When the National Football League joined the Green Sports Alliance in 2018, it did so with the intent to support and grow sustainability initiatives across the whole league. The Carolina Panthers jumped at the opportunity right away, and with POWERHOME Solar, one of the nation’s fastest growing solar companies, located in their backyard, solar energy was the obvious place to start.

Photo source: POWERHOME Solar

In March 2019, POWERHOME Solar began the process of installing solar panels on Bank of America Stadium to feed into the venue’s renewable energy goals and join the ranks of other ‘green’ stadiums across the league.

I had the pleasure of chatting with POWERHOME Solar about this exciting partnership and their role in bringing the Panthers into the clean energy mix.

POWERHOME Solar Background

Matt Chester: Can you give a little background on POWERHOME Solar as a company? When was it formed, how big has it grown, and what’s the guiding mission?

POWERHOME Solar: Jayson Waller is a serial entrepreneur and has successfully created multiple businesses, including ISI Alarms NC Inc. and Power Home Technologies (PHT). ISI earned $12 million in sales annually in less than eight years while PHT achieved $30 million sales annually in just three years.

Jayson launched his latest venture, POWERHOME Solar, in 2015. He is the founder and CEO. The company eclipsed $100 million in sales in 2018 and has grown to service customers in seven states with nearly 700 employees. POWERHOME is currently ranked as the number 12 residential solar contractor in the nation according to Solar Power World.

The company’s goal is to help customers achieve energy independence by selling renewable energy at prices below utility rates.

Bank of America Partnership

MC: Will there be any kind of educational resources for fans attending the games to learn about solar panels, their benefits, and how to get started on installations at their home?

PS: POWERHOME Solar has activation teams in place outside of the stadium at each home game to help educate fans about solar energy benefits and generate sales leads. Additionally, POWERHOME signage can be found within the stadium.

MC: How did the partnership with Bank of America Stadium come together?

PS: Jayson also oversees POWERHOME Solar’s partnerships with professional sports teams, including the Carolina Panthers, Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, and Pittsburgh Steelers, as well as with Duke University. The partnerships help each entity reduce dependence on grid energy and decrease their carbon footprints.

These strategic partnerships also help raise consumer awareness about the features and benefits of solar energy, creating a ripple effect for potential customers throughout North Carolina. POWERHOME is based in the Charlotte, North Carolina area and is a short drive to Bank of America Stadium. It made sense to see if we could work with the team closest to our backyard.

As a part of the deal, we also shot a commercial where the team’s Pro Bowl Center, Ryan Kalil (who retired at the end of the 2018 season), served as director. You can see the 90-second cut of the commercial on YouTube, and we also published a behind-the-scenes article about the shoot.

Photo source: POWERHOME Solar

Panel Specifics

MC: Can you tell me more about the panels installed? And how long did installation take?

PS: Our contracts with stadiums don’t allow for the disclosure of detailed information, but POWERHOME installs monocrystalline silicon solar panels from Silfab, based in Bellingham, Washington. The panels used have a power production warranty of 30 years, meaning that the panel provider will guarantee the panels will function at 80% of the original capacity at the end of 30 years. A POWERHOME Solar panel will generate about 36 kilowatthours per month.

The Bank of America installation took four days to complete.

MC: What are some unique aspects of Bank of America Stadium that had to be taken into account when designing this solar system?

PS: We placed the solar panels on the top of entrance archways, which is a different challenge from typical commercial buildings that have flat roofs. But our team was up for the challenge of installing panels on this curved surface, and they look great!

Photo source: POWERHOME Solar

Solar Trends

MC: Bank of America is the third NFL facility to use POWERHOME– can you tell me about the other two? What makes sports facilities primed to harness the benefits of solar power?

PS: We also installed solar panels for the Cleveland Browns at FirstEnergy Stadium and for the Detroit Lions on the parking garage at Ford Field, as well as the team training facility in Allen Park, Michigan.

Sports franchises in general have high energy costs for their stadiums, and it only makes sense for those franchises to try and offset some of their power bills with clean, renewable energy. On top of that, these franchises can own a portion of their power for the long haul. These teams’ responsiveness to hearing and heeding the benefits of clean energy are a benefit to all.

MC: North Carolina has become a national leader when it comes to solar generation– what about the state has made it embrace solar so thoroughly? How do Bank of America Stadium and the Carolina Panthers fit into that?

PS: North Carolina is a great state for solar because of the abundant sunshine available in the southeastern U.S. and state-based legislation that has embraced solar. And with costs to install solar having gone down more than 70% since 2010, homeowners and business owners have increasingly become aware of the benefits of going solar at their homes and places of business. When the financials behind going solar become as apparent as the value that using clean energy brings, it becomes a no-brainer for customers on multiple levels.

For more information on POWERHOME Solar, visit their website.

About the author: Matt Chester is an energy analyst in Washington DC, studied engineering and science & technology policy at the University of Virginia, and operates the Chester Energy and Policy blog and website to share news, insights, and advice in the fields of energy policy, energy technology, and more. For more quick hits in addition to posts on this blog, follow him on Twitter @ChesterEnergy.

The post Solar Power Keeps Pounding with Panels Installed on Bank of America Stadium 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 the American solar industry waits anxiously to see if President Trump levies a tariff on Chinese solar panels, new solar installations continue to go up at a steady pace. Despite uncertainty on how the trade decision may effect panel prices in the years to come, both large-scale solar farms and indie rooftop solar projects just keep chugging along. One segment of the solar market that has been growing steadily is among lower-income residents and the organizations that address their needs. Once considered a luxury item for environmentally-conscious early adopters, more and more people in lower income brackets are discovering opportunities to take advantage of solar energy’s benefits, and cash-strapped charities are reducing their overhead costs through new solar programs.

NAACP Celebrates MLK Day with launch of National Solar Equity Initiative

In observance of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday and National Day of Service, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)  launched its new partnership, the Solar Equity Initiative in Los Angeles at The Jenesse Center, the headquarters for a nationally recognized non-profit domestic violence prevention and intervention organization. Lifetime financial savings for the Jenesse Center are estimated to be approximately $48,825, which will enable Jenesse to infuse more funds into continuing its 35 years of services.

According to the NAACP, the project is a civil rights economic and environmental justice initiative designed to connect 30+ communities of color and low-income communities across the nation with solar energy infrastructure for homes and community centers, as well as skills training for solar jobs, all supported by strengthened solar equity policies. The NAACP has made a year-long commitment to provide solar job skills training to 100 individuals, installation of solar panels on 20 households and ten community centers, and strengthen equity in solar access policies in at least five states across the country.

“Underserved communities cannot be left behind in a clean energy transition,” said NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson. “Clean energy is a fundamental civil right which must be available to all, within the framework of a just transition.”

Along with the NAACP, partners in the Solar Equity Initiative include GRID Alternatives, the Solar Energy Industries Association, Sunrun, United Methodist Women, Vote Solar, and others.

photo: Everyday Energy

New California Program for Low-Income Solar

According to NextCity.org, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has approved the creation of the Solar on Multifamily Affordable Housing (SOMAH) program, which will allocate $1 billion for rooftop solar installation on low-income homes over the next ten years. Funds will be drawn from a statewide greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program and will provide $100 million in annual solar installation incentives for the owners of affordable multifamily buildings.

