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

The case for U.S. solar manufacturing – CEO of SolarWorld wrote a letter in support of trade sanctions against China government financed solar panel manufacturers flooding the global market. The fundamental argument: The Chinese government showered its industry with export-oriented subsidies, which the U.S. government two times determined to be illegal.  These producers also were found to be selling into the U.S. market at prices below production costs – an illegal practice called dumping. It is true – these specific sub industries within the broader industry have suffered. My question is – has the Chinese funding of below ‘market price’ solar panels hurt the US economy? Well – that answer is a clear ‘no.’ The broader US economy (and the globe) has far benefited from the Chinese ‘Solar Manhattan Project’ (otherwise known as small subset of a Chinese Five Year Plan) as the solar market as a whole is far larger than it would have been with a much slower pace of solar panel growth at ‘prudent’ profit margins… So, who wins in the broader game?

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

China makers to hike September contract prices for solar mono-Si wafers – China-based solar mono-Si wafer makers will raise supply contract prices in September by 2-3% from the current level, according to industry sources. It seems a large part of the world (India, Europe, and the USA) wants to sue China for such low solar panel prises. If all of these countries do put taxes on Chinese products, maybe China should increase their prices a bit, and keep a bit more of the profit at home for research/growth or in the supply chain to fatten up those profit margins. No point in letting all those taxes go to host countries.

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

Duke agrees to build 700 MW of solar, 50 MW of energy storage in Florida – If approved Duke’s Florida customers will no longer be on the hook for costs related to the Levy County Nuclear Power Plant, which Duke has finally formally abandoned after cancelling the construction contract four years ago. In its place the utility plans to “construct or acquire” 700 MW of utility-scale solar over the next four years, as well as to build, own and operate 50 MW of battery storage and install 530 electric vehicle charging stations. In essence, because Duke failed getting a nuclear plant built – and it was sued because of huge amounts of money that were going to be put on the shoulders of customers due to that failure – Duke is now offering a settlement of building solar/charging stations/energy storage. Maybe there is a lesson here?

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

First tanker crosses northern sea route without ice breaker – The specially-built ship completed the crossing in just six-and-a-half days setting a new record, according to the tanker’s Russian owners. “Previously there was only a window of navigation from our summer to autumn, but this ship will be able to sail westwards from Sabetta which is the Yamal energy port, all year round and eastwards from July to December,” said Sovcomflot spokesman Bill Spears. “Before the northern sea route was only open for four months and you had to have ice-breakers – so it’s a significant development.” For hundreds of years, Europeans sought a ‘Northwest Passage‘ to shorten the trip to Asia. Many died. Now, with the arctic warming and the ice melting, we’re able to make this trip year round. This ship does have some ice breaker capabilities – but they’re limited. Hard evidence of global climate change.

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

Trump’s lawyers sue Greenpeace over Dakota Pipeline, making jaw-dropping accusations – First: Energy Transfer Partners, the owner of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), has sued Greenpeace and other environmental groups in a $300 million racketeering case, accusing them of inciting terrorism, fraud and defamation and violating state and federal RICO laws. But even better than that: The Dallas-based firm made other outrageous claims against the groups, including funding terrorism and “using donations to fund a lucrative drug trafficking scheme inside the camps.” If I were a lawyer hoping to be seen as sane – I’d lay off the drug trafficking conspiracies.

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

Researchers develop solar glass blocks to power houses – A glass block, which can be incorporated into the fabric of a building, replacing traditional brick and mortar, and is designed to collect solar energy and convert it to electricity. The block, called Solar Squared, has intelligent optics that focus the incoming solar radiation onto small solar cells, enhancing the overall energy generated by each solar cell. Ok, that’s pretty cool! A glass block that can replace certain chunks of a building facade and will produce electricity from solar power, while also allowing some light into the home. I’ve not seen anywhere that these ‘bricks’ can offer the same structural support as a standard brick, but with most structural support coming from other parts of the house these could offer a valuable south-facing facade that produces clean electricity. Any suggestions on other aspects of a home that could be made to generate solar power? Windows, roof tiles and now – structural? – glass blocks. Driveway with solar freaking roads? Paint? Could every external surface of your home generate clean electricity?

