ArrayPower says that it has invented a “sequenced inverter” design that could cut the cost of solar power by 10%.
For those that don’t know what an inverter is, don’t worry, it is easy to understand and I will explain it: a typical inverter for a solar-powered home converts the DC power that solar panels generate into 120- and 240-volt AC (alternating current) power, the same as what your power outlet provides. Small solar setups often generate DC at 12 volts, and that 12 volts of DC power is converted into 120 volts of AC power, which is suitable for most household appliances, portable devices chargers, etc.
The new inverter setup mentioned above involves equipping each solar panel with a small inverter, instead of connecting all solar panels to one large inverter.
At a cost of one dollar per watt (of electricity generation capacity), commercial-scale solar panel purchases are less than one-third of the cost of the total cost of commercial solar power setups (including installation), which is $3.50 per watt, on average.
Typical solar setups suffer from lower efficiency because of the way the panels are connected, which is in series. A series connection means that electricity flows from one panel, through the other, and then the next, until it reaches the end of the circuit. When one panel is shaded, the power output of the rest of the panels is reduced because the electrical resistance of the shaded panel restricts the flow of electric current to the rest of the panels.
Each of the distributed inverters invented by ArrayPower attach to the back of each panel. They use rectifiers and transistors to boost the solar panels’ DC voltage from 60 volts to the 208 volts used on the grid. An inductor then briefly stores the current, allowing the device to emit discrete pulses of alternating current. The pulses are combined with those from a minimum of three other panels to provide three-phase AC current that is suitable for the electricity grid.
2012年1月30日星期一
Tariffs on solar panels from China would raise prices
US tariffs on solar panel imports from China would raise photovoltaic prices more than 25% and sharply cut new solar power installations, according to a new report funded by opponents of possible tariffs.
The Brattle Group, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based economic consulting and analysis firm, modeled the impact of tariffs on Chinese PV modules at the request of the Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy, a group mainly composed of solar power developers, as well as a handful of China-based solar panel manufacturers.
Tariffs would "slow the growth in domestic demand for photovoltaic systems by homeowners, commercial establishments and power producers, resulting in substantial job losses," the report said.
Hillsboro, Oregon-headquartered SolarWorld and six unnamed US solar-panel makers have filed antidumping and countervailing duty petitions alleging that Chinese solar panel makers received illegal subsidies from the Chinese government, allowing those firms to dominate the solar market.
SolarWorld, a subsidiary of German solar panel giant SolarWorld AG, is requesting that the US impose tariffs of up to 250% on Chinese solar panel imports to counteract the alleged subsidies. The case only includes crystalline polysilicon panels, not thin-film modules.
The Brattle Group modeled tariffs of 50% and 100% on Chinese solar panels and found a sharp impact on demand and pricing.
Brattle estimated that a 100% tariff would decrease total demand for solar installations to 3,159 MW by 2014 from 4,894 MW, while a 50% tariff would cut demand to 3,350 MW by 2014.
The price impact of tariffs would also be significant, according to the study. Residential modules, for example, would rise from 85 cents/watt in 2012 without a tariff to $1.07/watt with a 50% tariff and $1.17/watt with a 100% tariff. The study predicted higher tariff rates would have little additional impact, since "China is already effectively priced out of the US market at the 100%-tariff level."
The report also predicted the tariffs could lead China to retaliate against the roughly $863 million of polysilicon the US exports there.
The Commerce Department is scheduled to make a preliminary ruling on the case March 2, a spokeswoman for Commerce's International Trade Administration said Friday.
The International Trade Commission, which also must rule on the trade case, issued a preliminary decision in December in favor of SolarWorld, although China's solar companies strongly disputed the charges. China's government has threatened to take unspecified action against US firms if the US imposes tariffs on solar panels made there.
The Brattle Group, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based economic consulting and analysis firm, modeled the impact of tariffs on Chinese PV modules at the request of the Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy, a group mainly composed of solar power developers, as well as a handful of China-based solar panel manufacturers.
Tariffs would "slow the growth in domestic demand for photovoltaic systems by homeowners, commercial establishments and power producers, resulting in substantial job losses," the report said.
Hillsboro, Oregon-headquartered SolarWorld and six unnamed US solar-panel makers have filed antidumping and countervailing duty petitions alleging that Chinese solar panel makers received illegal subsidies from the Chinese government, allowing those firms to dominate the solar market.
SolarWorld, a subsidiary of German solar panel giant SolarWorld AG, is requesting that the US impose tariffs of up to 250% on Chinese solar panel imports to counteract the alleged subsidies. The case only includes crystalline polysilicon panels, not thin-film modules.
The Brattle Group modeled tariffs of 50% and 100% on Chinese solar panels and found a sharp impact on demand and pricing.
Brattle estimated that a 100% tariff would decrease total demand for solar installations to 3,159 MW by 2014 from 4,894 MW, while a 50% tariff would cut demand to 3,350 MW by 2014.
The price impact of tariffs would also be significant, according to the study. Residential modules, for example, would rise from 85 cents/watt in 2012 without a tariff to $1.07/watt with a 50% tariff and $1.17/watt with a 100% tariff. The study predicted higher tariff rates would have little additional impact, since "China is already effectively priced out of the US market at the 100%-tariff level."
The report also predicted the tariffs could lead China to retaliate against the roughly $863 million of polysilicon the US exports there.
The Commerce Department is scheduled to make a preliminary ruling on the case March 2, a spokeswoman for Commerce's International Trade Administration said Friday.
The International Trade Commission, which also must rule on the trade case, issued a preliminary decision in December in favor of SolarWorld, although China's solar companies strongly disputed the charges. China's government has threatened to take unspecified action against US firms if the US imposes tariffs on solar panels made there.
2012年1月29日星期日
HRI Properties installs solar panels at its properties
To cut down on the high upfront price that some say have kept solar panels out of reach for many households, local developer HRI Properties has installed the equipment at six of its developments in the New Orleans area as part of a $10 million project, taking advantage of federal and state tax credits and covering the initial investment to lease the equipment and help tenants spread the costs out over a decade. The equipment, which went into operation at several of the properties at the beginning of the year, is expected to generate 1.05 megawatts of solar energy, which is enough to power about 250 apartments, said Hal Fairbanks, vice president of acquisitions for HRI Properties.
Residents at those properties, including River Garden, which replaced the St. Thomas public housing complex, the American Can Company apartment complex in Mid-City and soon the loft-style apartments at the Blue Plate Foods building, will lease the equipment with a monthly fee, paid for from money saved on electricity bills, Fairbanks said.
He expects units to save about $50 a month on average in utility costs. The leasing fee is generally about 75 percent of the savings realized through net metering, which lets customers generate their own electricity and then send extra electricity back to the utility for a savings.
"What we try to do is use existing incentives to make it economically feasible to lease at an attractive rate to an end user at no upfront costs," Fairbanks said.
Under the arrangement, HRI purchases the equipment and takes advantage of the available tax incentives, which cover up to 80 percent of the cost of the panels. The company has also received a $2.1 million grant from EmPower Louisiana, a program administered by the Department of Natural Resources that was funded with federal stimulus money.
The installations are complete at all of the units except American Can and the Blue Plate building, which Fairbanks said will be finished soon. Other properties include a new apartment complex in Houma and a renovated historic building in Shreveport.
"We're trying to be as sustainable as possible," he said, adding that the buildings are designed to be energy-efficient, from the insulation to the appliances. The energy generated from the panels will reduce utility costs for residents and lower the operating costs of the buildings by offsetting individual units and common electrical loads, he said, like hallways and community rooms, and in large part, the air conditioning.
So far, residents have reacted favorably. "I think they're interested, and they're excited about it not only for the savings but just knowing that they're contributing to some of the energy being sustainable and using resources wisely," he said.
In some ways, the effort is similar to one undertaken in recent years by Make It Right, the Brad Pitt-led push to rebuild the storm-ravaged Lower 9th Ward with affordable, energy-efficient housing.
The nonprofit has established a separate entity that worked with local housing development agencies to lease out the equipment over a 10-year span.
Pierre Moses, a project manager with Make It Right, said Thursday that the solar program recently worked with Volunteers of America on a multiunit, multifamily development in Covington, which is different from the single-family units that the initiative has become known for.
Make It Right has set out to build 150 homes in the Lower 9th Ward loaded with green features like solar panels and rainwater collectors, with half completed so far.
Moses called this latest project "a natural progression for us" to start looking at other opportunities and expanding the effort.
"We're sort of exploring options on how to expand our program," he said. "I think that there's certainly just a vast amount of demand for a solar solution that doesn't require an upfront capital outlay. We understood that a while ago, but we were still focusing on organizations that had synergies with Make It Right."
Residents at those properties, including River Garden, which replaced the St. Thomas public housing complex, the American Can Company apartment complex in Mid-City and soon the loft-style apartments at the Blue Plate Foods building, will lease the equipment with a monthly fee, paid for from money saved on electricity bills, Fairbanks said.
He expects units to save about $50 a month on average in utility costs. The leasing fee is generally about 75 percent of the savings realized through net metering, which lets customers generate their own electricity and then send extra electricity back to the utility for a savings.
"What we try to do is use existing incentives to make it economically feasible to lease at an attractive rate to an end user at no upfront costs," Fairbanks said.
Under the arrangement, HRI purchases the equipment and takes advantage of the available tax incentives, which cover up to 80 percent of the cost of the panels. The company has also received a $2.1 million grant from EmPower Louisiana, a program administered by the Department of Natural Resources that was funded with federal stimulus money.
The installations are complete at all of the units except American Can and the Blue Plate building, which Fairbanks said will be finished soon. Other properties include a new apartment complex in Houma and a renovated historic building in Shreveport.
"We're trying to be as sustainable as possible," he said, adding that the buildings are designed to be energy-efficient, from the insulation to the appliances. The energy generated from the panels will reduce utility costs for residents and lower the operating costs of the buildings by offsetting individual units and common electrical loads, he said, like hallways and community rooms, and in large part, the air conditioning.
So far, residents have reacted favorably. "I think they're interested, and they're excited about it not only for the savings but just knowing that they're contributing to some of the energy being sustainable and using resources wisely," he said.
In some ways, the effort is similar to one undertaken in recent years by Make It Right, the Brad Pitt-led push to rebuild the storm-ravaged Lower 9th Ward with affordable, energy-efficient housing.
The nonprofit has established a separate entity that worked with local housing development agencies to lease out the equipment over a 10-year span.
Pierre Moses, a project manager with Make It Right, said Thursday that the solar program recently worked with Volunteers of America on a multiunit, multifamily development in Covington, which is different from the single-family units that the initiative has become known for.
Make It Right has set out to build 150 homes in the Lower 9th Ward loaded with green features like solar panels and rainwater collectors, with half completed so far.
Moses called this latest project "a natural progression for us" to start looking at other opportunities and expanding the effort.
"We're sort of exploring options on how to expand our program," he said. "I think that there's certainly just a vast amount of demand for a solar solution that doesn't require an upfront capital outlay. We understood that a while ago, but we were still focusing on organizations that had synergies with Make It Right."
2012年1月19日星期四
Home builder makes solar power standard in Apopka
Capitalizing on a federal renewable-energy tax credit, KB Homes expects to be the first production builder in Florida to include solar-energy panels as a standard feature on new houses in select communities.
The Los Angeles-based builder rolled out the photovoltaic cells as a standard feature in its Southern California communities last year and, on Thursday, began installing them on its model home at the Apopka-area Fisher Plantation community, which has about 52 lots left and prices starting in the low $200,000s.
"We rolled this out in Southern California, and buyers found it to be a no brainer," said George Glance, president of KB Homes Central Florida Division. "It doesn't cost them anything, and they get the savings."