Framework for the program was created by the state legislature in 2015 and is now ready for implementation. SOMAH was designed to help California meet its climate goals, help reduce energy bills for low-income residents and ensure that green energy infrastructure isn’t just for the wealthy.

A high credit score is no longer a prerequisite for solar

A recent Bloomberg article showcases a company that is achieving major gains in the solar installation market by taking on new customers that other solar installers might reject. PosiGen LLC works with lower-income customers that other companies reject, but they have had just 47 defaults out of almost 13,000 installations. At a default rate of only 0.4 percent, PosiGens low-income customers have a track record that compares positively to other companies that only serve upper-income clients.

“We want the people on disability, the people living paycheck to paycheck,” Executive Officer Thomas Neyhart told Bloomberg. “They’re the ones who can benefit the most from $50 off their monthly utility bill.” Neyhart expects to add as many as 3,000 homes this year.

PosiGen captured 80 percent of Louisiana’s rooftop solar market by helping rebuild blighted parts of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The firm has since expanded to Connecticut, Minnesota and New Jersey.

New Hampshire Nonprofit launches Solar Shares

Puget Sound Energy funds solar projects for local charities

Puget Sound Energy (PSE) announced recently that they will be giving five organizations in its service area the gift of solar energy. The recipients are organizations that are either food distribution centers or emergency warming shelters in their respective communities.

PSE is donating $350,000 to install solar panels at Northwest Harvest in Kent, Community Action of Skagit County, Island Senior Resources, Salvation Army Bremerton and the Upper Kittitas County Senior Center. All five projects will be installed by June.

“Whether it’s providing food or emergency shelter, the organizations that were selected have a history of helping people in their communities, which is aligned with what’s important to PSE,” said Bob Stolarski, PSE director of Customer Energy Management & Renewables. “We’re excited that funding these solar projects will help reduce the energy costs for our recipients, so they can put more money towards supporting their core mission while helping to reduce their carbon footprint.”

The grants will allow each organization to meet at least 10 percent of their load with solar energy. Not only will these organizations receive energy savings but eight years of renewable energy production incentive payments from the state.

“Northwest Harvest is very appreciative of this grant from PSE,” said Thomas Reynolds, Northwest Harvest’s CEO. “We know that for every dollar we can save in keeping our lights on and our food cold, is an extra dollar that goes toward helping feed those in our community who are suffering from hunger.”

A little solar power is a big improvement for Berkeley homeless

Sam Clune was a mortgage broker until he lost his home in Albany, New York, in 2009. He migrated to California in a camper outfitted with solar panels, until he lost the van due to expired smog permits. Now Clune lives in a homeless camp in Aquatic Park in Berkeley. Despite the difficult circumstances, Clune has used his knowledge of solar tech to help his fellow homeless residents.

Sam Clune’s dog, Trouble, watches him clean the solar panels he installed at his homeless camp, Thursday, Dec. 21, 2017, in Emeryville, Calif. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

According to the San Jose Mercury News, Clune has installed donated solar panels at three different homeless encampments in Berkeley.

“It allows you to charge your phone and your computer,” Clune said of the 915-watt setup at Aquatic Park, consisting of three solar panels, a controller, four golf cart batteries and lots of wiring — “Here every tent has an extension cord running to it,” he said.

“The big difference is not what you can do with electricity. It’s what you do not have to do,” Clune said. “Instead of sitting in a coffee shop for three hours a day charging stuff, building your whole day around it, we can now accomplish something else with our day.”

Over at the Adeline Street camp, resident Karma Bear seconded Clune’s observation:

“Instead of going to the library, where there are 90 homeless people trying to charge their phones at one time, we can charge up as many as we need here, up to 10 or 12 a day,” Bear said.

By providing electricity for charging devices, Clune is helping residents to get access to employment information, health resources, and emergency services.

The post New Solar Opportunities Are Benefiting Lower-Income Families appeared first on Solar Tribune.

San Diego was the leader of the entire Top 20, with 303MW (DC) of total solar PV installed, and Los Angeles placed second at 267MW (DC). (Note: all values in this article are rounded to whole numbers.) The other four California cities on the list, from most solar installed to least, are San Jose (4th) with 174MW (DC), San Francisco (11th) with 46MW (DC), Sacramento (13th) with 40MW (DC) and Riverside (15th) with 32MW (DC). This means that more than a quarter of the entire Top 20 list consists of California metropolitan areas.

San Diego was also second in rank among the 20 cities in per capita solar PV installed in 2016: 218W (DC) per person. Only Honolulu – which was third in total solar PV installed – ranked higher per capita. San Jose had 169W (DC) of installed solar per person (3rd place) in 2016; Sacramento had 81W (DC) per person (10th place); and Los Angeles 67W (DC) per person (15th place). San Francisco, in 17th place in installed solar per capita (54W (DC) per person) in 2016 joined, for the first time, the ranks of “Solar Stars”: that is, those cities with 50 or more watts of installed solar PV per person. Riverside saw the fastest rise over a two-year period in the per capita rankings, from 20th place in 2014 to 8th place in 2016 (with 99W (DC) per person).

The report, observing that “solar power is an American success story,” pointed out that the 20 cities in the list – which represent just one-tenth of one percent of U.S. land area – have nearly 2GW of solar PV capacity, almost as much as the total solar capacity of the U.S. less than seven years ago, in late 2010. The document also maintained that San Diego has, despite its solar leadership, developed less than 14 percent of its small building solar energy potential, so there’s still enormous room for growth. The city shouldn’t feel too bad, however: the majority of cities which the report cited have developed less than two percent of their solar potential.

Michelle Kinman, Clean Energy Advocate for the Environment California Research & Policy Center, was quoted in this article as saying, “San Diego has so much more untapped solar potential and we encourage city leaders to continue to embrace a big vision for solar on rooftops throughout the city.”

San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer said about the new report, “San Diego is setting the standard for other cities across the country when it comes to protecting our environment and creating a cleaner future. This new ranking is a testament to the many San Diego residents and businesses harnessing our natural resources as we march toward our goal of using 100 percent renewable energy throughout the city.”

The document had a number of observations and recommendations on the subject of solar in cities. The report stressed that those cities (and the states in which they are situated) that have adopted strong policies, such as net metering, for compensating solar customers for the energy they export to the grid are those most likely to appear on the list. It mentioned favorably the fact that San Francisco is the first major city in the nation to require that solar energy systems be installed during the construction of new buildings, and noted approvingly that the California government was considering expanding that policy to the entire state (see our article from February here). According to this article, “It is much easier and cheaper to install systems when the structure is designed for their inclusion and when there is already equipment on-site.”

Among the proposals that the report suggested to allow cities to reach their full solar potential were: a) local government should implement programs and policies that promote the rapid expansion of solar, b) solar access to all residents, including low-income residents, should be expanded, c) solar energy systems should be installed on government buildings, and d) state and federal officials and investor-owned utilities should be urged to facilitate the growth of solar energy.

The post Six Cities, Led by San Diego, Make California the Winner in Solar Survey appeared first on Solar Tribune.