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

Final US government grid report neuters support for renewables – The Department of Energy’s long awaited report was finally released last night (at 10 PM EST?). Most of the report was left in place when it was leaked a few months back – thank you scientists for your leak. I’ve not read it yet, but a few others are giving feedback. One piece picked up by PV Tech was that this paragraph was removed: “One of the benefits of renewable energy is that it can serve as a hedge for more volatile fossil-fuelled generation. Many customers seek a steady bill payment because it’s easier to budget for and manage than a bill that varies by month. To the degree that renewable energy stabilizes the cost of an overall energy portfolio (or even just a customer’s bill), that affects perceived affordability.” Other thoughts that were added to the report included talking about grid stability possibly getting worse if coal/nuclear keeps going out of business. Of course, we see across Europe (and in the original version of the report) grid stability has gone up as we’ve seen as we’ve integrated more renewables and upgraded our systems to manage them. Can’t have renewables improving stability while you’re pitching losing coal/nuclear increases stability…so, just avoid reality!

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

How Deeply Will Rising Temperatures Cut into Crop Yields? – Twenty-nine researchers from across the globe conducted the analysis of more than 70 studies—covering various types of models, approaches and locations across the world—and found that existing research all led, consistently, in one direction. For every degree Celsius that the Earth warms, corn yields will go down an average of 7.4 percent, according to the study. Wheat yields similarly will drop by 6 percent on average for every degree Celsius that temperatures rise, rice yields by 3.2 percent, and soybean yields by 3.1 percent. To put that in perspective, governments worldwide have set a goal of reducing their greenhouse gas emissions enough to keep the global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Celsius this century. The last sentence – that we’re ‘aiming’ for a 2 degree rise in temperature should really send a chill down your spine. We’re hoping, in a best case scenario, to lower wheat productivity by 12%, corn by 7.4%, rice by 6.4% and soybeans by 6.2%. Further studies show that not only will volume drop, but the quality of the volume will wall as well – rising carbon dioxide levels could drive down the protein content of staple crops, including rice by 7.6 percent and wheat by 7.8 percent by 2050. How many lives will be lost in the first famines?

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

Dutch Utility Bets Its Future on an Unusual Strategy: Selling Less Power – When Eneco tested a promising energy monitor in several dozen homes – when Eneco sent workers to recover the monitors — a tenth of customers refused to open their doors. “They wanted to keep it,” said Tako in ’t Veld, a former Eneco executive who now leads the “smart energy” unit at Quby, the company that makes the energy meter. “They were so happy with the energy insight.” An electric utility that is now focusing on offering services beyond simply selling kilowatts – this is where other groups need start moving. The reality of electricity is that its a commodity that is no longer monopoly produced – just like Kodak can no longer make money off of selling film, its times to move on.

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

Policy, Geospatial, and Market Factors in Solar Energy: a Gestalt Approach – In a research paper written by Dr. Wesley Herche, we’re shown that greater than 99% of all locations can have their energy – not just electricity, but energy- needs to be met by solar power within 50 miles of said locations. Dr. Herche (give him a pat on his twitter back for his recent dissertation defense) is a former senior intelligence officer and current executive leader at @asu_gsi with experience in analyzing land and coming up with conclusions for professionals to act on. The values used to determine this conclusion are all very conservative – for instance, 10% solar panel efficiency was used when current standard efficiency panels are 60% greater and the premium product is 100-140% greater. This document proves that there are nearly zero places on the planet that cannot make solar power their primary source of energy.

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

Health benefits of wind and solar offset all subsidies – Berkeley environmental engineer Dev Millstein and his colleagues estimate that between 3,000 and 12,700 premature deaths have been averted because of air quality benefits over the last decade or so, creating a total economic benefit between $30 billion and $113 billion. The benefits from wind work out to be more than 7¢ per kilowatt-hour, which is more than unsubsidized wind energy generally costs. Thousands of people are alive and tens of billions in health costs weren’t spent because of cleaner air. That’s the goal.

