Suniva solar is trying hard to sell its soul and it just might win. The ITC Section 201 trade case – in which Suniva is suing all global solar power manufacturers for too much competition – was bankrolled by an investment firm, SQN Capital Management, in order to use as leverage to extort successful solar power companies to buy the hardware of the failed manufacturer. The investment firm attempted to get a buyer in May, stating that a successful sale would negate the need for the lawsuit. They failed at finding a buyer and the lawsuit has passed the point of no return.

Now it seems Suniva might still win, as two major solar companies – LONGi and Canadian Solar, seem to have shown interest in buying their assets.

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NY Governor Cuomo has signed into law a bill (AB 6571) directing the state’s Public Service Commission to develop an Energy Storage Deployment Program, including a storage procurement target for 2030.

New York now becomes the fourth US state to have energy storage targets/mandates. California and Oregon have a mandate in place, while Massachusetts has set a law that dictates a target to be finalized shortly. South Australia turned on the world’s largest lithium ion battery just yesterday.

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Gigawatt solar markets seen in 13 countries in 2018 – The 1 GW solar market club grew by 5 members: Mexico, Netherlands, Brazil, Spain, and Egypt. The current countries installing more than 1 GW of capacity of solar power per year are: France, South Korea, Australia, China, India, Japan, USA, and Germany. The revolution is deep, it is meow widening. There’s a country on every populated continent. For some reason it feels proper that there is solar capacity and manufacturing in every country – like mitochondria in every cell.

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Google is officially off-setting 100% of its energy usage with either wind or solar power. The company signed contracts on three wind power plants in recent days to bring them over 3GW of production capacity.

Google’s energy infrastructure investments have totaled over $3.5 billion globally, with about two-thirds being in the US.

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Yesterday, Aera Energy and GlassPoint Solar announced plans to build California’s largest solar energy project. Located at the Belridge oilfield west of Bakersfield, the project will be used to generate steam to inject into the ground to help extract oil.

The site will produce 12 million barrels of steam per year, replacing 4.8B ft³ of natural gas that would have been burnt to generate the steam. The oil-producing solar project is projected to save more than 376,000 metric tons of carbon emissions, which is equivalent to the emissions of 80,000 cars per year.

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The 100MW/129MWh Tesla battery delivered in 100 days has begun testing. And – for the first time – on Thursday at 4:30 PM in Australia, early this morning in the US, the power plant delivered 70MW of ‘stored wind power’ during the peak electricity demand period.

Elon Musk, on March 9th of this year, promised via a tweet that he could deliver this battery within 100 days – or it’d be free.

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Moody’s Warns Cities to Address Climate Risks or Face Downgrades – In its report, Moody’s lists six indicators it uses “to assess the exposure and overall susceptibility of U.S. states to the physical effects of climate change.” They include the share of economic activity that comes from coastal areas, hurricane and extreme-weather damage as a share of the economy, and the share of homes in a flood plain. Based on those overall risks, Texas, Florida, Georgia and Mississippi are among the states most at risk from climate change. Moody’s didn’t identify which cities or municipalities were most exposed. If the politicians won’t act because they are owned by the groups that specifically cause this problem, then the insurance companies are acting. Already, the State of Florida has serious home owner insurance issues because of hurricanes. Now, this is going to expand. A smart friend of mine a month or two back suggested a structural breakdown in certain regions could happen sooner than later because of financial withdrawal. The US Government already suggested 10 million people worth of land ought be left to fend for their financial selves. The insurance companies now agree. This is huge. Commercial development will bear consequence first.

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The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, (NREL), has demonstrated a prototype of a solar powered smart window. The smart window lowers building temperatures by shifting from clear to opaque under strong sunlight. When the shift to opaque occurs, the solar prototype begins electricity production.

The prototypes tested reached up to 11.3% efficiency. The solar cell is based on the lab/headline favorite material perovskite.

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European PV market expected to grow by 35% in 2018 – “The European market is entering a phase of sustainable growth, no longer driven by the Feed-in-Tariff boom and bust cycle,” said GTM analyst Tom Heggarty. This phase of growth without the boom bust of the tariffs is starting to play out in many places. This is a lot of growth in Europe – if India and China have a big 2018 again (which it looks like they already are per announcements made) – 100GW of new solar power installed every year is here to stay.

