Electrek green energy brief: 73¢/W for 1.18GW, coal plant protesting, Godfather of efficiency passes, more

Coal plant protesters clash with police in Bangladesh – One of the most population dense places on the planet has to figure out how to take care of its people. Coal is some of the cheapest and dirtiest sources of electricity on the planet – of course that’s when you don’t count the cost of human health and climate change, or in this case the probable damage that will occur to the local environment.

Godfather of efficiency passes – Art Rosenfeld, a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) Distinguished Scientist Emeritus who is also known as California’s “godfather” of energy efficiency and who has been credited with being personally responsible for billions of dollars in energy savings, died Friday at his home in Berkeley, California. He was 90.

I don’t know much about the gentlemen, but seeing that the per capita energy usage per person in California stayed flat while the rest of the USA almost doubled shows that this person had an effect and probably saved many lives in the world.

1.18GW & 2.3/kWh built at $.73/W – 73¢/W to install for a total price of $868M, 60% government funded – the water and power company specifically, 20% by panel manufacturer and 20% by construction company. The price per kWh was bid at 2.42¢ – and it was for a 25 year power purchase agreement. The solar panels at 36¢/W would be 49% of the total system price, and at 25¢/W would be 35% of the system price. Its interesting that in these uber sized projects, solar panels have once again become the largest price variable.

Winds farms following specific transmission lines another example of broader development of renewables pushing investment in transmission – Its a bit of a chicken and egg game, do I build the giant wind farms to move electricity from the great plains to the coasts or do  build the transmission lines? A Department of Energy report (thanks Will) says transmission from the Great Plains into the rest of the country could supply 30% of the US electrical grid needs.

SoCalEdison 20MW Energy Storage project online – The headlines of 2016 are turning into the construction projects of 2017, which will be used by developers, salespeople and business owners as motivation for their 2017 headlines, and their 2018-2019 construction projects. That’s how it works – the big players, with the biggest needs buy and build first. We online folks – tell you about – and you, broader reality, act on it.

$15/ton carbon tax with 7% increase/year if goals not met – Washington State is making a go at a carbon tax again, except it is no longer revenue neutral, as “it is the intent of the legislature to fund investments in clean energy, clean water, and healthy forests by 20 enacting a carbon pollution mitigation tax on fossil fuel emissions.” Money moved directly from pollution towards cleaning said pollution from occurring again is the most aggressive manner to tackle this problem – and the most logical and efficient.

Solar irradiance satellite launched – If you’re going to invest in a solar power plant that costs hundreds of millions of dollars, you’d do yourself really well to sharply understand the electricity production. Cool picture.

Ireland got 26% of its electricity from low-carbon sources in 2015. pic.twitter.com/WaAIS3HCHm

— Carbon Counter (@CO2Counter) January 28, 2017

Considering residential solar? Understand Solar will connect you with local contractors. Full disclosure: I get a commission. Tweet me for feedback on pricing.

For more electric vehicle, autonomous transport and clean technology news, make sure to follow us on Twitter, Newsletter, RSS or Facebook to get our latest articles.