Solar is great for diversity, independence, research, and business.He said that until recently he had discounted solar, but now he had seen it. Continue reading
Category Archives: Solar
U.S. has plenty of solar energy everywhere —Jennifer DeCesaro of DoE
She made a few other comparisons between U.S. and Germany. U.S.: 30% investment tax credit. Germany: National Feed-in Tariff.
She talked about SunShot: the Apollo mission of our time. It aims to reduce solar costs by 75% by the end of the decade, making solar cost-competitive with fossil fuels without subsidy.
Actual panels cost about the same in U.S. and Germany, but the rest Continue reading
Projects that can actually be built —Jeff Glavan of MP2 Capital
MP2 also does projects with municipalities that can’t take tax credits because they are tax exempt. MP2 funds instead.
It’s not just all about large systems…. There’s a market for 1 to 5 megawatt systems.
The three things they look at are credit, commercial terms, and economic terms. Commercial terms are what hold up most projects. MP2 likes to be involved in negotiating a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) to avoid terms like host may need to repair roof which could involve removing the solar system for some undefined amount of time.
MP2 is actively looking for solar partners.
-jsq
SolarCity does everything —Will Arnold of SolarCity
SolarCity’s founders are all IT people. The most famous is perhaps Elon Musk, who also founded Paypal and SpaceX. Two other co-founders sold their previous company to Dell, and SolarCity just got a $280 million investment from Google. I’ve been comparing the solar market now to Silicon Valley 20 years ago, because of how fast it’s growing, how pragmatic and experimental it is, and the general attitude of the people. It turns out in SolarCity it is Silicon Valley.
Will Arnold talked a lot about state incentives that sometimes seemed perpetually going to be solidified soon or other regulatory whims.
He remarked that SolarCity’s leases were predicated on people Continue reading
Transparency is key —Steve Kalland of NCSC
Other speakers had said you could have too much transparency, but Kalland pointed out that it was only through a hearing that North Carolina found out a major power company was going to use up its solar energy credits years ahead of schedule, and without transparency there couldn’t be real competition because the customers wouldn’t know who had which prices.
What else does it take to make a state competitive in solar? Kalland discussed this table (reformatted here from the copy of his presentation he gave me):
He said a lot more, but that’s a very interesting table to consider not only for a state, but for a region, like south Georgia, or a small metro area, like Valdosta MSA.Foundational Steps to Focus on Solar
Installed Capacity Manufacturing Interconnection Standards
Base Resources (economic or voices)
Early Adopters
Military or Large Federal
High Tech Firms
Corporate GreensUniversity Partnership Opportunities
Existing presence of businesses in multiple fields (diversification)
I know some people will react with: “but VSU is not a research university!” Nope, but this could be a way to add some research capacity to VSU.
-jsq
91% of voters support using solar power in NC —Ivan Urlaub of NCSEA
They’ve done it in North Carolina:
91% of voters support using solar power to meet our growing needs for energy and electricitySolar is hands down the most popular energy source across NC, across parties, ages, genders, etc. Coal and nuclear are the politically charged energy sources, and neither got a majority. Number 2 was offshore wind with 83% and number 3 was onshore wind with 82% support. Here’s the NCSEA press release. Here’s the survey.
How did they do this? Continue reading
If it works in Germany, it works everywhere —Nuri Demirdoven of McKinsey
About incentives, he asked:
“Why not Georgia?”He recommends taking advantages of our strengths in this region. We may not have a lot of demand yet, but we have two solar manufacturers in Georgia, and increasing interest in incentives by the state.
Overall solar works, and is an economic development engine. But the question is what are the commitments you are willing to make, in understanding your strengths, and picking one or two goals.He cited TVA as an example of an organization that has done that and is moving ahead.
He recommended making a business case for solar in Georgia. Many of the other speakers are busily doing various pieces of that.
-jsq
Sign up for renewable energy from Georgia Power —Jaime Hockin @ Solar Summit
You get a separate line item on your bill for whichever one you buy.
- Standard Green Energy Option: $3.50 (plus tax) a month per 100 kWh block.
This option delivers Green-e Energy certified renewable energy that is generated entirely by biomass.- Premium Green Energy with Solar Option: $5.00 (plus tax) a month per 100 kWh block.
This option delivers Green-e Energy certified renewable energy that contains a mix of at least 50% solar and 50% biomass energy.
Some people claim that there’s no way to do this because it’s just electrons once it gets on the wire. Sure, and money is just dollars once you spend it. But contracts can determine where those dollars go, and in exchange for what:
Due to the way electricity is transmitted and distributed, energy purchased or produced from renewable energy resources may not be specifically delivered to you. However, the renewable energy you purchase will be added to the power grid and will displace incremental power that would have otherwise been produced from traditional generating resources.So as Jaime Hockin advised, if you want to show you want renewable energy, and you are a Georgia Power customer, sign up and Georgia Power will hear you!
-jsq
Video of Southern Solar Summit —learn it live
-jsq
No land for solar in Georgia?
Gretchen Quarterman and Dan Corrie |
-jsq