Green Energy

‘Green Gas’ is the new fossil fuel fashion accessory – The newest marketing line you’re going to hear is marketing ‘green gas power plants’ – natural gas plants connected with solar power. Natural gas and solar power are solid partners when building a power plant because natural gas plants can quickly be spun up to produce electricity as solar power wanes. And of course, if you mix the gas’ CO2 output and the total amount of electricity produced by both power plants (sun and gas) you will get a low amount of greenhouse gasses per kWh – thus ‘green gas.’ Don’t be fooled. We still think the future is solar + batteries.

Solar power plants being sold to investors (I like this) – Canadian plant at $199M US for 60MWAC and a Greek 23MW plant for $43M. Solar power plants being sold to investors is important because it represents a healthy exit strategy for developers who want to take the risk of building. Liquidity will mean more money will feel safe to invest, this will lower the cost of said money, leading to cheaper solar, which will lead to more solar – which lowers the price as well, and we get this virtuous business cycle.

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SolarEdge’s HD-Wave inverter has broken the California Energy Commission’s record for inverter efficiency.

The inverter, which was announced in September 2015 but is only now seeing wide-scale rollout, tested at 99% weighted efficiency while the competition clocks in between 96-98%. Arguably more important than the efficiency record is the new technology in the inverter – an “electronics based conversion topology.” SolarEdge says that because of their distributed switching and digital processing of the sine wave, they’re able to more efficiently convert electricity from DC to AC. With this new infrastructure, SolarEdge says inverters can evolve beyond mechanics to the speed of electronics. Think of televisions moving from cathode tubes with big magnets to flat screen electronic machines.

The greater efficiency means using 1/16 the number of magnets and copper and cutting heat dissipation by half, allowing for a 2.5x smaller aluminum block for cooling. The size and weight – 17.7” x 14.6” x 6.8” and 25.3 pounds – make it half as big as comparable inverters and installable/replaceable by a single person instead of two.

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Pretty pictures of India’s 650MW solar power plant – These pictures don’t do the scale of this site justice. The picture of the Chinese solar fishery were 1/3 this system size. 500,000 sq kilometers would be needed to power all the world – this site is 27 of those 500,000. Other items of interest – ‘3,800,000 foundations, 25,00,000 solar modules, 27,000 Mt of structure, 576 inverters, 154 transformers and 6,000 km length of cables.’

Externalities: Asthma limited by car tax – Imagine that you’re a human being that likes to breathe. I’ll give you a moment to consider this fantastic possibility. Now, image that there are more than 1 billion things in the world – internal combustion engines in cars – that spew chemicals that kill you. The cost to keep you alive is paid by you, maybe or maybe not a car driver. The car driver doesn’t pay for it. An article forwarded by one of our readers, Jamison Scotto, D.M.D., shows that for every gallon of gasoline burnt in the USA – society pays $1.30 (not the person driving the car). What kind of fake capitalism is that?

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DOE Sunshot team + Enphase + HECO + SolarCity figured out how to deal with the highest per capita solar market in the country that was producing too much solar to be managed, leading to 2,700 homes not being able to connect to the grid. With computer modeling, new tools were developed that allowed the utility to faster evaluate individual circuits and the solar connected to them. These tools will spread and places that are partially blocked to installation volume – like Eastern Massachusetts – will get much more efficient in their deployments.

The Politicians are moving – Maryland Legislature overrules Governor to implement more aggressive RPS, Wyoming legislatures vote against wind + solar tax, Nevada asked better calculations of energy ‘attributes,’  and Maine politicians extend net metering 15 years with annual decrease in payment. Greentech gave a nice summary of the active 2016 that DSIRE has put together. Maryland, by increasing the volume of electricity needed from renewables will pump up the depressed price of its SREC market. Wyoming will get to take advantage of Trump infrastructure and massive wind. And Nevada might design its rate system – what people pay and what various electricity sources are worth – on smarter numbers, recognizing truly what solar power brings to the table.

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Saudi Arabia expects record low prices in solar RFP – The specific quote I latched onto, ‘terms on renewable contracts will be motivating’ made me think of things like free land, free interconnection, access to cheap/free (0%) money for finance, good labor terms, etc. All of these things will lead to increases in costs for a developer – and you’ve got to add margin to every single cost because it took time and money to work through the challenges. Current low prices are 2.3¢/kWh for 1.18GW – how much lower are we expecting? 1.99¢/kWh?

