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Posted Feb 6, 2014, 8:07 PM
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BANNED
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Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: lodged against an abutment
Posts: 7,556
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REC to focus on commercial solar after selling residential arm
US installer to concentrate on corporates and public agency customers after deal with Sunrun
By BusinessGreen staff
06 Feb 2014
US installer REC Solar has offloaded its residential business to solar developer and financier Sunrun in order to focus on the commercial PV market.
Sunrun will acquire the business from Mainstream Energy Corp., alongside two of its other divisions: parts distributor AEE Solar and SnapNrack, which builds the racks that hold solar panels in place. The value of the transaction was not disclosed.
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http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news...esidential-arm
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US homeowners offered crowdsourced solar loans
New financing initiative aims to drive adoption of domestic solar panels
By Jessica Shankleman
06 Feb 2014
A consortium of solar power financiers will today launch a $5m loan scheme in Connecticut that uses crowdsourcing to raise funding and, like the UK's Green Deal, invites customers to take advantage of resulting energy bill savings to cover the cost of installations.
Connecticut's green bank, the Clean Energy Finance and Investment Authority (CEFIA), crowdsourcing company Mosaic, and Sungage Financial will launch the fund, which will be initially backed by $5m from CEFIA with further funds expected to be raised through crowdsourcing.
Investments in the loan pool will be offered to investors through Mosaic with a 15-‐year term and yields of around five per cent.
Sylvain Mansier, co-founder of Sungage Financial, which designed the loan product, said the scheme represents the next generation of solar financing. "This partnership is creating an entirely new ecosystem for solar financing in which individuals can take part in and benefit from home solar installations," he said.
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http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news...ed-solar-loans
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India maps out ‘ultra mega’ solar power project
Record-breaking 4GW plant to be build in two phases over seven years at a cost of $4.4bn
By Jessica Shankleman
05 Feb 2014
India moved a step closer to building the world's largest solar project, after the government signed a deal with six companies planning to develop the scheme.
The 4GW project, described by the government as an "ultra mega" solar power project, is reportedly expected to cost US$4.4bn.
It will be installed in two phases in Rajasthan near Jaipur, close to Sambhar Lake, and is expectd to create capacity comparable to four nuclear reactors. The project is expected to be built over seven years, with the first phase delivering 1GW of capacity and the second 3GW, a government statement issued late last month confirmed.
It will be constructed by a joint venture funded by Bharat Heavy Electricals, Solar Energy Corporation of India, Hindustan Salts, Powergrid, Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam and Rajasthan Electronics and Instruments.
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http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news...-power-project
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IKEA to light up refugee camps through new solar campaign
Retail giant to donate €1 for solar lighting in refugee camps for every LED lightbulb sold until April
By Jessica Shankleman
05 Feb 2014
IKEA plans to provide hundreds of solar lamps and fuel-efficient cooking stoves to refugee camps across the world, as part of a major new fundraising campaign.
The Swedish furniture retailer launched the two-month campaign this week, pledging to donate €1 from the IKEA Foundation to the United Nations Refugee Agency for every LED light bulb the stores sell until 29 March.
All funds raised will be used to buy solar lanterns, solar street lights, and other renewable energy technologies for UN refugee camps in Ethiopia, Chad, Bangladesh, and Jordan.
With around 3.45 million people living in refugee camps in these four countries alone, IKEA estimates its campaign could have a considerable impact on greenhouse gas emissions and development efforts.
According to the company, each solar street light could provide lighting for up to 300 refugees, while a solar lantern or improved cooking stove could provide light and energy for a family of five.
"Life in a refugee camp can be very hard, particularly for children," said Per Heggenes, chief executive of IKEA Foundation. "The absence of powered light limits everyday activities we take for granted such as sharing a meal or doing your homework. It impacts safety and security and the ability for families to generate an income."
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http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news...solar-campaign
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Solar Panel Efficiency Has Come A Long Way (Infographic)
Originally published on Cost Of Solar.
There are many reasons why solar panel prices are down so much. But technological advancements in solar panel technologies are certainly a big one. We wouldn’t be where we are today if it weren’t for the technological advancements made to solar cells and solar panels over the past couple centuries, and especially over the past few decades.
