But the ITC is set to begin phasing out at the end of 2019 and a group in Congress has introduced legislation to extend it for an additional five years. Obviously the solar industry would benefit from an extension, but has the tax credit succeeded in its mission already? And does an industry that’s so healthy still need this crutch today?

Lawmakers hope to extend solar ITC for five more years

On July 25, Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto introduced legislation to extend the clean energy tax credits originally set to begin phasing out at the end of this year. The bill, named the Renewable Energy Extension Act, would extend the full 30% tax credit for solar installations an additional five years.

At the time, Masto said:

“Protecting the environment is good for our health and our economy. These tax incentives help us achieve these goals by increasing commercial and residential solar use, reducing carbon emissions, and creating good-paying jobs.”

This isn’t the first time Congress has considered extending this credit. The ITC actually has a long history of extensions. Back in 2005, the original 30% credit won bi-partisan support during the Bush administration, but was originally set to drop to 10% just two years later in 2007. Congress extended the credit until 2008, at which point Congress again passed an extension as part of Obama’s 2009 stimulus package, this time all the way out to 2016.

On the final day of 2015, Congress again agreed to extend the credit until 2019, with a gradual phase out over several years. Without an extension, the credit will drop to 26% until the end of 2020, then 22% in 2021, before dropping to 0% for homeowners and 10% for commercial projects permanently.

Solar tax credit designed to combat climate change

On pondering whether we should allow the ITC to expire, we should first find out exactly what the tax credit was designed to do. Was it to jump start a new tech industry? Help homeowners save some cash? When the ITC was extended in 2015, the 2016 US federal budget explicitly set out the purpose of the ITC and other clean energy programs:

“Cutting carbon pollution is essential to reducing the threat of climate change and represents one of the greatest economic opportunities of the 21st Century…To support the development of pollution-cutting technologies, the Budget invests approximately $7.4 billion in clean energy technology programs… that stimulate the evolution and use of clean energy sources such as solar, wind, and low-carbon fossil fuels, as well as energy-efficient technologies, products, and process improvements.”

The ITC then is designed to help cut carbon pollution and, by extension, fight climate change. As the only piece of federal legislation designed to stimulate a clean energy economy, the congresspeople supporting the extension say that the credit is necessary to continue moving the country towards a cleaner economy. The group’s letter states:

“The decrease of both credits should be delayed by at least as much time as it will take to implement a technology-neutral incentive or other federal legislation to reduce carbon emissions from electricity generation.”

With the absence of any wide-reaching federal climate policy, local governments are already moving forward on emissions-reduction tactics. A handful of cities and states like California, New York, and Washington have pledged to go 100% renewable or clean energy.

However, energy industry analysts often see both of these measures – clean energy goals and renewable tax credits – as stop-gap measures for real climate change legislation, like a national carbon tax, that would deal with emissions from all relevant sectors: electricity, industry, and transportation. As you can see in the graph below, while the electricity industry has been lowering emissions since the mid-2000s thanks to an increase in natural gas and renewables, transportation emissions is still increasing and per-capita emissions remain far above other developed countries like Germany, the UK, and Canada.

Image Source: Data from EPA, Graph from Solar Tribune

Considering the initial goal and the fact that the federal government seems far from adopting a true climate policy, extending the ITC another five years seems reasonable. It’s a square nail filling the round hole of carbon emissions, but it’s the only nail the federal government will likely pick up in the next four years.

Can the solar industry stand on its own two feet?

Few in the solar industry see an extension as a real possibility. Installers like Sunrun and Sunpower are hoping for an extension, but still prepping for the ITC to phase out this year.

While the industry is certainly in favor of an extension, the outcry doesn’t seem quite as loud as 2015. Over the last decade, the ITC has been a strong catalyst of growth for the U.S. solar market. Industry trade group SEIA claims that the solar industry has enjoyed a 50% annual growth rate since 2008 and that the tax credit is responsible for $140 billion in economic investment and creating ‘hundreds of thousands’ of jobs.

Solar installation costs have dropped about 60% since 2010 – from $7.30/watt to just $3/watt today. Installation costs have fallen to the point where even without the tax credit, homeowners in many states will still find roof-top solar a sound financial investment.

In the chart below, we compare $-per-kilowatt-hour costs of the average utility, roof-top solar with the 30% ITC, and roof-top solar without the 30% ITC (using solar energy production estimates from Denver, CO). Note that while an ITC-free installation doesn’t pencil out as well financially, from Year 1 it’s still lower than utility costs, which increase an average of 2.6% annually nationwide.

Image Source: Data from EPA, Graph from Solar Tribune

In the utility and commercial solar industry, installers are already planning to ‘safe harbor’ projects, a program in which the IRS grants extensions up to four years for projects that were begun in 2019. So if the tax credit isn’t extended, we can expect a surge of installations as 2019 progresses, as the industry rushes to begin projects before the credit starts to phase out.

As a policy to spur a clean energy industry towards growth and maturity, the ITC has certainly done its job. Over the last decade, the industry has seen truly jaw-dropping growth. Case in point: According to the EIA, solar generation jumped from a measly 157 gigawatt-hours in 2009 to 96,147 GWh in 2018. However, as a policy to combat climate change, the Solar ITC still has quite a bit it could get done.

Image Source: Public Domain via Pixabay

The post Does the U.S. Still Need the Solar Investment Tax Credit? appeared first on Solar Tribune.

U.S. second after China in solar capacity

As of mid-2019, the total installed capacity of solar installations across the world has reached about 500 gigawatts (GW), as reported in the IEA’s 2019 Snapshot of Global PV Markets.

Of that 500 GW, China dominates the landscape, with a cumulative capacity of 176 GW, driven largely by massive solar farms – some of the biggest in the world. The Tengger Desert Solar Park in northern China, for example, covers almost 17 square miles and can produce 1,547 MW of electricity – more than any other solar plant in the world.

Image Source: Data from IEA Snapshot of Global PV Markets, Graph from Solar Tribune

After China, the United States falls second with 62 GW – about a third of China’s capacity. While the U.S. also boasts large utility-scale solar plants, smaller residential and commercial installations make up a large percentage as well. Japan falls in third place with 56 GW of solar capacity and Germany falls in fourth place at 45 GW.

It’s no surprise that the U.S. and China are the single biggest adopters of renewable energy, as they’re also the world’s biggest consumers of electricity as well.

Solar production per capita is a different story

While China and the U.S. lead in total capacity, thanks largely – though not exclusively – to their huge population sizes, it’s a slightly different story when looking at different data points.

When comparing the amount of solar penetration (the % of total electricity that solar energy constitutes), the global leaders look quite different. Honduras enjoys the greatest percentage of solar-sourced electricity, producing 14% of its energy via solar panels. Germany, Greece, and Italy follow with 7.9%, 7.5%, and 7.3% respectively, followed by Chile and Japan.

Both China and the U.S. fall far down the line on this data point, with China covering 3.3% of its energy needs via solar and the U.S. covering 2.6% – actually below the global average.

When looking at each country’s solar production per person (kWh per capita), we see many of the same countries above. Germany and Japan lead in per-capita production, producing 463 kWh/person and 390 kWh/person respectively. The U.S. comes in 10^th place with 173 kWh/person and China falls all the way down to 25^th place, with 47 kWh/person.

Image Source: Data from BP Statistical Review of World Energy, Graph from Solar Tribune

While China and the U.S. lead in total installed capacity, the actual penetration of solar energy is quite low in both countries. Japan, Germany, Italy, and a handful of other countries cover far more of their energy needs via solar.

What drives solar installations in the U.S. and abroad?

While the explosion in solar energy over the last 15 years has been driven by quickly falling prices, countries encourage solar for a variety of reasons, including emissions reduction, financial savings, safety, and energy security.

Regardless of location, the cost of solar panels has fallen like a penny off a skyscraper since the late-20th Century, and prices have continued their sharp decline in recent years. In 2014, the global spot price for multi-crystalline silicon solar panels (the most common PV solar technology) was $0.67 per watt, according to NREL’s 2018 Solar Cost Benchmark. By 2018, that had halved to just $0.30 per watt. Going back even further, the difference is even starker. In 2000, solar panels cost $3.10/watt. In 1980, they cost $24/watt!

Image Source: Data from Renewable Energy World and NREL, Chart from Solar Tribune

While 6 kilowatts of solar panels (enough for a typical U.S. home) would’ve cost $144,000 forty years ago, today they cost about $1,800. At this price, both homeowners in developed countries as well as utilities and businesses can easily jump that investment hurdle.

Beyond the falling cost of solar technology, government policy to encourage PV adoption has played a major hand in the growth of solar, though the underlying reasons vary country to country.

