Skip to main content

Electrek morning green energy brief: where residential solar beats the market, France selling green bonds, $144B into solar by China and more

nrel-solar

The states where residential solar power beats the S&P 500 – If you need that last push, your solar system should be looked at as a small piece of your investment portfolio as it will be one of the safest investments you make and give a great return. Unfortunately, the investment size is limited to you electricity bill – but a little piece here and there adds up.

France second country to offer green bonds – Big Oil is Big Oil because of $$$. We, the People, want to be healthy and wealthy and we use money as a tool to guide us toward ways to meet those goals. There will be a time soon that renewable energy is where the cash is on the grandest of scales and green bonds are a way to achieve that.

Dual axis sun tracking uber high concentration solar power (HVPC) – up to 45% efficiency – under pressure from cheap solar – I used to work for Beghelli, we manufactured a dual axis HCPV tracker. It was beautiful. Never sold. Price of solar panels collapsed and $4.00/W plus O&M costs just wasn’t worth it. It’ll probably take $1.50/W and huge scale to manage O&M for this type of product to compete – 45% cells do exist though.

Collapse of wind turbine under investigation – sometimes things fall down.

China to invest $361B by 2020 in renewables in aim for 15% RPS – $144B to solar power, $101B to wind, $72B to hydro and $43B to tidal and geothermal. This money will represent 50% of the total money invested in power generation through that time period. $144B in solar at $0.80/W equals 180GW if solar power – I believe China’s next five year plan is 110GW. Whatever the exact numbers – those are big numbers.

A historical perspective on what it takes for a carbon tax to work – I’m seeing lots of news regarding the carbon taxes in Canada. Good to see the psychology of people in real-time, good to hear the lines that the politicians scream. My perspective is still – unless the carbon tax is coupled with heavy government pushing of renewable standards, clean transportation and improved agriculture techniques, the carbon tax will simply result in humans shifting cost expectations but not patterns of emissions. If there are no clean cars of electricity sources – gas will be burnt, irrelevant of prices.

Price of solar cells still going down, but demand for high-efficiency PERC cells is pumping price of mono crystalline a bit – What this means to me is that there will be more high-efficiency solar panels coming at lower than today’s prices. I saw solar panels increase from 305-310 to 330W in one year – same panel size, more wattage. Efficiencies are increasing.

The air is so damn dirty in China parents are demanding the right to install, with their own money air filters in their kids classes:

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

Stay up to date with the latest content by subscribing to Electrek on Google News. You’re reading Electrek— experts who break news about Tesla, electric vehicles, and green energy, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow Electrek on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our YouTube channel for the latest reviews.