This infographic below, created by the folks at spheralsolar.com, certainly does a great job illustrating how much solar panel efficiency has improved since 1953 — 60 years ago. Solar efficiency records are actually set pretty much every month, so don’t expect that upward solar panel efficiency trend and downward solar panel price trend to change (well, actually part of this infographic is a projection to 2015).
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http://cleantechnica.com/2014/02/06/...-panel-prices/
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China’s 12 GW Of New Solar: What’s It Mean?
By Pete Danko Renewable Energy, Solar Power February 6, 2014
To put the 12 gigawatts of solar power that China appears to have installed in 2013 in perspective, consider this: That one-year total is approximately equal to what the U.S. has installed in its entire history. And the U.S. is actually no solar slouch.
More context: It wasn’t that long ago that for China, solar was strictly an export product, a way for local governments to drive manufacturing growth. The original five-year plan for 2011-15 included a cumulative domestic solar goal of 5 GW. Cumulative! But in 2012, facing calamitous solar manufacturing overcapacity, the country began talking about ratcheting up domestic installment. Add in the smog crisis, and suddenly everything had changed.
The 12 GW in 2013 was the most for any country ever in a single year (by a long shot; as far as we can tell, the old record was Germany’s 7.6 GW in 2012). And more is on the way, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said:
The Chinese government is targeting 14 GW of additional PV capacity in 2014. Transmission grid-connected projects were the vast majority of China’s solar market last year, but the government is aiming for at least 60 percen of this year’s installations to be rooftop capacity, which is connected to the distribution grid rather than the transmission grid. A shift to rooftops rather than remote deserts will bring additional legal and financial complications for developers and so Bloomberg New Energy Finance expects the target to be slightly undershot in 2014 – but with higher growth in 2015. China also had a solid year with wind, adding 14.92 GW last year; not it’s biggest year, but about 2 GW more than the U.S. has ever added in a single year.
Still, the question persists: Is it enough? Or more to point, given its coal use, can China’s renewable efforts really make a difference in the long term carbon emissions trajectory of the country?
The question was quite correctly raised by Armond Cohen, in a blog post on the website of the Clean Air Task Force, where Cohen is executive director, and that was republished here on EarthTechling. I went in a similar direction myself last September when a report revealed that China was likely to add 38 gigawatts of coal capacity per year until 2022 before slowing down the pace.
Cohen makes a strong case that with so many new coal plants being built in China, it’s going to be very difficult for the country not to continue to burn large amounts of the stuff for many, many years in the future. That’s why he’s a big proponent of carbon capture and storage. As he wrote last October:
Without CCS applied widely in China, the nation’s coal fleet will remain the largest global clustered source of carbon dioxide emissions, with a ‘long tail’ that could last for much of the 21st century – making most climate management plans, such as the “trillion ton cap” that was implied this month by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, nearly impossible to reach.
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http://www.earthtechling.com/2014/02...ant-be-denied/
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7-Eleven, Avis, Walgreens Reduce Peak Power Demand For Big Energy Savings
From: Andrew Burger, Triple Pundit, More from this Affiliate
Published February 4, 2014 11:58 AM
Revenue growth and profits for U.S. power utilities have always been predicated on increasing demand, regulatory framework and relationships with regulators. Though still highly regulated, that business modus operandi is being turned on its head. Rapid growth in distributed solar, wind and other renewable energy resources and the development of smart grid and demand-response systems are two factors driving these changes. The movement to put a price on carbon emissions — based on the polluter pays principle — is another.
Also driving change are innovative new power industry participants, some of whom are now progressing from bleeding to leading edge, and from pilot stage to commercial scale. Leveraging its innovations in demand reduction/power efficiency software and the latest in battery storage systems, Santa Clara, Calif.-based Green Charge Networks (GCN) believes it has the ways and the means to generate very healthy returns by smoothing out customers’ electricity load profiles and boosting power, as opposed to energy efficiency.
It’s not only GCN’s customers, but the U.S. power grid and society as a whole that stand to benefit. With critical federal and state government support, GCN is out to prove that it cannot only lower consumers’ electricity bills, but enhance U.S. power grid utilization, reliability and resiliency as well. That may well prove to be the missing link capable of driving U.S. renewable energy growth and adoption over the top.
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http://www.enn.com/sustainability/article/46975
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CIGS Solar Roundup: Hanergy Goes for 3GW, Solar Frontier Expands, Siva Hits 18.8% Efficiency
The CIGS thin film solar materials system soldiers on.
