Wind turbines gaining power
Smaller communities, colleges plan projects
By Stephanie Ebbert, Boston Globe Staff, via Boston.com
A Lynn waste-water treatment plant could soon get half its power from wind energy. The Massachusetts Maritime Academy is erecting a wind turbine to try to cut its electric bill nearly in half. Hull hopes to save another $500,000 on electric costs, having already powered its streetlights and stoplights for free.
While commercial development of large wind farms continues to stall, Massachusetts municipalities and colleges are increasingly stepping into the void, planning to erect wind turbines one or two at a time to shave their energy costs and take advantage of a state program that rewards green energy producers.
At least a half-dozen Massachusetts cities, towns, or colleges are trying to build wind turbines to temper the rising costs of electricity. Eleven other communities are testing wind conditions to determine whether it would be worthwhile to build wind turbines, and nine more are looking for test tower sites, according to the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, which is helping communities launch the projects. Thirty-six other municipalities have expressed some interest in wind power, according to the collaborative.
''Any one project will make only a small difference," said Warren Leon, director of the Renewable Energy Trust, a division of the collaborative. ''But if five years from now there are community wind projects up in 15 or 20 communities across the state, collectively that will make a meaningful difference. On average, each project will probably generate enough electricity for close to 1,000 people."
Unlike the offshore wind project proposed for picturesque Nantucket Sound, most of the projects generate only limited opposition, probably because the projects are small and often remote. Hull is planning to build a second wind turbine on a landfill; Lynn, by its waste-water treatment plant; and Ipswich, near a transfer station.
All of the proposals would be dwarfed by the wind farm planned off the Cape and Islands: Cape Wind Associates wants to generate up to 428 megawatts of power, compared to 3.3 megawatts for Orleans' two windmills.
Cape Wind's turbines are proposed at 417 feet tall, compared to the 148-foot turbine the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 103 built near the Southeast Expressway in Dorchester.
Despite their delays, Cape Wind officials are thrilled to see smaller projects advance, in hope they will lessen fear of the unknown. ''From our standpoint, it's always helpful when wind turbines are erected elsewhere," said spokesman Mark Rodgers. ''Familiarity breeds greater acceptance."
Opponents of the controversial project argue that Cape Wind will always be different because it is proposed offshore and is being developed privately.
''The Cape Wind project is a site that's really driven by the developer to maximize profit, rather than being driven by the public interest," said Audra Parker, assistant director of the opposition group called the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound. ''There's a huge difference in scale between these municipally driven projects and the Cape Wind project, which is 24 square miles and 130 turbines."
But wind power can be a moneymaker for municipalities, too: by lowering energy costs, letting municipalities sell excess power, and providing green-energy certificates that communities can sell for profit. The state's Renewable Portfolio Standard calls for utilities to buy 4 percent of their power from renewable sources such as wind by 2009.
At today's rates, a municipality with a single turbine could sell green energy certificates and raise $100,000 a year, Leon said. Some projects also qualify for federal tax credits.
Nationwide, about 100 small-community wind projects have been built, said Kathy Belyeu, a spokeswoman for the American Wind Energy Association. Projects are increasingly being proposed in states that are trying to foster renewable energy, including Iowa, Minnesota, and, more recently, Massachusetts, she said. The collaborative is helping communities test and develop wind power using the renewable energy fund, which is raised by customers' utility fees. The average household pays 20 cents to 30 cents a month into the fund.
In Lynn, the Water and Sewer Commission decided last week to continue pursuing a plan to build a $3 million to $4 million wind turbine, based on projections that the city could start saving roughly $300,000 a year within four to seven years, said Robert Tina, director of operations for the Lynn Waste-water Treatment Plant. The savings would help offset the costs of operating the plant, which serves Lynn, Saugus, Swampscott, and Nahant, he said.
Orleans is working with the collaborative to erect two turbines to create enough energy to power the town's water treatment plant and sell unused green energy to other power companies.
''We have not had opposition," said Kevin Galligan, chairman of the wind energy committee in Orleans. ''The town overall has made a strong commitment to do these right. There are those people that question, 'Is this going to cost the town?' All the questions to date have been helpful."
The Hull Light Department, a municipal power company that built a wind turbine in 2001, is erecting a second in hope of saving $500,000 more on power costs.
Ipswich is asking residents at a spring Town Meeting to invest about $3.8 million in a turbine.
Cape Cod Community College is looking for a new location for a wind turbine, after the Federal Aviation Administration deemed the college's chosen site too close to an emergency flight path.
At the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, a turbine to be built this spring with state funds and a collaborative grant could provide about one-third of the college's electrical load, save $200,000 to $300,000 a year, and introduce engineering cadets to renewable energy, said the college's president, Admiral Richard Gurnon.
''They will see that it is an efficient opportunity to harness a natural resource that will always be available and always be free," Gurnon said. ''For us, it's a two-fer."
Monday, February 27, 2006
1.2 Megawatt solar electric power system opens in northern California
from SolarBuzz.com
Napa, CA, USA: College Dedicates 1.2 MW Solar Electric System; the Largest in Northern California
Congressman Mike Thompson joined Napa Valley College yesterday in dedicating a 1.2 MW solar photovoltaic system that provides power to meet 40% of the campus’ electricity needs.
New Napa College 1.2 Megawatt Photovoltaic System Supplied By PowerLight Corporation
The solar array, furnished by PowerLight Corporation, features solar cells by Sharp and generates equivalent electricity during the day to power 1,200 homes.
The system, sited on a field near the southern Napa River, was installed as part of the college’s ambitious facilities improvement project. Covering nearly 150,000 square feet, the solar electric tracking system will leverage an untapped asset — a floodplain that’s otherwise unusable.
“We’re delighted that solar power is being deployed here at Napa Valley College,” said Dr. Christopher McCarthy, President, Napa Valley College. “Our institution is committed to utilizing state-of the art technologies that lower costs, enhance operation, and help us achieve our sustainability goals.”
“Increased deployment of solar power should be one of our nation’s highest priorities,” said Congressman Mike Thompson. “Affordable, reliable renewable energy is critical for our long term economic and energy security, as well for the health of our environment.”
“By deploying a cost-effective, reliable, non-polluting energy solution system, we’re reducing our electricity bill, and contributing to the region’s overall environmental health,” said Dan TerAvest, Director of Construction and Campus Planning. “We’ve embraced solar power to contribute to California’s overall efforts to achieve sustainability and energy independence,” added Dr. McCarthy. “It is my hope that what we’re doing here sets a good example for universities across the country.”
“Napa Valley College is taking the right steps to help California meet its clean energy goals,” said Dan Shugar, President of PowerLight Corporation. “By adopting solar energy, Napa Valley College is generating clean, reliable power from the sun. Combining solar power and energy efficiency will enable the school to offset peak power costs statewide, which benefits all of California’s utility customers.”
The Panels Track the February California Sun
“Sharp is proud to be a partner on this project,” said Ron Kenedi, Vice President for Sharp Solar Energy Solutions Group. “This solar array will help Napa Valley College conserve natural resources and save on utility bills.”
The solar electric system at Napa Valley College features PowerLight’s PowerTracker technology, which tracks the sun across the sky to maximize energy generation. The solar array consists of 5,565 high efficiency solar modules manufactured by Sharp, and covers a total of 150,000 square feet. The solar power system’s prime energy output coincides with periods of highest electric demand, enabling the College to substantially reduce utility peak period energy charges.
By avoiding the purchase of fossil-fuel generated electricity, Napa Valley College’s solar electric system spares the environment from tons of harmful emissions, such as nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide, which are major contributors to smog, acid rain and global warming.
Over the 30-year life of the photovoltaic system, the solar generated electricity will reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 13,800 tons. These emissions reductions are equivalent to planting over 130 acres of trees, removing 2,700 cars from California’s highways, or not driving 35 million miles.
Napa, CA, USA: College Dedicates 1.2 MW Solar Electric System; the Largest in Northern California
Congressman Mike Thompson joined Napa Valley College yesterday in dedicating a 1.2 MW solar photovoltaic system that provides power to meet 40% of the campus’ electricity needs.
New Napa College 1.2 Megawatt Photovoltaic System Supplied By PowerLight Corporation
The solar array, furnished by PowerLight Corporation, features solar cells by Sharp and generates equivalent electricity during the day to power 1,200 homes.
The system, sited on a field near the southern Napa River, was installed as part of the college’s ambitious facilities improvement project. Covering nearly 150,000 square feet, the solar electric tracking system will leverage an untapped asset — a floodplain that’s otherwise unusable.
“We’re delighted that solar power is being deployed here at Napa Valley College,” said Dr. Christopher McCarthy, President, Napa Valley College. “Our institution is committed to utilizing state-of the art technologies that lower costs, enhance operation, and help us achieve our sustainability goals.”
“Increased deployment of solar power should be one of our nation’s highest priorities,” said Congressman Mike Thompson. “Affordable, reliable renewable energy is critical for our long term economic and energy security, as well for the health of our environment.”
“By deploying a cost-effective, reliable, non-polluting energy solution system, we’re reducing our electricity bill, and contributing to the region’s overall environmental health,” said Dan TerAvest, Director of Construction and Campus Planning. “We’ve embraced solar power to contribute to California’s overall efforts to achieve sustainability and energy independence,” added Dr. McCarthy. “It is my hope that what we’re doing here sets a good example for universities across the country.”
“Napa Valley College is taking the right steps to help California meet its clean energy goals,” said Dan Shugar, President of PowerLight Corporation. “By adopting solar energy, Napa Valley College is generating clean, reliable power from the sun. Combining solar power and energy efficiency will enable the school to offset peak power costs statewide, which benefits all of California’s utility customers.”
The Panels Track the February California Sun
“Sharp is proud to be a partner on this project,” said Ron Kenedi, Vice President for Sharp Solar Energy Solutions Group. “This solar array will help Napa Valley College conserve natural resources and save on utility bills.”
The solar electric system at Napa Valley College features PowerLight’s PowerTracker technology, which tracks the sun across the sky to maximize energy generation. The solar array consists of 5,565 high efficiency solar modules manufactured by Sharp, and covers a total of 150,000 square feet. The solar power system’s prime energy output coincides with periods of highest electric demand, enabling the College to substantially reduce utility peak period energy charges.
By avoiding the purchase of fossil-fuel generated electricity, Napa Valley College’s solar electric system spares the environment from tons of harmful emissions, such as nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide, which are major contributors to smog, acid rain and global warming.
Over the 30-year life of the photovoltaic system, the solar generated electricity will reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 13,800 tons. These emissions reductions are equivalent to planting over 130 acres of trees, removing 2,700 cars from California’s highways, or not driving 35 million miles.
California's Victoria Homes to have solar energy pre-built into homes
from SolarBuzz.com
Victorville, CA, USA: Photovoltaic System to be a Standard Feature on Hundreds of Victoria Homes
Victoria Homes, one of Southern California’s most-respected and innovative homebuilders, today announced that PowerLight’s SunTile™ solar electric systems, paired with ConSol’s energy efficiency solutions, are to be standard features on hundreds of new homes being constructed by Victoria in Southern California.
A Victoria Homes Solar Roof System
Through a combination of today’s most advanced, energy-efficient design features with on-site solar power, these homes are designed to produce more than half of the electricity that they use. As a result, buyers of these homes built by Victoria Homes will see annual utility savings of up to 70%.
“Victoria Homes is pleased to partner with PowerLight and ConSol to incorporate solar power and state-of-the-art energy design techniques as key features in our beautiful new communities in Victorville and surrounding areas,” said Paul R. Osborne, Founder and President of Victoria Homes. “These state of the art homes are specifically designed to help our homeowners save energy and make energy. Given today’s rising energy costs and our nation’s quest for energy independence, we feel this is an essential next step to take for our growing communities.”
“We’re excited to be making Victoria Homes even more attractive to prospective buyers by incorporating solar power, green design and other energy efficiency technologies,” added Osborne. “It is not only the right move for our environment, but also lowers the cost of homeownership. Victoria Homes is 100% behind Governor Schwarzenegger’s support of solar on new homes in California.”
PowerLight Corporation is a leading global provider of grid-connected solar electric power systems. PowerLight’s SunTile™ roof-integrated solar systems are the most efficient and advanced residential solar product on the market today. SunTile solar panels, which incorporate SunPower Corporation’s innovative solar cells, seamlessly interlock with roof tiles and shingles, blending into the home’s roofline.
A PowerLight SunTile™System
“We applaud the vision of Victoria Homes in making solar power a standard feature of their new homes,” said PowerLight’s executive vice president Howard Wenger. “Our SunTile solar electric system, combined with advanced energy efficiency, will drastically reduce a home’s utility bill, generating positive cash flow for the homeowner. Victoria Homes’ commitment to solar on every home it is building in Victorville will help the State of California realize its visionary solar policies.”
The recently approved California’s Solar Initiative, which has received broad support from state leaders including the Schwarzenegger Administration, commits the State to 10 years of uninterrupted funding, aimed at enabling thousands of homes and businesses to be powered by solar.
“ConSol is pleased to be partnering with PowerLight to incorporate state-of-the-art energy efficiency solutions through our ComfortWise® program at the Victoria Homes’ development in Victorville,” said Rob Hammon, Principal, ConSol. “The PowerLight solar system is an ideal complement to the comprehensive energy efficiency solutions we offer to home builders. This combination provides extremely low utility costs for homebuyers, and gives the builder highly satisfied customers.”
“Harnessing California’s abundant sunlight by outfitting new residences with solar power will generate clean, reliable, emissions-free energy,” noted CEC Commissioner Jackalyne Pfannenstiel. “The combination of solar power and energy efficiency on new homes will help California meets its growing energy needs and reduce our dependence on imported resources.”
PowerLight, having established itself as the nation’s leading provider of high performing solar systems for businesses, is now offering its products and technology to home builders. In June 2005, PowerLight Corporation, in partnership with ConSol, secured a $2.7 million award with the California Energy Commission (CEC) through its Zero Energy New Home (ZENH) initiative.
Victorville, CA, USA: Photovoltaic System to be a Standard Feature on Hundreds of Victoria Homes
Victoria Homes, one of Southern California’s most-respected and innovative homebuilders, today announced that PowerLight’s SunTile™ solar electric systems, paired with ConSol’s energy efficiency solutions, are to be standard features on hundreds of new homes being constructed by Victoria in Southern California.
A Victoria Homes Solar Roof System
Through a combination of today’s most advanced, energy-efficient design features with on-site solar power, these homes are designed to produce more than half of the electricity that they use. As a result, buyers of these homes built by Victoria Homes will see annual utility savings of up to 70%.
“Victoria Homes is pleased to partner with PowerLight and ConSol to incorporate solar power and state-of-the-art energy design techniques as key features in our beautiful new communities in Victorville and surrounding areas,” said Paul R. Osborne, Founder and President of Victoria Homes. “These state of the art homes are specifically designed to help our homeowners save energy and make energy. Given today’s rising energy costs and our nation’s quest for energy independence, we feel this is an essential next step to take for our growing communities.”
“We’re excited to be making Victoria Homes even more attractive to prospective buyers by incorporating solar power, green design and other energy efficiency technologies,” added Osborne. “It is not only the right move for our environment, but also lowers the cost of homeownership. Victoria Homes is 100% behind Governor Schwarzenegger’s support of solar on new homes in California.”
PowerLight Corporation is a leading global provider of grid-connected solar electric power systems. PowerLight’s SunTile™ roof-integrated solar systems are the most efficient and advanced residential solar product on the market today. SunTile solar panels, which incorporate SunPower Corporation’s innovative solar cells, seamlessly interlock with roof tiles and shingles, blending into the home’s roofline.
A PowerLight SunTile™System
“We applaud the vision of Victoria Homes in making solar power a standard feature of their new homes,” said PowerLight’s executive vice president Howard Wenger. “Our SunTile solar electric system, combined with advanced energy efficiency, will drastically reduce a home’s utility bill, generating positive cash flow for the homeowner. Victoria Homes’ commitment to solar on every home it is building in Victorville will help the State of California realize its visionary solar policies.”
The recently approved California’s Solar Initiative, which has received broad support from state leaders including the Schwarzenegger Administration, commits the State to 10 years of uninterrupted funding, aimed at enabling thousands of homes and businesses to be powered by solar.
“ConSol is pleased to be partnering with PowerLight to incorporate state-of-the-art energy efficiency solutions through our ComfortWise® program at the Victoria Homes’ development in Victorville,” said Rob Hammon, Principal, ConSol. “The PowerLight solar system is an ideal complement to the comprehensive energy efficiency solutions we offer to home builders. This combination provides extremely low utility costs for homebuyers, and gives the builder highly satisfied customers.”
“Harnessing California’s abundant sunlight by outfitting new residences with solar power will generate clean, reliable, emissions-free energy,” noted CEC Commissioner Jackalyne Pfannenstiel. “The combination of solar power and energy efficiency on new homes will help California meets its growing energy needs and reduce our dependence on imported resources.”
PowerLight, having established itself as the nation’s leading provider of high performing solar systems for businesses, is now offering its products and technology to home builders. In June 2005, PowerLight Corporation, in partnership with ConSol, secured a $2.7 million award with the California Energy Commission (CEC) through its Zero Energy New Home (ZENH) initiative.
Friday, February 24, 2006
Evergreen Solar (ESLR) secures 4-year, $100 mil order from Germany's SAG Solartron
Evergreen Solar Secures Large German Solar Order
from RenewableEnergyAccess.com
Marlboro, Massachusetts [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] Evergreen Solar signed a four-year supply contract this week with S.A.G. Solarstrom AG (S.A.G.), based in Freiburg, Germany. The agreement calls for Evergreen Solar to ship approximately USD$100 million of photovoltaic modules to S.A.G. over the next four years.
