, some municipalities — such as the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power — want to maintain their own separate systems, which leads to inefficiencies and redundancies. “These are all issues that people are willing to pay for,” Picker said.
Critics agree that some excess capacity is needed. And, in fact, state regulations require a 15% cushion. California surpasses that mark and is on pace to exceed it by 6 percentage points in the next three years, according to the Western Electricity Coordinating Council, which tracks capacity and reliability. In the past, the group has estimated the surplus would be even higher.
Even the 15% goal is “pretty rich,” said Robert McCullough of Oregon-based McCullough Research, who has studied California’s excess electric capacity for both utilities and regulators. “Traditionally, 10% is just fine. Below 7% is white knuckle. We are a long way from white-knuckle time” in California.
Contrary to Picker’s assertion, critics say, customers aren’t aware that too much capacity means higher rates. “The winners are the energy companies,” Lynch said. “The losers are businesses and families.”
The over-abundance of electricity can be traced to poorly designed deregulation of the industry, which set the stage for blackouts during the energy crisis of 2000-2001.
Lawmakers opened the state’s power business to competition in 1998, so individual utilities would no longer enjoy a monopoly on producing and selling electricity. The goal was to keep prices lower while ensuring adequate supply. Utilities and their customers were allowed to buy electricity from new, unregulated operators called independent power producers.
The law created a new exchange where electricity could be bought and sold, like other commodities such as oil or wheat.
Everyone would benefit. Or so the thinking went.
In reality, instead of lowering electricity costs and spurring innovation, market manipulation by Enron Corp. and other energy traders helped send electricity prices soaring.
That put utilities in a bind, because they had sold virtually all their natural gas plants. No longer able to produce as much of their own electricity, they ran up huge debts buying power that customers needed. Blackouts spread across the state.
State leaders, regulators and the utilities vowed never to be in that position again, prompting an all-out push to build more plants, both utility-owned and independent.
“They were not going to allow another energy crisis due to a lack of generation,” said Alex Makler, a senior vice president of Calpine, the independent power producer that owns the Sutter Energy plant not far from Sacramento.
But the landscape was starting to change. By the time new plants began generating electricity, usage had begun a decline, in part because of the economic slowdown caused by the recession but also because of greater energy efficiency.
The state went from having too little to having way too much power.
“California has this tradition of astonishingly bad decisions,” said McCullough, the energy consultant. “They build and charge the ratepayers. There’s nothing dishonest about it. There’s nothing complicated. It’s just bad planning.”
The saga of two plants — Sutter Energy and Colusa — helps explain in a microcosm how California came to have too much energy, and is paying a high price for it.
Sutter was built in 2001 by Houston-based Calpine, which owns 81 power plants in 18 states.
Independents like Calpine don’t have a captive audience of residential customers like regulated utilities do. Instead, they sell their electricity under contract or into the electricity market, and make money only if they can find customers for their power.
Sutter had the capacity to produce enough electricity to power roughly 400,000 homes. Calpine operated Sutter at an average of 50% of capacity in its early years — enough to make a profit.
But then Pacific Gas & Electric Co., a regulated, investor-owned utility, came along with a proposal to build Colusa.
It was not long after a statewide heat wave, and PG&E argued in its 2007 request seeking PUC approval that it needed the ability to generate more power. Colusa — a plant almost identical in size and technology to Sutter — was the only large-scale project that could be finished quickly, PG&E said.
More than a half-dozen opponents, including representatives of independent power plants, a municipal utilities group and consumer advocates filed objections questioning the utility company. Wasn’t there a more economical alternative? Did California need the plant at all?
They expressed concern that Colusa could be very expensive long-term for customers if it turned out that its power wasn’t needed.
That’s because public utilities such as PG&E operate on a different model.
If electricity sales don’t cover the operating and construction costs of an independent power plant, it can’t continue to run for long. And if the independent plant closes, the owner — and not ratepayers — bears the burden of the cost.
In contrast, publicly regulated utilities such as PG&E operate under more accommodating rules. Most of their revenue comes from electric rates approved by regulators that are set at a level to guarantee the utility recovers all costs for operating the electric system as well as the cost of building or buying a power plant — plus their guaranteed profit.
Protesters argued Colusa was unnecessary. The state’s excess production capacity by 2010, the year Colusa was slated to come online, was projected to be almost 25% — 10 percentage points higher than state regulatory requirements.
The looming oversupply, they asserted, meant that consumers would get stuck with much of the bill for Colusa no matter how little customers needed its electricity.
And the bill would be steep. Colusa would cost PG&E $673 million to build. To be paid off, the plant will have to operate until 2040. Over its lifetime, regulators calculated that PG&E will be allowed to charge more than $700 million to its customers to cover not just the construction cost but its operating costs and its profit.
The urgent push by PG&E “seems unwarranted and inappropriate, and potentially costly to ratepayers,” wrote Daniel Douglass, a lawyer for industry groups that represent independent power producers.
