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Solar power getting brighter for U.S. grid

U.S. government approves first three solar projects under a plan for Western states that envisions enough power for 8 million households. UPI/Stephen Shaver WASHINGTON, June 2 (UPI) — The first solar energy projects were sanctioned under a fast-track program that envisions enough power for 8 million homes, the U.S. Interior Department said. U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced the first three solar energy projects were approved according to the terms of the so-called Western Solar Plan . Once built, the three projects on public lands in Nevada will generate as much as 440 megawatts of energy, enough to meet the annual demands of about 132,000 homes. "Through thoughtful planning and upfront public participation, these solar projects demonstrate we can reduce permitting times, create certainty for energy developers, and achieve better outcomes for communities and the environment," Jewell said in a statement. The plan, steered by the department’s Bureau of […]

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British secretary calls for ‘solar revolution’

Incoming British energy and climate secretary calls for more effort to build up behind solar power capacity. File Photo by UPI/Bill Greenblatt. LONDON, May 15 (UPI) — Incoming British Energy Secretary Amber Rudd told her local newspaper she aims to usher in a "solar revolution" through the new administration. British Prime Minister David Cameron tapped Rudd as the head of the Department of Energy and Climate Change, at which she’s served since last year. From 2010-12, she was a minister in the British Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee. Rudd laid out part of her strategy in an interview with her local newspaper , the Hastings and St. Leonards Observer. "I want to unleash a new solar revolution," she said in the interview. "We have a million people living under roofs with solar panels and that number needs to increase." DECC last year said the country was in […]

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How Sustainable is Stored Sunlight?

Whether or not to include storage is no longer just an academic question. Driven by better battery technology and the disincentivization of grid-connected solar panels, off-grid solar is about to make a comeback. How sustainable is a solar PV system if energy storage is taken into account? Picture: Tesla’s lithium-ion home storage system. In the  previous article , we have seen that many life cycle analyses (LCAs) of solar PV systems have a positive bias. Most LCAs base their studies on the manufacturing of solar cells in Europe or the USA. However, most panels are now produced in China, where the electric grid is about twice as carbon-intensive and about 50% less energy efficient. [ 1 ] Likewise, most LCAs investigate solar PV systems in regions with a solar insolation typical of the Mediterranean region, while the majority of solar panels have been installed in places with only half […]

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Tesla’s New Battery Doesn’t Work That Well With Solar

Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk  introduced a new family of batteries designed to stretch the solar-power revolution into its next phase. There’s just one problem: Tesla’s new battery doesn’t work well with rooftop solar—at least not yet. Even Solar City, the supplier led by Musk, isn’t ready to offer Tesla’s battery for daily use. The new Tesla Powerwall home batteries come in two sizes—seven and 10 kilowatt hours (kWh)—but the differences extend beyond capacity to the chemistry of the batteries. The 7kWh version is made for daily use, while its larger counterpart is only intended to be used as occasional backup when the electricity goes out. The bigger Tesla battery isn’t designed to go through more than about 50 charging cycles a year, according to SolarCity spokesman Jonathan Bass. Telsa CEO Elon Musk points at the sun. Here’s where things get interesting. SolarCity, with Musk as its chairman, has decided not to install the 7kWh Powerwall that’s optimized […]

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Musk’s Cousins Battle Utilities to Make Solar Rooftops Cheap

In September 2013, Hawaiian Electric Co. told thousands of customers they couldn’t connect their new solar panels to its distribution grid. In some neighborhoods, HECO said, its system couldn’t absorb any more unused energy from home solar arrays. The moratorium, which lasted 13 months, made Hawaii a central battleground in the effort by utilities to control the rapid growth of independent solar companies across the U.S. And it was a big deal to people such as Robert Gould, a retired Northwest Airlines pilot living near Honolulu. He’d just paid $53,000 to have solar panels installed. Gould and other customers protested loudly to state officials. They finally got help from Lyndon Rive, the CEO of SolarCity . The San Mateo, California, company is the biggest installer of rooftop solar panels in the U.S. and has 10,000 Hawaiian customers, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its May issue. Rive studied the situation […]

