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2015年4月16日星期四

California hits 5% solar, offsets hydro losses due to drought

California has become the first state in the U.S. to rely on solar energy for more than 5% of its electricity, the federal government’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported yesterday.

According to EIA, photovoltaic and concentrating solar power plants greater than 1 MW in capacity generated a record 9.9 million MWh in 2014, boosting solar production to more than 5% of California’s wholesale electric generation, compared to just 1.9% in 2013.

The report does not include most rooftop arrays in the state or other distributed solar projects less than 1 MW, which totaled approximately 2.3 GW at the end of 2014, according to the California Public Utilities Commission.

EIA noted that California’s big rise in solar production came in the same year that severe drought conditions depleted the state’s hydroelectric reservoirs and caused hydropower generation to drop 46% compared to the previous five-year average.

“Although solar is only available at certain times of the day, the annual increase in California's solar generation in 2014 offset 83% of the decrease in hydroelectric generation,” according to EIA.

While the Golden State leads the U.S. in solar, the Silver State, Nevada, is tied for second with Arizona at 2.8%. Solar generation remains below 1% of grid power nationwide.

However, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) last week reported that solar power capacity on the wholesale transmission grid for the first time went over 1% of total installed capacity, with nearly 12 GW. FERC’s data also does not include distributed solar installations that provide on-site power.

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Costa Rica powered 100% by renewables so far this year

Renewable energy covered 100% of Costa Rica's electricity mix in the first 75 days of this year, acording to a release by public electricity company Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE).

The increase of rain and the resulting well-filled state of the country's four main reservoirs led to an increase in hydropower electricity generation. The rest of the electricity mix was supplied by geothermal, wind, biomass and solar sources. As a result, the country completely forewent the use of fossil fuels power plants. Moreover, the ICE expects renewable energy sources to remain significant in the coming months.

In 2013, renewable energy accounted for about 88% of Costa Rica's electricity mix, including total capacity of 2,731.2 MW and 10,136.1 gigawatt hours of generation. About 70% of that was supplied by hydropower (1,725.3 MW and 6,851 gigawatt hours), according to a report by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Eclac). Geothermal made up some 15% of the mix (217.5 MW and 1,516.7 gigawatt hours), wind energy around 5% (148.1 MW and 484.6 gigawatt hours), cogeneration about 0.8% (40 MW and 86.3 gigawatt hours) and solar just 0.01 % (1 MW capacity, 1.4 gigawatt hours). Fossil fuel power plants made up some 12% (595.7 MW and 1,196 gigawatt hours.

Obama orders government to slash emissions, consume more renewables

The order, which calls for the government to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 40% over the next decade from 2008 levels, would save taxpayers up to $18 billion in avoided energy costs, estimates the White House.

President Obama's order increases the federal government’s use of renewable electricity to 30% of its total portfolio by 2025. However, this represents only a modest incremental rise from the federal target created by President George W. Bush under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which required 20% by 2020.

Obama’s order also requires federal buildings to cut their energy use 2.5% annually by 2025 and increases the size of the government’s electric-vehicle fleet.

As part of the announcement, several big-name government contractors also committed to using more renewable energy and reducing emissions—including Battelle, General Electric, Honeywell, IBM and others.

The U.S. solar industry praised the measures.

“When it comes to fighting climate change and transitioning to a clean energy future, President Obama is once again leading by example,” said Rhone Resch, head of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).

“As the fastest-growing source of renewable energy in America, the U.S. solar energy industry is uniquely poised to help. Think of all the wasted space on top of federal buildings—many of them larger than football fields. We’re ready to work with federal agencies to turn those dead zones into vibrant solar arrays, generating clean, reliable and affordable electricity for our federal workforce.”

The U.S. solar industry already has made some progress on that front, especially in partnering with the Defense Department. SunPower, for example, in 2007 installed a 14 MW PV power plant atop a capped landfill at Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas, Nevada. Last summer, SunPower signed a contract with NV Energy to supply a follow-up 19 MW plant at Nellis. Construction is expected to start this year.

Obama's action comes as Congress begins drafting broad energy legislation that could also impact the federal government's renewable energy purchases.