S.A.G. plans to use Evergreen Solar's products to help satisfy the growing demand from those organizations. These products will be manufactured at Evergreen Solar's plant in Massachusetts and at EverQ's new 30 MW facility in Thalheim, Germany. EverQ is a strategic partnership between Evergreen Solar, Q-Cells AG of Germany and Renewable Energy Corporation ASA (REC) of Norway.
"In this environment of surging demand for solar power products, we believe this will be a strong, mutually beneficial relationship for our two companies," said Richard M. Feldt, Evergreen Solar's president and chief executive officer. "The agreement also provides us with an opportunity to jointly seek additional ways to lower total system costs to the end-user."
This section is for solar energy links, renewable power investing info and clean green gifts:
Buy solar power books online, compare solar panel prices, find photovoltaics for sale online, solar-powered electronics, solar energy gift, books on renewable energy, alternative energy magazines, purchase solar energy present, buy solar power system online
find solar-powered radio-flashlight online
buy solar electronics gadget, solar energy holiday gift, purchase sun-powered seasonal present
Photovoltaic solar energy panels, order online
ICP Solar 21000 SolarPRO Plug'n'Play 100-Watt Kit
Solar-powered products for sale at Amazon.com
buy solar-powered gift, find seasonal present online, gift for boyfriend, purchase holiday presents online, internet shopping guide, safe shopping on the web, solar energy products, best green gifts for 2005 holiday season
Home Solar Power Kit
Click here to visit the Alternative Energy Store for discount prices on solar panels, wind turbines and renewable energy equipment for your home.
Purchase solar energy home-based system online through Oksolar.com
Try Rhapsody for 14 days FREE and get unlimited listening access to 1,000,000+ songs from 45,000+ artists.
6,000 watt DeWalt / Honda gas-powered generator for sale online
Purchase Hurricane Healing music for charity CD online; these song downloads benefit the victims of the Katrina hurricane damage affecting New Orleans, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and region:
HurricaneHealing.us
For Australian, Canadian and world music news and views, check out the Blue Pie Artists Blog, with digital downloads from hot new recording artists!
Clean power ads and renewable energy links end here
from RenewableEnergyAccess.com
Marlboro, Massachusetts [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] Evergreen Solar signed a four-year supply contract this week with S.A.G. Solarstrom AG (S.A.G.), based in Freiburg, Germany. The agreement calls for Evergreen Solar to ship approximately USD$100 million of photovoltaic modules to S.A.G. over the next four years.
S.A.G. plans to use Evergreen Solar's products to help satisfy the growing demand from those organizations. These products will be manufactured at Evergreen Solar's plant in Massachusetts and at EverQ's new 30 MW facility in Thalheim, Germany. EverQ is a strategic partnership between Evergreen Solar, Q-Cells AG of Germany and Renewable Energy Corporation ASA (REC) of Norway.
"In this environment of surging demand for solar power products, we believe this will be a strong, mutually beneficial relationship for our two companies," said Richard M. Feldt, Evergreen Solar's president and chief executive officer. "The agreement also provides us with an opportunity to jointly seek additional ways to lower total system costs to the end-user."
This section is for solar energy links, renewable power investing info and clean green gifts:
Buy solar power books online, compare solar panel prices, find photovoltaics for sale online, solar-powered electronics, solar energy gift, books on renewable energy, alternative energy magazines, purchase solar energy present, buy solar power system online
find solar-powered radio-flashlight online
buy solar electronics gadget, solar energy holiday gift, purchase sun-powered seasonal present
Photovoltaic solar energy panels, order online
ICP Solar 21000 SolarPRO Plug'n'Play 100-Watt Kit
Solar-powered products for sale at Amazon.com
buy solar-powered gift, find seasonal present online, gift for boyfriend, purchase holiday presents online, internet shopping guide, safe shopping on the web, solar energy products, best green gifts for 2005 holiday season
Home Solar Power Kit
Click here to visit the Alternative Energy Store for discount prices on solar panels, wind turbines and renewable energy equipment for your home.
Purchase solar energy home-based system online through Oksolar.com
Try Rhapsody for 14 days FREE and get unlimited listening access to 1,000,000+ songs from 45,000+ artists.
6,000 watt DeWalt / Honda gas-powered generator for sale online
Purchase Hurricane Healing music for charity CD online; these song downloads benefit the victims of the Katrina hurricane damage affecting New Orleans, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and region:
HurricaneHealing.us
For Australian, Canadian and world music news and views, check out the Blue Pie Artists Blog, with digital downloads from hot new recording artists!
Clean power ads and renewable energy links end here
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Texan-led US government no cure for petro junkies
Clean economy, BY RACHEL ACKOFF | ORGANIC POLITICS
from Phoenix.swarthmore.edu
I would laugh when I hear the Bush Administration referred to as an oiligarchy if it didn’t make me want to cry. George W. Bush’s ties to the oil industry go all the way back to his grandfather — his family has been running oil companies since 1950. Dick Cheney spent the late 90s as CEO of Halliburton, the world’s largest oil services company. And Condoleezza Rice sat on the board of Chevron, which graced a tanker with her name. So it’s nothing but ironic that in his most recent State of the Union address, the oil-man-turned-President said, “Here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil.”
Hold up — the worst environmental president in the history of the United States just cautioned us against oil addiction? This is the man who brought us the “Clear Skies Initiative,” a plan to allow three times more toxic mercury emissions, 50 percent more sulfur emissions and hundreds of thousands more tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides by essentially gutting the Clean Air Act. This is the president who signed into law his so-called “Healthy Forests Initiative,” a proposal to speed up forest “thinning” projects in over 20 million acres of public lands, while undermining critical protections for endangered species. So I’m under no illusions that Bush’s seemingly pro-environment comment in the State of the Union will result in a serious move to limit our dependence on fossil fuels, increase our support of renewable energy and help solve global warming.
Since Bush isn’t going to show leadership on the clean energy front any time soon, who will? If the left knew what was good for it (big IF), it would. For far too long, most progressive groups have focused on a single issue area (gay rights, affirmative action, etc.), forwarding separate goals with tactical approaches that tend to be short-term and single impact. The right, in contrast, has promoted comprehensive plans in which a change in one carefully chosen area has dramatic and far-reaching effects in many, many other issue areas. Think tax cuts. By promoting tax cuts, the right is able to simultaneously choke off funds from all of the social programs it opposes. The left should get it together and realize that pursuing a clean energy future for America would be a comprehensive plan that would win.
The heart of the plan might be increasing alternative energy investment, but the effects would be far-ranging, span multiple issue areas, create new alliances and lead to a long-term, visionary solution: a clean energy economy. It would create millions of new, high-paying jobs, reinvigorating the American industrial sector, and the industrial unions. It would improve human health by reducing air pollution, alleviating health problems like childhood asthma and lung cancer. It would halt the environmental degradation associated with dependence on fossil fuels, resulting in cleaner air and water, protection of species, preservation of natural habitats and a fix for global warming. It would improve our foreign policy by ending our reliance on Middle Eastern oil.
We need to call on our elected officials to pursue such a far-reaching strategy to improve the quality of our lives and the health of our planet. But while they’re working on it, we shouldn’t sit back and wait for wind- and solar-powered nirvana. We should start to create the world we want to live in right now. And that’s exactly what Earthlust is doing. (Full disclosure — I am a member). The group has come up with a proposal for Swarthmore College to reduce its consumption of dirty energy by purchasing more of its energy from renewable sources and by pursuing large-scale energy conservation. We’re calling on the college to commit to purchasing 35 percent of its energy from renewable sources by the end of the school year (we’re currently purchasing only 8.5 percent, which is well below other elite small liberal arts colleges — Carleton purchases 40 percent and Oberlin purchases 60 percent). As an institution of higher education committed to the ideal of “ethical intelligence,” Swarthmore has a special obligation to be a responsible energy consumer. Furthermore, we’re not talking about a break-the-bank kind of expense here. If we purchase the renewable energy from the most affordable sources, the additional cost would total around $42,000, equivalent to approximately 3.18 percent of the College’s energy costs.
Swarthmore College can’t solve global warming all by its lonesome, but as part of a larger movement for a clean energy future, it can have a huge impact. Already, over 75 college campuses have purchased substantial amounts of clean energy and many others are pioneering new methods of energy-efficient design, green buildings and climate-responsible investment policies. If we subscribe to our professed belief in the power of ideas to change the world, then the path forward is clear.
Rachel is a junior. You can reach her at rackoff1@swarthmore.edu.
from Phoenix.swarthmore.edu
I would laugh when I hear the Bush Administration referred to as an oiligarchy if it didn’t make me want to cry. George W. Bush’s ties to the oil industry go all the way back to his grandfather — his family has been running oil companies since 1950. Dick Cheney spent the late 90s as CEO of Halliburton, the world’s largest oil services company. And Condoleezza Rice sat on the board of Chevron, which graced a tanker with her name. So it’s nothing but ironic that in his most recent State of the Union address, the oil-man-turned-President said, “Here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil.”
Hold up — the worst environmental president in the history of the United States just cautioned us against oil addiction? This is the man who brought us the “Clear Skies Initiative,” a plan to allow three times more toxic mercury emissions, 50 percent more sulfur emissions and hundreds of thousands more tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides by essentially gutting the Clean Air Act. This is the president who signed into law his so-called “Healthy Forests Initiative,” a proposal to speed up forest “thinning” projects in over 20 million acres of public lands, while undermining critical protections for endangered species. So I’m under no illusions that Bush’s seemingly pro-environment comment in the State of the Union will result in a serious move to limit our dependence on fossil fuels, increase our support of renewable energy and help solve global warming.
Since Bush isn’t going to show leadership on the clean energy front any time soon, who will? If the left knew what was good for it (big IF), it would. For far too long, most progressive groups have focused on a single issue area (gay rights, affirmative action, etc.), forwarding separate goals with tactical approaches that tend to be short-term and single impact. The right, in contrast, has promoted comprehensive plans in which a change in one carefully chosen area has dramatic and far-reaching effects in many, many other issue areas. Think tax cuts. By promoting tax cuts, the right is able to simultaneously choke off funds from all of the social programs it opposes. The left should get it together and realize that pursuing a clean energy future for America would be a comprehensive plan that would win.
The heart of the plan might be increasing alternative energy investment, but the effects would be far-ranging, span multiple issue areas, create new alliances and lead to a long-term, visionary solution: a clean energy economy. It would create millions of new, high-paying jobs, reinvigorating the American industrial sector, and the industrial unions. It would improve human health by reducing air pollution, alleviating health problems like childhood asthma and lung cancer. It would halt the environmental degradation associated with dependence on fossil fuels, resulting in cleaner air and water, protection of species, preservation of natural habitats and a fix for global warming. It would improve our foreign policy by ending our reliance on Middle Eastern oil.
We need to call on our elected officials to pursue such a far-reaching strategy to improve the quality of our lives and the health of our planet. But while they’re working on it, we shouldn’t sit back and wait for wind- and solar-powered nirvana. We should start to create the world we want to live in right now. And that’s exactly what Earthlust is doing. (Full disclosure — I am a member). The group has come up with a proposal for Swarthmore College to reduce its consumption of dirty energy by purchasing more of its energy from renewable sources and by pursuing large-scale energy conservation. We’re calling on the college to commit to purchasing 35 percent of its energy from renewable sources by the end of the school year (we’re currently purchasing only 8.5 percent, which is well below other elite small liberal arts colleges — Carleton purchases 40 percent and Oberlin purchases 60 percent). As an institution of higher education committed to the ideal of “ethical intelligence,” Swarthmore has a special obligation to be a responsible energy consumer. Furthermore, we’re not talking about a break-the-bank kind of expense here. If we purchase the renewable energy from the most affordable sources, the additional cost would total around $42,000, equivalent to approximately 3.18 percent of the College’s energy costs.
Swarthmore College can’t solve global warming all by its lonesome, but as part of a larger movement for a clean energy future, it can have a huge impact. Already, over 75 college campuses have purchased substantial amounts of clean energy and many others are pioneering new methods of energy-efficient design, green buildings and climate-responsible investment policies. If we subscribe to our professed belief in the power of ideas to change the world, then the path forward is clear.
Rachel is a junior. You can reach her at rackoff1@swarthmore.edu.
Home-based solar power saves families money
FOCUS ON THE ENVIRONMENT
Venturing off the grid; Innovative families save money, gain power with solar, propane, other energy sources
from SFgate.com
Arcata, Humboldt County -- Just past noon on a hazy, raw Sunday a few weeks ago, Linda Parkinson did what few homeowners in this storm-battered region could: She turned on the television.
While most Humboldt County residents were reeling from power outages left by devastating rains, Parkinson had electricity to spare. She cooked a feast for a dozen people, took hot showers and threw video-game parties for her 15-year-old son's classmates.
For 24 years, Parkinson, 49, has lived completely off the electric grid, drawing energy exclusively from solar, propane and other renewable on-site power sources.
She isn't alone. Some 180,000 American homeowners live off-grid, according to Richard Perez, publisher of Home Power magazine. Approximately a quarter live in California, and each year the national number grows 33 percent, according to the publisher's database of known off-gridders and estimates of those unreported.
"California is the hotbed of off-grid systems," he said.
Parkinson maintains that the movement is no longer a hippie fad; it's increasingly mainstream and propelled by Americans' desire to eliminate electric bills, keep homes juiced during blackouts, minimize U.S. dependence on fossil fuel and, for activists, send a gesture of defiance to the power companies.
"It's about self-sufficiency," she said, relaxing on the couch in her secluded home. "Living off the grid doesn't mean being disconnected. If anything, I've had an advantage. The power goes out a lot around here," and she still manages to crank household appliances.
In the wireless era, Parkinson said, technology both frees us up and plugs us in, and the off-grid choice is not a retreat from technology but an application of it.
Over the past few months, the off-grid movement has burst into pop-culture awareness: Several online groups have formed with tips on refrigeration, lighting and rainwater distillation; there's a series of new off-grid design books; and the U.S. Department of Energy hosted in October its second design competition for off-grid architects.
The strongest sign yet of the movement's liftoff is a reality-TV series, due out this fall on the Discovery Channel. Production for "Off the Grid" -- its tentative name -- is to start in May.
"We'd rather call it an 'informational documentary' than a reality-TV series," insisted producer Katie Sole, who is preparing to recruit American families. "These families are city dwellers who've always had dreams of escaping the rat race."
Participants will build log cabins, hunt, fish and grow crops. While the movement's impact is crystallizing for cultural consumption, its lobbying powers in government are just forming.
A recent study by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a lobbying organization based in Washington, D.C., found that an increase in America's alternative-energy investment, after 15 years, would create almost 150,000 jobs, increase wages nearly $7 billion, reduce carbon-dioxide emissions roughly 30 percent and save close to $30 billion in electric and gas bills.
The technology that frees a homeowner from PG&E bills includes rooftop panels that absorb sunlight and convert it to electricity, which is then stored in batteries; spinning wind turbines that generate electricity; and gravity-based plumbing that sends creek water and rainwater through pipes funneled into an irrigation pond.
A typical off-grid setup, with solar and wind systems, costs thousands of dollars. An upscale system in a house of 2,000 square feet, for instance, costs more than $23,000 to purchase and install.
That's how much Lauris Phillips, 48, and Jay Peltz, 46, paid to power their house in Redway, just outside Garberville.
"It can be expensive, but the equipment pays for itself after several years," said Peltz, standing under a canopy of solar panels in a patch of sunlight. Peltz is an acclaimed solar-panel consultant who recently set up a biological-research center in Ecuador.
Technology aside, Peltz said, the movement owes itself, in part, to texts like Henry David Thoreau's "Walden," the classic 1854 study of self-sufficient living. "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately," Thoreau wrote. The same is true of many off-gridders, but while self-reliance is its own reward, Peltz emphasized, the biggest appeal is cost: After several years, you save more than you've spent.
"I've saved $200 a month for the last 20 years," Parkinson said. "That's my kids' education right there that I would have given to PG&E."
Passive solar buildings have been in use since the 1940s, when World War II quickened an energy crunch that led Americans to seek out alternative power sources. In 1954, Bell Laboratories invented solar panels to strengthen phone signals, but the technology didn't reach homes until the '70s.
Although the United States is the birthplace of the off-grid movement, Japan is the top producer of solar technology, and Germany also invests more heavily, which Peltz believes will reduce those countries' trade deficits, produce jobs and lessen their reliance on oil imports.
Lobbying from solar advocates will help the United States retake the lead, Peltz said. Such lobbying intensified in 1980 with the first off-grid house on a college campus, constructed at Humboldt State University when students formed the Campus Center for Appropriate Technology. Today CCAT -- the campus' largest organization -- is renowned for its quirky alternative-energy projects, such as pedal-powered exercise-bike laptops, blenders and VCRs.
The center, which has an annual budget of $34,000 that doubles every five years, installed solar panels in 1984. Controversy struck in 2000 when the students chose to plug back into the grid to earn rebates from PG&E, contribute energy to the power company and ease the grid's overall load.
"It makes the whole thing cheaper," said Richard Engle, a Humboldt State research engineer. "CCAT could stubbornly stay off the grid and tout renewable energy as 'sticking it to the man,' but we -- those supporting the move -- felt it sent a more powerful message" to supply additional energy to the grid.
