The team colors of the Washington Redskins, as any diehard fan can tell you, are burgundy and gold. But soon they will add a touch of green to the mix.
NRG Energy, a Princeton-based energy company, plans to integrate new solar power installations into FedEx Stadium and its parking lot in September, providing a portion of the electricity to power the stadium on game days and all of its electricity needs on non-game days.
Not only will the solar panels provide the electricity to power the stadium, the company also will install 10 electric vehicle-charging stations in the parking lot. NRG is one of the biggest promoters of plug-in electric vehicles, developing an infrastructure for electric vehicles in and around Houston, TX, under a pilot program.
When completed, the Princeton company expects to install three types of 8,000 solar panels in a parking lot. Besides generating power for the stadium, the panels will provide covered parking to protect fans from inclement weather and enhance the tailgating experience on game days, officials said.
"It will take 8,000 solar panels and a lot of expertise to deliver this win to the Redskins -- we’re getting it done," said David Crane, president and chief executive officer of NRG Energy.
NRG is a diversified energy company with more than 25,000 megawatts of generating capacity, including natural gas, nuclear and coal plants. In recent years, it has expanded its portfolio to include solar and wind projects, as well as building the nation’s first privately funded infrastructure system for plug-in electric vehicles.
"There is nothing like homegrown, in this case stadium-grown energy," said Fred Smith, chairman and chief executive officer of the FedEx Corp. and part owner of the Washington Redskins. "Solar can be a very smart investment. I am pleased to see FedEx moving in this direction and increasing its energy independence."
NRG’s subsidiary, Reliant Energy, will be the official provider for all the electricity to power the Redskins in their home stadium. Reliant is one of the largest retail electricity providers in the Texas market and is expanding its commercial and residential businesses to several states in the Northeast, as well as Maryland.
2011年7月14日星期四
2011年6月14日星期二
Bills back trend of rental solar panels
More and more Coloradans are opting to lease solar energy systems for their homes to avoid the large up-front cost of buying solar panels.
To facilitate the practice, Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., is backing a bill to reduce the risk to companies that want to rent solar equipment.
Meanwhile, Gov. John Hickenlooper signed a bill Friday to reduce the permitting fees that local governments charge installers.
Colorado already ranks as a top market for the solar business. The state government provides a number of loans, tax exemptions and rebates for system installation. The state also has the third-highest number of solar installers affiliated with the American Solar Energy Society, according to FindSolar.com.
However, solar panels still remain largely out of reach for residential ownership. Prices for a complete system can range from $10,000 to $40,000 even after state and federal rebates and incentives, according to Cooler Planet, a Seattle renewable-energy company.
To address this problem, several companies have started to offer solar power financing services, where instead of buying panels, homeowners use company-owned equipment and pay for the power they use.
Although there are no savings guarantees, customers often will pay less for the leases and the electric bills than they previously paid for electric bills alone.
“This business model is making it so that solar is affordable for millions of Americans,” said Susan Wise, a spokeswoman for SunRun, one of the nation’s largest solar-power service companies, which also provides service in Colorado.
“This is just a much better way to go solar,” she said. “You don’t actually want the equipment. You just want the clean power.”
SunRun doubled the number of customers it serves from 5,000 to 10,000 between early 2010 and 2011, Wise said.
Close to half of all solar customers in Colorado use a solar lease-type model, as opposed to owning their own panels, according to Neal Lurie, the executive director of Colorado Solar Energy Industries Association.
“I think that solar-related financing programs, including solar leases, are going to see significant growth in the months ahead,” Lurie said. “This model barely existed just a couple years ago. The fact that they have close to 50 percent of solar customers participating in solar leases reinforces the fact that it just makes it easier for customers.”
Udall wants to encourage further growth in the solar market, which currently accounts for just 1 percent of the nation’s electricity supply.
Along with Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., he sponsored legislation that would allow the Department of Energy to ensure the value of leases for residential solar energy panels. Whitehouse introduced the bill, S. 1126, on June 1.
The bill allows companies that lease solar panels to pay a premium to join the program, and they would be protected if homeowners defaulted on the cost of the lease or the system didn’t produce enough energy. Because the companies would pay a premium, the cost of the program to the taxpayers would be zero.