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Texas City Pulls Plug on Fossil Fuels With Shift to Solar

(Bloomberg) — A city in the heart of the oil state of Texas is set to become one of the first communities in the U.S. to wean its residents off fossil fuels. The municipal utility in Georgetown, with about 50,000 residents, will get all of its power from renewable resources when SunEdison Inc. completes 150 megawatts of solar farms in West Texas next year. The change was announced Wednesday. It will be the first city to completely embrace clean power in the state, which is the biggest U.S. producer and user of natural gas. More will follow as municipalities seek to insulate themselves from unpredictable prices for fossil fuels, said Paul Gaynor, SunEdison’s executive vice president of North America. Burlington, Vermont, made a similar move with its purchase of a hydroelectric plant last year. “This will be the first of many,” Gaynor said in a telephone interview. “The city […]

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California Just Had a Stunning Increase in Solar

California is now the first U.S. state to get 5 percent of its annual utility-scale electricity from the sun. But that’s really understating what just happened.  The chart above, released this week by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, shows that in just one year, big solar jumped from 1.9 percent to 5 percent of the state’s total power generation. California isn’t just producing the most utility-scale solar electricity of any state; it’s producing more than all the other states combined .  And that’s only what the major electricity producers are generating—it doesn’t include rooftop solar, in which California is also leading the nation. In small-scale solar, capacity for another 2.3 gigawatts has been installed, according to the California Public Utilities Commission.  Renewable energy, including hydro power and rooftop solar, now constitutes about a third of California’s electricity, a remarkable feat accomplished through renewable requirements for utilities and incentives for homeowners.  But even that understates California’s […]

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California first state to generate more than 5% of electricity from utility-scale solar

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Monthly Note: Data include generation from plants greater than 1 megawatt. California has become the first state with more than 5% of its annual utility-scale electricity generation from utility-scale solar power, according to EIA’s Electric Power Monthly . California’s utility-scale (1 megawatt (MW) or larger) solar plants generated a record 9.9 million megawatthours (MWh) of electricity in 2014, an increase of 6.1 million MWh from 2013. California’s utility-scale solar production in 2014 was more than three times the output of the next-highest state, Arizona, and more than all other states combined. Several large plants were phased into operation in California during 2014, including two 550 MW solar photovoltaic plants, Topaz and Desert Sunlight (Phases 1 and 2 ), as well as the 377 MW Ivanpah (Phases 1 , 2 , and 3 ) and the 250 MW Genesis solar thermal plants. In […]

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Eclipse Tests European Power Grid Flooded by Solar Farms

Eclipse watching tourists ride dog sleds outside of Longyearbyen, Svalbard, an archipeligo administered by Norway on March 19, 2015 ahead of the March 20 solar eclipse. Photographer: Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images (Bloomberg) — The first major eclipse of the solar age is placing unprecedented strain on Europe’s electricity grids this morning as power panels switch off and then on again. The moon will block about 80 percent of the sun’s light across Europe from about 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. London time. In Germany, the eclipse will briefly halt output from thousands of panels, which provide about 40 percent of the nation’s power on the most sunny days. Grid operators are working to switch to usually idle natural gas and coal plants to make up for the lost solar power. Success will inform nations from the U.S. to China about how to integrate the variable supplies from renewables generators into […]

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Green energy auction sets stage for cheaper solar and wind power

Close to 30 UK green energy schemes have been awarded a subsidy pot worth nearly £4bn in a government auction that has set the stage for a big fall in solar electricity prices and much cheaper wind power. Two small winning solar panel projects have said they can produce electricity for nearly 60 per cent less than the maximum price the government had agreed to pay for that type of electricity and almost the same as current wholesale power prices. More On this topic IN UK Politics & Policy Prices for two large offshore wind farms off the coast of East Anglia and the Scottish Borders have come in as much as 18 per cent cheaper, though each scheme is still likely to receive nearly double the prevailing wholesale price. The auction, which is likely to set new ground rules for the way renewable energy is funded across Europe, […]

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New dawn for U.S. solar power capacity