Saudi Aramco turns to PV to 'displace hydrocarbons' from electricity generation

It has long been an argument for PV rollout in the Gulf States and wider MENA region: That solar can produce electricity at far more cheaply and efficiently than relying on oil or even natural gas in the region. Fraunhofer ISE’s Eicke Weber has long advocated for this being a major driver of future growth of PV in the region, where fossil fuels are used for electricity prices at heavily discounted prices.

It now seems that Saudi Aramco has accepted this argument as the firm installs its first rooftop PV array on one of its buildings as a pilot project. While only small in capacity, at 35 kW in size utilizing 144 solar modules, the company indicates that the array at its Star Building is a sign of things to come.

“On a grand scale, these efforts are not just about injecting clean energy into the power grid,” said Nour Shihabuddin, an engineer with the Renewables Department, which managed the construction and commissioning of the rooftop installation. “By generating clean energy, we are displacing hydrocarbons that could be better utilized within the Kingdom or even exported, creating greater value for the Kingdom’s economy.”

The project is a part of a bigger program to see Saudi Aramco reduce its energy consumption at its “nonindustrial buildings” by 35% by 2020. LED lighting and new standards for thermal insulation are also a part of the scheme.

The performance of the PV array will be monitored closely as energy audits identify which Aramco buildings are a good fit for PV. “Information and statistics collected through this installation will be used for analyzing performance and planning future projects in the company and/or the Kingdom,” the Saudi Aramco statement reads. A real-time monitoring display installed in the building’s lobby will “promote the value and benefits of renewable installations.”

The array is not the first time Saudi Aramco has turned to PV, however, with the company having worked with Japanese module producer Solar Frontier to develop two projects for the company including a 10.5 MW carport array at facilities in Dhahran back in 2012.

2015年3月15日星期日

UK: Shift from large-scale to rooftop PV confirmed

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has confirmed the U.K. solar market's shift towards the rooftops of the country's homes and businesses.

Speaking at the Solar Finance and Investment Conference in London, Richard Cave, the DECC's head of solar PV and hydro, said the U.K.'s solar strategy aims "to shift [the PV market] from large-scale to buildings, with the commercial and industrial rooftops fragment of the market being largely untapped today."

Cave said the DECC's priority was to "guarantee power supply at affordable prices for the consumer," but added that there was "no magic wand" to achieve this. Nevertheless, the DECC's solar strategy puts in a place "a portfolio of different actions, which together are designed to help."

These actions include governmental efforts to lead the rooftop market via developments at its estates. On this front, Cave said that pilot projects are under way aiming to achieve scale.

Secondly, the DECC is examining the current feed-in tariff (FIT) framework and is particularly interested in the transferability of the tariffs, agreements for permitted development as well a revision of the degression bands currently in place.

Thirdly, the DECC recently hosted a round table discussion concerning the landlord and tenant relationship and what regulations could perhaps ease this relationship in order to boost commercial rooftop installations.

Finally, Cave said the DECC was very much interested in community PV, hence the policy framework announced in November, which, he argued, extended the definition of a community project.

Barriers to the rooftop PV commercial market

The PV shift to rooftops is not going to be easy. A debate on Wednesday revolving around the U.K. rooftop market at the solar finance and investment event exposed barriers to this market fragment that don't exist in ground-mounted plants.

Such barriers might be technical (e.g., the building needs to withstand the installation weight), regulatory (e.g., what happens when businesses want to install PV in buildings they rent) and legal (e.g., the case of business insolvencies).

Specifically, the landlord/tenant relationship is more characteristic of the U.K. than other countries. In Germany, for instance, businesses own rather than rent the properties they occupy.

Other DECC guidelines that are eagerly anticipated include new rules that regulate the ability to move a solar kit to another site in the case of an insolvency. The DECC consultation on the matter ended January 5 but the results have yet to be published.

Ultimately, "the life-cycle of solar PV is the same across Eurpean countries, albeit at a different pace," said Francesco Zorgno, executive director at 2F Capital, a company that invests solely in rooftop projects around Europe. "This leads to industrial rooftops. Investors are increasingly more interested in industrial rooftop PV."

The reason behind this interest, Zorgno said, is that commercial rooftop PV bears higher returns. In the beginning of a rooftop plant, returns might be low but later tend to increase. Zorgno pointed out that the attention paid to the length of power purchase agreements was overplayed and urged investors to consider how much of their generated power was also sold to the market.

