February 25, 2010
Some voices in the U.S. solar industry are looking for better times in 2010, despite the country’s lackluster economic condition. But solar companies still have to overcome obstacles such as competition from overseas, particularly China, and difficulty in obtaining credit.
Attendees at this week’s investors’ conference in New York hosted by investment company Piper Jaffray were told of signs on the demand side that Solar, having survived the downturn of 2008 and 2009, could be gathering strength this year. One reason given for the industry’s survival was the level of government support provided, although this came with the caveat that the support was more visible on a global basis than in the U.S. alone.
It’s also true that this global support has been dampened somewhat by the world economic situation, which has caused some European governments to scale back their subsidies and credits. But in general, those subsidy cuts were considered to be much less damaging to demand than they might have been, indicating continued base support for renewables overseas.
Continued prospects for an energy or energy/climate bill from this U.S. Congress are helping to boost hopes for a sound year in Solar. The overall feeling among solar companies was that they would need such a bill to help overcome the threat of Chinese competition. Chinese Government support for Solar, including easy access to credit, has dwarfed the support offered by the U.S. Government, resulting in prices per Watt for panels made in China that U.S. firms cannot meet. In fact, in the case of Massachusetts-based Evergreen Solar, the company’s way of ‘adapting’ to the situation is by outsourcing finished panel manufacturing to China.
It’s a very clear-cut argument; in countries where the nascent clean energy industry is appropriately valued, government plays a critical role in supporting and developing it, and economic benefits follow. If our country’s government doesn’t value, support and develop our clean energy industry, those benefits will continue to flow out of the country indefinitely.
As Thomas Friedman wrote in his 2008 book Hot, Flat, and Crowded:
If only we could be China for a day…
February 25, 2010
Paul Gipe runs a popular web site known as Wind-Works, which covers a spectrum of subjects on wind power — technical, regulatory, policy-related, etc. Paul has allowed us to republish an article from his site that deals with the legal aspects of establishing feed-in tariffs (FiTs) for renewable energy — solar as well as wind — in the USA.
Normally we find legal stories, unless they concern Horace Rumpole or Judge Roy Bean, to be invaluable sleep aids. In this case, however, the story addresses an important concern for the future of renewables in America. It’s worth learning how FiTs can be used here, within our legal framework, to accelerate solar deployment in our country. It’s information that you may want to use if you’re pressing your municipality, utility or state utility commission to implement this kind of system.
The Skinny on FiTs
An FiT system, in short, is one in which customer-generators are paid a premium rate for dispatching energy from approved sources (small wind, rooftop solar, etc.) into the grid. The Utility may recover this cost by levying a charge on all its customers, or a pool of money may be made available by the government to top up the rate. The tariff may vary depending on the technology, the region, and installation size, and may decrement over a lengthy period such as twenty years. Part of the tariff-setting rationale is to make it more financially attractive to participate at an early stage of the program, which leads to the rapid deployment of large amounts of clean energy generation. (more…)
February 25, 2010
If you were somewhat depressed by what the previous two stories told you about the clean energy performance of the USA compared with the rest of the world, perhaps you’ll be heartened by a little good news coming out of the desert.
It only took three or four years, but the federal government finally got around to providing a loan guarantee to allow construction to start on the world’s largest concentrated solar power installation.
The Ivanpah Solar Complex will be built by BrightSource Energy in the Mojave Desert in California, thanks to some $1.37 billion in loan guarantees provided by ARRA (stimulus) funds. Construction should begin later this year, leading to full operation of the 400-megawatt facility in 2013.
You can read more about the Ivanpah project in Bill Opalka’s column in renewablesbiz magazine.
February 25, 2010
Two weeks ago the Washington area received a dusting of about 24″ of snow. For those of us who have lived through a couple of New Hampshire winters without bothering to turn the heat on, this was not expected to be a cause for alarm. But we were unprepared for the unpreparedness of the nation’s capital.
The federal government saw its shadow, turned around and took the week off. The Dow Jones Industrial Average immediately gained 25 points, but there is no reported connection between the events.
On Capitol Hill, Democratic senators challenged GoP senators to a day-long
snowball fight, but no-one could agree on the rules of engagement. At one
point Sen. Lieberman (I-CT) agreed to fight on the side of the Democrats, but the deal fell apart when he stuffed snow down the back of Sen. Reid’s collar. Sen. Kerry (D-MA) sounded confident of victory, since his side outnumbered the opposition, but backed down when Sen. Murkowski (R-AK) threatened to stand up and talk at him all day. Finally the snowball fight got under way, but when Republicans noticed that Sen. Snowe was throwing from the Democratic side, they all targeted the Republican senator from Maine. Noting that Sen. Landrieu (D-LA) was throwing her snowballs from the Republican side, Democrats finally left the area, complaining that the opposition was not playing by the rules. (more…)
