Solar road could change how we power the world

What if one single source of renewable energy could replace our reliance on coal-fired energy? That's the dream of electrical engineer Scott Brusaw, who, for the better part of a decade, has been working on just such a project. His idea? Cover all the roadways and parking lots in the US with photovoltaic panels to harvest the power of the sun.

In the intervening eight years, Brusaw and his wife have received two rounds of funding from the US Federal Highway Administration to develop Solar Roadways.

The Solar Roadways system consists of interlocking tempered glass hexagonal panels, which have been tested for impact, load and traction. Embedded in these panels are photovoltaic panels that harvest the power of the sun, making use of the wide expanses of road and parking lots, many of which can sit empty for long periods of time. These panels, the Brusaws say, can be hooked up to homes and businesses via driveways and parking lots.

"A nationwide system could produce more clean renewable energy than a country uses as a whole," Brusaw writes. "They have many other features as well, including: heating elements to stay snow/ice free, LEDs to make road lines and signage, and attached Cable Corridor to store and treat stormwater and provide a 'home' for power and data cables."

This may sound like an unrealistically lofty goal, but the idea is being taken seriously. It has won awards and nominations from GE, the World Technology Award, Google and the IEEE Ace Awards, and Brusaw has spoken at TEDx, NASA, and Google's Solve for X.

In fact, the project is about to enter Phase II testing, and is seeking funding on Indiegogo to produce enough solar panels to build a prototype parking lot -- following which the Brusaws plan to sell the product to individuals before taking it to the roads.

"We need to make a few tweaks to our product and streamline our manufacturing process so that we can make our panels available to the public as quickly as possible," Brusaw wrote."With your help, we can move into manufacturing quickly and begin installing sidewalks, parking lots, driveways, playgrounds, patios, etc., and then when we feel we are ready, we'll begin to install roads and highways."

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Obama touts energy plans, trumpets W. House solar panels

USA TODAY. May 9, 2014. By David Jackson.  President Obama will announce new plans Friday designed to boost solar power and promote energy efficiency, including the completed installation of solar panels on the White House roof.  The solar panels on the president's residence are "part of an energy retrofit that will improve the overall energy efficiency of the building," said White House spokesman Matt Lehrich. During a visit to Wal-Mart in Mountain View, Calif., near San Jose, Obama will also outline what aides call some 300 "private and public sector commitments" designed to create jobs and reduce carbon pollution.  The speech comes three days after the administration issued a report saying that climate change caused by pollution is already damaging the environment and triggering extreme weather conditions. "Acting on climate change is more urgent than ever," said Michael Boots, acting chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality. In a campaign fundraising speech this week in Los Angeles, Obama said his administration has "actually reduced our carbon emissions faster than any other country in the world, even as we are also producing more energy generally, doubling our production of clean energy." The initiatives Obama will announce Friday include programs aimed at financing for new solar business ventures, training and developing a solar workforce, and enforcing new building codes to promote efficiency. Private companies, including Wal-Mart, will commit to similar projects, the White House said.  The plans are projected to create enough new solar energy to power more than 130,000 homes, and energy savings that are the equivalent of taking 80 million cars off the road for one year, the White House said.

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Koch brothers and big utilities campaign to unplug solar power

HUFFINGTON POST. By David Hosey. April 23, 2014.  The Koch brothers have a new ploy to protect the traditional energy business that helped make them the planet’s fifth- and sixth-richest humans. They are funding a campaign to shackle solar energy consumers who have escaped the grip of big electric utilities.  Of all the pro-business, anti-government causes they have funded with their billions, this may be the most cynical and self-serving. On Sunday, a Los Angeles Times story by Evan Halper outlined the Koch’s latest scheme. Along with anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist, several major power companies and a national association representing conservative state legislators, the brothers are aiming to kill preferences for the burgeoning solar power industry that have been put into law in dozens of states. Kansas, North Carolina and Arizona are their first targets, with more to come.  They already have their first victory. On Monday, Oklahoma’s Republican Gov. Mary Fallin signed a bill passed by the GOP-controlled Legislature that authorizes electric utilities to tack a surcharge on the bills of private citizens who have installed solar panels or wind turbines on their homes. That’s right, Oklahomans who have spent money to generate their own clean and green power now must pay compensation to the power companies.