The California Municipal Utilities Assn. — whose members buy power from public utilities and then distribute that power to their customers — also complained in a filing that PG&E’s application appeared to avoid the issue of how Colusa’s cost would be shared if it ultimately sat idle. PG&E’s “application is confusing and contradicting as to whether or not PG&E proposes to have the issue of stranded cost recovery addressed,” wrote Scott Blaising, a lawyer representing the association. (“Stranded cost” is industry jargon for investment in an unneeded plant.)
The arguments over Colusa echoed warnings that had been made for years by Lynch, the former PUC commissioner.
A pro-consumer lawyer appointed PUC president in 2000 by Gov. Gray Davis, Lynch consistently argued as early as 2003 against building more power plants.
“I was like, ‘What the hell are we doing?’ ” recalled Lynch.
They are talking about reducing the tax credit in 2018. And Phase out inn 2021. By that time Solar costs will be so low, tax credits will be not needed.
THEN you can make the argument that since solar is providing so much power without subsidies, just why are they subsidizing coal? Hey you can save money in the budget. LOL!
You just need people to make the right sales pitch. MAKE NOISE!
Heck, they are SO MUCH BETTER than Wisconsin...
After years of almost nothing, we are getting a 100MW solar plant....
Well. We know of a Republican Mormon to talk some sense into UTAH....
Get to work Jim-Bob!
Very informative new video on Search For the Super Battery. Which is what we will need in the future.
53 minutes
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/super-battery.html
Sniper!:
I thought that Utah didn't like Solar?
Where is Jimbo?
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865672424/Utah-Clean-Energy-SLC-unveil-10-year-solar-deployment-plan-for-Utah.html
Utah Clean Energy, Salt Lake City unveil 10-year solar deployment plan
By Amy Joi O'Donoghue@amyjoi16
Published: Feb. 2, 2017 12:20 p.m.
Updated: 1 hour ago
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah's breakneck pace of solar energy adoption over the past decade needs to continue on an accelerated course, advocates say, unveiling a plan Thursday that recommends the removal of existing roadblocks.
The Wasatch Solar Team, led by the advocacy organization Utah Clean Energy and Salt Lake City, developed "A Bright Future: A 10 Year Solar Deployment Plan for Utah," and introduced it at a media event at the state Capitol.
Advocates, industry and others collaborated to produce the plan, which outlines four key areas of continuing challenges and identifies ways to reduce their impact.
"This is the future we really want to provide to all Utahns," said Vicki Bennett, director of sustainability for Salt Lake City.
In 2006, there were only 76 rooftop solar installations in the state, according to the Wasatch Solar Team. By 2016, several thousand households were producing an estimated 140 megawatts of solar energy.
For that growth to continue, the plan recommends expanding access to solar energy by removing unnecessary restrictions on rooftop solar, reducing the shortage of available financing options, tackling the lack of suitable roof space and opening up avenues to people on fixed incomes.
The state would also be well-served if it implemented a mechanism to streamline the permitting process, with the report noting that depending on where one lives, "obtaining that permit can be a walk in the park or a tangle of red tape."
The existence of unpredictable and inconsistent rules often lead to added costs and prolonged wait time for customers, the report adds, pointing out that in some extreme cases, installers have been deterred from working in certain communities.
Salt Lake City and Utah Clean Energy teamed up to develop the Solar Permitting Toolbox more than three years ago to help local governments streamline the process.
Sarah Wright, executive director of Utah Clean Energy, said a no-nonsense approach that incorporates best practices can eliminate a significant hurdle to solar energy adoption.
Wright added that the state needs to work to reduce costs associated with the interconnection process, which was upgraded with new standards in 2010.
Since that time, national guidelines for the interconnection of rooftop solar have been modified to reflect the growing interest in renewable energy, the report notes.
One of the most complicated and likely the most controversial challenges the report outlines lies at the heart of a recommendation to overhaul the utility business model to align it with the 21st century embrace of renewable energy and energy efficiency.
While renewable energy and improved energy efficiency may save public utilities and customers the expense of costly capital investments — such as a new power plant — the power provider loses out of profits realized from new electricity sales.
Ben Hart, managing director of the Governor's Office of Energy Development, said tapping into Utah's energy resources and ensuring associated industries grow and thrive is a cornerstone of his office's focus.
With Utah's remarkable growth in solar, Hart said the state needs to do what it can to assure continued success.
In 2015, for example, Utah was fifth in the nation for new solar installations and was 11th for cumulative solar capacity per capita.
Each year, he added, Utah's solar market doubles.
Tesla Motors Inc. is making a huge bet that millions of small batteries can be strung together to help kick fossil fuels off the grid.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-30/tesla-s-battery-revolution-just-reached-critical-mass
Tesla’s Battery Revolution Just Reached Critical Mass
Three new plants in California show how lithium-ion storage is ready to power the grid.
by Tom Randall
January 30, 2017, 5:45 AM CST
Tesla Motors Inc. is making a huge bet that millions of small batteries can be strung together to help kick fossil fuels off the grid. The idea is a powerful one—one that’s been used to help justify the company’s $5 billion factory near Reno, Nev.—but batteries have so far only appeared in a handful of true, grid-scale pilot projects.
