EGEB: Pope gives Trump climate change letter, World’s largest solar plant financed, more

Electrek Green Energy Brief: A daily technical, financial and political review/analysis of important green energy news.

The Pope gave Donald Trump a 192-page letter he wrote on climate change – encyclical (a papal letter), titled Laudato Si or “Praised Be,” essentially tied protection of the planet made by God to Catholics’ faith in God – The church has come around to a heliocentric reality, climate change and the big bang – I think we’ve got a chance with Danny boy and the Paris Agreement. Bigger broader questions remain as to what going on in the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Abu Dhabi closes $872 million financing for 1.17GW of solar – $650 million in debt with the remaining $222 million raised in equity; 25 year loan; Abu Dhabi Water & Electricity Authority (ADWEA) holds 60 percent of the company while Marubeni and JinkoSolar each hold 20 percent – Interesting data. 74¢/W to install – panels used to cost that much about two years ago. The price that JinkoSolar is selling panels into this project at probably don’t exist on the open market. The project will generate, roughly, 2 billion kWh/year – at 2.42¢/kWh – that’s around $50M/year in revenue. It’ll take 16 years to pay off $872M – which is around a 7% return on investment per the documents submitted to the power company.

Step one, get fossil fuel money out of politics, German analyst tells Ottawa – This is a most interesting history about how Germany’s Energiewende came about: 1. 1991, renewable energy laws slipped in ‘under the radar’ while utilities were distracted with unification. 2. In 1998-2000, during times of high unemployment, legislation granted priority to renewable energy sources through tax reform on electricity and natural gas. 3. Fukushima.

Ben Fowke, the CEO of Xcel Energy, “I don’t think 5 or 10 years ago I’d be comfortable telling you we could not sacrifice reliability when we’re going to have 35% of our energy come from wind” – The Department of Energy is launching a fake study on grid reliability in order to prop up coal companies and their campaign money. Wind has passed hydroelectric in terms of capacity in the USA.

Japan’s first new geothermal power plant in 15 years to open next month – Geothermal electricity activity is picking up in Japan as a result of Fukushima and smarter development. Japan has world’s third higher geothermal resources, yet uses 2% – seemingly, per this article, due to the hot springs industry not wanting to lose business. Smaller geothermal units developed with local feedback seems to be driving growth. Geothermal seems a perfect baseload powersource – probably constant 24-7-365-1000 (that’s years on the end).

Boviet Solar embeds SolarEdge inverters in its new 60-cell 280-295W modules – I think power electronics of the SolarEdge type will one day be integrated in all solar panels. There are already diodes within the solar panel to deal with voltage/current variances – adding panel level intelligence will help manage that on a string level, plus we’ll get panel level knowledge in real time (Internet of Things).

India approves $350M in bonds for renewable energy – Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set a target of raising India’s renewable energy generating capacity to 175 gigawatts by 2022, requiring about $100 billion in investments  – $100B is a lot, $350M is a big start – but $100B is a lot of money. India is at about 10GW of solar right now, and going to double that in the next 18 months or so. So there’s 20 of that 175GW down – a nice chunk to start, long way to go.

Dong Energy sells all fossil fuel resources – The transaction completes the transformation of DONG Energy into a leading, pure play renewables company – Former state-owned fossil fuel group moving toward renewable generation. They’re doing lots of wind these days.

Last coal plant in Massachusetts to close for good June 1 – I drive by this structure on a regular basis, multiple times per week. Took a picture of it recently. The structures are large – imposing, but beautiful. In a certain sense, I get emotional stability from knowing they are there.

SwimSol messaged me on Twitter and told me to share this video…good job marketing people. Installing these in batches, dropping a copper wire from them to a central connection point – then bringing that line into land. We’re researching – and applying in real life – the fundamentals of doing this with off shore wind power already. Is off shore solar a possibility? If so, during the season could we migrate large solar platforms north as they’re needed? Will this hardware really hold up for 30 years? Large scale platform – miles across?

Look at that chart – the green, light brown, purple – 100% clean – the imports are probably mostly dirty. Thermal definitely dirty. 2/3 of demand was met with clean. Great job California.

California sets new record for renewables, which provided 2/3 of demand on May 13. https://t.co/uLcCzEMQNd @pvmagazine @croselund pic.twitter.com/ImagX0xbRx

— Eric Frankowski (@efrankowski) May 24, 2017

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