Solar-Powered Noise Barriers Quiet Traffic While Generating Electricity

Cole Mellino  ::  EcoWatch  ::  3 August 2015 

From the country that brought you the solar road comes solar noise barriers. Highway noise barriers are usually not very aesthetically pleasing and only serve one purpose—to quiet traffic for the surrounding community. But a researcher in the Netherlands, Michael Debije at the Eindhoven University of Technology, is trying to change all that.

Since April, Debije has launched two pilot projects along the A2 highway in the Netherlands to test a new kind of solar panel he has developed. Using an innovative technology known as luminescent solar concentrators (LSC), the translucent sheets “bounce light internally to the edges of the panels, where it is beamed onto regular solar panels in concentrated form,” saysFast Coexist. The year-long pilot project will help determine how well the barriers hold up in terms of power generation capabilities and with vandal-resistance and maintenance requirements.

Because the barriers are so aesthetically pleasing and translucent, they could be used in urban areas to reduce noise pollution. Photo credit: Eindhoven University of Technology

The panels are ideal for the gray skies of Northern Europe because they work even on cloudy days. A single half-mile stretch can provide enough electricity to power 50 homes.

“The LSC panels can be made in different colors, so the result is something like an oversized stained-glass window,” says Fast Coexist. “Because light can shine through them, they could be used in urban areas, shielding noise without making either pedestrians or motorists feel cut off.”

Debije says thanks to recent breakthroughs with LSC panels, they are now a commercially viable product. Photo credit: Eindhoven University of Technology

Debije and his team published a paper in Nature this spring that shows how they have overcome previous problems with LSC panels, and the team now claims they are commercially viable, according to Tech Times. “Further benefits are that the principle used is low cost, they can be produced in any desired, regular color, is robust, and the LSCs will even work when the sky is cloudy,” Debije told Tech Times. “That means it offers tremendous potential.”

And the Cheapest Electricity in America Is … Solar

John Rogers, Union of Concerned Scientists  ::  EcoWatch  ::  15 July 2015

A Nevada utility and a solar developer have just struck a deal for solar electricity at a price that stands out compared not just to other solar deals, but also to just about any other option for new electricity. Here’s what it and other recent deals say about the future of solar.

Costs for large-scale solar projects dropped by 7 percent last year,
and are down by way more than half since 2009.
Photo credit: John Rogers

Bloomberg’s story on the Nevada deal opens with this (emphasis added):

Warren Buffet’s Nevada utility has lined up what may be the cheapest electricity in the           U.S., and it’s from a solar farm.

“Cheapest” and “solar” aren’t words some folks might expect to see together in something coming out of a financial outfit like Bloomberg. But folks who have been paying attention to solar’s incredible recent price drops in recent years know that the times they are a-changin’.

Best deal in town NV Energy, part of Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway company, is buying output from a project being developed by solar photovoltaic (PV) manufacturer First Solar at a price of 3.87 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh). That’s probably a lower price than you’d get from just about any other source out there, except for wind or energy efficiency.

Utility leaders need to keep signing the contracts that keep getting us to
ever-greater scales and ever-lower prices on solar.
Photo credit: Sarah Swenty/USFWS

No doubt about it: this power purchase agreement (PPA) is a deal. A utility analyst at Bloomberg says it’s “probably the cheapest PPA I’ve ever seen in the U.S.” Note the lack of qualifiers: no “solar,” no “renewable energy.” Just “cheapest.”

And it’s clear that this deal, for 100 megawatts (enough for more than 15,000 households’ worth of electricity), isn’t a one-off. It’s part of a suite of recent deals that testify to how far solar prices have dropped:

• Another 100-megawatt NV Energy agreement in the same utility proposal, involving a project developed by PV manufacturer SunPower, came in at 4.6 cents/kWh.

• Just a week earlier, Austin Energy signed a deal for solar at under 4 cents/kWh.

On the solar resource issue, you can remind the naysayers that solar is actually much more widespread than they might think. Some might dismiss these deals by pointing to the sunniness of the states in question or the incentives (federal or state) that are buying down the cost. Don’t let ‘em.

On incentives, you can invite them to do the math on what it would cost even without the federal tax credit, for example (still under 6 cents for the lowest-cost ones). And have them look to see what solar is achieving elsewhere—5.85 cents/kWh in Dubai, for example. Or just get them to do the math on what fossil fuels like coal really cost.

