Solar Power Grows 400 Percent in Only 4 Years

[FarCenter]

Driven by an explosion in photovoltaics, the U.S. solar sector has emerged "from a relatively small contributor to the nation's total electric capacity into a one of comparative significance," the Energy Information Administration reported this week in its latest Electricity Monthly Update.

Since 2010, EIA said, U.S. solar capacity increased 418 percent from 2,326 megawatts, accounting for 0.2 percent of total U.S. electric generation, to today's 12,057 MW, or 1.13 percent of U.S. generation.

More than half of that additional capacity — 5,251 MW -- has been installed by home and business owners participating in utility net metering programs that allow owners of solar systems to sell excess capacity back to their local utility at retail rates, according to EIA.

California has the largest net metered solar capacity, with 38 percent of the U.S. total, but Eastern states such as Massachusetts and New Jersey also have significant amounts of net metered solar energy, the agency said.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/solar-power-grows-400-percent-in-only-4-years/

[ladjf]

1. How much longer will the fossil fuel interests continue to try to

inhibit the utilization of solar and wind electrical power generation?

[Prophet 451]

2. Much longer yet

They're going to fight tooth and nail to footdrag as long as possible.

[eShirl]

4. as long as their money lasts

[badtoworse]

7. Inhibit? Shell and BP have already invested in wind.

Most of the utilty scale wind and solar capacity is owned by large energy companies or financial interests. If there is money to be made, they're on it. Where do you think the money to build this stuff comes from?

Rooftop solar is the exception.

[ladjf]

10. This statement by BP doesn't sound like they are promoting solar or wind. Best check current news.

"BP gave “Beyond Petroleum” a try, but it didn’t quite work out. The oil giant has officially ditched solar energy.
BP CEO Bob Dudley made it plain and simple: “Not that solar energy isn’t a viable energy source, but we worked at it for 35 years, and we really never made money,” he said this week at an energy conference.

"They have no good reason to do really well in solar energy, because if they did well they would put themselves out of business."
"
http://news.yahoo.com/bp-breaks-solar-energy-not-us-002943378.html
Regarding BP' lack of support of wind energy:
BP Plc (BP/), attempting to recover from an oil spill that may cost it $42 billion, said it will sell shares in wind assets worth as much as $3.1 billion in the U.S. in another step to focus on its main oil and gas business.

BP plans to dispose of interests in 16 operating wind farms in nine states with a total capacity of about 2,600 megawatts, Mark Salt, a London-based spokesman for BP, said in an e-mailed statement. The company will also sell projects in various stages of development including 2,000 megawatts of wind poised to start construction, he said.


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-03/bp-to-sell-u-s-wind-buiness-in-retreat-to-fossil-fuels.html

[badtoworse]

12. BP has interests in about 2,600 MW of wind in their portfolio

http://www.bp.com/en/global/alternative-energy/our-businesses/wind-power.html

I have heard they are looking to sell it though. Your information is current - may be an opportunity to buy some good assets.

ETA: The decision to sell is likely very complicated. There are probably tax benefits involved that they have fully utilized, so the decision to sell may be partially driven by that. As for the development protfolio, the returns for wind projects have been really driven down to low levels, so they can likely make more money elsewhere. Their development projects may be questionable from a PTC standpoint, as well.

I look at potential wind projects all the time and it's hard to find a good one with returns north of 10% - that level is probably not interesting to BP.

[DirkGently]

14. Looks like they're upping their efforts to stuff solar.

"In the latest attempt to rollback pro-clean energy policies, fossil fuel and utility interests operating through ALEC are proposing new model legislation to slow the rise of the clean energy industry by weakening net metering policies," says Energy & Policy Institute.

At December's "States and Nation Policy Summit", ALEC members will vote on new model legislation, "Updating Net Metering Policies Resolution." If it passes, it will be sent to ALEC's 2,000 members who are state legislators for them to introduce in their states.

https://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/25357

[RobertEarl]

3. The Chinese are cranking out the units

It took free-enterprise to begin mass manufacturing.

[DirkGently]

5. And fossil fuel utilities are going to war against it.

They could be part of it. They could invest in it. But instead, they are working on a conceit that solar power users are "mooching" by utilizing the grid we all subsidized and paid for.