With a goal of “Enabling Extreme Real-Time Grid Integration of Solar Energy” Sunshot announces $30M in grants for 13 programs – The goal is to get the electricity grid to handle solar power greater than 100% of the grid’s demand at any moment. The 13 tools in this round of awards focus on software to watch and analyze, plus hardware that focuses on strategic positions within the grid to route large volume of energy at key moments. Reading through each one you can visualize how solar power peaking at 12 noon could be better managed by each of these systems. It must be exciting to be the scientists within the SunShot team, looking down on this broad machine, and seeing how this software and hardware will fine tune the movement of electricity across the world.

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Solar eclipse allowed Germany to test grid, learning that up to 80% renewables is possible – Pretty cool to think that the German scientists and grid operators took the time to use a solar eclipse on one of the world’s largest solar power deployments as an experiment. I cannot imagine it would be possible to test such an aggressive ramp up and down in the real world without upsetting broader society – but during a solar eclipse it is possible.

Maryland House (not the Senate yet) votes to overturn Governor’s veto of Renewable Energy bill – The House of Representatives of Maryland has overruled the veto of an energy bill by the state’s governor. Reading the comments here and in other locations I hear the same tired arguments about ‘sun and wind taxes.’ It’s like there is a group distributing talking points all across the country that is funded by those making money from fossil fuels. Good thing we have a double digit number of analysis showing that the House of Representatives is right from a science standpoint and that they are supported by the people.

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Is this 1GW array actually the largest in the world? – Recently, I’ve read of an Indian and a Chinese solar farm being proclaimed as the world’s largest. Now – I’ve got a 1GW in China saying it is the largest single solar plant in the world. My first thoughts move toward how to optimize operations and management – a plant of this size would definitely benefit from a robotic cleaning service. The approximately 300,000 individual solar panels are monitored remotely (and wirelessly) in groups of about 30-33 panels – this will help engineers focus their troubleshooting. I wouldn’t be surprised if each one of those hundreds of rows you see in the above image was a batch of 30-33.

Why Utilities have already lost the “War on Net Metering” – Your electricity bills are in a state of sped up evolution because a new predator, solar freaking power, has come into a formerly calm environment, a monopolized environment, and it is taking pieces of flesh with ease. The utilities will protect their shareholders – and the utilities have been doing well for many decades, but the technology seems to be reaching a point that the politicians can no longer be paid enough. For the next couple of years, while the utilities lose control of these price wars, you’ll see everything done to limit the value of your electricity generation – and you’ll react. And so will the utility. And that’s how it works.

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World’s largest oil producer is putting $5B into renewables – Saudi Arabia has known for a long time that the oil revenue would not flow indefinitely. There have been many conversations about diversification – including going public with the Saudi state oil company, Saudi Aramco, and using large amounts of that money to push into tomorrow’s industries. Hard numbers though – Saudi Aramco is pumping about 10M barrels of oil per day right now, at a price of about $50-60/barrel which means $500-600M a day. This $5B investment would take 9-10 days to cover (they pump on weekends), and will probably be spread out over the next couple of years. Small drop in a big bucket, but solar power is now being funded from a very big and well funded bucket.

Top 10 solar cell producers from 2016 – Just so you can get the brand names in your head (though this article isn’t just a list, its a nice read). Maybe afterwards read up on the companies a bit more – find out why they’re there and see if that aligns with what you value. Even better – some stock tips on these companies in the comment section. Thanks!

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Last week, a 200MW solar fishery came online in Cixi City in east China’s Zhejiang Province. The photos below show the immensity of the project. Dual use solar power comes in many forms: parking lot solar is always getting attention, walkable solar glass – like the project built by Apple (though I don’t think the Apple campus solar counts), and solar even roadways are now a thing. With the State of California considering requiring solar in all new construction, a slew of cities pushing the envelope already and Tesla’s Solar Roof coming, the near-term future has plenty of motivation for innovation in the building integrated photovoltaic market (BIPV). Will seeing things like solar-powered fisheries and roadways motivate more infrastructure integrated photovolatics?

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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.

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Flat electricity demand allowing renewables to be part of slowing CO2 in USA – The author estimated that, “CO2 emissions from U.S. electricity generation in 2016 will be 27 percent below the baseline level from 2005.” The Northeast USA saw a fall in total electricity sales in 2015. All the while, cleaner natural gas has been replacing coal – but because there is a lot less electricity needed, not all of the coal is getting replaced. Energy efficiency and renewables have been able to step in. We should give ourselves a quick nod of approval – 27% off of 2005 numbers isn’t bad considering the economic and population growth since then.

Scandinavian wind farm nixed due to Russian threat – Imagine you have this wide open ocean area that has high winds and is near your coastline, however, your neighbor has placed warships less than 200 miles away is such a threat you need to use it to practice warfare. That’s the current position of countries bordering Russia’s northwest. A different version of NIMBY…

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President Trump has told the United States Department of Energy Sunshot team that they are not allowed to communicate any information to the public until political appointments are made to review all of said communications per a report from Samantha Page at ThinkProgress.