Keep making it happen

And, while the sun might not be getting brighter, the future of solar certainly is. Costs for large-scale solar projects dropped by 7 percent last year, and are down by way more than half since 2009.

Even more importantly, maybe, is the fact that a big chunk of cost reductions depend not on dropping the costs of solar panels (which are way down already), but on building up local capacity to install (or approve) such systems. That build-up comes only with experience and installations. That price trajectory could lead some to think about waiting till prices come down even more, but that would be a mistake. Solar may keep getting better, but it’s a good deal now, and even more drops in costs aren’t guaranteed. (Neither is the future of the very successful federal tax credit.)

Photo credit: UCS, Solar Power on the Rise

We also need utility leaders to keep signing the contracts that keep getting us to ever-greater scales and ever-lower prices. These contracts are a driving force for the fierce competition in the solar industry.

So go forth—sign, build, thrive. And then repeat, repeat, repeat.

Elon Musk: Tesla Battery Will ‘Fundamentally Change the Way the World Uses Energy’

Cole Mellino   ::  EcoWatch  ::  1 May 2015

 Renewable energy sources like solar and wind have always been limited by their intermittency, but now Tesla CEO Elon Musk has unveiled a suite of batteries to store electricity for homes, businesses and utilities, saying a greener grid furthers the company’s mission to provide pollution-free energy, reports Bloomberg.

“We’ve obviously been working on building a world-class battery, a super-efficient and affordable way to store energy,” Khobi Brooklyn, a Tesla spokeswoman, told The New York Times. “It’s just that we’ve been putting that battery in cars most of the time.”

The Tesla P85D just won the 2015 AAA Best Green Car Award, marking the second year in a row an all electric Tesla Model S has taken top honors from AAA. But Tesla has been disrupting more than just the auto industry for a while now. In February, Musk announced a partnership with SolarCity to use rooftop solar panels fitted with Tesla’s batteries to allow customers to keep that energy in-house. It’s all part of Tesla’s plans to revolutionize the energy grid.

“Our goal here is to fundamentally change the way the world uses energy,” Musk told Bloomberg. “We’re talking at the terawatt scale. The goal is complete transformation of the entire energy infrastructure of the world.”

Tesla’s home battery, the “Powerwall,” is a rechargeable lithium-ion battery that mounts on the wall and comes in 7 kilowatt-hour or 10 kilowatt-hour versions, the company said in a statement. A larger product, the “Powerpack,” can store more energy to power businesses. Deliveries will begin in late summer at prices starting at $3,000.

“Our goal here is to fundamentally change the way the world uses energy,” says Elon Musk.

Battery storage for renewable power is finally coming of age. “The battery is designed to enable so-called ‘load-shifting’ by charging during times when electricity prices are lower due to less demand, and discharging when demand and prices are high,” says Bloomberg. It can also store solar power generated during daytime and release it at night, and serve as backup during outages, Tesla says.

Tesla hopes that its $5 billion “gigafactory” under construction near Reno, Nevada will drive down the cost of the batteries for both cars and energy-storage products through mass production. More such factories will be needed to help make the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, Musk said.

Tesla’s batteries are already being used by companies such as Wal-Mart, Cargill and Jackson Family Wines, and Green Mountain Power plans to sell its home batteries to customers. Tesla has also partnered with Southern California Edison to install batteries for utilities, while Amazon and Target will pilot the batteries.

Tim Cook: New Solar Farm Will Be Apple’s ‘Biggest, Boldest and Most Ambitious Project Ever’

Anastasia Pantsios   ::  EcoWatch  ::  11 February 2015 

Apple CEO Tim Cook announced yesterday that the company will partner with First Solar to build 1,300-acre, 280-megawatt solar energy farm in Monterey, California.

Apple already has three solar farms including this one in North Carolina. Photo credit: Apple

“We know at Apple that climate change is real, and our view is that the time for talk has passed and the time for action is now,” Cook told the audience at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco as he announced what he called Apple’s “biggest, boldest and most ambitious project ever.”

He said the new development, which First Solar will build with a $850 million investment from Apple and their commitment to purchase the power generated, will generate enough electricity to power the equivalent of 60,000 homes. It will be able to provide renewable energy for Apple’s new campus in Silicon Valley, all of its other California offices, all 52 of its retail stores in California and its data center in Newark. The work will begin in a few months and the farm should be operational in 2016.