With the recent passage of a campuswide initiative, students now pay $10 per semester to get the entire college off the grid by 2043.
A major reason for the off-grid trend's growth in Humboldt is real estate. Acres of scenic land are beyond the grid's reach, and off-grid technology allows for settling just about anywhere.
There's also the crop industry. "Honestly, the marijuana industry is a big factor," said Jim Zoellick, another Humboldt State engineer. "Back in the '80s, there were people living in the hills growing pot, and they didn't want the grid coming out because they didn't want PG&E running their meters. The marijuana industry was a tremendous market."
Still another reason is fear.
After the paralyzing blackouts that struck California in 1996 and 2001 and the Y2K hysteria about technological collapse come midnight 1999, more urbanites moved off the grid.
Another oft-cited factor is the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the fallout from which has inspired people to rethink the invincibility of cities.
Now, members of a Yahoo chat-group called Off-Grid Living and Homesteading trade dozens of e-mails daily. One post last month, by newcomer Willow Polson, said she is "seriously looking at getting our 20-acre homestead off the grid" and becoming "as self-sufficient as possible. (We believe strongly that because of peak oil and other factors, a depression is coming very soon.)"
Polson, 39, grew up in San Francisco and lives near Yosemite with two sheep, three chickens, four cats and two dogs.
Speaking with The Chronicle shortly after her initial post, she added, "I don't want to sound like some survivalist nut-cake, but moving out here, in the middle of nowhere, we have to be ready for whatever can happen."
"It's still so new," said Lori Ryker, author of the new design book "Off the Grid." "The movement didn't take off as well in the '70s. That's because it takes a while for a paradigm shift to occur in the way people think."
Venturing off the grid; Innovative families save money, gain power with solar, propane, other energy sources
from SFgate.com
Arcata, Humboldt County -- Just past noon on a hazy, raw Sunday a few weeks ago, Linda Parkinson did what few homeowners in this storm-battered region could: She turned on the television.
While most Humboldt County residents were reeling from power outages left by devastating rains, Parkinson had electricity to spare. She cooked a feast for a dozen people, took hot showers and threw video-game parties for her 15-year-old son's classmates.
For 24 years, Parkinson, 49, has lived completely off the electric grid, drawing energy exclusively from solar, propane and other renewable on-site power sources.
She isn't alone. Some 180,000 American homeowners live off-grid, according to Richard Perez, publisher of Home Power magazine. Approximately a quarter live in California, and each year the national number grows 33 percent, according to the publisher's database of known off-gridders and estimates of those unreported.
"California is the hotbed of off-grid systems," he said.
Parkinson maintains that the movement is no longer a hippie fad; it's increasingly mainstream and propelled by Americans' desire to eliminate electric bills, keep homes juiced during blackouts, minimize U.S. dependence on fossil fuel and, for activists, send a gesture of defiance to the power companies.
"It's about self-sufficiency," she said, relaxing on the couch in her secluded home. "Living off the grid doesn't mean being disconnected. If anything, I've had an advantage. The power goes out a lot around here," and she still manages to crank household appliances.
In the wireless era, Parkinson said, technology both frees us up and plugs us in, and the off-grid choice is not a retreat from technology but an application of it.
Over the past few months, the off-grid movement has burst into pop-culture awareness: Several online groups have formed with tips on refrigeration, lighting and rainwater distillation; there's a series of new off-grid design books; and the U.S. Department of Energy hosted in October its second design competition for off-grid architects.
The strongest sign yet of the movement's liftoff is a reality-TV series, due out this fall on the Discovery Channel. Production for "Off the Grid" -- its tentative name -- is to start in May.
"We'd rather call it an 'informational documentary' than a reality-TV series," insisted producer Katie Sole, who is preparing to recruit American families. "These families are city dwellers who've always had dreams of escaping the rat race."
Participants will build log cabins, hunt, fish and grow crops. While the movement's impact is crystallizing for cultural consumption, its lobbying powers in government are just forming.
A recent study by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a lobbying organization based in Washington, D.C., found that an increase in America's alternative-energy investment, after 15 years, would create almost 150,000 jobs, increase wages nearly $7 billion, reduce carbon-dioxide emissions roughly 30 percent and save close to $30 billion in electric and gas bills.
The technology that frees a homeowner from PG&E bills includes rooftop panels that absorb sunlight and convert it to electricity, which is then stored in batteries; spinning wind turbines that generate electricity; and gravity-based plumbing that sends creek water and rainwater through pipes funneled into an irrigation pond.
A typical off-grid setup, with solar and wind systems, costs thousands of dollars. An upscale system in a house of 2,000 square feet, for instance, costs more than $23,000 to purchase and install.
That's how much Lauris Phillips, 48, and Jay Peltz, 46, paid to power their house in Redway, just outside Garberville.
"It can be expensive, but the equipment pays for itself after several years," said Peltz, standing under a canopy of solar panels in a patch of sunlight. Peltz is an acclaimed solar-panel consultant who recently set up a biological-research center in Ecuador.
Technology aside, Peltz said, the movement owes itself, in part, to texts like Henry David Thoreau's "Walden," the classic 1854 study of self-sufficient living. "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately," Thoreau wrote. The same is true of many off-gridders, but while self-reliance is its own reward, Peltz emphasized, the biggest appeal is cost: After several years, you save more than you've spent.
"I've saved $200 a month for the last 20 years," Parkinson said. "That's my kids' education right there that I would have given to PG&E."
Passive solar buildings have been in use since the 1940s, when World War II quickened an energy crunch that led Americans to seek out alternative power sources. In 1954, Bell Laboratories invented solar panels to strengthen phone signals, but the technology didn't reach homes until the '70s.
Although the United States is the birthplace of the off-grid movement, Japan is the top producer of solar technology, and Germany also invests more heavily, which Peltz believes will reduce those countries' trade deficits, produce jobs and lessen their reliance on oil imports.
Lobbying from solar advocates will help the United States retake the lead, Peltz said. Such lobbying intensified in 1980 with the first off-grid house on a college campus, constructed at Humboldt State University when students formed the Campus Center for Appropriate Technology. Today CCAT -- the campus' largest organization -- is renowned for its quirky alternative-energy projects, such as pedal-powered exercise-bike laptops, blenders and VCRs.
The center, which has an annual budget of $34,000 that doubles every five years, installed solar panels in 1984. Controversy struck in 2000 when the students chose to plug back into the grid to earn rebates from PG&E, contribute energy to the power company and ease the grid's overall load.
"It makes the whole thing cheaper," said Richard Engle, a Humboldt State research engineer. "CCAT could stubbornly stay off the grid and tout renewable energy as 'sticking it to the man,' but we -- those supporting the move -- felt it sent a more powerful message" to supply additional energy to the grid.
With the recent passage of a campuswide initiative, students now pay $10 per semester to get the entire college off the grid by 2043.
A major reason for the off-grid trend's growth in Humboldt is real estate. Acres of scenic land are beyond the grid's reach, and off-grid technology allows for settling just about anywhere.
There's also the crop industry. "Honestly, the marijuana industry is a big factor," said Jim Zoellick, another Humboldt State engineer. "Back in the '80s, there were people living in the hills growing pot, and they didn't want the grid coming out because they didn't want PG&E running their meters. The marijuana industry was a tremendous market."
Still another reason is fear.
After the paralyzing blackouts that struck California in 1996 and 2001 and the Y2K hysteria about technological collapse come midnight 1999, more urbanites moved off the grid.
Another oft-cited factor is the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the fallout from which has inspired people to rethink the invincibility of cities.
Now, members of a Yahoo chat-group called Off-Grid Living and Homesteading trade dozens of e-mails daily. One post last month, by newcomer Willow Polson, said she is "seriously looking at getting our 20-acre homestead off the grid" and becoming "as self-sufficient as possible. (We believe strongly that because of peak oil and other factors, a depression is coming very soon.)"
Polson, 39, grew up in San Francisco and lives near Yosemite with two sheep, three chickens, four cats and two dogs.
Speaking with The Chronicle shortly after her initial post, she added, "I don't want to sound like some survivalist nut-cake, but moving out here, in the middle of nowhere, we have to be ready for whatever can happen."
"It's still so new," said Lori Ryker, author of the new design book "Off the Grid." "The movement didn't take off as well in the '70s. That's because it takes a while for a paradigm shift to occur in the way people think."
Solar Energy Investing goes from alternative to mainstream
Ready for Everything Under the Solar Panel
By DANIEL GROSS, New York Times
UNTIL recently, the alternative energy industry was decidedly alternative. It conjured up images of off-the-grid bohemians heating their cabins with wood-burning stoves, and eccentric tinkerers tricking out cars to run on vegetable oil.
But in 2005, alternative, or renewable, energy vaulted the highly fortified border separating cottage industry and big business. With oil and gas prices soaring, the allure of alternate energy sources is apparent.
Veteran analysts of investment manias might detect eerie similarities to an era many would just as soon forget: the 1990's dot-com boom. Is a new bubble in the offing?
Let's go to the handy bubble checklist.
Hot initial public offerings? Check.
Some of the I.P.O.'s most in demand recently have been of solar energy companies. Shares of SunPower, for example, rose 41 percent on the first day of trading this fall.
Enthusiastic venture capitalists? Check. "In 2005, we saw a tripling of venture capital money going into the solar industry compared to 2004," said Rhone Resch, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association.
Old-line companies talking the talk? Check.
In the 1990's, blue-chip companies added adjectives like interactive to the corporate lexicon. Today on General Electric's Web site, the company's chief executive, Jeff Immelt, rhapsodizes about renewables.
Government policy adding a helping hand? Check.
In the 1990's, the government appropriated taxpayer cash to build a high-speed broadband infrastructure. Today, it's subsidizing the installation of solar panels through tax credits.
New buzzwords? Check.
In the 1990's, magazines like Red Herring championed the dot-com boom. Today, Red Herring is pushing "clean tech."
Visionary entrepreneurs bent on changing the world? Check.
Bill Gross founded IdeaLab, which spawned Internet businesses that aimed to change the world. Today, he's backing Energy Innovations, which aims to build low-cost solar arrays. If his products can reduce the cost sufficiently, Mr. Gross told Red Herring, "then we will change the world."
Breathless Wall Street analysts? Check.
"This is not just the most attractive space in the energy sector, but probably the most attractive space across equity markets, period," Michael Rogol, global solar market analyst for CLSA Asia Pacific Markets, told The Wall Street Journal.
By DANIEL GROSS, New York Times
UNTIL recently, the alternative energy industry was decidedly alternative. It conjured up images of off-the-grid bohemians heating their cabins with wood-burning stoves, and eccentric tinkerers tricking out cars to run on vegetable oil.
But in 2005, alternative, or renewable, energy vaulted the highly fortified border separating cottage industry and big business. With oil and gas prices soaring, the allure of alternate energy sources is apparent.
Veteran analysts of investment manias might detect eerie similarities to an era many would just as soon forget: the 1990's dot-com boom. Is a new bubble in the offing?
Let's go to the handy bubble checklist.
Hot initial public offerings? Check.
Some of the I.P.O.'s most in demand recently have been of solar energy companies. Shares of SunPower, for example, rose 41 percent on the first day of trading this fall.
Enthusiastic venture capitalists? Check. "In 2005, we saw a tripling of venture capital money going into the solar industry compared to 2004," said Rhone Resch, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association.
Old-line companies talking the talk? Check.
In the 1990's, blue-chip companies added adjectives like interactive to the corporate lexicon. Today on General Electric's Web site, the company's chief executive, Jeff Immelt, rhapsodizes about renewables.
Government policy adding a helping hand? Check.
In the 1990's, the government appropriated taxpayer cash to build a high-speed broadband infrastructure. Today, it's subsidizing the installation of solar panels through tax credits.
New buzzwords? Check.
In the 1990's, magazines like Red Herring championed the dot-com boom. Today, Red Herring is pushing "clean tech."
Visionary entrepreneurs bent on changing the world? Check.
Bill Gross founded IdeaLab, which spawned Internet businesses that aimed to change the world. Today, he's backing Energy Innovations, which aims to build low-cost solar arrays. If his products can reduce the cost sufficiently, Mr. Gross told Red Herring, "then we will change the world."
Breathless Wall Street analysts? Check.
"This is not just the most attractive space in the energy sector, but probably the most attractive space across equity markets, period," Michael Rogol, global solar market analyst for CLSA Asia Pacific Markets, told The Wall Street Journal.
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Wall Street way ahead of Whitehouse when it comes to deep green ecology
Why Wall Street is Greener than the White House
by Bruce Piasecki and Peter Asmus, www.renewableenergyaccess.com
Goldman Sachs became the first global investment bank to adopt a comprehensive environmental policy that acknowledges the value of "ecosystem services" this December. This firm is just one among many financial institutions pushing brave new forms of corporate social responsibility in response to global climate change. JP Morgan, for example, is already evaluating the impact of carbon risks on its loans to industries that are big polluters.
With this ground-breaking initiative, nonetheless, Goldman Sachs is explicitly acknowledging the fact that we cannot achieve climate stabilization without government regulations to complement individual corporate actions. Today, virtually any company that voluntarily undertakes a transition to renewable energy and other non-carbon energy sources may put themselves at a competitive disadvantage within its industry. A number of oil and auto executives have said privately that they can make the transition to clean energy, but they need government to regulate them so they can make the change in lockstep with no loss of market share. Others are willing to move forward, sensing opportunity in being greener first.
Owner of more than a few fossil-fuel power plants, Goldman Sachs agreed to publicly report on its efforts to reduce air emissions contributing to global climate change and invest $1 billion in renewable energy and efficiency projects. Goldman Sachs will also fund a new Center For Environmental Markets while broadening the application of social and environmental factors into loaning and investment activities. But most importantly, these Wall Street insiders have agreed to press the Bush Administration to adopt new public policies to respond to the global climate change threat.
"It is telling that the first major call for regulation to address the rapidly escalating impacts of climate change is coming from the finance sector," said Ross Gelbspan, author of the book 'The Heat Is On'.
According to Gelbspan, the immediate impetus comes from the escalating losses of the world's property insurers to floods, droughts and increasingly destructive storms. In 2004, for example, he pointed out that the global economy absorbed damages costing about $145 billion from climate-related disasters (primarily severe storms and hurricanes). Of that figure, about $44 billion represented insured losses. Munich Reinsurance, the world's largest re-insurance company, has projected that losses to climate impacts will approximate $300 billion a year in the next two decades.
Gelbspan continued, "Seen in a larger context, it seems that their own strategic needs require banks, insurers and financial institutions to take a longer view of the health of the capitalist system. Most individual companies, by contrast, are obligated to respond to shorter-term concerns about their quarterly or annual earnings and losses. So it falls to the world's financial institutions to protect the long-term viability of the economy."
Given the intensifying impacts of an unstable climate, it is obvious to many financial leaders that the ultimate viability of the global economy depends on government intervention to promote the necessary changes in the world's energy infrastructures. If government fails to intervene, insurance losses and defaulted business loans are the ultimate outcome, leading to a very damaging shrinkage of markets for goods and services, especially in developing countries.
Goldman Sachs is but one of many actors on Wall Street now scrutinizing fiscal risks in ways unheard of just a decade ago. The risks reshaping corporations can now be measured with some hard numbers by financial stock analysts. Independent rating agencies such as Innovest have already developed risk profiles of multi-nationals based on the carbon content of their products, slowly shifting investors from bad to good environmental corporate actors.
Consider these other major developments among corporations with carbon risks and driven by the growing and greening influence of Wall Street:
- HSBC has pledged to offset all carbon emissions by the end of next year;
- At Novo Nordisk, achievement of carbon reductions are a major factor in performance reviews of senior executives;
- BHP Billiton has developed specific carbon curtailment plans for each of its business units.
All of these companies are now developing social programs that mimic activities most of us associate with governments.
If corporations differentiate themselves based on a social response to climate change -- and can therefore manage risks better than competitors in their industrial sectors -- then third-party credit agencies such as Innovest, Core Ratings, and IRRC become key drivers behind sustainability. They can capture this hidden value of socially responsible firms! Once these former intangibles become indeed tangible, companies embracing social values such as Goldman Sachs can then jump out ahead of their competitors, instead of being penalized by the lack of government action.
Yes, we need Washington, DC to back-up the social product innovators, in order to institutionalize reforms to meet society's need for a comprehensive solution to the challenge of global climate change. But in the mean time, it is a new class of credible third-party agencies that are helping financial markets sort through tomorrow's winners and losers. In the process, they are shaping the fate of our planet in ways the White House may never be able to do.
About the authors...
Bruce Piasecki is founder and president of the AHC Group of Saratoga Springs, New York, a change-agent consulting firm that serves Fortune 500 and other companies. His books include In Search of Environmental Excellence (Simon & Schuster, 1990), co-authored with Peter Asmus, a corporate social responsibility specialist. This commentary is an excerpt from Piasecki's forthcoming book, Better Products, Better World. Please see www.ahcgroup.com for more details.
Clean energy links and sun-powered presents:
Buy solar-powered battery charger, now for sale online at Amazon.com:
Solar Battery Recharger for sale online
Research solar energy, build home solar power system, turnkey wind energy for house or small business, alternative energy for farmers, find new clean energy sources, books on renewable power sources.
Solar-powered Electronics Gifts Watches
Centurion Solar-powered Security Light
Solar-powered Tools and Hardware
Pathfinder Solar Powered Triple Sensor Watch from Casio
Free yourself from your utility company, click here to learn about how to run your home off of solar and wind power!