The senators hope the program would encourage more companies to offer such leases and bolster the solar-energy market.
“By making solar energy more accessible to people, you stimulate manufacturing, you create jobs, you also create an interest in solar energy,” Udall spokeswoman Jennifer Talhelm said.
At the state level, Wise said that rebates and other incentives are making it possible for solar leasing to exist.
“We still very much need subsidies in order to make this work,” she said.
Wise said that in the future, the industry’s goal is to be subsidy-free.
A major area that needs to be addressed is inconsistencies in solar permitting practices from municipality to municipality, Wise said. Such differences, on average, add about $2,500 per installation.
“If you can streamline permitting processes across the industry and have a standard process with online submission forms you will significantly reduce the cost of solar,” she said.
Efforts are under way at both the national and the state level to address this issue. The Department of Energy and the White House are enlisting local governments to design a streamlined permitting process that they would encourage cities to adopt.
In Colorado, Hickenlooper on Friday signed into law legislation that would ease the state’s permitting process. It limits the cost of solar permits and related fees to the local government’s actual cost to issue the permit, not to exceed $500 for a residential installation.
“I think this is ground-breaking legislation that is likely to become a national model that other states will follow,” said Lurie with Colorado Solar Energy Industries Association.
To facilitate the practice, Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., is backing a bill to reduce the risk to companies that want to rent solar equipment.
Meanwhile, Gov. John Hickenlooper signed a bill Friday to reduce the permitting fees that local governments charge installers.
Colorado already ranks as a top market for the solar business. The state government provides a number of loans, tax exemptions and rebates for system installation. The state also has the third-highest number of solar installers affiliated with the American Solar Energy Society, according to FindSolar.com.
However, solar panels still remain largely out of reach for residential ownership. Prices for a complete system can range from $10,000 to $40,000 even after state and federal rebates and incentives, according to Cooler Planet, a Seattle renewable-energy company.
To address this problem, several companies have started to offer solar power financing services, where instead of buying panels, homeowners use company-owned equipment and pay for the power they use.
Although there are no savings guarantees, customers often will pay less for the leases and the electric bills than they previously paid for electric bills alone.
“This business model is making it so that solar is affordable for millions of Americans,” said Susan Wise, a spokeswoman for SunRun, one of the nation’s largest solar-power service companies, which also provides service in Colorado.
“This is just a much better way to go solar,” she said. “You don’t actually want the equipment. You just want the clean power.”
SunRun doubled the number of customers it serves from 5,000 to 10,000 between early 2010 and 2011, Wise said.
Close to half of all solar customers in Colorado use a solar lease-type model, as opposed to owning their own panels, according to Neal Lurie, the executive director of Colorado Solar Energy Industries Association.
“I think that solar-related financing programs, including solar leases, are going to see significant growth in the months ahead,” Lurie said. “This model barely existed just a couple years ago. The fact that they have close to 50 percent of solar customers participating in solar leases reinforces the fact that it just makes it easier for customers.”
Udall wants to encourage further growth in the solar market, which currently accounts for just 1 percent of the nation’s electricity supply.
Along with Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., he sponsored legislation that would allow the Department of Energy to ensure the value of leases for residential solar energy panels. Whitehouse introduced the bill, S. 1126, on June 1.
The bill allows companies that lease solar panels to pay a premium to join the program, and they would be protected if homeowners defaulted on the cost of the lease or the system didn’t produce enough energy. Because the companies would pay a premium, the cost of the program to the taxpayers would be zero.
The senators hope the program would encourage more companies to offer such leases and bolster the solar-energy market.
“By making solar energy more accessible to people, you stimulate manufacturing, you create jobs, you also create an interest in solar energy,” Udall spokeswoman Jennifer Talhelm said.
At the state level, Wise said that rebates and other incentives are making it possible for solar leasing to exist.
“We still very much need subsidies in order to make this work,” she said.
Wise said that in the future, the industry’s goal is to be subsidy-free.
A major area that needs to be addressed is inconsistencies in solar permitting practices from municipality to municipality, Wise said. Such differences, on average, add about $2,500 per installation.