Lake Mary-based SunHouse Solar Engery is providing the panels, which are attached to rooftops. Once installed, the base unit is expected to generate 1.4 kilowatts of power and shave about 30 percent off utility costs.
KB Homes has estimated that a homeowner will save more than $1,200 annually, compared with a typical resale home, in a solar-powered house with three bedrooms.
The base-model panels at the houses being built in Fisher Plantation retail for $10,800 and buyers qualify for a 30-percent tax break, worth $3,240, from the Residential Renewable Energy Tax Credit.
KB sells larger, more powerful panels capable of generating greater savings – and larger tax credits. In addition to targeting photovoltaic solar panels, the tax rebate also covers solar thermal and small wind and geothermal heat pumps. Initially part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and expanded as art of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the credit expires in 2016.
Glance said that the units didn't add on that much to the price of the house because KB was able to purchase them in bulk. When you compare the price by square foot in nearby new communities, it doesn't reflect an upcharge for the solar, he added. He said the panels complement the homes' insulated windows, upgraded insulation and Energy Star appliances.
Stephen Barkaszi, a Florida Solar Energy Center program director for photovoltaic systems, said this is not a breakthrough as much as it is a step at reducing some of the barriers homeowners encounter when they want to install solar. Whether the base model generates $1,000 in utility savings a year depends on utility costs and other energy-efficient features in the house, he added.
"Something as small as 1.4 kilowatts is at least something," Barkaszi said. "It's a whole lot better than nothing. It's been tough for people to go out of their way to get it added on as an option."
Other builders in Central Florida, such as Rey Homes, have been offering solar water heaters and solar electric as an option for several years. But few, if any, mid- to large-size builders have been adding panels as a standard feature.
The Los Angeles-based builder rolled out the photovoltaic cells as a standard feature in its Southern California communities last year and, on Thursday, began installing them on its model home at the Apopka-area Fisher Plantation community, which has about 52 lots left and prices starting in the low $200,000s.
"We rolled this out in Southern California, and buyers found it to be a no brainer," said George Glance, president of KB Homes Central Florida Division. "It doesn't cost them anything, and they get the savings."
Lake Mary-based SunHouse Solar Engery is providing the panels, which are attached to rooftops. Once installed, the base unit is expected to generate 1.4 kilowatts of power and shave about 30 percent off utility costs.
KB Homes has estimated that a homeowner will save more than $1,200 annually, compared with a typical resale home, in a solar-powered house with three bedrooms.
The base-model panels at the houses being built in Fisher Plantation retail for $10,800 and buyers qualify for a 30-percent tax break, worth $3,240, from the Residential Renewable Energy Tax Credit.
KB sells larger, more powerful panels capable of generating greater savings – and larger tax credits. In addition to targeting photovoltaic solar panels, the tax rebate also covers solar thermal and small wind and geothermal heat pumps. Initially part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and expanded as art of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the credit expires in 2016.
Glance said that the units didn't add on that much to the price of the house because KB was able to purchase them in bulk. When you compare the price by square foot in nearby new communities, it doesn't reflect an upcharge for the solar, he added. He said the panels complement the homes' insulated windows, upgraded insulation and Energy Star appliances.
Stephen Barkaszi, a Florida Solar Energy Center program director for photovoltaic systems, said this is not a breakthrough as much as it is a step at reducing some of the barriers homeowners encounter when they want to install solar. Whether the base model generates $1,000 in utility savings a year depends on utility costs and other energy-efficient features in the house, he added.
"Something as small as 1.4 kilowatts is at least something," Barkaszi said. "It's a whole lot better than nothing. It's been tough for people to go out of their way to get it added on as an option."
Other builders in Central Florida, such as Rey Homes, have been offering solar water heaters and solar electric as an option for several years. But few, if any, mid- to large-size builders have been adding panels as a standard feature.
2012年1月18日星期三
Goslings to install biggest commercial solar panel system on Island
Wine and spirit distributor Gosling’s is set to install the largest commercial solar panel system in Bermuda to date.
Local company Alternative Energy Systems has been awarded the contract to engineer, design, supply and install a 570-panel photovoltaic (PV) solar energy system to generate electricity at its head office in Hamilton. The panels will be installed on the roof of the main warehouse, which will offset energy consumption produced by a bottling plant, retail space, executive offices and refrigerated storage located on the property.
The 136-kilowatt system, says Gosling’s, will produce more than 17,000 kilowatt hours or more than $6,500 worth of electricity per month based on today’s cost of electricity.
“As the price of energy continues to rise along with our awareness for environmental stewardship, we decided that Gosling’s needed to make a move toward renewable energy,” said Nancy Gosling, president and CEO of Gosling Brothers Ltd.
Solar energy is fast becoming a popular option for commercial retailers and private homes with the number of planning applications increasing year over year.
As reported in The Royal Gazette last week, a Government spokesperson said that 51 applications were made for solar developments in 2011, more than four-times the number submitted in 2009.
In 2011, a total of 51 applications were made for solar developments, with 39 having already been approved and others still going through the planning process.
With energy prices ever increasing, business is going strong, says Tim Madeiros, AES founder and CEO.
“Everything is booming, residential and commercial,” he said. “It’s got a lot of momentum. We have a lot of examples and client testimonials on the financial savings that they’ve seen and that is great for potential customers.”
Grocer Lindo’s was AES’s first commercial installation, which saw the completion of a 300-solar panel system in May 2011. The system produces approximately 11,340 kilowatts of energy per month, enough to handle between 40 and 60 percent of Lindo’s load requirements at any given time.
Gosling’s will also be the first commercial customer to finance a project in full through Butterfield Bank. According to the bank, they are currently the exclusive supplier of financing for AES-installed solar panels.
“This latest project carries great significance,” said Tim Madeiros, AES founder and CEO. “It’s two of Bermuda’s oldest establishments working together to take a modern approach to energy.”
“In working with Butterfield, we were able to obtain full financing, which was a huge factor in moving forward with the project,” said Ms Gosling, adding that the monthly payments are lower than the savings in electricity per month, which makes the system cash flow positive from the first month.
According to AES, in addition to the cost savings, Gosling’s solar energy system will save 3.8 million pounds of CO2 from entering Bermuda’s atmosphere.
Local environmental groups have applauded the move.
“Greenrock believes that solar power is a sensible investment for any business in Bermuda,” said Judith Landsberg, president of Greenrock. “The cost of electricity is inevitably going to continue to rise and solar panel technology has proven itself over decades as a low maintenance, reliable, and increasingly cost effective source of electricity. We salute Goslings for their sustainable thinking and AES as a leader in this field in Bermuda and hope that many more companies follow their lead.”
Local company Alternative Energy Systems has been awarded the contract to engineer, design, supply and install a 570-panel photovoltaic (PV) solar energy system to generate electricity at its head office in Hamilton. The panels will be installed on the roof of the main warehouse, which will offset energy consumption produced by a bottling plant, retail space, executive offices and refrigerated storage located on the property.
The 136-kilowatt system, says Gosling’s, will produce more than 17,000 kilowatt hours or more than $6,500 worth of electricity per month based on today’s cost of electricity.
“As the price of energy continues to rise along with our awareness for environmental stewardship, we decided that Gosling’s needed to make a move toward renewable energy,” said Nancy Gosling, president and CEO of Gosling Brothers Ltd.
Solar energy is fast becoming a popular option for commercial retailers and private homes with the number of planning applications increasing year over year.
As reported in The Royal Gazette last week, a Government spokesperson said that 51 applications were made for solar developments in 2011, more than four-times the number submitted in 2009.
In 2011, a total of 51 applications were made for solar developments, with 39 having already been approved and others still going through the planning process.
With energy prices ever increasing, business is going strong, says Tim Madeiros, AES founder and CEO.
“Everything is booming, residential and commercial,” he said. “It’s got a lot of momentum. We have a lot of examples and client testimonials on the financial savings that they’ve seen and that is great for potential customers.”
Grocer Lindo’s was AES’s first commercial installation, which saw the completion of a 300-solar panel system in May 2011. The system produces approximately 11,340 kilowatts of energy per month, enough to handle between 40 and 60 percent of Lindo’s load requirements at any given time.
Gosling’s will also be the first commercial customer to finance a project in full through Butterfield Bank. According to the bank, they are currently the exclusive supplier of financing for AES-installed solar panels.
“This latest project carries great significance,” said Tim Madeiros, AES founder and CEO. “It’s two of Bermuda’s oldest establishments working together to take a modern approach to energy.”
“In working with Butterfield, we were able to obtain full financing, which was a huge factor in moving forward with the project,” said Ms Gosling, adding that the monthly payments are lower than the savings in electricity per month, which makes the system cash flow positive from the first month.
According to AES, in addition to the cost savings, Gosling’s solar energy system will save 3.8 million pounds of CO2 from entering Bermuda’s atmosphere.
Local environmental groups have applauded the move.
“Greenrock believes that solar power is a sensible investment for any business in Bermuda,” said Judith Landsberg, president of Greenrock. “The cost of electricity is inevitably going to continue to rise and solar panel technology has proven itself over decades as a low maintenance, reliable, and increasingly cost effective source of electricity. We salute Goslings for their sustainable thinking and AES as a leader in this field in Bermuda and hope that many more companies follow their lead.”
2012年1月17日星期二
Homeowners furious over solar panels rip-off after company goes out of business
Furious homeowners fear they have lost hundreds of pounds to a solar energy company that has gone out of business.
Money Mail has received dozens of emails and letters from angry readers who paid 500 each to Energy Saving Group to have solar panels fitted. All complain they have received neither panels nor cash refunds.
Customers say ESG had promised to slash their fuel bills if they had the solar panels installed.
They were told their homes would benefit from the solar energy generated, while the firm would pocket a government subsidy, called the feed-in tariff, which is paid for extra energy generated and sold back to the grid. This promised payments of 43.3p per kWh of energy generated and sold back. Last month, the tariff was slashed to 21p.
This type of offer is not unusual — and is commonly known as a ‘rent-a-roof’ scheme.
But fears are growing that thousands of homeowners across Britain may have lost hundreds of pounds after being enticed by solar panel salesmen.
Money Mail has come across dozens of cases where ESG customers have had to wait for months for panels to be fitted after making payments. In a letter sent in August, many who had requested refunds were told ESG was unable to pay back money to its thousands of customers all at once, but that they would be contacted when it was their turn.
However, customers say emails and telephone calls to the address ESG uses in Redditch, Worcs, have gone unanswered. Some who contacted ESG in December have received letters telling them the firm has now gone out of business.
And Money Mail can reveal two of the directors of Energy Saving Improvements Limited, which trades as Energy Saving Group, are running another energy sales company called Energy Reduction Surveying Limited.
They are Steven Dickson, 33, who gives his address for both companies as Bromsgrove, Worcs; and James Manley, 34, from Hockley, Solihull. According to files lodged at Companies House, Energy Reduction Surveying Limited is registered at the Business Centre in Edward Street, Redditch.
The company trades under the name Energy Reduction UK. ESG is registered in Billesley, Birmingham.
When Money Mail called Energy Reduction UK, it said it was taking orders for solar panels, which it would install free or for 199.
Many of the people who have lost money with ESG are pensioners on limited incomes who were persuaded to order the panels by door-to-door salesmen. Others followed up adverts in local newspapers. The customers left out of pocket include 74-year-old Peter Conyers and his wife Shirley, 65, from Norwich, who ordered their panels just under a year ago.
The couple, who rely on just one state pension between them as their only income, paid 500 for panels after seeing a newspaper advert.
Mr Conyers, a former sheet metal worker, says: ‘We waited four weeks and then six weeks, but there was always another excuse from ESG about why the panels couldn’t be fitted. We really can’t afford to lose this money. We only paid it because we thought there would be a saving in the long term.’