That changes this week.
Three massive battery storage plants—built by Tesla, AES Corp., and Altagas Ltd.—are all officially going live in southern California at about the same time. Any one of these projects would have been the largest battery storage facility ever built. Combined, they amount to 15 percent of the battery storage installed planet-wide last year.
Ribbons will be cut and executives will take their bows. But this is a revolution that’s just getting started, Tesla Chief Technology Officer J.B. Straubel said in an interview on Friday. “It’s sort of hard to comprehend sometimes the speed all this is going at,” he said. “Our storage is growing as fast as we can humanly scale it.”
A Fossil-Fuel Disaster
The new battery projects were commissioned in response to a fossil-fuel disaster—the natural gas leak at Aliso Canyon, near the Los Angeles neighborhood of Porter Ranch. It released thousands of tons of methane into the air before it was sealed last February.
In its wake, Southern California Edison (SCE) rushed to deploy energy storage deals to alleviate the risk of winter blackouts. There wasn’t any time to waste: All of the projects rolling out this week were completed within 6 months, an unprecedented feat. Tesla moved particularly nimbly, completing in just three months a project that in the past would have taken years.
“There were teams working out there 24 hours a day, living in construction trailers and doing the commissioning work at two in the morning,” Straubel said. “It feels like the kind of pace that we need to change the world.”
A Question of Price
The battery storage industry—a key part of the plan if wind and solar power are to ever dominate the grid—is less than a decade old and still relatively small. Until recently, batteries were many times more expensive than natural gas “peaker” plants that fire up to meet surging demand in the evening and morning hours.
But prices for lithium-ion batteries have fallen fast—by almost half just since 2014. Electric cars are largely responsible, increasing demand and requiring a new scale of manufacturing for the same battery cells used in grid storage. California is mandating that its utilities begin testing batteries by adding more than 1.32 gigawatts by 2020. For context, consider this: In 2016, the global market for storage was less than a gigawatt.
California’s goal is considerable, but it’s dwarfed by Tesla’s ambition to single-handedly deliver 15 gigawatt hours 1 of battery storage a year by the 2020s—enough to provide several nuclear power plants–worth of electricity to the grid during peak hours of demand. Not everyone, however, is that optimistic.
“I’m not convinced,” said Yayoi Sekine, a Bloomberg New Energy Finance analyst who covers battery technology. The market is “moving faster than ever, but it’s not on the gigawatt scale yet.”
Battery surveys include electric vehicles.
Source: Bloomberg New Energy Finance
Battery costs and profitability for utilities are difficult to evaluate. Companies are reluctant to give up their pricing data, and the expense is highly variable. Nevertheless, battery plants take up a much smaller footprint than gas-powered plants, they don’t pollute, and their instant response can provide valuable services better than any other technology. In a small but increasing number of scenarios, batteries are already the most economical option.
But for the most part, according to a BNEF analysis, the costs of new projects would need to drop by half in order to be profitable on a wider scale in California, and that’s not likely to happen for another decade. The total installed cost of a battery plant would need to fall to about $275 per kilowatt hour. While Tesla declined to provide its pricing data, the similarly sized Altagas project was expected to cost at least $40 million, or $500 per kilowatt hour. It's possible that with the remarkable scope of Tesla's Reno operations, the company will be able to establish new floors for pricing, forcing the industry to follow, BNEF's Sekine said.
During construction Tesla's Powerpack 2 modules were lowered into place.
Southern California Edison and Tesla grid storage project
Telsa and Southern California Edison Powerpack 2 power battery storage plant.
Photographer: Dana Hull
It’s still early days, even with this week’s announcements. It will probably be a few years before Tesla’s battery-storage sales are material enough to break out separately from automotive sales on quarterly filings, Straubel said.
The End of the Gas Peaker
But the battery’s day is coming, while those of natural gas peaker plants are numbered. That’s the prediction of John Zahurancik, AES’s president of battery storage. Zahurancik is one of the pioneers of energy storage, having cobbled together profitable edge-case storage projects since 2008, when battery prices were 10 times higher than they are today.
AES has completed installation and is doing final testing of a 30 megawatt/120 megawatt hour plant that’s even bigger than Tesla’s 20 MW/80 MWh. AES is also working on a longer-term project that will be five times the size of Tesla’s project when complete by 2021. 2 That’s a scale that would have been unimaginable a decade ago.
“This is my fifth time doing the largest project in the world for energy storage, and each time people tell me, ‘well this is the test, this is really the test’” Zahurancik said in an interview Friday. “The next big test is how do we scale this up broadly.”
The biggest thing that sets Tesla and AES apart is that Tesla is building the components of its storage units itself at the company’s Gigafactory in Reno, including battery cells with partner Panasonic, modules, and inverters. Tesla says this vertical integration will help reduce costs and make a seamless system. AES says that dealing with a diverse supply chain allows it to seek the cheapest price and the best technology on the market. It's the same debate going on in the electric-car business, where Tesla is manufacturing an unprecedented percentage of its own parts in-house.