Eric Wesoff
February 6, 2014
Siva Power, a relative newcomer to the CIGS material system, hit an NREL-certified 18.8 percent efficiency with its three-stage co-evaporation CIGS process, achieved in a claimed ten-month time span. The CIGS record holder, ZSW, holds a Fraunhofer-confirmed 20.8 percent efficiency for a CIGS thin-film solar cell, also built using the co-evaporation process.
Markus Beck, CTO at Siva, told GTM that the the 0.5 cm2 sample "uses a thinner absorber (<2 micro meters) than ZSW, NREL or EMPA employ. This is to demonstrate that this is a truly manufacturable result. The voltage of the device is 711 millivolts, demonstrating the process capability; the same applies for the fill factor of 79 percent."
Siva CEO Brad Mattson said, "We plan to break the world record this year, and the trajectory indicates we have a good chance."
Mattson adds, "One interesting point is that our average efficiency is relatively close to this maximum. In other words, we are not selecting an outlier to get a record. This indicates the process is more stable and repeatable than others think CIGS would be, more transferable to manufacturing. Also, we are doing this with a thin layer. We make it thin so we can hit our throughput numbers. So we are testing the process we want to transfer to manufacturing, not a specialized process designed to achieve records."
Siva also added solar energy expert Charlie Gay, Ph.D. to its Technical Advisory Board.
Hanergy Solar is set to "begin construction of a planned 3 GW CIGS thin-film manufacturing complex in Caofeidian, Hebei Province, China in March 2014, with tool install starting by the end of the year," according to a report on PV-Tech. Hanergy Solar claims that it will be launching a 300-megawatt line based on the MiaSolé CIGS sputtering process and a 300-megawatt line based on Solibro’s co-evaporation process, at an estimated cost of $780 million for the two lines, according to reports.
Solibro's batch co-evaporation process and MiaSolé's roll-to-roll sputtering process are two very different processes requiring very different equipment sets.
Hanergy recently hit 19.6 percent conversion efficiency in the lab on a small area sample, as certified by the Fraunhofer Institute.
Solar Frontier announced its intention to construct a 150-megawatt CIS solar module plant, with production starting in 2015, in the Tohoku region of Japan. This will be the solar module manufacturer's fourth production plant and brings its total capacity to more than 1 gigawatt. Solar Frontier has hit conversion efficiency of 19.7 percent for a cell of 0.5cm2 in area.
South Africa’s PTiP, a spin-off from the University of Johannesburg, commissioned a 5-megawatt pilot-production line for manufacturing CIGS solar modules using production equipment from Singulus Technologies.
Here's a partial list of CIGS solar players:- Solar Frontier, 577 megawatts shipped in 2011, the only CIGS vendor of commercial consequence. Solar Frontier just shipped 86 megawatts of its CIS thin-film panels to EPC firm Chiyoda for use in a number of projects in Japan.
- Solibro, 95 megawatts shipped in 2011 (sold to Hanergy)
- MiaSolé, 60 megawatts shipped in 2011 (sold to Hanergy)
- Global Solar Energy (selling consumer solar, sold to Hanergy)
- Manz
- HelioVolt (no commercial production, majority owner is SK Innovation)
- Ascent Solar (selling consumer solar, majority owner is TFG Radiant)
- Samsung (module record holder at 15.7 percent)
- Stion (limited commercial production, allied with TSMC, majority-owned by Khosla Ventures)
- SoloPower (quiescent, searching for funding)
- Solarion
- TSMC (technology licensed from Stion)
- NuvoSun (acquired by Dow)
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http://www.greentechmedia.com/articl...ands-Siva-Hits
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Commercial Energy Storage Market to Surpass 720MW by 2020
A new report by GTM Research likens the current state of commercial storage to the U.S. solar market of 2005.
Mike Munsell
February 6, 2014
The next six years will mark the beginning of a long-term, viable growth opportunity for commercial energy storage, according to GTM Research’s newest report, Distributed Energy Storage 2014: Applications and Opportunities for Commercial Energy. Driven in part by the growth of solar photovoltaics, over 720 megawatts of distributed energy storage will be deployed in the U.S. between 2014 and 2020. This represents a 34 percent cumulative annual growth rate.
