[amor de cosmos]

Rooftop Solar Leases Scaring Buyers When Homeowners Sell
By Will Wade Jun 24, 2014 7:03 AM PT

Dorian Bishopp blames the solar panels on his roof for costing him almost 10 percent off the value of the home he sold in March.

That’s because instead of owning them he leased the panels from SunPower Corp. (SPWR), requiring the new owner of the house to assume a contract with almost 19 years remaining. He had to shave the asking price for the house in Maricopa, Arizona, to draw in buyers unfamiliar with the financing arrangement.

Leasing is driving a boom in solar sales because most require no money upfront for systems that cost thousands of dollars. That’s made solar affordable for more people, helping spur a 38 percent jump in U.S. residential installations in the past year. Since the business model only gained currency in the past two years, the details embedded in the fine print of the deals are only starting to emerge.

“Homeowners don’t understand what they’re signing when they get into this,” said Sandy Adomatis, a home appraiser in Punta Gorda, Florida, who created the industry’s standard tool for valuing the systems. “You’ve got another layer to add on top of finding a buyer for the house. It’s not a plus.”

For people who own rooftop power systems, solar adds value to the home -- about $25,000 for the average installation in California, according to a study in December by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, funded by the U.S. Energy Department’s SunShot Initiative.

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

Old coal mines set to be transformed into solar farms
Anesco announces plans for up to 30MW of solar capacity at collieries in Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire
By Will Nichols
24 Jun 2014

Huge solar farms are set to transform former collieries into green energy powerhouses providing low carbon electricity for around 10,000 homes.

UK developer Anesco is set to install up to 30MW of solar energy capacity at three sites in Nottinghamshire, Welbeck Colliery in Mansfield, Gedling in Lambley and a third site in Bilsthorpe, while a fourth site at Askern in South Yorkshire is awaiting planning consent.

Work on the ground-mounted solar installations is expected to start later this year, with the sites expected to save 15 tonnes of carbon during each of its 25 years in operation.

Anesco said Welbeck Colliery is likely to be the first site to come online. The 32-acre installation will comprise of 44,160 solar panels mounted on around 15km of frames that have a combined generation capacity of 11.2MW - sufficient energy to power more than 3,450 homes in the local area. This will be followed by 5.74MW installations at both Gedling and Bilsthorpe, and an installation currently in the planning stage for Askern.

http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news...to-solar-farms

Two universities sign major deal for solar power
Posted on June 24, 2014 at 7:28 am by Associated Press in Solar

By Brett Zongker
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two universities in the nation’s capital have agreed to a major energy deal to buy more than half their power from three new solar power farms that will be built in North Carolina, the schools announced Monday night.

George Washington University, American University and the George Washington University Hospital announced the 20-year agreement with Duke Energy Renewables to reduce their carbon footprints by directly tapping solar energy.

The Capital Partners Solar Project will break ground this summer near Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Once fully operational in 2015 with 243,000 solar panels, the three solar farms are expected to generate 123 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year. Planners said that translates to eliminating about 60,000 metric tons of carbon emissions per year or taking 12,500 cars off the road.

The Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group, said this is the nation’s largest nonutility solar power purchase. It will also create the largest photovoltaic solar power operation east of the Mississippi River.

“We’ll be directly sourcing our electricity from three solar energy sites,” said George Washington University President Steven Knapp. “We’re not just buying certificates for renewable energy. We’re actually directly sourcing from renewable energy. The impact of that is pretty huge.”

http://fuelfix.com/blog/2014/06/24/t...r-solar-power/

Canadian start-up gains funding for low-cost mono polysilicon
By Mark Osborne - 24 June 2014, 11:40
In News, Fab & Facilities, Materials, Finance

Canada-based start-up, Ubiquity Solar Inc has received CAD$3.1 million in funding to further develop its low-cost hyper-pure polysilicon and monocrystalline ingot/wafer technology, ahead of plans to commercialise the technology.

Funding was secured via a not-for-profit foundation funded by the Government of Canada, Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), which will be used by Ubiquity Solar to support its US$10.9 million demonstration pilot plant project.

Ubiquity Solar has gathered a consortium of research institutes and universities to support the development of low-cost polysilicon and high-performance N-type and P-type monocrystalline ingots and wafers.

The consortium includes the University of Waterloo Centre for Advanced PV Devices and Systems, University of Toronto, McMaster University, Fraunhofer Centre for Silicon Photovoltaics CSP, ECN Solar Energy Silicon Photovoltaics, Si Con, Core Business Developers LLC, Jerry Olson Consulting, and DJ Met Consulting.

http://www.pv-tech.org/news/canadian...no_polysilicon

US media giant offers to pay employees to try solar
By Jake Richardson on 24 June 2014
CleanTechnica

Cox Enterprises is a broadcasting, publishing, and cable company that is running an employee program in conjunction with SolarCity that is a little unusual. It is paying eligible employees who want to try solar power $500. This effort might not sound so consequential, but Cox has about 50,000 employees and the ones living in areas where SolarCity operates will receive an additional $500.

“We know that money talks. So we decided to pay people to try solar,” explained Cox Chairman Jim Kennedy in a Fortune article.

He also mentioned that he talked with a current Cox employee about his home solar system, one that has allowed his annual energy costs to be trimmed down to $700. The system, he said, should pay for itself in about eight years, not an abnormal timeframe at all and maybe even longer than average for his area. About 100 Cox employees located in southern California have participated in the program so far. SolarCity does operate in California, so those southern California employees would be eligible for the $1,000 payout. Jim Kennedy hopes there will 1,000 employees in the program in a year.

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/payi...ry-solar-69287