GIVEN THE WEATHER in the United Kingdom—that cloudy, foggy, drizzly country—it doesn’t seem like the best place to launch a business that revolves around solar power.
WIRED -- But this is where the builder of the world’s best-selling electric car just started selling Nissan Energy Solar, a generation-to-acceleration scheme that equips customers with roof-mounted panels and a battery to store some of the electricity they generate. If they drive a Leaf, or Nissan’s e-NV200 electric van, they can combine the whole process and drive from Scotland to Wales to wherever, guilt-free, fog lights on, windshield wipers whisking away. Despite the weather, solar works well in the UK. Panels can do their thing even with indirect sunlight, and the country’s northerly position makes for 16 hours of daytime during the summer. Nearly a million people there already use solar panels, according to Nissan. Adding batteries to the mix will help them stay powered up even when the weather turns, well, normal. “It enables UK homeowners to make significant savings on their household electricity bills, and become champions of sustainability and green technology,” says Gareth Dunsmore, electric vehicle director for Nissan Europe. If this sounds familiar, it’s because Nissan is biting at Tesla’sheels. A decade after CEO Elon Musk said he wanted to offer zero emission power generation options, Tesla acquired Solar City. Now, its customers can buy an entire clean energy stack: roof panels, a Powerwall home battery, and of course, a car. (Tesla also created a sleek design for solar panels that look like a normal roof, and that does away with that ugly flat black glass look.) Nissan says its all-in-one system will start at $5,200 for six solar panels, or $10,300 for panels and a 4-kWh battery, including installation. Customers can choose between a brand new battery, or a “second-life” pack made from cells that have been retired from electric vehicles but remain good enough for the more gentle demands of daily storage. Tesla’s powerwall, which can store 13.5 kWh, costs $5,900, but installation is extra. While Nissan’s solar scheme is only available in the UK for now, it’s easy to see how this sort of setup could improve life in the US. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, 28 percent of greenhouse gases came from transportation in 2016, and 28 percent from electricity. Get more people to combine renewable energy with zero emission driving, and you can start to chip away at more than half of US emissions. An average US household uses around 30 kWh of electricity per day, so these batteries aren’t meant to take you off the grid or keep you Netflixing through a lengthy power outage. The smaller systems are designed to smooth out the peaks in electricity demand, storing solar generated power during the day for use in the evening, when the sun goes down and the lights, TV, and stove go on. This kind of local storage takes some of the pressure off over-taxed electricity grids. It also pairs well with the time of use tariffs providers in the US and UK are starting to introduce, where rates vary with demand—climbing at peak time, but lowering overnight. Instead of paying more at peak times, just draw power from the battery your solar panels spent the day filling up. And when prices drop overnight, tap into the grid to charge up your EV. Nissan is also experimenting with the idea of making use of the large battery in electric cars (40 kWh in the Leaf) to power homes, which, with smart controls to maintain adequate driving range, could provide an even more integrated infrastructure solution. Other solar panel companies offer home batteries, but it makes sense for automakers to jump into this game. They’re increasingly the biggest global customers for batteries, and can control supply chains and prices. Tesla has taken on projects in Australia, Puerto Rico, and Belgium, where racks of batteries help balance demand across the entire grid and reduce the use of natural gas power plants when demand spikes. For now, Nissan’s has no firm plans to bring the system to the US, but a spokesperson says "we're always looking at ways to bring new, interesting technology to our customers here”. And these products are still niche, without a proven market. BMW has has been quiet recently about a plan it once promoted to sell recycled i3 car batteries. Mercedes-Benz reportedly pulled out of the home energy storage market completely, which in 2016 it said it wanted to develop along with electric cars. Even if this energy business thing doesn’t work out, automakers are eager to tout their green credentials. Displaying shiny solar panels alongside sparkly vehicles in showrooms is a nice way to do that. And if the EV market does pick up as fast as they’re predicting, inserting themselves into the power supply business could secure them a place in a very sunny future.
0 Comments
Here’s one way to get more power from solar panels: use both sides of the cells. But don’t expect that to double the output.
