Pacific Gas and Electric Now Under Contract to Deliver 24 Percent of Energy from Renewables by 2013

In a landmark announcement today, Optisolar and the Sunpower Corporation said they plan to build 2 solar plants that will produce a total of 800 MW of power. During peak hours, the plants will produce as much energy as a small nuclear reactor or a large coal plant.

According to Sunpower chairman Thomas H. Werner, the Sunpower plant alone will have as much photovoltaic capacity as was installed worldwide during the past year.

The solar power created from the plants will provide enough energy for 239,000 homes annually.

With the addition of the two proposed plants , PG&E is now under contract to produce 24% of future power deliveries from renewable resources (wind, biomass, geothermal, solar). This will exceed the 20% renewable energy requirement imposed by California.

Hopefully the saying “As goes California, so goes the nation” applies here, as many other states get more than enough sunshine to match California.

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• Oregon Launching First Solar Highway in the US

Oregon is once again taking the lead with renewable energy by installing the country’s first highway solar energy project. The project will consist of a 104 kW solar photovoltaic system that covers 8,000 square feet and produces 112,000 kWh each year. That’s 28% of the energy needed to power the project’s location, the Interstate 5 and Interstate 205 interchange in Tualatin.

Electricity for the interchange will be provided by PGE. The solar panels will come into play by producing electricity during the day, giving the power to the PGE grid, and getting the equivalent amount of power back at night from PGE to power lighting on the highway.
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The move to a greener economy and standard of living was always going to have to be led by business. No matter what way you look at it, governments don’t like making big sweeping changes, but businesses will, especially if it helps with their public image or bottom line.

Big retail chains across America are utilizing their giant flat rooftops for solar panels. Chains like Wal-Mart, Kohl’s, Safeway and Whole Foods Market have all installed solar panels on the roofs of their stores.

But with Congress not planning (at least at the moment) to renew the investment tax credit (ITC), this solar drive could very well dry up very quickly.

At the moment, many retail chains are hurrying to beat the deadline, installing as many solar panels as is feasible. But so far, the majority of chains are lucky to have managed to get 10% of their stores outfitted with solar panels.

”It’s very clear that green energy is now front and center in the minds of the business sector,” said Daniel Kammen, an energy expert at the University of California, Berkeley. ”Not only will you see panels on the roofs of your local stores, but I suspect very soon retailers will have stickers in their windows saying, ‘This is a green energy store.”’

I think the majority of us would be more than happy to walk in to a store with such a sticker. Cheap advertising aside, for who really cares why they go green, just as long as they do, will these same retail chains that are making a dash for solar independence continue this trend after the government give up on them?

Samsø, a Danish island in the North Sea, has become entirely energy self-sufficient, by using wind energy, solar and other renewables. The community was puzzled when it was announced in 1997 that it had won a government prize awarded to a community who would create a renewable energy plan; an engineer had submitted the entry without telling anyone but Samsø’s mayor. Interest was high after the award, but then fell off. It was Soren Hermansen, a lifelong resident of the island, who took on the task of turning the plan into action. The story of how he did it is a blueprint for other communities around the world.

In the nineties, the island of 4,300 people imported all their energy, mostly in oil tankers, and paid little attention to where it came from. In a fascinating article in The New Yorker magazine, Elizabeth Kolbert reports that:

“Then, quite deliberately, the residents of the island set about changing this. They formed energy coöperatives and organized seminars on wind power. They removed their furnaces and replaced them with heat pumps. By 2001, fossil-fuel use on Samsø had been cut in half. By 2003, instead of importing electricity, the island was exporting it, and by 2005 it was producing from renewable sources more energy than it was using.”

Image Credit: Joachim Ladefoged, The New Yorker

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When you are a company who makes cars, unless you have the Toyota Prius underneath your brand name, life can sometimes get a little complex. Not surprisingly, many car manufacturers are making big steps to ensure that their products make as little impact upon the environment as possible. But General Motors have taken it a step further, to ensure that even their production plants make little environmental noise.

Currently with two of the largest solar power installations in the United States, GM have made a real effort to, as Gary Cowger, GM group vice president of Global Manufacturing and Labor Relations puts it, actively accelerate “…our efforts to be part of the solution to the environmental issues and challenges facing our world.”

Solar power installations line the roofs of GM’s Rancho Cucamonga and Fontana, California parts warehouses, with the former seeing about 50% of their electricity powered by their own installation. “We are proud to be a global leader in the usage of renewable energy,” said Cowger.

But GM has now taken it a step further in their attempt to be a “global leader,” announcing on Tuesday the plans to install the world’s largest rooftop solar photovoltaic power installation on its car assembly plant located in Figueruelas, Zaragoza, Spain. The project is set to install an installation that will cover some 2 million square foot of rooftop, comprised of approximately 85,000 solar panels.

“As we develop new solutions in vehicle propulsion to reduce carbon emissions, we are also making significant progress in reducing the impact our facilities have on the environment,” said Elizabeth A. Lowery, GM vice president, Environment, Energy and Safety Policy. “Our commitment to expanding the usage of renewable energy sources is part of our coordinated global effort to reduce energy, water consumption, waste and CO2 emissions.”