As a SDG&E press release asserts, the facility “will provide reliable energy when customers need it most, and maximize the use of renewable resources such as solar and wind.” Josh Gerber, Project Director at SDG&E, said at the launching of the installation, “On a day [like this], which is nice and sunny, but also cool, demands for energy in the middle of the day aren’t very high but production is. So we’d be storing solar in the day and releasing it at 6:00–7:00 tonight after everyone’s home from work and school and home with their families. It’s a tool that we can use to make the integration of solar and wind much more reliable and better matched to the times when our customers need it most.”

Unusually, the project took only about six months to come online, rather than the customary timeline of a year or more. In October 2015, a methane leak occurred at the Aliso Canyon gas storage facility outside Los Angeles, considered the worst such leak in U.S. history. The facility was shut down, which reduced fuel supplies for area power plants. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) responded by ordering Southern California investor-owned utilities (IOUs) to fast-track additional energy storage options to maintain energy reliability. As it happened, a previous CPUC order compelled the utility to procure 165 MW of energy storage in its service territory by 2020. Thus, SDG&E was already looking into energy storage when the order that resulted from the methane leak was issued.

“We had gone through an evaluation of firm bids from AES and others and that actually started about 10 days before the [Aliso Canyon] resolution came out,” Randy Nicholson, SDG&E’s policy manager for advanced technology, said. “So we were getting to know each other really well when the resolution hit and that allowed us to move really quickly.”

The agreement between SDG&E and AES was reached in August 2016. However, when the online publication Utility Dive visited the site in October 2016, it was little more than an empty lot adjacent to a substation with some wooden frames constructed on it. By mid-November, however, construction was well underway at Escondido, and the site was completely ready for the launch in late February. The gas crisis and the speedy installation of the Escondido facility, according to some executives, may help prove that energy storage can serve the needs of the power system, potentially replacing natural gas peaker plants.

“It’s a little too early to tell if storage is going to replace all peakers going forward,” Nicholson said. “This project in particular is going to help us answer that question, to determine whether, going forward, if you want to start moving the mix in another direction.”

Most utility-scale batteries in the U.S. are utilized for shorter storage functions, such as frequency response. Brian Perusse, vice president for international market development at AES, said that AES perceives this project as an “inflection point,” not just for bigger batteries, but for ones of long duration, four to six hours, like the ones at Escondido.

Said Perusse, “A lot of people have been saying the same thing… it’s a four to six hour duration product to help serve the peak and improve reliability and it’s the first project of its size. You said four hours is coming? It’s here. So that’s really changed.”

Photo by SDG&E. 

The post World’s Largest Lithium-Ion Storage Facility in San Diego County May Help Solar Power appeared first on Solar Tribune.

The proposal is modeled on a San Francisco ordinance that Wiener introduced last year, when he was a member of the city’s Board of Supervisors. (Three other California cities currently require solar on new buildings: Lancaster, Sebastopol and Santa Monica.) If S.B. 71 passes, the law would make California the first state in the nation to require solar power on the roofs of all new (non-skyscraper) buildings. California is committed to cutting emissions by 2030 to 40 percent below 1990s levels, as well as obtaining half of its energy from renewable sources. California remains the leading state for solar in the nation: this article claims that it became the first state ever to add more than 1GW of utility-scale PV solar power in a single fiscal quarter, in the third quarter of 2016.

There has been speculation that the bill might face more resistance in Sacramento than did the San Francisco ordinance, which passed the Board of Supervisors unanimously. Anonymous sources for this article worried that, if the bill passed, the cost of adding solar might be passed along to buyers in California’s housing market, which is already two-and-a-half times more expensive than the national average. This added cost, they reasoned, could price people in low-income areas out of the market entirely.

However, Wiener, who serves on the Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee in the state senate, denies that there is a cost problem. Solar power, he said, is “not a significant cost. It either pays for itself over time or you don’t even have to own the panels. You can have a third party come in and own and maintain the panels. That’s why we got little pushback from the development community in San Francisco [for the original ordinance].”

An article by investment website Motley Fool concurs with this view: “Mandating solar on new buildings would be a huge boost for the solar industry, but it would have an ancillary benefit of being much cheaper than solar through traditional sales channels… [Knowing] that new buildings have to have solar would help lower sales costs, and having the cost of solar rolled into a mortgage would lower financing costs, as well. The result should be a combination of lower costs for solar buyers and/or higher margins for installers.”

Sarah Rose, CEO of the California League of Conservation Voters, said: “President-elect Trump has made it clear he will work to roll back the national progress we’ve made on clean power. Now is the time for California to lead on expanding usage of solar power.”

“We must move past the era of dirty power that threatens our natural world and endangers everyone who lives on this planet,” said Wiener. “Requiring solar on new rooftops will keep California on an aggressive path towards a clean energy future and continue our fight against climate change.”

The post San Francisco Solar Roof Law May Spread to All of California appeared first on Solar Tribune.

Depending on the purchaser’s requirements, the container may include not only conventional farm implements, but weather tracking devices, batteries, seedlings, high-efficiency LED lighting, internal cold storage and a mobile charging area. Each unit is capable of producing crops for one hectare of land (2.47 acres), which can supply food for as many as 150 people. The kits are modular and can easily be customized, depending on the ecology of the particular area and the purpose of the farm (e.g., a school, a hospital, a private landowner). Everything is powered by solar, generating up to 3kW. This is capable of powering a water pump for drip irrigation, a WiFi system for remote monitoring and the farm equipment itself. Since 10 high-efficiency solar modules, inverters, a transformer and a 3000-watt backup generator are included with the kit, the farm can function completely off the electric grid.

Three types of training materials are also included on the following topics: 1) sustainable farming basics (e.g., crop rotation and composting), prepared with the assistance of Dr. Miguel Altieri, a professor of Agroecology at the University of California at Berkeley; 2) technological help for the accompanying equipment, and how to maintain and troubleshoot it; and 3) the enterprise of farming, including how to maximize the income generated from the farm. Kits cost within the range of $50,000 – 60,000 per unit, depending on the complexity of the proposed system.

DeCarli first worked with her future partner in the enterprise, Scott Thompson, when both were assigned to a project that was to use shipping containers as infrastructure for a youth sports and education center in Kenya. When that plan fell through, they applied the shipping container concept to the problem of local food insecurity. The company’s website states, “We sought the advice of some of the best minds in agriculture, biodiversity, irrigation, sustainable energy, and international development. We spoke with farmers, women, governments and some of the largest aid providers in the world.” DeCarli, in an interview, said, “We want to develop this as a rapid response transitional food production system.”

Farm from a Box’s partners, which DeCarli in a podcast interview called her “superheroes,” include Netafim, SMA, Cisco, Grundfos, Sierra Wireless and Trojan Battery Company. She particularly praised SMA, for providing the inverters, and Trojan, as four Trojan AGM batteries serve as the system’s energy storage solution.

Marko Wittich, SMA executive vice president of sales for the Americas region, said, “SMA is proud to partner with a company whose goal is to bring independence to communities around the globe by providing the tools they need to sustain themselves, both nutritionally and financially.”

The organization’s pilot project, which is nicknamed, logically, “Adam,” is located at Shone Farm, part of Santa Rosa Junior College in Sonoma County. DeCarli claims that Shone Farm is “more efficient than we had even planned” with high production output. The organization has additional test farms in California and a veteran-partnered site in Virginia, as well as a number of other potential sites lined up outside the U.S. DeCarli hopes to sell the concept to aid agencies and others as an alternative to food distribution.