“If you can streamline permitting processes across the industry and have a standard process with online submission forms you will significantly reduce the cost of solar,” she said.
Efforts are under way at both the national and the state level to address this issue. The Department of Energy and the White House are enlisting local governments to design a streamlined permitting process that they would encourage cities to adopt.
In Colorado, Hickenlooper on Friday signed into law legislation that would ease the state’s permitting process. It limits the cost of solar permits and related fees to the local government’s actual cost to issue the permit, not to exceed $500 for a residential installation.
“I think this is ground-breaking legislation that is likely to become a national model that other states will follow,” said Lurie with Colorado Solar Energy Industries Association.
2011年3月27日星期日
Solar canopy energizes Cincinnati Zoo
Visitors to the Cincinnati Zoo are marveling at a new sight: Nearly 4 acres of solar panels have been installed over a vast span of the parking lot.
Billed as one of the largest public urban solar displays in the country, the $11 million solar "canopy" will do much more than help control the zoo's utility bills and shelter visitors from the elements when it's turned on in mid-April, developers say.
While it puts solar technology on display, the project also "will help put Cincinnati on the map as a national leader in the adoption and promotion of clean energy," said developer Steve Melink, Clermont County businessman and renewable energy advocate.
Workers finished installing the last solar panels Friday. The project has already sparked calls from more than a dozen zoos from as far away as California and Oregon interested in the project and how it was put together.
Mark Fisher, the zoo's senior director of facilities, planning and sustainability, said it's creating a buzz from visitors as well. "Some people wonder what the heck it is, and those who have heard about it are surprised at how big it is," he said.
According to Melink, the project consists of 6,400 photovoltaic solar collection panels assembled on more than 100 metal arrays, 15 to 18 feet high. They cover about 800 of the 1,000 parking spaces at the zoo's main entrance. The project is designed to produce 1.56 megawatts of electricity, about 20% of the zoo's annual need and enough to power 200 homes.
It isn't the largest solar project in Ohio. The Wyandot Solar farm, a utility-sponsored project near Upper Sandusky, covers about 80 acres and is designed to produce more than 10 megawatts of electricity.
Because the zoo's parking canopies are so public, officials say it will dramatically spur interest in solar here.
"The education aspect is worth a lot," says Raju Yenamandra, vice president at SolarWorld, a German-based company that produced the zoo's solar panels at its plant in Hillsboro, Ore. He thought so highly of the zoo project that he accelerated the delivery schedule for the zoo's solar panels, so the project would be ready this spring.
"When you think of the number of people who visit the zoo (about 1.3 million annually), particularly younger kids, the educational aspect will be fantastic," he said.
Solar canopies, which harness the sun's rays for electricity and provide shelter from its harsh rays, have been popular in warmer climates such as Southern California and Arizona. They're gaining in popularity in other parts of the country in the face of rising energy prices and government incentives to make solar technology more affordable.
"We're bidding multiple projects all over the country," said Dana Rudolph, president of ProtekPark Solar, which fabricated and installed the metal structures holding the solar panels. ProtekPark, a sister company of greenhouse constructor Rough Brothers, has been building parking canopies for about 10 years but lately found solar projects are the fastest-growing part of its business. It recently supplied metal canopies for solar projects at two community colleges in New Jersey.
The Cincinnati Zoo project grew out of a casual meeting between Fisher, Melink and Jeremy Chapman, Melink's business development manager, at a green building conference in Phoenix two years ago.
Fisher, who was looking for opportunities to expand the zoo's growing green profile, said Melink was looking for a signature project to demonstrate its developing solar installation business: "I told them: I have a parking lot."
Melink, which is developing a smaller pre-engineered solar array system for homes and businesses, was intrigued.
"We want to make a difference," he said. "And this was the scale we wanted."
The biggest hurdle was structuring the project's financing.
"It was about 99% financing and 1% engineering," Melink said.
The project relies on financing through a combination of federal New Market Tax Credits and federal energy tax credits through PNC Bank. It relies on cash from the tax credits, sales of electricity over the next seven years to the zoo and selling the renewal energy credits generated by the investment to Akron-based FirstEnergy.