BLOOMBERG -- China is expected to jump-start the market for panels that can absorb light on both sides with plans to install 2.7 gigawatts this year, according to research from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Other regions may add as much as 200 megawatts in 2018, and the global market may reach 5 gigawatts by 2020. A typical nuclear reactor has about 1 gigawatt of capacity. Standard solar panels have a mostly aluminum backing. The so-called bi-facial panels remove most of the aluminum from the bottom, exposing the semiconducting material so it can produce electricity from light that hits it on either side. This costs more to make, and until recently, the higher output hasn’t been enough to attract developers. Better manufacturing techniques are making them cheaper, and early installations show about a 10 percent boost in output as light bounces off the ground to hit the underside of the panels. Pro tip: It helps to paint the ground white.
Determining how many solar panels you’ll need for your home means first knowing what your goals are. Do you want to minimize your carbon footprint? Maximize your return on your investment? Save as much money as possible? Most people want to save money while minimizing their environmental impact.
To calculate how many solar panels you need, you need to know the following: how much energy your household uses; your roof’s usable surface area; the climate and peak sunlight in your area; the wattage and relative efficiency of the photovoltaic (PV) panels you’re considering; and whether net metering is available. One simple way of answering the “How many solar panels do I need” question is to consult a professional solar installer, who can give you a free home solar evaluation. 1. How much solar power will you need?To determine your home’s average energy requirements look at past utility bills. You can calculate how many solar panels you need by multiplying your household’s hourly energy requirement by the peak sunlight hours for your area and dividing that by a panel’s wattage. Use a low-wattage (150W) and high-wattage (370W) example to establish a range (ex: 17-42 panels to generate 11,000 kWh/year). Note that how much sunlight your roof gets and factors such as roof size and battery storage will figure in as well. If you sign up for a free solar quote, our solar experts will handle all these calculations for you. But to give you some idea of how many solar panels are needed for the average home (or for your home in particular), here is a sample set of questions that a solar professional might use to figure it out: 2. How many watts do you currently use? Look at your electricity bill for average usage. Look for “Kilowatt Hours (or kWh) Used” or something similar, and then note the time period represented (usually 30 days). If your bill doesn’t show kilowatt hours used, look for beginning and ending meter readings and subtract the previous reading from the most recent one. You want daily and hourly usage for our calculations, though, so if your bill doesn’t show a daily average, just divide the monthly or annual average by 30 or 365 days, respectively, and then divide again by 24 to determine your hourly average electricity usage. Your answer will be in kilowatt-hours (kWh). (And just in case you are wondering, a kilowatt-hour is how much power you are using at any given time multiplied by the total time the power is being used.) A small home in a temperate climate might use something like 200 kwh per month, and a larger home in the south where air conditioners account for the largest portion of home energy usage might use 2,000 kWh or more. The average U.S. home uses about 900 kWh per month. So that’s 30 kWh per day or 1.25 kWh per hour. Your average daily energy usage is your target daily average for to calculate your solar needs. That’s the number of kilowatt-hours you need your solar system to produce if you want to cover 100 percent of your energy needs. It’s important to note that solar panels don’t operate at maximum efficiency at all times. Weather conditions, for example, can temporarily reduce your system’s efficiency. Therefore, experts recommend adding a 25 percent “cushion” to your target daily average to ensure you can generate all the clean energy you need
