Yesterday, 9to5Mac.com reported that Apple Inc has founded a new, fully owned, subsidiary known as Apple Energy and that this entity had applied to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC regulates power companies) to be able to sell electricity and other power grid services to anyone that is not a public utility. Does this mean that you can now buy clean electricity made on the roof of the Apple Spaceship? Unless you are a large corporate electricity user within 10-30 miles, probably not. However if we step back and take a broader view, something interesting is happening – the likes of Apple, Google, Ikea and others including even Walmart are showing us a small piece of the future of much smarter electricity grid owned by many instead of the few.

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Tuesday, SolarCity produced greater than 10GWh of solar electricity via its customer base. This doubles the 5GWh peak in 2015 and more than triples the 3GWh in 2014. SolarCity has over 280,000 customers and greater than 2.16GW installed as of the end of the first quarter – that volume is expected to grow 218MW in the second quarter and to be greater than 3GW before the end of 2016. The summer day peaks around June 20 – meaning we’ll probably see more records broken.
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Much has been made about the coming SmartHome – it started with the Jetsons and their robots, however the reality has been a bit slow coming. Last week, EnergySage+WiseAir+Schneider launched an offer of $300 cash back if you install solar power and a smart thermostat. Back in February, SolarCity+Nest+Tesla introduced the “Smart Energy Home” that combines solar panels, battery storage, smart electric water heaters and the Nest Learning Thermostat. Vermont utilities are renting PowerWalls. It has become clear the home energy generation & management is on the path into powering the SmartHome.

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The State of New York has approved a continuation of $485M in funding to build out SolarCity’s Gigafactory – capable of producing 10,000 modules a day. A few weeks ago, we saw the cash disbursements stopped for further review of key individuals associated with construction. These funds are needed to pay for and install the hardware inside the building to manufacture the solar modules as the majority of building construction is complete. The controversy is surrounding lobbyists and construction companies figuring out how to get a piece of a The Buffalo Billion – but really, I’m more interested in what might go on inside the largest solar manufacturing plant in North America and one of the biggest in the world.

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After our attempt at explaining the 500% markup on Apple’s new solar array yesterday, further information has now confirmed that Apple’s new stores – starting in the brand new San Francisco location – will be utilizing a new walkable solar glass floor technology for electricity generation. According to a document on Onyx Solar’s website, Apple “has decided to commit itself to OnyxSolar’s designer photvoltaic technology for its new stores. The first of these is located in the heart of San Francisco, the company’s home town.”

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Apple’s newest piece of retail art was revealed to shoppers in Union Square of San Francisco this month. As is Apple’s modus operandi these days they’re making sure to use clean energy to power the building. From the Apple press release, “The store is powered by 100 percent renewable energy, including power produced by photovoltaic panels integrated into the building’s roof.” BuildZoom – sees a 50kW Solar Electric system for an astounding $800,000! What exactly did Apple build?

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Solar Power now has more employees than either the Oil & Gas or Coal Extraction industries in the United States. The solar industry employed approximately 208,000 individuals at the end of 2015 versus 185,000+ in oil and gas, or 190,000 in coal extraction. Solar power employment is expected to grow an additional 15% in 2016 to almost 240,000 individuals. Globally, solar power now directly employs 2.8 million people as the largest renewable energy employer.

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The US Department of Energy (DOE) is readying the power grids for solar power to meet 100%, and greater, of local electricity demand as solar peaks mid-day. The DOE is funding a series of projects whose broad goal is to make the power grid more able to be monitored and managed while dealing with less predictable and controllable forms of electricity generation.

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According to documents reviewed by Handelblatt, “it is likely that U.S. silicon supplier Hemlock will win a case it brought against Solarworld for allegedly not fulfilling a contract and claiming up to $770 million in damages.” SolarWorld recently reiterated their position that the probability of losing this case was ‘low.’ In earlier quarterly statements SolarWorld has also said that a victory by Hemlock is seen as, “possibly even threatening the continued existence of the company.” The verdict is expected on June 9, 2016.
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In the above image in 1900, we see that there is a single car out of many horse drawn carriages in New York City. Within thirteen years it transformed into one of many cars and one horse. Technology disruptions made this happen – and the evidence from the past several decades seems to show that battery pricing, electric car design, autonomous technologies and solar power are all about to hit their thirteen year strides.

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Legislators for the State of New York failed to move forward on a vote to deliver $485 million in funding to build out SolarCity’s Gigafactory in Buffalo. According to BuffaloNews, even though the project has been approved by the State Legislature as part of the much-heralded Buffalo Billion program, a three-person team has decided to not vote on the release of the next round of funding due to, “red flags were raised in the Legislature when the control board’s internal agenda document included vague language about future, undetermined beneficiaries.”