Better Energy Solar iPod Recharger
End of Solar Energy links Renewable Power products section
by Bruce Piasecki and Peter Asmus, www.renewableenergyaccess.com
Goldman Sachs became the first global investment bank to adopt a comprehensive environmental policy that acknowledges the value of "ecosystem services" this December. This firm is just one among many financial institutions pushing brave new forms of corporate social responsibility in response to global climate change. JP Morgan, for example, is already evaluating the impact of carbon risks on its loans to industries that are big polluters.
With this ground-breaking initiative, nonetheless, Goldman Sachs is explicitly acknowledging the fact that we cannot achieve climate stabilization without government regulations to complement individual corporate actions. Today, virtually any company that voluntarily undertakes a transition to renewable energy and other non-carbon energy sources may put themselves at a competitive disadvantage within its industry. A number of oil and auto executives have said privately that they can make the transition to clean energy, but they need government to regulate them so they can make the change in lockstep with no loss of market share. Others are willing to move forward, sensing opportunity in being greener first.
Owner of more than a few fossil-fuel power plants, Goldman Sachs agreed to publicly report on its efforts to reduce air emissions contributing to global climate change and invest $1 billion in renewable energy and efficiency projects. Goldman Sachs will also fund a new Center For Environmental Markets while broadening the application of social and environmental factors into loaning and investment activities. But most importantly, these Wall Street insiders have agreed to press the Bush Administration to adopt new public policies to respond to the global climate change threat.
"It is telling that the first major call for regulation to address the rapidly escalating impacts of climate change is coming from the finance sector," said Ross Gelbspan, author of the book 'The Heat Is On'.
According to Gelbspan, the immediate impetus comes from the escalating losses of the world's property insurers to floods, droughts and increasingly destructive storms. In 2004, for example, he pointed out that the global economy absorbed damages costing about $145 billion from climate-related disasters (primarily severe storms and hurricanes). Of that figure, about $44 billion represented insured losses. Munich Reinsurance, the world's largest re-insurance company, has projected that losses to climate impacts will approximate $300 billion a year in the next two decades.
Gelbspan continued, "Seen in a larger context, it seems that their own strategic needs require banks, insurers and financial institutions to take a longer view of the health of the capitalist system. Most individual companies, by contrast, are obligated to respond to shorter-term concerns about their quarterly or annual earnings and losses. So it falls to the world's financial institutions to protect the long-term viability of the economy."
Given the intensifying impacts of an unstable climate, it is obvious to many financial leaders that the ultimate viability of the global economy depends on government intervention to promote the necessary changes in the world's energy infrastructures. If government fails to intervene, insurance losses and defaulted business loans are the ultimate outcome, leading to a very damaging shrinkage of markets for goods and services, especially in developing countries.
Goldman Sachs is but one of many actors on Wall Street now scrutinizing fiscal risks in ways unheard of just a decade ago. The risks reshaping corporations can now be measured with some hard numbers by financial stock analysts. Independent rating agencies such as Innovest have already developed risk profiles of multi-nationals based on the carbon content of their products, slowly shifting investors from bad to good environmental corporate actors.
Consider these other major developments among corporations with carbon risks and driven by the growing and greening influence of Wall Street:
- HSBC has pledged to offset all carbon emissions by the end of next year;
- At Novo Nordisk, achievement of carbon reductions are a major factor in performance reviews of senior executives;
- BHP Billiton has developed specific carbon curtailment plans for each of its business units.
All of these companies are now developing social programs that mimic activities most of us associate with governments.
If corporations differentiate themselves based on a social response to climate change -- and can therefore manage risks better than competitors in their industrial sectors -- then third-party credit agencies such as Innovest, Core Ratings, and IRRC become key drivers behind sustainability. They can capture this hidden value of socially responsible firms! Once these former intangibles become indeed tangible, companies embracing social values such as Goldman Sachs can then jump out ahead of their competitors, instead of being penalized by the lack of government action.
Yes, we need Washington, DC to back-up the social product innovators, in order to institutionalize reforms to meet society's need for a comprehensive solution to the challenge of global climate change. But in the mean time, it is a new class of credible third-party agencies that are helping financial markets sort through tomorrow's winners and losers. In the process, they are shaping the fate of our planet in ways the White House may never be able to do.
About the authors...
Bruce Piasecki is founder and president of the AHC Group of Saratoga Springs, New York, a change-agent consulting firm that serves Fortune 500 and other companies. His books include In Search of Environmental Excellence (Simon & Schuster, 1990), co-authored with Peter Asmus, a corporate social responsibility specialist. This commentary is an excerpt from Piasecki's forthcoming book, Better Products, Better World. Please see www.ahcgroup.com for more details.
Clean energy links and sun-powered presents:
Buy solar-powered battery charger, now for sale online at Amazon.com:
Solar Battery Recharger for sale online
Research solar energy, build home solar power system, turnkey wind energy for house or small business, alternative energy for farmers, find new clean energy sources, books on renewable power sources.
Solar-powered Electronics Gifts Watches
Centurion Solar-powered Security Light
Solar-powered Tools and Hardware
Pathfinder Solar Powered Triple Sensor Watch from Casio
Free yourself from your utility company, click here to learn about how to run your home off of solar and wind power!
Better Energy Solar iPod Recharger
End of Solar Energy links Renewable Power products section
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Toronto environmentalist / songwriter Yuya now available globally through iTunes, Rhapsody, MusicNow aand StayAround!
Blue Pie recording artist Yuya has his full CD, Give U Everything, ready for download to your ipod, computer, ROKR phone; rock, alt rock, pop rock, punk rock and reggae songs available.
Canadian rock/reggae singer Yuya is a dynamic new voice from the land of the lyricists. From his early days as writer / frontman for Joe College and The Rulers, to becoming the lead singer for Canadian Courage, Yuya’s powerful tunes express the emotions of the rebellious lover in an unjust world. Yuya feels his new digital distribution deal with Blue Pie Productions (based in Sydney, Australia) will help him reach his global audience, and it already is!!!
Blue Pie / Hurricane Healing artist Yuya has songs featured on StayAround.com:
StayAround.com Yuya Music
“ I have always felt that my music is international in character, and working with the Blue Pie team is an ideal way to help my songs find the global audience they are best suited for,” opined an optimistic Yuya.
Growing up near Toronto, Yuya was influenced by everyone from Neil Young to Rush, and from Leonard Cohen to his 3 biggest musical mentors: Dylan, Lennon and Marley.
With his new CD entitled Give U Everything offering an array of post-punk (a la Joe Strummer / The Clash, eg. Out In The Moonlight, written by DOA singer Joey Keithley) and modern rock (such as the Bowie-ish What Went Wrong, What Went Right) tunes that are bristling with energy, the disc is rounded out nicely by the spiritually inspired reggae tracks like Nyabinghi and Ganjah Wise.
Give U Everything by Yuya is a hot new release available by download, and it is a perfect musical party platter for the 21st Century. Download some songs by Yuya today: your soul will thank you for it!!!
Songs from Blue Pie recording artists are available on the HurricaneHealing.us cd, available by download, which via Salvation Army benefits New Orleans, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Haiti, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and more.
Enjoy old school rock / reggae music? Yuya songs available for download at:
MUSIC NOW: http://aol.musicnow.com/az/album.jhtml?id=5634005
RHAPSODY: http://www.rhapsody.com/album?albumId=8871741
MUSICLOAD: http://www.musicload.de/item?albumid=819516
also, search "Yuya" on iTunes!
Also check out Yuya on the Katrina relief Hurricane Healing project site at www.hurricanehealing.us or visit the Blue Pie Artist Blog at www.bluepieartists.blogspot.com
Canadian rock/reggae singer Yuya is a dynamic new voice from the land of the lyricists. From his early days as writer / frontman for Joe College and The Rulers, to becoming the lead singer for Canadian Courage, Yuya’s powerful tunes express the emotions of the rebellious lover in an unjust world. Yuya feels his new digital distribution deal with Blue Pie Productions (based in Sydney, Australia) will help him reach his global audience, and it already is!!!
Blue Pie / Hurricane Healing artist Yuya has songs featured on StayAround.com:
StayAround.com Yuya Music
“ I have always felt that my music is international in character, and working with the Blue Pie team is an ideal way to help my songs find the global audience they are best suited for,” opined an optimistic Yuya.
Growing up near Toronto, Yuya was influenced by everyone from Neil Young to Rush, and from Leonard Cohen to his 3 biggest musical mentors: Dylan, Lennon and Marley.
With his new CD entitled Give U Everything offering an array of post-punk (a la Joe Strummer / The Clash, eg. Out In The Moonlight, written by DOA singer Joey Keithley) and modern rock (such as the Bowie-ish What Went Wrong, What Went Right) tunes that are bristling with energy, the disc is rounded out nicely by the spiritually inspired reggae tracks like Nyabinghi and Ganjah Wise.
Give U Everything by Yuya is a hot new release available by download, and it is a perfect musical party platter for the 21st Century. Download some songs by Yuya today: your soul will thank you for it!!!
Songs from Blue Pie recording artists are available on the HurricaneHealing.us cd, available by download, which via Salvation Army benefits New Orleans, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Haiti, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and more.
Enjoy old school rock / reggae music? Yuya songs available for download at:
MUSIC NOW: http://aol.musicnow.com/az/album.jhtml?id=5634005
RHAPSODY: http://www.rhapsody.com/album?albumId=8871741
MUSICLOAD: http://www.musicload.de/item?albumid=819516
also, search "Yuya" on iTunes!
Also check out Yuya on the Katrina relief Hurricane Healing project site at www.hurricanehealing.us or visit the Blue Pie Artist Blog at www.bluepieartists.blogspot.com
Friday, February 17, 2006
Solar Power Conference 2006: Call for Presentations due March 20
from www.SolarPowerConference.com
Conference Program; The Call for Presentations has been released. Abstracts are due by Monday, March 20, 2006.
We are seeking abstracts for presentations that fit into the session topics outlined below, as well as poster presenations on other topics. Please see the Call for Presentations for details.
MARKETS TRACK
M1: Incorporating Solar into a Utility Business Environment
A panel of senior utility executives will discuss the unique business environment and the factors that influence their decision making as they consider solar as a resource option. Discussion will include accounting frameworks, power purchase agreements, risk of ownership, and rate recovery.
M2: Utility Valuation of Solar
This session will be an interactive workshop for utility participants. A panel of solar experts from within utilities will kick off the session with a presentation of how their own utility assigns energy values to solar and quantifies solar’s critical load back-up and peak power reduction capabilities. Key assumptions and load correlation factors will be included in the discussion. Following the presentations, the panelists and audience members will work together in a facilitated environment to begin to formulate a utility-designed solar valuation methodology.
M3: Solar Communities - The Way of the Future?
This session will include a discussion of barriers to homebuilder acceptance of solar, as well as trends in the residential new construction market that could affect the solar industry. Signs indicate that the new housing market is slowing down – does this present an opportunity for solar as a “differentiating” feature in the new home market? Will we see increasing solar integration with production homebuilders? Specifically, how is the California Solar Initiative expected to affect the solar industry’s relationship with the homebuilding industry?
M4: Installations for Public and Corporate Buildings: Marketing Value, Energy Value, or a Little Bit of Both?
Many public entities such as municipal utilities, city governments, and schools were among the early adopters of solar technology and continue to play a large role in its deployment. And today large corporations like Home Depot, FedEx, Staples, and hundreds of other businesses around the U.S. are following suit and proudly displaying solar on their roofs. What drives this growing commercial solar market segment? What new innovative business models are available that make “going solar” a no-brainer for these public entities and large corporations?
M5: My Life as a Residential Solar Installer – Is it Getting Easier or Harder?
Solar installers have been through the wringer over the past few decades, but is life improving? Hear first hand from installers about infrastructure developments that make their jobs easier, and how declining rebates and price increases make their jobs harder. Is certification finally allowing them to differentiate themselves from their competitors? Are new permitting laws in certain areas letting them do their job faster? Has increased consumer awareness about the value of solar brought them more business and are customers easier to work with?
M6: Solar Thermal Market Developments
This session will identify growing solar thermal markets that have surfaced as a result of the nation’s increased appetite for renewable energy. Attention will be paid to the role solar thermal energy is playing in relation to Renewable Credit Trading, Green Pricing, Renewable Portfolio Standards and Public Benefits Funding.
M7: CSP Markets: From SEGS to Now
This session will cover the major market advances since the last concentrating solar power SEGS plant was built in 1991. The RPS market in the southwestern US and the feed-in market in Spain and Algeria will be discussed in detail.
M8: Financing Solar Installations
A major barrier to widespread solar deployment has always been the upfront capital cost to customers. But today, many options are emerging that allow customers to go solar without breaking the bank. What are the new and innovative third party financing models available for utilities and commercial customers? How are individual residential customers making solar affordable by rolling payments into their mortgage or taking out home equity loans? How is solar being paid for when production builders are putting solar on all the homes in a new community?
TECHNOLOGY TRACK
T1: Silicon Feedstock Manufacturing Developments – The Light at the End of the Tunnel?
With 95% of PV industry modules silicon based, the on-going silicon feedstock shortage threatens to stall the growth of a dynamic industry. This session will cover silicon feedstock manufacturing including advances in the Siemens process and the potential of the fluidized bed process.
T2: Innovations with Performance Monitoring
Real-time performance monitoring of installed solar energy systems offers several promises that have yet to be fully realized. As state policies move towards performance-based incentives, accurate monitoring of photovoltaic and solar hot water systems will facilitate revenue metering and minimize downtime, thereby helping to maximize energy generation and verify production of increasingly valuable Renewable Energy Credits. “Smart” systems can conduct self-diagnostic routines to identify and either correct faults or notify service personnel. With the integration of affordable two-way communication, networked solar energy systems can serve as mini-grids linked to priority loads, providing energy security and efficiency through load management. This session will address current and up-and-coming advances in these areas.
T3: Inverters – Reliable and Smart?
Mediator between power flows and demands of radically differing characteristics, the inverter has a heavy burden; to maximize solar system performance, ensure seamless interaction with the grid, and ensure the safety and security of users and neighbors alike for a decade or more. From its early years as ad-hoc adaptations of other industries' equipment, the PV inverter market has become a unique one. Recent attention to systems integration has brought about acceleration in development, and with it exciting new products.
T4: Solar’s Thin Film and Nanotech Revolution
The promise of thin film photovoltaics has always been evident. The promise of solar nanotechnology has recently received significant attention. But neither of these technologies has yet to become a major player in the global market. With global silicon constraints driving an intensive search for alternatives, has the day of thin film and/or nanotechnology finally come? Learn about advances with these technologies, the timeline for major commercialization, and potential impacts on system performance and price.
T5: Keeping the Power Flowing: Advancements in Energy Storage
For many years, electric systems worldwide have operated without significant storage. On the grid, the result is a need for a never-ending balancing act between supply and demand that can handcuff operators, impact system reliability, and induce irrational market behavior. In the solar arena, limited storage technologies have strengthened ties to the grid and limited energy surety and energy security applications. However, many forces in the economy - from the development of hybrid cars to an increased interest in grid stability - are advancing storage research in novel ways; this session will focus both on incremental improvements to existing technologies as well as entirely new paradigms outside the traditional chemical battery.
T6: Concentrating PV: Ready for Market?
Instead of bringing more solar panels into the light, why not bring more light into the solar panels? The simple premise of concentrating PV conceals considerable difficulties in systems design and manufacturing. New entrants into the space promise low power costs through high-tech optics and design; are these devices, sometimes exotic in appearance, the way to stretch existing PV into more power?
T7: Solar Heating and Cooling
Recent advances in seasonal-storage developments and cost reductions in solar collectors are making solar heating and cooling both economically and environmentally attractive. Although these projects are just beginning in North America, many solar seasonal-storage projects have been successfully demonstrated in Europe. In this session, learn about the concepts and technology advancements of solar heating and cooling, including district heating and cooling.
T8: CSP Then and Now: Differences Between SEGs and New Generation CSP
This session will cover the major technological advances in the 15 years since the last of the nine CSP SEGS plants went into operation in the Mojave Desert. Presentations will be made addressing troughs, central receivers, dish engine and concentrating PV technologies. Each will identify the most important advances and explain the impact each has had on the cost and performance of today’s CSP systems.
POLICY TRACK
P1: International Policy Models
At a variety of US policy conferences, we've heard a great deal about the German model and experience, but what about policy frameworks in other countries? What policies are in effect and operating in countries like Japan, China, Spain, Korea, Italy? Particular emphasis will be given to nations with solar markets that are, or are expected to become, significant components of the global solar market.
P2: Performance Based Incentives
Performance based incentives are an emerging policy incentive strategy in many states. Why are states moving to this model, and what are critical implementation considerations? What do experts think will be the impact, not only on market conditions but on hardware choice and verification, monitoring, quality of installation, etc. Conversely, what are the experiences that have come with real-world application of this model? Particular emphasis will be given to PBI effect on business practices and markets.
P3: Environmental Policy Integration
Beyond the "usual suspects" of interconnection, net metering, rebates, and RPS, what are the potential over-the-horizon policy drivers that could move the industry? Novel environmental policies on the drawing board - or even before that stage - could represent new and nontraditional policy opportunities for solar. This session seeks a diverse discussion of novel concepts including areas as diverse as water policy, international or regional carbon or other emissions strategies, and over-the-horizon schemes like individual emissions limitations, cradle-to-cradle resource policies, etc.