DeCarli said, “The more that we actually localize our food production, the more that we empower ourselves within our community, to be able to grow and sustain our own crop, the better we will all be, within the states and internationally.”

The post San Francisco Startup Offers Solar-Powered Farm Out of a Box (Land Not Included) appeared first on Solar Tribune.

Total costs for the project were $1.2 million, which required about three months to complete. 1,558 Hyundai 310-watt solar modules with 14 SMA inverters comprise the system, which will result in an 81% reduction in annual electricity consumed by the company, based on both past and projected consumption. Projected savings in energy costs will be approximately $155,000 in the first year.

“Our initial decision to go solar was driven primarily by our desire to be a zero-emission, low impact boatbuilder,” said MGBW President Todd Roberts. “There’s no question that solar is an economic benefit, but there are many other advantages – everything from self-reliance and sustainability to doing the right thing. We chose to do the right thing, as we have in our other lines of businesses, to continue being leaders in our community.”

MGBW performed a nationwide search for a solar provider before contracting with Baker.

Scott Williams, Baker’s Director of Commercial Solar, said, “The new solar system not only minimizes MGBW’s carbon footprint, but also provides more than $3 million in net savings over the 25-year warranted life of the solar modules. We never lose sight of how renewable energy generation provides businesses with increased cash flow – freeing up capital to give them an edge in an ever-competitive environment.”

MGBW’s new solar system will offset the equivalent in CO2 emissions from 57,002 gallons of gasoline consumed, or 540,568 pounds of coal burned, according to the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator.

MGBW has wanted to go solar for several years, but energy consumption from boat repair was at that time too low to justify the investment. However, recent increases in manufacturing and production output due to Navy and commercial contracts and facility upgrades made this the right time to go forward, according to the company.

At a ceremony on December 7, the Port of San Diego honored its waterfront tenants for sustainability practices. Seven port tenant businesses were recognized at the event with Sustainable Achievement Awards for demonstrating exemplary performance with sustainability initiatives. Marine Group Boat Works received the Renewable Energy Award for installing the solar system at its National City boatyard. MGBW’s other environmental practices include reclaiming a hundred percent of storm water runoff while eliminating any discharge into the bay, and carrying out sandblasting and painting in an enclosure where all air emissions and dust are recaptured, so they can be recycled whenever possible.

Marshall Merrifield, Chairman of the Board of Port Commissioners, said, “The Port of San Diego is grateful to all of its tenants and subtenants for participating in the Green Business Network… A special thanks goes out to the seven tenants who went above and beyond this year to increase energy efficiency, reduce water usage, decrease waste, and improve the air quality around San Diego Bay.”

Cleantech San Diego President and CEO Jason Anderson said, “The San Diego region is a smart cities leader with a widespread commitment to adopting clean technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save money. Thanks to partnerships between capable solar providers such as Baker and progressive businesses such as Marine Group Boat Works, we continue to chart a course toward a cleaner, more sustainable future for our region’s economy and environment.”

The post San Diego Boatyard Is One of First U.S. Solar Boat Builders appeared first on Solar Tribune.

The event was inspired by the currently popular “tiny house” movement. (What distinguishes tiny homes from mobile or modular homes is individualized design.) The size limit for each of the houses was 400 square feet, and all homes had to be built on wheels and be constructed within a $25,000 budget. School teams competed for $30,000 in cash and for trophies. The winner of the grand prize of $10,000 was Santa Clara University. The university also won for the Communications and Energy categories, as well as in six of the subcategories: Best Daylighting, Best Integrated Lighting, Best Interior Design, Best Kitchen Design, Best Program and Best Tour.

During the two years leading up to the event, students designed and built energy-efficient houses. All of the homes employed solar panels. An educator or other school administrator mentored each team, and a stipend of between $3,000 to $8,000 was provided. Competition categories were architectural design, livability, communication, affordability, energy efficiency and balance, appliance load, technology/electrical and mechanical systems, transportation, sustainability and documentation.

The purpose of the competition, as Brent Sloan, a solar specialist for SMUD, said, was educational. “Sometimes you learn more with a hammers and a nail,” he said, “than you do reading about hammers and nails.” A UC Berkeley student, Caroline Karman, agreed, saying that the contest “was an opportunity to put into practice what I’m learning in theory.” Another student, Tricia Tecson of Consumnes River College, said that “Our ideas… as great as they are, also have to be tangible. We also learned about collaboration.”

Different teams took different approaches to dealing with energy issues. The Sacramento State team used a separate solar thermal device to generate hot water. The Santa Clara team (the winners) built its tiny home on a rotating porch to maximize captured sunlight. Energy for the houses was saved in battery banks. This turned out to be useful on Friday, when the sky turned overcast and the houses could no longer utilize the sun’s energy.

The total space of each house was equivalent to the average bedroom of a normal home. The competition is good for the public, Sloan claimed, because it exposes them to tiny homes as a possibility. Tiny homes are increasingly popular. Concerning the reason for this popularity, Consumnes River College instructional assistant Carlos Carrasco said, “[Homeowners] don’t want to be stuck in a mortgage for 30, 40, 50 years.”

After the competition ends, each school gets to choose how its particular home will be used. Sacramento State’s entry will be utilized to teach students about sustainable building and living. Veterans will use the 238-square-foot Santa Clara University entry as a place where they can train their service dogs. The College of the Sequoias sold its home to pay for other projects.

The post Sacramento College Holds Contest for Tiny Solar Homes appeared first on Solar Tribune.

The proposal was originally suggested at the Cities Alive 2013 conference hosted in San Francisco by Green Roofs for Healthy Cities (GRHC). (GRHC is a membership-based industry association developing the green (vegetative) roof and wall industry in North America through education and advocacy.) The plan is developing in tandem with the campaign to create more solar rooftops in the city. Coincidentally, one of the city’s famous “painted ladies,” which are a set of much-photographed Victorian-era houses in Alamo Square, recently had installed on its roof a solar array by Sunrun, under a solar lease program.

“The solar requirement and the green roof requirement have always been two peas in a pod,” Wiener was quoted as saying. “They make roofs more environmentally sustainable, cities more environmentally sustainable, and take a very underutilized space to either create clean energy or help us with energy efficiency.”

Green roofs are not cheap. Jeff Joslin, director of current planning for the City Planning Department, estimates that they cost from $10 to $30 per square foot. When it rains heavily in the city, the sewage system is overwhelmed by runoff from storm drains, and waste is released into the ocean and the bay. Supporters of the legislation hope that green roofs will slow down the entry of water into the drainage system and thus help prevent runoff. According to the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR) Green Roof Task Force, living roofs, in addition to reducing stormwater runoff, can create energy savings, improve air quality and prolong the life of the roof.

“Our research has shown that greener, better roofs bring many benefits to building owners and the general public alike,” said Laura Tam, Sustainable Development Policy Director at SPUR. The California Academy of Sciences building in Golden Gate Park is currently the best-known example of a living roof in San Francisco.

Jeffrey L. Bruce, Chair of GRHC, said, “On behalf of all GRHC members and association partners, congratulations to the City of San Francisco and those who contributed to this policy. We look forward to watching San Francisco become a greener, healthier, and more resilient city.”

