THIN FILM SOLAR PANELS

Archive for August, 2011

About a year ago, I test drove a pre-production version of Coda’s electric sedan. It was a smooth enough ride (see video below), but some of the design elements had yet to be finalized. Well, at the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas on Tuesday, I got a chance to check out a much closer-to-production version of the Coda sedan, with slightly new styling and more functionality.

Coda’s Matt Sloustcher said that the Coda sedan being showed off at the summit on Tuesday was very close to the final production car, and that Coda is on track to start delivering the car within 2011. Previously, Coda was supposed to start selling the car starting in Dec. 2010, but ended up pushing that date back to the summer of 2011, and has also used the date of before the end of 2011.

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Nevada will be home to the “world’s first” hybrid solar, geothermal plant, according to the power companies involved in the project. The new, combined 24 MW solar photovoltaic and geothermal power plant was announced during a press conference by Senator Harry Reid, Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu, and Enel Green Power North America President Francesco Venturini, at the fourth annual National Clean Energy Summit on Tuesday in Las Vegas.

Venturini said that the first poles that will hold photovoltaic solar panels were installed yesterday, and that the project — to be built at Enel Green Power North America’s Stillwater Geothermal Plant in Churchill County, Nev. — will take about a year to build. Eventually, the site will have 7,000 poles to support solar panels, and 81,000 panels, which Venturini said would be produced by a Chinese supplier. The project is supposed to employee 150 Nevadans.

The idea behind combining solar and geothermal is that geothermal is a so-called baseload power source, so it can provide electricity 24/7. In contrast, solar and wind can only provide power when the sun shines and the wind blows. Variable clean power sources like solar and wind need to be combined with a baseload power source (like natural gas or geothermal) to be able to reliably supply power to communities.

The electricity from the hybrid plant will be sold to local utility NV Energy. Venturini said he thinks this type of hybrid plant will prove popular and will be built across the U.S.

The National Clean Energy Summit, which kicked off on Tuesday, is in its fourth year and is led by Senator Harry Reid. As Reid said in his opening remarks, a lot has changed over the four years that the summit has been running. The funding from the stimulus package is coming to an end, and at the same time, the DOE is facing potential budget cuts. We’ll bring you more on how Chu and the industry will fight for subsidies and if not successful, how the industry will survive without them.

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I was contacted by a representative from CNBC last week about an on-air and online series it and Harvard Business Review are are creating on “Energy Opportunities.” He wanted to share the series with me, of course, but also wanted to see if I could make it to CNBC’s studios somewhere in the U.S. or in London for an interview in the coming months (turns out, luckily, I’m planning a trip to the UK to visit a good friend in a couple weeks and will be in London for a couple days while there.)

Anyway, as always, when being contacted by someone about a potential story, I have to evaluate the merit of the story compared to that of hundreds of others I check out every day before deciding to cover it or not. I was happy to find out that this one seemed worthy of coverage.

This Energy Opportunities series is highlighting some key challenges the world is facing, with regards to energy and climate change, but also a number of key solutions and how practical they actually are.

The featured video (at the moment, at least) is one of Jeffrey Sachs, Economist and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. I’m a huge fan of Sachs — he seems to have his global and professional priorities in order, a keen understanding of the world’s most pressing problems, and an eye for the best solutions to them. Here’s Sach’s in CNBC and Harvard Business Review’s featured video, The Sachs Challenge:

I’ve got a few things in mind that I want to focus on in my interview, related to Sachs’s comments, but also going beyond them, into the next key points on this matter (points that everyone should be aware of at this point but which are misrepresented in the media and politics far too often). But I thought I’d also bring the question up to all of you, let you chime in on what you think should be mentioned, focused on, spelled out as clearly as possible, etc. Without your dedication to our site and constant feedback, I certainly wouldn’t be getting invited to share my opinion on these matters. So, tell me what you would talk about in an Energy Opportunities interview via the comments below!

(And, in case it’s helpful, my video interview would be part of the Editorial Features section.)

While we were all fuming during the ridiculous bra-waving by the GOP over whether we should pay our bills or not, a rather startling bit of actual legislation was being proposed in their Tea Party House, as revealed by Ethan Elkind at Legal Planet.

For some reason, municipal bond financing for solar energy retrofits has the approval of twelve twelve! Republicans who’ve cosponsored a bill by a New York Representative, Nan Hayworth (R) (!) and California progressive Dan Lundgen (D) (duh) who put forth legislation to restore the ability of municipalities to offer PACE funding for solar panels and other clean energy retrofits.

