Category Archives: Solar

Southern Company Stockholder Meeting @ SO 2013-05-22

Spring means soon time for the Southern Company Stockholder meeting! See what one of the biggest electric utilities in the world is up to, and maybe make a few suggestions.

Here are videos of what you missed last year, and here is the official SO notice for this year (I got a link to it because I’m a shareholder): Notice of Annual Meeting of Stockholders of The Southern Company

DATE: Wednesday, May 22, 2013
TIME: 10:00 a.m., ET
PLACE: The Lodge Conference Center at Callaway Gardens
Highway 18
Pine Mountain, Georgia 3182

It includes a list of Items of Business, which doesn’t mention that stockholders are usually allowed to ask questions. Those questions are usually answered by Thomas A. fanning, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, who included a letter (text below) in which he recites his usual list of energy sources, in his usual order: Continue reading →

Electric utiltiies know about Moore’s Law for solar power

And they know compound annual growth, even at a low 22% rate, is going to cause them a heap of trouble.

More from the Edison Electric Institute January 2013 report, Disruptive Challenges: Financial Implications and Strategic Responses to a Changing Retail Electric Business (rehosted on the LAKE web server, since it disappered from the EEI server),

The decline in the price of PV panels from $3.80/watt in 2008 to $0.86/watt in mid-20121. While some will question the sustainability of cost-curve trends experienced, it is expected that PV panel costs will not increase (or not increase meaningfully) even as the current supply glut is resolved. As a result, the all-in cost of PV solar installation approximates $5/watt, with expectations of the cost declining further as scale is realized;

Sure, costs won’t continue to drop forever, but Continue reading →

Solar could burn utility business model

Exhibit 2 Utilities say that like it’s a bad thing. The same utilities that left millions without power in the U.S. repeatedly last year, and that gouge ratepayers for 10% or more profits. Moore’s Law continues to drive solar costs down and installations up, with increasingly more each like compound interest. Utilties need to adapt or get out of the way.

Last November Moody’s reported that solar and wind were eroding credit for coal and gas power plants, and were already having ‘a profound negative impact’ on the competitiveness of thermal generation companies. That was in Europe. David Roberts wrote for Grist yesterday, Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities,

The thing to remember is that it is in a utility’s financial interest to generate (or buy) and deliver as much power as possible. The higher the demand, the higher the investments, the higher the utility shareholder profits. In short, all things being equal, utilities want to sell more power. (All things are occasionally not equal, but we’ll leave those complications aside for now.)

And they want to produce that power from big baseload power stations for their economy of scale while the monopoly power utilities get guaranteed profits, not to mention huge ratepayer and loan-guaranteed boondoggles like the new nukes at Plant Vogtle. (Electric Member Cooperatives are somewhat different.)

Now, into this cozy business model enters cheap distributed solar PV, which eats away at it like acid.

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Lancaster, CA solar capital?

What does it take to turn a city into a solar power powerhouse of jobs and clean energy profit? Mostly the will to do it, plus some public relations and business relations.

Felicity Barringer wrote for NYTimes 8 April 2013, With Help From Nature, a Town Aims to Be a Solar Capital, the mayor of Lancaster, California, R. Rex Parris, said,

“We want to be the first city that produces more electricity from solar energy than we consume on a daily basis,”

And then the city of Lancaster took action, requiring

that almost all new homes either come equipped with solar panels or be in subdivisions that produce one kilowatt of solar energy per house. He also was able to recruit the home building giant KB Home to implement his vision, despite the industry’s overall resistance to solar power.

Result, according to one solar tracker?

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Fossil fuels get five times the subsidies of renewable solar and wind

Fossil fuels get more than $70 billion dollars a year in U.S. government subsidies (tax breaks and direct spending), while solar and wind get only about $12 billion, so fossil fuels got more than five times as much, while nuclear got ten times as much (especially in Georgia). Even corn ethanol, that sounded-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time boondoggle, gets more subsidies than solar and wind put together.

That’s without even going into the externalities such as healthcare costs due to polution, environmental destruction through mountaintop removal for coal, tar sands oil drilling, and fracking for natural gas, and wars for oil and uranium.

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IKEA biggest solar in Georgia

The biggest solar rooftop installation in Georgia? Not by mighty Georgia Power, not by an EMC, not even by GaSU: it’s IKEA’s distribution center in Chatham County. Chatham is also trailing only Atlanta in solar installations in general.

Mary Landers wrote for Savannahnow.com 7 January 2013, New solar adds to Chatham’s growing inventory,

Just in time for the new year, and for a tax break for the old one, Consolidated Utilities began producing electricity from solar panels at its water treatment plant in west Chatham County on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve.

“When I left on Monday the meter was receiving power,” said Tony Abbott, president of Consolidated Utilities, a private local water company.

The 416-panel, 100-kilowatt system is big enough to power about 10 average homes for 25 years, said Julian Smith, of SolarSmith, which installed the system. At the water treatment site, however, solar will instead power the blowers that keep the sewage ponds aerated. The panels occupy previously useless property in a flood zone, Smith noted.

OK, the Wiregrass Solar installation at Valdosta’s Mud Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant is larger, and the Valdosta City Council recently voted to expand it further. Go Valdosta!

But what about IKEA?

It’s not the largest solar installation in the county. That honor still goes to the IKEA distribution center, which in October plugged in its 1,460-kilowatt solar array on the roof of its distribution center. That IKEA installation is in fact the largest in the state.