James Hoare of LHW Partnership added that in order to avoid having power remain unsold, especially given the grid restrictions, rooftop PV owners should better develop systems that satisfy their demand.

Other panelists predicted that the U.K. industrial rooftop PV market would soon be run by institutional landlords, who, a few years ago, were mainly concerned about the financial stability of their tenants. These days, with an improved financial environment, institutional landlords are looking to install PV on their buildings and eventually rent the generated power to their tenants in the same way they rent their properties, they added.

The Solar Finance and Investment Conferencer took place March 10-11.

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Despite record loss, E.ON reports 20% earnings increase for renewables

In presenting the company’s biggest loss since its establishment in 2000, the chief executive of German energy giant E.ON made it clear that the group’s future lay in renewables.

“The new energy world is about customer orientation, efficient and increasingly smart grids, renewables, distributed generation, and technical innovations,” said E.ON CEO Johannes Teyssen.

The Düsseldorf-based company, which is active in 14 countries, including 11 European markets, among them the United Kingdom, France and Italy, as well as Russia, Turkey and Brazil, announced in November that it was splitting its operations, spinning off its conventional energy business as a stand-alone company while shifting its focus entirely towards renewables, energy networks and customer solutions.

The group said a generally deteriorated business environment, altered market assessments and regulatory intervention had adversely affected its global and regional units over the past two years, resulting in a massive asset writedown of €5.5 billion on its Generation division (€4.3 billion of which stemmed from its businesses in the U.K., Sweden and Itay). That in turn led to a record net loss of €3.16 billion for the group, which reported a 7% drop in annual sales to €111.6 billion.

However, the company’s solar and wind business, part of its Renewables segment, performed particularly well with a 20% increase in profit (before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) to €823 million.

In the future, E.ON will focus entirely on renewables, energy networks and customer solutions, which it describes as the “building blocks of the new energy world.” The group will transfer its conventional generation, global energy trading and exploration and production businesses to the new stand-alone company, which will also be listed.

Explaining the move, Teyssen said the decision was based on the assessment that over the past few years “two energy worlds” had emerged: a conventional and a new energy world.

“They’re not separate,” Teyssen stressed. “On the contrary, they depend on one another. But they place completely different demands on energy companies. The new energy world is about customer orientation, efficient and increasingly smart grids, renewables, distributed generation, and technical innovations. The conventional energy world, by contrast, requires expertise and cost efficiency in conventional power stations and global energy trading.”

E.ON is plan the two companies in the second quarter.
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Global advanced energy market worth as much as fashion and apparel industry

A study by Navigant Research has found that the advanced energy industry – which comprises solar power, wind power, natural gas turbines and building efficiency sectors – is now worth $1.3 trillion globally, making it as large as the apparel and fashion industry and almost four times the size of the semiconductor sector.

Growing by 14% on 2013, last year the sector became one of the world’s biggest industries, with the U.S. market alone representing 15% of the global figure.

The report, commissioned by Advanced Energy Economy (AEE), found that the industry grew five times faster in the U.S. than the overall economy, reaching $200 billion and making it more valuable to U.S. GDP than the airline industry, equal to pharmaceuticals and not far behind the consumer electronics market.

One of the fastest areas of growth within the U.S. AEE was the solar PV industry, which surged by 39% in 2014 to reach revenues of $22.5 billion in the U.S. alone – capping a four-year growth period of 173%.

"Solar energy is a huge success story, around the world and especially in the U.S.," said SunPower’s president of business units, Howard Wenger, who is also a board member of the AEE. "From rooftops to utility installations, solar is a growth business in this country, and a vital part of the advanced energy economy being created here in the U.S."

The largest segment within the AEE is building efficiency, which achieved revenues of $60.1 billion in 2014, while the electricity generation sector grew 47% to $45.8 billion over the course of last year, according to the report, Advanced Energy Now 2015 Market Report.

"The report shows that advanced energy is a vibrant industry that is driving economic growth," said AEE CEO Graham Richard. "Across the country [U.S.] and around the world, advanced energy companies are delivering technologies and services that make the energy we use secure, clean and affordable. AEE is committed to bringing together business leaders and policy makers to accelerate the progress of this industry."

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