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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U.S. Solar Capacity Grew 418 Percent In The Last Four Years

CLIMATE PROGRESS.  By Kiley Kroh, April 24th, 2014.  Solar energy is booming across the U.S., with capacity up an astounding 418 percent in the last four years alone, according to data released this week by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).  Residential and commercial rooftop solar, along with other forms of photovoltaic (PV), have grown steadily over the past four years, specifically those that are net-metered. When customers install their own solar panels in states with a net metering policy, they are compensated for the excess electricity they send back to the grid. According to the EIA, these net metered applications have increased every year by approximately 1,100 MW since 2010. California currently has the largest net metered solar capacity with 38 percent of the nation’s total. Not far behind are New Jersey and Massachusetts, which together represent 21 percent of the total capacity in the U.S.

CREDIT: ENERGY INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION

Net metering has been at the center of several recent battles between the solar industry, consumers and utilities across the U.S. As rooftop solar in particular booms, utility companies are growing increasingly concerned about the threat it poses to their bottom line. As more customers install solar panels, utilities will sell fewer units of energy and argue they’ll have to charge more in order to cover the cost of maintenance and labor. But distributed energy sources like rooftop solar also provide a benefit to utilities by generating during peak hours, when a utility has to provide electricity to more people than at other times during the day and energy costs are at their highest. Solar panels feed excess energy back to the grid, helping to alleviate the pressure during peak demand. In addition, because less electricity is being transmitted to customers through transmission lines, it saves utilities on the wear and tear to the lines and cost of replacing them with new ones.

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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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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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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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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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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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Solar Power Threatening Future for U.S. Electric Utilities

OILPRICE.COM March 17, 2014. By Llewellyn King.   The unlikely disruptive technology that is causing the trouble is rooftop solar power.  Back in the energy turbulent 1970s, solar was a gleam in the eye of environmentalists who dared to dream of renewable energy. It looked like a pipe dream.  Very simple solar had been deployed to heat water in desert homes since indoor plumbing became the norm. Making electricity from the sun was many orders of magnitude more complex and it was, anyway, too expensive. The technology of photovoltaic cells, which make electricity directly from the sun, needed work; it needed research, and it needed mass manufacturing. Hundreds of millions of dollars later in research and subsidies, the cost of solar cells has fallen and continues to go down.

Today, solar certainly is not a pipe dream: It is looking like a mature industry. It is also a big employer in the installation industry. It is a player, a force in the market. But solar has created a crisis for the utilities. In order to incubate solar, and to satisfy solar advocates, Congress said that these “qualifying facilities” should be able not only to generate electricity for homes when the sun is shining, but also to sell back the excess to the local utility. This is called “net metering” and it is at the center of the crisis today -- particularly across the Southwest, where solar installations have multiplied and are being added at a feverish rate. Doyle Beneby, CEO of San Antonio, Texas-based CPS Energy, the largest municipal electric and gas utility in the nation, said, “The homes that are installing solar quickly are the more affluent ones.” The problem here, he explained, is that the utility has to maintain the entire infrastructure of wires and poles and buy back electricity generated by solar in these homes at the highest prevailing rate -- often more than power could be bought on the market or generated by the utility.

Steve Mitnik, a utility industry consultant, said that 47 percent of the nation's electric market is residential and the larger, affluent homes -- which use a lot of electricity, and generally pay more as consumption rises -- are a critically important part of it. Yet these are the ones that are turning to solar generation, and expect to make a profit selling excess production to the grid.

But who pays for the grid? According to CPS Energy's Beneby, and others in the industry, the burden of keeping the system up and running then falls on those who can least afford it. The self-generating homes still need the grid not only to sell back to but,more importantly, to buy from when the sun isn't shining and at night. For some in the utility industry, net-metering is just the beginning of a series of emerging problems, including:
- Big investments are needed in physical security after the sniper attack last October at PG&E Corp.'s Metcalf transmission substation, which took out 17 huge transformers that provide power to California's Silicon Valley.
- New investment is needed in cybersecurity.
- Improved response to bad weather is a critical issue, especially in some Mid-Atlantic states.

Beneby believes the solar incursion into the traditional marketplace might be the beginning of more self-generation -- such as home-based, micro-gas turbines -- and utilities will and must adjust. He is something of a futurist and points out that in telephones, once a purely utility service, disruption has been hugely creative.  Environmentalists are as disturbed as the utilities. Some are calling the imposition of a surcharge on rooftop generators, as in Arizona recently, an attempt by the greedy utilities to stamp out competition. But many are seeking alternative solutions without a war over generating, and without punishing those unable to afford their own generation.
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County approves McCoy Solar Energy Project in the Palo Verde Valley

PALO VERDE VALLEY TIMES. 3.14.14 RIVERSIDE COUNTY, Calif. - The Riverside County Board of Supervisors today unanimously approved permits and a development agreement for the McCoy Solar Energy Project, which will create jobs in the Palo Verde Valley, revenue for Riverside County and renewable energy to the power grid. The project is the first to finish the permitting process since the county's solar power plant policy was enacted, outlining the terms of payments to the county for the use of its property and for committing vast tracts of land exclusively to solar development. The policy requires developers of solar projects greater than 20 megawatts to make payments to the county of $150 per-acre, adjusted annually to inflation, through a negotiated agreement between the county and the solar developer.

