EGEB: 116GW of utility scale Wind/Solar coming to USA, solar asset acquisition up, more

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

FERC: 116 GW of Solar and Wind Utility Scale Generation Additions by 2020 – By 2020, proposed additions equal nearly 72.53 GW for wind and about 43.53 GW for solar. FERC says it used data from Velocity Suite, ABB Inc. and The C Three Group LLC, which include plants with nameplate capacity of 1 MW or greater. Retirements are only expected to be 68 MW for wind and 2 MW for solar in the next three years. The utility scale solar industry installed about 10GW in 2016, 2017 looks to be lower – but predictions of a return to an average of almost 15GW a year is a nice looking number.

Global Corporate Solar Funding In 2017 Increased 41% Over 2016 While VC Investments Were Up 30% YoY – Global VC investment totaled $1.6 billion in 99 deals in the entire year, increasing 30% from the $1.3 billion reported in 78 deals the year before. Project acquisitions rose 67% with 228 large-scale solar projects with a combined capacity of 20.4 GW in 2017. In the previous year, it was only 12.2 GW. Some positive news on global growth. While the US numbers will be lower, globally we jumped from 75GW to 100GW, and we’re seeing some of that here. I like seeing Venture Capital – that means people see hot ideas that could become big, and I also like seeing 20GW in project acquisitions – that’s $30-50 billion in pension fund/big time investor money.

India rejects US solar claim at WTO, explores new defense – In a statement published by the WTO on Monday, India said it had changed its rules to conform with the ruling and that a US claim for punitive trade sanctions was groundless. “India underscores that the United States’ request is not a valid request,” the Indian statement said. It said Washington had skipped legal steps, failed to follow the correct WTO procedure, and omitted to mention any specific level of trade sanctions that it proposed to level on India, leaving India “severely prejudiced”. Interesting to watch this because I’m chewing my nails and talking to customers about the Suniva Tax. South Korea has suggested they’d sue us in a similar manner if we tax their product.

Some new, notable solar laws in the United States and abroad – Assembly Bill 405, signed by Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval in June 2017, a compromise occurred. The new bill reinstated net metering, which resumed sales immediately and brought jobs back to the state as well as millions of dollars in economic benefit. The law allows new solar customers to be reimbursed for excess energy at 95% of the retail rate. This rate will decline as more solar systems are installed in Nevada. Also, the law created a protection for homeowners, offering them a guaranteed net metering rate for 20 years. – New year, new laws. Read up if you’re in Nevada, San Francisco, France or Spain.

What an interesting piece of information – a 5kW residential system has a 5.6 acre forest equivalent. Keep installing at home people – you’re making a difference.

Each house that goes solar is like creating small forest https://t.co/QNdYJLsMym

— Commercial Solar Guy (@SolarInMASS) January 10, 2018

Featured image is from the Department of Energy SunShot program. Photo by William Zhang – I like this picture because there are approximately 3,590 sq miles of parking spaces in the USA. That’s almost enough to supply all of the USA’s energy needs using solar power alone.

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