The directive was given at a staff meeting, according to the email sent Thursday morning, and came from Assistant Secretary of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Steven Chalk. “I want to share that we are PROHIBITED from any social media post (from personal or business handles) regarding your work, attendance at any meeting, etc until further notice, per Steve Chalk, acting EE-1,” the email reads.

This action follows other actions by the President that might be perceived as Orwellian – requesting the EPA remove all Climate Change information (before a judge halted them) from their website and creating a new term – ‘alternative facts.’

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Apple agrees to purchase solar energy from 200MW Warren Buffet farm – Apple & NV Energy, owned by Warren Buffett, have agreed to build a 200MW solar power farm whose power will be sold to Apple for purpose of powering an Apple data center. A 200MW solar farm in Nevada, at retail rates, will cost approximately $200-300M and will produce 350GWh a year – an average American home uses 0.01GWh/year. Interesting to see – Apple researched 5MW of solar power to be sold to commercial and residential customers. I’d like to learn more about it.

$1/W goal has been hit, $.70/W by 2021 – how did this happen? – Sunshot is a Department of Energy program that sought to lower the cost of utility scale solar power to $1/W installed+ by investing in strategic solar energy technologies: solar cells, power electronics, manufacturing techniques and soft costs. What I think caught everyone off guard was the Chinese ability to scale their manufacturing. The solar panel that I bought in 2006-7 cost between $2.50-3/W – now the entire installation costs 1/3 that price.

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Trump releases infrastructure possibilities, 4 (actually 5) renewable grid projects included – The renewable projects are, 1. an HVDC transmission line to move wind power from Oklahoma to Tennessee Valley Authority customer, 2. an HVDC line moving wind power from Wyoming to the southwest USA, 3. support of a 3GW, largest in the country, wind farm in Wyoming, and 4. Energy Storage and Grid Modernization in California. Interestingly, all of these projects are partially underway, some with permits and partial construction complete. I wonder exactly what the federal support would be – helping paperwork move? At a minimum, federal support for shovel ready projects can move thing along quicker when financiers see backers that cannot go bankrupt. Edit – a 5th project – an HVDC powerline moving 1,000MW of renewable energy from upstate New York down the Hudson to New York City.

Magic number to affect car buying $3/gallon – At what price did you begin to change your driving habits during our last gas price bubble? I’m actually interested in knowing. Right now, Tesla is able to sell like it does because of brand name – and being a great damn car. Its sales don’t seem to be affected by gas prices. Other manufacturers are doing ok with electric in the US – but what price of gas will make them do great?

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EPA told to halt research grants – Yesterday, I provided you with data from a respected source – the US Energy Information Agency. The information was the amount of CO2 released when we make a single kWh from natural gas or coal, or burn a gallon of gasoline. That research and the online tools used to distribute it was provided via your and my tax dollars. That research creates value for companies across much of the US business world. The EPA and the EIA are eventually going to be forced to remove knowledge from the public domain. Limiting public domain knowledge will limit our species ability to evolve on this planet.

Pew shows 2x as many Americans support alternative energy over fossil, including two thirds of moderate Republicans – It’s interesting to see solar power cover such broad political bases, cleaner energy almost as much as solar. In Georgia – the politics of the Tea Party and the Green Party came together to push solar power. President George W. Bush first signed off on the Federal Investment Tax Credit for solar power. Annually, and a bipartisan Congress pushed it to be re-signed every year (it expired annually in those days). Now, we see a small group of energy-focused lobbyists in control of Trump’s cabinet we ought expect to see this happening on many levels in the country.
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Pew Research Center has released the most recent results of their yearly survey asking Americans their opinions on energy development.  In it, a large majority of Americans – 65% – give priority to developing alternative energy over fossil fuels.  Less than half as many – 27% – think that we should be expanding production of oil, coal and natural gas. The number of Americans supporting alternative energy in the survey has been consistently high since Pew started asking this question, and has been increasing since 2013.
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New Secretary of Defense James Mattis supports microgrids – US Military officials have made strong statements concerning climate change, strategic safety and fuel transport. In the US they’ve stated inter-connected microgrids based upon solar power, wind, batteries and fuel cells are most intelligent. In the field, General Mattis has expressed multiple times that solar power microgrids are exactly what is needed to ‘power up batteries’ in the field. And on a global scale – we know the thought is that ‘climate change poses a significant risk.’ The reason I post General Mattis is because we need every pathway forward to better our energy position and military investment in technology always seems to pull things quickly.