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How To Phase Out Incentives And Grow Solar Energy

CLEANTECHNICA. By John Farrell. 5.6.14. Over the next decade, solar electricity will let consumers get cheaper energy from their rooftop than from their utility. Among the upheaval in the electricity system, the coming of solar “grid parity” means re-thinking incentives for solar energy.  The success of solar is remarkable, no less because the amount of federal subsidy in absolute terms has been far less for renewable energy than for fossil fuel resources (see graphic below).1 As the cost of solar drops toward – and below – grid parity, the question is how to adjust solar subsidies appropriately. Should they be eliminated immediately? Phased out? Or shifted from reducing the upfront cost to some other solar-boosting strategy?
Strategies for Shifting Subsidies

Eliminating solar subsidies makes little sense as it could severely constrain the expansion of solar just as it becomes grid competitive. It will mean short-term grid parity for the sunniest (or most expensive electricity) regions and leave the rest of America out in the cold for many years, hardly a prescription for increasing clean energy and democratizing the electricity system. It could also severely damage the domestic solar industry with a boom and bust cycle, a poor return for one of the few growth industries in the recent economic downturn. It also makes little sense for Americans to be providing incentives for established fossil fuel industries that make billions in profits each year.

But keeping solar subsidies – like the 30% federal tax credit – unchanged after its 2016 expiration date also seems senseless. Solar developers in sunny regions like California or high electricity price areas like New York will get out-sized returns from installing solar even as solar reached grid parity in the rest of the country. Furthermore, the tax incentive system continues to create friction by preventing cities, schools and other non-taxable entities from using federal incentives.  The guiding principle for solar subsidies should be to continue the enormous strides toward democratizing the electricity system by maintaining the growth of distributed solar while maximizing local ownership and economic benefit.

No More Taxes!

One strategy would be to shift away from the tax code. The use of the tax code for solar incentives has long discriminated against solar for schools or libraries (and other public buildings) because these entities don’t pay taxes. The public-private partnerships required to make use the tax credits have inevitable transaction costs that mean public solar can never quite compete with private solar and that also water down the value of federal money for solar.

One option is to shift to a refundable tax credit, allowing those who are eligible for tax credits to take the full value whether or not they have sufficient tax equity. A better step would be to shift away from tax credits entirely, using cash payments. Research has shown that federal taxpayers can get twice the solar for each dollar of solar subsidy given in cash rather than credit.

The solar subsidy level should also be reduced (assuming costs continue to decline) when the current tax credit expires in 2016. Reducing the 30% incentive by 3 percentage points per year would allow moderately sunny areas to continue solar growth without over-rewarding the sunniest regions. The incentive would expire fully at the end of 2026 (the year before Seattle finally reaches grid parity). The following chart shows that even with exponential growth in solar installations, a phase out would cap the impact on taxpayers.
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Why San Diego is a Solar Leader (and Los Angeles is a Solar Loser)

FORBES. By David Ferris. 3.20.12. San Diego gets more of its power from the sun than anyplace in America. The city’s solar panels can produce almost 37 megawatts of electricity, more solar than exists in the entire nation of Mexico. San Diego has 500 more solar installations than its mega-neighbor, the city of Los Angeles, though L.A. is just as sunny and has nearly three times as many people. Why is solar so much more successful here than in L.A.? I visited San Diego earlier this month to find out, and learned that it has a lot to do with a friendly, solar-oriented culture — and fortunate political geography.

Both San Diego and Los Angeles enjoy a climate that is as welcoming to solar panels as it is to beachgoers. Endless sun and mild temperatures mean that photovoltaic solar panels work at maximum efficiency and bring a homeowner the most wattage for the buck. So why the difference? I spoke to Dan Sullivan, president of Sullivan Solar, which is the leading installer in San Diego and is now trying to crack the Los Angeles market. Sullivan is one of the industry’s success stories. He started the company in 2004 with one truck; now he has 68 employees (those “green jobs” that politicians talk about). Last year, he madeInc. magazine’s list of the fastest-growing companies, with 423 percent growth over three years. Last year’s revenues were $22 million.

