Solar Energy-Solar Mounting Systems

2015年10月24日星期六

Half of all Australian households could adopt solar by 2018, finds the Climate Council

Half of all Australian households could adopt solar by 2018, finds the Climate Council

Already boasting the world’s highest level of residential solar penetration, Australia could soon see 50% of its households adopting solar+storage and moving off the grid by 2018, finds a report released this week by the Climate Council.

The non-profit Climate Council’s report found that storage capacity is set to grow 50-fold within a decade, and dramatic cost reductions –which have fallen at a rate of 14% every year between 2007 and 2014 – will accelerate, particularly as lithium-ion producers scale up production.

This perfect storm of affordable storage and cheaper solar will strike Australia first, where the nation already has solar penetration among 15% of homeowners. The Climate Council believes that rate can rise to 50% within three years.

The Climate Council report predicts that half of Australian households will adopt a AU$10,000 battery system with a payback on initial outlay of 10 years. The phasing out of FITs across Australia is convincing more and more homeowners to invest in battery storage technology in order to maximize the value of their solar array.

"Anyone who has PV on their roof knows they’re paid a fraction – maybe a tenth – of what it costs them to buy power off the grid," said Andrew Stock of the Climate Council. "If they have a tool, a battery, that can allow them to store the surplus power during the day and use it at night, it means they’re going to get greater control than they already have over their power bill."

This disruption to Australia’s traditional energy mix has already spooked some of the existing network operators, the report found, with some companies actively altering how they price power in an attempt to discourage the uptake of solar+storage – a move Stock called "perverse".

"Battery systems, coupled with PV, can actually help networks get much better use out of their assets by smoothing out the demand on the grid. That should mean that network companies don’t need to invest anywhere near as much at adding capacity in the future, and they get better use out of their existing capacity."

Compelling network operators to view solar+storage as an opportunity rather than as a threat is the biggest looming challenge ahead for solar and storage in Australia, Stock added. "If they see it only as a threat, that will put back Australia from potentially being a leader in the uptake for up to a decade."

Currently some 1.4 million homes in Australia have a solar array fitted, but the number of households with a supportive storage battery fitted is far lower, estimated at around just 500. However, as costs for batteries fall – the completion of Tesla’s gigafactory in Nevada is expected to accelerate cost reduction – this rate will rise dramatically, the report found, serving to boost solar deployment and the wider adoption of electric vehicles.

At the recent All Energy exhibition in Australia, the nation's Minister for the Environment Greg Hunt hinted at the possible introduction of storage subsidies to help grease the wheels of what many are certain will become a multi-billion dollar industry in Australia.

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2015年10月9日星期五

China increases solar installation target for 2015

With China set to add another 5.3 GW of installed solar power this year on top of its earlier 17.8 GW goal, the country has raised its overall solar installation target for 2015 by 30%.
According to Reuters, which cited Chinese state media reports, the additional installations could lead to more overcapacity in view of narrow grid capacity that has made it difficult for new plants to deliver power.
The new plants will be located primarily in Inner Mongolia and Hebei in the north and Xinjiang in the west, according to the report cited by Reuters.
The National Energy Administration (NEA) has required new projects to be completed by the end of 2015 and connected to the grid by the end of June next year, Chinese state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.
According to the NEA, China installed 7.73 GW of capacity in the first half of 2015 – just one-third of the new target. As a result, solar developers have apparently had to speed up construction in the second half of the year.
Reuters pointed out that China's insufficient grid capacity and overcapacity has limited the growth of solar in the country, citing NEA data that indicated nearly a tenth of the solar power generated during the first half of 2015 was unable to be delivered.
China has pledged to cap carbon dioxide emissions by increasing the use of non-fossil fuel such as wind and solar, with Co2 emissions expected to peak by 2030.
The Chinese government is aiming to increase the share of non-fossil fuels from 11% at the end of 2014 to 15% by 2020 in an effort to meet its climate vows to the United Nations. Yet the country’s solar power development remains bedeviled by subsidy collection and panel quality, which in turn has made investors wary of the sector.