For now, gas peaker plants still win out on price for projects that aren’t constrained by space, emissions, or urgency, said Ron Nichols, President of SCE, the California utility responsible for most of the biggest battery storage contracts. 3 But that may change in the next five years, he said.
“Long term, will large amounts of batteries be able to take over?” Nichols asked. “We’ll need to get some hours under our belts to know for sure.”
—With assistance from Dana Hull.
Progress on batteries is slow. It took 20 years for Lion batteries to be used... And progress is still being worked on....
http://www.solarnovus.com/ecoark-holdings-partners-with-sunworks-for-retail-solar-installations_N10631.html
This partnership is significant for Ecoark, in that it currently works with the largest retailers in the world that are committed to sustainable business practices. With the addition of Sunworks’ solar technologies, Ecoark can offer a complete suite of turnkey, sustainable technology services to its clients, driving additional revenue to the Company.
EXCLUSIVE: Partnership could mean business with 'big box retailer' for Roseville's Sunworks
Jan 26, 2017, 2:49pm PST Updated Jan 26, 2017, 2:58pm PST
http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2017/01/26/exclusivepartnership-could-mean-business-with-big.html
A solar system installed by Sunworks at Raley Field in West Sacramento
Sacramento River Cats
?Solar company Sunworks entered an agreement that could mean expanded business for the Roseville company, installing rooftop solar panels for a “major big-box retailer,” the Business Journal has learned.
Stock Spotter: Review on Technical Levels for Sunworks Inc Com (SUNW)
http://sherwooddaily.com/stock-spotter-review-on-technical-levels-for-sunworks-inc-com-sunw/32466/
Near-Term, Can This Stock Move the Needle: Sunworks, Inc. (:SUNW)
http://prospectjournal.com/near-term-can-this-stock-move-the-needle-sunworks-inc-sunw/42246/
The Analysts Set $5.00 Price Target for Sunworks, Inc. (SUNW)
http://dailyquint.com/2017-01-25-analysts-set-5-00-price-target-for-sunworks-inc-sunw/
Market is tight now with falling prices. Commoditized market right now... Much harder to make a buck. With Amazon and Home Depot competing, it will be a wrestling match...
Amazon trying to compete....
https://www.amazon.com/ECO-WORTHY-1200W-Monocrystalline-Solar-Panel/dp/B011918YV0
ECO-WORTHY 1200W Grid Tie Monocrystalline Solar Panel Kit: 1200W MPPT Function Waterproof Grid-Tie Micro Power Inverter + 8pcs 160W Mono Solar Panels
Price: $1,950.00
Sale: $1,794.00 & FREE Shipping
You Save: $156.00 (8%)
Complete 1200 watts 24 volts mono PV grid-tied solar system solar panel kit for residential and commercial rooftop systems to decrease your electrical bill, or for large off-grid systems as well.
Ideal daily output: 6KWh (depending on the availability of sunlight). High-efficiency silicon solar cells ensure high performance of solar modules and create maximum power output. 25-year transferable power output warranty: 5-year/95% efficiency rate, 10-year/90% efficiency rate, 25-year/80% efficiency rate.
By-pass diodes are pre-installed in waterproof IP-65 rated juncton box to minimize power drop caused by shade and ensure excellent performance in low-light environments. Corrosion-resistant aluminum frame and anti-reflection coated glass withstand high winds (2400Pa) and snow loads (5400Pa).
Each solar panel comes with 1 pair of 35 inches cables with MC4 Male/Female connectors for quickly setting up.
Updated 1200W 24V-110V MPPT Function Waterproof Grid-Tie Micro Power Inverter protects the system from overload, low voltage, over voltage, over current, reverse polarity: pure sine wave output, use SPWM directly to make pure sine wave output, high-frequency high conversion rate.
That is what we are here for. Lowering power costs.
Still up 319% AFTER taking 300% profit...
Texas is open. WOW!
Solar Farm Developer dominating Texas utility market w/ over 50 massive projects
Monday, Jan 09, 2017
http://www.yourrenewablenews.com/solar+farm+developer+dominating+texas+utility+market+w++over+50+massive+projects_139298.html
Innovative Solar Systems, an Asheville, NC based Solar Farm Development company is once again dominating the solar energy market by having the largest pipeline of projects in development in the Texas market. ISS company representatives report that ISS has over 50 Utility Scale projects in development that range size from 35MW to over 200MW. The company's entire Texas pipeline totals several GW's and all of the projects will be ready for construction soon. Texas users of power are lining up for the ISS Standard PPA offering which is somewhere between avoided cost and retail power prices states ISS's CEO. Large buyers of Renewable Energy want these large blocks of power from Innovative Solar Systems for many reasons and power price is no longer many companies primary concern.