3. How many hours of sunlight can you expect in your area?
The peak sunlight hours for your particular location will have a direct impact on the energy you can expect your home solar system to produce. For example, if you live in Phoenix you can expect to have a greater number of peak sunlight hours than if you lived in Seattle. That doesn’t mean a Seattle homeowner can’t go solar; it just means the homeowner would need more panels. The Renewable Resource Data Center provides sunlight information by state and for major cities. Now multiply your hourly usage (see question No. 1) by 1,000 to convert your hourly power generation need to watts. Divide your average hourly wattage requirement by the number of daily peak sunlight hours for your area. This gives you the amount of energy your panels need to produce every hour. So the average U.S. home (900 kWh/month) in an area that gets five peak sunlight hours per day would need 6,250 watts. 4. What affects solar panel output efficiency? Here’s where solar panel quality makes a difference. Not all solar panels are alike. Photovoltaic (PV) solar panels (most commonly used in residential installations) come in wattages ranging from about 150 watts to 370 watts per panel, depending on the panel size and efficiency (how well a panel is able to convert sunlight into energy), and on the cell technology. For example, solar cells with no grid lines on the front absorb more sunlight than conventional cells and do not suffer from issues such as delamination (peeling). The construction of our cells make them stronger and more resistant to cracking or corrosion. And a microinverter on each panel can optimize power conversion at the source, in contrast to one large inverter mounted on the side of the house. Because of these wide variations in quality and efficiency, it’s difficult to make generalizations about which solar panels are right for you or how many you’ll need for your home. The main takeaway is that, the more efficient the panels are, the more wattage they can produce, and the fewer you will need on your roof to get the same energy output. Conventional solar panels usually produce about 250 watts per panel, with varying levels of efficiency. In contrast, SunPower panels are known to be the most efficient solar panels on the market. To figure out how many solar panels you need, divide your home’s hourly wattage requirement (see question No. 3) by the solar panels’ wattage to calculate the total number of panels you need. So that average U.S. home in Dallas, Texas, would need about 25 conventional (250W) solar panels or 17 (370W) panels. 5. What is the effect of solar panel size? If you have a small or unusually shaped roof, solar panel size and numbers are important considerations. With a large usable roof area, perhaps you can sacrifice some efficiency and buy more larger panels (at a lower cost per panel) to get to your target energy output. But if your usable roof area is limited, or if it’s partially shaded, being able to use fewer smaller high efficiency panels may be the best way to make the most possible power over the long term, ultimately saving you more money. Typical residential solar panel dimensions today are about 65 inches by 39 inches, or 5.4 feet by 3.25 feet, with some variation among manufacturers. These dimensions have remained more or less unchanged for decades, but the efficiency and output from that same footprint have changed dramatically for the better. Knowing the answers to the above questions will give you an idea of the ideal number of panels for your electricity generation needs — or at least a realistic range. Next, a professional installer needs to assess your roof architecture, angle to the sun and other factors to see if and how you’d be able to physically arrange the right number of panels on your roof to achieve your daily energy production goals. You should also consider net metering as you’re considering figuring out your ROI for your solar system. Net metering is how your utility company credits you for producing excess solar energy when the sun is shining and then lets you draw from those credits when you’re using conventional power grid at night, if you don’t have a solar battery storage system. Buyers already signed deals for 3.3 gigawatts this year. On pace to break record of 4.8 gigawatts set in 2017.
BLOOMBERG -- Companies are buying renewable power at a record pace. AT&T Inc. and Walmart Inc. are among 36 businesses, government agencies and universities that have agreed to buy 3.3 gigawatts of wind and solar power so far this year. That’s on track to shatter the previous high of 4.8 gigawatts of disclosed deals last year, according to a report Monday by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. One of the key reasons is that smaller companies are more comfortable doing these deals now. “There’s a blueprint now,” said Kyle Harrison, a New York-based analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “So it’s a lot easier for other companies to do it.” In addition to the 4.8 gigawatts in announced deals last year, BNEF also estimates 600 megawatts of undisclosed contracts were signed in Asia. The gains are also due to local renewables program and growing demand in international markets like Mexico and Australia. Buying Binge Corporations are acquiring more clean power than ever before There are several reasons clean power is attractive. Renewable energy is often the cheapest source of electricity. Long-term contracts to buy clean power from wind and solar farms can also act as hedges against uncertain wholesale prices. Google and other big technology companies have driven the trend, but the pool of clean-power buyers is deepening. Smaller companies have benefited from growing standardization in the ways companies agree to buy clean energy. Sometimes these companies are recruited to buy wind and solar power from the same power plant as larger buyers that function “like anchor tenants,” Harrison said. Other findings from the BNEF report:
BLOOMBERG -- California became the first U.S. state to require solar panels on almost all new homes, sending the clearest signal yet that rooftop power is moving beyond a niche market and becoming the norm.