To understand what works about San Diego, Sullivan said, it helps to understand how things work elsewhere. Los Angeles County is made up of 88 different cities, many of which have wildly diverging rules that dictate how solar can be installed. They require cumbersome paperwork that varies from city to city, and sometimes charge stiff fees. The electric utilities are also divided: Los Angeles Department of Water & Power covers the city of Los Angeles, while the suburbs are subjects of the vast utility empire known as Southern California Edison. San Diego, on the other hand, is comprised of only 18 cities, with one city — San Diego — overwhelmingly dominant in size. The entire county is served by one electric utility, San Diego Gas & Electric. This has made it easier to harmonize the rules for installing solar panels. Permitting rules are roughly the same in all areas of the county, and permits are issued quickly and for as much as 10 times less than in Los Angeles-area towns, Sullivan said. In unincorporated San Diego County, there’s no permit fees at all.

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Climate-Resilient Solar Hot Water Systems at Rockaways Firehouses Save NYC Money, Cut Carbon

NRDC by Kit Kennedy April 29, 2014. Solar hot water heating is the redheaded stepchild of the renewable energy world. Most people have no idea what it is. Or, they confuse it with its attention-grabbing cousin, solar photovoltaics, the solar panels we all know about that convert light into electricity and glint on a rapidly increasing number of American roofs.  Despite its obscurity, solar hot water heating is a great technology—cost-effective, pollution-free, climate-resilient. And that’s why we’re celebrating New York City’s recent installation of solar hot water systems on the roofs of five firehouses in the Rockaways section of Queens. All five had been damaged by Hurricane Sandy, with four of them suffering from extensive flooding that required repairs to equipment housed in their basements, including furnaces and boilers.

That’s where solar hot water heating is coming to the rescue. “The firehouses in the Rockaways are ideal sites for solar hot water heating,” explains Kristin Barbato, Deputy Commissioner of the city’s Department of Citywide Administrative Services, which initiated and financed the project. “Firehouses,” she says, “operate 24-7 and they use a lot of hot water for showers and laundry. The addition of the solar thermal systems makes each facility independent of the need to use natural gas or other fossil fuels to heat water for showers and general use.” In other words, should we face another storm like Sandy, Engine Companies 264, 265, 266, 268, and 329 will have functioning hot water systems when they need them most.

Current solar hot water heaters are based on a technology that’s more than 100 years old. (It was invented in Baltimore, actually, and was quite prevalent in the U.S. before it was supplanted by cheap hot-water heaters that use natural gas.) The heaters rely on a phenomenon we all know from parking cars in un-shaded spots: “Something left out in the sun is going to get hot,” explains Tim Merrigan, a solar hot water expert at theNational Renewable Energy Laboratory. “If you put glazing over it, that’s going to trap the sun’s heat.”  The way the solar hot water heaters on the firehouse roofs work is relatively simple. Water from the building is piped up to the roof and then through a series of panels containing evacuated glass tubes. While inside the panels, the water absorbs the radiant heat of the sun. Then, it’s piped back down to a storage tank in the basement.

The savings, in both energy and carbon pollution, can be considerable. At the city’s St. Mary’s recreation center in the South Bronx, where a solar hot water system provides hot water for showers and the pool, the city is saving $39,000 a year on energy and cutting the complex’s carbon footprint by 141 tons a year—the equivalent of taking 27 cars off the roads.  The firehouse installations aren’t so much one-time events as a pilot program of sorts. “We’re taking steps to see how some technologies that might be newer to city government operations work and potentially expand them out,” says Barbato. The City of New York owns almost 4,000 buildings and other facilities—courthouses, wastewater treatment plants, police and fire stations, schools, hospitals, and libraries. “We’d definitely like to use these resources in other facilities that make sense—facilities with large hot-water usage.”

The work the city has already done in cutting its carbon emissions is nothing short of impressive. Between 2005 and 2012, under Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC, greenhouse gas pollution from New York City government operations dropped by 19 percent, putting the city about two-thirds of the way to its 2030 goal. The new solar water heaters on five Rockaways fire stations are another step toward that important achievement, one that makes the city and its vital first responders more resilient and secure as we go.