ISS is offering PPA contracts in Texas that range in contract length from 10 to 25 years. ISS has approximately 8Million MW/hours of power that the company is entering into long term contracts with Texas off Takers on at this time. Many of the Texas projects will be sold to third party entities after the projects come online due to the magnitude and size of these assets and their associated IRR's. Innovative Solar Systems is currently in negotiations on the Texas pipeline with several Oil and Gas companies, Family Offices as well as groups of Foreign Pension Funds and IPP's. Solar Farm assets have quickly become some of the most sought after investments in the market due to their large returns and lengths of those returns. Where else can an investor get over 10% yearly solid returns for forty (40) years? Solar Farms have become the new gold standard for investors willing to invest anywhere from $100MM to well over $10 Billion for safer, low risk, large and steady IRR's.
Even savvier investors are investing in the shorter term "Early Stage Solar Farm Development" of projects for 2X and 3X returns in shorter investment periods, typically 12-24 months.
For more information, please visit: http://innovativesolarsystemsllc.com
So what will be the revs for the year?
$108,000,000?
Record breaking solar investment, Australian businesses spend $33 million in a month
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-05/record-breaking-solar-investment,-$70-mill-spent-in-dec-2016/8161054
solar power than ever before.
According to new data from solar consultancy firm Sunwiz, December 2016 was a record investment month in the renewable technology by Australian businesses.
Managing Director of Sunwiz, Warwick Johnston said Australian businesses invested a total of $33 million in solar energy in December 2016.
"On a month-to-month basis, this is a record investment from Australian businesses in solar panels."
The household sector also saw growth with $70 million was invested in December — more than a 30 per cent rise over the last 12 months.
Mr Johnston said the growth was part of an overall trend.
"Over the course of this year, we've certainly seen an increase," he said.
"We've come down from the 'solarcoaster' when people flooded the market to take advantage of rebates.
"But over the space of this last year we've seen the solar industry rebuilding as more and more people come to purchase solar panels."
He put the growth down to rising electricity prices among changes to the Federal Government's renewable energy rebate.
"We did see a slight reduction in the Federal Government's rebate in January 2017 and that might have brought some people out of the woodwork "
Mr Johnston said Australian solar companies were getting better at marketing their products.
"Particularly toward businesses — there's been quite a focus in recent times on selling the benefits of solar power to Australian businesses," he said.
According to Mr Johnston, a ripple effect was also taking place in the marketplace, whereby companies were observing their contemporaries investing and thinking solar could be a good investment.
Wine industry seeing particular growth
Co-owner of the Solar Project, a renewable energy supplier based in South Australia, David Buetefuer said over the last 12 months his company had seen more wineries invest in solar.
"Nationally wineries have always been in the forefront of investing in solar, however it's really in the last five years that solar has been invested in significantly," he said.
"There was a hiatus in investment, but that's kicked on in the last 12 months."
Low Costs of Solar Power & Wind Power Crush Coal, Crush Nuclear, & Beat Natural Gas
December 25th, 2016 by Zachary Shahan
We already published a great article from Nexus Media regarding Lazard’s new report showing the extremely low (and falling) costs of solar power and wind power. However, I’ve been wanting to highlight these awesome new findings since Larmion shared the updated report with us earlier this month, and I want to break out the amazing news in 5 specific ways.
These are 5 messages that I think anyone wanting a better US economy (or a better economy in practically any country), anyone wanting national energy freedom (aka energy independence), anyone wanting to advance the most cost-effective choices for electricity generation, and anyone wanting to make logical energy decisions should know and share with others.
1. Wind & Solar Are Cheaper (Without Subsidies) Than Dirty Energy
The first point is the very basic fact that new wind power and/or solar power plants are typically cheaper than new coal, natural gas, or nuclear power plants — even without any governmental support for solar or wind.
Not only are they typically cheaper — they’re much cheaper in many cases.
For slightly easier viewing/comparison, here’s that chart again but with some orange lines added in on the low and high cost estimates for utility-scale solar:
Yes, these are levelized cost of energy (LCOE) estimates from Lazard based on various assumptions, and they are averages for the US as a whole rather than prices for specific locations within the US, but the lower estimated costs for these renewables are reflected in the real world as well, where solar & wind accounted for 69% of new capacity additions in 2015, 99% of new capacity additions in Q1 2016, a large portion of new capacity additions in Q2 2016, and probably ~? of new capacity additions for 2016 as a whole.
But these estimates in the charts above are actually unbalanced in favor of fossil fuels! Some of the assumptions are quite conservative, and some very real costs are left out.
2. Wind & Solar Are Actually Even Much Cheaper Than Dirty Energy (More So Than Lazard Shows)
The estimates above are supposedly “unsubsidized,” but if you include social externalities as societal subsidies (I do), the estimated costs of fossil fuels and nuclear energy are hugely subsidized in those charts.
A study led by the former head of the Harvard Medical School found that coal cost the US $500 billion per year in extra health and environmental costs — approximately 9¢/kWh ($90/MWh) to 27¢/kWh ($270/MWh) more than the price we pay directly. To fool yourself into thinking these are not real costs is to assume that cancer, heart disease, asthma, and early death are not real.
The air, water, and climate effects of natural gas are not pretty either. On the nuclear front, the decommissioning and insurance costs of nuclear power — unaccounted for above — would also put nuclear off the chart.
