Bill Opalka | Sep 07, 2010

Original source: http://www.renewablesbiz.com/article/10/09/san-diego-goes-solar

Solar projects of different sizes in the San Diego area got a boost from state regulators recently.

The California Public Utilities Commission approved a San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) solar power initiative that provides for 100 megawatts of photovoltaic (PV) solar energy.

Under the initiative, 26 megawatts of utility-owned generation would be slated for construction on existing SDG&E property, with the remaining 74 megawatts to be purchased from independent power producers.

SDG&E now has about 80 megawatts of solar power generated in its service territory and this part of its initiative would more than double its portfolio.

The program calls for SDG&E to install and procure renewable solar power using projects primarily in the 1- to 2-megawatt range and also provides for PV solar installations ranging from less than a megawatt up to 5 megawatts. In addition to developing its own local solar projects, SDG&E will solicit power purchase agreements for solar power at other sites in the region.

SDG&E’s local solar initiative is designed to complement the 1 MW or less solar projects currently developed under the direction of the California Solar Initiative.

According to the decision, the preferred location of these new solar arrays will help meet anticipated high power demand and/or assist in minimizing congestion on SDG&E’s power grid.

“(The) decision reflects the ongoing need for a flexible portfolio of solar resources and options that will help SDG&E derive one-third of its energy from renewable sources by 2020,” said James P. Avery, senior vice president, power supply. “This program is beneficial because it further expands our solar power footprint within our service territory and brings that clean, renewable power closer to the areas of greatest demand.”

The decision SDG&E got approved is part of its overall strategy to increase its solar energy footprint to serve San Diego and southern Orange County in California. It has a Solar Energy Project aimed at increasing adoption of solar power among San Diego-area commercial customers, municipalities and institutions.

That project, under review with the CPUC, seeks to invest up to $125 million over the next five years in utility-owned solar photovoltaic generation and power purchase agreements for projects that may be constructed at governments, entertainment venues and large retail/shopping complexes.

The initiative will focus on facilities that generate more than 1 megawatt of electricity tied to SDG&E’s distribution system.

The new solar generation projects would deliver 20 megawatts to 35 megawatts to help meet peak customer demand, and would include land-based solar tracking systems and potentially photovoltaic arrays that double as parking shade structures.

About two-thirds of the solar generating facilities will be utility-owned; the other third are likely to be customer- or third party-owned.

The editorial staff at RenewablesBiz.com is passionate about exchanging ideas and dedicated to promoting ongoing conversation about renewables and sustainable energy issues. We invite you to join and contribute to our online community. If you have an idea for an article or editorial contribution, please contact me via email, bopalka@energycentral.com, or phone, 860.633.0090.

By Onell R. Soto, UNION-TRIBUNE  Saturday, September 4, 2010 at noon

Original source: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/sep/04/q-what-guy-who-opposes-sdge-thinks/

Howard Lipin

Bill Powers, an electrical engineer, with a backdrop of power lines on Harjoan Avenue and Murray Ridge Road in Serra Mesa. He says the SDG&E’s plans for our local electrical grid are too expensive and shortsighted.

When it comes to thinking about what the region’s power infrastructure should look like in the future, an alternative to San Diego Gas & Electric’s vision comes from Bill Powers, an electrical engineer who has a very different view of what is needed to keep the lights on here.

Powers, often hired by community groups and governments and companies to provide expert testimony on power issues, says that SDG&E’s focus on new power lines is wrongheaded, and its strategy of getting solar and wind power from far away is destructive.

He opposed the $1.9 billion Sunrise Powerlink line as unneeded and too expensive, and calls the decision approving it “a period piece.”

Central to Powers’ vision is that San Diego can produce the renewable power it needs here, negating the need both for big transmission and big desert solar farms. It’s a concept called distributed generation.