$220/ton is proper cost of carbon tax – If we’re going to have an adult conversation about what that means: adding $.13/kWh gas, $.22/kWh coal & $2/gallon for gasoline. These numbers are based upon the $220/ton number multiplied against the values on these two pages (A and B). In my mind we have two choices – either accept this ultra aggressive $/ton of CO2 number or make our carbon tax a LOT LOWER however, force the money into energy, transportation, manufacturing and agriculture upgrades. We cannot have everything – we live in reality folks.

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97% efficient solar thermal technology developed in Australia – The goal of the designers is to get the technology to 12¢/kWh – and with such high amount of energy efficiency when considering land space, even at that ‘higher’ price, I would expect it to get some sales. Being able to use nearly 100% of the sun’s energy to spin turbines will mean energy density 4 times greater (or 1.5x if you’re an ME), from a land use standpoint, that standard photovoltaic based solar power. Additionally, this being in the form of heat energy means there is the possibility of extending the use of energy beyond standard sunlight hours. Of course, moving parts will make it more complex to deal with and at 2100 suns compressed to boil the water at 500°C, your technician better know their stuff.

10 straight years of global growth for solar, including 32% and 34% in 2015-2016 – We’ve been seeing a doubling of cumulative installed solar power every 2-4 years since sometime around 2000. For us to have such massive global growth in year 15 and 16 is really amazing – the two year growth rate is almost 77%. Do not expect this same growth (and possibly no growth) in 2017 though – all the predictions I’ve read say we might be minus a percent, about the same or possibly up 5% growth. If the low pricing of 2016 can hold though, then this FoxBusiness report that solar is escaping the boom bust cycle of subsidized industries will be true – and the above article’s expectation of strong growth returning by later 2018 and into 2019 will hold strong.

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Residential solar doesn’t affect electricity rates – Actually, the report says that at current average penetration levels – the cost to the grid is plus or minus $0.0003/kWh (that’s 3/100ths of a penny). Additionally, at penetration levels lower than 10% there is a cost of plus or minus $0.005/kWh (that’s 1/2 of a cent). This report only considers the direct cost to managing a power grid – it does not account for societal benefits like pollution, health or climate change – so it really is undercutting the true value of solar power…if you believe in pollution that is.

Politicians tell Trump that winds farms affect radar, NAVY disagrees – Reality is that politicians are sometimes controlled by those who fund their campaigns. If someone is making up stories in order to pull on the heart-strings of voters (FEAR! NATIONAL DEFENSE!) – then you’ve got to question their motives. When the locals don’t even want to consult with their national groups – that’s when you start to realize that anti-clean energy political efforts by groups like ALEC, the Koch Brothers and Exxon are far-reaching. Deep pockets mean you have the ability to build a group that can strategically attack the political structure all the way down. And now that we have a President that said global warming is a Chinese hoax to steal money – expert more false nationalism to enter the political discussion and make it all the way to the top.

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$200B in global green bonds – Hundreds of billions of dollars will move into green technologies via the form of long term, safe and stable investments. If you install a solar power system that has minimal O&M and it then runs for 30+ years – someone is going to make money. I field calls all the time from investment groups looking to add a bunch of solar to their portfolios. We’re not going to stop using electricity.

California vote on ‘Time of Use’ rates coming up – If we’re going to live by a true supply and demand market, then electricity use during the daytime and early evening is going to be the most expensive. And the solar industry in California is pushing that we recognize Time of Use more so, since solar power is producing during the most expensive time of the day. This push out west is being called Netmetering 2.0 because the legislators hope to better capture the nuances and economic benefits of solar power – electricity generation is just one benefit brought to the table (lesser stress on grid, adding voltage to areas far from the power plant, etc).

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Global solar panel production capacity estimated at 117GW/year – The topic of this article is about the growth of PERC solar cells, but the image inside of it is one I’ve been searching for. Last year we installed about 75GW of solar power, 50% growth from 2015 – this year we expect total volume of a similar amount, that means there will be pressure on manufacturers to make use of their capacity – and that pressure will push downward on solar panel pricing. One solution to lower pricing is to sell higher margin product – and PERC cells, higher efficiency than today’s common product, get that higher margin per solar panel because there are more watts in a solar panel.

850MW(?) Chinese plant is world’s largest solar plant right now – And the plant is under constant construction. Western China has open land, dry air, great sunlight and a seemingly determined China. The size of the plant I am not 100% on as they don’t seem to give a nameplate size – but instead they give the total energy produced. Other headlines will push that India currently has the largest plant – either way, I’m happy that this competition is occurring.

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