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New York State plans for solar on 150,000 homes and businesses by 2020

New York State plans for solar on 150,000 homes and businesses by 2020

California has long been the standard-bearer for clean energy in the United States, with ambitious renewable energy mandates backed by regulatory action to reform not only the way that utilities procure power, but how they approach resources on the customer side of the meter.

But New York may be giving California a run for its money as the most progressive state for policy to enable a transformation of the electric grid. As the latest, on Thursday New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a series of new goals which deepen the state's embrace of clean energy as a means for greenhouse gas reduction.

Topping the list, Governor Cuomo set a target for the state to install solar arrays on 150,000 additional homes and businesses by 2020, a five-fold expansion on the 30,000 arrays that the state has supported since 2013.

As a means to reach this goal, the governor's office mentioned the new "Shared Renewables" virtual net metering program. Under the program, New York residents can subscribe to receive the benefits of a PV array up to 2 MW-AC located on a sponsor's property, through net metering.

This includes multi-unit master metered buildings, which will allow tenants to share in the benefits of solar PV.

EQ Director of Research Justin Barnes says that the NY-SUN MW Block incentive program for large-scale solar will also be key in meeting this goal. The program provides geographically differentiated performance-based incentives to systems up to 2 MW.

“It's going to be as critical to a community renewables project as it is to any other large-scale industrial project,” states Barnes. He also says that while there were few applications for the program after it was rolled out, that interest is increasing.

In addition to the 150,000 new PV installations, Governor Cuomo announced that the State University of New York (SUNY) system will install renewable energy at each of its 64 campuses by 2020. This builds on a previous SUNY commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 30% by 2020.

A third pledge was to engage the states in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) to explore the possibility of linking this market with carbon markets in Quebec, California and Ontario.

These three were announced concurrent with the signing of the Under 2 MOU, an agreement between states, provinces and cities globally to play their part in keeping the earth's average temperature from rising more than two degrees Celsius by 2100, versus pre-industrial levels.

New York already has one of the most aggressive targets in the nation for greenhouse gas reduction, with plans to reduce emissions 40% below 1990 levels by 2030 and 80% by 2050.

As a key means to meet this target, New York is currently engaged in a process to rethink the structure of its electricity system, including the role of utilities. Reforming the Energy Vision may be the most advanced process of restructuring in the nation, and is specifically focused on distributed energy resources and providing tools and knowledge to allow customers to manage their resources under a more dynamic system.

Spain's government approves the “sun tax

Spain's center-right government has been perhaps the most hostile to the solar industry among European nations, including sweeping retroactive changes to the nation's feed-in tariff which have been challenged in Spanish and European courts. Today Spain's Council of Ministers hit a new low by approving fees on solar self-consumption, which have been dubbed the “sun tax”.

While full details will not be out until the full text is published in the Official Gazette, Spain's Energy Ministry indicated (in Spanish) that there will be charges on both existing and new installations, both on a capacity and generation level. The ministry says that these are not taxes or compensation for utility losses, but contributions to overall system costs.

These new fees will begin to be levied in six month's time. PV arrays under 10 kW and systems not on the Spanish mainland will be spared the generation charge, but will still be subject to a fixed charge per kW of capacity.

In opposition to the recommendation of the solar industry and the state council, these fees are levied not on the net balance, but on the total output of systems.

Additionally, PV systems up to 100 kW may not sell electricity, and will be required to donate this electricity to the grid free without compensation. Systems over 100 kW must registered in order to sell electricity on the spot market for the excess they produce.

According to Spanish news site Público, one of the few recommendations made by the State Council that was incorporated into the final text is that the use of batteries will not be banned. However, the use of batteries will not be allowed to lower the portion of the tax based on the capacity of PV systems.