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U.K. to be Europe’s largest solar-panel market It would dethrone Germany thanks to growing solar-farm pipeline

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) THE WALL STREET JOURNAL by Claudia Assiss — The United Kingdom will be Europe’s largest solar-panel market this year, thanks to the rapid growth of its solar farms, a market research firm said Monday, dethroning Germany. More than 120 utility-scale solar power plants have been approved for construction in the U.K., and many are targeting completion within the next 12 months, NPD Solarbuzz said in a report. China, Japan, and the U.S. were the top three solar markets in 2013, with Germany fourth and the U.K. rounding up the top five, NPD Solarbuzz said in a research note in March. Analysts had said then they expected a broader shift to Asia as the solar-panel market in India and Thailand grows.The U.K.’s government has set a target of 20 gigawatts of cumulative solar capacity by 2020. Solar power farms will provide the bulk of the contribution. The enthusiasm for solar panels and systems has often failed to translate into a boost for stocks of solar-panel makers. A few Chinese-based manufacturers said earlier this month they expect to sell fewer solar modules in the first quarter than what they forecast, blaming seasonality and company-specific hiccups. Solar stocks were mostly down on Monday, failing to catch any tailwinds from rallying U.S. stocks. U.S. equity markets rose on deal news in the pharmaceutical and telecom sectors and stronger-than-expected pending home sales data.
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Koch brothers, big utilities attack solar, green energy policies

Las Angeles Times.  By Evan Halper. April 19, 2014.  WASHINGTON — The political attack ad that ran recently in Arizona had some familiar hallmarks of the genre, including a greedy villain who hogged sweets for himself and made children cry.  But the bad guy, in this case, wasn't a fat-cat lobbyist or someone's political opponent.  He was a solar-energy consumer.  Solar, once almost universally regarded as a virtuous, if perhaps over-hyped, energy alternative, has now grown big enough to have enemies.  The Koch brothers, anti-tax activist Grover Norquist and some of the nation's largest power companies have backed efforts in recent months to roll back state policies that favor green energy. The conservative luminaries have pushed campaigns in Kansas, North Carolina and Arizona, with the battle rapidly spreading to other states.  Alarmed environmentalists and their allies in the solar industry have fought back, battling the other side to a draw so far. Both sides say the fight is growing more intense as new states, including Ohio, South Carolina and Washington, enter the fray.  At the nub of the dispute are two policies found in dozens of states. One requires utilities to get a certain share of power from renewable sources. The other, known as net metering, guarantees homeowners or businesses with solar panels on their roofs the right to sell any excess electricity back into the power grid at attractive rates.  Net metering forms the linchpin of the solar-energy business model. Without it, firms say, solar power would be prohibitively expensive.
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Army to build Military's Largest Array in Arizona

THE HILL by Timothy Cama, April 21, 2014.  The U.S. Army will break ground this week on a new solar power array at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., which will be the largest solar array on a United States military installation.  When the array starts operating in late 2014, it will provide about 25 percent of Fort Huachuca’s electricity needs, the Army said Monday.  “The project goes beyond the megawatts produced. It reflects our continued commitment to southern Arizona and energy security,” said Maj. Gen. Robert Ashley, the commanding general of Fort Huachuca. “The project will provide reliable access to electricity for daily operations and missions moving forward.”  “The project establishes a new path for an innovative partnering opportunity among the U.S. Army, other federal agencies, private industry and the utility provider," said Richard Kidd, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for energy and sustainability.  Tucson Electric Power, the local electric utility in southern Arizona, will fund, own and manage the solar array, the Army said. The Army has committed to deploying one gigawatt of renewable energy by 2025, it said.

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Clean Energy Investment Rises 9%, Led by Solar Power

BLOOMBERG. By Alex Morales. April 16, 2014.  Clean energy investment rose by 9 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier on surging demand for rooftop solar panels from the U.S. to Japan.  New investment in renewable power and energy efficiency rose to $47.7 billion in the first three months of the year from $43.6 billion, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said today in an e-mailed statement.  The increase may mark a turnaround. Investment in low-carbon power and energy-efficiency equipment has fallen for two years as industrialized nations pared back subsidies. After peaking at $318 billion in 2011, new spending on clean energy subsided to $254 billion last year, according to BNEF figures.