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Pennsylvania State Grants: $5,000 for Every New Solar Job – The program will now allow for grants of up to $5,000 or loans of up to $40,000 for each solar-manufacturing job created over three years for companies that make solar panels and equipment. Will there become a competition between various states to build these future robotic solar panel factories? I’d bet Pennsylvania has been watching the Tesla Energy Gigafactory being built just north of them in Buffalo and might have a touch of envy. Should every state – and every country – have its own solar panel factories?

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India has laid out plans to auction off 20.6GW of solar power in their 2017-2018 fiscal year, with an additional plan to auction off 30GW in 2018-19 and the same 2019-20.

This volume is part of a 100GW goal of solar power to be built by 2022 as part of the country’s goal of 175GW of Renewable Energy.

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Harvesting the Sun for Power and Produce – Agrophotovoltaics Increases the Land Use Efficiency by over 60 Percent – Winter wheat, potatoes, celeriac and clover grass were the first crops to be tested. The south-west orientation and the extra distance between the five meter high rows of bifacial glass-glass PV modules ensured that the crops were exposed to uniform solar radiation. “The crop yield of clover grass under the PV array was only 5.3 percent less than the reference plot,” reports Prof. Petera Högy, agricultural expert at the University of Hohenheim. The yield losses for potatoes, wheat and celeriac are between 18 to 19 percent and therefore somewhat higher.” This is another example of infrastructure integrated photovoltaics (IIPV). This is also a very interesting step in my mind – if we can open up huge swathes of global farmland to be used for solar power the land use argument goes away, and the amount of land that can be used for solar power is suddenly far in excess of what would be needed to power the planet.

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The US House of Representatives passed a tax-reform bill on Nov. 16 that would change the amount of tax credit each kWh of wind power created gets going forward. The US Senate, disagreeing, has returned a bill without this change.

While being argued, signed projects at various stages of development are on hold – and some estimate $50 billion worth of planned wind projects might not be developed.

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ZeroMassWater has developed a solar panel kit – “Source” – that uses its electricity to draw water from the atmosphere. The kit delivers up to 5 liters (1.3 gallons) of pure water per day in optimal locations. The unit can be installed and integrated into a regular house.

“Our vision is perfect water for every person, in every place” – Cody Friesen, the founder, CEO and MIT PhD.

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Air pollution may cause infertility for a ‘significant number of couples’, warn scientists – The study showed that for every 5 ug/m3 increase in tiny particles called PM2.5s, there was a 26 per cent increased risk of being in the bottom 10 per cent of normal sperm size and shape. The effect was found when particle counts rose over 25 µg/m³. In London yesterday, particulates rose to 69 µg/m³ in some areas. This just adds to the list people. It kills us. It lowers our IQ. It deforms our children. It warms our planet. And it slows us down from having children.

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Scotland ‘on target’ for 100% renewable energy by 2020 – Scotland had been clever in dealing with objectors to wind farms with grants to local communities which allowed them to take an equity share in developments. “There is clear evidence in Scotland that supporting local communities to get involved in – and benefit from – the local energy system enables a range of related social and economic co-benefits.” – Two things here, 1. Scotland is going to have a completely emission free electricity system in less than two and a half years. How cool is that? 2. One of the base emotions of the distributed energy philosophy is that it also distributes the revenue. Germany’s programs – even though they increase the prices of electricity a non-trivial amount – are widely supported because, my gut says, that 50% of the renewable energy is owned by regular people directly. Money fixing a lot of issues.

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How Local Utilities Gamed the Natural-Gas Market – On 37 cold days, when demand was high, unused pipeline space resulting from the scheduling changes represented about 28% of the daily capacity typically used by gas-fired generators. Eversource and Avangrid, routinely booked large gas deliveries, then cut orders sharply at the last minute. Yet nine other gas utility companies taking gas from Algonquin didn’t cancel at the last minute. Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey is reviewing the findings, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.) asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to open an investigation on the matter, and both the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority and the Massachusetts Public Utilities Department are launching inquiries of their own. Here’s the key – the utilities are now using these peak periods of demand, when the pipeline was 29% empty, to lobby for a new pipeline that will be paid for by consumers and guaranteed to be used. Research from around the country will probably show us the truth of the situation.