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

Solar Panels Could Soon Come in Every Color of the Rainbow – Instead of using dyes or coatings like commercially available — and horribly inefficient — colored panels, these new panels are overlaid with dense networks of silicon cylinders, each less than a millionth of a meter wide. These cylinders use electromagnetic resonance to change the wavelength of light they scatter, which is a fancy way of saying they change color to whatever you want. Tesla’s Solar Roof was specifically made because of the aesthetic qualities. People in the USA save large amounts of their $ in their homes – and they fear home value falling if ‘ugly’ solar panels are on them. Article says the solar panels would lose 2% of efficiency with this technique. Probably not a financial game killer for most home owners (adding a few months to ROI) like the look of ‘bulky’ panels.
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Electrek Green Energy Brief: A daily technical, financial and political review/analysis of important green energy news.

French island tenders push down solar-plus-storage prices by 40% – The 67 projects that include PV panels and batteries attained a guaranteed purchase price for their generated power of €113.6 (US$133.97) per MWh. In June 2016 a 52MW tender for island territory solar-plus-storage projects awarded feed-in tariffs (FiTs) at a weighted electricity price of €204/MWh (US$229.77/MWh). Power prices on the islands is set at around or over €200 per MWh, the ministry said. Small projects coming in at these prices will put the fossil fuel industry out of business in remote locations like this – and there are billions worth of revenue of remote locations. Customer pricing fell from $0.20/kWh to $0.13/kWh – solar plus storage just dropped their local retail pricing 33%. Win.

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

First Solar to Profit If Trump Slaps Tariffs on Panel Imports – “If there is a determination of injury, a modest type of remedy will not be harmful at all to the industry and I think it’ll survive and more jobs will be created,” FirstSolar CEO Mark Widmar said on a conference call. “Hopefully what it will do is enable more manufacturing in the U.S.” Two things about FirstSolar – first off, they manufacture their solar panels mostly in Ohio. Secondly, their product – thin film – is different from, and competes directly with, the product being talked about in this case. As such – FirstSolar will benefit greatly on projects built in the USA if the tariff is put in place. They’ll have significantly less downward pricing pressure as there really isn’t any utility scale solar panel production in the USA.

USITC Hearing — Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Cells and Modules – Here is the official calendar event of the trade case that begins today at 9.30 AM. My prediction – case is ruled in favor of Suniva. Not sure how many days it runs.

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

Iowa utility offers high ‘green’ pricing without adding renewables – Three Beyond Solar options are available: 100 percent solar, a 50/50 split of solar and wind, and 25 percent solar with 75 percent wind. In each scenario, generation capacity is sold in increments of 1 kilowatt and is added to a customer’s existing bill. The cost per kilowatt is $13.61 for 100 percent solar, $6.70 for 50 percent solar and $3.24 for 25 percent solar. The green energy comes from two existing contracts – nothing new will get built…and that isn’t necessarily an issue – someone did build these two clean plants (one wind, the other solar) – but the pricing seems a bit out of whack. Stay conscious of the pricing and structure of green programs.
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Electrek Green Energy Brief: A daily technical, financial and political review/analysis of important green energy news.

ITC report: 26 U.S. module makers closed in the past five years – 26 U.S. module manufacturers have closed their manufacturing facilities in the past five years, a period during which imports of modules and cells increased nearly five-fold. In addition, the majority of U.S. module companies reported operating losses over the same time period. U.S. demand for solar products increased for the four years between 2012 and 2016, Malaysian, Chinese and Korean modules captured a larger share of the U.S. market in contrast U.S. module manufacturers. In a few phone conversations I’ve had with people in the know, there isn’t really a question as to whether or not US module manufacturers have suffered at the hands of Chinese monetary policy supporting ‘below profit’ solar panel manufacturers. The question becomes, not ‘Are US panel manufacturers being hurt?’, but instead ‘What is in the best interests of the nation-state?’ And that question becomes absolutely the question to ask as we are looking at a blunt, national tool to defend industry. Would a few highly robotocized factories populated by engineers/machinists/specialists/etc benefit the energy security of the state? Absolutely…however, are there also other, more complex, paths that might benefit us more?