“It is too early to say definitively that 2013 was the low point for clean-energy investment worldwide and that 2014 will show a rebound but the first-quarter numbers are encouraging,” BNEF Chairman Michael Liebreich said in the statement.  He highlighted two patterns: the increasing share of small-scale solar in total investment, and the expansion of investment into more developing countries.  Spending on new solar capacity rose 23 percent to $27.5 billion, including $21.2 billion for projects of less than 1 megawatt, BNEF said. Investment in electric cars, power storage and equipment that makes the power grid more efficient more than tripled to $3.1 billion, the London-based researcher said. Wind power expenditure dropped 16 percent to $13.9 billion and biofuels fell 28 percent to $664 million, according to BNEF.  Investment in the U.S. almost doubled, spending in China rose 18 percent and Brazilian expenditure more than tripled, it said. Investment in Europe sank 30 percent and there was an 82 percent surge in investment in Africa and the Middle East.

Solar-powered plane aims for round-the-world flight

FOX NEWS. By Denise Chow. April 10, 2014. A new solar-powered plane that will be used to fly around the world in five consecutive days without using any fuel was unveiled Wednesday in Switzerland.  Pilots Andr Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard revealed the futuristic flying machine in a ceremony in Payerne before an audience of industry officials, reporters and dignitaries. The solar plane, named Solar Impulse 2, will be used to circumnavigate the globe in 2015, with the Swiss pilots hoping to accomplish the first around-the-world flight in a solar-powered aircraft.   "Today, we are one step closer to our dream of flying around the world on solar power," Piccard said at today's event.  Piccard described his pride in showcasing the Solar Impulse 2 plane, and said the aircraft represents true pioneering spirit, as many aviation experts initially said it would be impossible to engineer such a lightweight but resilient solar plane.

"When Solar Impulse was born 12 years ago, and we could show the enormous wings and the light weight of its structure on computer designs, all the specialists in the world of aviation started to laugh," he said. "Today, this airplane exists. It's the most incredible airplane of its time. It can fly with no fuel, day and night, and we hope that we can make it around the world." Last year, Borschberg and Piccard flew a first-generation prototype of the Solar Impulse plane on a record-setting coast-to-coast flight across the United States. The journey from California to New York took two months, and included five planned stops. Solar Impulse ended its cross-country flight in New York City, touching down at John F. Kennedy International Airport on July 6, 2013.  The Solar Impulse planes are the first to be able to fly day and night without any onboard fuel. The ultra-lightweight planes are powered entirely by solar panels and batteries, which charge during the day to allow the plane to fly even when the sun goes down.
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Solar Threat to Utilities Exaggerated, Recurrent Says (Correct)

BUSINESSWEEK. Christopher Martin April 9, 2014. (Corrects description of Recurrent in second paragraph of story published April 8.)   The solar industry’s threat to utilities has been greatly exaggerated, and the power industry needs traditional generators to keep the lights on in the U.S.  That’s the view of Arno Harris, chief executive officer of Recurrent Energy, the U.S. solar developer unit of the Japanese electronics maker Sharp Corp.  His remarks contrast with views from NRG Energy Inc. (NRG:US) Chief Executive Officer David Crane and SolarCity Corp. (SCTY:US)’s Lyndon Rive, who are challenging the business model of utilities and cutting in on their monopoly in managing power distribution. Harris said the solar industry must fit in with utilities. “You can’t just take on the utilities and destroy them,” Harris said in an interview at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance conference in New York today. “To get to any significant solar penetration, we’ll need more and better utility services.” The U.S. power industry raised concerns about the threat solar rooftops pose to their business model more than a year ago. Since then, at least a dozen states from Arizona to North Carolina have debated changing regulations or laws to slow solar development and protect utilities from competition.