Analysis from Wood Mackenzie finds parallels between emerging solar power and the U.S. shale boom. UPI/Stephen Shaver HOUSTON, Feb. 3 (UPI) — Solar power progress in the United States is expected to advance to record levels as prices decline and technology improves, Wood Mackenzie finds. Energy consultant group Wood Mackenzie finds it’s getting cheaper to install solar power components. With this, new solar capacity has evolved from a niche renewable sector to something that’s pressuring conventional business models in the utility industry. "Just as shale extraction technologies reconfigured oil and gas markets, no other technology is closer to transforming power markets in a similar fashion than distributed and utility-scale solar," Prajit Ghosh, research director for American renewables research, said. The U.S. government is supporting solar development through its SunShot initiative, which aims to make the renewable technology competitive. The program aims to move solar power capacity from less than […]

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Wind and Solar Energy: Transforming the Grid with Clean Energy, Reliably, Every Day

Despite years of successful experience, dozens of studies, and increasing utility support for clean energy, urban myth holds that electricity from renewable energy is unreliable. Yet over 75,000 megawatts (MW) of wind and solar power have been integrated, reliably, into the nation’s electric grid to date. That’s enough electricity to supply 17.9 million homes. And, as a new NRDC fact sheet published today illustrates, the electric grid can handle much higher levels of zero-carbon wind and solar power, far more than what’s necessary to achieve the relatively modest carbon emission reductions in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to limit pollution from existing power plants. But first, a little background on how our nation’s electric system works. Grid basics The nation’s high-power transmission system is made up of three largely separate grids: one on either side of the Continental Divide (roughly) and the third in Texas. The two largest […]

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The Musk Family Plan for Transforming the World’s Energy

Elon Musk, left, and Lyndon Rive at launch of SolarCity’s initial public offering on the Nasdaq Stock Market in 2012. Associated Press Elon Musk and his cousin, Lyndon Rive, have always been close. Their mothers are twins, and Messrs. Musk and Rive grew up together. "We’ve known each other for as long as we’ve been conscious," said Mr. Musk, speaking at a panel this week at a private conference in New York. There is an obvious, almost brotherly affection between the two men. Mr. Musk says Mr. Rive "is an awesome guy and really hardworking and driven, and you can trust him with anything." And when Mr. Rive recounts the drive to Burning Man in 2004 when Mr. Musk told him his next venture should be in solar power, Mr. Rive says that when Mr. Musk tells you what area to get into next, you get into it. Their […]

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Spontaneous Solar Combustion

The sprawling Ivanpah solar power station in the Mojave Desert probably never would have been built without environmental activists and the subsidies and mandates they created, so there’s more than a little irony that BrightSource Energy, Google and another clean-tech utility are now getting an education in the green opposition that bedevils other American businesses. Lobbies like the Sierra Club and Audubon Society are turning on solar farms for avian mass murder. Ivahpah’s solar thermal technology uses 300,000 giant computer-controlled mirrors spread over 3,500 acres to follow the sun and concentrate energy on water towers, where boiler turbines generate electricity. The problem with this $2.2 billion feat of engineering is that birds that fly into the 800 degrees Fahrenheit rays sometimes singe or catch fire in midair. Plant workers call them "streamers" after the trail of smoke that follows the carcasses to the ground after they ignite, according to […]

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More solar power slated for Virginia grid

| License Photo New rooftop installations in northern Virginia are part of a program aimed at installing 30 megawatts of solar power in the state, Dominion Virginia Power said. The utility company said it installed 3,000 solar panels on the roof of a distribution center in Sterling, Va., used by industrial real estate company Prologis, Inc. Once completed by October, the installation will generate around 800 kilowatts of power, enough to meet the annual energy demands of about 200 homes. It’s the first such installation in the area for Dominion and part of a broader effort to build 30 megawatts of rooftop solar installations for the utility company’s customers. "The partnership with Prologis will enable us to evaluate the benefits and study the impact of distributed solar generation on our electric grid," Ken Barker, vice president of customer solutions, said in a statement. The Virginia state assembly has recommended […]

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British solar plan to shift to rooftop installations

