One of the most powerful drivers for the growing commercial solar market is the rising cost of electricity. If you are a small business owner in the Northeast with a painfully high electricity bill that rises year after year, solar power could be a smart way to lower your costs today and lock in low rates for the future.
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Renewable Portfolio Standard
In April, California made another big leap ahead in the clean energy race. At a solar panel factory in Milpitas, with Dept of Energy Secretary Steven Chu joining him on stage, Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation making the 33%-by-2020 Renewable Portfolio Standard(RPS) the law of the land. (Watch a video of the bill signing here.)
Due to its increasing population, the State of Nevada spends approximately $6 billion every year on imported energy. Therefore, numerous lawmakers in the state have turned to an alternative, smarter solution for powering the energy – through the use of renewable energy that is locally produced. Nevada is blessed with over 250 days of pure sunshine
There’s solar trouble in Ohio. For the second year of a two-year-old Renewable Portfolio Standard, Ohio utilities are requesting waivers from their solar electricity requirement. First Energy Corp – which is parent company to Toledo Edison, Ohio Edison and Cleveland Electric Illuminating – reports that they were unable to find enough solar renewable energy
Ohio, in 2008, created their own renewable portfolio standard that necessitated 25 percent of the overall energy in Ohio is created out of advanced energy sources by the year 2025. According to the portfolio, more than half of the energy created, must come from in-state sources. The impact of this standard and the venture into clean
The future of energy is all about abundant, cheap, and clean power. Over the last few months of 2010 the U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the California Energy Commission (CEC) approved 10 large-scale Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) projects totaling about 4,190 MW.
At the North American International Auto Show yesterday, Ford sponsored a discussion with Stewart Brand, author of the Whole Earth Catalog. In his discussion, he highlighted the dramatic shift in population from rural areas to urban areas in developed nations thus increasing overall energy usage.
Just across the bay from Vote Solar HQ, the team of researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab has been busy as ever cranking out detailed reports of valuable information on clean energy markets, policies, costs and benefits. We found two recent reports particularly illuminating:
State RPS Policies are Key to U.S. Solar Market Growth
I was keeping a tally sheet at last week’s Renewable Energy Finance Forum, so I could let readers know the issue that was brought up most often and granted the most overall prominence. The clear winner: China is eating our lunch in the migration to renewables. Inexplicably and tragically, the US is content to drop further and further behind in the development of energy
On Friday, Sept. 23, the California Air Resources Board (ARB) – in the absence of a California Legislature vote on the issue – approved a greenhouse gas reduction target of 33 percent for 2020 for the Los Angeles and greater San Francisco Bay areas – a target originally set by AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act in 2006.
Will Federal Cap-and-Trade Preempt State Renewable Portfolio Standards?
written by Mackinnon Lawrence
Heading into the new year, we are left wondering what impact Copenhagen’s legacy (a nonbinding Accord) will have on the US Senate’s cap-and-trade bill. With the House “ACES” bill passed, the attention is now squarely focused on the Senate as it reconvenes and takes another crack at legislation regulating greenhouse gas emissions.
Cap-and-trade legislation from Washington may include a federal renewable electricity standard (Washington’s version of a renewable portfolio standard). How this standard would be integrated into existing state standards or vice versa will remain a hot topic throughout 2010.
Ormat Technologies, Inc. announced this week that it has signed a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with NV Energy, Inc. for the purchase 30 megawatts (MW) from the McGinness Hills Geothermal project, which is currently under construction.
The PPA is subject to various approvals including the approval of the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada and is projected to come on line in 2012.
When completed, the McGinness Hills project will increase the total output supplied from Ormat to NV Energy, Inc. to approximately 135 MWs, helping NV Energy to meet its renewable energy requirement. Nevada’s renewable portfolio standard legislation requires 15 percent of all electricity generated in the state to be derived from new renewable energy sources by the end of 2012.
These are the days for clean tech observers and professionals. Our most innovative companies are finally bringing game-changing technologies to market and into competitive parity on cost. The political will that has been lacking for decades seems to be gaining critical mass. Even corporate America seems to be on board with making a profitable shift to a green economy.
Still, it’s not all rosy in the green tech picture. Getting climate change legislation through the house was a bloodsport and, as previously noted on the CleanTechies Blog, the Senate looks increasingly unlikely to put anything substantial on the President’s desk this year. And that is just the new policy. Around the country, existing policies designed to enable clean energy adoption are floundering, and even with all of the aforementioned momentum, in a down economy policy makers cannot afford too many false starts.
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