The post San Francisco Roofs Go Green… in More Ways Than One appeared first on Solar Tribune.

“It is easy to pledge to become one of the state’s leading solar communities,” said Mayor Rusty Bailey. “But without the commitments of the city, the utility, and the residents of Riverside taking action to make that pledge a reality, we would never have surpassed our goals this soon.”

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Riverside County, the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm is the largest of its kind on U.S. Federal lands. The 5.6-square-mile structure consists of 8 million panels, and generates enough electricity to power over 150,000 homes.

Yet, as might be expected for an expanding industry, solar power in the Riverside area is currently experiencing the stresses – and controversies – of rapid growth. What is the problem, exactly? The desert tortoise, apparently.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has put forward a new plan – the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan – to allocate about 10 million acres of public land in the California desert for conservation, recreation and clean-energy installations such as Desert Sunlight. The difficulty is with the proportions of land that the plan allocates to each of these vital goals. Conservationists not only wish to conserve those areas in which species like the desert tortoise currently inhabit, but those areas through which they might travel as climate change warms the area. In the plan, for example, more than twice the area that is currently important as habitat for the desert tortoise would be preserved for it.

However, according to clean energy developers, the area left over for development, about 388,000 acres, isn’t sufficient for future projects. It’s not that the industry wishes to develop the entire 388,000 acres. It’s that the locations of the lands designated as permissible for development are not thought to be sufficiently adaptable to meet the needs of the industry.

Both the wind and solar industries dispute the claim of the plan’s supporters that they have been granted enough acreage to generate the megawatts of power needed to meet California’s mandated renewable energy goals. Nancy Rader, executive director of the California Wind Energy Association, was quoted as saying, “We’re kind of throwing in the towel at this point… The [wind] developers have largely left California.”

At least part of the solution to this conflict between environmentalists and developers may lie with the section of east Riverside County, between Los Angeles and Phoenix, called the Chuckwalla Valley. This low-lying region is so hot and dry that the desert tortoise does not generally regard it as a desirable habitat, so conservationists are fine with developers setting up solar installations there. Joan Taylor, a conservationist, has called it a “sacrifice area for solar.”

Part of the controversy also involves the amount of private lands in California that the solar industry might be able in the future to use for development. Some environmentalists assert that the combination of public and private lands will be sufficient for the industry’s needs, while the industry itself counters that it simply doesn’t know how much private land will become available for it in the future, and thus rejects as unrealistic the environmentalists’ projections.

Karen Douglas of the California Energy Commission explained that solar developers, under the BLM’s plan, could conceivably be permitted to construct new projects on lands not specifically allocated to solar development, but this means that the approval process for those projects would not be streamlined, as would projects involving lands allocated for solar, and thus would take much longer.

The post Solar in Riverside Experiences Growing Pains appeared first on Solar Tribune.

The legally binding nature of the plan means that environmental groups could conceivably sue the city if it fails to meet the CAP’s goals. According to Cody Hooven, the city’s sustainability manager, calls are coming in from all over the world to ask about San Diego’s new plan. Hooven said, “They’re all asking, ‘How are you doing that?’ We’re saying, why not try for 100 percent? If we don’t try, we’ll never get there.”

The city is now devoting an entire component of the plan to infrastructure investment and job creation for low-income communities. According to Nicole Capretz, Executive Director of the San Diego-based organization Climate Action Campaign, poverty and environmental degradation are closely related. Local low-income communities such as Barrio Logan and City Heights are particularly affected by pollution. Two anticipated results of the CAP plan on those communities will be a decline in greenhouse gas emissions and more infrastructure investment and cleantech jobs. In other words, the neighborhoods that will most benefit ecologically will also see the greatest job growth.

The San Diego Workforce Partnership (SDWP) had estimated in 2015, before the Climate Action Plan was released, that there would be over 3000 new renewable-energy-related jobs in the area. SDWP now has two projects in the works to increase that number: 1) a not-yet-fully-realized venture to provide training to inexperienced low-income workers by creating solar panel installation training centers; 2) a plan to provide on-the-job training funds to employers by SWDP, which would reimburse 50 percent of every paycheck that those employers give to cleantech hires, with a limit of 1,040 hours.

The Republican mayor, Kevin Faulconer, was a major factor in getting the business community to endorse the plan. Said Mayor Faulconer: “Protecting the environment is not a partisan issue. I’ve never viewed it through the lens of what we have right now, but what we’ll have for future generations.” (Not surprising, he does not support his party’s standard bearer for president, Donald Trump.)

Capretz expects that much of the renewable energy San Diego will generate will come from solar power. “We’re sunny in San Diego, so we’re counting on a lot of homegrown solar on rooftops and parking lots,” she said.

The post San Diego Energy Plan Aims to Help Disadvantaged Communities appeared first on Solar Tribune.

“This is a Wright Brothers moment,” said Jeffrey Burgin, Senior Vice President of Pasha. “We’re going to be the proving ground to change the paradigm of how large industrial facilities can run on clean energy. We’re confident we can show this is absolutely attainable.”

The project to create the world’s first marine terminal able to generate all of its energy needs from renewable sources is part of the program California Climate Investments, which uses proceeds from the state’s cap-and-trade auctions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The projected results of the project when fully operational, according to port officials, will be to eliminate 3,200 tons of greenhouse gases, and almost 28 tons in diesel and other polluting emissions, per year. They calculate this as the equivalent of removing 14,100 cars from the road.

The final design and construction of the microgrid will occur this month. The system consists of a 1.03 megawatt photovoltaic rooftop array, a 2.6 megawatt-hour battery storage system, charging equipment that can receive as well as supply power, and an energy management control system. Officials admit that the microgrid would represent only a small slice of the total energy “pie” for the terminal, the rest of which would have to be provided by other no-emissions or low-emissions energy sources. The ultimate goal is to set up a back-up system to supply all of the terminal’s energy needs, which would allow operations to continue off-grid during an earthquake or other emergency. Other changes to be made include the installation of the ShoreCat system, which captures emissions for vessels that are unable to plug into shore power.

The project is estimated to cost $26.6 million over two and a half years, part of which will be paid by a California Air Resources Board (CARB) grant of $14.5 million, which is going towards the purchase of nine electric vehicles and the solar microgrid.

The Port of Los Angeles is located in the San Pedro section of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, near Wilmington, which is disproportionately impacted by industrial pollution. Said CARB Chair Mary D. Nichols: “These innovative clean technologies will help clean the air in port-adjacent and disadvantaged communities, and are at the heart of California’s comprehensive effort to meet regional air quality and statewide climate goals.”

The post Port of Los Angeles to Be “Laboratory” for Renewable Energy appeared first on Solar Tribune.

Photo courtesy of Damon McMillan. Used with permission.

According to McMillan, who has an MS in aerospace dynamics and works in the unmanned vehicle industry, the Seacharger project started out as an attempt to create a robotic sailboat that would cross the ocean, something that had never been successfully done. Somewhere along the way, the sailboat idea got scrapped, and the boat became a solar-powered motorized vehicle.