Most new homes built after Jan. 1, 2020, will be required to include solar systems as part of energy-efficiency standards adopted Wednesday by the California Energy Commission. While that’s a boost for the solar industry, critics warned that it will also drive up the cost of buying a house by almost $10,000. Solar shares surged upon the decision, while homebuilders fell. The move underscores how rooftop solar, once a luxury reserved for wealthy, green-leaning homeowners, is becoming a mainstream energy source, with California -- the nation’s largest solar market -- paving the way. The Golden State has long been at the vanguard of progressive energy policies, from setting energy-efficiency standards for appliances to instituting an economy-wide program to curb greenhouse gases. The housing mandate is part of Governor Jerry Brown’s effort to slash carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2030, and offers up a playbook for other states to follow “This is huge,” said Rachel Golden, senior campaign representative for the Sierra Club. “It’s a cost-effective measure that is going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and support growth in renewable clean energy.” Sunrun Inc., the largest U.S. residential-solar installer, gained 3.8 percent to $9.79 at 3:40 p.m. in New York. Tesla Inc. rose 1.4 percent and SunPower Corp. climbed 3.7 percent. KB Home, which has significant exposure to the California market, declined 5.2 percent.
The U.S. had 10.4 gigawatts of residential solar power at the end of last year, up more than sixfold from five years earlier. The industry started slowing in 2017 amid policy changes and efforts by some companies to shift their strategies.
“Adoption of these standards represents a quantum leap in statewide building standards,” Bob Raymer, senior engineer of the California Building Industry Association, said during the meeting before the vote. "You can bet the other 49 states will be watching closely what happens.” Tesla’s Francesca Wahl, senior associate of business development and policy, was among the company representatives to back the mandate at the meeting Wednesday, and expressed support for provisions that will also promote wider use of energy storage systems. California’s solar policy will exacerbate another critical issue in the most populous state, where high housing costs are seen as a drag on the economy that also contributes to rising social tensions. “With home prices having risen as much as they have, I think home buyers would find it a little distasteful to be forced to pay more for solar systems that they may not want or feel like they can’t afford,” said Brent Anderson, a spokesman for homebuilder Meritage Homes Corp. “Even though, in the long term, it’s the right answer.”
California’s economy added 2.3 million jobs over the past five years. Over the same period, the state issued permits for fewer than 480,000 new residential units, or about one home for every five additional workers.
The new policy applies to single-family houses and multifamily units that are three stories or less, and there are some exceptions for homes that are too shady. Homebuilders will probably try to pass on the costs to customers, Carl Reichardt, a San Francisco-based analyst for BTIG LLC, said in a phone interview before the vote. Big homebuilders like KB Home and Meritage have an advantage because they’ve been offering solar homes for years. Smaller builders will have a harder time managing the new requirements, he said. Installing a solar system and complying with other energy-efficiency measures required will add about $9,500 to the cost of a new home, according the the California Energy Commission. That would be offset by about $19,000 in expected energy and maintenance savings over 30 years, the commission estimates. The decision “reinforces the state’s leadership in advancing clean-energy solutions,” Lynn Jurich, Sunrun’s chief executive officer, said in a statement Wednesday. “This standard will play an important role in aiding California to reach its climate and renewable energy goals.” Solar Demand While the policy is good for the solar industry, it may not move the needle that much. The state adds about 80,000 new homes a year, and the California Solar & Storage Association estimates that about 15,000 include solar power. The Energy Commission says that the average home system uses 2.5 kilowatts to 4 kilowatts of panels, so the additional 65,000 new systems would add as much as 260 megawatts of annual demand in the state -- about the size of one large solar farm. SunPower expects the rule will increase demand for residential solar in the state by about 50 percent. The San Jose, California-based company makes panels and develops solar systems ranging from rooftops to large, utility-scale power plants. It’s unclear how much major solar installers like Sunrun and Vivint Solar Inc. will benefit, said Joe Osha, a San Francisco-based analyst at JMP Securities. They typically target existing homeowners rather than companies building new homes. “Your initial reaction is: ‘oh, that’s great for the solar company,’” he said. “But their business is about acquiring individual customers. If you’re working with homebuilders, it’s a completely different thing.” Thank you to our friends at Bloomberg for providing the original article below: As consumer demand trends toward green and sustainable home features, Realtors® continue to work to promote environmentally responsible features and business practices. Sixty-one percent of Realtors® reported that consumers are interested in sustainability.