Energy storage has long been viewed as the holy grail of smart grid technologies, since it can fulfill the roles of conventional generation, transmission, and distributed assets, as well as providing value in behind-the-meter applications. The high cost of energy storage technologies compared to traditional grid alternatives has been a longstanding barrier to widespread adoption. But that's beginning to change with advances in battery technologies, cost reductions driven by mass production of batteries for consumer electronics and electric vehicle applications, and continuous improvements in balance-of-system costs for grid-integrated systems.
In his State of the Union address last week, President Obama cited GTM Research’s findings that the U.S. installs a solar system every four minutes. This prolific growth has opened a window of opportunity for the deployment of distributed energy. From a technical perspective, storage can be used to smooth the output and variability of solar energy and may ultimately lead to solar receiving larger capacity credits or help to avoid capacity charges.
Other growth drivers for distributed energy storage include demand charge reduction for commercial and industrial customers, frequency regulation, and state-level incentives. California and New York have been the clear leaders in advancing storage initiatives to date, particularly for behind-the-meter assets.
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http://www.greentechmedia.com/articl...720-MW-by-2020
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Futuristic Glass Spurs Solar Innovations
Richard Martin — January 31, 2014
First invented in the Bronze Age, 5,000 years or so ago, glass is such an integral part of modern life that we rarely give much thought as to how it performs or is produced. Today, though, the development of novel forms of glass promises to bring high-tech, low-cost advances to a range of applications, including solar power.
Glass has many advantageous qualities and one major disadvantage: it’s brittle. It shatters on impact. We long ago mastered the art of molding glass into many different curves and fantastical shapes, but once it’s set, it’s set until you take a hammer to it.
That is changing, as researchers at McGill University in Montreal have adapted structural characteristics from the shells of mollusks to give glass new resilience and flexibility. The scientists found that the extremely tough and bendable nacre, or mother-of-pearl, that coats the inner shells of the creatures is made up not of an unbroken surface, but of millions of microscopic components or “tablets.” When the shell is bent or deformed, the cracks between the tablets allow it to bend, yet remain intact. Think of blocks of sea ice floating on a moving water surface; they rise and fall and compress and spread, but the overall surface of the ice remains the same.
Fractured Yet Flexible
In the same way, the McGill researchers found that they can pre-crack glass with lasers to create a puzzle-piece design. The resultant microfractures are filled with polyurethane, creating a material that is weak at the boundaries of the tiny fragments, but resilient as a whole. Flexible glass.
The immediate applications envisioned include less breakable smartphones, for instance. But advances in making glass more flexible, resilient, and versatile will likely have implications for solar power, as well.
When a technology is as commoditized as solar panels, with prices halving in just the last few years, the tendency is to think that innovation in the materials has reached an apex; the only further development needed is to squeeze more cost out of the manufacturing process. Solar panels with next-generation glass, however, could help drive the Murphy’s Law process of price reductions in solar technology while also producing panels with a wider range of possible applications. Crystalline silicon solar modules, which require the rigid protection provided by glass, are more efficient than amorphous silicon modules. Amorphous silicon (often used in thin-film solar coatings) has the benefit, however, of being flexible, making it applicable in a host of environments where conventional glass is less robust.
Spray On, Not Tan
Developed at the University of South Florida in alliance with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and being commercialized under the mark SolarWindow by New Energy Technologies, a new glass with tiny transparent solar cells integrated is due to reach the market this year. New Energy produces both flat glass for windows and structural glass walls and curtains for tall structures that have all the usual qualities of glass and also act as solar panels. Made of organic polymers (thus grown, not manufactured), the transparent solar cells are the world’s smallest, the company says, measuring less than one-fourth the size of a grain of rice. They are sprayed onto the glass in a novel process that does not require the high temperatures and vacuum chambers of other spray-on solar technologies.
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http://www.navigantresearch.com/blog...next-gen-solar
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Israel transfers 290 MW renewables quota to PV
05. February 2014 | Markets & Trends, Global PV markets, Industry & Suppliers | By: Edgar Meza
In addition to renewable energy quota shifts, the government is set to underwrite PV projects in the West Bank.
An Israeli government committee has approved the shift of a significant amount of renewable energy quotas to the photovoltaic sector.
According to The Jerusalem Post, the Ministerial Committee for Renewable Energy passed a resolution on Monday that paved the way for the move, including repositioning 180 MW originally allocated for two solar-thermal plants for photovoltaic use.