The team began at the end of 2013 by gluing together two dozen foam pieces to plug a fiberglass hull mold. The vehicle measures 91 by 22 inches and is topped by two ultra-thin, Renogy 100-watt photovoltaic panels. The panels are attached to a lithium-iron-phosphate battery bank, suspended below the craft, which powers the brushless motor, similar to those seen in small hobby planes. The craft includes a watertight enclosure situated between the panels, containing an Arduino-based autopilot, GPS and satellite modem circuitry; this enables McMillan to navigate the boat from hundreds of miles away. Seacharger weighs 50 pounds and has a cruising speed of about three knots. McMillan estimates that in daylight it can go on indefinitely and, because of its battery storage, it can also travel for three nights before losing power.

Last month, McMillan tested the boat on Shoreline Lake near Mountain View, as recorded in his blog. The intended path of the boat was shaped like a rectangle, but its actual course more closely resembled a lasso. “Sure, it looked a bit like a drunken sailor,” McMillan wrote on the blog, “but it DID work. Just gotta tune some gains.”

The creation of Seacharger was, according to McMillan, a frustrating, trial-and-error process. “If I had started believing that I had to get to the end tomorrow,” he said, “I never would have continued. So it’s always just one step at a time.”

The team plans to launch the boat on Memorial Day from Avila Beach, a location about halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, where it will face possible high winds off the California coast.

“This is not a commercial project,” the team claims, “but simply a couple of hobbyists assembling a few pieces of ordinary technology to accomplish an extraordinary feat.”

You can track the boat’s progress online here.

The post Bay Area Team to Send Unmanned Solar Boat Across Pacific appeared first on Solar Tribune.

The goal of the initiative, paid for through “Measure L” bond funding, is to install a total of 2.4MW of solar energy at all district sites. OpTerra Energy Services, an engineering consultant and design firm and a subsidiary of ENGIE, an energy efficiency services provider, plans to install the systems, which consist of solar shade canopies and ground-mounted units, at all 13 schools and at the district office. These installations will take on from 80 to 90 percent of planned electric load by site, and is expected to result in a 15 percent reduction in overall energy use. It is also intended as a means of environmental stewardship through GHG emission reduction.

Measure L is a bond issue, approved by voters in November 2014, targeting repairs and improvements to district sites. In March 2015, the BUSD leadership had set project goals regarding energy saving, renewable power, energy education and financial impact. It chose OpTerra Energy Services as its partner on the project. A district-wide assessment and analysis was conducted by BUSD and OpTerra of all sites and district property to identify the best opportunities for solar energy generation.

Meanwhile, the OpTerra education team is partnering with principals and teachers across the district. The result of this collaboration will be to use the solar production data as a means of direct STEM learning for students. Educational offerings will be customized to support different grade levels across the district. The entire program is on schedule, though the process took only about a year. (OpTerra’s presentation can be found here.)

Said District Superintendent Will Ector, “Our goal for our new solar program is to set the bar for sustainability at districts across the region. We are proud that as a result of this program, Berryessa’s ability to conserve energy will be complemented by a natural fit education tie-in. The benefits of our solar program are both immediate and long-term, empowering our students, staff, and community to support Earth Day, every day.”

In order to avoid any disruption to classes, solar canopy construction will not begin at school sites until summer.

The post Bay Area School District Integrates Solar Power With STEM Education appeared first on Solar Tribune.

The proposed legislation, however, goes further, specifying that the 15 percent solar-ready area must actually have a renewable energy source installed. That source can take the form of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels or a solar water system. San Francisco’s Department of the Environment supports the proposed law.

Said Supervisor Wiener, “To fight climate change and achieve a clean energy future, we need to take decisive steps to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. In a dense, urban environment, we need to be smart and efficient about how we maximize the use of our space to achieve goals like promoting renewable energy and improving our environment.”

There may be a possible exemption to the solar energy requirement, according to another piece of legislation that Wiener intends to propose shortly. If a new building includes a so-called “living roof,” that building is not required to have a solar roof. Living roofs, also known as green roofs, are those which are partly or completely covered in vegetation. Such structures serve to improve biodiversity, provide insulation, reduce stormwater and sequester carbon.

Both former San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsome and current mayor Ed Lee support a policy in which San Francisco meets 100 percent of its energy needs through renewable sources.

“The Better Roofs ordinance continues to push the City as a national leader on solar policy,” said Josh Arce, former President of the San Francisco Commission on the Environment, and community liaison for Laborers Local 261, which trains solar jobseekers. “This legislation will expand our efforts to cover San Francisco rooftops with solar panels and tackle climate change, while also creating good jobs for our community.”

The post Mandatory Solar Roofs May Be Coming to San Francisco appeared first on Solar Tribune.

Los Angeles was the leader of all counties in the state with 15,142 total jobs. Furthermore, Los Angeles had a higher percentage of women solar workers than the statewide average: 34.7, more than a third (the average is 27.7). The next number of total solar jobs was in San Diego County, with 8,336 jobs. Orange and Santa Clara counties were the two others in California that have more than 5,000 jobs.

More than half the total of solar jobs statewide were in installations: almost 40,600. Although growth in California installations dipped slightly from that of 2014, the 3000 MW installed in the state was greater than the next six largest state solar markets combined. Manufacturing and sales/distribution jobs totaled a little over 11,000 apiece. Slightly less than 9,000 jobs were for Product Development and slightly more than 3,600 were classified as “Other.”

“Solar power is a bright spot in California’s economy, bringing jobs and economic development to every corner of the state,” Bernadette Del Chiaro, executive director of the California Solar Energy Industries Association, was quoted as saying. “While conventional energy industries are losing jobs, we are seeing record growth, and bringing clean air and climate solutions along the way.”

Michelle Kinman of Environment California Research & Policy Center said, “As today’s census shows, when we place solar on the rooftops of homes, businesses, schools and places of worship, we not only reduce pollution, but also create jobs in communities across California. The detractors of solar power, including California’s big utilities, should take note – solar is growing, it’s employing real people and it’s here to stay.”

The National Solar Jobs Census 2015 was conducted by The Solar Foundation and BW Research Partnership. The report includes data collected from more than 19,000 U.S. businesses.

The post Los Angeles Leads California to Record Solar Job Growth appeared first on Solar Tribune.

The award, which was announced on January 19, is part of the DOE’s SHINES (Sustainable and Holistic Integration of Energy Storage and Solar PV) program, which in turn is a part of the DOE’s $220 million Grid Modernization Initiative. In addition to EPRI, five other entities received awards, for a total of $18 million for the six projects. EPRI describes itself as an independent nonprofit that “conducts research and development relating to the generation, delivery and use of electricity for the benefit of the public.”

As the release explains, “the key innovation of this research project is the design, development, and demonstration of a two-level control architecture using optimal strategies.” EPRI gives the following examples of this:

• “A system controller strategy which maintains wide area reliability of the electric system through coordinated control of multiple, local controllers and other distribution equipment; and
• “A local controller strategy which makes solar PV more predictable through efficient utilization of energy storage, load management, smart inverters, and solar/load forecasting, and also responds to system controller needs.”

