From the Blog

Bosco Verticale : The world’s first vertical forest nears completion in Milan

by DIANE PHAM, Inhabitat.com, January 25, 2014

Boeri Studio's Bosco Verticale vertical forest is nearing completion in Milan Photo: Barreca & LaVarra Source: www.inhabitat.com

Boeri Studio’s Bosco Verticale vertical forest is nearing completion in Milan
Photo: Barreca & LaVarra
Source: www.inhabitat.com

Back in 2011 we reported on the Bosco Verticale — a new superstructure designed to bring the world’s first vertical forest to Milan, Italy. While many were skeptical when it came to the feasibility of construction, Boeri Studio reports that the structure is certainly more than just a fantasy — in fact it’s well on its way to being completed this year. The project’s two towers have already reached full height, and since April of 2012, teams have been installing trees on the structure. Though construction has slowed due to rain and snowfall in Milan over the last couple months, things are anticipated to kick up again very soon to meet the late 2013 opening.

Milan is one of the most polluted cities in the world, and the Bosco Verticale project aims to mitigate some of the environmental damage that has been inflicted upon the city by urbanization. The design is made up of two high-density tower blocks with integrated photovoltaic energy systems and trees and vegetation planted on the facade. The plants help capture CO2 and dust in the air, reduce the need to mechanically heat and cool the tower’s apartments, and help mitigate the area’s urban heat island effect – particularly during the summer when temperatures can reach over 100 degrees.

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Le photovoltaïque va dépasser pour la 1re fois les 40 GW en 2014 dans le monde

LeMoniteur.fr, 2 janvier 2014

Les installations de panneaux photovoltaïques dans le monde vont poursuivre une croissance à deux chiffres en 2014, après une année 2013 meilleure que prévue grâce au Japon notamment, selon les prévisions annuelles du cabinet spécialisé IHS.

Selon ce dernier, les nouvelles capacités de production d’électricité photovoltaïque atteindront un nouveau record compris entre 40 et 45 GX l’an prochain. En 2013, le marché a dépassé les 35 GW, soit un nouveau sommet après 31,2 GW en 2012 et 27,5 GW en 2011, souligne IHS.

Et contrairement à ses prévisions de l’an dernier, le marché en valeur ne s’est pas contracté comme en 2012, progressant au contraire de 7 % à 83 milliards de dollars. L’explication, qui est aussi un des enjeux principaux de 2014, vient d’un pays: le Japon, deuxième marché national dans le monde en 2013 derrière la Chine, explique IHS. Quelque 6,3 GW de panneaux solaires ont été installés en 2013 au Japon, un marché tiré par l’arrêt des réacteurs nucléaires dans l’archipel après la catastrophe de Fukushima.

L’an prochain, ce chiffre devrait grimper à 7,2 GW, même si IHS avertit toutefois d’un risque d’explosion de la bulle du photovoltaïque nippon, du fait du récent demi-tour du gouvernement japonais, qui a réduit drastiquement ses engagements en matière de CO2. La Chine, premier marché au monde, devrait-elle poursuivre sa course en avant dans le solaire en installant 9,3 GW, contre 8,6 GW, mais rester donc en dessous de l’objectif officiel des 12 GW pour 2014. Le marché américain, le troisième au monde, devrait également croître lui aussi, à 6,4 GW contre 5,5 GW en 2013.

À l’inverse, l’Allemagne, jadis un leader mondial, restera à une terne 4e place et son marché se réduira de nouveau après des baisses drastiques de ses tarifs de soutien, note IHS, qui prédit 3,7 GW en 2014 après 3,8 GW en 2013. Le pays européen où la croissance du solaire devrait être la plus forte serait, selon ses prévisions, le Royaume-Uni, qui passerait de 1,3 GW en 2013 à 1,7 GW, prenant à l’Italie la cinquième place mondiale.

Le marché français afficherait lui une légère progression à 0,8 GW, et remonterait au 8e rang mondial. Dans les autres tendances, IHS souligne à la fois l’essor du stockage d’électricité photovoltaïque (qui devrait quadrupler à 753 MW en 2014), la stabilisation des marges des grands fabricants chinois de panneaux, qui se sont améliorées ces derniers mois, et l’émergence du marché sud-américain, qui devrait quintupler à 1,4 GW l’an prochain.

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California installed more rooftop solar in 2013 than previous 30 years combined

by KILEY KROH, ThinkProgress, January 2, 2014

2013 was a banner year for clean energy and the U.S. solar industry was no exception. California, the nation’s solar standout, more than doubled its rooftop solar installations last year from 1,000 megawatts (MW) to 2,000 MW. To put this number in perspective, writes Bernadette Del Chiaro of the California Solar Energy Industries Association, it took California over 30 years to build the first 1,000 MW of rooftop solar.