SDG&E executives say it’s not an either-or question if it is to reach its stated goal of getting one-third of the power it delivers in 2020 from solar, wind and other renewable sources. It wants local generation, but says power must be imported.

Last week, utility got approval to build and buy 100 megawatts of solar in its territory over the next five years. But it’s going forward with plans to build Sunrise, and sign contracts for power from desert solar farms.

We sat down with Powers to discuss San Diego’s energy future.

Q: Describe distributed generation. Read more

Sep 4 – McClatchy-Tribune Regional News – J.M. Brown – Jbrown@santacruzentinel.Com Santa Cruz Sentinel, Calif.

Original source: http://www.energycentral.com/functional/news/news_detail.cfm?did=16865236

City leaders want to help 5,000 homes go solar, cut citywide water use 10 percent and reduce in-town vehicle trips 30 percent, all within a decade. Now, residents, business owners and city officials get to weigh in on how to realize those goals.

After nearly three years of study and planning, the city’s climate change action coordinator, Ross Clark, will present findings Tuesday that tally the city’s greenhouse gas emissions and provide a road map for how to cut the community’s emissions 30 percent from levels seen in the mid-1990s. The report was published Thursday on the city’s website.

By 2020, the city wants to reduce annual emissions by about 69,000 metric tons. A metric ton of greenhouse gas emissions equals about 3,100 kilowatt hours, which is how much electricity is used to power a medium- to large-sized home every month.

While the report lays out ways energy can be saved through innovations in transportation, land use, construction design, water conservation and solar installations, Clark also spells out everyday steps consumers can take to reduce emissions, such as shopping at local stores and farmers markets and taking kids to school by bicycle or by walking. The report calls for the creation of more local, high-paying jobs and higher-density housing growth designed to support public transportation and reduce over-the-hill commuting. Read more

By ANTOINETTE MARTIN  September 3, 2010

Original source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/realestate/05zone.html?_r=1&ref=energy-environment

HERE’S an idea: Buy a house, and make money off the investment. Guaranteed. So long as the sun keeps coming up.

That is the pitch being made at River Pointe, an age-restricted community in Manchester where PulteGroup Inc. is installing, as a standard feature in each house, solar technology that earns energy credits.

PulteGroup, a company based in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., is not the only builder offering solar-equipped homes in New Jersey. But it is among the first to start offering solar units as a standard feature in every house in a development, and to tot up the ways that buyers can earn as much as $30,000 over 15 years.

Those earnings will come in four ways, according to Paul Schneier, the president of the company’s metropolitan New York and New Jersey division: savings of more than half on electricity bills, a onetime federal tax rebate of at least $6,000, an annual break on property taxes, and income from the sale of the credits back to utility companies. Read more

Sep 6 – McClatchy-Tribune Regional News – Abbe Smith New Haven Register, Conn.

Original source: http://www.energycentral.com/functional/news/news_detail.cfm?did=16874983

Three lucky locations in the city are slated to receive energy-saving solar panel systems in the near future.

“Since there is no cost to the city … this is really a win,” said city Director of Sustainability Christine Eppstein Tang.

The panels are being provided to the city by the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund as part of the Connecticut Clean Energy Options program, which the city participates in. Tang said New Haven has the highest number of people signed up for the program — a total of 1,300 residents.

The Clean Energy Options program allows residents and businesses to sign up for clean electricity through their local utility.

Last week, the aldermanic City Services and Environmental Policy approved accepting the gift, and the matter now goes before the full Board of Aldermen for final action.

The three sites in line for solar panels are the Fair Haven Library, the caretaker’s cottage at Lighthouse Point Park and Long Wharf pier building.

The three solar panel systems are worth a total of $140,000 and could save the city an estimated $5,000 to $6,000 a year in energy costs. Read more

Sep 3 – McClatchy-Tribune Regional News – Kim Leonard The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Original source: http://www.energycentral.com/functional/news/news_detail.cfm?did=16852012

Robert Bennett’s company plans to make solar building materials, and he figures a new manufacturing plant in McKeesport could be an ideal place to show them off.