On the renewable front, costs to overcome intermittency of renewable energy sources (basically, presuming a very high penetration of renewables on the grid) are also not included. Once that is a significant issue (at which point solar and wind will be even cheaper), low-cost demand response solutions, greater grid integration, and storage will be key solutions to integrating these lower-cost renewable sources to a high degree.
Back to Lazard’s assumptions, note that the IGCC and coal cost estimates do not include the costs of transportation and storage.
Given these assumptions unrealistically favoring fossil fuels and nuclear energy, including subsidies for solar and wind is actually an even better way to look at costs of these electricity options. However, if you included historical subsidies as well — coal, natural gas, and nuclear have received a ton (well, many, many tons of subsidies) — dirty energy options would again look worse. In any case, here’s Lazard’s cost comparisons with current subsidies:
Now, looking at these comparisons, one might wonder how any dirty energy power plants get built today. I would say it comes down to the lack of logical behavior and foresight in the market, but that’s a topic for another day.
On a smaller level, though, as Nexus Media pointed out, part of it comes down to lack of grid integration across the United States and varying cost factors in different jurisdictions. More specifically, “a tool from the Energy Institute of the University of Texas shows the cheapest kind of new power plant by county, accounting for land available to deploy a particular technology.” Here’s the result without any extra social or environmental costs added in:
And here’s the result with modest environmental costs added in:
3. Solar & Wind Became Much Cheaper In The Past 7 Years (85% and 66%, Respectively)
No, wind and solar costs didn’t roll off a cliff because of Obama, but his staff did help to hasten the roll to some degree. Programs like SunShot have helped to bring down costs even faster than they were coming down anyway, as did greater deployment of renewables — with greater production and deployment, costs come down almost automatically.
A few years ago, I wrote that the cost of solar was probably “2–100 times cheaper than you think” — the point was that the cost of solar had come down very fast and if people had a cost of solar in their had from a few years before (or, let’s hope not, decades before), their cost assumption was wildly too high.
As the charts above show, the costs of utility-scale solar power and wind power fell 85% and 66%, respectively, in the past 7 years. If you are working on cost assumptions from before President Obama took office, your assumed cost of solar or wind is wildly too high.
If you talk to someone who thinks solar power and/or wind power is expensive, perhaps this is the simple problem — point them in the direction of this piece.
4. The Lowest Solar Costs Shown In The Lazard Report Are Considerably Higher Than Globally Recorded Low-Price Bids
I won’t go into much detail right now, but I will update this article as more record-low prices for solar power and wind power are reported. For now, though, note that we’ve seen solar project bids for under 3¢/kWh in the UAE and well under 4¢/kWh in Mexico — prices that are well below the Lazard’s low-end estimates for the US.
Note that several of the prices in the chart above were the record-low globally for the world (as far as publicly revealed prices go) when they were made — including the first few and the last two. In just a few years’ time, the low-price records have fallen at a dramatic clip.
5. People Can Get Lower Prices But More Jobs With Solar & Wind
Whether American, British, Canadian, Australian, Indian, German, Dutch, French, Spanish, or [fill in the blank], solar and wind power don’t just mean lower prices — they also typically mean more jobs. Much of the price of dirty energy power plants is in the fossil fuel — the physical resource. When we buy that fuel, much of the money goes to the billionaires and multimillionaires who “own” the fuel — the coal mines and the natural gas wells.
Sunshine and wind, of course, are free, but distributed solar and wind power plants have to get built and installed — those are things humans do. When we pay for solar and wind power plants, we pay for human labor, and often help create or support local jobs.
We don’t actually have to choose between low prices or jobs or protecting our air, water, and climate — we get all of those things with renewable energy options like solar and wind energy.
With all of that said, as Nexus Media pointed out, new clean energy power plants compete against existing dirty energy power plants, and we need strong policies in place in order to push the dirtiest power plants off the grid and then replace them (and create jobs) with new clean energy power plants.
In the US, the Clean Power Plan helps to do that. See our archives on the Clean Power Plan for more on that topic.
By the way, Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays!
SUNW going international......
When #calexit happens......
We will become a foreign company. Unless we get OR and NV to join!
https://twitter.com/hashtag/Orexit
http://www.yescalifornia.org/
Solar power is #1: Solar is 31% of new generation, 48% of new capacity for 2016 in the US
John Fitzgerald Weaver - 9 hours ago
@SolarInMASS
https://electrek.co/2016/12/20/solar-power-is-1-solar-is-31-of-new-generation-48-of-new-capacity-for-2016-in-the-us/
Solar power took the lead in new capacity additions for 2016 expected to be greater than 9.5GW of utility scale plus 4.5GW of distributed installations. The numbers could possibly be even higher with 2016 utility scale solar being so aggressive and 4th quarters being mecurial. When accounting for capacity factor (amount of time the hardware is actually pushing electrons onto the grid), solar power is 31% of new electricity, natural gas 41% and wind 20%. Solar almost doubled from 7.3GW in 2015, finishing third for overall US utility capacity additions.