P4: Green Buildings and Green Communities - An Emerging Policy Framework
Increasingly, green building standards and "smart growth" frameworks are more than a matter of theoretical concern - in many places, they are the law. Speakers will focus on the new universe of policies surrounding green buildings development, and detail the opportunities they represent for solar. Discussion of diverse standards - including not only USGBC / LEED but also land use policies and other frameworks such as ENERGY STAR Homes, is desirable.
P5: Public Utility Commissioner Perspectives
You may be familiar with your state legislature or governor, but in too many states public service and public utilities commissioners are the most important policymakers we've never met. What are their major concerns? How do they view solar, distributed generation, and renewables in general?
P6: Emerging State Market Case Studies
The last several years have seen many new and novel state policies - some of which may represent major US markets in the near future. This session will offer an overview of the most substantial and innovative state policies that will come on line in the next several years.
P7: Federal Policy Overview
2006 saw the most substantial new federal incentives in more than a decade. From the perspective of developers, consumers, advocates, and state officials, what has been the effect of these credits? How could they be improved going forward, and what is the up-to-the-minute political status of solar on Capitol Hill? Further, what are the latest developments in research and development, interconnection, national credit trading, and other federal policies and incentives?
P8: Policies Below the State Level
Though they may not receive the press attention of national or state policies, groups at all levels from rural electric cooperatives to municipalities to county governments have enacted policies that work for the development of solar resources. This session will examine high-impact policies under implementation or development from visionary municipalities, electric co-ops and community-level groups such as homeowners associations.
Conference Program; The Call for Presentations has been released. Abstracts are due by Monday, March 20, 2006.
We are seeking abstracts for presentations that fit into the session topics outlined below, as well as poster presenations on other topics. Please see the Call for Presentations for details.
MARKETS TRACK
M1: Incorporating Solar into a Utility Business Environment
A panel of senior utility executives will discuss the unique business environment and the factors that influence their decision making as they consider solar as a resource option. Discussion will include accounting frameworks, power purchase agreements, risk of ownership, and rate recovery.
M2: Utility Valuation of Solar
This session will be an interactive workshop for utility participants. A panel of solar experts from within utilities will kick off the session with a presentation of how their own utility assigns energy values to solar and quantifies solar’s critical load back-up and peak power reduction capabilities. Key assumptions and load correlation factors will be included in the discussion. Following the presentations, the panelists and audience members will work together in a facilitated environment to begin to formulate a utility-designed solar valuation methodology.
M3: Solar Communities - The Way of the Future?
This session will include a discussion of barriers to homebuilder acceptance of solar, as well as trends in the residential new construction market that could affect the solar industry. Signs indicate that the new housing market is slowing down – does this present an opportunity for solar as a “differentiating” feature in the new home market? Will we see increasing solar integration with production homebuilders? Specifically, how is the California Solar Initiative expected to affect the solar industry’s relationship with the homebuilding industry?
M4: Installations for Public and Corporate Buildings: Marketing Value, Energy Value, or a Little Bit of Both?
Many public entities such as municipal utilities, city governments, and schools were among the early adopters of solar technology and continue to play a large role in its deployment. And today large corporations like Home Depot, FedEx, Staples, and hundreds of other businesses around the U.S. are following suit and proudly displaying solar on their roofs. What drives this growing commercial solar market segment? What new innovative business models are available that make “going solar” a no-brainer for these public entities and large corporations?
M5: My Life as a Residential Solar Installer – Is it Getting Easier or Harder?
Solar installers have been through the wringer over the past few decades, but is life improving? Hear first hand from installers about infrastructure developments that make their jobs easier, and how declining rebates and price increases make their jobs harder. Is certification finally allowing them to differentiate themselves from their competitors? Are new permitting laws in certain areas letting them do their job faster? Has increased consumer awareness about the value of solar brought them more business and are customers easier to work with?
M6: Solar Thermal Market Developments
This session will identify growing solar thermal markets that have surfaced as a result of the nation’s increased appetite for renewable energy. Attention will be paid to the role solar thermal energy is playing in relation to Renewable Credit Trading, Green Pricing, Renewable Portfolio Standards and Public Benefits Funding.
M7: CSP Markets: From SEGS to Now
This session will cover the major market advances since the last concentrating solar power SEGS plant was built in 1991. The RPS market in the southwestern US and the feed-in market in Spain and Algeria will be discussed in detail.
M8: Financing Solar Installations
A major barrier to widespread solar deployment has always been the upfront capital cost to customers. But today, many options are emerging that allow customers to go solar without breaking the bank. What are the new and innovative third party financing models available for utilities and commercial customers? How are individual residential customers making solar affordable by rolling payments into their mortgage or taking out home equity loans? How is solar being paid for when production builders are putting solar on all the homes in a new community?
TECHNOLOGY TRACK
T1: Silicon Feedstock Manufacturing Developments – The Light at the End of the Tunnel?
With 95% of PV industry modules silicon based, the on-going silicon feedstock shortage threatens to stall the growth of a dynamic industry. This session will cover silicon feedstock manufacturing including advances in the Siemens process and the potential of the fluidized bed process.
T2: Innovations with Performance Monitoring
Real-time performance monitoring of installed solar energy systems offers several promises that have yet to be fully realized. As state policies move towards performance-based incentives, accurate monitoring of photovoltaic and solar hot water systems will facilitate revenue metering and minimize downtime, thereby helping to maximize energy generation and verify production of increasingly valuable Renewable Energy Credits. “Smart” systems can conduct self-diagnostic routines to identify and either correct faults or notify service personnel. With the integration of affordable two-way communication, networked solar energy systems can serve as mini-grids linked to priority loads, providing energy security and efficiency through load management. This session will address current and up-and-coming advances in these areas.
T3: Inverters – Reliable and Smart?
Mediator between power flows and demands of radically differing characteristics, the inverter has a heavy burden; to maximize solar system performance, ensure seamless interaction with the grid, and ensure the safety and security of users and neighbors alike for a decade or more. From its early years as ad-hoc adaptations of other industries' equipment, the PV inverter market has become a unique one. Recent attention to systems integration has brought about acceleration in development, and with it exciting new products.
T4: Solar’s Thin Film and Nanotech Revolution
The promise of thin film photovoltaics has always been evident. The promise of solar nanotechnology has recently received significant attention. But neither of these technologies has yet to become a major player in the global market. With global silicon constraints driving an intensive search for alternatives, has the day of thin film and/or nanotechnology finally come? Learn about advances with these technologies, the timeline for major commercialization, and potential impacts on system performance and price.
T5: Keeping the Power Flowing: Advancements in Energy Storage
For many years, electric systems worldwide have operated without significant storage. On the grid, the result is a need for a never-ending balancing act between supply and demand that can handcuff operators, impact system reliability, and induce irrational market behavior. In the solar arena, limited storage technologies have strengthened ties to the grid and limited energy surety and energy security applications. However, many forces in the economy - from the development of hybrid cars to an increased interest in grid stability - are advancing storage research in novel ways; this session will focus both on incremental improvements to existing technologies as well as entirely new paradigms outside the traditional chemical battery.
T6: Concentrating PV: Ready for Market?
Instead of bringing more solar panels into the light, why not bring more light into the solar panels? The simple premise of concentrating PV conceals considerable difficulties in systems design and manufacturing. New entrants into the space promise low power costs through high-tech optics and design; are these devices, sometimes exotic in appearance, the way to stretch existing PV into more power?
T7: Solar Heating and Cooling
Recent advances in seasonal-storage developments and cost reductions in solar collectors are making solar heating and cooling both economically and environmentally attractive. Although these projects are just beginning in North America, many solar seasonal-storage projects have been successfully demonstrated in Europe. In this session, learn about the concepts and technology advancements of solar heating and cooling, including district heating and cooling.
T8: CSP Then and Now: Differences Between SEGs and New Generation CSP
This session will cover the major technological advances in the 15 years since the last of the nine CSP SEGS plants went into operation in the Mojave Desert. Presentations will be made addressing troughs, central receivers, dish engine and concentrating PV technologies. Each will identify the most important advances and explain the impact each has had on the cost and performance of today’s CSP systems.
POLICY TRACK
P1: International Policy Models
At a variety of US policy conferences, we've heard a great deal about the German model and experience, but what about policy frameworks in other countries? What policies are in effect and operating in countries like Japan, China, Spain, Korea, Italy? Particular emphasis will be given to nations with solar markets that are, or are expected to become, significant components of the global solar market.
P2: Performance Based Incentives
Performance based incentives are an emerging policy incentive strategy in many states. Why are states moving to this model, and what are critical implementation considerations? What do experts think will be the impact, not only on market conditions but on hardware choice and verification, monitoring, quality of installation, etc. Conversely, what are the experiences that have come with real-world application of this model? Particular emphasis will be given to PBI effect on business practices and markets.
P3: Environmental Policy Integration
Beyond the "usual suspects" of interconnection, net metering, rebates, and RPS, what are the potential over-the-horizon policy drivers that could move the industry? Novel environmental policies on the drawing board - or even before that stage - could represent new and nontraditional policy opportunities for solar. This session seeks a diverse discussion of novel concepts including areas as diverse as water policy, international or regional carbon or other emissions strategies, and over-the-horizon schemes like individual emissions limitations, cradle-to-cradle resource policies, etc.
P4: Green Buildings and Green Communities - An Emerging Policy Framework
Increasingly, green building standards and "smart growth" frameworks are more than a matter of theoretical concern - in many places, they are the law. Speakers will focus on the new universe of policies surrounding green buildings development, and detail the opportunities they represent for solar. Discussion of diverse standards - including not only USGBC / LEED but also land use policies and other frameworks such as ENERGY STAR Homes, is desirable.
P5: Public Utility Commissioner Perspectives
You may be familiar with your state legislature or governor, but in too many states public service and public utilities commissioners are the most important policymakers we've never met. What are their major concerns? How do they view solar, distributed generation, and renewables in general?
P6: Emerging State Market Case Studies
The last several years have seen many new and novel state policies - some of which may represent major US markets in the near future. This session will offer an overview of the most substantial and innovative state policies that will come on line in the next several years.
P7: Federal Policy Overview
2006 saw the most substantial new federal incentives in more than a decade. From the perspective of developers, consumers, advocates, and state officials, what has been the effect of these credits? How could they be improved going forward, and what is the up-to-the-minute political status of solar on Capitol Hill? Further, what are the latest developments in research and development, interconnection, national credit trading, and other federal policies and incentives?
P8: Policies Below the State Level
Though they may not receive the press attention of national or state policies, groups at all levels from rural electric cooperatives to municipalities to county governments have enacted policies that work for the development of solar resources. This session will examine high-impact policies under implementation or development from visionary municipalities, electric co-ops and community-level groups such as homeowners associations.
Energy Conversaion Devices (ENER) expanding to 300 megs annual production by 2010
Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. Announces Plan to Expand United Solar Ovonic Manufacturing Capacity to 300 Megawatts by 2010
Press Release from United Solar Ovonic
Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. Announces Plan to Expand United Solar Ovonic Manufacturing Capacity to 300 Megawatts by 2010
Rochester Hills, Mich., Feb. 16, 2006 - Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. (ECD Ovonics) (NASDAQ:ENER) announced today that the company's Board of Directors approved a plan to expand the solar module manufacturing capacity of its wholly owned subsidiary United Solar Ovonic to 300 megawatts by 2010.
The first phase of the expansion plan will include the construction of a third manufacturing facility with an annual capacity of 50 megawatts, which is expected to be operational in calendar year 2007. United Solar Ovonic currently manufactures solar modules at a 25-megawatt production facility in Auburn Hills, Mich., and is currently constructing a second 25-megawatt production facility also located in Auburn Hills.
"Expanding our capacity should enable us to continue to strengthen our position in the rapidly growing market for solar power systems. Global demand for solar power systems is expected to grow in excess of 20% annually," commented Robert C. Stempel, Chairman and CEO of ECD Ovonics. "This plan should also enable us to achieve significant economies in sourcing and production by increasing the size and scale of our solar business."
"We are responding to the increase in demand we are seeing for our products. Our ability to manufacture our unique thin-film products is not affected by the shortage of polycrystalline silicon that is impacting many of our competitors," said Stanford R. Ovshinsky, President, Chief Scientist and Technologist of ECD Ovonics. "Our previously announced capacity expansion, which is already in progress, will allow us to double our capacity in calendar year 2006 and the plan approved by the Board should allow us to double our capacity again in calendar year 2007."
About ECD Ovonics:
ECD Ovonics is the leader in the synthesis of new materials and the development of advanced production technology and innovative products. It has invented, pioneered and developed its proprietary, enabling technologies in the fields of energy and information leading to new products and production processes based on amorphous, disordered and related materials. The Company's portfolio of alternative energy solutions includes Ovonic thin-film amorphous solar cells, modules, panels and systems for generating solar electric power; Ovonic NiMH batteries; Ovonic hydride storage materials capable of storing hydrogen in the solid state for use as a feedstock for fuel cells or internal combustion engines or as an enhancement or replacement for any type of hydrocarbon fuel; and Ovonic fuel cell technology. ECD Ovonics' proprietary advanced information technologies include Ovonic phase-change electrical memory, Ovonic phase-change optical memory and the Ovonic Threshold Switch. ECD Ovonics designs and builds manufacturing machinery that incorporates its proprietary production processes, maintains ongoing research and development programs to continually improve its products and develops new applications for its technologies. ECD Ovonics holds the basic patents in its fields.
Press Release from United Solar Ovonic
Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. Announces Plan to Expand United Solar Ovonic Manufacturing Capacity to 300 Megawatts by 2010
Rochester Hills, Mich., Feb. 16, 2006 - Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. (ECD Ovonics) (NASDAQ:ENER) announced today that the company's Board of Directors approved a plan to expand the solar module manufacturing capacity of its wholly owned subsidiary United Solar Ovonic to 300 megawatts by 2010.
The first phase of the expansion plan will include the construction of a third manufacturing facility with an annual capacity of 50 megawatts, which is expected to be operational in calendar year 2007. United Solar Ovonic currently manufactures solar modules at a 25-megawatt production facility in Auburn Hills, Mich., and is currently constructing a second 25-megawatt production facility also located in Auburn Hills.
"Expanding our capacity should enable us to continue to strengthen our position in the rapidly growing market for solar power systems. Global demand for solar power systems is expected to grow in excess of 20% annually," commented Robert C. Stempel, Chairman and CEO of ECD Ovonics. "This plan should also enable us to achieve significant economies in sourcing and production by increasing the size and scale of our solar business."
"We are responding to the increase in demand we are seeing for our products. Our ability to manufacture our unique thin-film products is not affected by the shortage of polycrystalline silicon that is impacting many of our competitors," said Stanford R. Ovshinsky, President, Chief Scientist and Technologist of ECD Ovonics. "Our previously announced capacity expansion, which is already in progress, will allow us to double our capacity in calendar year 2006 and the plan approved by the Board should allow us to double our capacity again in calendar year 2007."
About ECD Ovonics:
ECD Ovonics is the leader in the synthesis of new materials and the development of advanced production technology and innovative products. It has invented, pioneered and developed its proprietary, enabling technologies in the fields of energy and information leading to new products and production processes based on amorphous, disordered and related materials. The Company's portfolio of alternative energy solutions includes Ovonic thin-film amorphous solar cells, modules, panels and systems for generating solar electric power; Ovonic NiMH batteries; Ovonic hydride storage materials capable of storing hydrogen in the solid state for use as a feedstock for fuel cells or internal combustion engines or as an enhancement or replacement for any type of hydrocarbon fuel; and Ovonic fuel cell technology. ECD Ovonics' proprietary advanced information technologies include Ovonic phase-change electrical memory, Ovonic phase-change optical memory and the Ovonic Threshold Switch. ECD Ovonics designs and builds manufacturing machinery that incorporates its proprietary production processes, maintains ongoing research and development programs to continually improve its products and develops new applications for its technologies. ECD Ovonics holds the basic patents in its fields.
Canada's emerging windpower industry grows by 98% in 2005
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] Reflecting the brisk wind power business of its neighbor to the south, Canada's wind energy industry installed 239 MW of new wind energy capacity in 2005, shattering the previous annual installation record of 122 MW established in 2004, according to its main industry association, Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA).
As a result, Canada's total installed wind energy capacity grew by 54% in 2005 to 683 MW. This means that wind energy now produces enough electricity in Canada to power more than 240,000 homes. 2006 promises even more growth, with a minimum of 500 MW of new energy capacity slated to be installed across the country this year.
"While wind energy's environmental benefits are well known, its economic benefits are becoming more apparent with the rapid growth of the industry in Canada," said Robert Hornung, President of CanWEA. "Projects installed in 2005 represented more than $400 million worth of investment and we also saw investment in five new Canadian manufacturing facilities to produce wind turbine towers, blades and nacelles."
Wind energy projects installed in 2005 in Canada included the Pubnico Point Windfarm in Nova Scotia, the Mont Copper and Mont Miller Windfarms in Quebec, the St. Leon Windfarm in Manitoba and the Centennial Windfarm in Saskatchewan. The year 2006 will see wind energy projects being constructed in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. "With the vast majority of wind energy development taking place in rural areas, wind energy projects are also providing real and ongoing economic benefits to both rural landowners through lease payments and rural municipalities through increased tax revenues," said Hornung.
"2005 will be remembered as the start of Canada's wind energy boom as more than 3,000 MW of wind energy projects are now contracted and slated for construction in Canada over the next few years", says Hornung. "In fact, federal and provincial governments both put in place policies in 2005 that could facilitate the installation of a minimum of 8,000 MW of wind energy in Canada by 2015. This would make wind energy responsible for 16% of all electricity to be produced by new generating facilities to be constructed in Canada over the next decade."