Naturally, Spain's PV industry is incensed by the move. The Association of Renewable Energy Producers (ANPIER) called the regulations a “perversion of Democracy”. The organization further described them as a “regulatory barrier” that penalizes citizens and small businesses for generating their own power and delays Spain's move to an new energy model.

The Spanish Photovoltaic Union (UNEF) notes that the regulation does not account for the net balance, which it says discourages the development of self-consumption. UNEF President Jorge Barredo says that the “unjustified sun tax” means that self-consumption system users pay more charges for maintaining the grid than other users, even though they use less of it.

Global solar investment shows flat growth in Q3 2015

Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) has released its clean energy investment numbers for the third quarter of 2015, which shows a slight fall across all sectors from Q3 2014 levels.

However, when the impacts of a fall in the value of various currencies versus the dollar are considered, actual investment in clean energy can be considered to be greater than a year ago. This is as part of a long-term trend of ongoing if uneven growth.

The headline numbers also mask significant changes regionally. While European clean energy investment fell again to reach its lowest quarterly level since 2004, investment in the Americas is booming, with solar leading the way.

BNEF reports that U.S. clean energy investments rose 25% year-over-year to US$13.4 billion. Smaller Latin American markets showed even greater growth, with investments in Brazil rising 131%, and a nearly 10-fold increase in investments in Chile to $1.6 billion.

While BNEF did not break out national results by technology, solar has dominated Chile's clean energy deployment. GTM Research estimates that over 2 GW of solar PV was under construction in Chile at the end of the second quarter of 2015, making it by far the largest solar market in Latin America.

Globally, a larger share of clean energy investment is going to distributed renewable energy projects, a field which is dominated by solar PV. While global asset finance for utility-scale renewable energy projects fell 4% year-over-year to $47.3 billion, investments in distributed generation increased 21% to $19 billion.

Additionally, Q3 was a good quarter for concentrating solar power (CSP or solar thermal electric) projects. The global market for CSP has been slow in the past few years, with competition from PV and siting issues effectively halting the deployment of CSP in the southwestern United States. However, the technology is now moving to new markets in other continents.

BNEF reports that among the largest projects to be financed during the quarter were CSP projects in China, Israel and South Africa. This includes $866 million invested in the 200 MW Qinghai CSP project in China and $749 million invested in SolarReserve's Redstone 100 MW CSP complex in South Africa.

Overall, China's clean energy sector continued to attract the most funding at $26.7 billion, roughly double the level of the United States. Generally the rise in Chinese clean energy spending has been more even than in the United States.

BNEF also reports an increase in clean energy venture capital (VC) funding to $2 billion during Q3, which is as much as the entire year 2014. This echoes the up-tick that Mercom Capital reported for solar VC funding during the quarter.

BNEF's quarterly clean energy investment numbers look at both corporate funding and project finance across a range of technologies, including the impacts of mergers, acquisitions and buy-outs.

All Energy: Hunt leaves door open for storage subsidies

The mood at the All Energy trade show in Australia currently underway is cautiously optimistic, with the solar sector receiving the signals from the government headed by Malcolm Turnbull positively. While the new Prime Minister Turnbull and Environment Minister Hunt have not yet delivered any significant changes in policy for the sector, it appears as if support for rooftop soar will continue and may even increase, and signs that battery storage is in favor with the government.

“Walking around the [trade room] floor, the feeling was extraordinary,” declared Hunt while addressing a standing room only afternoon session. “The human energy is immense as are the new opportunities being created.”

Hunt singled out energy storage as being one of those opportunities, commenting that whether it be large scale applications in the form of molten salt, electro chemical storage or battery technologies such as lithium ion or more conventional forms, there is a great deal of excitement about the technology.

The Minister said he was encouraged by the cost curves being achieved with some of the technologies and that, “in the future people will not just be buying storage, but will be buying energy packages.”

