[amor de cosmos]

First Solar Close to Agreements to Supply Mines in Australia
By James Paton Mar 30, 2014 9:28 PM PT

First Solar Inc. (FSLR), the largest U.S. solar-panel maker, is close to announcing agreements to supply its technology to remote mining projects in Australia to help resources companies save on fuel costs.

The company expects to develop as much as 200 megawatts of capacity for the mining industry over the next three years, Jack Curtis, First Solar’s Sydney-based vice president of business development for the Asia-Pacific, said in a phone interview. The Tempe, Arizona-based company plans to combine solar power with diesel, he said.

“In an environment where profitability isn’t what it used to be, with the mining industry focused on cost control, the electricity that powers the mines is becoming a bigger line item, and the ability to put a dent in that and hedge against fuel price volatility is something that solars offers,” Curtis said March 28. “We expect fairly shortly to announce some pretty exciting projects in that space.”

The U.S. company is increasing efforts to install solar systems at industrial sites and warehouses as utilities demand smaller projects, and is seeking deals in other regions including Saudi Arabia, India and South America. The world’s largest mining companies, including BHP Billiton Ltd. and Rio Tinto Group, at the same time are reining in spending as a decade-long boom in metal prices wanes.

Mining Sites

First Solar will target mining sites in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and South Australia and seek to expand as the solar industry proves that it can provide reliable supply, Curtis said, declining to name any companies.

Operators of Australian mines facing high diesel fuel costs should grow more comfortable using solar technology to generate some of their power, said Nathan Lim, who oversees A$127 million ($117 million) in assets and owns First Solar shares as manager of the Australian Ethical International Equities Trust. (AUSEIET)

“The high cost of energy at a facility in the middle of nowhere has always made it interesting to anyone offering an alternative solution,” Lim said today by phone. “The difference between today and five to 10 years ago is the reliability, and that the cost of solar has come down. It’s becoming a no-brainer for people in remote locations.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-0...-industry.html

Mar 31, 2014
NTPC Boosts Solar Power Capacity to 75 Megawatts

March 31 (Bloomberg) — NTPC Ltd. more than doubled its solar capacity to 75 megawatts as India’s largest electricity generator seeks to diversify its portfolio of conventional power plants to help overcome fuel shortages.

Three new solar plants comprising 45 megawatts of capacity are ready for commercial operation, the company said today in a filing. The projects are at Faridabad in Haryana state, Unchahar in Uttar Pradesh and Rajgarh in Madhya Pradesh.

The utility, which has 43,000 megawatts of mostly coal-fired capacity, has been forced to increase its purchases of expensive coal imports due to domestic fuel shortages. It plans to develop 1,000 megawatts of renewables by 2017.

http://about.bnef.com/bnef-news/ntpc...lant-in-india/

California, Roy L Hales, Solar, Rooftop
Borrego To Install Solar Panels at San Diego International Airport
March 31, 2014
By Roy L Hales

Someone from Borrego Solar is either flying out from San Diego International Airport (SDIA), or coming through it, two or three times a week. Seventy company employees will be taking off for a meeting in May. Borrego has witnessed the transformation that started in 2008, when San Diego became the first US airport to adopt a formal sustainability policy. Now they will have a part in it. Borrego Solar Systems, Inc. and the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority will develop a 3.3-megawatt (MW) solar system featuring solar panel arrays on the roof of the newly expanded Terminal 2 West.

Borrego Solar will finance and build the system through a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA), which is expected to save the Airport Authority between $3 million and $8 million over the contract period.

“A private investor will pay for the installation and sell the energy it produces to San Diego International Airport at a competitive rate,” a spokesperson from Borrego said. “That is typically less than what they pay per kilowatt-hour (kWh) to their local utility. The SDIA pays nothing up front, they’ll see savings on their energy bill, they’re ‘greening’ their energy mix, and they’ll have insight into what the cost per kWh is over the term of the PPA. To a certain degree, that insulates them from the volatility of the energy market as the cost of electricity trends upwards.”