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Recent aggressive actions by China and India to combat climate change will more than offset new American policies that increase CO2 emissions by denying the human effects on earth’s changing climate.

Recent news shows that China is already pulling the world forward with extensive solar power installations, while India – the soon to be world’s most populous country – sits at the edge of its own clean energy revolution.

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Heliatek installed the ‘world’s largest building integrated organic photovoltaic’ (BIOPV) system on top of a school in La Rochelle, France. 22kW of their ‘HeliaSol’ product was installed in one day by six people.

The ultra-environmentalist solar installation is seemingly 7-8% efficient, weighs 1/10th the weight of a standard solar panel and is held to the roof via an adhesive sticker on the backside of the panel.

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40% of U.S. Homeowners Interested in Bundling Solar Power With Electric Utility Bill – “Bundling solar with energy services received the most consumer interest—40% of U.S. homeowners in broadband households are interested in bundling solar power purchasing with their electricity bill.” Over 50% of U.S. broadband households would purchase a smart device to manage energy consumption during TOU peak hours. The first quote here – 40% of broadband households wanting solar is a huge opportunity for the electric utilities to make money off of a lot of people. A chance to stay relevant. That second item could be a home battery system – lots of people wouldn’t mind throttling house hardware to take advantage of pricing disparities. Maybe batteries at home and solar on the grid is a big subset of buyers.

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I’ve made a mistake – I’m sorry. In my haste and excitement to see show off solar power – I’ve given it undue credit. Wind Power got these bids and I initially misinterpreted a piece of ambiguous information. While solar power did amazingly get a bid at 1.97¢ – it did not break below the recently set Saudi Record. Anything written in this article hereafter has been updated.

Per a press release from the Centro Nacional de Control de Energía (Cenace) of Mexico, the department received bids for 3TWh of solar wind electricity, with the lowest bids being 1.77¢/kWh coming from Italian multinational ENEL Green Power.

This record low price of green electricity on earth, just beats out the 1.79¢/kWh from Saudi Arabia, and is part of a pattern marching toward 1¢/kWh bids that are coming in 2019 (or sooner).

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Chinese Solar Maker LONGi Mulling U.S. Plant as Tariffs Loom – Longi began evaluating the move before a U.S. trade case was filed in April. The company is evaluating multiple sites for a cell and module plant, and potential state incentives would play an important role in any decision. “Our analysis has become more complex. We can’t make an investment decision without knowing the 201 tariff rate, and know how long it would be implemented for.” The tariffs have been suggested for last for four years. A solar panel manufacturing panel seems to be able to come online within a year once negotiations are complete (with an existing structure in place). Solar cell factories I’ve been told – but not seen direct analysis – take 2-4 years. The silicon would likely come from US manufacturers.

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Cheese and Bourbon Face Risk of Backlash From U.S. Solar Tariff – The dispute hinges on an obscure trade law that bankrupt panel manufacturer Suniva Inc. has invoked to ask Trump for protection against imports. The measure gives the president broad authority to levy tariffs, but the U.S. has lost every time the law has been challenged at the WTO. “If we tell the WTO to shove it, China may target Kentucky bourbon and Wisconsin dairy, creating natural opponents to the tariffs in Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan,” Clark Packard, a trade policy analyst for the Washington free-market think tank R Street Institute. Ahhh, I love the smell of fresh politics with my coffee! The article notes it could take up to 18 months for the case to hit the courts after the tariff is imposed, and then the US could appeal.

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The solar power manufacturing industry is having to deal with two component shortages that are affecting margins today and possibly influencing volume availability.

Solar panel manufacturers are seeing a shortage of polysilicon that has driven solar cell pricing up, even while panel pricing is moving down. Solar inverter manufacturers are seeing the consequences of a tight global market in memory chips, driven partially by iPhone demand.

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