NATIONAL ASSOC. OF REALTORS -- The report, www. nar.realtor/research-and-statistics/research-reports/realtors-and-sustainability, which stems from NAR’s Sustainability Program, surveyed Realtors® about sustainability issues in the residential and commercial real estate markets and the preferences they are seeing in consumers in their communities. “Consumers continue to make it clear that environmentally friendly features and neighborhoods are an important factor in deciding where and what home to buy,” said NAR President Elizabeth Mendenhall, a sixth-generation Realtor® from Columbia, Missouri and CEO of RE/MAX Boone Realty. “Realtors® are leaders in the conversation about real estate sustainability, energy conservation and resource efficiency, and will continue to promote environmentally conscious strategies and best practices that benefit not just our clients, but also our communities.” Seventy-one percent of agents and brokers reported that promoting energy efficiency in listings is either somewhat or very valuable. When asked what they consider to be the top market issues and considerations regarding sustainability, agents and brokers listed understanding lending options for energy upgrades or solar panels (36 percent), improving the energy efficiency of existing housing stock (34 percent) and the lack of information and materials provided to real estate professionals (30 percent). The survey asked Realtors® how comfortable they are answering questions about home performance and efficiency; 39 percent said they are comfortable or extremely comfortable. Forty percent of respondents say they are confident or extremely confident in their ability to connect clients with green lenders. To account for growing consumer interest, 40 percent of respondents reported that their Multiple Listing Service, or MLS, have green data fields, compared to only 15 percent that do not. Among those that do have green data fields, 37 percent of respondents use them to promote green features, 27 percent to promote energy information and 16 percent to promote green certifications. A majority of respondents (80 percent) said that solar panels are available in their market, and 39 percent said that solar panels increased the perceived property value. Twenty-three percent of brokers indicated that tiny homes – homes that are 600 square feet or less – are available in their market. The transportation and commuting features that Realtors® stated are very or somewhat important to their clients include easy access to highways (82 percent), short commute times and distance to work (81 percent) and walkability (51 percent). For the first time questions about commercial real estate were included in the survey. Seventy percent of agents and brokers indicated that promoting energy efficiency in their commercial listings was very or somewhat valuable. The top building features that clients specified as very or somewhat important to their agents or brokers are utility/operation costs (80 percent), efficient use of lighting (64 percent) and indoor air quality (62 percent). NAR initiated the Sustainability Program as a platform for dialogue on sustainability for Realtors®, brokers, allied trade associations, and consumers. The program’s efforts focus on coordination and articulation of NAR’s existing sustainability resources, while also supporting a growing area of interest for consumers, helping members to assist home buyers and sellers. The REALTOR® Sustainability Program invited a sample of 112,220 active Realtors® to participate in an online survey pertaining to sustainability issues facing consumers and the industry, resulting in 6,834 usable responses. NAR plans to use this report to better benchmark Realtor® understanding of sustainability and create resources to help Realtors® better serve clients surrounding sustainability topics. On Friday, the Minneapolis City Council unanimously approved the city’s commitment to transition to 100% clean, renewable energy by 2030, the Sierra Club has announced.
SOLAR INDUSTRY MAGAZINE -- According to the Sierra Club, Minneapolis now represents the largest city in the Midwest and the 65th city in the country to establish a goal of transitioning entirely to clean energy. As part of the city’s commitment, the Minneapolis City Coordinator’s Office will prepare a blueprint by the first quarter of 2019 for how Minneapolis will meet its goal, including policy and technology strategies. The Sierra Club says the blueprint will also include strategies to “ensure that all consumers, especially those who have been left out of the benefits of energy programs in the past – communities of color; low-income communities; renters; and communities that have borne the brunt of past environmental racism – receive equitable benefit from this transition.” According to a release from the city, municipal facilities and operations will transition to 100% renewable energy by 2022, and the city will transition by 2030. The city says it opposes the rollback of climate policy at the federal level and reaffirms its ongoing commitment to the goals of the Paris Agreement. In addition to the city’s commitment, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has joined the Sierra Club’s Mayors for 100% Clean Energy initiative, a growing coalition of nearly 200 mayors nationwide who have announced support for a goal of powering their communities with 100% renewable energy. “One effective way to make sure that energy remains affordable and that the transition to clean energy meets the needs of those most marginalized and historically impacted by pollution is persistent and intentional community engagement from a wide range of people,” says Frey. New York regulators green-light multiple initiatives to advance the state’s clean energy goals, while the governor doubles down on energy efficiency.
