July 1, 2009
For those of us contemplating rooftop solar, and trying to bridge the gap between what we think it’s going to cost and what we want it to cost, there are a few more options out there these days.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), part of the U.S. Department of Energy, has summarized some of the financing options for residential PV in a recent report, Solar Photovoltaic Financing: Residential Sector Deployment.
In summary, besides the federal, state, local and utility incentives available to promote renewable energy and energy efficiency (and that can be accessed on the DSIRE database), the report describes different and original kinds of financing increasingly in use across the country for PV. The programs vary from ownership by third parties to financing through property taxes to community-based projects; their common feature is that they all succeed in reducing or eliminating that high upfront cost burden that plagues residential solar deployment today. (more…)
June 30, 2009
What part of “our planet’s future is in your hands” do our congresspersons not understand?
Despite the tendency of certain Administrations to have scientific truth rewritten by public relations professionals, the knowledge that carbon emissions must be greatly reduced on both national and planetary scales has become rooted in the national consciousnesses in recent years. For some time now, our response to the guy in the local bar whose favorite line is “this global warming nonsense” has been: just because a piece of news is unwelcome, it doesn’t mean it’s untrue…
From Here to There…
We have to believe that if a barfly can be made to understand the overarching need for emissions reductions, there’s a good chance that a preponderance of lawmakers in Washington already do. And yet, the events in our nation’s capital in recent weeks have given us cause to wonder whether a number of them have checked their understanding on the Capitol steps. Because what started as a great idea by President Obama to reduce carbon emissions and create a clean energy industry full of green jobs has become, in Congressional hands, an exercise in satisfying short-term priorities and local business concerns. (more…)
May 28, 2009
How far would you pedal for a new energy future? This September 26 - 30th, more than two hundred cyclists will join together on the 2009 Brita Climate Ride from New York City to the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. Now in its second year, the Climate Ride allows solar citizens to make a powerful statement about the need for renewable energy and climate change mitigation, through a beautiful 300-mile bicycle ride through such areas as the Delaware River Valley, Valley Forge and Amish Country.
The Brita Climate Ride supports essential climate projects at two beneficiary organizations: Focus the Nation and Clean Air – Cool Planet. The fundraising efforts of Climate Riders (minimum ‘ante’ $2,400) help support their projects.
In order to accommodate more riders, the number of available openings has been doubled to 250. If last year’s event is any measure, they will fill up fast, so anyone with an interest (and strong legs) should register soon.
What else will the Brita Climate Ride mean for you? (more…)
May 28, 2009
Net metering—the practice used in most states for compensating customer-generators for power they supply to the grid—has about as many different versions as there are states. Some act the way they should, as encouragements to citizens to deploy clean energy, while others are nothing less than unfriendly to the whole concept of distributed generation. (For a state-by-state scorecard of net metering performance, check out the IREC/NNEC report Freeing the Grid).
Today, some states are loosening up their net metering rules, giving individuals and groups more ways of benefiting from installing solar:
In Massachusetts, under the ‘Neighborhood Net Metering’ provisions of the 2008 Green Communities Act, ten or more individuals can invest in a single renewable energy facility and receive net metering credits as if it had a single owner. Similar programs are run in Maine and Vermont.
In California, a ‘Virtual Net Metering’ clause exists, and can be used for multifamily affordable solar housing. The benefits of solar power generation, in terms of utility bill offsets, can be distributed to units as a percentage of the total credit.
Finally, the states of Oregon, Washington, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island allow meter aggregation, under which an owner of several separate renewable energy units (e.g., solar arrays) can combine all their meter outputs, so that the net metering credits for all accounts on the property are treated as one. This simplifies the formula under which the owner avoids some of his utility payments.
What’s your state doing to make net metering for solar installations more attractive to you?
March 20, 2009
We automatically think, in this country, that if power needs to be sent from generating station A to a town rejoicing under the name of B, then some line joining the two points must be sown with large metal skeletons keeping high-voltage wires safely above our heads.
It ain’t necessarily so. Thomas Blakeslee of Clearlight Foundation, writing in RenewableEnergyWorld.com, makes the case that using high-voltage DC instead of AC and burying the cables underground can cost the same or less than stringing them through the sky, for four reasons:
1. The electronic voltage converters required by HVDC grids (which are the kind we will need for the national backbone described in the above article) are no longer cost-prohibitive, thanks to falling semiconductor prices.
2. Costs for AC transformers, land and steel are rising dramatically.
3. DC transmission requires two cables, AC three.
4. Planning to bury cables along existing rights of way instead of proposing to mar landscapes with towers will likely avoid years of expensive legal battles with environmental and local citizens’ groups.
