Discussion: Why Policy Matters for Distributed Generation and Why DG is More Than Electricity

Date: 12 Jan 2011 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

I received an email this morning from a thoughtful fellow who had read some of the posts I’ve sent over to Renewable Energy World. His perspective is worth sharing because it highlights the all-too-common tunnel vision we can get about renewable energy as only about electricity. I believe the distributed energy model will be the future … Read More

Federal Solar Tax Credits Rule Out Half of Americans

Date: 11 Jan 2011 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States | 6 Facebooktwitterredditmail

The difference between clean energy policies with a democratizing influence and the bewildering U.S. system can be illustrated with a close look at the federal investment tax credit for solar power.  The investment tax credit returns up to 30% of a solar PV system value to the developer, and the credit can be carried over for … Read More

American States Can Learn Much From Ontario’s “Buy Local” Clean Energy Strategy

Date: 10 Jan 2011 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States, Press Release | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

The Canadian province of Ontario has launched a clean energy strategy to maximize economic development while reducing pollution.  Maximizing Jobs From Clean Energy: Ontario’s ‘Buy Local’ Policy, a new report from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, details how Ontario’s bold clean energy program – in just over a year – has resulted in the promise of 43,000 clean energy jobs in support of 5,000 MW of clean energy projects.  … Read More

Maximizing Jobs From Clean Energy: Ontario’s ‘Buy Local’ Policy

Date: 7 Jan 2011 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

Ontario’s bold renewable energy program contains excellent examples of policy that marries economic and environmental goals.  Unique among programs that set a guaranteed price for electricity from renewable energy projects, Ontario’s program also boasts a domestic content requirement.  Sixty percent of the value of wind and solar projects interconnected under the program must be sourced from … Read More

Report: Maximizing Jobs From Clean Energy: Ontario’s ‘Buy Local’ Policy

Date: 7 Jan 2011 | posted in: Energy | 3 Facebooktwitterredditmail

Ontario’s bold renewable energy program contains excellent examples of policy that marries economic and environmental goals.  Unique among programs that set a guaranteed price for electricity from renewable energy projects, Ontario’s program also boasts a domestic content requirement that has already resulted in the promise of 43,000 jobs and dozens of new manufacturing plants to support the 5,000 MW of new clean energy.

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Update on PACE Financing for the Residential Sector

Date: 6 Jan 2011 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing, a promising tool to advance energy efficiency, was blocked nationwide by the opposition of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.  In this post we get a status report from Renewable Funding’s, Cisco DeVries, on what’s happening in the courts with various parties suing the FHFA.  He also gives us an update on what’s happening on the on the ground with PACE financing for the commercial sector which is alive and expanding.

View the full post over at our EnergySelfReliantStates.org blog.

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Solar PV Costs – Does State Market Size Matter?

Date: 5 Jan 2011 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States | 1 Facebooktwitterredditmail

Before the holidays we posted a chart illustrating the average cost of solar by state, highlighting Minnesota’s claim to the most expensive solar PV in the nation.  The data came from the brilliant report, Tracking the Sun III: The Installed Cost of Photovoltaics in the U.S. from 1998-2009 (large pdf). 

But are solar costs high in some states simply because the market is small?  The answer seems to be no.

The following chart illustrates the average cost of solar PV by state, mapped against the total installed capacity (in megawatts) from 2007-09.  California is omitted because its 1600 MW of new capacity dwarfs other state markets; Colorado, Hawaii, and North Carolina were not included in the original dataset.  The markers for Oregon and Connecticut were shaded blue and red, respectively, to help distinguish them from surrounding states. 

What’s clear from the data is that there seems to be little relationship between market size and average installed costs.  Texas installed 16 MW at an average cost of $7.00 over the three years analyzed, whereas New York and Nevada had costs 25% higher in markets five times the size.  And five states with markets 10 MW and smaller had costs ranging from $7.60 (New Hampshire) to $9.10 per Watt (Minnesota).  The largest markets in New Jersey and California tie for 5th lowest cost, 10% more expensive than the least expensive market despite being (in California’s case) two orders of magnitude larger. 

The data leave a lot of questions.  Why don’t larger markets uniformly have lower prices?  Why is there such large variation in costs in smaller solar market states?  And how does state solar policy matter, when there is no correlation between the total value of state incentives and the before-incentive installed cost of solar?

Update 1/20/11: a cacophony of different permitting rules may be partially responsible.  The solar industry estimates that permitting costs add $2,500 to each solar installation.

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An update on PACE financing

Date: 5 Jan 2011 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

This update is from an email sent by Renewable Funding’s Cisco DeVries, outlining the hopes for PACE in 2011:

Litigation Moves Forward.  The first Court orders regarding elements of the PACE lawsuits were issued by Judge Claudia Wilken on December 20th.  The orders cover Sonoma County’s request for a preliminary injunction and the Court’s desire for the US Department of Justice to weigh in.  The court has not yet made any decisions on the motions. However, while the judge stated that she was not inclined to require FHFA to affirmatively support PACE at this early stage of the case, she indicated that she was considering whether to order Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to begin a formal rulemaking process regarding PACE. We will certainly pass along any more information as it develops so that the PACE community can be ready to provide detailed comments.  You can also check the www.PACENOW.org website for updates.

Legislation Moves Forward.  While Congress did not take action on the PACE legislation that was introduced in 2010, work is continuing to prepare for the next session.  There are plans for new, bi-partisan, PACE legislation to be introduced early in the year.  Will send another update when this moves forward.

Commercial PACE Moves Forward.  While residential PACE has mostly (but not entirely) been put on hold, a number of jurisdictions are moving forward with commercial programs.  For example, Boulder County recently issued its first bond for commercial PACE and will now be funding the first 29 projects. Sonoma County continues to fund commercial projects and Los Angeles and Washington, DC are just two of the communities planning commercial programs in the new year.  To assist with this effort, the US Department of Energy just released a section of their “Finance Guide” (see chapter 13, drafted by Renewable Funding) to assist communities with designing commercial PACE programs.  Lastly, a report from the Clinton Climate Initiative, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Renewable Funding on existing and planned programs will be out soon.

PACENOW Hires Executive Director. PACENOW hired David Gabrielson as its new Executive Director.  David has extensive experience in public finance at leading firms such as CS First Boston and JP Morgan and is also a town councilman in Bedford, NY, where he worked to establish an energy efficiency and renewable energy financing program using PACE.  He has given the PACENOW website a facelift – check it out.  You can reach him directly at david.pacenow@gmail.com. 

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Failure of 663 MW Stirling solar power plant another blow for centralized solar

Date: 3 Jan 2011 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

Southern California Edison recently canceled a 663 MW power purchase agreement for a Stirling dish powered concentrating solar power plant.  It’s the latest blow for centralized solar as the economics have continued to favor decentralized solar.  There were other issues, too:

Stirling and Tessera…also needed millions in equity investments and big honking loans from the government and others.

When modular, decentralized solar PV is easy to finance and less expensive than centralized solar thermal electricity, the decentralized power is going to win.

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