Consumer groups have warned of vulnerable people being scammed by promises that solar energy could save them hundreds of pounds. Campaign group Consumer Focus warns that people who want to fit solar panels should order them only from companies registered under the REAL Assurance Scheme.
They should also only sign a contract certified under the Microgeneration Certification Scheme .
Always make sure you get at least three quotes from different companies before signing a contract.
You also have the right to change your mind within seven days, but make sure you don’t lose this option by signing a waiver. Liz Laine, energy expert at Consumer Focus, says:
‘Solar panels can save consumers money, but unfortunately there is bad practice in this industry, as in any other, and we know consumers have lost out through the actions of this company.
‘Our advice is that if it feels like pressure selling, it is.’
Trading Standards, which is investigating ESG, says customers must wait until the company is dissolved before they can make a claim for their cash.
Money Mail received separate statements from Mr Manley and Mr Dickson.
Mr Manley says he set up Energy Reduction UK alone — although Mr Dickson is listed as a director — because he did not agree with the way that ESG’s customers were being treated by third-party installers.
‘He says he cannot comment on any issues relating to ESG.
Mr Dickson says ESG stopped trading in December. However, records at Companies House show its status as ‘still active’.
He says its liquidators will do everything possible to recover this debt in order to repay Energy Saving Group’s creditors, which includes customers who are owed refunds.
Money Mail has received dozens of emails and letters from angry readers who paid 500 each to Energy Saving Group to have solar panels fitted. All complain they have received neither panels nor cash refunds.
Customers say ESG had promised to slash their fuel bills if they had the solar panels installed.
They were told their homes would benefit from the solar energy generated, while the firm would pocket a government subsidy, called the feed-in tariff, which is paid for extra energy generated and sold back to the grid. This promised payments of 43.3p per kWh of energy generated and sold back. Last month, the tariff was slashed to 21p.
This type of offer is not unusual — and is commonly known as a ‘rent-a-roof’ scheme.
But fears are growing that thousands of homeowners across Britain may have lost hundreds of pounds after being enticed by solar panel salesmen.
Money Mail has come across dozens of cases where ESG customers have had to wait for months for panels to be fitted after making payments. In a letter sent in August, many who had requested refunds were told ESG was unable to pay back money to its thousands of customers all at once, but that they would be contacted when it was their turn.
However, customers say emails and telephone calls to the address ESG uses in Redditch, Worcs, have gone unanswered. Some who contacted ESG in December have received letters telling them the firm has now gone out of business.
And Money Mail can reveal two of the directors of Energy Saving Improvements Limited, which trades as Energy Saving Group, are running another energy sales company called Energy Reduction Surveying Limited.
They are Steven Dickson, 33, who gives his address for both companies as Bromsgrove, Worcs; and James Manley, 34, from Hockley, Solihull. According to files lodged at Companies House, Energy Reduction Surveying Limited is registered at the Business Centre in Edward Street, Redditch.
The company trades under the name Energy Reduction UK. ESG is registered in Billesley, Birmingham.
When Money Mail called Energy Reduction UK, it said it was taking orders for solar panels, which it would install free or for 199.
Many of the people who have lost money with ESG are pensioners on limited incomes who were persuaded to order the panels by door-to-door salesmen. Others followed up adverts in local newspapers. The customers left out of pocket include 74-year-old Peter Conyers and his wife Shirley, 65, from Norwich, who ordered their panels just under a year ago.
The couple, who rely on just one state pension between them as their only income, paid 500 for panels after seeing a newspaper advert.
Mr Conyers, a former sheet metal worker, says: ‘We waited four weeks and then six weeks, but there was always another excuse from ESG about why the panels couldn’t be fitted. We really can’t afford to lose this money. We only paid it because we thought there would be a saving in the long term.’
Consumer groups have warned of vulnerable people being scammed by promises that solar energy could save them hundreds of pounds. Campaign group Consumer Focus warns that people who want to fit solar panels should order them only from companies registered under the REAL Assurance Scheme.
They should also only sign a contract certified under the Microgeneration Certification Scheme .
Always make sure you get at least three quotes from different companies before signing a contract.
You also have the right to change your mind within seven days, but make sure you don’t lose this option by signing a waiver. Liz Laine, energy expert at Consumer Focus, says:
‘Solar panels can save consumers money, but unfortunately there is bad practice in this industry, as in any other, and we know consumers have lost out through the actions of this company.
‘Our advice is that if it feels like pressure selling, it is.’
Trading Standards, which is investigating ESG, says customers must wait until the company is dissolved before they can make a claim for their cash.
Money Mail received separate statements from Mr Manley and Mr Dickson.
Mr Manley says he set up Energy Reduction UK alone — although Mr Dickson is listed as a director — because he did not agree with the way that ESG’s customers were being treated by third-party installers.
‘He says he cannot comment on any issues relating to ESG.
Mr Dickson says ESG stopped trading in December. However, records at Companies House show its status as ‘still active’.
He says its liquidators will do everything possible to recover this debt in order to repay Energy Saving Group’s creditors, which includes customers who are owed refunds.
2012年1月16日星期一
Solar power: making electricity at home
It may appear counter-intuitive, but getting millions of solar panels onto rooftops saves more money than it costs. Feed-in tariffs enacted by state governments have enabled ordinary Australians using their savings to build a solar power station at home benefiting the community.
When those solar households who had saved to get their panels installed under the solar feed-in tariff programs export their solar production to the grid, which occurs mostly during higher demand daytime periods, they are given a slightly higher than average retail rate for the electricity they are selling. The prices they have been paid are relatively meagre when compared with the ridiculously high rates paid to big coal or gas power plants.
At the same time that little solar households who have invested their money in a rooftop power station are being paid between 44 and 60 per kilowatt hour, the old power companies with their dirty belching coal and gas plants are receiving as much as $12.50.
In other words, the coal and gas guys are being paid as much as $11.90 more than a home solar generator for just one unit of electricity.
A home solar system installed in NSW sized at 10 kilowatts, which was the limit for feed-in-tariff eligibility under the now-defunct state scheme, would export roughly 9kWh and reduce line losses by more than 10 per cent during a very hot sunny day when everyone was running their airconditioners. That meant a coal or gas plant would not need to generate 10kWh for every 9kWh a solar household produces at home during that period. During these high-price events, which account for more than 30 per cent of the cost of electricity, we can buy our power from a gas or coal plant at the inflated price of $125 or we can buy it from a home solar generator for just $5.40.
To buy the full 10 kilowatt equivalent output from the home solar generator saves everyone $120 each hour in power costs alone.
This is not the full story. At other times when your home solar system is generating, the coal plant may receive 6, 8, $1, $3 or $5 but you're still getting a steady 44 to 60. The reason customers were getting an average price under the state programs is because it's too difficult for ordinary home owners to set up a trading desk and participate in the national electricity market. So the 44 to 60 range is much more reasonable when you take into account the wild fluctuations that occur daily as power generators use their market power to game the electricity market, which ultimately is costing consumers.
All that said, the most important contribution from rooftop solar is through the ''merit order effect'', explained in a recent paper by the University of Melbourne's energy research institute, which showed electricity production from rooftop solar is brilliantly timed for when we're inside and running our airconditioners and can substantially reduce the wealth transfer from ordinary electricity consumers to big power generators. Eighty-five per cent of the time, during peak demand periods when the highest prices occur in the electricity market, rooftop solar is there to dampen, reduce and keep a lid on extreme prices.
At just 3000 megawatts of solar, which is what Germany installed in December during the Christmas holiday break, we would be paying at least a billion dollars less for our electricity, amounting to a more significant saving on bills than if we choose not to encourage people to put more solar on their roofs.
Today, the government, through IPART , is performing a review into feed-in-tariffs to find a ''fair and reasonable'' price to pay enterprising householders for the solar electricity they produce. In the government's terms of reference they were asked to recommend a price with ''no resulting increase in electricity prices in NSW'' and to make the scheme so that ''the government would not pay''. They also asked for it to support a competitive electricity market. The University of Melbourne paper showed that a net feed-in-tariff price of 35 to 40 a kilowatt hour, handled by the distribution companies, would lower electricity prices by more than it would cost to fund it and that the government's existing low-income household rebate could be increased slightly to accommodate any shifting in network costs from solar to non-solar households.
The reward from the merit order effect should not be handed to dirty fossil fuel generators as they are able to withdraw their service, choosing whether to supply and game the electricity market, sending electricity prices spiralling, while on the whole solar households will reliably generate, day in, day out.
When those solar households who had saved to get their panels installed under the solar feed-in tariff programs export their solar production to the grid, which occurs mostly during higher demand daytime periods, they are given a slightly higher than average retail rate for the electricity they are selling. The prices they have been paid are relatively meagre when compared with the ridiculously high rates paid to big coal or gas power plants.
At the same time that little solar households who have invested their money in a rooftop power station are being paid between 44 and 60 per kilowatt hour, the old power companies with their dirty belching coal and gas plants are receiving as much as $12.50.
In other words, the coal and gas guys are being paid as much as $11.90 more than a home solar generator for just one unit of electricity.
A home solar system installed in NSW sized at 10 kilowatts, which was the limit for feed-in-tariff eligibility under the now-defunct state scheme, would export roughly 9kWh and reduce line losses by more than 10 per cent during a very hot sunny day when everyone was running their airconditioners. That meant a coal or gas plant would not need to generate 10kWh for every 9kWh a solar household produces at home during that period. During these high-price events, which account for more than 30 per cent of the cost of electricity, we can buy our power from a gas or coal plant at the inflated price of $125 or we can buy it from a home solar generator for just $5.40.
To buy the full 10 kilowatt equivalent output from the home solar generator saves everyone $120 each hour in power costs alone.
This is not the full story. At other times when your home solar system is generating, the coal plant may receive 6, 8, $1, $3 or $5 but you're still getting a steady 44 to 60. The reason customers were getting an average price under the state programs is because it's too difficult for ordinary home owners to set up a trading desk and participate in the national electricity market. So the 44 to 60 range is much more reasonable when you take into account the wild fluctuations that occur daily as power generators use their market power to game the electricity market, which ultimately is costing consumers.
All that said, the most important contribution from rooftop solar is through the ''merit order effect'', explained in a recent paper by the University of Melbourne's energy research institute, which showed electricity production from rooftop solar is brilliantly timed for when we're inside and running our airconditioners and can substantially reduce the wealth transfer from ordinary electricity consumers to big power generators. Eighty-five per cent of the time, during peak demand periods when the highest prices occur in the electricity market, rooftop solar is there to dampen, reduce and keep a lid on extreme prices.
At just 3000 megawatts of solar, which is what Germany installed in December during the Christmas holiday break, we would be paying at least a billion dollars less for our electricity, amounting to a more significant saving on bills than if we choose not to encourage people to put more solar on their roofs.
Today, the government, through IPART , is performing a review into feed-in-tariffs to find a ''fair and reasonable'' price to pay enterprising householders for the solar electricity they produce. In the government's terms of reference they were asked to recommend a price with ''no resulting increase in electricity prices in NSW'' and to make the scheme so that ''the government would not pay''. They also asked for it to support a competitive electricity market. The University of Melbourne paper showed that a net feed-in-tariff price of 35 to 40 a kilowatt hour, handled by the distribution companies, would lower electricity prices by more than it would cost to fund it and that the government's existing low-income household rebate could be increased slightly to accommodate any shifting in network costs from solar to non-solar households.
The reward from the merit order effect should not be handed to dirty fossil fuel generators as they are able to withdraw their service, choosing whether to supply and game the electricity market, sending electricity prices spiralling, while on the whole solar households will reliably generate, day in, day out.