In terms of specific government support for such packages Hunt was not particularly forthcoming, but he did allude to additional programs the government will look to roll out through bodies such as the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) and Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC). Oliver Yates, the CEO of the CEFC attended the session and watched the Hunt address from the front row.

Responding to a question from Green Energy Markets CEO Ric Brazzale, who Hunt noted calls his office with some regularity, the Environment Minister said that instructions delivered to the CEFC preventing it from funding rooftop solar are likely to be modified and effectively withdrawn. Hunt said that the instructions, which he described as a “draft letter”, were part of an agreement struck with Senate crossbenchers to see the reduction in the Renewable Energy Target (RET) passed by the Parliament, but that the explicit instructions preventing it from funding rooftop soar were not in accordance with the agreement.

“I have already said publicly that we will revisit the draft letter [sent to the CEFC] and it will reflect [accurately] the content, tone and tenor of the agreement struck with the Senate,” said Hunt. He noted that since both ARENA and the CEFC have been brought under the administration of his office, “there will be change.”

The future of ARENA and the CEFC is looking healthier since Prime Minister Turnbull has been installed by his party last month, however the CEO of the Australian Solar Council John Grimes noted to pv magazine that legislation to abolish both bodies still currently before Parliament. Both measures have not been passed into law, however Grimes said that the legislation had only failed in the past by the slimmest of margins.

While Hunt’s address was largely well received by the All Energy crowd, Grimes himself was not satisfied by the material content of the presentation. Grimes said that there was very little in the way concrete policy changes being initiated. The ASC has temporarily suspended its Save Solar campaign, which had targeted key marginal electorates and campaigned against sitting government members. Grimes told pv magazine that it was an act of goodwill towards the new administration, however the jury is still out as to what direction support for renewables in Australia will take.

“Storage being a fundamental opportunity, a game changer,” said Hunt. A subsidy or support program for solar may indeed be the material policy the ASC is looking for.

California Governor Brown signs 50% renewable portfolio standard into law

U.S. media reports about renewable energy policy have a tendency to emphasize the negative; the pending drop-down of the federal ITC, and attempts by fossil fuel and utility groups to roll back net metering and renewable energy mandates.

While some of the more high-profile stories tend to dominate, there has been a lot of activity in recent years around the state-level policies which are critical for renewable energy deployment. Such stories miss the larger arc that while there are wins and losses, these policies are if anything moving towards more aggressive deployment.

A few states have been far out in front in terms of both policy and deployment, most notably California. On Wednesday the Golden State expanded on its historic 33% by 2020 renewable portfolio standard (RPS) policy, with Governor Jerry Brown signing into law a bill to require that utilities procure 50% of their electricity from renewables by 2030 at a ceremony in Los Angeles.

This signing was hardly a surprise, as Governor Brown initially proposed the 50% goal. In September his administration took the further step of procuring 100% renewable energy for buildings in the state capitol.

The 50% RPS by 2030 puts the state on par with Hawaii, which in June mandated that utilities move to 100% renewable energy by 2045. These are easily the two most aggressive RPS policies in the nation.

SB350 will also double energy efficiency targets for existing buildings and expand opportunities for EVs and mass transit, as well as setting interim renewable energy targets for 2024 and 2027. A portion of the bill that would have mandated a 50% reduction in petroleum use was pulled during a tough fight in the California Assembly.

Solar is already playing a big role in meeting the existing RPS. By 2020, California's utilities are expected to meet 45% of their renewable energy requirements with solar PV and concentrating solar power (CSP). The new bill was welcomed by the solar industry.

“The passage of SB 350 is a huge win for Californians and solar power is going to be key in making this win a reality,” said Sean Gallagher, vice president of state affairs at the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).

“The industry, in response to the State’s current RPS, and other leading California policies like net metering, has produced nearly 55,000 solar jobs in California and more than $11 billion a year in state investment, all while achieving dramatic cost reductions.”

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