“Apple is leading the way in addressing climate change by showing how large companies can serve their operations with 100 percent clean, renewable energy,” said Joe Kishkill, First Solar’s chief commercial officer. “Apple’s commitment was instrumental in making this project possible and will significantly increase the supply of solar power in California. Over time, the renewable energy from California Flats will provide cost savings over alternative sources of energy as well as substantially lower environmental impact.”

It’s not Apple’s first foray into solar, although it is one of its most ambitious. The company already has two solar farms in North Carolina and another in Nevada. Apple also has investments in wind, hydropower and fuel cells. Cook said in yesterday’s conference presentation that all of Apple’s data centers already run on renewable energy and that the new headquarters it’s building will be state-of-the-art green.

He assured the audience of investors that Apple’s large investment in solar isn’t just some feel-good move but also good for business.

“I know this is a financial conference and some of you are interested in, is that a good use of funds or not,” he said. “Quite frankly we’re doing this because it’s right to do, but you may also be interested to know that it’s good financially to do it. We expect to have a very significant savings because we have a fixed price for the renewable energy, and there’s quite a difference between that price and the price of brown energy. So we’re thrilled to continue on this course of doing things that leave the world better than we found it.”

Last May, Greenpeace issued a report called Clicking Clean: How Companies Are Creating the Green Internet, rating 19 Internet companies and naming Apple a “green leader” for its commitment to renewable energy.

“It’s one thing to talk about being 100 percent renewably powered, but it’s quite another thing to make good on that commitment with the incredible speed and integrity that Apple has shown in the past two years,” said Greenpeace senior IT sector analyst Gary Cook in response to Tim Cook’s announcement.

“Apple still has work to do to reduce its environmental footprint, but other Fortune 500 CEOs would be well served to make a study of Tim Cook, whose actions show that he intends to take Apple full-speed ahead toward renewable energy with the urgency that our climate crisis demands.”

Revolutionary Family Shows True Meaning of Self-Reliance

Cole Mellino  ::  EcoWatch  ::  23 January 2015 

Think you can’t grow much food in an urban area? Think again. One family’s 4,000 square foot farm in Pasadena, California “not only feeds a family but revolutionizes the idea of what can be done in a very unlikely place—the middle of a city.” KCET reporter Val Zavala gives us a glimpse into the Dervaes family’s Path to Freedom Urban Homestead. “I brought the country to the city rather than having to go out to the country,” said Jules Dervaes, who created the farm with his three adult children, Justin, Anais and Jordanne.

This urban homestead produces 6,000 pounds of food a year.

They grow almost all of the food they need. Ninety percent of their all-organic, vegetarian dietcomes from their garden. The operation involves 400 varieties of vegetables, fruits and edible flowers, which is 6,000 pounds of food a year. They raise eight chickens, four ducks and two goats, which provide them with eggs and milk. Chefs from high-end restaurants come directly to their house to buy their excess.

When asked if he had any doubts in the beginning, Jules admits he did. “I kept thinking this place was too small. There’s no way that we are going to be able to feed ourselves, plus I never thought we’d be able to grow the vegetables for the market,” he said. Dervaes decided to embark on this endeavor because he was concerned about what was in his and his children’s food. He wanted them to eat organic, GMO-free food, and he knew the best way to ensure that was to grow it himself.

The Dervaes’ say they love their homesteading lifestyle and couldn’t imagine it any other way.

The family has a solar panel on the roof that provides all of their electricity. Not that they use much. Most of their “gizmos,” says Anais, “are hand-powered” like their hand-crank smoothie maker. That puts their electricity bill at about $12 per month. Their car runs on biodiesel, which they make from vegetable waste that restaurants drop off at their house for free. These people have all the hook ups.

But it’s not all sunshine and flowers (though they have plenty of both). The Dervaes’ work very hard, make roughly $20,000 a year and have to deal with weather-related disasters, pests, disease and now climate change. Justin said, “we’ve been gardening so long that you can sense things are off. We have this little bug, the Junebug, that comes out in June, but now it doesn’t come out until July, August and September—so something is off.” Water is also a serious issue. With the drought in California, Jules has relied on clay pot irrigation, an ancient form of irrigation, to conserve water.