GREENTECH MEDIA -- Governor Andrew Cuomo announced new energy efficiency standards for New York on Friday, calling for investor-owned utilities to achieve annual efficiency savings equal to 3 percent of sales by 2025. The new target would accelerate energy efficiency by more than 40 percent over current forecasts and reduce energy consumption by 185 trillion Btu. The state also committed $36.5 million to train more than 19,500 New Yorkers for clean energy jobs. "Energy efficiency is the most cost-effective way for New Yorkers to lower utility bills, curb harmful emissions and battle climate change," said Governor Cuomo, in a statement. The energy efficiency plan should help the state achieve nearly one-third of its climate goal to reduce emissions by 40 percent by 2030. New York’s Public Service Commission also approved a series of measures last week as part of the state’s Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) initiative. Now in its fourth year, REV is a sweeping overhaul of utility and energy regulations meant to enable more distributed energy on the grid. One of the changes will allow distributed energy storage projects of up to 5 megawatts to connect to the grid, which the commission says will expand the integration of larger energy storage technologies. “New York is sending strong signals to the storage industry to come to invest in New York, and those signals are coming in [the form of many] different changes, and this is one of them,” said Anne Reynolds, executive director of the Alliance for Clean Energy New York. Regulators also improved upon the application and contract process for Standardized Interconnection Requirements, which should help developers connect distributed generation projects to the distribution system more efficiently. Another rule will make it easier for neighboring farms to form community distributed generation projects, including the use of anaerobic digesters to produce electricity. Previous rules required at least 10 farms to work together in order to start a project. “Now you can have just two or three or four farms get together and do distributed wind, or digesters orsolar” said Reynolds. “I think it’s going to be interesting to see if now you can have small farm cooperatives — two neighboring dairy farms having a solar project together.” Another measure approved last week will create a utility energy registry to give the public online access to customer-load data for the state’s major utilities. Starting in mid-2018, the project is intended to foster “increased awareness of energy use patterns” and promote conservation. Officials included a new privacy standard for data collected from apartment buildings as well. The commission also approved a request from New York State Electric and Gas to implement time-based rates for a smart energy community project in the Ithaca area. On a pilot basis, about 12,000 customers with advanced metering infrastructure will be charged at least 2.5 times more for energy consumed during peak hours. Regulators said the change should send “a clear price signal to customers…to manage their energy usage.” Earlier this month, Cuomo announced that up to $15 million would be available for projects that help advance and improve the resiliency of the electric grid, as part of an effort to lower energy costs and combat climate change. The state has already awarded $9.6 million through 22 contracts solicited in 2016 that focus on smart grid technologies. In January Cuomo unveiled a series of clean energy proposals, including a pledge to deploy 1,500 megawatts of energy storage by 2025 as the state works toward 50 percent renewable energy by 2030. The target came just a month after he signed a bill to create a storage deployment program. The 1,500-megawatt goal comes with $200 million in funding from NYSERDA's Green Bank and another $60 million from NYSERDA's Clean Energy Fund. But so far, REV hasn't produced final tariffs to compensate storage for the locational value it provides to the grid. Despite ongoing efforts to boost clean energy and efficiency in the state, many critics say New York should be doing more. More than 1,500 activists descended on the state capitol on Monday to blast Cuomo for not doing more to combat climate change. One of the protestors was actor and gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon, who announced a platform calling for 100 percent renewable energy last week. Reynolds says the enthusiasm of climate activists in New York has pushed Cuomo to move forward on clean energy initiatives in recent years. “There’s still a lot of work to be done in terms of implementation," she said. "But the goals are really strong, and this latest energy efficiency announcement was the missing piece in getting us toward those goals.”
Expect to see a lot more solar rooftops in Florida. Click here to see how much money you can save by going solar.