2012年1月15日星期日
When solar makes sense
The economic picture for Mechanicville is looking brighter these days, thanks to construction projects under way at GlobalFoundries and the Pan Am Southern railyard. And the city is about to get another project that could be seen as a symbol of its improved prospects, using solar energy to provide electricity for some major public buildings. It looks like a good deal for the city, which will save money while reducing its carbon footprint, as well as for Monolith Solar Associates, the company that will be supplying the equipment.
The city will get photovoltaic panels, which turn sunlight into electricity, installed on the buildings -- City Hall, the water plant, the senior center and the city garage -- at no cost. Monolith, a fast-growing company with an office in East Greenbush, will own and maintain the panels, and the city will commit to buying the power produced from Monolith.
But the power will be priced at a discount -- 30 percent less than the city is currently paying. Monolith is able to offer the power for less because it can take advantage of federal and state tax breaks for solar energy, and because it can sell any unused power -- such as that produced at off-peak times -- back to the grid. The city will be free to buy any additional power needed from its usual supplier.
The city isn't the only one to sign up with Monolith. Various businesses around the region, including DiSiena Furniture in Mechanicville and Best Fitness in Schenectady, have also had its panels installed. So has the town of Niskayuna, with a unit at Town Hall. And Schenectady County last month signed a 15-year agreement with Monolith to put panels at the library branches, jail and highway department. Schenectady County expects to save about $40,000 a year in electricity, significant but probably not enough to justify the large capital outlay needed if it were to buy and maintain the units itself.
At some point, though, it might make sense for the county and other municipalities -- even without the tax incentives available to businesses and homeowners -- to have their own solar panels. Thanks to advances in materials and processes, they are continuing to become cheaper and more efficient. And although the Capital Region doesn't get the sunlight of Texas, for instance, energy costs are higher here, so the savings per kilowatt from solar are greater.
Throw in the facts that the University at Albany's Nanotechnology College has a new $500 million solar research center, which last year received a $58 million federal grant to help it create a U.S. Photovoltaic Manufacturing Consortium (similar to what Sematech did for semiconductors), and that General Electric will be opening a new $600 million solar manufacturing plant in Colorado, and you can see why solar is the fastest-growing technology industry. Expect to see many more roofs and yards with solar panels, whoever owns or operates them. Municipalities will need appropriate regulations to avoid controversies like the one in Ballston over a large, free-standing solar panel.
The city will get photovoltaic panels, which turn sunlight into electricity, installed on the buildings -- City Hall, the water plant, the senior center and the city garage -- at no cost. Monolith, a fast-growing company with an office in East Greenbush, will own and maintain the panels, and the city will commit to buying the power produced from Monolith.
But the power will be priced at a discount -- 30 percent less than the city is currently paying. Monolith is able to offer the power for less because it can take advantage of federal and state tax breaks for solar energy, and because it can sell any unused power -- such as that produced at off-peak times -- back to the grid. The city will be free to buy any additional power needed from its usual supplier.
The city isn't the only one to sign up with Monolith. Various businesses around the region, including DiSiena Furniture in Mechanicville and Best Fitness in Schenectady, have also had its panels installed. So has the town of Niskayuna, with a unit at Town Hall. And Schenectady County last month signed a 15-year agreement with Monolith to put panels at the library branches, jail and highway department. Schenectady County expects to save about $40,000 a year in electricity, significant but probably not enough to justify the large capital outlay needed if it were to buy and maintain the units itself.
At some point, though, it might make sense for the county and other municipalities -- even without the tax incentives available to businesses and homeowners -- to have their own solar panels. Thanks to advances in materials and processes, they are continuing to become cheaper and more efficient. And although the Capital Region doesn't get the sunlight of Texas, for instance, energy costs are higher here, so the savings per kilowatt from solar are greater.
Throw in the facts that the University at Albany's Nanotechnology College has a new $500 million solar research center, which last year received a $58 million federal grant to help it create a U.S. Photovoltaic Manufacturing Consortium (similar to what Sematech did for semiconductors), and that General Electric will be opening a new $600 million solar manufacturing plant in Colorado, and you can see why solar is the fastest-growing technology industry. Expect to see many more roofs and yards with solar panels, whoever owns or operates them. Municipalities will need appropriate regulations to avoid controversies like the one in Ballston over a large, free-standing solar panel.
2012年1月12日星期四
Solar energy finds a home on Iron Range
The sun continues to shine on Minnesota’s fledgling solar panel industry even as high-profile bankruptcies in the business capture headlines and as China muscles in on markets.
More than 100 contractors, renewable energy experts, civic leaders and local residents toured Silicon Energy’s new solar panel manufacturing plant here on Wednesday to see how the Iron Range’s newest industry is growing. The event was sponsored by the Northeast Region Clean Energy Resource Team, an organization that promotes renewable and sustainable energy.
The Silicon Energy plant here started production in earnest in November and now employs 15 people assembling solar panels designed for homeowners, the military, small businesses and schools.
Silicon Energy started in 2007 with a home office and production plant outside Seattle and chose the Iron Range for their first expansion. So far they have weathered a slow economy and intense competition from inexpensive Chinese solar panels by promoting quality over cost.
While the race to produce the cheapest solar panels helped bankrupt three big U.S. manufacturers last year, Minnesota’s two panel makers say they have a plan for the long haul.
“Most of the (solar panel) industry is going down the road of cheaper, cheaper, cheaper. But we’re going in another direction,” said Gary Shaver, Silicon Energy president, at Wednesday’s event. “You can call it a niche market, if quality is a niche. But we’re trying to sell quality to everyone because in the long run it makes better economic sense.”
The company’s hallmark is durability, with the guts of the sunlight-to-electricity system sealed between two panels of glass. The panels are virtually unbreakable, withstand severe weather and shed snow faster than competitors’ units. The company claims to have the only 40-year durability rating in the business, with no exposed metal parts to rust or plastic to crack.
Their target market is the Twin Cities, but they also are shipping across the Iron Range and as far as Indiana.
“It’s the highest-quality, best looking panel on the market,” said Rebecca Lundberg, a Twin Cities solar installation contractor. “You’ve got a local company that makes a beautiful product, and that’s good for Minnesota.”
Shaver said he’s pleased with the slow but sure startup to the company’s Minnesota expansion and vowed to expand the company at a sustainable rate, adding additional lines and workers as demand picks up.
Silicon Energy received ample public incentives to build the 25,000-square-foot plant here. The Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board offered a $1.5 million loan. The IRRRB also approved a $3.6 million loan to the Economic Development Authority of Mountain Iron to construct the plant for the company. Silicon Energy is the first tenant in the city’s Renewable Energy Park.
The Mountain Iron plant is the second solar manufacturer in the state, behind TenKsolar that opened in Bloomington in August 2010.
Joel Cannon, CEO of TenKsolar, said his business continues a “lumpy” pattern of growth despite an industry shakedown last year that saw Solyndra of California, Evergreen Solar of Massachusetts and SpectraWatt of New York all file for bankruptcy, with Solyndra’s $527 million federal loan package spurring public outcry.
Those companies may have been hardest hit because of the growth of low-cost Chinese panels, but also because their products didn’t stand out in the crowd, Cannon noted.
“The companies that saw problems, I think, didn’t really have a panel that differentiated them from anyone else. They also had very high capital costs and couldn’t compete with their high cost profile,” Cannon said. “This is a $60 billion industry globally and the growth is still there. It’s only going to get better for companies that have a product that stands out.”
TenKsolar had more than $10 million in sales last year and has grown from 50 to 140 employees in the Minneapolis suburb. The company specializes in compact units for rooftops of businesses and institutions. And TenKsolar officials say their system can produce 50 percent more energy per square foot of rooftop than conventional solar panels.
“We really don’t compete with Silicon at all. Our niche is flat-roof installations and they focus on residential,” Cannon said.
Minnesota now has more than 700 solar electric systems installed across the state, up from just 50 in 2002, according to the state Department of Commerce. But the move to solar has been slow. The problem isn’t our weather. Minnesota has about as much solar energy as many southern cities when averaged across the year. And solar panels actually work better on cold, sunny days then on hot days, Shaver said. Snow also makes a good reflector.
Solar’s big drawback has been high startup costs and competition against Minnesota’s relatively cheap electricity rates. With most of Minnesota’s electricity coming from older coal-fired and nuclear plants, our electricity costs as little as 6 or 8 cents per kilowatt hour for businesses, Cannon said. That compares to as much as 18 cents in eastern states, 35 cents in Hawaii and as high as $1 in Los Angeles during peak times, Shaver noted.
“We’re competing well down into the low teens without subsidies. And we hope to have that down to about 8 cents by 2013,” Cannon told the News Tribune.
But when federal and state subsidies are included, solar can make sense even now. There’s a 30 percent federal tax credit for solar systems, and accelerated depreciation adds to the tax benefits. Moreover, Twin Cities’ based Xcel Energy offers a 60 percent rebate for made-in-Minnesota solar systems that helped lure both manufacturers to the state.
Other smaller utilities also offer lesser incentives that help bring the cost down, including Minnesota Power, which offers a $2 per watt incentive up to $2,000.
With zero emissions, local jobs and financial incentives, both companies say Minnesota is poised for solar growth.
“We think we can compete right now,” Shaver said. “Especially when you look at all the benefits of solar.”
More than 100 contractors, renewable energy experts, civic leaders and local residents toured Silicon Energy’s new solar panel manufacturing plant here on Wednesday to see how the Iron Range’s newest industry is growing. The event was sponsored by the Northeast Region Clean Energy Resource Team, an organization that promotes renewable and sustainable energy.
The Silicon Energy plant here started production in earnest in November and now employs 15 people assembling solar panels designed for homeowners, the military, small businesses and schools.
Silicon Energy started in 2007 with a home office and production plant outside Seattle and chose the Iron Range for their first expansion. So far they have weathered a slow economy and intense competition from inexpensive Chinese solar panels by promoting quality over cost.
While the race to produce the cheapest solar panels helped bankrupt three big U.S. manufacturers last year, Minnesota’s two panel makers say they have a plan for the long haul.
“Most of the (solar panel) industry is going down the road of cheaper, cheaper, cheaper. But we’re going in another direction,” said Gary Shaver, Silicon Energy president, at Wednesday’s event. “You can call it a niche market, if quality is a niche. But we’re trying to sell quality to everyone because in the long run it makes better economic sense.”
The company’s hallmark is durability, with the guts of the sunlight-to-electricity system sealed between two panels of glass. The panels are virtually unbreakable, withstand severe weather and shed snow faster than competitors’ units. The company claims to have the only 40-year durability rating in the business, with no exposed metal parts to rust or plastic to crack.
Their target market is the Twin Cities, but they also are shipping across the Iron Range and as far as Indiana.
“It’s the highest-quality, best looking panel on the market,” said Rebecca Lundberg, a Twin Cities solar installation contractor. “You’ve got a local company that makes a beautiful product, and that’s good for Minnesota.”
Shaver said he’s pleased with the slow but sure startup to the company’s Minnesota expansion and vowed to expand the company at a sustainable rate, adding additional lines and workers as demand picks up.
Silicon Energy received ample public incentives to build the 25,000-square-foot plant here. The Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board offered a $1.5 million loan. The IRRRB also approved a $3.6 million loan to the Economic Development Authority of Mountain Iron to construct the plant for the company. Silicon Energy is the first tenant in the city’s Renewable Energy Park.
The Mountain Iron plant is the second solar manufacturer in the state, behind TenKsolar that opened in Bloomington in August 2010.
Joel Cannon, CEO of TenKsolar, said his business continues a “lumpy” pattern of growth despite an industry shakedown last year that saw Solyndra of California, Evergreen Solar of Massachusetts and SpectraWatt of New York all file for bankruptcy, with Solyndra’s $527 million federal loan package spurring public outcry.
Those companies may have been hardest hit because of the growth of low-cost Chinese panels, but also because their products didn’t stand out in the crowd, Cannon noted.