The most powerful part of this report is that for at least the next 30 years that new solar volume will be producing clean electricity. No further labor–apart from very light maintenance–will be needed to keep the hardware running. The United States will have installed 39GW of total solar capacity, growing 19x since the 2GW total in 2010.
The top five states where utility scale solar capacity is being added are California (3.9 GW), North Carolina (1.1 GW), Nevada (0.9 GW), Texas (0.7 GW), and Georgia (0.7 GW). There will be around 400,000 individual residential installations across the country, with over 14 states contributing more than 15,000 installations each.
There are some market perturbations going on: currently in the residential solar market we are seeing a transition from solar leasing toward cash sales. This transition led to the 3rd quarter showing the first quarter over quarter slow down. The commercial-industrial market grew to a record size, with off site generation feeding their main structures via community solar. The 1-10MW marketplace continues to grow (smaller than utility scale and mostly used to feed corporations or groups of consumers).
In 2017 we should see solar power stay in first place, expanding the total amount of volume installed. Within three to four years we should see solar power take the lead in both new generation and new nameplate.
Considering residential solar? Understand Solar will connect you with one local contractors with you. Full disclosure: I get a commission. Tweet me for feedback on pricing.
Solar's biggest competition is tomorrow's solar.
Why buy today if it's going to be cheaper tomorrow? That is probably the logic...
These 3 maps show the absurd growth potential of rooftop solar in America
https://cleantechnica.com/2016/12/14/solarcity-shows-massive-rooftop-solar-growth-potential-america-three-maps/
Where is the money going to go?
Fossil Fuel Divestment Doubles in a Year
The year 2015 has been quite exciting for climate change. In the said year, a lot of people and hundreds of institutions with $2.6 trillion in assets reportedly pledged to remove investments from fossil fuel companies, which involve stocks, mutual funds, and bonds.
Now it seems the "astonishing" figure has gone to "extraordinary" as the number has apparently doubled since then.
According to DivestInvest, a philanthropy helping to lead the movement, more than 688 institutions and
in September 2015, 436 institutions and 2,040 people worth $2.6 trillion had divested.
Nice Read!
US Solar Market Experiences Record Quarter, Installing 2 Megawatts Per Hour!
December 13th, 2016 by Joshua S Hill
https://cleantechnica.com/2016/12/13/us-solar-market-experiences-record-quarter-installing-2-mw-per-hour/
The United States solar industry shattered all records this past quarter, installing a massive 4.1 gigawatts (GW) at an average of 2 megawatts (MW) of solar PV installed per hour through the quarter.
Even more impressive is the forecast that says the 4th quarter will be even higher.
Even more impressively, over the first 9 months of the year, solar accounted for 39% of all new electric generating capacity brought online in the US, second only to natural gas.
“Coming off our largest quarter ever and with an extremely impressive pipeline ahead, it’s safe to say the state of the solar industry here in America is strong,” said Tom Kimbis, SEIA’s interim president. “The solar market now enjoys an economically winning hand that pays off both financially and environmentally, and American taxpayers have noticed. With a 90% favourability rating and 209,000+ jobs, the US solar industry has proven that when you combine smart policies with smart 21st century technology, consumers and businesses both benefit.”
Oil countries cutting output to boost prices.
We will cut prices and boost output.
Solar Panels to Replace Oil Wells?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-03/electric-cars-could-take-an-opec-sized-bite-from-oil-demand
Electric Cars May Take an OPEC-Sized Bite From Oil Use says Bloomberg Markets
Posted on December 9, 2016 By greenlivingguy
Like we didn’t know what we were doing would work!
by Jessica Shankleman
December 3, 2016 — 1:00 AM EST
Consultant says EVs may curb demand by 2 million b/d in 2035
Global gasoline demand has all but peaked, says the IEA
A boom in electric vehicles made by the likes of Tesla Motors Inc. could erode as much as 10 percent of global gasoline demand by 2035, according to the oil industry consultant Wood Mackenzie Ltd.
While battery-powered cars and trucks today represent less than 1 percent of total vehicle sales, they are expected to take off after 2025 as governments move to tackle pollution and costs fall, the Houston-based analyst said. By 2035 so-called EVs may remove 1 million to 2 million barrels a day of oil demand from the market — in the range of the production cut OPEC and its allies agreed this week in order to end a three-year crude surplus.
“Anything that reduces the demand for transportation has an impact on the oil market,” Alan Gelder, vice president of refining, chemicals and oils markets at Wood Mackenzie, said in an interview in London. “The question is how big is it going to be and what’s the time frame.”
Wood Mackenzie’s view echoes the International Energy Agency, which last month forecast global gasoline demand has all but peaked because of more efficient cars and the spread of EVs. The agency expects total oil demand to keep growing for decades, driven by shipping, trucking, aviation and petrochemical industries.
That’s more conservative than Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s forecast for EVs to displace about 8 million barrels a day of demand by 2035. That will rise to 13 million barrels a day by 2040, which amounts of about 14 percent of estimated crude oil demand in 2016, the London-based researcher said. Electric cars are displacing about 50,000 barrels a day of demand now, Wood Mackenzie said.