Partnering with Clairvoyant Energy, Veolia Environmental and the Government of Aragon to develop this project, United Solar Ovonic will provide their thin and flexible solar laminates for the project. A project which, by completion, will generate 12 megawatts of power at its highest output, equaling about 15.1 million kilowatts of power per year, the equivalent to some 4,575 households.

I’ve said it from the beginning of my tenure here at Green Options, and I will continue to say it along with many others: big business has to be the one to bring our planet in to an environmentally friendly age, whether it be politely or kicking and screaming. General Motors, in announcing this project, has shown just such an intention.

Source

Photo © GM Corp

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Last week I reported on a story that saw a new bill passed in Hawaii making it mandatory for every new home to have their hot water powered by solar panels. Signed in to law by Governor Linda Lingle, the bill will require all single-family homes built starting 2010 to have a solar panel powering the hot water system.

However Hawaii isn’t the trend setters we may have first thought them to be.

Over at MetaEfficient.com, they have an article pointing to the fact that 90% of Israeli homes already have solar water heaters. It began in the early 1950’s when the Israeli government encountered a fuel supply shortage, and restricted the times when water could be heated. In response, the people decided that they would start heating their own water using solar panels.

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Representative Jay Inslee (D-WA) has introduced legislation to establish a feed-in tariff (FIT) for renewable energy. Feed-in tariffs have made Germany a solar powerhouse that employs 40,000 people in the solar industry alone, and an estimated 140,000 jobs in renewable energy. FITs have not been a topic of discussion in this country, but now that is sure to change, as the conversation shifts to ways to finance the growth of renewable energy. Renewable Energy World reports that:

“Inslee’s legislation would require utilities — at the request of any new renewable energy facility owner — to enter into a 20-year fixed-rate power purchase agreement. Uniform national “renewable energy payment” rates would be set by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission at levels that would provide a 10% internal rate of return on investment for available commercialized technologies in regions constituting the top 30^th percentile of renewable energy resource potential in the U.S..”

In plain English, this means that if you install solar PV panels on your home, the utility has to buy the electricity you generate at a higher rate than retail, guaranteeing you a return on your investment. Extending this power purchase agreement for 20 years gives everyone — especially those who want to invest in renewables or start a small business installing solar panels — assurance of return on their investment.

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The American Southwest has some of the best solar resources on the globe. Nevada, with abundant land and sunshine is becoming a hot bed for the solar industry. The result is green jobs and billions of investment dollars.

Solar Panel Manufacturing

The opening of Ausra’s solar thermal power factory earlier this week in Las Vegas is a prime example. As the largest plant of its kind in the world, it employs 50 factory workers. At full capacity, the plant can generate 700 MW of solar panels, which could produce enough power for 500,000 homes. This quantity of panels would create an estimated 1,400 solar plant construction jobs.

The factory will produce giant mirrors and absorber tubes that are used for solar power plants. This technology uses the sun to generate heat and spin turbines, thus creating electricity. The giant mirrors follow the sun and reflect it onto fixed absorber tubes that are mounted above.

“Nevada is poised to be a leader in the clean energy revolution,” said U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). “This facility will help position our state as the premiere place to invest in these new technologies. As the factory expands operations and we continue to invest in clean energy, we’ll create thousands of good-paying jobs and keep our outdoors pristine for future generations.” (more…)

A location often dreamt of in my household, for its summer weather and prime surfing, Hawaii now goes up another notch in my estimation with the passing of a bill which makes it mandatory for water heaters to be powered by solar energy.

Signed in to law by Governor Linda Lingle (there’s a name for you), a republican, the bill requires that the energy savers be part of the new home landscape starting 2010. It prohibits issuing a permit for building a single-family home without a solar water heater, and for a state that relied on imported fossil fuels more than any other American state, this can only be a good thing.

Hawaii manages to import about 90% of its energy from foreign countries, according to state data.

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In New Jersey, demand for solar installations is high, but 700 customers are on waiting lists for solar rebates, and some smaller installers are laying off workers while waiting for the rebates to be funded. So the state is considering moving to a system of energy credits that can be traded on the open market, according to a story today in the New York Times. That’s because, while New Jersey has grown its solar market, now it needs to grow it even faster.

• Solar must provide 2.12 percent of NJ electricity by 2020 to meet the state’s commitment, but is only providing only .07 percent thus far.
• The state has paid out $170 million in rebates and 3,100 solar systems have been installed.
• There is pressure to keep electricity rates from rising further, as NJ’s are some of the highest in the country, yet if rebates continue at the needed level, rates will rise even further. (Rebates are funded by surcharges on electrical rates.)

It is believed that energy credits would reward larger companies, allowing them to ramp up solar installations at a faster rate. This faster growth would also take the pressure off the state to supply rebate funds.

Image: Rob Bennett for The New York Times. Installing solar modules on the roof of Kohl’s

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