Electrek Green Energy Brief: A daily technical, financial, and political review/analysis of important green energy news.
New Tax Bill Offers Unexpected Benefits to Commercial Solar Installations – Our analysis shows that the reduction in tax rates will increase the rate of return by about a 2 percent per year. Over time this adds up: the total value of the project increases by 19 percent, which for this project is over $140,000. In terms of depreciation – The total value of the project increases by over 6 percent. I’ve not played with these things in my spreadsheets yet this morning, but I will. I’ll let you know how they work out.
SunEdison emerges from bankruptcy as Brookfield closes on TerraForm Global – It’s too bad the SunEdison name will die. Seems like a solid brand that could have been taken advantage of, even with its history. Cool to see the industry move along.
China solar firms moving to areas offering lower power prices – Electricity accounts for up to 40% and 20% of total production costs for polysilicon and wafers, according to China media reports. – Lots of electricity goes into making solar cells. Solar cells cost 15-30¢/watt. Solar panels cost 30-80¢/watt. If we chop the price of the electricity 20-50%, then we remove 5-10¢/watt from the production costs and the savings reverberate through the supply chain. Of particular interest, one of the reasons the price of electricity is cheaper way north is the heavy renewable base. Solar power is being used to make solar cells – and it’s cheaper to make solar cells with solar power…I’m starting to smell a self-fulfilling prophecy/feedback loop thing.
New York Reveals Offshore Wind Power Play – New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo has called for a procurement of at least 800MW of offshore wind power between two solicitations to be issued in 2018 and 2019. Offshore wind is going to make a lot of electricity. Note near the bottom of this article the tweet talking about Danish wind farms.
China, aiming to dominate global solar production? Inconceivable – USITC submitted its report and found that no one could have foreseen that China (the only country repeatedly named explicitly as violating the WTO rules) would circumvent WTO rules in exporting solar modules into the U.S. market. You know why this isn’t true? Because China states, very clearly and publicly, their economic goals in various industries in their Five Year Plans. The Chinese stated their desire to develop and dominate the solar power industry. It’s kinda their thing in their hybrid Communist/Capitalist economic system. The Suniva tax is on my mind as I develop projects for customers.
This $118 million mutual fund pays companies in carbon credits – Using the principle of additionality — where an investment allows a new sustainability effort to exist — companies can voluntarily offset their greenhouse gas emissions along with their own carbon-reduction efforts while providing resources to vulnerable communities around the world. How exactly this works, not sure – but I like the concept. There’s value to this, obviously – it’s been provided to tens of millions already.
If the IEA thinks solar will be the cheapeast by 2030 – I’m going to say it’s already cheapest in some areas today, and will be cheapest by 2025 everywhere.
By 2030, #solar PV is the cheapest form of #electricity in #China in our central #WEO17 scenario https://t.co/b4TO93miSM pic.twitter.com/66A0NtPOyU
— International Energy Agency (@IEA) January 2, 2018
Seriously – 98% renewable plus a whole lot extra that they’ll learn to use. Good job Uruguay.
Uruguay 2017: 98% renewable electricity, substantial exports, and still had to throw away hydro and wind electricity amounting to 27% of national demand! https://t.co/Xctlh4a0IY
— Kees van der Leun (@Sustainable2050) January 3, 2018
Kees had two great tweets. A country now gets 43.6% of its electricity from wind power. It’s of course more complex – like one of our readers pointed out in the comments yesterday – wind power goes way down sometimes and need be complemented, but sometimes it exports and supports others grids. Whatever – a European country is gaining on 50% of its electricity from the wind.
Danish wind farms supplied 43.6% of the country's electricity demand over all of 2017, beating their 2015 record share!
Via @MHGottlieb pic.twitter.com/HrMrg7HxpJ— Kees van der Leun (@Sustainable2050) January 2, 2018
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