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

Energy storage saves Arizona utility from building 20 miles of transmission, distribution lines – One argument often overlooked for solar power when considering what the value of net metering ought be, is that solar power – adding consistent power generation far from the power source – lowers the need for hardware upgrades because it generally lower system stress. Energy storage is now doing the same thing. This was an economic choice – nothing to do with ‘green.’

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

Orlando City Council to vote on 100% clean energy goal – Orlando is a big city, if they start pushing toward clean energy it’ll offer great press in Mickey Mouse land – plus it could make a real change. Cities aiming for 100% clean energy is still early though, and not as perfect as it sounds (some go deeper). However, actions by cities and states – as the Federal government flops – are leading to changes.

US offshore pipeline ‘tops 24GW’ in more than 20 planned projects – Most projects are planned for the northeast Atlantic, but schemes are also in the pipeline in the southeast Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf of Mexico and Great Lakes. Offshore wind getting bigger in the USA – prices will fall. Lots of people on the coasts of the USA, close to the energy source.

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

From spectacular vistas to the pits: A decades-long public land battle continues in the California desert – They want to build a pumped-storage facility in the desert – ‘extra’ solar energy pumps water uphill in the daytime, when the electricity is needed later the water spins turbines on the way back down. The Joshua Tree National Park’s water supply is at risk – an environmentally challenging area. I’m going with the park over the business folks – even if they’re saving some CO2 with pumped storage. We’ve got so few healthy, relatively intact habitats left – build this somewhere else.

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

Berkshire Hathaway Energy Earnings Up on Solar Rebound – BHE Renewables saw net income increase $39 million due primarily to higher generation at the Solar Star projects, which were hobbled by transformer-related forced outages in 2016. It also benefited from earnings from tax equity investments reaching commercial operation and additional wind and solar capacity placed in service. If Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hatheway are improving their investment numbers due to solar power, expect plenty of others to follow close behind. Headlines like this bring regular people into the fold.

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

LONGi Solar pushes mainstream mono-PERC module to 325.6W – Entry level solar panels are 1/5th more efficient (moving from 16 to 20%) – meaning you get 20% was watts in the same roofspace.  “Mono-PERC” 60 cell solar panels in the real world at 19.91%. That’s freaking awesome. The mono-PERC bifacial product LONGi launched in 72 cell is 21% efficient front side and ~25(!!)% backside IF the conditions are solid (white roofs/high angle/proper spacing/proper open space racking structure). Trina set a 22.6% record recently with this product – so it already has upside to grow.

Header image is the second image released of the solar roof by Tesla, showed off the first yesterday. Aligns with customer solar articles later in the post.

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

Solar is now the most popular form of new electricity generation worldwide – Worldwide, some 73 gigawatts of net new solar PV capacity was installed in 2016. Wind energy came in second place (55GW), with coal relegated to third (52GW), followed by gas (37GW) and hydro (28GW). – “Popular” is used different than I’d use it for this first article – but this second article that focuses on the opinion of Americans and ‘solar farms’ uses the term properly without a doubt – Fully 89% of Americans favor more solar panel farms, just 9% oppose. Is popular the reason we should be building certain technology? No – of course not! What if the most popular is the cheapest form of electricity on the planet? And it can scale? And it is one of the cleanest? Yeah, those are good reasons.

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

Will County is first in Illinois to be named ‘solar smart’ – SolSmart, Will County has simplified the language in its zoning ordinances and made “alternative energy” an option on its building permit application. It also has enhanced training for permitting and inspection staff and increased public resources regarding solar energy systems and consumer protection. As a developer of solar power – someone who is in as deep as possible – I often get some very strange questions from people about solar power. Its at those moments where I have to remind myself that it is me who is the weird one with the amount of knowledge I have in this field. For local institutions to make solar power accessible in ways like this goes a LONG way.

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

Why Court Victories for New York, Illinois Nuclear Subsidies Are a Big Win for Renewables – In times when we have a Department of Energy head hiring an individual that declares renewables are more dangerous than terrorist attacks, two rulings in New York and Illinois supporting subsidies for nuclear power are a win for solar and wind support on a state level. The basic is – the courts have ruled that states have a right to prescribe their own incentives without certain federal interference. The article goes a lot deeper into the legaleeze – give it a read.

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