In the U.S., 29 states and four territories have passed clean or renewable energy goals. Eight states and territories have even pledged 100% clean energy goals, including Washington DC, California, and New Mexico. Generally, emissions reductions are the main impetus for these clean energy goals, though energy security and cost reduction also play a part. Upon signing the 100% mandate into law in early 2019, New Mexico Governor Michelle Grisham said:

“The Energy Transition Act fundamentally changes the dynamic in New Mexico. This legislation is a promise to future generations of New Mexicans, who will benefit from both a cleaner environment and a more robust energy economy with exciting career and job opportunities.”

In other parts of the world, countries are moving towards renewables for emissions reductions, but also the safety and financial savings it can help bring about.

Germany and Japan were two of the first countries to adopt solar energy on a wide scale, when they both became the first countries to install 1 GW of solar capacity in 2004. Seeing the destruction that nuclear energy can wreak after the Fukushima earthquake in 2011, both Japan and Germany pushed forwards on renewables as a way to diversify and increase the safety and resiliency of their respective energy portfolios.

Japan adopted a Feed-in Tariff for renewable energy connected to the grid, and subsequently has seen major leaps forward, from 10% renewable in 2012 to 15% in 2016. In 2018, the country pledged to source 24% of all its electricity from renewable sources by 2030. It’s a modest goal, but a goal nevertheless.

After the Fukushima meltdown, Germany decided to phase out all nuclear plants earlier than planned and adopt more stringent renewable energy goals, mandating that 80% or more of electricity needs must be met with renewable energy by 2050, with intermediary goals of 35% by 2020 and 50% by 2030.

Suffering high electricity costs and energy rationing, Honduras began an energy reform in 2012. That year, fossil fuels accounted for 70% of its generation mix. The government hoped to spur utilities and private companies to move towards greater renewables and by 2018, renewables made up 75% of all electricity, a stunningly fast swing towards clean energy.

Renewables set to grow long-term, even in the U.S.

Image Source: Info from the EIA, graph from Solar Tribune

Solar energy production has increased drastically worldwide in the last two decades. In 2000, worldwide annual solar energy production was a dismal 1.15 TWh (terawatt-hours). By 2016, annual worldwide solar production had jumped to 333 TWh. In 2018, it jumped to over 400 TWh.

However, it’s important to keep these numbers in context to the larger energy industry. In 2018, the world consumed 23,000 TWh of electricity. At 400 TWh, solar energy made up just 1.7% of worldwide electricity production.

Solar energy though is set to continue expanding. The EIA expects solar production to continue biting ever-larger chunks out of the energy pie. It predicts solar will continue to steadily grow into the 2050s, driven by government incentives in the short-term and falling prices in the long-term. By 2031, solar production is expected to overtake coal permanently.

With the near-universal acceptance of the Paris Agreement, experts expect renewables – including solar – to make up an increasing portion of the energy landscape, as countries seek to curb carbon emissions and turn back the dial on global warming. Even in the U.S., where clean energy policy is notoriously difficult, solar energy and renewables will make up an ever-larger portion of electricity. The increase will not be driven by government mandate, but simple economics, as utilities continue to adopt renewables to replace expensive coal plants.

Image Source: Public Domain via Pexels

The post As Costs Fall, Global Solar Capacity Ramps Up appeared first on Solar Tribune.

In a June 2019 webinar for the publication, Nature Research, University of Notre Dame professor Prashant Kamat walked through some of the most promising new thin film solar technologies that could one day take the place of silicon.

Searching for a silicon replacement

Why are we even looking for a replacement for silicon?

In the 1950s, when researchers at telephone company, Bell Labs, first discovered silicon’s photoelectric effect – that is, its ability to create electricity from sunlight – they were bucking almost 100 years of scientific research into selenium, at the time considered the most promising photoelectric element. While selenium was stuck around 1% efficiency, Bell Labs’ solar cell was a then-incredible efficiency of 6%. To prove the validity of this new source of electricity, Bell Labs sold a small toy Ferris Wheel powered by solar energy, the first commercial solar panel ever made.

Since then, the solar industry has largely focused on silicon for solar cells and today silicon accounts for the vast majority of solar cells produced worldwide.

Now nearing 70 years old, silicon is a mature technology, time-tested and reliable. However, silicon isn’t perfect. First, silicon’s theoretical maximum efficiency is 33%. Secondly, manufacturing silicon solar cells uses caustic chemicals and is so labor intensive, it suffers from a massively large carbon footprint. In the webinar, Professor Kamat noted that a solar panel needs about three years of electricity generation just to offset the emissions from its own manufacturing.

Researchers are actively looking to new thin-film solar technologies – a catch-all term for new photoelectric materials that are lighter, thinner, and easier to manufacture than silicon – to drive the next wave of solar. Similar to Bell Labs’ switch from selenium to more-efficient silicon, many of today’s new solar technologies also show potential far greater than silicon, whether it’s greater efficiency, lower production costs, or a smaller carbon footprint.

Photo Source: Cleanenergyreviews.info

Perovskite solar cells could be the next big thing

Perovskite solar cells are one of the most exciting solar technologies researchers are currently developing. Unlike silicon solar cells, which require specialized, expensive equipment and hours of labor, making perovskite cells is actually quite simple and can be manufactured in any lab. Just mix up the ingredients and stir for a couple hours. After that, spin the coating onto an electrode solution. The whole solution turns black, and you’re done. Sounds pretty simple, right?

Beyond the easy manufacturing process and the promise of low production costs, the solar industry has jumped on perovskite as the next big thing because of its incredible efficiency gains. In 2009, the best perovskite solar cells were just 3% efficient. Jump forward to 2019 and that efficiency has increased to 24%. This efficiency gain is light speed compared to silicon solar cells, which took about 40 years to see a similar increase.

While perovskite is a material found in the natural world, perovskite solar cells don’t actually use the perovskite mineral. Instead, they use perovskite’s crystalline structure. By combining different elements within this structure, scientists can produce different actions, including photoelectricity.

Of course, perovskite solar cells aren’t without their own challenges. Perovskites are still too unstable to be useful and two leading perovskite technologies – lead-halide and quantum dot perovskites –both use lead, a poisonous metal. Researchers are trying to create lead-free perovskites using tin, but at the moment they’re also highly unstable.

How about combining two types of solar?

All photoelectric materials, like silicon or even perovskites, have a limit to their own efficiency. Silicon maxes out around 33%. Perovskites max out around 26%. We’ve still got room to grow, as our best silicon cells are only about 25% efficient and our perovskites are 24% efficient, but researchers are already looking into how we can bypass these efficiency caps.

The most promising system is simply combining two different solar technologies. Perovskite and silicon both absorb different light colors, for example, so by placing a perovskite cell on top of a silicon cell, you can increase the overall efficiency of the product.

Photo Source: U.S. DOE

These combined solar cells, called multi-junction solar cells, can bump the efficiency of a single solar cell into the high 30s and even 40s. The coolest part? Multi-junction cells are already in use! Unfortunately, they’re prohibitively expensive and only used in spacecraft and other high-intensity applications.

Next big solar tech is anyone’s guess

While perovskite and multi-junction solar cells are some of the most promising new solar technologies, they aren’t the only ones out there. In the last decade, organic ternary solar cells – cells made from chains of carbon molecules – have emerged as promising new solar tech, thanks to their low production costs, thinness, and flexibility. But like the others, organic solar cells are still years away from commercialization, as they are still dreadfully inefficient and degrade quickly, lasting just a few years in the outdoors.

So what’s the big takeaway from all this? The next big solar technology is anyone’s guess. Kamat admitted during the Q&A that perovskites seem like the most promising new technology, but stressed that all the new cell types still need lab and field testing and are years away from commercialization.

Professor Kamat also noted that any new tech that wants to topple silicon – a mature and trusted product – must be transformative, offering features that silicon simply can’t. Whether that is greater efficiency like multi-junction cells, lower cost like perovskites, or greater versatility like organic cells – or perhaps even some yet-to-be-discovered product that offers all three – is yet to be seen.

Image Source: CC license via Flickr

The post New Solar Tech Could Outshine Conventional Silicon appeared first on Solar Tribune.

Bloomberg’s pledge

Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former politician, announced in early June a pledge of $500 million towards a new campaign, Beyond Carbon, designed to help close all coal-fired power plants in the U.S. by 2030, as well as stunt the growth of natural gas, thus helping the U.S. move towards a fully renewable energy sector.

The campaign focuses exclusively on local and state politics, bypassing the federal government completely, which Bloomberg says can’t seem to find the gas pedal around climate-progressive policies, thanks to the country’s current president.

When he announced the donation, Bloomberg himself said:

“We’re in a race against time with climate change, and yet there is virtually no hope of bold federal action on this issue for at least another two years. Mother Nature is not waiting on our political calendar, and neither can we.”