It's not even just greed anymore. It's just a small-minded, mean-spirited determination to prevent anything from changing for the better.

[badtoworse]

6. Net metered solar will have to pay to be connected to the grid.

That is inevitable if it keeps growing at the current rate. There are fixed costs to maintaining the electrical infrastructure that net metered solar relies on. As more customers go solar, the non-solar customers have to pay a larger percentage of the fixed costs which is not fair. The utility will get rate recovery for those costs, so they are really indifferent. The pressure to charge solar for grid interconnection will come from public advocates when the utility files for a rate case. The Public Service Commisions will see the unfairness to non-solar customers and act accordingly.

The bottom line is if you don't want to pay for the grid, you should disconnect from it.

[DirkGently]

9. No. We don't have to CHARGE people for having solar.

When they use grid power, they pay for it already. They don't need an extra surcharge to make up for lost utility profits.

That's the big bag of baloney the utilities are selling. They could adjust the rate at which people can sell the excess back to the utility, but no one's a "moocher" for using the grid. Utilities are protected and subsidized and legislated up the ying yang.

As far as disconnecting, that's not always even legal.

The load of crap the Koch entities are selling that solar power users are somehow taking unfair advantage is just a rationale for protecting utility company profits. If they're so worried, they ought to get out of coal and get into the solar business, instead of trying to legislate improvement out of existence.

[badtoworse]

11. You don't get it. Utility profits aren't being impacted.

Utilities earn a regulated rate of return on the infrastructure that is set by the Public Service Commission ("PSC&quot . They'll get those returns one way or another. The issue is where the money comes from. As more and more people go solar, there are fewer people left paying to maintain the infrastructure that is needed to provide reliable service to everyone, solar included. The cost of maintaining a reliable grid don't go down when people install solar on their roof tops, so in effect, the non-solar customers wind up paying the full cost for the reliability that everyone needs and uses. If there only a few net metered solar accounts, the effect is negligible, but as more and more solar systems come online, the non-solar customers, at some point, will be impacted to the level where the PSC will act to correct the inequity. If you think that's unfair, tell me why?

Trust me, the Koch entities aren't being impacted by net-metered solar unless they're making money installing it.

[DirkGently]

13. Yes, we've heard the industry argument. It's ALEC bullshit.

There's no evidence the poor utility companies, with their community-permitted monopolies, are unable to collect enough revenue to maintain infrastructure due to grid-tied solar. This is something they are saying in order to dis-incentivize the growth of rooftop solar, which will eventually reduce the demand for coal, etc. It sounds vaguely logical out of context, but no factual support is offered for this proposition, and of course all the other cost benefits of rooftop solar are completely discounted.

It's a dishonest rationale.

For example, what about the infrastructure savings due to people producing part of the power they use? Enough of those, and you're going to need fewer substations, or even fewer power plants.

What about the reduced cost of transmission when power is generated closest to the source of use?

And what about the fact that we need as much incentive for additional solar power as possible? The goal is not to keep utility companies in exactly the same posture they have always been in. That is just not going to be possible, unless they want to jump in and invest.

Net metering of rooftop solar creates value for society and the utility. Every dollar invested by Arizona Public Service (APS), the state’s dominant utility, in its net metering program will earn it $1.54, according to a new cost-benefit analysis of Arizona solar.

Ancillary Services and Capacity Reserves: Distributed solar reduces the APS peak load. Utilities are required to maintain operating reserves of 7 percent and capacity reserves of 15 percent. For each kilowatt cut from peak demand, the cost of maintaining reserves is reduced.

Transmission: Distributed solar defers the cost of new and renovated transmission infrastructure. “Escalating these avoided transmission and sub-transmission costs to 2014 and using the current APS carrying charge of 11.05 percent for transmission yields a levelized avoided transmission cost of $65.14 per kilowatt-year.”

Distribution: Distributed solar can also cut the costs of building and maintaining the distribution system. The Beck study valued the reductions at “$115,000 per megawatt of distributed generation.”

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/The-True-Value-of-Arizona-Solar-By-the-Numbers

And yes, the Kochs care. Reduced use of fossil fuels threatens coal. They care about coal. A lot. Obviously it's not just them. Punishing net-metering is ALEC's newest pet legislation.