British Energy Minister Greg Barker said Friday the government wants to install solar panels on top of the more than 900 square miles of south-facing rooftops. "There is massive potential to turn our large buildings into power stations and we must seize the opportunity this offers to boost our economy as part of our long term economic plan," he said in a statement . Barker said the measure is part of the so-called Solar Strategy, touted as the first plan of its kind for the country’s renewable energy sector. He said the strategy envisions a shift away from large-scale solar farms to one that expands the market on top of the estimated 250,000 hectares of south-facing commercial rooftops in the country. The British government estimates there are about 2.7 gigawatts worth of solar capacity installed in the country. The Solar Strategy calls for as […]

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Solar Power More Economical Than Natural Gas, Coal, Nuclear In Texas

Yeah but the seven or eight cent per is based on Today’s price for gas. Almost everyone agrees, it’s almost impossible to make money at today’s gas prices. A person can make the argument that NG prices will never go much higher (than $4.50) in which cases energy companies will simply stop drilling for gas. Or one can hope for shortages on account of low prices hoping low prices will cure low prices. Solar technology is leaping forward both on the manufacturing and efficiency angles. Even if PV price stabilizes, in 2014 dollars, in a few years either NG is No More or it’s futures price makes it better suited to make plastics and fertilizer than burning to power that wall to wall TV. Depending on region, wind, hydro, geothermal Owning too much stigma, nuclear power […]

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The $2.2 Billion Bird-Scorching Solar Project

A giant solar-power project officially opening this week in the California desert is the first of its kind, and may be among the last, in part because of growing evidence that the technology it uses is killing birds. U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz is scheduled to speak Thursday at an opening ceremony for the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating Station, which received a $1.6 billion federal loan guarantee. The $2.2 billion solar farm, which spans over five square miles of federal land southwest of Las Vegas, includes three towers as tall as 40-story buildings. Nearly 350,000 mirrors, each the size of a garage door, reflect sunlight onto boilers atop the towers, creating steam that drives power generators. The owners of the project— NRG Energy Inc., Google Inc. and BrightSource Energy Inc., the company that developed the "tower power" solar technology—call the plant a major feat of engineering that can light […]

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Energy Storage Market Set To Explode

hawaii maui wind project hawaii maui wind project Energy storage is often heralded as the “holy grail” of the energy market. It seems that a number of researchers and companies have worked hard and long enough that this holy grail is ready to see the light. According to market research firm IHS, the energy storage market is set to “explode” to an annual installation size of 6 gigawatts (GW) in 2017 and over 40 GW by 2022 — from an initial base of only 0.34 GW installed in 2012 and 2013. The IHS report  pits the US as the largest market for grid-connected energy storage installations through 2017. It projects that the US will install 43% of the capacity additions from 2012–2017. Germany and Japan are projected to be other top markets, as any regular reader, long-time of CleanTechnica would surely assume. What will rule the day in the energy […]

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Initial agreement signed for mega solar project in India

A group of state-owned Indian companies have signed an initial agreement for setting up what the government says is the world’s largest solar power plant. The 4,000-megawatt plant in the northwestern state of Rajasthan would be spread across 19,000 acres. "The MOU signed today will have to get the approval of the Cabinet and then the project will move forward," Minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Praful Patel said at the signing ceremony in New Delhi Wednesday, Press Trust of India reports. The consortium of six state-run companies includes Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited, known as BHEL, and Power Grid Corporation of India Limited. Construction for the first phase of 1,000 megawatts is expected to start in about three years. The plant will rely on crystalline silicon technology. The Hindu newspaper cited New and Renewable Energy Minister Farooq Abdullah as saying at the […]

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China May Have Deployed More Solar in 2013 Alone Than America Has Installed Altogether

China has the fastest train in the world, the most megacities in the world, and the biggest population . Now China can boast a new record: It has installed the most solar PV in one year. Preliminary figures released by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF)  show that China installed 12,000 megawatts of solar in 2013 — beating Germany’s record of 8,000 megawatts in 2010. These figures merit a major caveat, however. China is a very tough country to track and estimates differ significantly. China’s Renewable Energy Industries Association puts its preliminary estimate between 9,500 megawatts and 10,660 megawatts. GTM Research has not released its figures yet; it’s waiting for a final number on actual grid connections. The range of projections varies, but they all tell the same story: China’s domestic solar market is now a major force. In comparison, the booming U.S. market […]