The funding will support environmental groups’ lobbying efforts in state legislatures, city councils, and utility commissions as well as efforts to elect lawmakers who look favorably on clean energy.

No matter the individual or amount, Bloomberg’s goal is a tall order. As of 2017, there are still 359 coal plants operating in the U.S. and coal still accounts for about 30% of all electricity generation in the country. In some states, that number falls closer to 100%. Closing every coal plant in the U.S. in just over 10 years is a huge endeavor.

Image Source: Data from EIA, Graph from Solar Tribune

With a sea change this large, $500 million is just a drop in a very large bucket. However, by donating to pro-clean energy lobbying and campaigning, Bloomberg is funding the individuals and organizations that he hopes will move the U.S. forward on climate change policy. In essence, he’s buying the fishing pole and hoping others will catch the fish.

States moving forward on clean energy goals

If Bloomberg wants to pass serious changes to climate policy, his focus on state and local politics is certainly in the right place. The fact that a billionaire former-politician feels he must circumnavigate Washington, DC to instigate climate changes shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Since the 2016 election, President Trump has recalled, weakened, or stalled many of President Obama’s environmental policies, including the Clean Power Plan, membership in the Paris Climate Agreement, vehicle emissions standards, and dozens of other emissions and climate-related policies. And with a Congress that is increasingly unwilling to work with the other side, the idea of any climate-positive legislation passing any time soon seems almost unthinkable.

In the absence of any nationwide climate regulations, individual states and cities have taken it upon themselves to help reduce carbon emissions, almost exclusively through clean energy goals.

Seven states and territories – Hawaii, California, Puerto Rico, Washington DC, Washington, Nevada, and New Mexico – have already passed 100% clean or renewable energy goals. The Sierra Club also lists over 90 cities and 10 counties that have pledged 100% goals, with six cities already reaching 100% clean energy.

Image Source: Graph from Solar Tribune

Hawaii, which suffers from some of the highest electricity rates in the U.S., was the first state to pledge 100% renewable energy back in 2015. At the time, the island state was already sourcing 33% of its electricity from renewable sources, so it is already well on its way to meeting this goal by 2045, the mandated year.

In 2018, California – the world’s fifth largest economy – pledged 60% renewable by 2030 and 100% clean energy by 2050. Mandating clean energy, as opposed to renewable energy exclusively, allows some flexibility for utilities to choose from a wider range of energy sources, most importantly nuclear.

Why are climate and clean energy policies so hard to pass?

Regardless of the politicization of climate change, the truth is that coal and natural gas still remain an intrinsic part of the utility industry and – even more importantly – a source of employment for the thousands of Americans who work in coal mines and coal-fired power plants, often in small towns with limited other economic opportunities.

While electricity generation from coal has fallen over 30% since 2009, it still makes up 27% of the nation’s electricity generation. As noted in the following graph, in coal-rich areas like Montana and West Virginia that number pushes close to 100%. And as the U.S. weens itself off of fossil fuels, employment in the coal industry is also falling fast. Since 2009 employment in the coal industry has dropped 40%, from 86,000 to just 50,000 today.

Image Source: Data from EIA and Bureau of Labor Statistics, Graph from Solar Tribune

While states like California and Hawaii have embraced clean energy whole-heartedly, that’s certainly not the sentiment everywhere, especially in states with large coal deposits like Wyoming, Montana, West Virginia, and Kentucky.

The importance of coal to both these states’ economies as well as the local population can’t be ignored. To those in the coal industry, replacing coal with renewables is a potential threat to their livelihood, and some states have worked to protect the coal industry from change.

In early 2019, Wyoming passed S.F. 159, a new law that requires any utility looking to shut down a coal-fired power plant to make a ‘good faith effort’ to find a buyer before closing. Once (and if) sold, the new owners aren’t allowed to close the plant early. While some heralded the law as a positive step to protect local industry, others saw it as well-intentioned, but misguided.

Any large-scale move towards renewable energy should take the welfare of these workers into account. When New Mexico passed its 100% clean energy goal in March 2019, it won accolades from the energy industry for its thoughtful, comprehensive plan for the welfare and training of plant and mine workers affected by the clean energy transition. In total, the plan set aside more than $70 million for plant decommissioning, severance, worker training, apprenticeships, and programs to help communities build new economic options.

Closing coal plants shouldn’t be taken lightly; it affects both individual households and the local economy. However, with thoughtful legislation this painful process can actually turn into a positive change, as market forces push coal out.

As the federal government continues to squabble, state and local governments are taking up the challenge. If the U.S. is to make large-scale, nationwide change, we might have to wait two more years like Bloomberg says, but it might take even longer.

Image Source: CC via Flickr

The post Bloomberg Pledges $500 Million to Close All Coal Plants appeared first on Solar Tribune.

While the flip is partially brought on by the seasonality of hydro and coal generation, it shows that we’re in the beginning stages of a major change in the electricity industry, as the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) expects utilities to continue replacing coal plants with solar and natural gas plants for the next couple decades.

Renewable energy beat coal in April and May

Image Source: Graph from Solar Tribune, Data from EIA

According to estimates from the EIA, nationwide electricity generation from renewable sources –driven mainly by solar, wind, and hydropower – is set to exceed coal generation twice this year, first in April then in May, as noted in the above graph.

In April, the EIA estimates the U.S. generated 2,390 MWh per day of renewable energy and only 1,884 MWh of electricity from coal – about 22% less than renewables. The gap narrows in May, with renewable energy just barely squeaking by with 2,278 MWh – a scant 8 MWh more than May’s coal generation.

You’ll also notice in the graph that renewable generation is expected to top coal again from March to May next year, peaking in April when renewables should outperform coal by 40%.

Just two decades ago, when coal was the top dog among electricity generation, these numbers were probably unthinkable to utilities or the coal industry. In the entire month of May 2001, for example, the US generated 29,000 GWh of electricity from renewable sources, equal to just 19% of coal’s total energy production.

This month’s momentous change is largely brought on by three main causes: 1) the utility industry continuing a long-term move away from coal-fired generation, in favor of cheaper natural gas, solar, and wind, 2) a steady increase in solar and wind generation, and, as IEEFA pointed out in a recent article on the topic, 3) seasonal changes in electricity generation, since hydropower bumps up from March to May each year during spring runoff and coal generation decreases as utilities prepare the plants for the summer season.

While the flip was certainly brief, it’s certainly a sign of the times, as coal becomes increasingly unprofitable and more utilities continue to turn to solar and energy storage. Financial services firm, Lazard, publishes annual estimates of the lifecycle costs of both renewable and conventional fuel sources. In their 2018 study, the firm found that on-shore wind and solar energy are the cheapest forms of electricity, at $29/MWh and $36/MWh respectively, with natural gas close behind at $41/MWh. Coal, on the other hand, comes in at $60/MWh, with nuclear, residential solar, and gas peaking plants coming in the highest.

Renewables set to permanently top coal by 2031

Image Source: Graph from Solar Tribune, Data from EIA

While the inversions above were brief, lasting only a couple months, the EIA expects renewable generation to permanently overtake coal by 2031, as noted in the long-term forecast above. Renewable energy should grow from just 666 million MWh in 2018, to 980 million MWh by 2031, before continuing on to 1,400 MWh/year by 2050. These increases are brought on mainly by steady growth in solar energy specifically, driven by tax credits in the near term and continued falling prices in the long term.

Back here in 2019, we’re quite literally watching the bottom fall out of the coal industry, as coal use has been in rapid decline since the mid-2000s. As utilities continue retiring aging or surplus plants, experts expect coal use to continue its sharp decline until the early 2020s, at which point it will begin to decrease more gradually.

While renewables have certainly played a hand in coal’s ongoing destruction, the true power here is natural gas, as coal simply can’t beat natural gas generation’s persistently low price and cleaner emissions. Natural gas permanently overtook coal as the dominant fuel source in 2018 and the EIA expects natural gas to continue reigning for the foreseeable future, growing in parallel to renewables and at a very similar rate.

Renewable Generation Varies by State

At this time, renewable energy generation varies state to state, with solar and wind concentrated in areas with high electricity rates, suitable locations (either strong wind or sun), and policies that encourage renewable adoption.

Image Source: Graph from Solar Tribune, Data from EIA

The chart below compares each state’s electricity production from coal and renewables in February 2019. You’ll see that renewables actually outperformed coal in 16 states across the US, from California and Oregon in the west, to New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut in the east. Even a couple states in the south and mid-west, namely Oklahoma and Mississippi, produced more electricity from renewables than coal.