In an article published in Forbes, the author noted two significant things about the DOE’s SHINES initiative: a) the goal of the program – to drive down the cost of solar-plus-storage to a “levelized cost of energy” (LCOE) of 14 cents per kWh and that of solar alone to 6 cents per kWh by 2020 – is a very ambitious one, and b) solar storage isn’t merely about accumulating electrons, but about using the system as if it were a computer, to balance loads dynamically and analyze costs to achieve the best possible outcome. An article that appeared in Greentech Media (GTM) cites GTM Research’s senior storage analyst, Ravi Manghani, as claiming that to get to 14 cents per kWh, “storage costs will have to fall by more than 50 percent [from present levels], in addition to the projected drop in utility-scale solar costs.”

Mike Howard, president and CEO of EPRI, said, “Solar PV and energy storage introduce a new level of opportunity and complexity in the delicate balancing act performed by grid planners every day. This effort can help integrate important components of our future energy system.” The DOE’s Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, David Danielson, said, “Without a doubt, innovation in energy storage will help drive [solar] adoption in the United States to new heights.”

In addition to EPRI, the other five awardees are:

• Austin Energy (Austin, TX),
• Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA),
• Commonwealth Edison Company (Chicago, IL),
• Fraunhofer USA Center for Sustainable Energy Systems (Boston, MA), and
• The Hawaiian Electric Company (Honolulu, HI).

The post Palo Alto-Based Institute to Research Solar and Storage Integration appeared first on Solar Tribune.

But the new solar project, which became operational on September 9th, has transformed the site. The plant, owned by 8point3 Energy Partners LP, a joint venture between SunPower and First Solar Inc., occupies 20 acres of the landfill site and generates 7.5MW of power, enough to service 2250 homes. And according to this article, the site is in accordance with the recommendations of a recent report by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that solar projects be built on previously developed land. As the PNAS study concludes, “Land use policies and electricity planning that emphasizes the use of human-impacted places… may prove an effective approach for avoiding deleterious land cover change.”

The Riverside project is a product of the city’s Clean & Green Task Force, which originated in 2005. The task force’s goal was to generate 20MW of solar power in Riverside by 2020. Meanwhile, Riverside Public Utilities (RPU) began a residential solar rebate program in 2003 and a commercial solar rebate program in 2008. Last year alone, the city invested $54.6 million in solar panels, including shade structures at parking lots and ground systems at two sheriff’s stations. Partly due to the Tequesquite project, the city has already reached its solar power goal… five years ahead of schedule. Said Riverside Mayor Rusty Bailey “Riverside reaching the 20-megawatt milestone is especially impressive because it was not too long ago that one megawatt was an ambitious goal.”

Constructed under a 25-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) between SunPower and RPU, the utility purchases the power at retail rates and the city of Riverside receives the energy credits. (Bill Kelly, vice president of San Jose-based SunPower, claims that the project could function for up to 40 years.) The city’s Sustainability Officer, Michael Bacich, said, “We’ve come a long way from our first solar generation project [in 2001] to the nearly 1,700 systems that are online in Riverside today.” RPU has already signed contracts for additional solar projects that will bring the total to 97 megawatts, approximately 11 percent of the city’s energy supply.

The post Riverside Solar Project “Correctly” Sited on Landfill appeared first on Solar Tribune.

photo credit: NREL

At the meeting, James Avery, chief development officer for San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E), remarked, “I see a future where there will be no more gas turbines.” He elaborated that the combination of solar power and storage may make natural gas turbines obsolete for utilities. With today’s grid, when energy from distributed generation (DG) is at its lowest, gas turbines are needed to take up the shortfall. But in the future, storage batteries could optimize the flow of existing DG, without the need for natural gas energy. Avery predicted that the synergy of renewables and storage in the home energy system would become “like the cell phone for the energy utility.”

Another participant at the conference was SolarCity, which is concerned with smoothing out customers’ energy consumption so that they are not drawing energy from the grid at the most costly times. On Kauai, Hawaii, the location of the organization’s next project, the problem is too much sun during daylight hours, though residents have no objection to solar power. As Bob Rudd, SolarCity’s director of energy-storage project development, said: “So, they love solar… but they don’t need it during the day.” Thus, SolarCity plans to use a PV system – battery bank combo to shift energy production to the evening hours, the period when it’s most needed to sustain efficiency.

One of the most interesting ideas was promoted by Glendale-based Ice Energy. The company is launching a program called Solar + Ice, a behind-the-meter system for commercial use, bundling the company’s Ice Bear thermal storage product with rooftop PV. (The company plans to partner with NRG and others.) The Ice Bear freezes water at night during low energy demand. During the day, the stored ice, transported via copper tubing to a building’s air conditioning system, provides coolant to evaporator coils, allowing the system’s compressors to shut down for up to six hours at a time. The water (which only has to be replaced every 20 years) is then recycled back to the Ice Bear. Mike Hopkins, CEO of Ice Energy, suggested that the solar panels could power the air conditioning system during the intense heat of midday, with the Ice Bear taking over during the early morning and sunset hours. Ice technology is not “sexy,” he conceded: what is new is the combination of ice and solar PV, allowing them to be used in tandem.

Sue Babinec, senior commercialization advisor for the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy is quoted as saying about the ESNA event: “It’s clear we’re moving beyond the growth stage [in storage technology], focused on bringing down costs, and starting to bring forward new capabilities.”

The post San Diego Meeting Heralds Changes in Solar and Storage appeared first on Solar Tribune.

But early next year, construction will begin on a desalination plant in Fresno County, powered completed by solar thermal technology, which will create enough freshwater from Central Valley water to irrigate 2000 acres of farmland. WaterFX, a company founded by Aaron Mandell, has developed a concentrated solar still (CSS) system it calls Aqua4. The basic technology of stills has been around for centuries. But the proposed still in Fresno County will allegedly be thirty times more efficient than normal evaporation techniques, and it will be the largest renewable-powered desalination plant in the U.S.

The plant – which will utilize only local water, sparing the cost of transporting it via aqueducts from elsewhere – will have five purposes:

• To purify the local water into fresh water;
• To preserve the minerals (e.g., gypsum, selenium, boron) filtered out of the water, so they can be repurposed as usable products (e.g., sheetrock, semiconductors);
• To eliminate fossil fuel use in the desalination process;
• To save costs, as Mandell estimates that Aqua4 only costs one-fourth as much as the usual (reverse osmosis) method of desalination;
• To avoid the brine-filled runoff common to other desalination methods, which is environmentally harmful.

The technology of the Aqua4 array involves a solar “collector,” a large curved surface of coated aluminum that acts as a mirror. The collector focuses the sun’s rays on a pipe that carries the water and turns it into steam. The steam is captured, cooled, then condensed, purifying the water and leaving the minerals as residue. The heat that the system generates can then be stored to help run the plant.

A successful pilot project was carried out in the Panoche Water District, close to the Fresno County border. When the actual commercial project is completed in Fresno County, it will have a 24 MW field of solar collectors, enough to generate an estimated 5 million gallons of purified water per day. And since the technology is modular, it is completely scalable. Mandell predicts that small farms might someday have their own solar desalination mini-plants, based on this technology.

“This is going to be a much more sustainable approach to farming in water scarce regions like California,” Mandell was quoted as saying. “And this is a model that can be replicated around the world.”

The post Water to Be Purified in Fresno County by Solar Power appeared first on Solar Tribune.

So the utility is exploring the potential of energy storage by proposing, as part of its recently published distribution resource plan, a pilot program, called the residential energy storage rate program, which would provide households and small businesses that generate solar power an incentive for the purchase of large, grid-connected batteries.