“The companies that saw problems, I think, didn’t really have a panel that differentiated them from anyone else. They also had very high capital costs and couldn’t compete with their high cost profile,” Cannon said. “This is a $60 billion industry globally and the growth is still there. It’s only going to get better for companies that have a product that stands out.”
TenKsolar had more than $10 million in sales last year and has grown from 50 to 140 employees in the Minneapolis suburb. The company specializes in compact units for rooftops of businesses and institutions. And TenKsolar officials say their system can produce 50 percent more energy per square foot of rooftop than conventional solar panels.
“We really don’t compete with Silicon at all. Our niche is flat-roof installations and they focus on residential,” Cannon said.
Minnesota now has more than 700 solar electric systems installed across the state, up from just 50 in 2002, according to the state Department of Commerce. But the move to solar has been slow. The problem isn’t our weather. Minnesota has about as much solar energy as many southern cities when averaged across the year. And solar panels actually work better on cold, sunny days then on hot days, Shaver said. Snow also makes a good reflector.
Solar’s big drawback has been high startup costs and competition against Minnesota’s relatively cheap electricity rates. With most of Minnesota’s electricity coming from older coal-fired and nuclear plants, our electricity costs as little as 6 or 8 cents per kilowatt hour for businesses, Cannon said. That compares to as much as 18 cents in eastern states, 35 cents in Hawaii and as high as $1 in Los Angeles during peak times, Shaver noted.
“We’re competing well down into the low teens without subsidies. And we hope to have that down to about 8 cents by 2013,” Cannon told the News Tribune.
But when federal and state subsidies are included, solar can make sense even now. There’s a 30 percent federal tax credit for solar systems, and accelerated depreciation adds to the tax benefits. Moreover, Twin Cities’ based Xcel Energy offers a 60 percent rebate for made-in-Minnesota solar systems that helped lure both manufacturers to the state.
Other smaller utilities also offer lesser incentives that help bring the cost down, including Minnesota Power, which offers a $2 per watt incentive up to $2,000.
With zero emissions, local jobs and financial incentives, both companies say Minnesota is poised for solar growth.
“We think we can compete right now,” Shaver said. “Especially when you look at all the benefits of solar.”
2012年1月11日星期三
Solar panels leave water company feeling flush
Six water treatment plants on the south coast have installed solar panels in a move that could save operator Portsmouth Water 4,000 a year in electricity costs.
Each site has fitted 50kW of solar panels across its reservoir roofs and adjacent land to produce electricity that will by used on-site to pump and treat water.
The scale of investment has not been revealed. However, installers Solarcentury estimated the panels will generate 42,500 units of electricity a year, resulting in payments through the feed-in tariff scheme as well as a reduction in Portsmouth Water's energy bills.
Nick Roadnight, Portsmouth Water's managing director, said the company is keen to reduce its exposure to rising electricity prices.
"It is important that, as a user of energy, we look at all the potential options to reduce the amount of energy we have to take from the national grid, and at the same time look to reduce our carbon footprint without placing any risk on our ability to supply water to our customers," he said.
"The installation of solar panels on our sites achieves all of these objectives and, with around a 25-year life span, it helps the company have a more sustainable approach to energy use."
Along with Homesun, Friends of the Earth and several other firms, Solarcentury has been at the centre of a long-running legal case challenging the government's plans to cut feed-in tariff incentives for solar installations with just six weeks' notice.
The company saw a number of large contracts cancelled as a result of the proposed changes, but a spokeswoman for the company said the Portsmouth Water deal may offer a template that will allow future projects to proceed, despite the expected cuts to incentives.
She told BusinessGreen there is the possibility of more similar deals in the pipeline, but declined to provide further details.
A spokesman for Portsmouth Water added that installing further panels depended on the outcome of the government's appeal against the High Court ruling on Friday.
Each site has fitted 50kW of solar panels across its reservoir roofs and adjacent land to produce electricity that will by used on-site to pump and treat water.
The scale of investment has not been revealed. However, installers Solarcentury estimated the panels will generate 42,500 units of electricity a year, resulting in payments through the feed-in tariff scheme as well as a reduction in Portsmouth Water's energy bills.
Nick Roadnight, Portsmouth Water's managing director, said the company is keen to reduce its exposure to rising electricity prices.
"It is important that, as a user of energy, we look at all the potential options to reduce the amount of energy we have to take from the national grid, and at the same time look to reduce our carbon footprint without placing any risk on our ability to supply water to our customers," he said.
"The installation of solar panels on our sites achieves all of these objectives and, with around a 25-year life span, it helps the company have a more sustainable approach to energy use."
Along with Homesun, Friends of the Earth and several other firms, Solarcentury has been at the centre of a long-running legal case challenging the government's plans to cut feed-in tariff incentives for solar installations with just six weeks' notice.
The company saw a number of large contracts cancelled as a result of the proposed changes, but a spokeswoman for the company said the Portsmouth Water deal may offer a template that will allow future projects to proceed, despite the expected cuts to incentives.
She told BusinessGreen there is the possibility of more similar deals in the pipeline, but declined to provide further details.
A spokesman for Portsmouth Water added that installing further panels depended on the outcome of the government's appeal against the High Court ruling on Friday.
2012年1月10日星期二
Martinez school board to spend $6.2 million on solar panels
With school funding threatened every year by state budget shortfalls, Martinez school board members hope a $6.2 million investment in solar panels will pay off by reducing energy costs and thereby freeing up money for the district's other needs.
Four board members on Monday agreed to spend the money to install solar panels. John Fuller abstained from voting.
According to an analysis by the solar contractor, the school district will save an estimated $475,000 in the first year the panels are up and running. Superintendent Rami Muth said the solar project will allow the district to control its own destiny by providing a stable source of funds.
"This is going to give us another way to be able to weather those (state budget) storms," Muth said.
The total savings are a combination of lower electricity bills and rebates through the California Solar Incentive program. Through the rebate program, which PG&E runs, the school district will receive 12 cents per kilowatt hour of energy the solar panels produce. If energy costs increase over time, the district could save even more.
The money for the solar project comes from the $45 million bond voters approved in 2010. The board has issued about $25 million in bonds so far. Taxpayers will pay about $2.33 for every dollar in bond funds the district spends, according to Aaron Jobson, of Quattrocchi Kwok Architects.
The solar panels are scheduled to be installed later this year. The solar contractor will guarantee for 10 years that the panels will produce at least 95 percent of the energy they are capable of producing.
The company also will perform routine maintenance on the panels during the 10-year period. The panels come with a 25-year manufacturer's warranty and have a life expectancy of 40 years, Jobson said.
The board has separated the proposed bond projects into three phases. In addition to the solar panels, the first phase includes districtwide technology infrastructure upgrades, additions to the performing arts building and gym at Alhambra High School, a remodeled kitchen at Las Juntas Elementary School, and minor improvements at the Vicente Martinez High School and Briones Independent Study School campus.
However, board member Kathi McLaughlin expressed concern about delaying reconfiguring the driveway and parking lot at Las Juntas and renovating the Vicente Martinez and Briones campus until the second phase.
She urged the board find ways to cut costs on some of the other first-round projects or to find another funding source for the solar panels so the Las Juntas and Vicente projects can be completed in the first round.
The $45 million bond will be repaid over 25 years at a total projected cost of $99 million. Martinez property owners are paying nearly $62 per $100,000 of assessed valuation to repay $48 million in existing school bonds.
Four board members on Monday agreed to spend the money to install solar panels. John Fuller abstained from voting.
According to an analysis by the solar contractor, the school district will save an estimated $475,000 in the first year the panels are up and running. Superintendent Rami Muth said the solar project will allow the district to control its own destiny by providing a stable source of funds.
"This is going to give us another way to be able to weather those (state budget) storms," Muth said.
The total savings are a combination of lower electricity bills and rebates through the California Solar Incentive program. Through the rebate program, which PG&E runs, the school district will receive 12 cents per kilowatt hour of energy the solar panels produce. If energy costs increase over time, the district could save even more.
The money for the solar project comes from the $45 million bond voters approved in 2010. The board has issued about $25 million in bonds so far. Taxpayers will pay about $2.33 for every dollar in bond funds the district spends, according to Aaron Jobson, of Quattrocchi Kwok Architects.
The solar panels are scheduled to be installed later this year. The solar contractor will guarantee for 10 years that the panels will produce at least 95 percent of the energy they are capable of producing.
The company also will perform routine maintenance on the panels during the 10-year period. The panels come with a 25-year manufacturer's warranty and have a life expectancy of 40 years, Jobson said.
The board has separated the proposed bond projects into three phases. In addition to the solar panels, the first phase includes districtwide technology infrastructure upgrades, additions to the performing arts building and gym at Alhambra High School, a remodeled kitchen at Las Juntas Elementary School, and minor improvements at the Vicente Martinez High School and Briones Independent Study School campus.
However, board member Kathi McLaughlin expressed concern about delaying reconfiguring the driveway and parking lot at Las Juntas and renovating the Vicente Martinez and Briones campus until the second phase.
She urged the board find ways to cut costs on some of the other first-round projects or to find another funding source for the solar panels so the Las Juntas and Vicente projects can be completed in the first round.
The $45 million bond will be repaid over 25 years at a total projected cost of $99 million. Martinez property owners are paying nearly $62 per $100,000 of assessed valuation to repay $48 million in existing school bonds.
2012年1月9日星期一
Landmark project set for major investment in Peterborough
A LANDMARK contract which could see up to 200 million invested into the installation of solar panels across Peterborough is set to be approved by the city council.
In what could be a momentous step in the city’s ambitions to be the UK’s environment capital, Peterborough City Council is set to sign a contract valued at anywhere up to 200 million with Mears Limited to supply, install and maintain a swathe of photovoltaic (PV) panels at sites across the city and beyond.
The contract starts from this month and will last until December 2015, although the next few months could see a large number of installations to get the panels in place before the Government’s cash payouts for solar energy generation decrease in April.
No specific sites have been identified yet but the council is expected to install panels on city schools, social houses, council-owned buildings and has not even ruled out installing larger-scale solar farms on empty parcels of land.
Councillor David Seaton, cabinet member for resources, has said the investment would be funded primarily by borrowing, however the council would only install panels when it was sure of turning a profit.
He said: “I think it is becoming increasingly difficult to deliver council services within the reduced budgets so we need to look at other ways of bringing in money to the council to pay for these services.
“But we are going to be cautious and only spend money if we are sure we can pay back that capital investment.
“However, this could absolutely be a great step forward in our environment capital aspirations and both myself and environment capital cabinet member Samantha Dalton are very excited about this.”
The council has already shown its ambition to harness solar power at the former Freemans unit, in Ivatt Way, Westwood, with a number of panels being installed.
Schools in Peterborough, should every one have panels installed, could benefit from investment of some 10 million.
A council decision notice for the contract stated that the schools’ PV project would have an overall contract value of 1.27 million per 10 schools, with there currently being around 65 primary and secondary schools in the city.
As well as reducing the cost of heating and electricity on buildings, the council hopes to return a profit by selling excess energy to the National Grid.
A spokesman for Mears said: “We are delighted to have won this contract.”
Solar panel tariff debate
THE past year has seen a boom in the installation of solar panels on both business and council units as well as private homes.
This is because the “feed-in tariff”, the money earned for generating your own energy, will be reduced by the Government from April.
The decision to reduce the tariff has been criticised by solar panel providers as it will cost jobs as well as prove counter-productive in the push for the use of more renewable energy sources.
Photovoltaic panels are made of semi-conducting materials.
When sunlight strikes the surface of the panel, a direct electric current is produced.
This DC current is then converted to AC electricity using an inverter.