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U.S. solar sector expanding, study finds

U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said the number of jobs created in the U.S. solar power sector suggests it is an "exciting time" for the industry. A report published by The Solar Foundation, a 37-year-old non-profit focused on solar power, said there were 142,698 people in the United States employed in the solar industry as of November, a 19.9 percent increase since September 2012. "This is an exciting time for the solar industry in the United States, made even more clear by the latest industry job figures," Moniz said in a statement issued Monday after the report was released. The report said the employment rate in the U.S. solar industry grew 10 times faster than the national average. The Solar Foundation’s census report for 2013 finds 77 percent of the jobs reported in the sector since September 2012 were new jobs. Employment in the […]

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Mideast looks at $50B to spend on solar power by 2020

The Middle East, spearheaded by the oil-rich Persian Gulf monarchies, could spend up to $50 billion on developing solar power over the next seven years, says the Middle East Solar Industry Association. The MESIA group based in Dubai, financial center of the United Arab Emirates, estimates the region will install 12,000-15,000 megawatts of solar power by 2020, with another 22,000-25,000 gigawatts from other renewable energy sources such as wind and hydro-power. The rapid expansion of power generation is a critical issue for governments and rulers across the region in the coming decade as populations swell and industrialization spreads, particularly in the petrostates of the gulf which have found their oil exports are suffering because they’re diverting too much oil to power plants. “It is estimated that installed generating capacity in the region will be required to double by 2020 to […]

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Utilities Feeling Rooftop Solar Heat Start Fighting Back

If you wonder why America’s utilities are rattled by the explosive growth in rooftop solar – – and are pushing back — William Walker has a story for you. A flip-flop wearing Walker stands in his driveway pointing to a ubiquitous neighborhood feature – solar panels on the roofs of five of six houses nearby. He lives in Ewa Beach, a development on the sultry leeward coast of the Hawaiian island of Oahu built on land cleared of sugar cane fields. Shade is scarce and residents here call their homes “hot boxes,” requiring almost round-the-clock air conditioning. Hawaii , which imports pricey oil to power its electricity grid, has the highest utility rates in the nation — at 37 cents a kilowatt-hour, they’re more than double California and triple the national average. With bills for 1,600 square foot houses like these running as high as $400 a month, solar […]

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Saudi Arabia, Emirates lead charge on Mideast solar power

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates, Nov. 1 (UPI) — Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two of the world’s leading oil producers, are spearheading a Middle Eastern drive to develop solar energy, with plans for projects requiring $1.5 billion in investment by the end of 2014. The program, designed to free up for export increasing amounts of oil and gas being used domestically for power generation, got a major endorsement from the Arab Forum for Environment and Development Monday. It urged Arab states to re-evaluate their relationship with oil, the economic mainstay of the Arab world since the 1950s, and phase out state energy subsidies to focus investment in developing renewable energy. “Oil and gas are important, they will continue to be important,” said Najib Saab, the forum’s secretary-general. “We call for more careful use of oil and gas and for more serious development of renewable energy.” Saudi […]

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Solar Rebound Beating Dot-Com Recovery as Demand Surges

Solar industry manufacturers are rebounding from a two-year slump faster than technology companies recovered from the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s. The benchmark BI Global Large Solar Energy Index of 15 manufacturers, which slumped 87 percent from a February 2011 peak through November 2012, has regained 55 percent of its value in the past year. The technology-dominated Nasdaq Composite (CCMP) index reached its post-bubble low in October 2002 and regained 37 percent of its March 2000 peak value in the next year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Suppliers including California ’s SunPower Corp. (SPWR) , which has gained more than fivefold this year, and China ’s Yingli Green Energy Holding Co. (YGE) are driving the rally as panel prices stabilize. Installations at power plants and on roofs will swell 40 percent this year from a 6.1 percent pace last year. “The worst is probably behind us,” Jenny […]

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