United States Green Energy Corp. hopes to locate in a former rail roundhouse, said Bennett, one of five partners in the company based in Fredericksburg, Va. He envisions using the company’s solar energy-collecting roof product that resembles slate if it restores the old U.S. Steel mill site.

The former Westinghouse engineer’s project is part of a recent wave of solar industry activity in Western Pennsylvania. Other equipment manufacturers, plus installers and related businesses, are expanding with more workers and new offices and plants, citing better and lower-priced solar technology and government incentives for purchases as reasons to expect business growth.

McKeesport became the chosen city for the building products plant in part because potential suppliers such as Solar Power Industries Inc. in Rostraver are nearby, Bennett said, and because local workers have manufacturing experience.

The plant could start making solar roof shingles in the next year with about 50 employees, then expand to as many as 250. Facade materials that look like brick or stone could follow. Three sites are in the running, but Bennett said he prefers the roundhouse because the company’s slate-like roof product made in Virginia would suit its historic character.

“We intend to power our own building with our own product,” Bennett said. Read more

Sep 5 – McClatchy-Tribune Regional News – Steve Patterson The Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville

Original source: http://www.energycentral.com/functional/news/news_detail.cfm?did=16870290

Outfitting a house with solar power panels might cost you $40,000.

But it won’t raise your tax bill a dime, Property Appraiser Jim Overton is telling Duval County homeowners.

The appraiser’s office boiled that assurance down to a form letter last month as solar power owners wrote in, worried they faced hundreds of dollars in extra property taxes for going green.

Relax, Overton is telling them.

“It’s like it’s not there, for tax purposes,” he said. Despite the cost of many power systems, Overton said he has no evidence solar panels raise a home’s resale value.

“Until we get some direction from the Legislature, we’re just not going to do anything,” he said.  Read more

Sep 3 – McClatchy-Tribune Regional News – Matt Krupnick Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, Calif.

Original source: http://www.energycentral.com/functional/news/news_detail.cfm?did=16856913

Chevron Energy Solutions, which spent a year and a half wooing Mt. Diablo Unified School District leaders, did not bid for the district’s massive solar project before Thursday’s noon deadline.

The company, a San Francisco-based subsidiary of the San Ramon oil giant, was not among the four bidders revealed by district Superintendent Steven Lawrence. Submitting bids were SolarCity, based in Foster City; Roebbelen Contracting, of El Dorado Hills; San Jose-based SunPower, and a group led by Vanir Energy.

The North Carolina-based Vanir donated $5,000 to the campaign for the district’s Measure C bond, which will provide funding for the solar project. Chevron donated $10,000 to the campaign, while Solar World, which often builds solar panels for Chevron projects, donated $5,000.

District leaders said they were trying to find ways to compare and contrast the proposals, which used different models and financial assumptions, but that the bids generally ranged from a little more than $50 million to around $65 million.

Chevron had worked closely with Lawrence and other Mt. Diablo leaders in the hopes of securing a no-bid contract for the project, which the company had estimated would cost taxpayers $68 million. The district in July abruptly backed away from those plans amid the Bay Area News Group’s scrutiny of its relationship with the company.

Chevron rarely bids for such projects, choosing instead to focus its efforts on gaining no-bid

contracts.

Since Lawrence arrived at the Concord-based district in February, Chevron officials have bought him drinks at Oliveto, a high-end Oakland restaurant, provided golf discounts for his friends and huddled with Mt. Diablo administrators in his Walnut Creek home. Lawrence has said he did nothing wrong by accepting the gifts.

A Chevron spokeswoman, Juliet Don, said in a written statement that the company had decided “to focus on other energy-efficiency projects.” She declined to answer questions.

“We want to move on,” Don said in a telephone interview.