In what could be a momentous step in the city’s ambitions to be the UK’s environment capital, Peterborough City Council is set to sign a contract valued at anywhere up to 200 million with Mears Limited to supply, install and maintain a swathe of photovoltaic (PV) panels at sites across the city and beyond.
The contract starts from this month and will last until December 2015, although the next few months could see a large number of installations to get the panels in place before the Government’s cash payouts for solar energy generation decrease in April.
No specific sites have been identified yet but the council is expected to install panels on city schools, social houses, council-owned buildings and has not even ruled out installing larger-scale solar farms on empty parcels of land.
Councillor David Seaton, cabinet member for resources, has said the investment would be funded primarily by borrowing, however the council would only install panels when it was sure of turning a profit.
He said: “I think it is becoming increasingly difficult to deliver council services within the reduced budgets so we need to look at other ways of bringing in money to the council to pay for these services.
“But we are going to be cautious and only spend money if we are sure we can pay back that capital investment.
“However, this could absolutely be a great step forward in our environment capital aspirations and both myself and environment capital cabinet member Samantha Dalton are very excited about this.”
The council has already shown its ambition to harness solar power at the former Freemans unit, in Ivatt Way, Westwood, with a number of panels being installed.
Schools in Peterborough, should every one have panels installed, could benefit from investment of some 10 million.
A council decision notice for the contract stated that the schools’ PV project would have an overall contract value of 1.27 million per 10 schools, with there currently being around 65 primary and secondary schools in the city.
As well as reducing the cost of heating and electricity on buildings, the council hopes to return a profit by selling excess energy to the National Grid.
A spokesman for Mears said: “We are delighted to have won this contract.”
Solar panel tariff debate
THE past year has seen a boom in the installation of solar panels on both business and council units as well as private homes.
This is because the “feed-in tariff”, the money earned for generating your own energy, will be reduced by the Government from April.
The decision to reduce the tariff has been criticised by solar panel providers as it will cost jobs as well as prove counter-productive in the push for the use of more renewable energy sources.
Photovoltaic panels are made of semi-conducting materials.
When sunlight strikes the surface of the panel, a direct electric current is produced.
This DC current is then converted to AC electricity using an inverter.
2012年1月8日星期日
Solar power on the rise as technology gets cheaper
Even if it is cloudy today the thin solar panels on Hubbard Foods' Auckland factory are helping put the morning cereal on the table.
In the United States, a solar station built by Meridian Energy is generating power for the Californian state grid, and the state-owned enterprise is also building a solar station in Tonga.
And throughout New Zealand homeowners are signing up in growing numbers to generate their own power from the sun.
As the price of the technology falls - it has halved in the past two years - it's becoming more popular.
It is estimated solar units in New Zealand generate up to 4MW to 5MW, a tiny fraction of total generation over summer of about 4500MW a day, but it is growing in small steps.
One domestic installer said some of the growing number of householders opting to complement or in a few cases replace grid-sourced power had cited concerns about rising power prices following the part-sale of SOEs.
In June 2010 Hubbard and lines company Vector teamed up to create the largest thin-film solar photovoltaic (PV) installation on a commercial business in New Zealand.
A total of 160 PV panels covering 227sq m on the roof of the Hubbard building in Mangere produce power for warehouse lighting.
It was hoped the panels would generate 29,000kW/h of electricity a year - the equivalent of the power used to produce 169,000 packets of cereal, or the amount of electricity consumed by 3.5 homes over the same time.
The results of the trial have been encouraging. Because of the thin-film technology in these solar PV panels, electricity is generated even in low light conditions on cloudy days.
Although the actual amount of electricity generated has been slightly lower than projected, Vector says it has been an opportunity to refine system tools and project estimates for use on future installations.
During the past 18 months it has generated more than $8000 of power.
In certain applications, like Department of Conservation diesel conversion projects on Great Barrier Island and Raoul Island, solar PV is considered mainstream and economic, compared with the price and transport of diesel fuel.
However, on a purely substitutable, economic basis, mainstream solar could be a number of years off.
A key point to remember is that the reports of high levels of solar solutions adopted internationally are driven by massive subsidies and feed-in tariffs, which are not available in New Zealand.
It was subsidies and guaranteed off-take of power that attracted Meridian to Mendota in California's Central Valley.
In 2009 it bought a local company, Cleantech America, and built a 5MW solar plant that has a 20-year deal with Pacific Gas & Electric to buy power.
The US$25 million cost of the plant, the first solar station to be connected to the grid in California, got a 30 per cent federal government subsidy as part of the Obama Administration's renewable energy push.
Since commissioning about 18 months ago, it has run at capacity for 24 per cent of the time. In comparison, New Zealand windfarms can run at capacity for 40 per cent of the time.
"The great thing about solar is that it's quite predictable ... We're getting pretty much what we expected to see," said Meridian's corporate ventures manager, Peter Apperley.
The company monitors the California plant from its Wellington headquarters.
"We've got a screen where we can see it. On a summer's day it gets a little bit boring."
Meridian is also building and will initially run a 1MW solar station in Tonga that will provide about 4 per cent of the kingdom's annual load, and between 10 per cent and 25 per cent of daily peak demand.
Apperley said utility-scale solar generation in New Zealand was some way off, and more likely to be located in remote northern communities.
"We think solar will have a part to play. In the near term it will be [small-scale] rooftop PV because the cost of land is too high," he said.
"In 10 years there could be smaller-scale solar farms built, especially where there are supply constraints."
On the outskirts of Warkworth, Chip Babbott has spent about $60,000 installing 27 panels on an outbuilding that, during summer, provides 75 per cent of power for his large family home. It drops to about 50 per cent in winter.
The mechanical engineer chose solar because he was worried about the threat to supply and the rising cost of power. He has calculated it will take about 18 years to recover the initial outlay.
"Some people laugh and say I've blown $60,000, but that's what you can spend on a car. I've got secure power."
Babbott is able to sell excess power back into the grid.
He is now building an electric car by dropping an electric motor into an old Toyota, which he hopes can be fuelled from excess power he generates during the day.
His solar setup comes from What Power Crisis, a South Auckland company that says it is experiencing growing demand for its solar PV modules on rooftops and, in some instances, on ground-mounted frames.
Business development manager Henry Cassin said the company had installed close to 200 systems during the past two years. It had hit its 12-month sales target within the past six months.
Many domestic installations, usually used with a wetback hot-water-heating system, could be done for less than $10,000, excluding GST. Most customers were worried about rising power prices.
"It's very much flavour of the month," Cassin said, with the planned partial sell-off of state power companies one reason for demand.
Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority chief executive Mike Underhill said the cost of solar PV panels had been decreasing worldwide for many years, thanks to economies of scale and improved manufacturing processes.
"Currently, because of a situation of oversupply of PV panels, prices are reduced even further than would otherwise be the case."
This is because of growth in PV manufacturing increasing faster than demand, and depressed demand for PV in markets such as Australia because of the recession.
Suppliers are looking to new markets, and are offering low PV prices in New Zealand.
At an equivalent unit cost for PVof about 26c/kWh, solar is approaching the retail electricity tariff.
Underhill said homeowners considering installing a PV system in order to feed electricity back into the grid for ongoing income should bear in mind that opinions varied on what the tariff should be, and that tariffs on offer now might change in the future.
"Some electricity retailers pay PV owners more than the nominal 8c/kWh, even as much as the full retail tariff, but this may not continue as more and more hobbyists install PV on their homes. It is possible that the price paid for home-generated electricity may fall to about 8c/kWh."
In this eventuality, an investment in PV would make financial sense mainly for those who would use the electricity themselves rather than feeding it back into the grid for payment.
In the United States, a solar station built by Meridian Energy is generating power for the Californian state grid, and the state-owned enterprise is also building a solar station in Tonga.
And throughout New Zealand homeowners are signing up in growing numbers to generate their own power from the sun.
As the price of the technology falls - it has halved in the past two years - it's becoming more popular.
It is estimated solar units in New Zealand generate up to 4MW to 5MW, a tiny fraction of total generation over summer of about 4500MW a day, but it is growing in small steps.
One domestic installer said some of the growing number of householders opting to complement or in a few cases replace grid-sourced power had cited concerns about rising power prices following the part-sale of SOEs.
In June 2010 Hubbard and lines company Vector teamed up to create the largest thin-film solar photovoltaic (PV) installation on a commercial business in New Zealand.
A total of 160 PV panels covering 227sq m on the roof of the Hubbard building in Mangere produce power for warehouse lighting.
It was hoped the panels would generate 29,000kW/h of electricity a year - the equivalent of the power used to produce 169,000 packets of cereal, or the amount of electricity consumed by 3.5 homes over the same time.
The results of the trial have been encouraging. Because of the thin-film technology in these solar PV panels, electricity is generated even in low light conditions on cloudy days.
Although the actual amount of electricity generated has been slightly lower than projected, Vector says it has been an opportunity to refine system tools and project estimates for use on future installations.
During the past 18 months it has generated more than $8000 of power.
In certain applications, like Department of Conservation diesel conversion projects on Great Barrier Island and Raoul Island, solar PV is considered mainstream and economic, compared with the price and transport of diesel fuel.
However, on a purely substitutable, economic basis, mainstream solar could be a number of years off.
A key point to remember is that the reports of high levels of solar solutions adopted internationally are driven by massive subsidies and feed-in tariffs, which are not available in New Zealand.
It was subsidies and guaranteed off-take of power that attracted Meridian to Mendota in California's Central Valley.
In 2009 it bought a local company, Cleantech America, and built a 5MW solar plant that has a 20-year deal with Pacific Gas & Electric to buy power.
The US$25 million cost of the plant, the first solar station to be connected to the grid in California, got a 30 per cent federal government subsidy as part of the Obama Administration's renewable energy push.
Since commissioning about 18 months ago, it has run at capacity for 24 per cent of the time. In comparison, New Zealand windfarms can run at capacity for 40 per cent of the time.
"The great thing about solar is that it's quite predictable ... We're getting pretty much what we expected to see," said Meridian's corporate ventures manager, Peter Apperley.
The company monitors the California plant from its Wellington headquarters.
"We've got a screen where we can see it. On a summer's day it gets a little bit boring."
Meridian is also building and will initially run a 1MW solar station in Tonga that will provide about 4 per cent of the kingdom's annual load, and between 10 per cent and 25 per cent of daily peak demand.
Apperley said utility-scale solar generation in New Zealand was some way off, and more likely to be located in remote northern communities.
"We think solar will have a part to play. In the near term it will be [small-scale] rooftop PV because the cost of land is too high," he said.
"In 10 years there could be smaller-scale solar farms built, especially where there are supply constraints."
On the outskirts of Warkworth, Chip Babbott has spent about $60,000 installing 27 panels on an outbuilding that, during summer, provides 75 per cent of power for his large family home. It drops to about 50 per cent in winter.
The mechanical engineer chose solar because he was worried about the threat to supply and the rising cost of power. He has calculated it will take about 18 years to recover the initial outlay.
"Some people laugh and say I've blown $60,000, but that's what you can spend on a car. I've got secure power."
Babbott is able to sell excess power back into the grid.
He is now building an electric car by dropping an electric motor into an old Toyota, which he hopes can be fuelled from excess power he generates during the day.
His solar setup comes from What Power Crisis, a South Auckland company that says it is experiencing growing demand for its solar PV modules on rooftops and, in some instances, on ground-mounted frames.
Business development manager Henry Cassin said the company had installed close to 200 systems during the past two years. It had hit its 12-month sales target within the past six months.
Many domestic installations, usually used with a wetback hot-water-heating system, could be done for less than $10,000, excluding GST. Most customers were worried about rising power prices.
"It's very much flavour of the month," Cassin said, with the planned partial sell-off of state power companies one reason for demand.
Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority chief executive Mike Underhill said the cost of solar PV panels had been decreasing worldwide for many years, thanks to economies of scale and improved manufacturing processes.