“PPAs sound too good to be true,” he continued, “but they are indeed a win-win for all parties involved. The system owner/investor gets a return on the investment. San Diego airport obtains solar without making the capital investment. Borrego Solar is paid to design, construct, operate and maintain the project. How is this possible? Because the initial commodity (IE: the energy) that sets this transaction in motion is available for free from the sun!”

http://www.theecoreport.com/green-bl...ional-airport/

Mar 31, 2014
Efficient Solar Power through Industry Oriented Research
Fraunhofer ISE Develops Technologies for Solar Tower Power Plants
Press Release 8/14, March 31, 2014

The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE develops new technologies for more cost-efficient solar tower power plants using solar thermal energy. Within the cooperation project ”HelioPack”, Fraunhofer researchers together with the industrial partner Solar Tower Technologies AG (STT) of Starnberg develop solutions that allow for significant cost reductions in solar thermal power generation. The project partners aim at cost savings and efficiency gains from an optimised construction of heliostats as well as an improved tracking and control to achieve a more precise concentration of solar beam radiation onto a newly developed receiver.

In solar tower power plants, solar beam radiation is redirected by a multitude of tracked mirrors (heliostats) onto a central receiver mounted at the top of a tower. Therefore, the technology sometimes is referred to as central receiver technology. The extreme concentration of radiation generates very high temperatures at the receiver unit where the thermal energy is transferred to a heat transfer fluid. The thermal energy is used to drive a turbine and generate electricity in a power block. As an alternative, the energy may be completely or partly stored in a thermal storage, to be used for electricity generation at a later time. In this way, solar tower power plants can generate dispatchable power around the clock and thus can contribute significantly to grid stabilization in regions of high direct solar irradiation. Besides other technologies for solar thermal power like parabolic trough or linear Fresnel collectors, which have been under investigation at Fraunhofer ISE for some time now, power towers are particularly suited for the combination with thermal storage due to the potentially very high temperatures and the low distance between receiver and storage.

“In the project HelioPack we will cooperate closely with our industrial partner to develop technologies contributing to cost reductions. With the know-how generated in this project, we will be able to offer future customers R&D services to further improve components for solar power towers or to manufacture them at reduced cost,” emphasizes Dr. Peter Nitz, project manager of “HelioPack” at Fraunhofer ISE.

http://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/pres...ented-research

In Bid Against Gas, Minnesota Regulators Say Solar Can Proceed
A solar proposal competes with natural gas bids—and wins.
Midwest Energy News, Dan Haugen
March 31, 2014

A proposed $250 million distributed solar project appears to have held its own in a Minnesota regulatory process that put it in competition with three natural gas options.

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission on Thursday ordered Xcel Energy to pursue a power purchase agreement with a Twin Cities solar developer to meet part of its projected generation shortfall later this decade.

Geronimo Energy’s 100-megawatt solar proposal will be paired with one or more natural gas projects, to be determined later, to provide up to 500 megawatts of new generation that Xcel expects to need by 2019.

The agreements would be subject to further review by the PUC.

“It’s a big win for us,” said Betsy Engelking, a vice president at Geronimo Energy. “We participated in an RFP against natural gas and we were selected.”

The decision is also being touted as a landmark victory for solar, one that validates advocates’ claims that solar can be cost-competitive with fossil fuels in certain situations.

That position was bolstered in December when a judge who reviewed the competing bids concluded the most “reasonable and prudent” option was to include Geronimo’s solar project.

“Notwithstanding the statutory preference, it seemed that nonrenewable energy sources always won the head-to-head cost comparisons. Not anymore,” Judge Eric Lipman wrote.

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articl...ar-can-proceed

GE throws weight behind 230 MW Japanese PV plant
31. March 2014 | Global PV markets, Industry & Suppliers, Markets & Trends, Investor news | By: Ian Clover

The U.S. conglomerate will invest in the Setouchi-based solar power project, which will cost an estimated $777 million and become Japan’s largest once complete.

The energy arm of U.S. conglomerate General Electric (GE) has revealed that it plans to make a grand entrance into the Japanese solar market with an investment in a $777 million PV project that promises to become the country's largest solar installation.