The residential energy storage rate proposal differs from similar projects virtually everywhere else in that SDG&E won’t own the batteries it is testing. The utility would take control of the customer’s storage system’s charge and discharge functions at certain times of day. As SDG&E says, “This pilot provides an opportunity to test the ability of customer-owned, behind-the-meter storage assets to potentially defer circuit upgrades (e.g., re-conductor or new circuit extensions).” Put another way, customers’ batteries might save the utility the cost of making infrastructure upgrades as often as it does now, and such savings would be shared with the utilities’ shareholders.

According to SDG&E officials, the three keys to the program’s success would be: 1) if the rate savings are high enough to attract customers; 2) if the utility could make use of the batteries often enough and during the appropriate times of day; and 3) if the utility could reach an arrangement with companies (e.g., SolarCity, Tesla) to offer customers third-party-funded batteries at no upfront cost. (At the same time, as a kind of experimental control, SDG&E has proposed a separate pilot project involving batteries it manages itself, so as to compare and contrast the two programs.)

The plan would be advantageous for SDG&E customers, who now pay the highest electricity rate among the major utilities in California: 23 cents/kWh. It would be advantageous for the utility as well, because, according to a new report, “The Economics of Load Defection,” it is vital for the survival of utilities to adopt new business models, even if they succeed in efforts to limit net metering or establish fixed fees for solar in their service areas.

“This is a little ray of light through the darkness of the traditional utility business model,” said James Fine, senior economist with the Environmental Defense Fund. “It’s a new way to sustain and support the utility operations, to get away from the incentive to put more steel in the ground.”

The post San Diego Battery Storage Tariff May Be Good for Solar Customers appeared first on Solar Tribune.

In June 2014, Richmond had greenlighted an Environmental and Community Investment Agreement (ECIA) with Chevron Richmond, through which the city will receive, over ten years, $90 million. (This agreement was a result of the planned $1 billion modernization by Chevron of its Richmond Refinery.) One third of the $90 million is slated for projects to reduce the city’s greenhouse gas emissions. The costs for the current project will be paid out of these funds.

The schedule for the installations, according the city’s contract, is as follows:

• First year (FY 2015/2016): estimated 25 solar installations
• Second year (FY 2016/2017): estimated 50 solar installations
• Third year (FY 2017/2018): estimated 55 solar installations.

Again according to the contract, the project will provide during the three years “over $2.2 million in energy cost savings for families in need, over 15,000 hours of job skill building experience in solar installation for community volunteers and job trainees, and [prevent] nearly 7,000 tons” of emissions.

The installations also require GRID Alternatives to employ trainees from RichmondBUILD, a successful local career-training program also supported by Chevron. The nonprofit will be hiring at least one RichmondBUILD trainee per project.

GRID Alternatives’ mission is “to make renewable energy technology and job training accessible to underserved communities.” It has installed well over 1,000 solar systems in the Bay Area since 2005. Since 2007, it has completed 145 installations for low-income households in Richmond.

The post Bay Area City to Add Free Solar to 130 Low-Income Homes appeared first on Solar Tribune.

The program makes solar financing easy by allowing residential homeowners to borrow the upfront costs of installing solar panels, and then to repay the loan as a line item on their property tax bills over a 20-year period. Because it is considered a special tax assessment, it remains with the property if the house is sold. And PACE can help with the California drought as well, since the program now also covers water-saving home renovations, such as systems to collect “gray water” from sinks and showers.

In California, the first commercial and residential PACE programs were inaugurated in 2008, and were first established in Berkeley about five years ago. However, it was at about that time that the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, began to oppose PACE. PACE loans are essentially attached as liens on properties. This means that, in event of foreclosure, PACE loans would have to be paid off first, which might become a major problem for the Federal government if many PACE program homes with government-sponsored mortgages went into foreclosure. So in 2010, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announced that they would cease purchasing mortgage loans secured by properties with outstanding PACE loans.

To remedy the situation, in 2013 Gov. Brown signed into law Senate Bill 96, which established the PACE Loss Reserve Program to mitigate the risk to mortgage lenders from PACE financing. The program created a $10 million fund, designed to cover any of Fannie Mae’s or Freddie Mac’s losses attributable to PACE liens. However, a spokesperson for the FHFA was recently quoted as saying, “We have not changed our policy at all” towards PACE.

Despite concerns that the FHFA might redline entire cities or towns participating in the PACE program, however, this has not occurred, and the agency does not appear to object to PACE in cases where other lenders are willing to bear the risk of mortgages for homeowners who participate in the program. In December, San Francisco became the first large city in California to return to residential PACE financing since the program was halted. The Executive Director of PACENow, David Gabrielson, says: “State and local government sponsored PACE programs are driving economic activity, creating local jobs, and helping achieve carbon reduction and other environmental goals.”

The post Second Time Around: Bay Area Gets PACE Financing… Again appeared first on Solar Tribune.

The two institutions – California State University, Sacramento (a.k.a., Sacramento State, or CSUS) and UC Davis (UCD) – were among those that had been selected from a field of 140 entries to compete in the two-year event. It will conclude in Irvine, CA, in October.

Computer-generated model of part of the design for CSUS’ solar house, Reflect Home (from the Team Solar NEST webpage: http://bit.ly/1AICayx)

The Solar Decathlon 2015 rules require each competing team to construct a net-zero house (i.e., one that uses no more energy than it produces), which must be not only cost effective and energy efficient, but attractive. The two university projects are known as “Reflect Home” (CSUS) and “Aggie Sol” (UCD). There is no monetary prize, but only, according to Lindsey Crosby, architectural manager of the Reflect Home project, “bragging rights” for the institution that constructs the winning solar home.

The Reflect Home team’s project executive, “decathlete” Rosni Pann, said, “We wanted to reflect Sacramento not only in the house’s architecture but its openness.” Amber Archangel, reviewing the plan for the house for the website CleanTechnica, was impressed by this very aspect of it, praising its “spacious outdoor deck that expands the interior spaces and lets the light ‘cascade in,’” and noted that it had “surprisingly more livable space than we usually see in a Solar Decathlon home.”

“Sneak preview” of part of UCD’s solar house, Aggie Sol (from the Aggie Sol Facebook page: http://on.fb.me/1Q3cu6y)

Aggie Sol is an M-Power house which, so far, has involved the efforts of about 250 UCD students from various fields of study. As stated on the project website, “In designing a wooden house, we will minimize cost by using a widely available material and by tapping into an existing pool of wooden construction expertise.” Notable features of the house include a home plumbing system relying on gravity, not pumps, an all-electric HVAC system, passive heating and cooling, thick straw bale walls to retain heat, and occupancy sensors.

After Solar Decathlon 2015 ends in October, both teams have plans for the houses they are building. The Reflect Home team intends to turn their house into a sustainability learning lab, and the Aggie Sol team hopes that its house will be of use as a residence for agricultural students.

In California, the other teams competing in Solar Decathlon 2015 are: California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo and, collectively, University of California at Irvine, Chapman University, Irvine Valley College and Saddleback College.

The post Two Sacramento Area Universities Compete for Solar Home “Bragging Rights” appeared first on Solar Tribune.