“When utility-scale solar projects are added in, California’s total solar power picture well-exceeds 4,000 MW today — nearly twice as much installed capacity as exists at California’s last remaining nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon,” according to Del Chiaro.

And California isn’t alone in its rooftop solar surge. “About 200,000 U.S. homes and businesses added rooftop solar in the past two years alone — about 3 gigawatts of power and enough to replace four or five conventionally-sized coal plants,” Bloomberg reported.

As record numbers of homes and businesses decide to go solar, utility companies are growing increasingly uneasy about the threat it poses to their existing business model. If more customers install solar panels or adopt energy efficiency measures, a utility will sell fewer units of energy — especially during peak demand when energy costs are the highest. Therefore, utilities will increase their energy prices to cover costs such as grid maintenance and labor and as prices go up, more customers will look to energy efficiency and distributed energy resources to reduce their energy bills, perpetuating the cycle.

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Analysis: Clouds over Hawaii’s rooftop solar growth hint at U.S. battle

by NICHOLA GROOM, Reuters, via Chicago Tribune, December 16, 2013

A view of houses with solar panels in the Mililani neighbourhood on the island of Oahu in Mililani, Hawaii  Photo: Hugh Gentry, Reuters Source: www.chicagotribune.com

A view of houses with solar panels in the Mililani neighbourhood on the island of Oahu in Mililani, Hawaii
Photo: Hugh Gentry, Reuters
Source: www.chicagotribune.com

(Reuters) – When Gloria Adams signed a contract to install a rooftop solar power system on her Oahu home in late August, she looked forward to lower electric bills and a return on her investment in the years ahead.

She never dreamed that she would have to stop the project, get the Hawaiian Electric Company’s permission before she could proceed, and possibly help pay for any upgrades to her neighborhood’s electricity circuits to handle the extra load.

Her home improvement ran afoul of a rule that went into effect in September.

The regulation requires homeowners on Oahu – Hawaii’s most populous island – to get the utility’s approval before installing photovoltaic (PV) rooftop solar systems.

In areas like Mililani, where Adams lives, the utility’s power circuits have reached a threshold where it would be dangerous to add PV systems without investing in upgrades to the distribution system.

“We didn’t anticipate having to pay HECO when we took this on,” Adams said. “They are acting like they got caught with their pants down, saying, ‘We don’t know how to deal with this.’”

What’s happening in Hawaii is a sign of battles to come in the rest of the United States, solar industry and electric utility executives said. The conflict is the latest variation on what was a controversial issue this year in top solar markets California and Arizona. It was a hot topic at a solar industry conference last week: how to foster the growth of rooftop solar power while easing the concerns of regulated utilities that see its rise as a threat.

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Cost of solar panels — 10 charts tell you everything

from Cost of Solar

Price of solar power Data source: Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) Source: www.costofsolar.com

Price of solar power
Data source: Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF)
Source: www.costofsolar.com

1. The average cost of solar panels has gone from $76.67/watt in 1977 to just $0.698/watt today (the second figure is according to PVinsights, and is even lower than the 2013 projected price in the chart below).

Well, that basically tells you everything you need to know right there — the cost of solar panels today is about 100 times lower than the cost of solar panels in 1977 (even more than 100 times lower!) — but I promised 10 charts, so let’s dig in even further and throw on some other fun charts and graphs. […]

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Catching sunlight, to sell it

by TESSA CHEEK, The Colorado Independent, December 16, 2013

Photo: Tessa Cheek Source: www.coloradoindependent.com

Photo: Tessa Cheek
Source: www.coloradoindependent.com

Xcel seeks to charge solar panel owners for using the grid, wants more homeowners to buy solar power from Xcel

DENVER — More than 200 protesters gathered in downtown Skyline Park last Wednesday to amp up, march to Xcel Energy headquarters and deliver a petition signed by 30,000 Coloradans in favor of rooftop solar. The energy company recently announced it wants to charge Coloradans with rooftop solar for using the Xcel infrastructure grid — even if they’re using it mainly to provide power to other Xcel customers.

It’s not only solar-panel owners that oppose this idea, said Annie Lappe of the Vote Solar Initiative. “Four out of five Coloradans believe ratepayers with solar should get a fair credit for the energy they put back into the system. That means those same Coloradans also oppose Xcel’s proposed changes.”

The issue of how much solar owners are paid for the energy their homes kick back to the grid came to a head when Xcel submitted its 2014 green energy compliance plan to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). The plan proposed changes to so-called net metering. The proposal would draw credits from a fund specifically for green energy encouragement and it would ask future solar-installers to pay for their occasional use of the private grid Xcel owns and operates.

“It’s not a question of whether we incentivize rooftop solar, but how we do it,” said Ethnie Treick, manager of Policy Analysis at Xcel. “How do we provide solar energy to the most people?”

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