February is typically a time when coal plants aren’t in peak season, as utilities wane down production and prepare for the summer peak. As such, summer generation figures will likely be very different in some states. This comparison also leaves out natural gas generation, which is the single biggest replacement for coal-fired electricity. However, the chart does show that renewable energy, even without hydroelectricity, is already a large part of our existing electricity industry.

As solar installation costs continue to fall, the EIA expects solar alone to make up 15% of all electricity production by 2050, with the fastest growth in the eastern half of the US, as utilities construct large-scale solar installations.

Solar and renewable energy advocates will rejoice at this recent history-making energy news, while coal proponents will likely wave it off as a blip on the radar. However, with utilities continuing to rapidly retire coal plants in favor of cheaper solar and natural gas, we’re well into the beginning stages of a sea change in the energy industry.

Cover photo source: Flickr

The post Renewables Exceed Coal for the First Time Ever appeared first on Solar Tribune.

Throughout history and across the world, people have always placed huge importance on the sun. The Incans had Inti, whose children he sent to the earth to create civilization. The Egyptians had the all-powerful Ra, who controlled the sky, earth, and underworld. Japanese emperors are said to be direct descendants of Ameratsu, the daughter of the sun and the universe.

But throughout history, the sun wasn’t always just a figure in cosmology or origin stories. For the last six thousand years, from Neolithic China to Victorian Europe and beyond, humans have captured and utilized sunlight to make their lives easier, cozier, and generally just better. Long before we invented photovoltaic solar panels (the kind that generate electricity), humans were using the sun’s heat to warm homes, tell time, and grow food.

Let’s look at a brief history of solar energy, both before electricity was even on the table as well as the incredible breakthroughs that led to the creation of our modern photovoltaic solar panels.

4000 BC: China invents passive solar heating

These days, with air conditioning, modern insulation, and electric or gas heating, we’ve placed less and less focus on using the sun’s heat to warm our homes, but we’d do well to take a page out of China’s history.

Neolithic Chinese homebuilders actually originated much of the passive solar heating techniques we still use today. First, they placed home entrances facing south, so the interior of the homes could be warmed during the winter by the low-angled sun. To keep the house cooler in the summer, they also elongated roof eaves so they overhang above the opening and block the hot summer sunlight from entering the home.

According to solar history expert (and Analyst at UC Santa Barbara) John Perlin, by 2000 BC Chinese city-planners had begun designing cities with streets running solely east to west so every home could have a south-facing section in full sunlight.

Perlin notes that the Chinese continued using these passive solar techniques for millennia. Studying traditional Chinese buildings in the 1980s, researchers at the National Renewable Energy Lab concluded that, while south-facing designs certainly wouldn’t allow residents to relax in a t-shirt and shorts during the chilly Chinese winters, it would likely increase the inside temperature by 15°F.

500 BC to 100 AD: Greece adopts passive solar heating

A few thousand years after China began using passive solar techniques, the ancient Greeks came upon the same solutions. They built south-facing homes and even created east-west roads so that all homes could benefit from solar heating.

Socrates himself shouted the benefits of passive solar heating to all who would listen, explaining to his students the principles behind the same solar heating techniques the Neolithic Chinese used:

“Now in houses with a southern orientation, the sun’s rays penetrate into the porticoes, but in summer the path of the sun is right over our heads and above the roof, so we have shade.”

Passive solar heating seemed like an idea worth spreading, so guess where it ended up next?

100 BC to 500 AD: Rome follows Greece, creates solar access laws

Ancient Romans protected sunlight access for heat, light, and sundial operation. Image source: Wikimedia

Like so much of Greek culture, Romans adopted the Greek’s ingenious solar heating systems as well. By 550 AD, homeowners used sunlight for heating and light, but also sundials. Sunlight was so important to the Romans, that the right to solar access was actually solidified in the Justinian Code. Under law, solar easements prevented neighbors from blocking sunlight. A judge decided how much sunlight a homeowner could reasonably expect to enjoy, and how much sunlight a neighbor could reasonably block.

Solar access is still an issue across the world. A handful of states allow homeowners to create solar easements, wherein neighbors aren’t allowed to block sunlight from hitting solar panels. Solar-heavy California has gone even further, creating laws that allow solar homeowners to force neighbors to cut down trees, as long as they were planted after the solar system was installed.

1500s to 1800s: English want oranges so greenhouses abound

After the fall of the Roman Empire, like so much knowledge and research, Europe forgot all about solar heating. That is, until the Renaissance, when scholars ‘re-discovered’ ancient Greek and Roman scientific texts and trade once again flourished.

In the latter half of this rebirth – during the 1500s and 1600s – wealthy families in dreary England wanted to enjoy oranges from Spain, so they created rudimentary greenhouses on the south-facing side of their homes. However, these greenhouses – which they called orangeries for obvious reasons – were plagued by poor building materials and construction techniques, and required quite a bit of work to use.

In the early 1800s, builders had developed more efficient greenhouse design and construction techniques. French botanist Charles Lucien Bonaparte (yes, Napoleon’s nephew) created what’s considered to be the first practical greenhouse, which used to grow tropical plants for medicinal research.

1767: Swiss physicist creates first thermal solar collector

Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, the inventor of the first solar oven. Image Source: Wikimedia

By the 1700s, scientists and researchers were beginning to see solar energy as more than just a cheap, easy way to heat homes. In 1767, Swiss geologist and physicist, Horace-Bénédict de Saussure wrote that:

“it is a known fact, and a fact that has probably been known for a long time, that a room, a carriage, or any other place is hotter when the rays of the sun pass through glass.”

Seeing that no one had ever researched this phenomenon, he decided to give it a go by inventing the first solar oven – an insulated, three-sided box with a glass surface on top. To test how the phenomenon worked, he hauled his box up Mt. Cramont in the Swiss Alps, and found that the temperature inside the box was similar no matter what altitude he was at, meaning ambient temperature little affected the oven’s inside temperature.

1839: Discovery of the photovoltaic effect

Up until this point, all research and use of solar energy focused exclusively on the sun’s heat. However, all that changed in 1839 when French scientist Alexandre-Edmond Becquerel discovered the photovoltaic effect. When he was just 19 years old, he found that he could generate electricity by exposing certain materials, typically platinum coated in silver compounds, to sunlight.

While our modern day solar cells were still 100 years away, Becquerel did find a use for his newly-discovered photovoltaic effect. He invented the ‘actinograph’, a device to record the temperature of heated materials by measuring the intensity of the light they emitted.

1954: Modern solar cells invented

A cylinder of polycrystalline silicon, the heart of modern solar panels. Image Source: Wikimedia

After Becquerel discovered the photovoltaic effect, scientists in both Europe and the United States continued to expand on his discovery, discovering the photoconductivity of selenium and eventually producing the world’s first solar cell in 1883 – a 1% efficient cell made from the same material.

However, as the years went by, selenium fell out of fashion, as the scientific community began looking for more efficient materials. In 1954, scientists at US-based telephone company Bell Labs found that silicon, like selenium, actually created electricity when sunlight shone on it, but much more efficiently. After months of experimenting, they created a silicon solar cell that was 6x more efficient than the selenium cell from 60 years before.

And the rest is history. We’ve come quite a ways since Bell Lab’s original discovery. Our modern silicon solar cells are 4x more efficient than Bell Lab’s original cell. Today, solar technology – driven mostly by these same silicon solar cells – adds up to 500 GW of capacity worldwide, the equivalent of about 16.6 million solar panels. Socrates would be proud.

Cover Photo Source: Flickr

The post The History of Solar Energy appeared first on Solar Tribune.

With marijuana now legal in 30 states (either for recreational or medicinal use), the cannabis industry is big business. Since legal sales first began in 2014, the industry has exploded. In 2018, it raked in $10.4 billion and experts expect it to grow 14% annually over the next few years.

Most legal marijuana is grown in indoor operations where all light, air, and moisture is completely controlled – an energy-intensive endeavor. And as the industry grows and more competitors enter the market, growers are looking to solar and batteries to cut high energy costs that plague grow operations.

Energy use will become a major issue as industry grows

In 2012, Washington and Colorado became the first two states to legalize cannabis for recreational use and now, recreational use is legal in ten states. Last year, the industry was worth $10.4 billion, with even more growth expected in 2019. By 2025, it’s set to increase to $23 billion – an annual growth rate of over 14%.

As mentioned, most of this legal cannabis is grown in indoor operations, which can produce the highest quality product, but is also the most energy intensive. As the industry grows, so will energy use.

Image Source: Graph from Solar Tribune, Data from New Frontier Data

New Frontier Data estimates that electricity use will jump from 1.75 million MWh in 2019 to 2.79 million MWh in 2022. The City of Denver, the hotspot for growing in Colorado, estimates that 45% of their electricity load (or ‘demand’) growth will come from marijuana grow operations. Even now, Denver estimates that marijuana accounts for almost 4% of the city’s total electricity consumption.