Images courtesy of ABB
(more…)
March 20, 2009
Ideas are taking shape in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa for a truly comprehensive, continent-wide energy landscape of the future. And some of the strategies coming out of planning bodies ‘over there’ deserve serious attention on the North American continent. They also deserve a more liberal and disinterested response from legislators and regulators at the local level than these officials have historically been wont to give. And that makes us wonder whether we can rise above the technical challenges involved, only to drown in a sea of regulation and self-interest.
The Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC), an initiative of The Club of Rome non-governmental global think tank, has developed a concept known as DESERTEC, whose main elements include:
- Establishing large numbers of concentrating solar power (CSP) arrays in desert areas of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA);
- Transmitting power from these and other renewable sources throughout Europe, the Middle East and North Africa (EUMENA) via super-efficient high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) transmission lines.
(Solar Citizen reported on this concept in our May 2008 issue (Is Desert Solar Power the Solution to Europe’s Energy Crisis?)).
The TREC group (now the DESERTEC Foundation) has calculated that an amount of electricity equal to the total present usage of the EUMENA region could be generated in this way if less than 0.3 per cent of the Sahara Desert was covered with CSP plants. And on a larger scale, the DESERTEC Foundation envisages a supergrid running from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian peninsula, from the Baltic Sea to Bathurst, Gambia, in which offshore wind and wave farms, photovoltaic sites, tidal stream generators, biomass, geothermal and hydroelectric stations would unite with desert CSP arrays to meet the region’s actual daily and hourly demands over an HVDC network of unprecedented size.
Graphic courtesy of DESERTEC Foundation
(more…)
March 13, 2009
Now that we’ve got a stimulus package in place from the Government that recognizes renewable energy’s place in our future, it’s time to turn our attention to the bills that will, if properly supported, create a healthy market for solar and other clean energy sources.
Members of both chambers of Congress have written to their respective leaders, strongly urging them to support specific pro-solar measures expected to be debated in the coming weeks and months.
It’s important, right now, to get as many senators and representatives as possible to sign on to the letter calling for support from their respective leaders. (You can read about the pro-solar measures and read the letters themselves by clicking below).
Can you send a message to your own senators and representative, urging them to sign on to their chamber’s letter? The more support your legislators get from you, the more they will give to clean energy legislation affecting all of us.
Click here to read more and to TAKE ACTION!
February 20, 2009
In the June 2008 issue of Solar Citizen we reported on a new study that shows that solar power could provide 10% of US electricity needs by 2025 with the active participation of electric utilities. It also makes the point that without utility involvement, solar will never grow to become a significant contributor to our energy future.
Many solar citizens consider the involvement of utilities in solar generation tantamount to a hijacking by Big Business of the yeoman-generator model of energy self-sufficiency. Given how, in any recent age, BB has repeatedly subsumed everyday commerce into its ambit by means fair or foul, this is not an unreasonable fear. And if Big Utilities use their clout to siphon off funds, taxes or credits intended for citizen-level initiatives, the fear will have been realized. But the recently-passed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (aka Stimulus Package) has provided considerable support for clean energy at all levels, including residential rooftop solar, and absent BB end-runs that somehow evade the attention of advocacy watchdog groups, we feel that both ends of the spectrum will be served.
At the distributed end of that spectrum, where reside customer-owned residential and commercial systems, what is most crucial to success is the attitude of your electric utility to net metering and interconnection; more of that below. But whatever your utility’s attitude, it will need to plan now for integration of solar into its fuel source mix, as we prepare for the probability of a national renewable electricity standard and as coal, oil and gas become progressively less acceptable and more expensive. (more…)
February 20, 2009
It’s been discussed and dismissed, vilified and valued, amended and abridged, marked up and mocked, and finally slimmed down and signed into law. HR1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009/President Obama’s $787B Stimulus Package, is now a reality and contains some $60 billion for renewable energy. Here’s a snapshot of its renewable energy provisions, and some links to documents covering the bill in greater detail: (more…)
January 21, 2009
You already know you’re a solar citizen; how would you like to be a solar hero?
You could do what ordinary townspeople have started to do around the country: make the case to their town government that their municipal buildings would benefit from being powered with photovoltaics. And that benefit would extend to the entire town.
If you can get on your town’s agenda for half an hour, we’ll help you do the rest. And you don’t have to be an expert in solar power, electrical engineering, or public finance, either; just a citizen. (more…)
