From the Blog

Cost of solar panels — 10 charts tell you everything

Posted on December 19, 2013 //

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

Posted on December 19, 2013 //

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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Renewable energy support schemes now present in 127 countries, report finds

Posted on December 2, 2013 //

by IAN CLOVER, PV Magazine, 28 August, 2013

The Worldwatch Institute — an independent research organization based in Washington D.C. — reports that 127 countries worldwide have now enacted support schemes for renewable energy.

A trends report by the Worldwatch Institute has found that 127 countries worldwide now have renewable energy support schemes in place – up from just 48 as recently as mid-2005.

The report’s author, Evan Musolino, drew the analysis for his “Vital Signs Online” trend from data gleaned from “REN21’s Renewables 2013 Global Status Report”, which he co-authored.

In this latest work, Musolino also reports that 99 feed-in tariff (FIT) policies are currently in place worldwide at either national or state/provincial level, while quotas requiring a specified minimum share of renewable energy power production are evident in 76 countries; up from just 34 in 2004.

Despite the economic downturn leaving a number of countries mired in recession and hamstrung by shrinking budgets, investment in renewable energy development and expansion has generally followed an upward trend, particularly in the solar photovoltaics industry, which has seen module costs fall by as much as 80% since 2008, and 20% since 2012.

At the beginning of this year, 66 countries offered tax incentives on renewable energy development, the report finds. And as the technology has proliferated, so has regional diversity.

In the middle of the decade, 58% of countries that enacted renewable energy support schemes were located in Europe and Central Asia. Today, that figure is slightly more than a third of the global total, with East Asia and the Pacific (21%), and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) following closely.

[Read more...]

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U.S. online startup makes going solar as easy as booking travel

Posted on December 2, 2013 //

by NICHOLA GROOM, Reuters, December 2, 2013

In a first on Monday, an online marketplace will allow U.S. homeowners to weigh options for going solar as easily as they can compare prices for airline tickets.

Geostellar, a startup backed by power producer NRG Energy Inc, is seeking to become the Expedia or Orbitz of the solar industry — a one-stop shop where consumers can not only compare the benefits of leasing solar panels versus buying them outright, but ultimately sign up to install a system.

Solar players including NRG, No. 1 U.S. installer SolarCity Corp, Boston-based solar loan provider Admirals Bank, manufacturer and financier Conergy, East Coast installer Roof Diagnostics and Connecticut’s Clean Energy Finance and Investment Authority will feature their products on the site, www.geostellar.com.

Geostellar hopes its platform will allow installers and financiers to lower the cost of acquiring new customers — a major goal in the fiercely competitive rooftop solar industry. Solar companies are laser focused on slashing costs so that they can deliver on their promise to save customers money on power bills by going solar.

Geostellar will make money by claiming a portion of a system’s total installed price – between 10 and 20 percent, Chief Executive David Levine said.

Geostellar, which was founded in 2010, got its start by selling data to solar companies that showed the solar energy potential of individual rooftops. Its early customers included solar financing companies SunRun, Sungevity and others, according to Levine.

[Read more...]

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Arizona’s new fee puts a dent in rooftop solar economics

Posted on November 25, 2013 //

by MATTHEW PHILIPS for Businessweek, Mashable, November 24, 2013

Source: www.mashable.com

Historical and forecasted cumulative PV installations in Arizona versus the state’s distributed generation carve-outm, 2010-2025 (MW)
Image source: www.mashable.com

Last week, Arizona regulators gave the state’s largest utility, Arizona Public Service, the authority to charge homeowners with solar panels on their roofs a fee for plugging into the grid and in some cases, selling electricity back onto it. Beginning next year, homeowners who install rooftop solar systems will have to pay a monthly levy — the first ever in the U.S. — equal to $0.70 per kilowatt of installed capacity.

That’s well below the $8 per kw that APS had initially sought. Depending on how big their home system is, the fee will end up costing consumers anywhere from $3 to $6 a month, according to a report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. APS had hoped to be able to charge about $50 a month per home. The 18,000 rooftop solar systems already present in APS’s service territory will be grandfathered; only those installed after Dec. 31 will be subject to the levy.

“This is a body blow for the Arizona solar industry, not a knockout punch,” says Stefan Linder, an analyst with Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “While this fixed fee will cut into the economics of residential solar, for many homeowners it will still make financial sense to go solar.”

The Solar Energy Industries Association claims that a typical rooftop solar system saves a homeowner about $5 to $10 per month; other estimates put it closer to $20.

The decision by the Arizona Corporation Commission is the first stab at resolving a contentious fight that’s been brewing for years between the solar industry and public utilities. Arizona, the second-largest solar market in the U.S., behind California, has been viewed as a critical battleground in deciding whether utilities would be able to squeeze money out of homeowners who no longer buy electricity from them — and in many cases, actually get paid for pushing supplemental power generated by their solar panels back onto the grid.

[Read more...]

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De quoi la transition énergétique est-elle le nom?

Posted on November 19, 2013 //

Le mot énergie est communément utilisé comme si son sens n’était pas sujet à discussion. Pourtant, ses multiples acceptions ouvrent à des réflexions et des choix divers. Accolé à transition, il devrait davantage, selon l’ingénieur et architecte Frank Boutté, interroger les possibilités plutôt que résonner comme un prédiction.

Interview et propos de Franck Boutté recueillis par Sylvie Groueff, Urbanisme, Hors Série n° 45, juin 2013

Lire l’article original

 

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