Lighting, ventilation are biggest energy hogs

The energy needs to cultivate marijuana indoors are truly astounding. As part of a 2018 report from The Cannabis Conservancy, researchers collected energy consumption rates from a handful of indoor grow operations around Colorado, who reported using about 1,200 kilowatt-hours of energy per pound of marijuana produced. In comparison, the average home in the U.S. uses about 900 kWh every month. Aluminum production needs just 7 kWh per pound produced – that’s about 0.5% of marijuana’s energy needs.

On the national level, legal cannabis cultivation consumed 1.1 million megawatt-hours of electricity in 2017, according to New Frontier Data’s 2018 Cannabis Energy Report. For comparison, that’s about as much energy as 102,000 of those average homes above in an entire year. And it’s not getting any smaller: New Frontier estimates electricity consumption from the cannabis sector to increase 162% from 2017 to 2022.

Energy expenses account for up to 50% of total wholesale costs and cultivators name energy as the second highest cost, behind labor.

Of course, marijuana and energy use didn’t always go hand-in-hand. Historically, most cannabis was simply grown outdoors. However, when the U.S. criminalized marijuana in the 1970s, cultivators moved indoors to avoid detection. Today, the majority of legal cultivators continue to grow plants inside, as it’s a more controlled environment. They’re able to increase harvests, produce higher quality product, and avoid issues like insects and disease – common challenges when growing outdoors.

Image Source: Graph from Solar Tribune, Data from E Source

With energy costs making up such a large portion of the wholesale price of cannabis, tackling inefficiencies in lighting, ventilation, and cooling can mean huge savings for growers. Grow operations need huge expanses of lighting, and it’s the single biggest energy user for indoor facilities, accounting for about 40% of total electricity use. Ventilation and dehumidification together account for about 30% of energy use and air conditioners come in 3^rd. Tackling any one of these issues can mean huge savings on utility bills.

Solar and batteries seen as a solution

As the cannabis market continues to mature, competition is growing. When legal sales in Colorado first began in 2014, prices hovered around $2,500 per pound. By 2018, that price had dropped to $850/pound. To stay competitive, growers are looking to drop prices by lowering energy costs via energy efficiency upgrades, solar, and batteries.

While not as attention-grabbing as solar and batteries, simple lighting upgrades are the lowest hanging fruit for energy savings. Most indoor cultivators use high-pressure sodium lights (the lights giving off yellowish haze on city streets) in indoor grow ops, but they’re very energy intensive. By simply replacing HPS lights with LEDs, growers can not only save on lighting costs, but they’re also able to cut ventilation and cooling, as LEDs produce far less heat than HPS bulbs. By installing LEDs and more efficient HVAC systems, grow operations can shave off up to 35% of their total energy use.

Efficiency upgrades like these can only do so much and marijuana cultivation still requires huge amounts of electricity. The next logical step, of course, would be renewable energy. However, with energy use so high, many commercial buildings simply don’t have the roof space to house enough solar panels to really make a dent in energy use. Few cultivators could cover 100% of their energy use purely through a rooftop solar installation.

However, by combining solar with batteries, grow operations are able to utilize on-site solar generation at strategic times, during times of peak demand when electricity rates are highest, for example, or to help lower demand charges. With grow operations typically running 24/7, avoiding daily on-peak pricing and lowering demand charges (which are utility fees based on your highest energy usage at any one point of time during a billing cycle) can reap major savings.

In 2017, for example, California-based grower Green Dragon worked with micro-grid company CleanSpark to drop its spiraling energy use. By combining solar, energy storage, and energy management, Green Dragon was able to cut its electricity bill by an astounding 82%. CleanSpark notes that, via its mPulse software, which helps businesses avoid expensive demand charges on utility bills, Green Dragon was able to drastically reduce its demand charges, which had previously accounted for close to 50% of its monthly electricity bill. It estimates that, by adopting the micro-grid, it will increase revenue by $660,000.

As legal cannabis production continues to spread and mature, the industry will undoubtedly work out best practices to minimize energy use and production costs. Proper lighting, ventilation, and AC design and installation will allow grow operations to drop energy use as much as possible from the get-go. And as solar and batteries continue to drop in price, we can expect cannabis cultivators – as well as other industries – to continue adoption.

Image Source: CC license via Flickr

The post Cannabis Growers Embracing Solar and Storage to Cut Energy Bills appeared first on Solar Tribune.

When Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey introduced the Green New Deal, it was met with some heavy eye-rolling by certain individuals. Many saw it more as political stunt than a true path to dealing with the underlying causes of climate change. For many, the most attention-grabbing section was certainly its goal of shifting to a 100% carbon free economy after a mere decade.

While the plan is grandiose and gives a very short timetable, the general goal isn’t far-fetched. Numerous states, cities, and even utilities have committed to 100% renewable goals in the last few years, and they’re becoming more and more common.

In 2017, Hawaii became the first state to ratify a goal of 100% renewable electricity, by 2045. In December 2018, Xcel Energy – which provides electricity in 8 states in the mountain west – became the first major utility to commit to 100% carbon-free electricity by 2050. In late 2018, California also signed into law a goal of 100% clean energy –not renewable energy – by 2045. (We’ll get into the differences between clean and renewable energy in the next section.)

What does 100% renewable look like, and is it really a viable option on a large scale?

What’s Your Goal? Renewable Energy vs Clean Energy vs Carbon Free Economy

Image Source: CC license via Wikimedia

The Green New Deal wants a carbon-free economy. Hawaii’s pledged 100% renewables. California’s pledged 100% clean energy. They might sound like synonyms, but there’s major differences among them.

First, a 100% renewable energy goal is just that. All electricity is sourced via renewable methods, typically solar, wind, and possibly water like tidal and wave energy or small hydro plants.

A 100% clean energy goal, on the other hand, broadens the scope of allowable technology. Any electricity generation that produces zero carbon is on the table, including solar and wind, but also nuclear power and fossil fuel plants with carbon capture and storage (CSS), a system in which utilities essentially capture all the carbon emissions and bury them underground so they don’t enter the atmosphere. Because the technologies allowed are more flexible, clean energy goals should be easier to meet than 100% renewable goals.

Lastly, the Green New Deal posits a 100% carbon free economy. Along with carbon-free electricity, like in the goals above, the Green New Deal also seeks to decarbonize the transportation and industrial sectors as well. Unlike the previous goals that only involve the electric sector, this far-reaching goal would require fundamental changes for every sector and every market – a much larger project.

How Does 100% Renewable Work?

Image Source: Graph from Solar Tribune

When we think about going 100% renewable, most of us probably picture fields of solar panels and wind turbines on sunny, windy days. That’s certainly part of the future, but by no means the whole picture. In reality, moving to 100% renewable requires a balance of three key actions: energy use reduction, renewable energy, and energy storage.

Reducing energy use

The first step to going 100% renewable is simply cutting out waste. There are many ways to decrease energy use. The Green New Deal includes legislation to create more stringent energy efficiency standards for buildings. The state of Hawaii already requires homes to include solar hot water heaters to pre-heat water using the sun’s abundant heat. By dropping energy needs as low as possible, you’re able to build less infrastructure, and there’s less wear-and-tear, leading to lower long-term costs.

Adding renewable energy sources

Renewable energy technology is, of course, key to building a 100% renewable electricity industry. Utilities can use utility-scale and rooftop photovoltaic solar, concentrated solar power (CSP), on- and offshore wind turbines, tidal/wave energy, and geothermal to meet energy needs.

Different renewable sources produce power at different times, a challenge known as intermittency. Solar panels, of course, produce electricity during the day. Land-based wind turbines typically produce more electricity during daylight hours. Off-shore wind produces more at night. Diversifying the technology portfolio and balancing their electricity generation is key.

Adding energy storage

Energy storage is seen as the solution to renewable energy’s intermittency problem. Lithium-ion batteries are hot commodities right now and utilities use massive banks for large-scale storage projects, but they aren’t the only options available. There’s a handful of other cheaper battery technologies as well, and utilities have a few more unusual energy storage methods at their disposal as well, like compressed air in caves that’s heated to pressure (yes, this really exists!) and pumped hydro using two reservoirs and gravity-fed turbines.

Tesla’s lithium-ion batteries, known as Powerpacks for utility-scale projects, are the most well-known energy storage on the market, and the company has installed over 1 gigawatt-hour of energy storage as of fall 2018, with another GWh in the works in the next 12 months.

In 2019, Tesla was working with California utility PG&E for a Powerpack up to 1.1 GWh, over 8x larger than their current largest project, a 129 MWh system in Australia. With PG&E’s January 2019 bankruptcy though, this project is almost certainly on hold.