"Currently, because of a situation of oversupply of PV panels, prices are reduced even further than would otherwise be the case."
This is because of growth in PV manufacturing increasing faster than demand, and depressed demand for PV in markets such as Australia because of the recession.
Suppliers are looking to new markets, and are offering low PV prices in New Zealand.
At an equivalent unit cost for PVof about 26c/kWh, solar is approaching the retail electricity tariff.
Underhill said homeowners considering installing a PV system in order to feed electricity back into the grid for ongoing income should bear in mind that opinions varied on what the tariff should be, and that tariffs on offer now might change in the future.
"Some electricity retailers pay PV owners more than the nominal 8c/kWh, even as much as the full retail tariff, but this may not continue as more and more hobbyists install PV on their homes. It is possible that the price paid for home-generated electricity may fall to about 8c/kWh."
In this eventuality, an investment in PV would make financial sense mainly for those who would use the electricity themselves rather than feeding it back into the grid for payment.
2012年1月5日星期四
Solar Panels Compete With Cheap Natural Gas
Renewable energy is growing rapidly in the U.S., with wind and solar industries enjoying double-digit growth each year. Part of that growth comes from more homeowners choosing to install solar panels.
With government subsidies, some people can even make a financial argument for installing the panels. But in recent years, the price of one fossil fuel — natural gas — has declined so much that solar panels are having difficulty competing.
The reason natural gas prices have fallen is because production is way up, thanks to hydraulic fracturing. Fracking, as it's called, is a controversial drilling technology that some say harms the environment. But the process has also made it possible to extract oil and gas once thought to be trapped in rock too deep underground for drillers to reach.
Due in large part to a combination of fracking and horizontal drilling, there's been a nearly 30 percent increase in the amount of natural gas produced in the U.S. since 2005.
"We've got a classic situation of supply and demand," says Kathryn Klaber, president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry group based outside Pittsburgh.
Natural gas demand has not gone up as quickly as supply, and Klaber says the price has dropped.
"A handful of years ago, natural gas could have been in the order of 12, 13, 14 dollars per million BTU," she says. "We're now down to three to four ."
This has allowed utilities that burn natural gas to produce electricity to hold the line on rates. For most of us, that's a good thing, but for those who've installed solar panels, it makes that investment less of a bargain.
Barbara Scott had 21 solar panels installed last March on her house in Media, Pa. Scott's family was the first in the community, and she was prepared to evangelize, "We can have open houses and write newsletter articles and promote the idea of solar," she said. But that was before the economics changed.
With government rebates and tax incentives, Scott says, her family spent $21,000 to install the system. She figured it would take eight years to recoup that investment.
A lot of other people had the same idea at the same time, which sent the price of solar energy credits down sharply in Pennsylvania. Scott says that added another seven years to the payback period.
On top of that, Scott says, electricity rates aren't going up as quickly as she thought they would, thanks in part to low natural gas prices.
"So that, again, adds another two years to our payback period," she says. "We're up to 17 years, which is, essentially, the life of the system. And we haven't even considered what happens if the system breaks or what it's going to cost to take the system off the roof and dispose of it. "
Despite this, Scott says she's still happy to have the panels on her house.
"But now, knowing it's — at best — a break-even proposition, we're not so comfortable telling other people to do it," she says.
Her experience raises questions about the viability of much larger, utility-scale solar projects built in recent years. But for them, the balance sheet looks different.
"They get a fixed price contract with a utility or somebody else who will buy that power from them," says Richard Caperton, director of clean energy investment at the Center for American Progress. Or with utilities, "they get to roll that into a rate base and recover that cost from electric power consumers."
Caperton says what's more interesting is to think about the wind, solar and even nuclear plants that are not being built now because producing with cheaper natural gas is more attractive to investors.
But natural gas prices could rise again quickly. If that happens, solar panels may seem like a good investment once again.
With government subsidies, some people can even make a financial argument for installing the panels. But in recent years, the price of one fossil fuel — natural gas — has declined so much that solar panels are having difficulty competing.
The reason natural gas prices have fallen is because production is way up, thanks to hydraulic fracturing. Fracking, as it's called, is a controversial drilling technology that some say harms the environment. But the process has also made it possible to extract oil and gas once thought to be trapped in rock too deep underground for drillers to reach.
Due in large part to a combination of fracking and horizontal drilling, there's been a nearly 30 percent increase in the amount of natural gas produced in the U.S. since 2005.
"We've got a classic situation of supply and demand," says Kathryn Klaber, president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry group based outside Pittsburgh.
Natural gas demand has not gone up as quickly as supply, and Klaber says the price has dropped.
"A handful of years ago, natural gas could have been in the order of 12, 13, 14 dollars per million BTU," she says. "We're now down to three to four ."
This has allowed utilities that burn natural gas to produce electricity to hold the line on rates. For most of us, that's a good thing, but for those who've installed solar panels, it makes that investment less of a bargain.
Barbara Scott had 21 solar panels installed last March on her house in Media, Pa. Scott's family was the first in the community, and she was prepared to evangelize, "We can have open houses and write newsletter articles and promote the idea of solar," she said. But that was before the economics changed.
With government rebates and tax incentives, Scott says, her family spent $21,000 to install the system. She figured it would take eight years to recoup that investment.
A lot of other people had the same idea at the same time, which sent the price of solar energy credits down sharply in Pennsylvania. Scott says that added another seven years to the payback period.
On top of that, Scott says, electricity rates aren't going up as quickly as she thought they would, thanks in part to low natural gas prices.
"So that, again, adds another two years to our payback period," she says. "We're up to 17 years, which is, essentially, the life of the system. And we haven't even considered what happens if the system breaks or what it's going to cost to take the system off the roof and dispose of it. "
Despite this, Scott says she's still happy to have the panels on her house.
"But now, knowing it's — at best — a break-even proposition, we're not so comfortable telling other people to do it," she says.
Her experience raises questions about the viability of much larger, utility-scale solar projects built in recent years. But for them, the balance sheet looks different.
"They get a fixed price contract with a utility or somebody else who will buy that power from them," says Richard Caperton, director of clean energy investment at the Center for American Progress. Or with utilities, "they get to roll that into a rate base and recover that cost from electric power consumers."
Caperton says what's more interesting is to think about the wind, solar and even nuclear plants that are not being built now because producing with cheaper natural gas is more attractive to investors.
But natural gas prices could rise again quickly. If that happens, solar panels may seem like a good investment once again.
2012年1月4日星期三
Solar thermal technology seen bolstering renewable energy adoption
The quest to develop an improved renewable energy storage system is intensifying, as researchers continue to make progress in their drive to spur the adoption of green technology.
One of the biggest hurdles facing the widespread adoption of solar panel and wind turbine systems is that they are still reliant on the whims of nature. Solar panel arrays are capable of generating a substantial amount of electricity when the sun is shining, but energy storage technology has not progressed as rapidly, confounding experts.
However, engineers are growing increasingly optimistic that solar thermal power could overcome the energy storage obstacles currently facing clean technology companies. The New York Times reports that researchers are betting the energy generation scheme, which harnesses the sun's heat to boil water and create electricity, can circumvent storage issues and potentially drive clean adoption throughout the U.S.
Scientists contend that the water used in solar thermal systems can be used to heat salt, which would effectively store energy for later usage. Such a system is optimal, according to experts, because it would supply energy to homes and businesses during the nighttime hours when the sun is no longer helping to drive energy generation.
More specifically, researchers and industry experts are hoping that solar thermal power plants could help meet electricity demand during peak demand hours, designated between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. Renewable energy company SolarReserve is currently constructing such a power plant in the Nevada desert, and executives from the firm asserted it should be operational by next year.
Moreover, BrightSource, a company that is backed by more than $165 million in financing from California-based technology giant Google, plans to build three separate solar thermal plants in the Golden State. While BrightSource's facilities would begin generating energy in 2016 and 2017, they are projected to have a massive electricity generation capacity.
In total, the two firms' four solar thermal plants would be able to power tens of thousand of households on a typical summer evening – a feat today's solar panel systems are not capable of accomplishing.
Admittedly, there are hurdles solar thermal technology companies must overcome, but high-profile companies besides Google, including Chevron and Good Energies, are investing in it. Engineers assert that solar thermal plants could play a crucial role in energy production by the end of the decade, and while they will not replace conventional solar panel systems, they will complement them by generating electricity at night.
It is often difficult to connect renewable energy systems to the U.S. electric grid, experts say, with the nation's power supply network plagued by power outages and other grid disruptions. Balancing the supply and demand of energy has become increasingly important and complex, and solar thermal plants could help augment electricity production during times of elevated consumption levels. This would help power providers ensure demand is met, and as a result, would reduce the frequency of power outages.
The San Jose Mercury News reports that state legislation in California is also helping drive the creation solar thermal technology plants. California signed into law regulations mandating power providers derive more than 33 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. With time quickly dwindling, utilities are working feverishly to comply with the stringent laws, variations of which other states have passed.
One of the biggest hurdles facing the widespread adoption of solar panel and wind turbine systems is that they are still reliant on the whims of nature. Solar panel arrays are capable of generating a substantial amount of electricity when the sun is shining, but energy storage technology has not progressed as rapidly, confounding experts.
However, engineers are growing increasingly optimistic that solar thermal power could overcome the energy storage obstacles currently facing clean technology companies. The New York Times reports that researchers are betting the energy generation scheme, which harnesses the sun's heat to boil water and create electricity, can circumvent storage issues and potentially drive clean adoption throughout the U.S.
Scientists contend that the water used in solar thermal systems can be used to heat salt, which would effectively store energy for later usage. Such a system is optimal, according to experts, because it would supply energy to homes and businesses during the nighttime hours when the sun is no longer helping to drive energy generation.
More specifically, researchers and industry experts are hoping that solar thermal power plants could help meet electricity demand during peak demand hours, designated between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. Renewable energy company SolarReserve is currently constructing such a power plant in the Nevada desert, and executives from the firm asserted it should be operational by next year.
Moreover, BrightSource, a company that is backed by more than $165 million in financing from California-based technology giant Google, plans to build three separate solar thermal plants in the Golden State. While BrightSource's facilities would begin generating energy in 2016 and 2017, they are projected to have a massive electricity generation capacity.
In total, the two firms' four solar thermal plants would be able to power tens of thousand of households on a typical summer evening – a feat today's solar panel systems are not capable of accomplishing.
Admittedly, there are hurdles solar thermal technology companies must overcome, but high-profile companies besides Google, including Chevron and Good Energies, are investing in it. Engineers assert that solar thermal plants could play a crucial role in energy production by the end of the decade, and while they will not replace conventional solar panel systems, they will complement them by generating electricity at night.
It is often difficult to connect renewable energy systems to the U.S. electric grid, experts say, with the nation's power supply network plagued by power outages and other grid disruptions. Balancing the supply and demand of energy has become increasingly important and complex, and solar thermal plants could help augment electricity production during times of elevated consumption levels. This would help power providers ensure demand is met, and as a result, would reduce the frequency of power outages.
The San Jose Mercury News reports that state legislation in California is also helping drive the creation solar thermal technology plants. California signed into law regulations mandating power providers derive more than 33 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. With time quickly dwindling, utilities are working feverishly to comply with the stringent laws, variations of which other states have passed.
2012年1月3日星期二
Solar Gardens a Offer Solar Power Without the Installation
The U.S. has seen a dramatic rise in interest in solar installations across the country, with a record added capacity through the first three quarters of 2011 and similar records projected for the rest of the year, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.
But many Americans still face difficulty taking advantage of the potential savings and stability offered by solar power because of limited access to solar systems. Now, though, a growing number of new options are available for financing solar installations, some of which can offer people access they might not have had otherwise.