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According to Zero.ong, and brought to our attention by SolarCrunch, Portugal ran on renewable energy alone for 4 straight days last week. This 100% was preceded by more than 70 percent of its electricity from renewable sources of energy during the first quarter of 2013, and 63% for all of 2014. Portugal stopped burning coal in 1994.

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It seems that whole cities are now going solar:

The Santa Monica City Council voted in April to approve an ordinance requiring rooftop solar systems for all new construction in the City of Santa Monica—both residential and commercial.

Santa Monica joins other California cities San Francisco, Lancaster and Sebastopol in implementing solar requirements at time of construction. The requirements will add between $3.27-3.54/sq ft in construction costs – 33-37% below current solar market prices. The energy savings will more than offset mortgage pricing increases – lowering ownership costs from day one.

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The home energy storage revolution is upon us. SunRun, a national full service solar power installer and financier, announced the first installation of their BrightBox product. BrightBox is a solar energy storage solution, utilizing a Tesla PowerWall, for your home that includes a solar system and solar battery. This is exciting because it adds to the list of big name installers and manufacturers of home battery systems that have begun installations – and continues the evolution of our power grid.

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North Palm Beach, FL – 9.3kW PCM Solar, Renogy & SolarEdge built by Coronado Solar

Does Solar Power make sense for my roof?

Residential Solar Power is big time business – 2,099 MW at about $3.60/W means $7.6B in sales in the United States in 2015. SolarCity, the largest national installer at about 34% of all residential installs, is one among thousands of installers. In my home state of Massachusetts alone, there are greater than 400 companies and 15,000 employees involved in the solar power supply chain. Across the US, there are more employees in the solar power industry (200,000+ as of right now) than oil. And of course, we’ve recently crossed 1,000,000 residential solar power installs in the US. You might be among many considering this investment. Let’s get into the devilish details…

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According to Agora-Energiewende, and brought to our attention by PV-Magazine.com, on Sunday at 11 AM, 95% of German electricity demand was being met by renewable energy. In one of the most advanced manufacturing countries on the planet – this is an amazing feat of engineering.

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Caterpillar – the company known for building some of the biggest, baddest construction hardware on the planet has launched a new product line: CAT Microgrid Technology powered with Solar Power. Caterpillar’s product line is focused on mining, telecoms and remote communities, but a push by the likes of SolarCity, The State of New York and Community Solar, and you’ll soon see why Microgrids will reshape how your neighborhood gets it electricity.

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SolarCity will produce the electricity, Tesla Energy will store it – and the SolarCity Utilities Services will deliver it to you at night. Recently, Tesla said they would install more energy storage with Solarcity in 2016 than the USA installed in 2015. This morning SolarCity put out two press releases – one announcing the focus on Utility and Grid Services and a second regarding a 13MWAC solar power systems and at least 1.5 megawatts/6 megawatt-hour of storage with the Connecticut Municipal Electric Energy Cooperative (pictured above). Is all of this a warm up to build a (solar)city on Mars?

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It is with great pleasure that we see SolarReserve has signed an agreement with the Shenhua Group of China to build one of the world’s largest Solar Thermal 24-Hour a Day Power plants. This contract is part of the 13th Plan of Five-year National Development by China that outlines installing 10,000MW of Concentrated Solar Power.

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Dovolenk, designed by Architect/Owner David Komonosky, engineered by Q3 Engineering and built by Meeker Homes. Hardware – Dual Axis Trackers by Deger, BYD Solar Modules, BAE Batteries and Schneider Inverters.

Engineering that is designed right, looks good and drives both economic and environmental benefits – that’s what solar power done well can be. A couple of common homeowner questions are how will these solar modules look and what’s going to happen to my property value?
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Sister site 9to5mac posted a drone video of a flyover at the new Apple campus – that’s pretty sweet to see the Apple campus coming along. More importantly though – there is an image of the solar power installation! It’s nothing beyond a square parking structure building with some modules, but it represents something pretty cool – a large scale solar power installation at time of building construction. Apple is going to have very positive financials on a thing like this.
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Dubai received bid of $.0299/kWh for 800MW of solar power. This price represents the lowest yet recorded for solar power (and might not represent the end of the price drops…).

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has received 5 bids from international organisations for the third phase of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, said HE Saeed Mohammed AlTayer, MD & CEO of DEWA. The lowest recorded bid at the opening of the envelopes was US 2.99 cents per kilowatt hour. The next step in the bidding process will review the technical and commercial aspects of the bids to select the best one.

In the USA, in 2014 and with incentives, utility scale solar projects averaged $.05/kWh. On this bid alone, five companies bid below $.045/kW – without subsidies!
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