The battle in Arizona between solar users and the public utility APS and a mysterious, multi-million-dollar ad-producing group called "60-plus," is instructive:

Early on, APS said with a straight face that they were not funding or running the TV ads, pointing out that they were produced by a nonprofit organization called 60 Plus. But reporters kept digging and eventually APS came clean, even though their spokesperson said they "had no intention of telling a lie to anybody." But that's what you fucking did!

And just who is 60 Plus? Turns out, says Mother Jones, in addition to APS funding they're another not-so-transparent shell for the Koch brothers to funnel money to.

The 60 Plus Association, a Virginia-based nonprofit, has received money from the Koch brothers' donor network.... What's more, APS told the [Arizona] Republic that it had given that money through Sean Noble, a political consultant described in a recent Huffington Post story as "the wizard behind the screen" for the Koch donor network's activities in 2012.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/14/1255524/-Koch-ALEC-giant-utility-company-about-to-derail-Arizona-s-solar-industry#

In the latest attempt to rollback pro-clean energy policies, fossil fuel and utility interests operating through the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) are proposing new model legislation to slow the rise of the clean energy industry by weakening net metering policies. ALEC released the new model language on their website prior to the group's "States and Nation Policy Summit" scheduled for early December. If passed, the "Updating Net Metering Policies Resolution" would be sent to nearly 2,000 state legislator members of ALEC around the country.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gabe-elsner/the-campaign-against-net-_b_4297678.html

[badtoworse]

15. See link. This is exactly what I was talking about

http://www.aps.com/en/ourcompany/news/latestnews/Pages/arizona-corporation-commission-sets-new-direction-for-net-metering-policy.aspx

BTW, Arizona Public Service recently (end of 2013) increased their coal-fired capacity by purchasing Southern California Edison's share of Four Corners Units 4 and 5. They retired Units 1, 2 and 3, but on a net basis, their coal fired capacity increased by 179 MW.

http://www.power-eng.com/articles/2013/12/aps-purchases-four-corners-power-plant.html

APS plans to operate Four Corners 4 & 5 for many years.

[AverageJoe90]

8. The climate deniers are running scared.....and the doomers are having to eat LOTS of crow.

Beautiful! Thanks for sharing this, FarCenter.

[ProSense]

16. U.S. Solar Capacity Grew 418 Percent In The Last Four Years

U.S. Solar Capacity Grew 418 Percent In The Last Four Years

By Kiley Kroh

Solar energy is booming across the U.S., with capacity up an astounding 418 percent in the last four years alone, according to data released this week by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Residential and commercial rooftop solar, along with other forms of photovoltaic (PV), have grown steadily over the past four years, specifically those that are net-metered. When customers install their own solar panels in states with a net metering policy, they are compensated for the excess electricity they send back to the grid. According to the EIA, these net metered applications have increased every year by approximately 1,100 MW since 2010. California currently has the largest net metered solar capacity with 38 percent of the nation’s total. Not far behind are New Jersey and Massachusetts, which together represent 21 percent of the total capacity in the U.S.



Net metering has been at the center of several recent battles between the solar industry, consumers and utilities across the U.S. As rooftop solar in particular booms, utility companies are growing increasingly concerned about the threat it poses to their bottom line. As more customers install solar panels, utilities will sell fewer units of energy and argue they’ll have to charge more in order to cover the cost of maintenance and labor. But distributed energy sources like rooftop solar also provide a benefit to utilities by generating during peak hours, when a utility has to provide electricity to more people than at other times during the day and energy costs are at their highest. Solar panels feed excess energy back to the grid, helping to alleviate the pressure during peak demand. In addition, because less electricity is being transmitted to customers through transmission lines, it saves utilities on the wear and tear to the lines and cost of replacing them with new ones.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the shadowy conservative group funded by fossil fuel corporations and petrochemical billionaires Charles and David Koch, has set its sights on weakening net metering laws across the country. Net metering survived attacks in Colorado and Kansas and Vermont increased its policy in a bipartisan effort. Last year, Arizona added what amounts to a $5 per month surcharge for solar customers, a move that was widely seen as a compromise, particularly after ALEC and other Koch-backed groups got involved.

- more -

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/04/24/3430258/us-solar-capacity-418-percent/

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024866858