A Look into the Future

In 2017, a research group from Stanford published an article in the forward-thinking journal Joule which laid out potential pathways to 100% clean economies by 2050 in 139 countries. Their study focused on the technical feasibility of such a move, creating a two-step process: 1) Electrify all industries (for example, moving all vehicles to batteries and fuel cells) and 2) Transfer all electricity production from fossil fuels to a unique mix of wind, water, and solar tailored to each country.

Looking at the world’s overall electricity demand over the next few decades, the authors propose that we could meet 2050’s estimated 20.6 terawatts of electricity demand via energy reduction and electrification’s greater efficiency than combustion (for example, electric vehicles are more energy efficient than gas-powered vehicles), onshore and offshore wind, utility-scale PV solar and CSP, residential and commercial solar, and wave/tidal energy.

Hawaii’s Plan for 100% Renewable

Image Source: CC license via Wikimedia

In 2017, Hawaii passed legislation to source all electricity from renewable sources by 2045. If we want to see what going 100% renewable looks like in the real world, we can turn to them as an example.

Thanks to their remoteness and the high cost of importing fossil fuels, Hawaii suffers from the highest electricity prices in the country, which as of November 2018 is $0.34 per kWh – 2.6x higher than the national average of $0.13 per kWh.

The state leaves Hawaii’s utilities to decide the best way to achieve this goal, though the Hawaii PUC (Public Utilities Commission) has the final say on utilities’ plans and also gives guidance on what utilities should be moving towards. Like we discussed above, the commission recommends (p.6) that utilities plan for new renewable generation, energy reduction via demand response, and energy storage:

“The PSIPs [utility action plans] are to include actionable strategies and implementation plans to expeditiously retire older, less-efficient fossil generation… increase generation flexibility, and adopt new technologies such as demand response and energy storage”

In their plan approved by the PUC in July 2017, HECO – one of three privately-owned utilities on the islands (all of which are owned by Hawaiian Electric Industries) – laid out their pathway to meet the 100% renewable goal, which included 400 MW of new renewable energy resources by 2021, continued growth of residential solar (17% of HECO’s customers have installed solar, compared to just 1% for the national average), and adding energy storage to the generation mix.

Since the plan was approved, they’ve been moving forward on these goals. In mid-2018, they sought PUC approval for two Li-ion battery storage systems totaling 120 MW and entered contract negotiations for seven solar+storage installations across three islands totaling 260 MW.

How Does 100% Renewable Affect You?

You might wonder how all this affects you. Most of us just want reliable, freely-available electricity. If it’s renewably sourced, that’s certainly a plus, but not a necessity.

That mindset though is quickly retreating, as the clean energy movement and the signs of global warming continue to stir people to, if not action, then at least acceptance. According to a 2018 poll, 74% of Americans believe worldwide temperatures are rising.

On the household level, increased utility rates for customers are always a concern, as utilities seek to update existing generation plants and build new plants, and create and implement new programs. In 2017, when utility HECO sought approval from Hawaii’s PUC for its proposed plan to 100% renewability, the PUC was worried it could increase electricity rates due to near-term capital investments and financial commitments.

The real change though, especially moving to a 100% carbon free economy, is that each business and homeowner will have to engage more deeply with their energy use. Demand response, rooftop solar, and EVs all require greater involvement from customers. Transferring to 100% clean energy isn’t a one-and-done process. It won’t be immediate, and it’ll likely take much longer than a decade. It’s a slow progression of change, brought on one project at a time.

And while electricity in the future might need a more hands-on, mindful approach than we’re used to, what we’ll get out of it – namely a cleaner, more efficient electric grid and economy – is something we’ll all benefit from down the line.

Image Source: CC license via Wikimedia

The post What Will 100% Renewable Energy Look Like? appeared first on Solar Tribune.

Both LO3 Energy and eMotorWerks are already working with utilities and consumers in their respective fields. LO3 Energy is a Brooklyn-based startup that uses smart meters and blockchains to create energy microgrids in which homeowners and businesses can buy and sell locally-produced clean energy directly from neighbors.

LO3 uses smart meters to measure the energy production and blockchains, an online decentralized ledger originally designed for Bitcoin that uses private computers to verify transactions, to facilitate the transactions. Finally, all actual electricity is transmitted through the existing utility infrastructure.

LO3 Energy says their transaction platform, which it calls Exergy, can be used for peer-to-peer transactions, purchasing unused EV storage, and as a tool for system operators to help match electricity use and demand.

eMotorWerks is an EV charging infrastructure company that manufactures both charging equipment for EV owners as well as Juicenet, a virtual platform that allows EV owners to remotely monitor and schedule their charging at lowest-price times (at night, for example) and utilities to manage EV charging demand, if the EV owner is enrolled in a utility program.

By combining forces, the program allows EV owners to trade stored energy with a local microgrid. The companies see the project as one piece of a larger portfolio for utilities that allows customers to choose when and what type of energy they want to consume. By tapping into EV energy storage during peak demand or shifting EV charging to non-peak times, it also allows utilities to leverage participating EVs as resources to better meet energy needs.

As Lawrence Orsini, CEO of LO3 Energy, put it:

“EV charging adds another option to efficiently match local energy supply and demand, and such project’s results could open the door to more transactions among other microgrid participants and EV drivers.”

EVs Are Already an Energy Resource

As mentioned, utilities are already trying to figure out how to most intelligently incorporate EV charging into their list of resources.

While EVs now are a small drop in the large automotive bucket, experts expect that to change quickly. In their 2018 Electric Vehicle Outlook, Bloomberg estimates that as prices continue to drop, EVs will jump from just 1.1 million in 2017 to 30 million in 2030, and 60 million by 2040 – equivalent to 55% of all new car sales and 33% of all existing vehicles.

Photo source: Graph from Solar Tribune, Data from Bloomberg

With utilities providing the fuel for all these vehicles, they’re planning for this future now. Across the U.S., utilities are testing different incentive programs and rate structures that offer EV drivers lower rates for charging at off-peak times. These rates ensure that EVs are as cost-effective as possible for customers, but also folded into utilities’ energy mix intelligently.

In August 2018, for example, two large Michigan utilities, DTE Energy and Consumers Energy, proposed a joint $20.5 million investment in EV infrastructure and a pilot program that offers incentives for EV owners who charge at night during off-peak hours, between 11PM and 6AM. It’s not just a one-way street though. Utilities are also seeing EVs as a demand response resource, wherein they can remotely or automatically turn off or delay charging during times of peak demand. Consumers Energy predicts a give-and-take relationship between EVs and utilities. As spokesperson Katelyn Carey noted:

“In addition to a lower daily rate, electric and autonomous vehicles can be equipped to choose to be interrupted during charging and save even more on the days when energy use is expected to be extremely high thereby allowing customers to receive a bill credit.”

eMotorWerks is already in the market of EVs as a demand response resource. In September 2018, it actually collected a group of 10,000 connected EVs, representing 30 megawatts of capacity, and is now participating in California’s day-ahead energy markets. In other words, eMotorWerks has created a ‘virtual’ power plant, but instead of selling electricity to utilities, eMotorWerks is actually paid when they shed demand, by remotely delaying charging for a certain number of participating EVs.

It’s all part of California’s proxy demand resource market, wherein companies are compensated for decreasing electricity demand. EV drivers are compensated based on their own flexibility and can opt out of any demand response event if they choose.

In September, Xcel Energy also chose eMotorWerks for their own EV demand response program. eMotorWerks will provide their JuiceBox Pro 40 chargers to 100 participating EV drivers as part of a two-year pilot program in Minnesota.

Xcel will own the chargers and monitor and control them with eMotorWerk’s Juicenet platform. The chargers will automatically respond to grid conditions, shedding demand during peak times.

LO3 Energy Already Working on Solar Microgrid in Brooklyn

While eMotorWerks is working with utilities to incorporate EVs as grid resources, LO3 Energy is working on peer-to-peer microgrids, wherein a homeowner can buy local, renewable energy from a neighbor next door.

LO3’s pilot project, Brooklyn Microgrid, began in 2017 and revolves around their Exergy platform and an online marketplace to allow residential consumers, businesses, energy companies, and community solar to both produce and consume locally-sourced, clean energy. LO3 Energy plans to launch a ‘simulated’ program in early 2019, before launching the real-world version.

While we use the term microgrid, in reality LO3 Energy’s marketplace is a ‘virtual’ microgrid. All electricity is still transmitted via the local utility’s existing grid and participants must still pay the utility for upkeep of the grid.

While both companies have created and are using vastly different platforms, with one focused on EV chargers and the other on microgrids transactions, they’re actually working towards similar goals. Both see a near-future in which electricity generation and storage is distributed across households and businesses, and an energy industry where we can intelligently use EVs and renewable energy to meet our energy needs.