The committee also voted to reallocate to photovoltaics 90 MW from wind farms and an additional 20 MW from overall solar-thermal quotas.
The decision will lead to a savings of more than ILS 2 billion ($564.2 million) over the next 20 years, The Jerusalem Post reported, citing the Energy, Water and National Infrastructure Ministry.
The ministerial committee also voted to authorize the government to underwrite the financial debt for photovoltaic projects in the Judea and Samaria area of the West Bank.
Energy, Water and National Infrastructures Minister Silvan Shalom said the committee was seeking to create a market and a significant economy in the renewable energy field in order to reach the target of 10% production in 2020, according to the newspaper.
In addition to the quota shifts already approved, Environmental Protection Minister Amir Peretz is pushing for the transfer of a further 60 MW from the 160 MW quota for biogas to the photovoltaic sector, a move that would save the country ILS 27 million ($7.6 million), according to the ministry.
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http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/deta...-pv_100014131/
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Upsolar boards global renewable energy fund
05. February 2014 | Investor news, Markets & Trends, Industry & Suppliers, Global PV markets | By: Edgar Meza
The Chinese PV manufacturer will contribute an initial $20 million to the fund, which aims to raise up to $300 million to finance 200 MW of alternative energy projects worldwide.
Chinese PV module provider Upsolar has joined Empower, an international fund created to promote the deployment of renewable energy technologies.
As the seed investor, Upsolar will provide an initial contribution of $20 million in addition to technical and market expertise. The fund is expected to reach $300 million by 2015, with support from a wide range of small and mid-size investors.
Empower will promote the development of low-carbon electricity -- including solar, wind, hydroelectric, biomass and energy efficiency projects -- across Europe, Asia, North America and the Middle East. The fund's initial goal is to finance 200 MW in renewable energy projects.
Managed by Luxemburg-based Archeide Lux, Empower connects global investors and developers to streamline investments in renewable energy.
"Upsolar's participation in Empower is an important stepping stone toward the development of a comprehensive international renewable energy financing mechanism," said Archeide Lux Director Alessandro Bruscagin. "Building from this solid foundation, we are well positioned to attract a host of forward-thinking individual and institutional partners."
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http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/deta...und_100014129/
http://www.solarpowerworldonline.com...e-energy-fund/
http://www.solarnovus.com/upsolar-co...und_N7436.html
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It’s not solar tariffs utilities hate, it’s solar technology
By Craig Morris on 6 February 2014
Energy Transition
Recently, Craig Morris discussed an article that misrepresented feed-in tariffs (FITs). He also spoke with the two people quoted in the article, one of whom felt misrepresented – while the other was a prominent German spokesperson for renewables. He found that people describing policies are actually often talking about the technology effects, which the policies in question do not change.
I met US-based German energy consultant Dirk Morbitzer in late 2012 at the premiere of the German documentary “Leben mit der Energiewende,” which – despite its title – is mainly about solar, not about the energy transition. And it paints a bleak picture for the solar sector if Germany reduces its FIT support. Morbitzer appears in it starting here as a neutral financial consultant from the US. He tells the German audience that solar is making wholesale power cheaper.
How different he sounds in US media. Morbitzer is quoted as an opponent of FITs not only in this recent article, but also in one published last summer. When I asked him last August whether he stood by the statement made in that article that feed-in tariffs are “not suitable for the US” and “net-metering is the best approach” there, he gave an explanation about solar as a technology, not about policy: “In hot, sunny areas, solar power production coincides with demand for air conditioning. Therefore, net-metering is producing some of the highest output when the sun is shining, thereby limiting the need for grid buildups.” Replace “net-metering” in that sentence with “solar,” and the statement makes sense.
Neither FITs nor net-metering shift the time of solar power production, so I asked Morbitzer to clarify the issue. “There is a tendency to overbuild with FITs [meaning that homeowners have solar arrays larger tthan needed to meet only their own demand], and that might result in additional costs for grid buildup.” Yet, when a power meter runs backwards under net-metering, solar power is also exported to the grid. What Morbitzer actually argues is that the best thing about net-metering for PV is that it keeps homeowners from building too much solar.