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Cheap Solar Power Is Fueling Global Renewable Energy Growth: Report

HUFFINGTON POST. 4/7/14. The share of total global electricity production generated by renewable energy is climbing, mainly because solar photovoltaic systems are becoming less expensive,according to a report released Monday by the United Nations Environment Programme and Bloomberg New Energy Finance.  Wind, solar and other renewables, excluding hydropower, were 8.5 percent of total global electric power generation last year, up from 7.8 percent in 2012, the report says. That comes just after Bloomberg and Pew Charitable Trusts issued a report last week saying investments in renewables worldwide has been declining since their peak in 2011, with the U.S. lagging behind China in overall investments in wind, solar and other renewables. The reports come about a week after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released the second part to its fifth assessment report, stating with certainty that humans are going to have to adapt to a world enduring climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions from people burning fossil fuels. Renewables help reduce the climate-changing, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions. Monday’s report, “Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2014,” released during Bloomberg’s “Future of Energy Summit” this week in New York City, says that renewables, not including hydropower, accounted for 43.6 percent of total global new electric generating capacity last year, preventing an estimated 1.2 gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions from being released into the atmosphere.

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Korean tech giants not having much luck in solar

ZDNet. By Eileen Yu for By The Way | April 7, 2014. Faced with tough competition from Chinese manufacturers and market slump, South Korean tech giants including SK, LG, and Samsung are finding it tough to turn their solar ventures into profitable businesses. The solar technology market, once deemed to be a potential cash cow, is proving to be less than lucrative for the Korean companies, which also have to contend with Chinese manufacturers able to produce the products at a lower cost. "The downturn in the solar technology market continues, and recovery is not yet in sight," a researcher from the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade, who declined to be named, told The Korea Times. "For example, the market for polysilicon, a key material for solar energy solutions, is still grappling with severe oversupply and weak demand." He said some big companies were planning to shutter their solar energy businesses to stump the weakening financial crisis. Sohn Ji-woo, an analyst at SK Securities, concurred: "Worsening performance financially burdens big companies. Withdrawal from the market will come."
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Japan to build one of the world's biggest solar power plants

FOX NEWS LATINO. Published March 30, 2014. EFE. Setouchi, a city in the western prefecture of Okayama, will be home to a solar power plant with a generating capacity of 230,000 KW, making it the largest facility of its kind in Japan and one of the biggest in world, the Nikkei business newspaper reported. U.S.-based industrial giant General Electric Co. plans to take a majority stake in the plant's operator, opening the way for it to enter Japan's growing photovoltaic energy industry, Nikkei said. The power plant, which will supply electricity to about 80,000 households and is expected to begin operating in 2018, will be bigger than the 111,000 KW facility that Japan's Softbank plans to bring online on the island of Hokkaido in 2015. Eurus, a company formed by Toyota Tsusho and Tokyo Electric Power, plans to build a solar power plant with a capacity similar to the Hokkaido facility. GE's entry into Japan's solar power industry will allow the conglomerate to boost sales of transmission equipment designed to improve energy efficiency, an industry currently dominated by domestic manufacturers. The power plant in Setouchi is expected to cost around 80 billion yen ($777 million), with GE paying for between 12 percent and 25 percent of the cost.
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Solar “net metering” extended by California regulators

SF GATE. Posted on Thursday, March 27 at 7:01am | By David R. Baker If you’re a California resident who owns rooftop solar panels, you’ll want to pay close attention to a vote happening this morning in San Francisco.  The California Public Utilities Commission is scheduled to vote on extending the rules that compensate solar homeowners and businesses for the excess electricity that they feed onto the grid. The system is called “net energy metering,” and it’s one of the main ways that California has encouraged the growth of the state’s solar industry. It’s also been the source of major friction between solar companies and California’s big electric utilities, who argue that net metering customers aren’t paying their fair share to maintain the grid. So a California law approved last year ordered the utilities commission to come up with a replacement system by the end of 2015. That same law also told the commission to create a transition period for people who already have rooftop arrays. After all, those people were counting on the compensation they’d receive from net metering when they decided to go solar. The compensation, which appears as a credit on utility bills, lets many homeowners slash their monthly utility payments close to zero.
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Why is solar power so expensive in America?