One of the most important developments in the solar industry in recent years was the emergence of two financing options known as solar leasing and power purchase agreements. Both options allow home and business owners to add a rooftop solar installation with little or no money down up-front. Solar leases require fixed payments, the same as a standard loan, while a power purchase agreement obliges people to buy the electricity generated by a solar system for a fixed rate, sometimes with the option to eventually purchase the panels.
Each of these systems offers a means of long-term income and short-term business for solar installers, and they tap into an important and growing market segment. While residential solar installations have remains relatively stable, commercial solar installations have grown dramatically, in large part because of these new options.
But they do not provide access to solar for everyone. Homeowners who either are not allowed to add solar panels or lack good locations for such installations, renters and businesses that do not own their property all would still have no chance to invest in solar through these systems.
However, Forbes reports that a new type of solar financing has emerged that could provide an answer for this group. So-called solar gardens take the recent idea of group financing for solar projects and condenses it into a single project. Whereas solar leasing offers homeowners the opportunity to own a solar installation at low cost, solar gardens instead offer just the solar electricity.
The solar installer will build a large solar system on otherwise unused public property, potentially making use of undesirable lands such as landfills, and then sells limited shares in the plant panel-by-panel, similar to the way in which some communities have come to support local farms through co-ops.
While traditionally solar panels have helped reduce electricity bills through net metering, in which the power used by a home or business is offset by the power produced by the solar installation, solar farms instead rely on virtual net metering. In this system, the production of the solar farm is divided by the number of shares and the output in a month is divvied between members based on the number of shares they hold on the account itself.
"With the traditional solar leasing model, if you approach a typical institutional investor they’ll say what happens when Bob the homeowner defaults on his lease, what’s the salvage value? And they’ll assume zero," Lee Barken, energy and cleantech practice leader at consulting firm Haskell & White, told Forbes. "The elegance of the solar garden approach is that people buy in and pay a share, so if Bob stops paying his subscription, you don’t have to go remove his solar panels, you just sell his share to the next person."
The primary limitation of this method of financing at the moment is that not all states' laws allow for it. According to the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency, all but seven require net metering up to a certain level, but only Massachusetts and Colorado currently specifically allow virtual net metering, though California is considering making the change.
But many Americans still face difficulty taking advantage of the potential savings and stability offered by solar power because of limited access to solar systems. Now, though, a growing number of new options are available for financing solar installations, some of which can offer people access they might not have had otherwise.
One of the most important developments in the solar industry in recent years was the emergence of two financing options known as solar leasing and power purchase agreements. Both options allow home and business owners to add a rooftop solar installation with little or no money down up-front. Solar leases require fixed payments, the same as a standard loan, while a power purchase agreement obliges people to buy the electricity generated by a solar system for a fixed rate, sometimes with the option to eventually purchase the panels.
Each of these systems offers a means of long-term income and short-term business for solar installers, and they tap into an important and growing market segment. While residential solar installations have remains relatively stable, commercial solar installations have grown dramatically, in large part because of these new options.
But they do not provide access to solar for everyone. Homeowners who either are not allowed to add solar panels or lack good locations for such installations, renters and businesses that do not own their property all would still have no chance to invest in solar through these systems.
However, Forbes reports that a new type of solar financing has emerged that could provide an answer for this group. So-called solar gardens take the recent idea of group financing for solar projects and condenses it into a single project. Whereas solar leasing offers homeowners the opportunity to own a solar installation at low cost, solar gardens instead offer just the solar electricity.
The solar installer will build a large solar system on otherwise unused public property, potentially making use of undesirable lands such as landfills, and then sells limited shares in the plant panel-by-panel, similar to the way in which some communities have come to support local farms through co-ops.
While traditionally solar panels have helped reduce electricity bills through net metering, in which the power used by a home or business is offset by the power produced by the solar installation, solar farms instead rely on virtual net metering. In this system, the production of the solar farm is divided by the number of shares and the output in a month is divvied between members based on the number of shares they hold on the account itself.
"With the traditional solar leasing model, if you approach a typical institutional investor they’ll say what happens when Bob the homeowner defaults on his lease, what’s the salvage value? And they’ll assume zero," Lee Barken, energy and cleantech practice leader at consulting firm Haskell & White, told Forbes. "The elegance of the solar garden approach is that people buy in and pay a share, so if Bob stops paying his subscription, you don’t have to go remove his solar panels, you just sell his share to the next person."
The primary limitation of this method of financing at the moment is that not all states' laws allow for it. According to the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency, all but seven require net metering up to a certain level, but only Massachusetts and Colorado currently specifically allow virtual net metering, though California is considering making the change.
2012年1月2日星期一
Storehouses for Solar Energy Can Step in When the Sun Goes Down
If solar energy is eventually going to matter— that is, generate a significant portion of the nation’s electricity — the industry must overcome a major stumbling block, experts say: finding a way to store it for use when the sun isn’t shining.
That challenge seems to be creating an opening for a different form of power, solar thermal, which makes electricity by using the sun’s heat to boil water. The water can be used to heat salt that stores the energy until later, when the sun dips and households power up their appliances and air-conditioning at peak demand hours in the summer.
Two California companies are planning to deploy the storage technology: SolarReserve, which is building a plant in the Nevada desert scheduled to start up next year, and BrightSource, which plans three plants in California that would begin operating in 2016 and 2017. Together, the four projects will be capable of powering tens of thousand of households throughout a summer evening.
Whether the technology will be widely adopted remains to be seen, but companies like Google, Chevron and Good Energies are investing in it, and the utilities NV Energy and Southern California Edison have signed long-term contracts to buy power from these radically different new power plants.
One crucial role of the plants will be complementing solar panels, which produce electricity directly from sunlight. When the panels ramp down at dusk or on cloudy days, the plants will crank up, drawing on the stored thermal energy.
That job will become more important if photovoltaic panels, which have plunged in price lately, become even cheaper and sprout on millions of rooftops. As the grid starts depending more heavily on solar panels or wind turbines, it will need other energy sources that can step in quickly to balance the system — preferably ones classified as renewable.
Most utilities are trying to generate as many kilowatt-hours of renewable energy as they can to meet stiffer state requirements on incorporating more alternative energy, said Kevin B. Smith, the chief executive of SolarReserve.
“As we move forward, we’ll get more and more traction with the fact we can provide more capacity,” Mr. Smith said, referring to his company’s storage technology.
The Energy Department seems to agree: in September it gave SolarReserve a $737 million loan guarantee for its project in Nevada. The plant will generate 110 megawatts at peak and store enough heat to run for eight to 10 hours when the sun is not shining.
The public’s view on loan guarantees for solar projects has soured somewhat since the bankruptcy of Solyndra, a California company that received a $535 million loan guarantee to build a factory to make solar panels — only to see the market for the modules crash.
But the outlook has always been clearer for companies that make electricity, which, unlike solar modules, is generally presold by contract.
Technical details of the SolarReserve and BrightSource plants vary slightly, but both will use thousands of computer-operated poster-size mirrors aiming sunlight at a tower that absorbs it as heat.
SolarReserve absorbs the heat in molten salt, which can be used immediately to boil water, generating steam that turns a conventional turbine and generator. Hot salt can also be used to retain the heat for many hours for later use. BrightSource heats water that can be used immediately as steam or to heat salt for storage.
The plants rely on salt because it can store far more heat than water can. But once molten, it must be kept that way or it will freeze to a solid in part of the plant where it will be difficult to melt again. “You’ve made a commitment to those salt molecules,” said Paul Woolard, the chief executive of BrightSource.
The technology is not complicated, but the economics are.
The simplest, least expensive path for solar thermal is to turn the heat into electricity immediately. But the companies are a bit like the farmer who harvests the grain and stores it in a silo rather than shipping it straight to market on the expectation that prices will be higher later. They are betting that in revenue terms, the hour at which the energy is delivered will be more important than the amount generated.
The notion is that widespread adoption of solar panels — whether on rooftops or in giant arrays in the desert — will change the hours at which prices are highest.
Today, electricity prices usually peak in the late afternoon and evening on hot summer days. “Photovoltaic panels will do a pretty good job of chopping that peak” in the late afternoon, said Paul Denholm, a solar specialist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Boulder, Colo.
In other words, the new price peak will be pushed to later in the day, to just before and after sunset, when solar photovoltaic production is small or nonexistent, he and other experts say.
That challenge seems to be creating an opening for a different form of power, solar thermal, which makes electricity by using the sun’s heat to boil water. The water can be used to heat salt that stores the energy until later, when the sun dips and households power up their appliances and air-conditioning at peak demand hours in the summer.
Two California companies are planning to deploy the storage technology: SolarReserve, which is building a plant in the Nevada desert scheduled to start up next year, and BrightSource, which plans three plants in California that would begin operating in 2016 and 2017. Together, the four projects will be capable of powering tens of thousand of households throughout a summer evening.
Whether the technology will be widely adopted remains to be seen, but companies like Google, Chevron and Good Energies are investing in it, and the utilities NV Energy and Southern California Edison have signed long-term contracts to buy power from these radically different new power plants.
One crucial role of the plants will be complementing solar panels, which produce electricity directly from sunlight. When the panels ramp down at dusk or on cloudy days, the plants will crank up, drawing on the stored thermal energy.
That job will become more important if photovoltaic panels, which have plunged in price lately, become even cheaper and sprout on millions of rooftops. As the grid starts depending more heavily on solar panels or wind turbines, it will need other energy sources that can step in quickly to balance the system — preferably ones classified as renewable.
Most utilities are trying to generate as many kilowatt-hours of renewable energy as they can to meet stiffer state requirements on incorporating more alternative energy, said Kevin B. Smith, the chief executive of SolarReserve.
“As we move forward, we’ll get more and more traction with the fact we can provide more capacity,” Mr. Smith said, referring to his company’s storage technology.
The Energy Department seems to agree: in September it gave SolarReserve a $737 million loan guarantee for its project in Nevada. The plant will generate 110 megawatts at peak and store enough heat to run for eight to 10 hours when the sun is not shining.
The public’s view on loan guarantees for solar projects has soured somewhat since the bankruptcy of Solyndra, a California company that received a $535 million loan guarantee to build a factory to make solar panels — only to see the market for the modules crash.
But the outlook has always been clearer for companies that make electricity, which, unlike solar modules, is generally presold by contract.
Technical details of the SolarReserve and BrightSource plants vary slightly, but both will use thousands of computer-operated poster-size mirrors aiming sunlight at a tower that absorbs it as heat.
SolarReserve absorbs the heat in molten salt, which can be used immediately to boil water, generating steam that turns a conventional turbine and generator. Hot salt can also be used to retain the heat for many hours for later use. BrightSource heats water that can be used immediately as steam or to heat salt for storage.
The plants rely on salt because it can store far more heat than water can. But once molten, it must be kept that way or it will freeze to a solid in part of the plant where it will be difficult to melt again. “You’ve made a commitment to those salt molecules,” said Paul Woolard, the chief executive of BrightSource.
The technology is not complicated, but the economics are.
The simplest, least expensive path for solar thermal is to turn the heat into electricity immediately. But the companies are a bit like the farmer who harvests the grain and stores it in a silo rather than shipping it straight to market on the expectation that prices will be higher later. They are betting that in revenue terms, the hour at which the energy is delivered will be more important than the amount generated.
The notion is that widespread adoption of solar panels — whether on rooftops or in giant arrays in the desert — will change the hours at which prices are highest.
Today, electricity prices usually peak in the late afternoon and evening on hot summer days. “Photovoltaic panels will do a pretty good job of chopping that peak” in the late afternoon, said Paul Denholm, a solar specialist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Boulder, Colo.
In other words, the new price peak will be pushed to later in the day, to just before and after sunset, when solar photovoltaic production is small or nonexistent, he and other experts say.
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