Under PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) local governments could finance efficiency and clean energy upgrades to properties via the sale of bonds, with property owners repaying the local government via property tax assessments. And it was popular: December 14th Deadline Brings $80 Million in PACE Funding Requests.

But then during the madness of the housing market econo-apocalypse the Federal Housing Finance Authority (FHFA) effectively halted the residential PACE program by telling Fannie and Freddie, its client entities, to stop underwriting mortgages on PACE-assessed properties. (Fannie and Freddie Inadvertently Shut Down PACE Solar Funding and How to Make Them Stakeholders; to End this Impasse)

The FHFA decision was absolutely inexplicable, because it’s really no skin off Freddy and Fannie’s nose if cities want to lend homeowners money to save on their energy bills over time while cutting their carbon footprint and helping their cities meet the Mayors’ Kyoto Accord that so many cities signed on to.

The FHFA contention was that it was risky, but PACE funds have always been lent under the proviso of

“the use of a locally approved contractor, a home energy audit or feasibility study by a certified auditor prior to the PACE deal, and eligibility limited to property owners who have not been delinquent for at least the past three years on property taxes, among other safeguards”.

Which is part of the language of the bill. Actual legislation. And actual clean energy legislation.  These Tea Party members are not proposing tax-assessed financing for back yard nukes, or coal boilers. This legislation could have been written by Barbara Boxer:

“It is the purpose of this Act to ensure that those PACE programs which incorporate prudent programmatic safeguards to protect the interest of mortgage holders and property owners remain viable as a potential avenue for States and local governments to achieve the many public benefits associated with energy efficiency, water efficiency, and renewable energy retrofits. In addition, it is essential that the power and authority of State and local governments to exercise their longstanding and traditional powers to levy taxes for public purposes not be impeded”.

Public benefits! There are public benefits to renewable energy retrofits! Nobody better tell the Koch brothers who these twelve recalcitrant Tea Party members are! I better keep their names secret.

Another Big Win for Koch Tea Party Funding – NH Abandons RGGI
Susan Kraemer@Twitter

2010 was a record-setting year for the US solar PV manufacturing industry, with US solar PV exports exceeding imports by $1.9 billion globally. Solar PV is one of the few areas where the US actually has a trade surplus with China, according to a report from GT Research and the Solar Energy Industry Association (SEIA) released yesterday.

Total solar photovoltaic (PV) exports from the US totaled $5.6 billion in 2010 while imports totaled $3.7 billion. The US actually has a trade surplus with China when it comes to solar PV: the US exported more than $240 million in solar PV products to China than it imported.

Accounting for 99% of total exports, PV components, primarily PV polysilicon feedstock and manufacturing equipment used to manufacture solar PV cells, were the leading export categories at $2.5 billion and $1.4 billion, respectively. China and Germany were the leading importers for these solar PV products.

Solar PV imports totaled $3.7 billion, $2.4 billion of which was solar PV modules. China and Mexico topped the list of countries from which US companies sourced solar PV imports.

Here in the US, revenue from solar PV totaled $4.4 billion in 2010. Seventy-five cents of every dollar spent on a US solar installation accrued in the US, according to the report.

GTM Research managing director of solar research Shayle Kann pointed out that the solar PV value chain is extensive and should not be judged on the value of solar PV modules alone. “Until now, the finished module was the industry’s benchmark for judging the health of the PV manufacturing sector. However, the PV market is more complex than meets the eye.

“To completely understand solar trade flows, this report looks both at earlier steps in the value chain and at the non-panel components of a solar PV system. As our research shows, the U.S. remains a focal point in global PV manufacturing, thanks largely to the domestic manufacturing of feedstock and manufacturing equipment.”

So-called ‘soft costs’ associated with solar PV projects made up nearly 50% of total solar PV revenue in 2010. This includes products and services such as site preparation, labor, permitting and financing.

“The U.S. solar energy market continues to be a bright spot in an otherwise bleak economy. As the global solar industry continues to grow and evolve, the U.S. is seen more and more as a leading market — both in installations and in exports,” SEIA CEO Rhone Resch commented.

“Solar is a showcase industry of U.S. ingenuity. In 2010, we grew by over 100%, we achieved a significant positive trade balance, and we exported more goods and services to China than we imported. Solar energy is an industry invented in the U.S. that is helping our country reclaim our manufacturing leadership. But to maintain our competitive advantage, we need innovative, proactive solutions from policymakers to match the investments being provided overseas to grow robust solar supply chains. Doing so will result in new jobs and opportunities for communities that have seen their factories close up shop in recent years.”