Canada now ranks as the 14th largest producer of wind energy in the world, but it remains far behind global leaders such as Germany (18,100 MW), Spain (9,825 MW), the United States (8,957 MW), and India (4,225 MW), as well as smaller countries such as Denmark (3,129 MW), the Netherlands (1,219 MW), Portugal (1,000 MW), and Austria (716 MW).
"While the growth we are seeing in Canada is both rapid and significant, we cannot lose sight of the fact that wind energy continues to develop much more quickly in other countries," says Hornung. "With Canada's unparalleled wind resource, we can still do more to maximize the environmental, economic and industrial development benefits associated with wind energy for Canada."
As a result, Canada's total installed wind energy capacity grew by 54% in 2005 to 683 MW. This means that wind energy now produces enough electricity in Canada to power more than 240,000 homes. 2006 promises even more growth, with a minimum of 500 MW of new energy capacity slated to be installed across the country this year.
"While wind energy's environmental benefits are well known, its economic benefits are becoming more apparent with the rapid growth of the industry in Canada," said Robert Hornung, President of CanWEA. "Projects installed in 2005 represented more than $400 million worth of investment and we also saw investment in five new Canadian manufacturing facilities to produce wind turbine towers, blades and nacelles."
Wind energy projects installed in 2005 in Canada included the Pubnico Point Windfarm in Nova Scotia, the Mont Copper and Mont Miller Windfarms in Quebec, the St. Leon Windfarm in Manitoba and the Centennial Windfarm in Saskatchewan. The year 2006 will see wind energy projects being constructed in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. "With the vast majority of wind energy development taking place in rural areas, wind energy projects are also providing real and ongoing economic benefits to both rural landowners through lease payments and rural municipalities through increased tax revenues," said Hornung.
"2005 will be remembered as the start of Canada's wind energy boom as more than 3,000 MW of wind energy projects are now contracted and slated for construction in Canada over the next few years", says Hornung. "In fact, federal and provincial governments both put in place policies in 2005 that could facilitate the installation of a minimum of 8,000 MW of wind energy in Canada by 2015. This would make wind energy responsible for 16% of all electricity to be produced by new generating facilities to be constructed in Canada over the next decade."
Canada now ranks as the 14th largest producer of wind energy in the world, but it remains far behind global leaders such as Germany (18,100 MW), Spain (9,825 MW), the United States (8,957 MW), and India (4,225 MW), as well as smaller countries such as Denmark (3,129 MW), the Netherlands (1,219 MW), Portugal (1,000 MW), and Austria (716 MW).
"While the growth we are seeing in Canada is both rapid and significant, we cannot lose sight of the fact that wind energy continues to develop much more quickly in other countries," says Hornung. "With Canada's unparalleled wind resource, we can still do more to maximize the environmental, economic and industrial development benefits associated with wind energy for Canada."
Golfing great Tiger Woods chooses photovoltaic solar to power his new Learning Center
from RenewableEnergyAccess.com
Although Tiger Woods won 10 major championships in his first decade on the PGA Tour, he says his most important legacy carries his name and sits on a plot of land in Anaheim, California, not far from where he grew up. It is the solar-powered Learning Center that he helped create.
"This is by far the greatest thing that has ever happened to me," the Associated Press quoted Woods as saying about the Tiger Woods Learning Center (TWLC), which was dedicated last week.
The high-tech, 35,000-square-foot educational center will offer children grades 4-12 educational programs in a building that houses 100 computer stations, a fully wireless environment, a 200-seat auditorium and a 1,200-square-foot multimedia center.
The facility features two solar electric systems -- a rooftop array and a custom, curved BIPV curtainwall -- both designed by Solar Design Associates (SDA) of Harvard, Massachusetts. The BIPV curtainwall uses custom, thin-film modules with varying light transmission employing ASI glass from Schott. The rooftop array is from PowerLight.
SDA worked closely with project architects, Langdon Wilson of Irvine, to ensure that the BIPV application met the architect's design intent.
"The curtainwall design is both curved and sloped, requiring us to specify BIPV modules of differing size and shape as well as differing light transmission," said SDA President, Steven Strong. "The BIPV curtain wall varies in light transmission from 5% to 30% top-to-bottom -- like the tinted band on your car windshield -- and transitions to clear at the vision area."
"This is bigger than golf. This is bigger than anything I've done on the golf course, because we will be able to shape lives," Tiger Woods said during the dedication, adding that he viewed the center as a place for students "to explore their dreams and open doors to new opportunities and potential career paths."
Former President Bill Clinton was on hand to help Woods dedicate the center. Clinton said, according to the AP, that he was impressed that Woods had been able "to amass a stunning, unprecedented record and, start giving back at this point in your life."
Tiger's father, Earl Woods, who has been battling cancer and was unable to attend the opening, has also been a key presence in shaping the center. In an earlier interview, he said, "I hope the message goes out loud and clear that more athletes should give back to the community and give back to the sport that made you what you are today."
The City of Anaheim helped sponsor the solar electric systems. Other project sponsors include Intel, Microsoft, Nike, Dell, AT&T Accenture, American Express, Boeing, PGA, and Deutsche Bank. The center cost $25 million to complete.
The TWLC is located next to the H. G. Miller Golf Course, where Woods played during high school, and just miles from Woods's childhood home in Cypress, CA. True to Woods's chosen vocation, the center also has a driving range and an 18-hole putting course.
"This is their center, and I hope it serves as a launching pad to great success," Woods said.
Although Tiger Woods won 10 major championships in his first decade on the PGA Tour, he says his most important legacy carries his name and sits on a plot of land in Anaheim, California, not far from where he grew up. It is the solar-powered Learning Center that he helped create.
"This is by far the greatest thing that has ever happened to me," the Associated Press quoted Woods as saying about the Tiger Woods Learning Center (TWLC), which was dedicated last week.
The high-tech, 35,000-square-foot educational center will offer children grades 4-12 educational programs in a building that houses 100 computer stations, a fully wireless environment, a 200-seat auditorium and a 1,200-square-foot multimedia center.
The facility features two solar electric systems -- a rooftop array and a custom, curved BIPV curtainwall -- both designed by Solar Design Associates (SDA) of Harvard, Massachusetts. The BIPV curtainwall uses custom, thin-film modules with varying light transmission employing ASI glass from Schott. The rooftop array is from PowerLight.
SDA worked closely with project architects, Langdon Wilson of Irvine, to ensure that the BIPV application met the architect's design intent.
"The curtainwall design is both curved and sloped, requiring us to specify BIPV modules of differing size and shape as well as differing light transmission," said SDA President, Steven Strong. "The BIPV curtain wall varies in light transmission from 5% to 30% top-to-bottom -- like the tinted band on your car windshield -- and transitions to clear at the vision area."
"This is bigger than golf. This is bigger than anything I've done on the golf course, because we will be able to shape lives," Tiger Woods said during the dedication, adding that he viewed the center as a place for students "to explore their dreams and open doors to new opportunities and potential career paths."
Former President Bill Clinton was on hand to help Woods dedicate the center. Clinton said, according to the AP, that he was impressed that Woods had been able "to amass a stunning, unprecedented record and, start giving back at this point in your life."
Tiger's father, Earl Woods, who has been battling cancer and was unable to attend the opening, has also been a key presence in shaping the center. In an earlier interview, he said, "I hope the message goes out loud and clear that more athletes should give back to the community and give back to the sport that made you what you are today."
The City of Anaheim helped sponsor the solar electric systems. Other project sponsors include Intel, Microsoft, Nike, Dell, AT&T Accenture, American Express, Boeing, PGA, and Deutsche Bank. The center cost $25 million to complete.
The TWLC is located next to the H. G. Miller Golf Course, where Woods played during high school, and just miles from Woods's childhood home in Cypress, CA. True to Woods's chosen vocation, the center also has a driving range and an 18-hole putting course.
"This is their center, and I hope it serves as a launching pad to great success," Woods said.
Rise in materials costs for solar PV panels effecting those who need power most
Does Solar PV Still Make Sense for the Developing World?
The shortage of solar modules, coupled with increasing costs, places a burden on the very communities who stand to benefit the most.
by H Harish Hande, SELCO Solar Light Ltd.
February 16, 2006
Can we keep our solar promise to improve the lives of people like these two children living in developing countries?
Bangalore, India [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] It has always been a foregone conclusion that solar photovoltaics (PV) makes sense in the rural parts of the developing world. We have seen reams of paper convincing policy makers, manufacturers, donors, multilaterals, bilaterals, etc., just how solar solves energy challenges for basic human amenities.
Solar Depot Solar Thermal Workshop
Over the years we have seen the costs of solar panels steadily come down, though not to the levels that many experts had predicted. The critical question always has been, at what point ($/watt) would solar PV make commercial sense for the rural areas of the developing world?
I personally have never been clear what baselines people were using to compare against to reach their conclusions. I am not sure how convenience, reliability, better educational facilities, etc., have been transformed into financial figures on a spreadsheet.
However, I sincerely believe from experience that solar PV is already very viable -- provided accessible and affordable financing is created at the doorsteps of the rural people -- thus I hardly paid attention to the future predictions of $/watt.
Peak in Demand
We all know now that, in the last 24 to 30 months, the cost of solar panels ($/watt) is increasing drastically (rather than decreasing as predicted by experts) and fingers are pointing toward Germany.
The sudden boom in the German market and competition from the semiconductor industry has led to an imbalance in the supply and demand of feedstock. This has been one of the causes for the steady rise in solar module prices.
Adding to the rise in prices has been the lack of availability of smaller modules, those that are required to power the meager load requirements of households in the rural areas of India, Sri Lanka, Honduras, Uganda or Fiji.
Steady cash flow and decent profitability has forced the manufactures to weave away from manufacturing smaller modules, in order to cater to demand from Germany and other western countries.
Rise in Disparity
Prices for 37 watts and 75 watts remained steady till 2004 and then started to rise. There has been an increase of 20% and 25% for 37 watt and 75 watt, respectively, as compared to 2003 prices. And a 25% increase in price really hurts the pockets of a rural household in the developing world.
We can keep debating, who needs electricity more -- a German household (who has a choice between grid and solar) or a rural household in Uganda (who has a choice between kerosene and solar), but the bottom line is that the solar industry does not have an immediate solution.
There is also another problem: squeeze in the supply of smaller modules has increased the working capital requirements of smaller integrators in the developing world. While in 2004, smaller integrators were getting a credit period of 90 days, now they have to be satisfied with 30-day periods. This means that the working capital requirements have tripled. Unlike Germany, where payment terms from end-users are pretty well defined, here in the underdeveloped world that is not the case -- leading to further uncertainty for the system integrators.
Call for Balance
Although the market in many of the countries like India (at least in some parts) and Sri Lanka were becoming mature -- financing had fallen in place, system integrators had established good service networks and solar PV had attained decent awareness levels -- suddenly the steady rise in prices has thrown the market out of gear.
To get back the levels of market maturity requires immense hard work by the rural service companies and that is not cheap. It has taken years to convince people, bankers, etc., that solar PV -- if financed and serviced properly -- is comparable to other substitutes, but now the explanation needs to change.
I am not sure what the explanation is. I do know the solution needs to be addressed by the whole solar industry -- because the divide between the served and the underserved cannot keep increasing.
About the author...
H Harish Hande, PhD, is managing director of SELCO Solar Light (P) Ltd., in Bangalore, India. His company has overseen the implementation of thousands of installations, whose success are due largely to local involvement. SELCO also oversaw the Tsunami Solar Light Fund, which raised the funds to bring solar installations to assist some of the people who were displaced by the tsunami.
The shortage of solar modules, coupled with increasing costs, places a burden on the very communities who stand to benefit the most.
by H Harish Hande, SELCO Solar Light Ltd.
February 16, 2006
Can we keep our solar promise to improve the lives of people like these two children living in developing countries?
Bangalore, India [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] It has always been a foregone conclusion that solar photovoltaics (PV) makes sense in the rural parts of the developing world. We have seen reams of paper convincing policy makers, manufacturers, donors, multilaterals, bilaterals, etc., just how solar solves energy challenges for basic human amenities.
Solar Depot Solar Thermal Workshop
Over the years we have seen the costs of solar panels steadily come down, though not to the levels that many experts had predicted. The critical question always has been, at what point ($/watt) would solar PV make commercial sense for the rural areas of the developing world?
I personally have never been clear what baselines people were using to compare against to reach their conclusions. I am not sure how convenience, reliability, better educational facilities, etc., have been transformed into financial figures on a spreadsheet.
However, I sincerely believe from experience that solar PV is already very viable -- provided accessible and affordable financing is created at the doorsteps of the rural people -- thus I hardly paid attention to the future predictions of $/watt.
Peak in Demand
We all know now that, in the last 24 to 30 months, the cost of solar panels ($/watt) is increasing drastically (rather than decreasing as predicted by experts) and fingers are pointing toward Germany.
The sudden boom in the German market and competition from the semiconductor industry has led to an imbalance in the supply and demand of feedstock. This has been one of the causes for the steady rise in solar module prices.
Adding to the rise in prices has been the lack of availability of smaller modules, those that are required to power the meager load requirements of households in the rural areas of India, Sri Lanka, Honduras, Uganda or Fiji.
Steady cash flow and decent profitability has forced the manufactures to weave away from manufacturing smaller modules, in order to cater to demand from Germany and other western countries.
Rise in Disparity
Prices for 37 watts and 75 watts remained steady till 2004 and then started to rise. There has been an increase of 20% and 25% for 37 watt and 75 watt, respectively, as compared to 2003 prices. And a 25% increase in price really hurts the pockets of a rural household in the developing world.
We can keep debating, who needs electricity more -- a German household (who has a choice between grid and solar) or a rural household in Uganda (who has a choice between kerosene and solar), but the bottom line is that the solar industry does not have an immediate solution.
There is also another problem: squeeze in the supply of smaller modules has increased the working capital requirements of smaller integrators in the developing world. While in 2004, smaller integrators were getting a credit period of 90 days, now they have to be satisfied with 30-day periods. This means that the working capital requirements have tripled. Unlike Germany, where payment terms from end-users are pretty well defined, here in the underdeveloped world that is not the case -- leading to further uncertainty for the system integrators.
Call for Balance
Although the market in many of the countries like India (at least in some parts) and Sri Lanka were becoming mature -- financing had fallen in place, system integrators had established good service networks and solar PV had attained decent awareness levels -- suddenly the steady rise in prices has thrown the market out of gear.
To get back the levels of market maturity requires immense hard work by the rural service companies and that is not cheap. It has taken years to convince people, bankers, etc., that solar PV -- if financed and serviced properly -- is comparable to other substitutes, but now the explanation needs to change.
I am not sure what the explanation is. I do know the solution needs to be addressed by the whole solar industry -- because the divide between the served and the underserved cannot keep increasing.
About the author...
H Harish Hande, PhD, is managing director of SELCO Solar Light (P) Ltd., in Bangalore, India. His company has overseen the implementation of thousands of installations, whose success are due largely to local involvement. SELCO also oversaw the Tsunami Solar Light Fund, which raised the funds to bring solar installations to assist some of the people who were displaced by the tsunami.
New Spire Solar (SPIR) cells convert sun's heat into electricity!!!
Spire to Develop Advanced Thermophotovoltaic Cells; TPV Cells Produce Electricity from Heat
Press Release from Spire Corporation
February 13, 2006
Bedford, MA - February 13, 2006 Spire Corporation (Nasdaq: SPIR) today announced that has been awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant to develop a new type of thermophotovoltaic (TPV) power cell that produces electricity from heat. The cells are similar to solar cells that convert visible photons to electricity, but the semiconductor material is adjusted to convert long-wavelength or thermal photons to electricity. The grant is from NASA's John Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio.
The project has potential applications for NASA, to generate electricity from heat generated by long-life radioisotope sources for long duration space missions where the power generated by conventional solar cells is limited due to the large distance from the sun. Commercial applications of TPV cells include electricity co-generation using heat from wood or propane combustion.
Bandwidth Semiconductor LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Spire, will develop indium-gallium-arsenide-based thermophotovoltaic cells optimized for both high temperature operation as well as for radiation hardness. Bandwidth Semiconductor, a compound semiconductor foundry specializing in wafer epitaxy and device processing, is a leader in the field of thermophotovoltaics. Bandwidth Semiconductor has over ten years experience providing TPV cells to government customers for special applications.
Roger Little, Chairman and CEO of Spire, said, "With this grant, we will leverage our expertise in solar cells, compound semiconductor epitaxy and device processing to grow nanostructures that can efficiently convert heat to electricity for energy generation both on earth and in space."
ABOUT SPIRE CORPORATION
Spire Corporation is a diversified technology company providing innovative solar energy manufacturing equipment, biomedical devices and optoelectronic components, all based upon a common technology platform. For more information visit www.spirecorp.com.
Press Release from Spire Corporation
February 13, 2006
Bedford, MA - February 13, 2006 Spire Corporation (Nasdaq: SPIR) today announced that has been awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant to develop a new type of thermophotovoltaic (TPV) power cell that produces electricity from heat. The cells are similar to solar cells that convert visible photons to electricity, but the semiconductor material is adjusted to convert long-wavelength or thermal photons to electricity. The grant is from NASA's John Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio.
The project has potential applications for NASA, to generate electricity from heat generated by long-life radioisotope sources for long duration space missions where the power generated by conventional solar cells is limited due to the large distance from the sun. Commercial applications of TPV cells include electricity co-generation using heat from wood or propane combustion.
