The island of Curacao began a solar net metering program that has inspired close to 800 residential and commercial installations, operating at a cost of 10% less than the fossil fuel generation they replaced, according to a new report by Ronald Lieuw-Sjong at Next Step Consulting, based in Curaçao.
The cumulative value of residential solar installations for utilities is comprised of two different parts: the generation of electricity to the grid, and the avoided cost of building new generation. While the former is fairly straightforward and owners are compensated through net metering or other rate schemes, the latter is difficult to assess and thus far homeowners have received little compensation.
In the United States, the falling cost of renewable energy means the economic case for investing in renewables is stronger than ever before. Across the country, from South Carolina to Nevada, states are taking new measures to harness wind and solar power. Since January, more than 10 state legislatures have enacted policies that encourage new renewable energy development.
It was the 12th of April. I had waited exactly 3 years and 12 days. That morning, like many before it, I checked the Danish locale of the Tesla Model 3 configurator and there it was: the Standard Range Plus ready to order.
For the last forty-odd years, the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, has been a mainstay of the conservative movement and major force in shaping state laws. The organization brings together state lawmakers and corporate leaders to draft business-friendly policies that are then ferried to statehouses around the country.
West Virginia has called for a time-out in its four-year effort to rewrite solar net metering rules to the detriment of both solar hosts and solar installers, thanks to a massive campaign by Solar United Neighbors that mustered over 1,000 public comments.
California’s small solar owners pay for the transmission of electricity they don’t use, but relief is on the way.
Green Mountain Power in Vermont says its virtual power plant system that involves up to 2,000 Tesla Powerwall residential batteries, saved it $500,000 during a recent heat wave.
Against complaints of their dismantling efficiency programs, a laudable accomplishment for Florida Power and Light Company (FPL) is their recent plans to greatly increase renewable energy generation. It is true that utility scale solar remains lower cost than rooftop solar for generation when both investments are unsubsidized. Also, it can be seen in the latest third party evaluation of the cost effectiveness of various generation resources that utility scale solar is now cost competitive with natural gas combined cycle generation even though solar will have to be part of a diversified collection of resources to meet 24 hour needs, according to this Lazard analysis1.
Bitcoin is very interesting for cleantech for two reasons. One is obvious: the primary currency sucks a lot of electricity, and more electricity demand is good for investment in renewable generation. Of course, a lot of the electricity still comes from carbon-rich fossil fuels too. The second is the underlying technology, blockchain, which has a number of interesting uses emerging in the cleantech space.