Fisher said that initially the parties couldn't make the deal work financially until the non-profit Uptown Consortium and New York City-based National Development Council agreed to contribute New Market Tax Credits allocated to them toward the project.
Fisher said the project allows the zoo to lock in the price for about 20% of its electricity at about 8 cents a kilowatt hour for the next seven years. The agreement gives the zoo the option to buy the system in the eighth year if it chooses.
Billed as one of the largest public urban solar displays in the country, the $11 million solar "canopy" will do much more than help control the zoo's utility bills and shelter visitors from the elements when it's turned on in mid-April, developers say.
While it puts solar technology on display, the project also "will help put Cincinnati on the map as a national leader in the adoption and promotion of clean energy," said developer Steve Melink, Clermont County businessman and renewable energy advocate.
Workers finished installing the last solar panels Friday. The project has already sparked calls from more than a dozen zoos from as far away as California and Oregon interested in the project and how it was put together.
Mark Fisher, the zoo's senior director of facilities, planning and sustainability, said it's creating a buzz from visitors as well. "Some people wonder what the heck it is, and those who have heard about it are surprised at how big it is," he said.
According to Melink, the project consists of 6,400 photovoltaic solar collection panels assembled on more than 100 metal arrays, 15 to 18 feet high. They cover about 800 of the 1,000 parking spaces at the zoo's main entrance. The project is designed to produce 1.56 megawatts of electricity, about 20% of the zoo's annual need and enough to power 200 homes.
It isn't the largest solar project in Ohio. The Wyandot Solar farm, a utility-sponsored project near Upper Sandusky, covers about 80 acres and is designed to produce more than 10 megawatts of electricity.
Because the zoo's parking canopies are so public, officials say it will dramatically spur interest in solar here.
"The education aspect is worth a lot," says Raju Yenamandra, vice president at SolarWorld, a German-based company that produced the zoo's solar panels at its plant in Hillsboro, Ore. He thought so highly of the zoo project that he accelerated the delivery schedule for the zoo's solar panels, so the project would be ready this spring.
"When you think of the number of people who visit the zoo (about 1.3 million annually), particularly younger kids, the educational aspect will be fantastic," he said.
Solar canopies, which harness the sun's rays for electricity and provide shelter from its harsh rays, have been popular in warmer climates such as Southern California and Arizona. They're gaining in popularity in other parts of the country in the face of rising energy prices and government incentives to make solar technology more affordable.
"We're bidding multiple projects all over the country," said Dana Rudolph, president of ProtekPark Solar, which fabricated and installed the metal structures holding the solar panels. ProtekPark, a sister company of greenhouse constructor Rough Brothers, has been building parking canopies for about 10 years but lately found solar projects are the fastest-growing part of its business. It recently supplied metal canopies for solar projects at two community colleges in New Jersey.
The Cincinnati Zoo project grew out of a casual meeting between Fisher, Melink and Jeremy Chapman, Melink's business development manager, at a green building conference in Phoenix two years ago.
Fisher, who was looking for opportunities to expand the zoo's growing green profile, said Melink was looking for a signature project to demonstrate its developing solar installation business: "I told them: I have a parking lot."
Melink, which is developing a smaller pre-engineered solar array system for homes and businesses, was intrigued.
"We want to make a difference," he said. "And this was the scale we wanted."
The biggest hurdle was structuring the project's financing.
"It was about 99% financing and 1% engineering," Melink said.
The project relies on financing through a combination of federal New Market Tax Credits and federal energy tax credits through PNC Bank. It relies on cash from the tax credits, sales of electricity over the next seven years to the zoo and selling the renewal energy credits generated by the investment to Akron-based FirstEnergy.
Fisher said that initially the parties couldn't make the deal work financially until the non-profit Uptown Consortium and New York City-based National Development Council agreed to contribute New Market Tax Credits allocated to them toward the project.
Fisher said the project allows the zoo to lock in the price for about 20% of its electricity at about 8 cents a kilowatt hour for the next seven years. The agreement gives the zoo the option to buy the system in the eighth year if it chooses.
订阅：
博文 (Atom)