Image Source: CC license via Flickr

The post LO3 Energy and eMotorWerks Combine EVs with Renewable Microgrids appeared first on Solar Tribune.

With more homeowners installing solar in 2018 than ever before – a single quarter of 2018 beat out the entire previous year – are we seeing the turning point for energy storage?

Battery Deployment Enjoys 3x YOY Growth in Q3 2018

Storage installations in Q3 of 2018 continued to grow and for the second quarter, YOY growth tripled, despite dropping 15% under the previous quarter.

According to Wood Mackenzie’s 2018 Q4 Energy Storage Monitor, the U.S. installed 136 MWh of energy storage in Q3 2018, with California leading the way, followed by Hawaii. This is down from Q2’s 160 MWh, but as you can see in the chart below, still miles ahead of 2017 Q3.

Energy Storage Deployment in the US (2013 – Q3 2018)

Source: Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables/ESA U.S. energy storage monitor

Of that 136 MWh, behind-the-meter installations (BTM, which is customer-sited residential and commercial installations) accounted for 60%, or 82 MWh. That’s equal to over half of 2017’s entire BTM storage deployment – all within a single quarter.

Of those BTM installs, residential installations accounted for over 50% (or about 47 MWh) of that. For a bit of perspective, Tesla Powerwalls can store 13.5 kWh (or 0.0135 MWh) of electricity, so 47 MWh is equivalent to about 3,481 of them.

GTM, which formerly published the reports above, foresaw this huge uptick in 2017, with GTM Research director Ravi Manghani  saying, “We’re going to have to strike the word ‘nascent’ from our vocabularies when describing the U.S. energy storage market.”

Once all the numbers are in, GTM actually expects 2018 to see over 1,000 MWh of storage deployment – obviously a record-setting number – with residential installations to hit that number by 2023.

California and Hawaii Continue to Lead in Installations

California and Hawaii continue to lead the way in terms of cumulative storage capacity from residential systems. California leads the pack by far, outpacing Hawaii and the next four states combined. In fact, beyond California and Hawaii, most utilities reported a pittance of residential energy storage.

In 2017 (the last year for which information is available), the EIA reported that the next four states with the most residential storage see between just 0.19 and 0.39 MWh. To put that into more concrete terms, that’s equivalent to 14 and 28 Tesla Powerwalls.

Source: Data from US Energy Information Administration, graphic by Solar Tribune

With their high electricity costs and focus on renewables, it’s no surprise that California and Hawaii take first and second place. Since 2016, though, storage companies have pushed into new territories across the US, as utility prices rise, battery prices fall, and more states and utilities pass regulations and/or incentives to encourage storage adoption.

Falling Prices, New Incentives, and Changing Regulations Key to Growth

With lithium-ion accounting for over 90% of all energy storage in the U.S., the technology’s falling cost is a key component in the storage industry’s growth. In 2020, lithium-ion battery packs cost $1,000 per kWh, according to the National Renewable Energy Lab. In 2017, that number had dropped to just $209 per kWh, a 79% price drop. They further estimate that prices will continue to drop, reaching $70 per kWh by 2030.

Beyond falling costs, new state-level incentives and regulations designed to encourage residential and commercial energy storage have accelerated the storage market.

As of 2018, twenty-nine states have adopted Renewable Portfolio Standards (or RPSs) mandating utilities source a certain percentage of electricity sold from renewable sources. On top of that, five states have passed mandates specifically for energy storage:

• California: Adopted the first storage mandate in 2014, which legislators have since updated to 1.8 GW (1.3 GW by 2025).
• Oregon: In 2015, the state passed mandates that their two largest utilities, PGE and PacifiCorp must each set up 5 MWh of energy storage by 2020.
• New York: In 2018, Governor Cuomo signed into law storage mandates of 1.5 GW by 2025.
• New Jersey: 2 GW by 2030
• Massachusetts: 200 MWh by 2020

Beyond mandates, several states have also passed regulations to ease the installation process or increase energy storage’s value proposition:

• California: Enacted A.B. 546 in 2017 to streamline storage permitting
• Florida: Utility JEA approved an incentive for energy storage and new net metering regulations
• Vermont: Through their Bring Your Own Device program, utility Green Mountain Power began a program offering bill credits to residential customers who allow GMP to pull electricity from the homeowner’s energy storage systems during times of peak usage.
• Arizona: Salt River Project launched the Consumer Storage Incentive Program, offering rebates of $150 per kWh for residential Li-ion battery systems
• Colorado: Passed S.B. 18-009 to streamline and reduce barriers to storage interconnection
• New York: NYSERDA, CUNY, and DNV-GL published interconnection guidelines for outdoor Li-ion storage in NYC
• Virginia: In 2017, the state amended the Virginia Solar Energy Development Authority to include energy storage. In early 2018, Virginia passed S.B. 966 requiring utilities establish energy storage pilot programs to run until 2023.

While we haven’t yet seen the positive effects, all of these policies and incentives set up a solid foundation for the growth of energy storage in the next few years.

Battery Installations Grow Despite Drop in Residential Solar

As we’ve seen, more and more homeowners are deciding to install storage with their solar installations, despite a drop in the total number of households going solar.

And despite Tesla pulling back on growth to refocus on profitability, both they and Sunrun are reporting record quantities of energy storage. Tesla has installed over 1,000 MWh of storage cumulatively, with Sunrun reporting in Q1 2018 that 20% of all their California customers chose to install storage with their solar installation.

While just 1% of all residential solar installations included storage in 2017, Wood Mackenzie expects that by 2024, 24% of distributed solar will include storage.

Some might call 2018 the year of energy storage, but even with this growth, deployment is still localized to just a few key areas that see high utility prices and storage-friendly policies. To continue this growth trajectory, other states will need the example set by the states listed above. Just a decade ago, the solar industry was at the same place, teetering on the verge of an explosion. With the storage landscape changing so deeply in 2018, hopefully we’ll see the positive effects in the next few years.

Image Source: Tesla Press Kit

The post Was 2018 the Year of the Home Battery? appeared first on Solar Tribune.

Arizona Voters Say No to 50% RPS Goal

At the November polls, Arizona voters overwhelming voted down Proposition 127, which would’ve created a constitutional amendment to increase the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) goals, requiring utilities to purchase or generate 50% of their electricity from renewable energy sources by 2030. As of 2018, Arizona already has an RPS goal of 15% renewable by 2025, fairly typical for western states, so Prop 127 would’ve pushed the utilities into overdrive while attempting to meet those 2030 goals.

The proposition was supported by the local Sierra Club and a handful of other organizations, and was initiated and mainly funded by the non-profit NextGen Climate Action, founded by California billionaire Tom Steyer and which provided over $22 million to the Arizona cause.

Considering the tenuous relationship Arizona utilities have had with solar energy in the past, it’s no surprise that both sides spent millions on the initiative. In fact, Prop 127 was the most expensive ballot measure in Arizona history, with Pinnacle West Capital – the company that owns APS, the largest utility in the state – spending almost $30 million in opposition to the bill.

Opponents argued the proposition, forced on Arizona by out-of-state political interests, could lead to higher customer bills. Proponents, however, argued the higher goals would lead to a cleaner environment and stronger local economy as solar costs continue to lower and the industry grows.

In a November press release after the bill was defeated, APS called the measure ‘ill-conceived’, with Chairman and CEO Don Brandt noting:

The campaign is over, but we want to continue the conversation with Arizonans about clean energy and identify specific opportunities for APS to build energy infrastructure that will position Arizona for the future.

APS has come out in favor of a different clean energy goal, proposed by the Arizona Corporation Commission. This plan creates a target of 80% clean energy, including nuclear power, by 2050. One of APS’ issues with Proposition 127 was that it didn’t allow nuclear energy to meet the RPS goals and APS feared they would’ve had to shut down their Palo Verde nuclear generator, which accounts for about 25% of the utility’s total generation. The utility claimed the defeated proposition was too constraining and simply not designed for Arizona’s specific needs.

Nevada Says Yes to RPS Goals, No to Deregulation

In Nevada, Steyer’s NextGen Climate Action also funded the inclusion of a similar measure on the ballot, Question 6. Under this proposal, Nevada will increase their RPS mandate from the current 25% by 2025 to 50% by 2030, the same as proposed in Arizona.

Unlike in Arizona, Nevada voters actually passed this measure, with 59% of voters approving. Proposed constitutional amendments, however, need to be approved in two separate elections before becoming law, so Question 6 will need to be approved in the 2020 election again. Exactly how that will go is anyone’s guess, but it’s a necessary – and promising – first step.