Bandwidth Semiconductor LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Spire, will develop indium-gallium-arsenide-based thermophotovoltaic cells optimized for both high temperature operation as well as for radiation hardness. Bandwidth Semiconductor, a compound semiconductor foundry specializing in wafer epitaxy and device processing, is a leader in the field of thermophotovoltaics. Bandwidth Semiconductor has over ten years experience providing TPV cells to government customers for special applications.
Roger Little, Chairman and CEO of Spire, said, "With this grant, we will leverage our expertise in solar cells, compound semiconductor epitaxy and device processing to grow nanostructures that can efficiently convert heat to electricity for energy generation both on earth and in space."
ABOUT SPIRE CORPORATION
Spire Corporation is a diversified technology company providing innovative solar energy manufacturing equipment, biomedical devices and optoelectronic components, all based upon a common technology platform. For more information visit www.spirecorp.com.
A New Chapter Begins for Concentrated Solar Power
Companies break ground on the first Concentrated Solar Power project in more than 15 years
by Jesse Broehl, Editor, RenewableEnergyAccess.com
Construction began last weekend on Nevada Solar One, a 64 MW solar trough-style Concentrated Solar Power project.
Boulder City, Nevada [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] This weekend, in the Desert outside Las Vegas, a major milestone was reached for renewable energy that could represent a shift in how the fastest growing region in the U.S. get its energy. Hundreds of people from around the world were on hand in Boulder City, Nevada, to commemorate the groundbreaking for the beginning of construction on the first Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) energy project in the U.S. in more than 15 years.
Solar Hot Water
Called Nevada Solar One, the 64 MW commercial-scale solar energy plant will encompass 350 square acres, a nearly endless sea of mirrored troughs that will concentrate the strong desert sunlight and convert it into 750-degree F thermal energy, which can then be used to create steam for electrical power generation.
A combination of state policies and support from both the Governor and the legislature, steady advances in this type of technology, all coupled with skyrocketing energy costs have helped make this unique project a reality.
"Nevada has proven to be very forward thinking in promoting solar and other renewables," said Solargenix President John Myles. "The main factor here is that you can get very large blocks of power coming from solar energy in one single location. It is very clearly the lowest cost solar energy that can be produced today."
The project is designed and led by Solargenix Energy, based in North Carolina, but involves a host of companies from around the world. The groundbreaking this weekend also made official a partnership between Solargenix and Spain's renewable energy giant, the Acciona Group, which has acquired a 55 percent interest in the commercial power plant division of Solargenix.
Gilbert Cohen, Vice President of Engineering & Operations for Solargenix, said the project costs somewhere in the range of $220-250 million. He said the power is slightly more expensive than wind power, but less than photovoltaic (PV) power, more commonly used in small rooftop projects on homes or businesses. Other sources close to the project put this price at somewhere between 9-13 cents per kWh. As more are built, however, and they're scaled up even bigger, Cohen says a target of seven cents per kWh will not be difficult to reach in the near future.
The Nuts and Bolts of Nevada Solar One
Germany's glass specialists, Schott -- a company familiar in the solar industry for their solar photovoltaic modules -- is one of the primary equipment suppliers. In its first large-scale solar thermal contract, Schott is providing more than 19,000 of their latest vacuum tube steel and glass receivers, which in many ways can be considered the heart of the project. It is these receiver tubes that the parabolic mirrors focus the sun's energy on and they, in turn, absorb the solar radiation. Flabeg, also a German company, will provide the mirror panels or troughs while industrial giant Siemens of Sweden will provide the 75 MW turbine.
Many other companies are involved in other aspects of hardware and construction, including the main construction contractor Houston-based EPC, Phoenix-based Hydro, which is building the aluminum tracking frames that hold the mirrors. Israel-based Solel is providing some backup receivers in case there are any supply issues with the Schott receivers, according to Cohen. In all, as many as 750 people will be involved in the construction and the power plant will have a full-time staff of 28.
Contrary to some press accounts, the project is not the largest of its kind in the world. Nor is it the first. There are, in fact, nine similar projects in the Mojave Desert in California -- two of them 80 MW in size -- that are operating above and beyond original expectations. According to experts involved in the project, however, there are subtle but significant changes made to this new version that will improve the overall efficiency and cost.
The older plants in the Mojave Desert, called SEGS, for Solar Electric Generating Stations, were different in a number of ways. Those plants required a 25 percent natural gas-fired backup to keep the heat transfer fluid temperature from fluctuating wildly. Nevada Solar One is designed to be more efficient in holding its temperature and requires only a 2 percent natural gas backup. More efficient and reliable motors will be used to move the troughs that track the sun. The frames for these troughs are now built out of lightweight aluminum instead of galvanized steel.
The receivers themselves are different as well. Christoph Fark, global manager for sales and marketing for Schott's solar thermal division, says the close to 19,000 receivers used in the project are the first commercial application of a new design from the company. The receivers must be designed to withstand the daytime highs of 750 degrees F and the lower temperatures at night. This can be particularly challenging to the seal between the outside glass tubing and the vacuum-packed steel receiver inside that holds the heat transfer fluid, a special synthetic oil. Fark explained how Schott invented a type of glass with the same thermal coefficient as steel so the two materials would react in unison to the constant temperature stresses.
These complex receivers are currently made in Germany but if CSP technology becomes a bigger player in the American Southwest, Fark suspects they could move some production into the U.S.
"We see this as the beginning, we are involved in project discussion worldwide -- such as the southern parts of Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East," Fark said. "We hope the market picks up, and if so, then Schott is willing to invest in the production side in the U.S. This is our overall strategy, to be where the customer is. We believe the U.S. market offers huge potential for this technology."
The Right Place at the Right Time
On a broader scale, Nevada Solar One reflects a symbolic rekindling of this technology approach, one that many experts say is particularly well-suited for areas like the American Southwest where sunlight is abundant but energy is precious and increasingly strained by population growth.
"This is a technology the utilities are comfortable with, it has proven reliability, it lends itself to economies of scale, there clearly is still some room for price reduction, and also it's a way to get large amounts of renewable energy deployed rapidly," said Chuck Kutscher, Principal Engineer and Group Manager of the Thermal Systems Group at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. "If we want to get serious about reducing carbon dioxide emissions and lower our use of fossil fuels, this is a way to quickly address that. I'm very optimistic about this technology."
A wide variety of factors have collided -- everything from politics to the marketplace -- to make this project a reality.
"After many years the time has come where we don't have to explain anymore the need for renewable energy, we don't have to explain the concerns about climate change, we don't have to explain the instability created by oil resources that belong to only a few countries when all countries are using these resources. Nor do we have to explain the instabilities to energy from disasters like hurricanes," said Alberto De Miguel, Acciona's Director of Corporate Development and Strategy. "Renewable energy is now accepted more than ever by the public."
And that public acceptance is increasingly being turned into policy. Nevada is one of a growing number of states with a mandate that electric utilities, in this case Nevada Power Co. and Sierra Pacific Power Co., source a slowly escalating percentage of their power from renewable resources. Eventually the two utilities will have to reach 20 percent renewable energy use by 2015. The law also contains a so-called "solar cut-out" that requires at least one-fourth of that power to come from solar energy. The project is projected to generate 130,000 MWh of power per year over the course of its decades-long lifetime. All of its electricity production will be sold to Nevada Power and Sierra Pacific Power under long-term power purchase agreements to help them meet this requirement.
A Natural Fit for Tomorrow's Market
While Nevada's policy played a very strong role in supporting this project, perhaps the next most influential factor is the natural gas market where prices have skyrocketed. This is at the core of why experts inside and outside of Solargenix believe CSP will play an increasingly important role in helping the rapidly growing American Southwest to meet its energy demands.
"There are fundamental differences in the electricity marketplace versus 15 years ago," said Rhone Resch, Executive Director of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), who was involved in the natural gas industry before joining SEIA.
"Natural gas and peak power is incredibly expensive. Utilities are scrambling to find power generation sources that are reliable for peak power," Resch said. "Those changes are going to be what drives new plants like this. The beautiful thing with this project is that it offers firm, dispatchable peak power."
Resch said utilities and the ratepayers they serve made an investment in natural gas for the coming decades as a transition fuel but they are finding out now that it's too expensive to afford. The power plants are fine, but the energy commodity is becoming cost prohibitive and coal is often the next best option. This is relevant and fortuitous for CSP technologies because natural gas power plants are not fundamentally so different than a CSP plant. Just as today's fleet of natural gas plants uses a fossil fuel to create steam for a turbine, CSP plants like Nevada Solar One also create useable, commercial-scale steam, except only from the sun's energy, a consistently free and available resource.
"Except for the troughs, everything else is a standard natural gas plant," said Scott Sklar, industry consultant with the Stella Group. "That's what Solargenix has always maintained, you're really buying a natural gas power block with solar attached. It can't be that risky, after all the old SEGS plants have been up and have operated close to flawless."
In addition to the power plant side of the project being something the utilities and the traditional power industry is familiar with, Sklar said these types of projects can be easily deployed close to where the power is needed, unlike commercial wind power where the best wind resources are often not near where the power is needed. And while wind power may offer a slightly lower cost per watt than CSP, wind power generation is intermittent, whereas CSP offers consistent power all day long when energy demands are highest.
"I dealt with this all the time, in the early days when Washington pundits and other people thought solar thermal would go nowhere," Sklar said. "Or they would say 'this stuff is great but it just isn't in sizes big enough to matter.' Well this is pretty substantive. It's exciting and I think it will create a whole revival towards concentrated solar power in the U.S."
The project is scheduled to begin production of electricity in March of 2007.
by Jesse Broehl, Editor, RenewableEnergyAccess.com
Construction began last weekend on Nevada Solar One, a 64 MW solar trough-style Concentrated Solar Power project.
Boulder City, Nevada [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] This weekend, in the Desert outside Las Vegas, a major milestone was reached for renewable energy that could represent a shift in how the fastest growing region in the U.S. get its energy. Hundreds of people from around the world were on hand in Boulder City, Nevada, to commemorate the groundbreaking for the beginning of construction on the first Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) energy project in the U.S. in more than 15 years.
Solar Hot Water
Called Nevada Solar One, the 64 MW commercial-scale solar energy plant will encompass 350 square acres, a nearly endless sea of mirrored troughs that will concentrate the strong desert sunlight and convert it into 750-degree F thermal energy, which can then be used to create steam for electrical power generation.
A combination of state policies and support from both the Governor and the legislature, steady advances in this type of technology, all coupled with skyrocketing energy costs have helped make this unique project a reality.
"Nevada has proven to be very forward thinking in promoting solar and other renewables," said Solargenix President John Myles. "The main factor here is that you can get very large blocks of power coming from solar energy in one single location. It is very clearly the lowest cost solar energy that can be produced today."
The project is designed and led by Solargenix Energy, based in North Carolina, but involves a host of companies from around the world. The groundbreaking this weekend also made official a partnership between Solargenix and Spain's renewable energy giant, the Acciona Group, which has acquired a 55 percent interest in the commercial power plant division of Solargenix.
Gilbert Cohen, Vice President of Engineering & Operations for Solargenix, said the project costs somewhere in the range of $220-250 million. He said the power is slightly more expensive than wind power, but less than photovoltaic (PV) power, more commonly used in small rooftop projects on homes or businesses. Other sources close to the project put this price at somewhere between 9-13 cents per kWh. As more are built, however, and they're scaled up even bigger, Cohen says a target of seven cents per kWh will not be difficult to reach in the near future.
The Nuts and Bolts of Nevada Solar One
Germany's glass specialists, Schott -- a company familiar in the solar industry for their solar photovoltaic modules -- is one of the primary equipment suppliers. In its first large-scale solar thermal contract, Schott is providing more than 19,000 of their latest vacuum tube steel and glass receivers, which in many ways can be considered the heart of the project. It is these receiver tubes that the parabolic mirrors focus the sun's energy on and they, in turn, absorb the solar radiation. Flabeg, also a German company, will provide the mirror panels or troughs while industrial giant Siemens of Sweden will provide the 75 MW turbine.
Many other companies are involved in other aspects of hardware and construction, including the main construction contractor Houston-based EPC, Phoenix-based Hydro, which is building the aluminum tracking frames that hold the mirrors. Israel-based Solel is providing some backup receivers in case there are any supply issues with the Schott receivers, according to Cohen. In all, as many as 750 people will be involved in the construction and the power plant will have a full-time staff of 28.
Contrary to some press accounts, the project is not the largest of its kind in the world. Nor is it the first. There are, in fact, nine similar projects in the Mojave Desert in California -- two of them 80 MW in size -- that are operating above and beyond original expectations. According to experts involved in the project, however, there are subtle but significant changes made to this new version that will improve the overall efficiency and cost.
The older plants in the Mojave Desert, called SEGS, for Solar Electric Generating Stations, were different in a number of ways. Those plants required a 25 percent natural gas-fired backup to keep the heat transfer fluid temperature from fluctuating wildly. Nevada Solar One is designed to be more efficient in holding its temperature and requires only a 2 percent natural gas backup. More efficient and reliable motors will be used to move the troughs that track the sun. The frames for these troughs are now built out of lightweight aluminum instead of galvanized steel.
The receivers themselves are different as well. Christoph Fark, global manager for sales and marketing for Schott's solar thermal division, says the close to 19,000 receivers used in the project are the first commercial application of a new design from the company. The receivers must be designed to withstand the daytime highs of 750 degrees F and the lower temperatures at night. This can be particularly challenging to the seal between the outside glass tubing and the vacuum-packed steel receiver inside that holds the heat transfer fluid, a special synthetic oil. Fark explained how Schott invented a type of glass with the same thermal coefficient as steel so the two materials would react in unison to the constant temperature stresses.
These complex receivers are currently made in Germany but if CSP technology becomes a bigger player in the American Southwest, Fark suspects they could move some production into the U.S.
"We see this as the beginning, we are involved in project discussion worldwide -- such as the southern parts of Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East," Fark said. "We hope the market picks up, and if so, then Schott is willing to invest in the production side in the U.S. This is our overall strategy, to be where the customer is. We believe the U.S. market offers huge potential for this technology."
The Right Place at the Right Time
On a broader scale, Nevada Solar One reflects a symbolic rekindling of this technology approach, one that many experts say is particularly well-suited for areas like the American Southwest where sunlight is abundant but energy is precious and increasingly strained by population growth.
"This is a technology the utilities are comfortable with, it has proven reliability, it lends itself to economies of scale, there clearly is still some room for price reduction, and also it's a way to get large amounts of renewable energy deployed rapidly," said Chuck Kutscher, Principal Engineer and Group Manager of the Thermal Systems Group at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. "If we want to get serious about reducing carbon dioxide emissions and lower our use of fossil fuels, this is a way to quickly address that. I'm very optimistic about this technology."
A wide variety of factors have collided -- everything from politics to the marketplace -- to make this project a reality.
"After many years the time has come where we don't have to explain anymore the need for renewable energy, we don't have to explain the concerns about climate change, we don't have to explain the instability created by oil resources that belong to only a few countries when all countries are using these resources. Nor do we have to explain the instabilities to energy from disasters like hurricanes," said Alberto De Miguel, Acciona's Director of Corporate Development and Strategy. "Renewable energy is now accepted more than ever by the public."
And that public acceptance is increasingly being turned into policy. Nevada is one of a growing number of states with a mandate that electric utilities, in this case Nevada Power Co. and Sierra Pacific Power Co., source a slowly escalating percentage of their power from renewable resources. Eventually the two utilities will have to reach 20 percent renewable energy use by 2015. The law also contains a so-called "solar cut-out" that requires at least one-fourth of that power to come from solar energy. The project is projected to generate 130,000 MWh of power per year over the course of its decades-long lifetime. All of its electricity production will be sold to Nevada Power and Sierra Pacific Power under long-term power purchase agreements to help them meet this requirement.
A Natural Fit for Tomorrow's Market
While Nevada's policy played a very strong role in supporting this project, perhaps the next most influential factor is the natural gas market where prices have skyrocketed. This is at the core of why experts inside and outside of Solargenix believe CSP will play an increasingly important role in helping the rapidly growing American Southwest to meet its energy demands.
"There are fundamental differences in the electricity marketplace versus 15 years ago," said Rhone Resch, Executive Director of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), who was involved in the natural gas industry before joining SEIA.
"Natural gas and peak power is incredibly expensive. Utilities are scrambling to find power generation sources that are reliable for peak power," Resch said. "Those changes are going to be what drives new plants like this. The beautiful thing with this project is that it offers firm, dispatchable peak power."
Resch said utilities and the ratepayers they serve made an investment in natural gas for the coming decades as a transition fuel but they are finding out now that it's too expensive to afford. The power plants are fine, but the energy commodity is becoming cost prohibitive and coal is often the next best option. This is relevant and fortuitous for CSP technologies because natural gas power plants are not fundamentally so different than a CSP plant. Just as today's fleet of natural gas plants uses a fossil fuel to create steam for a turbine, CSP plants like Nevada Solar One also create useable, commercial-scale steam, except only from the sun's energy, a consistently free and available resource.
"Except for the troughs, everything else is a standard natural gas plant," said Scott Sklar, industry consultant with the Stella Group. "That's what Solargenix has always maintained, you're really buying a natural gas power block with solar attached. It can't be that risky, after all the old SEGS plants have been up and have operated close to flawless."