On Friday Athens, Madrid, Mexico City and Paris pledged to phase out diesel vehicles by 2025 in a battle against pollution, a move that could further stimulate demand for EVs that have zero tailpipe emissions.
Regulation and government subsidies alone won’t be enough to spark a boom in EVs, Gelder said. “If there’s a technology revolution, so battery technology gets cheaper and EVs don’t need a subsidy, then it comes down to consumer preference. If the consumers like something, it’ll switch far faster.”
Tesla alone won’t be able to supply enough EVs if demand really takes off, Gelder said. Major automakers including Volkswagen AG and Ford Motor Co. will need to produce them on a larger scale. “At the moment they can’t, and changing manufacturing lines takes time.”
(Company corrects units on first Bloomberg chart.)
Only 18,000 volume so far.... Zzzzzzzz.......
No messages.
Whaaaaaaazup?
Plug in for Renewable Energy
Article ID: 665955
Released: 5-Dec-2016 4:05 PM EST
Source Newsroom: Michigan Technological University
Newswise — A new study shows a huge US market for plug and play solar energy, with billions of dollars in retail sales and energy savings. So what's holding up widespread use?
Support for solar energy is vast. According to a 2015 Gallup poll, 79 percent of Americans want the US to put more emphasis on developing solar power. Most of the same people, unfortunately, can’t afford to install solar energy systems in their homes. Even after federal tax credits, installing solar panels to cover all of a family's electricity needs can cost tens of thousands of dollars. For others, a home solar system isn’t a consideration because they rent, or move frequently.
But Michigan Technological University’s Joshua Pearce says he knows the solution: plug and play solar.
“Plug and play systems are affordable, easy to install, and portable,” says Pearce, an associate professor of materials science and engineering and of electrical and computer engineering. “The average American consumer can buy and install them with no training.”
In a study funded by the Conway Fellowship and published in Renewable Energy (DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2016.11.034), Pearce and researchers Aishwarya Mundada and Emily Prehoda estimate that plug and play solar could provide 57 gigawatts of renewable energy – enough to power the cities of New York and Detroit – with potentially $14.3 to $71.7 billion in sales for retailers and $13 billion a year in cost savings for energy users.
Sounds great, right? Well, there’s one problem: in many parts of the United States, electrical regulations don’t allow consumers to plug and play.
Small Investment, Big Return
Plug and play solar panels connect to an ordinary electrical outlet. You’re still on the grid, but you’ve become a “prosumer” — a consumer of energy who also produces it. The panels range in wattage and are relatively affordable, with some costing just a couple hundred dollars apiece. A prosumer can start small, with just one panel, and slowly build up over time to a system that produces 1 kilowatt of energy, the equivalent of powering 10 100-watt LED light bulbs.
The panels are also portable. So, for example, if a college student buys one 250-watt plug and play panel each year for four years, reaching 1 kilowatt of energy by senior year, that student can unplug the four panels when she graduates and take them to her next destination.
Pearce estimates that plug and play systems could generate more than four times the amount of electricity generated from all of US solar last year.
“The vast majority of this energy never leaves the home,” Pearce says. “It’s the equivalent of handling a hair dryer load. We’re talking about almost nothing on the electrical grid – but that nothing adds up. It’s an appliance with a high rate of return.”
In the United States, a patchwork of local jurisdictions and regulations make it difficult to figure out if and where plug and play panels are allowed.
“You can buy the panels,” Pearce says, “but you might not be able to plug them in, depending on your utility.”
In a paper published earlier this year in Solar Energy (DOI: 10.1016/j.solener.2016.06.002), Pearce, Mundada and researcher Yuenyong Nilsiam reviewed all regulations in the US that would apply to plug and play systems. They found no safety or technical issues with the equipment on the market.
“This is an area where less regulation could really help renewable energy,” Pearce says. “We know that the technology is safe, and the law should reflect that.”
The risk, according to Pearce, is putting too much current on one circuit, so he recommends that homeowners keep their plug and play systems to a kilowatt or less. Simple precautions make this easy — if a panel is plugged into an outdoor outlet, for example, safety plugs on all other outdoor outlets on that circuit can prevent overload.
While some jurisdictions have recognized that there are no major safety or technical issues with plug and play panels, paperwork holds up the process. Potential prosumers often have to fill out complicated forms to fulfill utility requirements, and the paperwork and associated fees vary by utility. To simplify the process, Pearce and colleagues automated it, by writing open-source computer code that fills out every possible technical requirement. Utilities can easily use the free code on their websites.
“Some utilities have embraced plug and play, and some have ignored it because they think it’s a pittance,” Pearce says. “But plug and play solar is something that can help most Americans.”
Michigan Technological University (www.mtu.edu) is a leading public research university developing new technologies and preparing students to create the future for a prosperous and sustainable world. Michigan Tech offers more than 120 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in engineering; forest resources; computing; technology; business; economics; natural, physical and environmental sciences; arts; humanities; and social sciences.