BLOOMBERG -- The Sunshine State is removing what solar installer Sunrun Inc. has seen as a roadblock to consumer panel leasing, an arrangement that drove a boom in rooftop power systems elsewhere in the U.S. A ruling by Florida regulators on Friday will allow Sunrun, the largest U.S. residential-solar company, to expand in the state, the company said. Utilities are the only entities that can legally sell electricity in Florida. Sunrun requested a clarification to that policy, and the Florida Public Service Commission ruled that the company’s 20-year solar-equipment leases don’t constitute a retail sale of electricity. The commission said Friday that Sunrun didn’t require its approval before starting to lease panels. Julie Brown, a member of the agency, went as far as to tell the company during a hearing that it didn’t need to seek action. But the company said that households in Florida were unable to lease solar until Friday’s decision. “The commission’s vote to grant our petition is a critical step toward broadening access to solar energy for Floridian households,” Anne Hoskins, chief policy officer for Sunrun, said in an emailed statement. Leases let consumers get rooftop panels with little or no upfront costs. Absent leasing, homeowners have to pay for the systems themselves or finance them -- a barrier that has helped utilities like NextEra Energy Inc.’s Florida Power & Light Co. fend off a wave of residential solar. NextEra declined to comment. While Florida doesn’t have clean-energy targets, it ranks third in the U.S. in terms of potential rooftop solar and 12th in installations, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. “Florida was already going to be a growth market,” Hugh Bromley, an analyst for Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said in an interview. “This could supercharge that.” Click here to see how much money you can save by going solar. MGM Resorts International plans to power its sizable share of the Strip with a dedicated solar array capable of supplying up to 90 percent of daytime demand at the company’s 13 Las Vegas casinos.
LAS VEGAS REVIEW JOURNAL -- MGM Resorts is partnering with Chicago-based renewable developer Invenergy on a new 100-megawatt photovoltaic array set to go online in 2020, about 25 miles northeast of Las Vegas. Invenergy is slated to start construction next year on 640 acres of federal land northwest of where U.S. Highway 93 splits from Interstate 15 near Apex Industrial Park. All of the electricity generated by the array will go to MGM Resorts under a 20-year agreement. The site is located within the Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone, one of five areas in Southern Nevada and 19 nationwide designated by President Barack Obama’s administration to fast track utility-scale solar development. Ortega said the array will consist of 336,000 solar panels capable of producing enough power for about 27,000 homes. The project is expected to employ about 350 people during construction and generate about $20 million in sales and property tax revenue, according to a joint statement from MGM Resorts and Invenergy. Ortega said such a project would not have been possible before MGM severed its relationship with NV Energy in 2016 and began buying its own electricity on the wholesale market. “A huge rationale for why we did that as so we could do this project,” she said. The gaming giant had to pay an exit fee of $86.9 million to leave NV Energy, which counted on MGM Resorts for nearly 5 percent of its energy sales. Wynn Resorts Ltd. also withdrew as a retail customer of the utility in 2016, after paying a $15.7 million exit fee. In January, Wynn Resorts announced it had partnered with Enel Green Power North America on a 20 MW solar array near Fallon, 375 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The project is under construction and scheduled to go online this summer. All of its power will be sent through existing transmission lines directly to Wynn Resorts, where it eventually will provide all of the electricity needed for the company’s $1.5 billion Paradise Park development. MGM Resorts started the growing solar arms race on the Strip when it built an array atop the Mandalay Bay convention center in 2014 and expanded it to 20 acres of roof and 8.3 MW of output in 2016. It still ranks as nation’s largest contiguous rooftop solar project, according to the company. Once the Invenergy project goes on line, Ortega said, 30 percent of MGM Resort’s power in Southern Nevada will come from clean, renewable sources. “That means no carbon emissions,” she said. The company hopes to increase that amount to 50 percent in the coming years with the help of advancing battery technology that will enable the storage of solar power for nighttime use. “Protecting the planet is a business imperative for MGM Resorts, and it is our responsibility to find innovative ways where we can use clean energy to power our resorts,” Chairman and CEO Jim Murren said in a written statement. “Incorporating renewable energy into MGM’s portfolio will fundamentally reduce MGM’s environmental footprint.” |
James Ramos,BPII'm your go to solar energy expert here to guide you step-by-step through all of your solar options. Categories |
James The Solar Energy Expert