In addition to the power plant side of the project being something the utilities and the traditional power industry is familiar with, Sklar said these types of projects can be easily deployed close to where the power is needed, unlike commercial wind power where the best wind resources are often not near where the power is needed. And while wind power may offer a slightly lower cost per watt than CSP, wind power generation is intermittent, whereas CSP offers consistent power all day long when energy demands are highest.
"I dealt with this all the time, in the early days when Washington pundits and other people thought solar thermal would go nowhere," Sklar said. "Or they would say 'this stuff is great but it just isn't in sizes big enough to matter.' Well this is pretty substantive. It's exciting and I think it will create a whole revival towards concentrated solar power in the U.S."
The project is scheduled to begin production of electricity in March of 2007.
Alternative energy index - NEX - launched to track renewable power shares
Green vision gains momentum
By Ami Ginsburg, Haaretz.com
A new stock index was born last week - NEX. The new index was developed by two American bodies - WilderHill and New Energy Finance. The initiators of this new index seem to have correctly interpreted the signs of a new trend in the stock market - the quest for shares specializing in alternative energy or "green energy." Many such green shares wore bright green colors this past year as they shot upward following the skyrocketing price of oil.
The NEX index is designed in response to the desire by many investors to invest in a financial instrument that enables them to profit from the rise in energy prices, but in companies that are not connected with the oil industry. These investors believe many countries will soon be investing greater resources in researching and using green energy.
The NEX index consists of 86 shares of companies traded on 18 bourses worldwide. The index includes, among other things, fields such as the development of fuel cells, producing biodiesel, technologies for producing energy from geothermal fields, wind energy and solar energy production plants.
The launching of the NEX index could not have happened at a better time.
"America is addicted to oil," said U.S. President George W. Bush last week. The American president, a few of whose big donors come from the rich oil industry in Texas, announced from that same podium that he has ordered a 22-percent increase in the research budgets earmarked for developing non-polluting alternative energies. The bulk of this funding will be channeled to renewable resources such as solar energy and wind energy, and to innovations for saving energy.
The news from the White House is in line with consumer trends already forming throughout America. Last year, for example, there was a decline in demand for gas-guzzling all-terrain vehicles and a rise in demand for hybrid cars that use less gasoline and are less-polluting.
"What we are seeing is that mainstream investor interest in the energy side of sustainability has really rocketed in the past 24 months," Michael Liebreich, one of the founders of the NEX index, told the SocialFunds.com Internet news site. "The interest in clean energy is driven not just by sustainability issues and the Kyoto Protocol, but also by oil depletion and energy security concerns."
It turns out that the green vision of Tu Bishvat, Jewish Arbor Day, which was celebrated yesterday, is gaining momentum among investors motivated by the eternal search for the yields and capital gains. Some Israeli examples of this global trend are Ormat, which specializes in the development of geothermal energy fields for producing electricity. In the past three years Ormat's share price has more than quadrupled, climbing 140 percent in the past year alone.
Ormat's spectacular performance also stems from the growth of the company itself, which has taken advantage of many business opportunities, including public stock offerings in two of its subsidiaries - one in Canada (OPTI) and the other in the United States (Ormat Technologies). Ormat's wise business moves have helped the company reach a market value of NIS 5 billion, making it a natural candidate for entering the Tel Aviv 25 Index this June.
Another Israeli company in the alternative energy sector is Elspec, headquartered in the Caesarea industrial zone. Elspec, which went public just under two years ago on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, has developed systems for stabilizing the electricity for turbines that produce electricity from wind energy.
Little Elspec recorded profits of NIS 18.7 million in the first nine months of 2005, more than twice the company's profits for the same period in 2004. Elspec's net profits equal about 30 percent of the company's sales, which totaled NIS 63.5 million in the first nine months of last year. In the meantime Elspec is still trading at a modest market value of NIS 230 million, perhaps because most investors in Tel Aviv are unfamiliar with the company. If the current global trend continues, however, and Elspec continues to grow with it, the company's shares should rise accordingly.
Israeli investors interested in a little more exposure to the green trend can do so via two new Israeli funds that have "green" policies. One is the green fund of Altshuler-Shoham, managed by Chen Altshuler, and the other is Poalim Mutual Funds' alternative energy fund.
Altshuler recently noted that the fund's policy in its search investment opportunities will focus on companies in countries with social and environmental awareness, such as Japan and the Scandinavian countries.
In the meantime, the green funds are providing investors with nice yields. Altshuler's green fund, launched exactly a year ago, has recorded a yield of 29 percent. Poalim's alternative energy fund changed its policy just three months ago, in November 2005. The change was good for the fund, which has provided a yield of 15 percent since the beginning of 2006.
By Ami Ginsburg, Haaretz.com
A new stock index was born last week - NEX. The new index was developed by two American bodies - WilderHill and New Energy Finance. The initiators of this new index seem to have correctly interpreted the signs of a new trend in the stock market - the quest for shares specializing in alternative energy or "green energy." Many such green shares wore bright green colors this past year as they shot upward following the skyrocketing price of oil.
The NEX index is designed in response to the desire by many investors to invest in a financial instrument that enables them to profit from the rise in energy prices, but in companies that are not connected with the oil industry. These investors believe many countries will soon be investing greater resources in researching and using green energy.
The NEX index consists of 86 shares of companies traded on 18 bourses worldwide. The index includes, among other things, fields such as the development of fuel cells, producing biodiesel, technologies for producing energy from geothermal fields, wind energy and solar energy production plants.
The launching of the NEX index could not have happened at a better time.
"America is addicted to oil," said U.S. President George W. Bush last week. The American president, a few of whose big donors come from the rich oil industry in Texas, announced from that same podium that he has ordered a 22-percent increase in the research budgets earmarked for developing non-polluting alternative energies. The bulk of this funding will be channeled to renewable resources such as solar energy and wind energy, and to innovations for saving energy.
The news from the White House is in line with consumer trends already forming throughout America. Last year, for example, there was a decline in demand for gas-guzzling all-terrain vehicles and a rise in demand for hybrid cars that use less gasoline and are less-polluting.
"What we are seeing is that mainstream investor interest in the energy side of sustainability has really rocketed in the past 24 months," Michael Liebreich, one of the founders of the NEX index, told the SocialFunds.com Internet news site. "The interest in clean energy is driven not just by sustainability issues and the Kyoto Protocol, but also by oil depletion and energy security concerns."
It turns out that the green vision of Tu Bishvat, Jewish Arbor Day, which was celebrated yesterday, is gaining momentum among investors motivated by the eternal search for the yields and capital gains. Some Israeli examples of this global trend are Ormat, which specializes in the development of geothermal energy fields for producing electricity. In the past three years Ormat's share price has more than quadrupled, climbing 140 percent in the past year alone.
Ormat's spectacular performance also stems from the growth of the company itself, which has taken advantage of many business opportunities, including public stock offerings in two of its subsidiaries - one in Canada (OPTI) and the other in the United States (Ormat Technologies). Ormat's wise business moves have helped the company reach a market value of NIS 5 billion, making it a natural candidate for entering the Tel Aviv 25 Index this June.
Another Israeli company in the alternative energy sector is Elspec, headquartered in the Caesarea industrial zone. Elspec, which went public just under two years ago on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, has developed systems for stabilizing the electricity for turbines that produce electricity from wind energy.
Little Elspec recorded profits of NIS 18.7 million in the first nine months of 2005, more than twice the company's profits for the same period in 2004. Elspec's net profits equal about 30 percent of the company's sales, which totaled NIS 63.5 million in the first nine months of last year. In the meantime Elspec is still trading at a modest market value of NIS 230 million, perhaps because most investors in Tel Aviv are unfamiliar with the company. If the current global trend continues, however, and Elspec continues to grow with it, the company's shares should rise accordingly.
Israeli investors interested in a little more exposure to the green trend can do so via two new Israeli funds that have "green" policies. One is the green fund of Altshuler-Shoham, managed by Chen Altshuler, and the other is Poalim Mutual Funds' alternative energy fund.
Altshuler recently noted that the fund's policy in its search investment opportunities will focus on companies in countries with social and environmental awareness, such as Japan and the Scandinavian countries.
In the meantime, the green funds are providing investors with nice yields. Altshuler's green fund, launched exactly a year ago, has recorded a yield of 29 percent. Poalim's alternative energy fund changed its policy just three months ago, in November 2005. The change was good for the fund, which has provided a yield of 15 percent since the beginning of 2006.
Green Energy conference hosts events and exhibitors in Boston, MA, March 7 to 9th
Press release from: NESEA-NorthEast Sustainable Energy Association
Cutting-Edge Green Building and Clean Energy Trade Show at Building Energy Conference in Boston - Open to the Public
Over 120 renewable energy and green building exhibitors
Greenfield, MA— The northeast’s largest and most comprehensive green building and renewable energy Trade Show will be center stage at the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association’s (NESEA) 31st annual Building Energy Conference at Boston’s Seaport World Trade Center on Wednesday and Thursday, March 8 – 9, 2006. This year’s Trade Show, with over 120 exhibitors, is sponsored by Alternate Energy, Inc.
"While the trade show was created with the professional architect, builder and renewable energy professional in mind, it is a tremendous resource for homeowners, corporations, or facilities managers interested in making living or work spaces healthier and less expensive to heat and cool. " said Christine Scott, Senior Planner/Urban Designer at Goody Clancy, an architectural, planning, and preservation firm in Boston, and Chair of the Building Energy Conference. "With the cost of energy at an all-time high, the value of building green has never been more apparent,"
The trade show offers a wide range of products from flooring and carpeting to insulation and wind and solar. To qualify as a “green product” the product must have been manufactured in an environmentally-friendly way, it must be recyclable, and it cannot release toxic fumes while in use. Some products, such as insulation, doors, windows, window shades, and heating systems are designed to save on heating and cooling bills. Others, such and solar electric, solar thermal systems, or wind turbines are designed to replace energy used with clean renewable energy that reduce carbon emissions that cause climate change.
There are also a number of exhibitors that are offering services. For example, Alternate Energy, trade show sponsor, will showcase its solar installation capabilities and offer information on federal and tax incentives. Several architectural firms that specialize in green building and solar installations will be showcasing what they can offer. The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative Renewable Energy Trust, title sponsor of the conference, will have information on their programs that help reduce the cost of adding solar energy to homes, schools, and businesses in Massachusetts, or installing a wind turbine in Massachusetts’s communities.
Related Events on the Trade Show Floor
# An On-site Bookstore with the most up-to-date practical green building and clean renewable energy resources on the market will include books authored by conference speakers.
# A Green Art Show with paintings depicting the green building process and sculptures made from recycled building materials will be featured from Artists for Humanity and Boston Materials Resource Center respectively.
# Networking Villages featuring green furniture, courtesy of Haworth, Inc. are available for colleagues to relax and network.
# A winning poster exhibit will profile on-going efforts to advance the practice of sustainability and celebrate the next generation of professionals. The BSA WindsCape Ideas Competition, the Solar Decathlon, and the U.S. Green Building Council Design Competition will be on display.
NESEA is also offering a free Public Forum during the conference entitled, "Energy: Crisis or Opportunity?" to be held on Tuesday evening, March 7 from 6:00 – 8:00 pm at the Seaport World Trade Center’s Amphitheater. The Public Forum will be moderated by Jim Braude, anchor with NECN’s NewsNight show. The expert panelists and the audience will engage in a lively discussion of how we can meet the energy crisis while improving national security, the economy, and the environment.
The trade show and Public Forum are part of NESEA’s three-day Building Energy ‘06 conference, which will draw over 1500 professionals from the Northeast for workshops, sessions, networking, and live and silent auction.
The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative is Title Sponsor and Goody Clancy is a Gold Sponsor of Building Energy 2006. Additional sponsors include: Alternative Energy Retailer, American Planning Association, Arrowstreet, BuildingGreen, Cape Light Compact, Cape Wind Associates, Commercial Builder/Architect Magazine, Connecticut Clean Energy Fund, Conservation Services Group, Contractor Power, CSRwire, E-The Environmental Magazine, Efficiency Maine, EIN Publishing, Energy Magazine, Environmental Design and Construction Magazine, Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, GreenBiz.com, Haworth, High Profile Monthly, Honeywell Utility Solutions, Home Energy Magazine, KeySpan Energy Delivery, Long Island Power Authority, Maine’s State Energy Program, Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources, New England Cable News, New England Real Estate Journal, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, North American Wind Power, NSTAR, Residential Design & Build Magazine, Rhode Island Renewable Energy Fund, Sasaki, Smart HomeOwner Magazine, SmartPower, Solar Design Associates, Sterling Planet, UK Trade and Investment, and the U.S. Department of Energy.
The Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) is the Northeast’s leading organization of professionals working in sustainable energy, whole systems thinking and green technologies. NESEA facilitates the widespread adoption and use of sustainable energy by providing support to industry professionals and by educating and motivating consumers to learn about, ask for, and adopt sustainable energy and green building practices.
For more information or to register for Building Energy 2006 — "The Practice of Sustainability: Proven Profitable Partnership," please visit www.BuildingEnergy.nesea.org.
Cutting-Edge Green Building and Clean Energy Trade Show at Building Energy Conference in Boston - Open to the Public
Over 120 renewable energy and green building exhibitors
Greenfield, MA— The northeast’s largest and most comprehensive green building and renewable energy Trade Show will be center stage at the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association’s (NESEA) 31st annual Building Energy Conference at Boston’s Seaport World Trade Center on Wednesday and Thursday, March 8 – 9, 2006. This year’s Trade Show, with over 120 exhibitors, is sponsored by Alternate Energy, Inc.
"While the trade show was created with the professional architect, builder and renewable energy professional in mind, it is a tremendous resource for homeowners, corporations, or facilities managers interested in making living or work spaces healthier and less expensive to heat and cool. " said Christine Scott, Senior Planner/Urban Designer at Goody Clancy, an architectural, planning, and preservation firm in Boston, and Chair of the Building Energy Conference. "With the cost of energy at an all-time high, the value of building green has never been more apparent,"
The trade show offers a wide range of products from flooring and carpeting to insulation and wind and solar. To qualify as a “green product” the product must have been manufactured in an environmentally-friendly way, it must be recyclable, and it cannot release toxic fumes while in use. Some products, such as insulation, doors, windows, window shades, and heating systems are designed to save on heating and cooling bills. Others, such and solar electric, solar thermal systems, or wind turbines are designed to replace energy used with clean renewable energy that reduce carbon emissions that cause climate change.
There are also a number of exhibitors that are offering services. For example, Alternate Energy, trade show sponsor, will showcase its solar installation capabilities and offer information on federal and tax incentives. Several architectural firms that specialize in green building and solar installations will be showcasing what they can offer. The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative Renewable Energy Trust, title sponsor of the conference, will have information on their programs that help reduce the cost of adding solar energy to homes, schools, and businesses in Massachusetts, or installing a wind turbine in Massachusetts’s communities.
Related Events on the Trade Show Floor
# An On-site Bookstore with the most up-to-date practical green building and clean renewable energy resources on the market will include books authored by conference speakers.
# A Green Art Show with paintings depicting the green building process and sculptures made from recycled building materials will be featured from Artists for Humanity and Boston Materials Resource Center respectively.
# Networking Villages featuring green furniture, courtesy of Haworth, Inc. are available for colleagues to relax and network.
# A winning poster exhibit will profile on-going efforts to advance the practice of sustainability and celebrate the next generation of professionals. The BSA WindsCape Ideas Competition, the Solar Decathlon, and the U.S. Green Building Council Design Competition will be on display.
NESEA is also offering a free Public Forum during the conference entitled, "Energy: Crisis or Opportunity?" to be held on Tuesday evening, March 7 from 6:00 – 8:00 pm at the Seaport World Trade Center’s Amphitheater. The Public Forum will be moderated by Jim Braude, anchor with NECN’s NewsNight show. The expert panelists and the audience will engage in a lively discussion of how we can meet the energy crisis while improving national security, the economy, and the environment.
The trade show and Public Forum are part of NESEA’s three-day Building Energy ‘06 conference, which will draw over 1500 professionals from the Northeast for workshops, sessions, networking, and live and silent auction.
The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative is Title Sponsor and Goody Clancy is a Gold Sponsor of Building Energy 2006. Additional sponsors include: Alternative Energy Retailer, American Planning Association, Arrowstreet, BuildingGreen, Cape Light Compact, Cape Wind Associates, Commercial Builder/Architect Magazine, Connecticut Clean Energy Fund, Conservation Services Group, Contractor Power, CSRwire, E-The Environmental Magazine, Efficiency Maine, EIN Publishing, Energy Magazine, Environmental Design and Construction Magazine, Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, GreenBiz.com, Haworth, High Profile Monthly, Honeywell Utility Solutions, Home Energy Magazine, KeySpan Energy Delivery, Long Island Power Authority, Maine’s State Energy Program, Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources, New England Cable News, New England Real Estate Journal, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, North American Wind Power, NSTAR, Residential Design & Build Magazine, Rhode Island Renewable Energy Fund, Sasaki, Smart HomeOwner Magazine, SmartPower, Solar Design Associates, Sterling Planet, UK Trade and Investment, and the U.S. Department of Energy.
The Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) is the Northeast’s leading organization of professionals working in sustainable energy, whole systems thinking and green technologies. NESEA facilitates the widespread adoption and use of sustainable energy by providing support to industry professionals and by educating and motivating consumers to learn about, ask for, and adopt sustainable energy and green building practices.
For more information or to register for Building Energy 2006 — "The Practice of Sustainability: Proven Profitable Partnership," please visit www.BuildingEnergy.nesea.org.
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