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http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/crit...actually-solar
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David vs Goliath? Solar shapes up to big utilities
By Giles Parkinson on 6 February 2014
The Australian solar industry is preparing for what it calls a “David and Goliath” battle against the country’s biggest generators and network operators. The outcome will likely decide the immediate fate of rooftop solar in Australia, and the pace of the so-called “democratisation of energy” – a contest that pitches households and their solar modules against the centralized utilities that have dominated the industry for a century or more.
The Australian Solar Council’s launch on Wednesday of its “Save Solar” campaign – where it wants to raise the relatively modest sum of $25,000 to help defend the renewable energy target (RET) – came as the first of the large state-owned generators renewed its attack on renewables and called for the RET to be removed.
About 1.4 million Australian households have rooftop solar systems, and the combined capacity of more than 3.1 gigawatts is having a dramatic impact on the way the nation’s electricity market is structured, and on the business models of incumbent generators. It is shifting peaks, and reducing the amount of electricity needed during the day.
Queensland’s Stanwell Corp is closing its 385MW gas-fired Swanbank plant because it is being priced out of the market, although it is going to re-open 700MW of capacity at its Tarong coal-fired generators once the carbon price is removed in what it hopes will be that start a “coal revival” in the Sunshine State.
Stanwell has also signalled its total opposition to the RET – a position that it, and its political masters in the Campbell Newman government – have argued before. It says that the RET and other clean energy measures are “distorting” the market. More critically, it is making its operations unprofitable.
Stanwell’s position typifies the dilemma facing incumbent generators and network operators in Australia – and other international markets where solar and other renewables are making big inroads. CEO Richard van Breda complains about the cost of electricity in Australia. But his biggest problem right now is that the wholesale cost of electricity has never been lower since the launch of the National Electricity Market more than 15 years ago.
The low price forced his company to close half of its Tarong power plant in late 2012, and to report a loss from its portfolio of more than 4,000MW of coal and gas fired generation in 2012/13 – a situation that it blamed almost entirely on rooftop solar, which is not only stealing demand, but with other renewables is causing wholesale prices to fall.
In the meantime, gas prices are surging as the massive LNG plants near completion. Queensland households, for instance, will be slugged an extra $68 a year next year as the gas price rises start to bite. Ironically, the cost of green schemes is predicted to fall.
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http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/davi...tilities-13180
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Electricity demand and emissions fall despite heat-waves
By Hugh Saddler on 6 February 2014
Notwithstanding the impacts of heatwaves in southern Australia during January, total annual NEM generation, and associated emissions, both fell compared with the year ending December 2013, although only slightly (Figure 1).
An increase in demand in Victoria and a very small increase in SA were offset by small reductions in NSW and Queensland (Figure 2). The very marginal changes in demand were matched by similarly small changes in the mix of electricity generation (Figure 3).
Wind generation increased on an annual basis for the simple reason that three new windfarms were commissioned during the year, so that total installed capacity was about 420 MW greater than in January 2013. Supply from all other sources was either unchanged or showed a slight fall. Several aspects of how the NEM operated during January merit further discussion.
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http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/atio...missions-75888
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Shared Solar Financing Goes Local
Laurel Passera
February 05, 2014 | 0 Comments
The sizable up-front cost of solar has long been a challenging hurdle. So has rooftop siting — roofs are often shaded, in the wrong orientation, not owned by the people who live there, or otherwise unable to host a solar system. What if we could overcome both of these obstacles with one solution — one local solution?
A Colorado credit union and solar company may have figured this out.
Shared solar has been growing in popularity, largely because of its novel approach to solving the challenge of rooftop siting. Shared solar allows potential subscribers to participate in a common, shared system and, in return, receive credit on their energy bills for their share of generation. Colorado-based Clean Energy Collective (CEC) has been a pioneer in this field. I recently reached out to Tom Sweeney, the company’s chief operating officer, to find out more about their approach to that other big challenge: customer financing.
Mr. Sweeney said that when they were first thinking about financing options for their customers, he had contacted several traditional lenders and solar lenders that typically engage in solar leasing models. Neither was all that interested in creating a lending solution for shared solar, however. And neither really fit well with CEC’s business model.
This was somewhat surprising because shared solar represents an excellent proposition for lenders — a large potential customer base that typically has a very high repayment rate. “The social consciousness that comes with solar represents the integrity of customers, and on-bill savings helps them repay their loans,” said Sweeney.
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http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/...ing-goes-local
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