GE Energy Financial Services will invest in the running of the plant, which is being planned for the city of Setouchi, Okayama Province, and will boast a generation capacity of 230 MW.

Early reports from the Japanese Nikkei (Tokyo Stock Exchange) suggest that GE is planning to invest between JPY 10-20 billion yen, taking a majority stake in the company that will operate the plant, Tokyo's Kuni Umi Asset Management.

The plant is penciled in to begin operation in 2018, and will deliver more than triple the daily output of the current largest solar PV installation in the country – a 70 MW installation on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu – and will also dwarf a 110 MW plant currently being planned by mobile phone provider, Softbank.

http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/deta...ant_100014667/
http://www.pv-tech.org/news/ge_to_in...rgest_pv_plant

Iowa votes to triple solar incentive
31. March 2014 | Investor news, Markets & Trends, Financial & Legal Affairs, Global PV markets | By: Ian Clover

The Senate of the U.S. state voted unanimously 46-0 to boost state tax credits for solar PV installations.

Decision-makers in the U.S. state of Iowa have voted overwhelmingly in favor of tripling state tax incentives for solar power.

The Iowa Senate displayed its unanimous support for the state's growing solar sector on Friday last week, voting 46-0 in favor of the proposal, which is an amendment on an earlier bill introduced in 2012 to initially support farmers, homeowners and small businesses to back solar.

Since then, solar's growth in the state has been rapid, and this latest ruling is bound to see the sector continue its encouraging evolution.

"This is a bill to build on the success of Iowa's growing solar power industry," said Senator Rob Hogg, a Democrat from Cedar Rapids. "We need to triple the credits so that we can respond to the continually growing demand for solar power and make sure that we maximize the benefit for Iowans of the federal solar energy tax credits, which are set to expire at the end of 2016."

http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/deta...ive_100014660/

GCL-Poly China PV plans get US$800 million boost
By Ben Willis - 31 March 2014, 12:18
In News, Power Generation, Finance

Polysilicon producer GCL-Poly’s move into PV project development has received a boost in the form of a CNY5 billion (US$805 million) credit line from the China Development Bank.

The news follows an announcement last week that GCL’s holding company would be changing its name to GCL New Energy to reflect the company’s increasing involvement in downstream business.

GCL-Poly said the credit line would be available to enable the company to build up its solar farm business in China.

Zhu Gongshan, chairman of GCL-Poly said: “Expanding green energy business is our unalterable direction. Our investments have to be safe and we want to bring clean energy to millions of households in order to fulfil our social mission as a responsible clean energy enterprise.

http://www.pv-tech.org/news/gcl_poly..._million_boost

Rooftop solar wins in California net metering battle
By Kathy Larsen
March 30, 2014

Dive Brief:

• Californians with solar power systems on their homes under the state’s current net metering program will be able to stay under the program’s terms for 20 years, the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) ruled. That’s much longer than the six years the state’s big-three utilities had sought and not as long as solar interests would like, but longer than might have been under a state law enacted last year.
• Enrollment in the current net metering program will end when utilities’ 5% participation caps are reached or by July 1, 2017, whichever comes first. In the meantime, customers in the current program will continue to be paid full retail price for the megawatt-hours they don’t use at their own homes and flow into the utility’s system.
• Last year’s law, AB 327, required an end date for customer net metering and directed the PUC to set terms for a new program to start in 2017. The PUC is to issue final rules for that program by the end of 2015.

Dive Insight:

This decision is huge for California, which has more than 2 GW of installed rooftop solar, according to the Vote Solar Initiative. Utilities, unsuccessful in getting a short cutoff time for the current program, might try even harder now to get favorable terms in the net metering policy the commission plans to develop for the post-July 2017 era.

California’s utilities, like others throughout the country, call full-price net metering policies business model killers that also shift costs to other customers. But it’s hard to imagine that the state would stifle expansion of rooftop solar, though, especially with the growth of third-party installers and the recent launch of the country’s biggest Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program, under which homeowners can repay solar costs through their property tax bills.

http://www.utilitydive.com/news/roof...battle/245076/