solar voltaic power

Borenstein analysis of solar PV misses the point of California’s solar program

I've been getting a lot of questions about this: "Solar panels a 'loser,' professor says."

Severin Borenstein is an economics professor at UC Berkeley. He did an analysis of California's solar program and found that if you compare the current cost of distributed generation solar PV, which delivers retail power, with the wholesale power cost of a gas peaker running on pre-Katrina natural gas prices -- and leave global warming and environmental benefits out of the equation -- then solar "isn't cost effective."

Quick, someone call the Nobel Committee.

We can argue about faulty assumptions and apples-to-oranges comparisons, but that would continue to miss the forest for the trees. The point of the California Solar Initiative, and other solar programs, is not to deliver the cheapest kWh amongst all possible kWhs in year one. It's about market transformation. The entire premise of the program is to take an expensive but useful technology and make it cheap.

A great historical analogy is the commercial development of the integrated circuit, as described by Denis Hayes in this 2001 report (PDF) for the Energy Foundation:

Two huge power plants offer different paths forward

In Sweetwater, Texas, a company called Tenaska has applied to build what will be the nation’s first bona fide "clean coal" plant — an IGCC plant that will capture and sequester CO2 emissions. (Said emissions will be used to pump more oil out of the Permian Basin oil fields, which will then be burned and […]

The numbers add up for solar power, whether you’re in Seattle or Albuquerque

The New York Times published an article yesterday titled "Silicon Valley Starts to Turn Its Face to the Sun":

"This is the biggest market Silicon Valley has ever looked at," says T. J. Rogers, the chief executive of Cypress Semiconductor, which is part-owner of the SunPower Corporation, a maker of solar cells in San Jose, Calif.

"The solar industry today is like the late 1970s when mainframe computers dominated, and then Steve Jobs and I.B.M. came out with personal computers," says R. Martin Roscheisen, the chief executive of Nanosolar, a solar company in San Jose, Calif.

Why all the excitement? You need only look at a few numbers and a graph to get the picture.

Masdar

I know you can never bank on these things until they’re completed, but if this goes as planned it sure will be righteously cool: Groundbreaking is scheduled for Saturday for Masdar City, a nearly self-contained mini-municipality designed for up to 50,000 people rising from the desert next to Abu Dhabi’s international airport and intended as […]

Green energy projects bloom in California

Right on the heels of Tappergate, The New York Times comes out with a couple of articles exploring the economic benefits of fighting global warming. As is evident to anyone but a Taphole, the energy business is the largest business there ever is or was or will be, and therein lies not only enormous money-making opportunities but jobs, jobs, jobs. These things, we hear, are good for the economy.

So, take California, which decided to get serious about developing a solar industry. The state committed $3 billion in declining incentives over a 10-year period, and in return leveraged a lot more than that in private equity. Venture capitalists have put $625 million into California solar companies in 2007 alone. Manufacturers are feverishly commercializing new technologies, and if you can spell solar you can get a job out here.

So, how does an enterprising young state get a piece of that action? I'm glad you asked. Last Wednesday, in Denver, with Governor Ritter on hand, we released a report that we developed with the Center for American Progress titled "Developing State Photovoltaic Markets" (PDF). It's a blueprint for making a solar market work. The premise here is that the key to lowering solar's costs -- and generating good jobs while you are at it -- is creating markets. The folks at NREL have done a great job in developing the technology; photovoltaics work great. Government R&D efforts should be redoubled, but using policy to open markets will leverage orders of magnitude more in private equity and further accelerate solar's entry into the mainstream.

Secondly, without an extension of the federal investment tax credit, everything we are trying to do gets 30 percent harder -- and it's quite hard enough as it is, thank you very much. There's a great argument to be made for putting an extension in the financial stimulus package, as the Senate is currently considering. Congress, if you are reading this, won't you please consider a very easy action that will jumpstart the economy, fight global warming, and establish energy independence all at the same time? These things are popular with voters, we hear.

California and New Jersey have high numbers of PV installations

The following essay is a guest post by Earl Killian.

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Cooler Planet looked at the solar photovoltaic (PV) installation data from the California Energy Commission and made it visual to show just how it is growing. A static view of their data is at the right, but go to the site and move the slider to see the growth from only 1,675 grid-connected photovoltaic installations in 2002 to 29,628 installations in 2008. According to SolarBuzz:

In 2006, 112 megawatts of solar photovoltaics were installed in the US Grid Connect market, up from 80 megawatts in 2005. Demand was led once again by California, which accounted for 63% of the national market. Notwithstanding funding program bottlenecks, New Jersey saw very strong growth in 2006, representing 17% of the national market.

Why would California and New Jersey, with only 12 percent and 2.9 percent of U.S. population respectively, account for such a large fraction of PV installations? Perhaps incentive programs (most recently the California Solar Initiative and the New Jersey Clean Energy Rebate Program) and other policies are working.

Internationally, Germany (8.8 x U.S. in 2006 MW installed) and Japan (2.6 x U.S.) (PDF) are the leaders in PV installations, with California a "distant third" (PDF) according to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Most places where PV is economic have some combination of the following (but usually not all):

The electrification of transportation will also help green the grid

I promised more on the impact of Project Better Place's electric car plans -- and I deliver with an article here.

Growing solar industry depends on key tax credit that will expire this year

Advocates talk a lot about how renewable energy is not just good for the environment, but good for the economy as well. And here is some real-world proof: New Mexico, with strong leadership by Gov. Richardson, PRC Commissioners Lujan and Marks, and many others, has done more than most to establish the full suite of policies necessary to build a solar market. And the reward? Schott AG is investing $100 million in a new manufacturing facility outside of Albuquerque. It will initially employ 350 people, which could grow to 1,500. Good stuff, and congrats to New Mexico.

But lookie here at what Schott has to say about what it will take to get to the higher end of the projected jobs numbers:

An alternative housing concept

Seattle is having a cold snap. It's 25 degrees outside. Our rare freezing winter days correspond with equally rare clear winter skies. Days like this make me wish I had a solar powered home that could harvest and store that free burst of energy for later use.

The bottom line is that American homes are just too large to be cost effectively heated with solar energy. The push has been to get the cost of solar panels down. But, what would you get if you crossed an expensive solar heating and cooling system with an optimally sized home? By optimal, I mean not larger than you need. You would get an affordable solar powered home like the one shown above (click here to see the details).

By affordable, I mean in the $150-200 thousand range excluding land, sewer, and water systems. Picture the north face with fancy wood and slate trim, a deck off of the loft doubling as a carport, double french doors, and lots and lots of windows (and window plugs). Essentially, this is a well insulated 10 x 40-foot park model trailer stocked with highly energy efficiency dual mode gas/electric appliances, and lots of diode lighting under a standardized solar energy system optimized for a given area of the country. Picture an entire neighborhood (or trailer park or commune) of these all facing south. Ninety percent of the people on this planet would jump at the chance to live in a home like that. Home size is relative, dependent on wealth and how far the "my house is bigger than yours" arms race has progressed. It's all a matter of perception.