Nevadans also voted on another energy-related bill, Question 3, though this one was stopped in its tracks, with 67% of voters in opposition. Question 3 asked voters whether they were in favor of breaking apart Nevada utilities’ monopoly on electricity generation in the state and replacing it with a competitive electricity market, known as a deregulated electricity market and similar to Texas, Illinois, Ohio, and 16 other states. The map below, from the 2016 NREL report linked to previously, highlights the states that allow most energy consumers to choose their electricity provider.

Image via NREL, 2016

Nevada utilities currently hold a monopoly on both the generation of electricity as well as the distribution of that electricity to homes and businesses. If voters had approved Question 3, the state would’ve ended utilities’ monopoly on electricity generation, thereby allowing homeowners and businesses to choose their electricity provider. Utilities however would’ve held on to their monopoly on distribution, retaining ownership of the infrastructure as well as the responsibility to move that electricity to consumers.

While not specifically concerning clean energy, proponents argued that deregulating the electricity market gives consumers greater options in regards to their energy, giving them the ability to purchase clean energy if they so choose.

Voters’ apparent flip-flop isn’t too surprising. While voters initially approved the bill in 2016, Nevada’s unique laws require a 2^nd vote to amend the state constitution. Approving a constitutional amendment the first time is a low-risk situation. The second go-around though, the stakes are higher and NV Energy, the state’s biggest electric utility, spent $62 million campaigning against the bill. The bills biggest supporters, Data center Switch and Las Vegas Sands, on the other hand, jointly provided a substantial, but underwhelming, $32 million.

Carbon Fee Voted Down in Washington

Image via Pexels

Moving to the Pacific Northwest, voters in Washington once again voted down a clean energy bill on the November ballot. Initiative 1631 would’ve placed a fee on carbon emissions from both large-scale carbon emitters as well as on fossil fuels and electricity generated or brought into the state.

Proponents of the measure included Bill Gates and Washington governor Jay Inslee, who voiced his support during the scourge of wildfires wreaking havoc on the state’s air quality in the summer of 2018:

Today, this smoke be opaque. But when it comes to children’s health, it has made something very clear, and that is the state of Washington needs to pass this clean air initiative, so these children can breathe clean air. They deserve that. The significance of this is profound.

That support wasn’t enough though, and 57% of voters voted against the initiative.

The fee would’ve started at $15 per metric ton in 2020, increasing by $2/ton each year until greenhouse gas reduction goals were met in 2035. A handful of states have already proposed carbon taxes, including Maryland, New York, Vermont, and Maine, but so far none have yet been approved.

This is actually the 2^nd carbon tax Washington voters have voted down, defeating a similar initiative in 2016. Having voted down a carbon tax on both of the last two ballots, Washington voters clearly aren’t ready for a carbon tax yet, though with the opposition – led by the Western States Petroleum Association – spending $31 million on the cause, about twice as much as supporters’ $15 million, it’s no surprise the measure didn’t pass.

Things look a bit rosier on the federal level though, as Democrats now control the House and a handful, like Sean Casten in Illinois, specifically campaigned on a clean energy and emissions reduction platform. And even though our carbon emissions have actually continued to decrease despite President Trump attempting to roll back environmental policies, support for these policies on the federal level is still necessary to push clean energy forward in the United States. With this new majority in the House, hopefully we’ll see new environmental and clean energy legislation in the near future.

Image Credits: CC license via Pexels: 1, 2

The post Midterm Elections Reveal Mixed Results for Clean Energy appeared first on Solar Tribune.

As of September 2018, there is now 58.3 GW of solar installed in the U.S., with the vast majority –23GW – installed in California alone. Government initiatives like the federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC) as well as state-led Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), and the ensuing utility incentives, opened the doors for this huge influx, spurred on by ever-decreasing technology and installation costs.

Thanks to this jaw-dropping increase in installations, solar and other renewables have accounted for 28% of all California electricity in 2018, as of this writing. And in fact, from March to August of this year, at max production, solar alone briefly made up over 40% of total production – a feat few would’ve believed possible just 10 years ago.

What Is the Duck Curve?

The Duck Curve is a cutesy name for a logistical problem suffered by utilities, brought on by the ever-growing number of solar installations. Take a look at the graph below, and you’ll notice a similarity to an eponymous waterfowl. Each line represents the average net load (the sum of all electricity currently consumed) in California over a 24-hour period.

Why do the lines continually become lower and lower, year after year? That’s new solar installations coming online. And as solar generation increases every year, utilities’ electrical load actually decreases, since homeowners and businesses are relying on their own solar installation – not the utility. You’ll see that load is lowest around 1 to 2 PM, when the sun is highest in the sky and solar installations are pumping out max electricity.

Courtesy CAISO 2013

As the sun begins to set, solar production begins to wane. At the same time, everyone is arriving home from work, doing laundry, turning on lights and water heaters, and watching TV. Electricity usage skyrockets, with peak usage right around 6 PM. These two events – solar production ceasing for the day and everyone getting home – causes the steep ramp captured in the image above.

In the course of those three hours, utilities must quickly ramp up production to meet that ‘peak demand’. And therein lies the issue.

Utilities Can’t Ramp Up Production Quickly Enough

Thanks to the continuing popularity of residential and commercial solar, the Duck Curve has grown at a rate far faster than originally estimated, with California ISO (CAISO) reporting that electrical load fell to just 11,663 MW on May 15, 2016, a number they weren’t expecting to see until four years later in 2020. A few months before that, they reported a 3-hour ramp of 10,892 MW.

To help put that number in perspective, consider that the average-sized residential installation is 5.7kW according to NREL, so 10,892 MW is equivalent to 1.9 million average residential solar installations.

This situation creates major headaches for utilities, as they have to ramp up huge quantities of electricity production in a very short period of time. That might sound like simply a mild annoyance, but it’s anything but, thanks to the scale of the issue and the importance of electricity in our day-to-day lives. In fact, many in the industry have noted the Duck Curve as solar’s greatest challenge.

Utilities’ conventional generation mix simply can’t handle these new challenges. Power plants, beyond peaker plants designed to meet short bursts of high demand and which are very expensive to run, simply weren’t designed to cycle on and off throughout the day. Doing so increases maintenance and wears out equipment faster, eating into the bottom line.

Storage and Flexibility Possible Solutions to the Duck Curve

Utilities and industry organizations like CAISO and the Regulatory Assistance Project have proffered various solutions to the issue over the years and utilities across the western states have implemented many of them.

The easiest solution? How about simply turning solar off? For a 2014 report, NREL found that utilities across the U.S. routinely curtail small amounts of wind and solar to prevent oversupply and/or transmission issues, with HECO in solar-heavy Hawaii specifically curtailing solar production to prevent oversupply during low load periods, i.e. during the belly of the duck.

While curtailment certainly solves the problem, it’s less than ideal, as it removes clean energy from the generation mix and disrupts the financial viability of the installation.

Utilicast, an energy consultancy, warns in their white paper A Market Solution to the Duck Curve that

“It should be noted that the problem is not how to flatten the curve, but rather how to deal with it. The “duck curve” will never go away. In fact the belly of the curve will grow larger as renewables become a greater and greater part of the resource mix.”

A better solution is one that works with, instead of against, the renewable assets. With energy storage continually dropping in price, batteries are becoming a viable solution to the issue. In summer 2018, Arizona Public Service issued an RFP  for construction of 106 MW of battery storage to add to its solar power plant, with the plan of adding 500 MW of energy storage in the next 15 years. The batteries will store solar electricity to be used later during peak time.

Likely one of the most promising solutions to the Duck Curve is incorporating what are known as ‘flexible power plants’ into utilities’ generation mix. Unlike conventional power plants, these plants are able to repeatedly cycle on and off throughout the day, and ramp up more quickly than conventional plants.

While welcomed in solar-heavy Germany, the U.S. is a different playing field. Many US-based power plants are owned by private third-parties instead of utilities, so questions still remain on the long-term economic feasibility of this tactic, as owners would see no real economic benefit from decreasing production, unless new government-backed legislation or incentives are adopted.

Why Is It Important?

You might be wondering why all this even matters to an Average Joe. Maybe you’re thinking that it’s the utilities’ problem, not yours. However, if you value moving towards a world filled with clean energy, it’s not just utilities’ problem. It’s a challenge for all of us.

In the 10 years since NREL first noted the issue, the Duck Curve, in their own words, has

“become an emblem of the challenges faced by power system operators when integrating variable renewables on the grid.”

The fact that the Duck Curve is even a problem is a good sign. It means we’re doing something right. These are simply growing pains to a greener economy – but hopefully we’ll figure it out soon.

Image Credits: CC license via Flickr and Courtesy CAISO

The post The Duck Curve: Utilities’ Growing Challenge to Solar Adoption appeared first on Solar Tribune.