Supervisor John J. Benoit credits the board-approved policy with paving the way for a successful approval of the McCoy Solar Energy Project and its related development agreement. The project developer, McCoy Solar, LLC a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources, Inc., knew what it would be expected to pay under the terms of the agreement which will grant a right to develop the property as a solar project for the next 30 years. "Today is a historic vote, the result of amicable and smooth negotiations with NextEra and agreement on all issues and concerns," said Supervisor John J. Benoit. "This project will put hundreds of people to work and we can look forward to long-term benefits to the county."

The project is scheduled to be built in phases. The first phase of 2,262 acres could bring Riverside County as much as $14 million over 30 years and would ensure the project's sales and use taxes are allocated to the county. Depending on when the second phase is built, this amount could increase substantially. The agreed-upon total solar power plant net acreage is 4,442 acres at full build-out.
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Latin America Is Emerging as a Force in Solar: Here’s What Early Developers Have Learned

GREENTECH MEDIA.  ByAdam James, March 11, 2014. Large-scale solar in Latin America’s major markets has finally had a breakthrough year.   As the market goes from talk to reality, market participants should start looking over their experiences and distilling some lessons learned. Evaluating what strategies were used to overcome barriers in the market is an essential part of developing a model for future growth, particularly in sorting scalable approaches in early-market development. This discussion will focus on what’s happened with financing, offtakers, land acquisition, and permitting, and offer some insight into what to expect in the year ahead. More than 140 megawatts were connected in the last twelve months, 70 percent of that in January alone. Around 200 megawatts more is expected to be installed between Mexico and Chile before 2014 is over, according to GTM Research's Latin America PV Playbook.  

Investing in large-scale solar projects in Latin America is attractive due to rapidly growing demand, as well as high insolation levels and power prices. Even if the market doesn’t offer the same lucrative subsidies as are available in other parts of the world, many companies are interested. However, there have been serious challenges, including getting access to land; navigating the federal, state, and local permitting process; securing offtakers; and acquiring financing. Of course, to some extent those problems were all exacerbated for the early players. Understanding the permitting structure for the first solar project is tough, from the point of view of the developers and the grid operators or regulators. Being the first bank to finance a project, or the first company to sign a long-term offtaker agreement is a particularly risky proposition, for example. Some of those difficulties do not yet have solutions, but the outlook on others will improve.
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Over $28 Million Awarded to Solar Energy Projects Across NY

AP. March 10, 2014. ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — The state’s NY-Sun initiative has awarded $28.6 million to 37 projects across the state, including 29 photovoltaic projects that will add 33.6 megawatts of solar power generation capacity. Gov. Andrew Cuomo says that under the NY-Sun initiative, a total of 299 megawatts of solar photovoltaic capacity has been installed or is under development in the past two years. Awards are available for a growing number of projects because of the steady decline in solar costs in the past two years, which allows project incentive amounts to be reduced. Earlier this month, The Solar Foundation an independent, nonprofit research organization, ranked New York fifth in the nation in the number of solar jobs per capita, with more than 5,000 jobs in 2013.
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Why the U.S. Power Grid's Days Are Numbered

BLOOMBERG BUSINESS. By Chris Martin, Mark Chediak, and Ken Wells August 22, 2013.  There are 3,200 utilities that make up the U.S. electrical grid, the largest machine in the world. These power companies sell $400 billion worth of electricity a year, mostly derived from burning fossil fuels in centralized stations and distributed over 2.7 million miles of power lines. Regulators set rates; utilities get guaranteed returns; investors get sure-thing dividends. It’s a model that hasn’t changed much since Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. And it’s doomed to obsolescence.   That’s the opinion of David Crane, chief executive officer of NRG Energy, a wholesale power company based in Princeton, N.J. What’s afoot is a confluence of green energy and computer technology, deregulation, cheap natural gas, and political pressure that, as Crane starkly frames it, poses “a mortal threat to the existing utility system.” He says that in about the time it has taken cell phones to supplant land lines in most U.S. homes, the grid will become increasingly irrelevant as customers move toward decentralized homegrown green energy. Rooftop solar, in particular, is turning tens of thousands of businesses and households into power producers. Such distributed generation, to use the industry’s term for power produced outside the grid, is certain to grow.

Crane, 54, a Harvard-educated father of five, drives himself to work every day in his electric Tesla Model S. He gave his college-age son an electric Nissan Leaf. He worries about the impact of warming on the earth his grandchildren will inherit. And he seems to relish his role as utility industry gadfly, framing its future in Cassandra-like terms. As Crane sees it, some utilities will get trapped in an economic death spiral as distributed generation eats into their regulated revenue stream and forces them to raise rates, thereby driving more customers off the grid. Some customers, particularly in the sunny West and high-cost Northeast, already realize that “they don’t need the power industry at all,” Crane says.
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