Back in July I mentioned that IKEA was going to build that array, and IKEA was building almost as much solar as all of Georgia Power’s parent Southern Company. BusinessWire reported 9 Oct 2012 IKEA Plugs-In Georgia’s Largest Private Solar Rooftop Array on Savannah Distribution Center: Surpasses 75% U.S. Solar Presence.

This installation represents the 34th completed solar project for IKEA in the U.S., with five more locations underway, making the eventual U.S. solar presence of IKEA nearly 89% of its U.S. locations, generating with a total 38 MW. IKEA owns and operates each of its solar PV energy systems atop its buildings — as opposed to a solar lease or PPA (power purchase agreement) — and globally has allocated €590 million to invest in renewable energy, focusing on solar and wind during the coming three years. This investment reinforces the long-term commitment of IKEA to sustainability and confidence in photovoltaic (PV) technology. More than 250,000 solar panels have been installed on IKEA stores and buildings across the world. The company also owns and/or operates approximately 110 wind turbines in Europe.

The Savannahnow article mentions something happening in Chatham County but not so much yet in Lowndes County:

“What’s really going on in Chatham is that lots of homeowners put solar on their rooftops,” Arora said. “The excitement exists in Chatham for solar.”

-jsq

Arkansas tar sands oil spill

Will Exxon clean all these tar sands oil spills like BP “cleaned up” the Gulf? Meanwhile, a solar spill is called a nice day.

June 2013, pipeline ruptured in Alberta: 250,000 gallons spilled into the Red Deer River.

27 March 2013, train derailment in Minnesota: 15,000 gallons spilled.

“Only about 1,000 gallons has been recovered,” said Dan Olson, spokesman for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. “The remaining oil on the ground has thickened into a heavy tar-like consistency.”

30 March 2013, pipleline rupture, Mayflower, Arkansas: “thousands of gallons” spilled.

Kimberly Brasington, an Exxon spokeswoman, confirmed the oil from the ruptured Pegasus pipeline originated in Canada. The oil is “Wabasca Heavy Crude from Western Canada,” she said in an e-mail Sunday. Canadian group CrudeMonitor describes Wabasca as a blend of heavy oil production from the Athabasca region.

Aerial footage of the Arkansas crude seeping through woods, waterways, streets, and yards:

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NJ 1 GW Solar: GA #22

While Georgia failed to reform its antique Territorial Electric Service Act and toyed with a solar monopoly, New Jersey, far to the north with far less sun, finished installing a gigawatt (1,000 megawatts) of solar power. The rest of the U.S. installed 3.3 MW total, slightly higher than projections of 3.2 MW, but Georgia lagged behind. When will the legislature and the Public Service Commission, and perhaps more importantly, Georgia Power and Southern Company, stop stop wasting our money on that three-legged nuclear regulatory-capture boondoggle at Plant Vogtle and get on with solar in Georgia for jobs, for profit, and for clean air and water?

Pete Danko wrote for Earth Techling and Huffpo 20 March 2013, New Jersey Solar Capacity Hits 1 Gigawatt,

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U.S. installed 3.3 Gigawatts of solar in 2012, on target

Moore’s law continues to drive solar costs down and installations up. According to SEIA, U.S. Market Installs 3,300 Megawatts in 2012; Driven by Record Fourth Quarter,

2012 was a historic year for the U.S. solar industry. There were 3,313 megawatts (MW) of photovoltaic (PV) capacity installed throughout the year, which represents 76% growth over 2011’s record deployment totals. The fourth quarter of 2012 was also the largest quarter on record as 1,300 MW came online, driven in part by unprecedented installation levels in the residential and utility markets. SEIA and GTM Research forecast that the market will continue to grow at a steady clip with over 4,200 MW of PV and 940 MW of concentrating solar power (CSP) expected to come online in 2013. (All data from SEIA/GTM Research “U.S. Solar Market Insight 2012 Year-In-Review” unless otherwise noted.)

And those new installations are driven by solar PV prices continually falling in Moore’s Law for solar:

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HB 657, the Rural Georgia Economic Recovery and Solar Resource Act of 2014

The solar bill that’s been talked about for weeks has finally appeared in the Georgia legislature: HB 657. It’s better than I expected, because it’s about rural solar generation and distribution. However, there is a catch: a “community solar provider” must be certified by the Public Service Commission, instead of just setting up in business as in most states, and the PSC could certify only one state-wide monopoly; note the summary at the front says “an independent community solar provider” as in only one. But the body of the bill is more circumspect and says “any”. Perhaps if we get enough installations the benefits of solar will become obvious enough that the PSC will certify a lot of community solar providers, and we can get on with solar in Georgia, including house and business rooftop solar. Many thanks to Representatives Kidd of the 145th, Kirby of the 114th, Rogers of the 10th, Brockway of the 102nd, Fullerton of the 153rd, and others. And special credit to Robert E. Green, Shane Owl-Greason, and Ted Terry of Georgia Solar Utilities (GaSU) for shepherding this bill into the legislature.

Shane Owl-Greason, Ted Terry, Robert E. Green
Shane Owl-Greason, Ted Terry, Robert E. Green at the Dublin High School solar groundbreaking.

The bill requires the PSC to study changes in retail rates because of this bill. Too bad it doesn’t go the rest of the way to what North Carolina did, and require timely public posting of who buys and sells which types of energy at which prices, but at least it’s a start.

Maybe HB 657 will help get HB 503 passed for Renewable Portfolio Standards. However, HB 657 is cleaner than either HB 503 or SB 51 because it does not mess around with biomass or for that matter any other energy source: HB 657 is about solar energy and nothing else.

The main part of HB 657 is in Section 1, but first here’s how it shoehorns Continue reading →