A state law dating to 1983 allows public agencies to sign no-bid energy contracts. The Oakland-based Peralta Community College District last year approved a deal with Chevron, despite the possibility taxpayers could have saved up to $1.5 million by asking for bids.

Staff writer Theresa Harrington contributed to this story.

CPV going to where the sun is rather than where the subsidies are?

Eric Wesoff: September 2, 2010

The concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) market has been long on promise and short on results.  But there have been a few hopeful signs of late.

Kleiner Perkins saw fit to invest $130 million into CPV systems vendor Amonix.  And shortly after that fund raise, Cogentrix announced a 30-megawatt project with Amonix.  That’s easily the largest CPV project in the history of CPV.

SolFocus recently said that it would have 10 megawatts in the ground by the end of the year.

Concentrix Solar, German-based CPV vendor, funded by Good Energies and recently purchased by Soitec, just announced the opening of a U.S. office and a CEC listing.

And today we saw JDSU, the optical networking, laser and coatings expert, announce that they were entering the CPV market as a chip supplier.  The firm has a market capitalization of $2.1 billion.

To read the entire article go to: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/jdsu-an-optical-giant-enters-the-cpv-market/

Sep 2 – McClatchy-Tribune Regional News – Nina Culver The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wash.

Original source: http://www.energycentral.com/functional/news/news_detail.cfm?did=16840486

If Liberty Lake loses power in the next ice storm, Liberty Lake police will still be able to function thanks to the recent installation of solar panels on the roof of the police station.

The panels furnish power to the station and keep a large bank of batteries fully charged as an emergency power source.

The department, which previously didn’t have a backup power source, will now be able to run its computer servers and recharge cell phones, portable radios, laptops and flashlight batteries for at least 72 hours. All those things are vital for officers to function, said police Chief Brian Asmus. “If we lose our computers, we don’t have access to records management or criminal histories,” he said. “The batteries aren’t doing anything but being charged when we have power.”

The panels and batteries were paid for with a $135,000 grant from the Department of Energy and the Washington State Department of Commerce. The city of Liberty Lake provided matching funds of nearly $22,000.

The 60 solar panels span 162 feet. The panels will generate an estimated 17,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year. The average home uses about 12,000 kilowatt hours a year, Asmus said. During peak times, if the system produces more energy than the station uses, it will be sold back to Avista at 18?cents per kilowatt hour.  Read more

Sep 2 – McClatchy-Tribune Regional News – Jenna Mink Daily News, Bowling Green, Ky.

Original source: http://www.energycentral.com/functional/news/news_detail.cfm?did=16847176

It’s created a buzz throughout the country, and now a local elementary school is one step closer to becoming the first net-zero school in the nation.

Workers began installing solar panels Wednesday on the roof of the new Richardsville Elementary School. The 77,000-square-foot, $12.6 million building will produce more energy than it consumes.

It will use geothermal piping to eliminate the need for furnaces and boilers. The walls are heavily insulated with concrete that gives the school triple the insulation of other buildings.

Even the floors are stained and polished — which reduces the effort required to buff and clean the surfaces — and energy-efficient bamboo was used to create the gym flooring.

But one of the biggest boons to the school’s net-zero status is the solar panels. Solar panels use sunlight to generate power, keeping the building running with natural energy.  Read more

Sep 2 – McClatchy-Tribune Regional News – Amiram Barkat Globes, Tel Aviv, Israel

Original source: http://www.energycentral.com/functional/news/news_detail.cfm?did=16848208

Electricity subsidies for solar energy producers in Israel do not differ from the global norm, claims the government in its statement of response to a request to recognize a class action lawsuit against the government over the so-called green electricity subsidies. “Globes” obtained a copy of the statement of response.

The government rejects the claim that electricity rates must reflect only the cost of production. The government says that it has the right, when setting electricity rates, to include the interest of encouraging electricity production from clean energy sources, which is accepted practice in other countries. Read more