R.E.preneur

First Solar to sell 20MW Ontario PV project to Enbridge; solar company also joins S&P 500 - Photovoltaics International

First Solar and Enbridge have signed a deal for the Canadian energy company to buy a 20MW solar farm that the PV firm has developed and is building near Sarnia, Ontario. The project, which will be the largest PV installation in Canada when it's completed by the end of the year, is being built by First Solar under a fixed-price engineering, procurement, and construction contract and will use more than 370,000 of the company's CdTe thin-film modules.

via www.pv-tech.org

This marks the first utility-scale sized PV project built under the OPA's former RESOP program. Its great to see market leader First Solar being able to capitalize on the former program, something other developers with RESOP contracts (~560 MW worth) have as yet been unable to do.

The new OPA FiT rules are looking questionable at best. The province's local content rules are making the industry question whether any projects will be built with the current rules. In my opinion, if the government is serious about building renewable energy in the province, they need to lower the local content rules to allow more flexibility for developers to source product from the most economically-efficient suppliers.

But that's just my C0.02.

Are You An American? Make Your Voice Heard On Offshore Wind

If you read much REpreneur at all you know I'm big on activism.  Being young I'm idealistic about being a part of the process.  I also believe this is important if you work in the industry as "Green begets more Green".

Though I have little exposure to the wind industry, I know that wind is a visible and economic depiction of how renewable energy can be developed at a price point that is attractive to utilities.  As solar moves in this direction, it will be important for our industries to work together in lobbying legislation, and sharing our collective knowledge about best practices for development of projects and overcoming regulatory hurdles.

With that in mind, take a moment to read over this article from PlanetSave about the commenting period now open on the Cape Wind Project.  If you are an American, then you have the opportunity to comment on the project.  I hope you will do so in support of Cape Wind, the first offshore wind project in America. 

Haven't heard about the project, then you MUST watch this satirical depiction of the debate over the project from The Daily Show:

So what was my argument, as an American from the other side of the country? Here was my comment:

   

Comment Title:      Every Region Of Our Nation Must Develop Its Unique Renewable Resources

        Illinois, Wyoming, Montana. Do you know what these states all have in common? Massive coal reserves. The economic and political forces in those states are not bashful about the fact that in order to reap the benefit of said reserves, their own state must aggressively harvest that fossil fuel to provide cheap energy for its citizens (and much of it gets shipped to the southeast US).

    If the US is to make ANY significant progress in moving to a clean energy economy, it will require that every region of the nation identify its renewable resources and streamline the political and economic processes to develop the renewable generation assets that will provide clean, affordable renewable energy to local and regional citizens.

    While my own state of Arizona is behind on developing our solar resources, we acknowledge the need to do this and organizations are working within the political process to accelerate this development quickly. Across Texas and the midwest, farmers are taking advantage of their large wind resource. California and Nevada are ahead on wind, solar, and geothermal. In the northeast, great progress can be made with biomass and offshore wind.



    The Cape Wind project is an important development for our nation because offshore wind involves economies of scale not possible for land-based wind power. Currently, the largest wind turbines on land in the US are between 1.5 and 2.5 MW. Current technology for offshore wind includes turbines as big as 7.5 MW, and getting bigger. Climate Change must be addressed aggressively and this Cape Wind project, whose EIS has shown general favorability for, represents a landmark tipping point in renewable energy development.

    Please approve this project, allowing many more offshore projects to begin development with the certainty that they will be approved if they do their due diligence. This will allow for a windfall of offshore renewables and help clean up America's energy supply.

Yucca Mountain: Last Resort? Best Option? Doomed to Disaster?

America has not built a new Nuclear plant in over a decade. But, currently there are 30 applications for new nuclear generating facilities permits (A process which takes 12 years).





Yucca Mountain was billed as the solution to the nuclear storage issue, but after being originally scheduled to open in 1998, the facility's current opening date of 2017 has been put on hold after the federal government slashed the facility's 2008 budget from $494M to $386M. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) led the fight against Yucca Mountain. State and Local Las Vegas authorities have also joined the legal battle against the project.

Should Harry Reid be to blame in the coming years when the federal government has to start paying U.S. utilities between $300-$500 million per year of taxpayer dollars in order to deal with the storage issues that the government themselves has failed to agree on.

What are the REALISTIC, or at least semi-realistic solutions? I only want to hear "shoot it into the sun" if it is feasible, economical, and moral.

To join in on the debate visit my LinkedIn question about the issue. I'll post the best answers here.

Resources:
Recent Las Vegas Review Article

Department of Energy: Office of Nuclear Energy

POW - Project Of the Week

Project of the Week is going to be a regular look into a recent RE project announcement that I think is pretty cool.  General things I am looking for in a cool project are: increased project size, efficiency, economics, a new application, a new market opening up.  There has to be something that sets the RE project apart.  I expect that there will be large solar power plants, wind farms, green building on a scale or application not seen in the past.

Each post will give you a basic look at what the project is, then I will present what sets it apart, or makes it unique.  I will probably also talk a bit about how this project affects the broader marketplace and what type of projects are done going forward.

This week: U.S. Retailers Save with Solar PV & Energy Efficiency

Renewable Energy Access featured this story about how a large number of retailers were investing in solar power at their facilities.  Companies like Wal-Mart, Kohl'€™s, Tiffany'€™s, and others have committed to major PV projects on some of their US buildings.

Important points here:

PPA: These companies often take on very little risk by entering into a power purchase agreement (PPA) in which the consumer of the solar electricity (the retailer) does not invest any money to purchase the solar power systems, they simply agree to purchase the power that the systems produce for a set period of time at a set cost. 

Energy Efficiency: Any solar professional will tell you that before investing in any solar power project the consumer of the electricity needs to first invest in energy efficiency.  This is due to efficiency investments high ROI.  By combining solar power with efficiency upgrades such as fluorescent lighting (and soon LED’s) or energy management software a company will experience the greatest impact of a solar power system in their attempts to zero-out their electricity bills. 

Leadership of the industry: The investments in solar that these companies are making represents a shift in image, the adoption of solar technologies, and their application in the retail industry in America.  While the total number of systems being installed is miniscule compared to the total number of retail buildings in America, their visibility and example lay a foundation of acceptance by that industry that this is a viable investment option.  These types of projects are the snowball rolling down the hill that quickly turns into an avalanche of adoption and investment. 

I admire and applaud the companies engaged in focusing on this medium commercial solar market niche.  Look for a follow up post later this week focusing on one of the companies who operate their business models around the PPA.