In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):
Uttar Pradesh (UP) is India’s most populous state, not to mention the most populous country subdivision in the world. UP is piloting a blockchain-based platform that will allow residents there to trade energy from solar panels between themselves.
Florida broke ground this week on a big municipal-backed solar project.
It’s being coordinated by The Florida Municipal Power Agency (FMPA), which is owned by 31 municipal electric utilities, is working with 12 of those local electric utilities, and Florida Renewable Partners, a subsidiary of Next Era Energy, the world’s largest generator of wind and solar energy.
US Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette had his first Senate hearing for the post of secretary of energy yesterday. He was tapped by Donald Trump to replace Rick Perry. Brouillette previously worked for Ford as a VP of their policy team. Here’s a snapshot of his thoughts on green energy and fossil fuels.
In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):
Cape Analytics is a Mountain View, California-headquartered company that reveals insights about US property by using AI and computer vision to scan and interpret geospatial imagery. So the company decided to look for evidence of solar panels across America, and published their findings in a report today called “The Most Solar Places in America.”
The Big 7 multilateral development banks (MDBs) are dropping the ball when it comes to financing green energy. A new report, called “Small Steps Are Not Enough,” from Christian Aid’s Big Shift Global, ranks the MDBs on their efforts to move finance from fossil fuels to green energy.
Solar PV installations on both residential and commercial buildings will see rapid growth over the next five years, according to the latest market forecast from the International Energy Agency (IEA).
In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):
Green energy in the UK, which includes wind farms, solar, biomass, and hydro plants, generated more electricity than coal, oil, and gas in the third quarter of 2019, according to a new report by Carbon Brief.
Dominion Energy and Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority are going to jointly explore a large-scale 100-megawatt solar energy project at Washington Dulles International Airport. It would be on approximately 1,200 acres. It could power up to 25,000 homes and would be one of the largest solar facilities in Northern Virginia.
In today’s EGEB:
After launching their campaign for the innovative and very reasonably priced Sion solarcar at the end of July, Sono Motors, based in Munich, has three days remaining in its campaign to garner final support from backers on Indiegogo after recently reaching their goal of €150,000.
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In a new report released by SolarCity, we are seeing that solar power systems have a usable lifetime of at least 35 years – 40% longer than the market expects. The key finding of the report is that power degradation (annual efficiency loss) of solar panels supplied to SolarCity is as much as 35% lower than for a comparable industry-wide selection of non-SolarCity panels, which are typically expected to last for 25 years. SolarCity feels it is the implementation of a stringent and industry-leading “Total Quality Program” that has driven this.
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On May 26, 2016 – “U.S. Rep. Mike Honda (D-Silicon Valley, Calif.) introduced H.R. 5350, the bipartisan Energy Storage for Grid Resilience and Modernization Act. Honda was joined by Reps. Chris Gibson (R-NY), Tom Reed (R-NY) and Mark Takano (D-CA).” The purpose of the legislation is to clarify that energy storage industry receives a 30% tax credit equivalent in nature to what the Renewable Energy industry gets. The 30% Solar Power Tax Credit, is credited with being one of the major drivers for the solar power installation boom in the United States.
GreentechMedia did the work to determine “Solar Made Up 64% of New Electric Generating Capacity in the US in Q1 2016.” This first quarter is part a potential 119% growth in the solar industry in 2016 – greater than $30 billion in revenue. And these announcements are on top of many other recent solar proclamations – 1,000,000 rooftops, record low pricing, leadership in jobs count and growth, whole countries running on renewables and more. With the Earth setting record warm months, every single month, its good that solar power is becoming sexy – but can we keep up the pace long enough to win the war?
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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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.
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.
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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The price of solar power is falling faster than many thought was possible. Harvard’s David Keith comes honest with us about solar power: “Facts have changed. I was wrong.”
The unsubsidized electricity cost from industrial-scale solar PV in the most favorable locations is now well below $40 per megawatt-hour and could very easily be below $20 per megawatt-hour by 2020. Compared to other new sources of supply, this would be the cheapest electricity on the planet.
The price of solar power has fallen for multiple reasons – the largest is that the volume of solar power being manufactured has skyrocketed. Of the almost 240GW of solar power installed globally, 85% of it has been installed in the past five years.
SunEdison has officially filed for bankruptcy. This has been expected by some players as far back as the 3rd quarter of 2015. SUNE has been a big player in the solar industry for a long time as they’ve strived to become the biggest global developer. By aggressively going after growing markets around the world and innovating with Solar Power YieldCos it looked like SunEdison might make it as well. Now, both SunEdison and their YeildCo is being sued. Alas…this party has come to an end.
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There’s a big reckoning happening in the solar inverter space right now. SolarEdge, an Israeli startup that we’ve profiled previously just announced bigger than expected earnings, sending their SEDG stock price up 5 points or a whopping 30% in today’s trading…
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