Solar power is now as cheap as traditional energy sources in Italy and Germany, according to a new report. In terms of LCOE — or "leveled cost of energy," which weighs everything that effects a given energy source's price from installation to maintenance — solar has achieved "grid parity" in those places thanks in part to a combination of cheap installation costs, high electricity prices, and government subsidies.
Meanwhile, the cost of solar power in the U.S., though it has fallen off a cliff since the late 1970s, remains relatively high. So what gives? Why can't we have cheap, clean solar power, too?  A big part of it has to do with demand. In 2011, Germany boasted more than 21 times the solar power, per capita, of the U.S, which helped to drive down the price. And given that imbalance, American companies had a comparatively tougher task recruiting customers, so they spent 10 times as much as their foreign counterparts did on marketing costs.

But the biggest factors keeping American solar from catching up are so-called "soft costs," which include everything from fees and taxes to company overhead. For instance, while German installers added $1.20 per watt to the cost of each panel in 2011, American companies added $4.36 per watt. And according to the Department of Energy, soft costs make up 64 percent of the price tag on installing residential solar systems in the U.S.See original article 

Commercial Solar Grid Parity Now Reality In Italy, Germany, & Spain

CLEANTECHICA. By Zachary Shahan. The days when solar power was more expensive than other power sources are quickly passing us by. News out of Europe is that commercial solar power is now at grid parity in some major European countries.  A new study, the PV Grid Parity Monitor, conducted by consulting firm Eclareon, has found that commercial solar power hit grid parity in Italy, Germany, and Spain in 2013. Based on levelized cost of energy (LCOE) calculations, commercial solar now competes with retail electricity in these European countries. “In countries such as Italy and Germany, both at grid parity and with proper regulation, PV systems for self-consumption represent a viable, cost-effective, and sustainable power generation alternative,” said David Pérez, partner at Eclareon in charge of the study.
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New Solar Hot Water Incentives for Low-Income Residences in California!

California Solar Initiative- CSI-Thermal Program Low-Income Program.  Incentives are now available for Solar Water-Heating Systems for Low-Income Single and Multifamily Residences!

The CSI-Thermal Low-Income Program provides rebates to utility customers who install solar water heating (SWH) systems that displace natural gas usage. On October 6, 2011, the CPUC approved a Decision creating the CSI-Thermal Low-Income Program, which allocates $25 million to promote the installation of solar water heating (SWH) systems on qualifying low-income single-family and multifamily residences through a program of direct financial incentives. Incentives are available to customers who currently heat their water with natural gas in the service territories of Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E), and Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas).

Single-family SWH systems that displace natural gas can qualify for incentives up to $3,750. Multifamily applicants can qualify for incentives up to $500,000. Actual incentive amounts will be based on the expected performance of the system as predicted by the SRCC rating and positioning, as is current practice in the CSI-Thermal General Market program. Single-family low-income SWH systems will be determined using the existing CSI-Thermal single-family calculator, and multifamily low-income SWH system will use the CSI-Thermal multifamily calculator. Incentive levels will decline in four steps as the program meets certain installation benchmarks. 
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L.A. Can Lead the Way with Solar Rooftops

HUFFINGTON POST. By Craig Lewis, Executive Director, Clean Coalition Posted: 03/18/2014. Too often campaign promises go unfulfilled. But for Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, keeping his word should be easy. Mr. Garcetti was elected to office on a platform that called for a significant expansion of solar energy in L.A. And this promise is becoming more attractive by the day. The Department of Water and Power's newest solar program is already booming, while recent attempts at local oil production have proven disastrous. Just last month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency formally accused an oil operation of endangering nearby residents' health and safety. Hundreds of residents are now protesting the development of proposed oil wells in their south L.A. neighborhood.

In contrast to the public's dismay with oil drilling, an overwhelming majority of L.A. voters have steadfastly demanded that local solar power more of their city. City council members -- as well as a broad coalition of business, civic, academic and environmental groups -- have echoed the public's call. To address this demand the DWP launched its CLEAN L.A. Solar program last year. Through this program, the utility pays customers for solar energy generated on rooftops throughout the city. CLEAN L.A Solar is on pace to bring 150 megawatts of local solar online by 2016 -- enough to power more than 32,000 homes. In addition to significantly reducing carbon emissions, CLEAN L.A. Solar also translates demand for clean energy into local economic growth. The program will create 4,500 jobs and generate $500 million in economic activity according to the Los Angeles Business Council.
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