All that hard work is well worth it when the family sits down to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

By growing all of their food themselves, except staples such as wheat, rice and oats, they are able to eat fresh and delicious, organic food for $2 a day per person. They have attracted a lot of attention since they began homesteading in the mid 1980s. Many homesteaders have emulated their model. They offer workshops and events on their farm, and they even have a blog. They are proof of the bounty you can grow on one-tenth of an acre.

Watch here as KCET’s Zavala reports on this revolutionary family:

Solar Is Creating Jobs Nearly 20 Times Faster Than Overall U.S. Economy

Anastasia Pantsios  ::  EcoWatch  ::  15 January 2015 

All those senators currently debating in Washington D.C., calling the Keystone XL pipeline approval bill an urgent “jobs creation bill,” are looking for jobs in all the wrong places.

Solar installation alone added more jobs in 2014 than both the oil and natural gas sectors—jobs that can’t be outsourced. Photo credit: The Solar Project

They should be perusing the National Solar Jobs Census 2014, the fifth annual such report compiled by the nonprofit Solar Foundation. What they’d find there puts the pipeline project to shame. Despite attacks on clean, renewable energy around the country, creating uncertainty in the sector,  job creation grew dramatically. It outperformed the slowly improving U.S. economy, creating jobs at nearly 20 times the rate of the overall economy.

Last year, jobs in solar increased by 21.8 percent, adding up to 31,000 new jobs in 2014 and bringing the total number of solar-related jobs in the U.S. to 173,800. That’s an increase of 86 percent since 2010. The vast majority—approximately 157,500— work 100 percent on solar activities.

“The solar industry has once again proven to be a powerful engine of economic growth and job creation,” said The Solar Foundation’s president and executive director Andrea Luecke. “Our Census findings show that one out of every 78 new jobs created in the U.S. over the past 12 months was created by the solar industry—nearly 1.3 percent of all jobs. It also shows for the fifth consecutive year, the solar industry is attracting highly skilled, well-paid professionals. That growth is putting people back to work and strengthening our nation’s economy.”

And despite attacks in states like Ohio, which froze its renewable energy standards last June and is talking about permanently eliminating them, The Solar Foundation projects that growth will continue. Its employer survey, which collected data from more than 7,600 U.S. businesses, found that the next year solar is likely to see a similar increase of almost 21 percent, bringing the total number of workers in the industry to 210,060.

“Demand for clean renewable power is growing,” said Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor and Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. “Solar exists at the critical intersection between energy, the economy and the environment. As the nation’s fastest growing energy source, solar is adding thousands of new jobs each year. Its growth will almost surely continue to be robust in coming years.”

The survey also found that installation remains the largest source of domestic solar employment growth, more than doubling since 2010 and that those workers are more and more diverse, with more African-Americans, Hispanics, women and veterans than in the 2013 report. Solar installation jobs have already blown past employment in the shrinking coalindustry, which is now down to only 93,185 jobs. And while the oil and gas pipeline construction and extraction added 19,217 jobs in 2014, the solar installation sector created almost 50 percent more jobs.

Those jobs are that can’t be outsourced, won’t disappear in two years like the Keystone XL construction jobs and don’t come with negative health impacts or harmful impacts on the environment.

“The tremendous growth in the solar industry last year is further evidence that we can clean our air and cut climate pollution while also growing the economy,” said former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “The more data we have about the renewable energy industry, the better positioned policymakers and investors will be to make informed decisions. The Solar Jobs Census has the potential to help make that possible.”

And with jobs in the wind sector increasing  rapidly as well, supporting fossil fuel industries at the expense of renewables seems like bad economic as well as bad environmental policy.

“Americans want greater clean energy deployment, and conventional electricity generation is among the largest sources of air and water pollution in the U.S.,” said Lyndon Rive, CEO of Solar City, the largest solar employer in the U.S. “As the Census underscores, solar is providing a tremendous boost to our economy while meeting public demand for choice, competition and cleaner, more affordable energy.”

Nukes Fade As Wind and Solar Soar

Paul Brown  ::  Climate News Network  ::  30 December 2014

With nuclear power falling ever further behind renewables as a global energy source, and as the price of oil and gas falls, the future of the industry in 2015 and beyond looks bleak. 

Investors are increasingly skeptical about putting their money into nuclear—whereas renewables
promise an increasingly rapid return on investment, and may get a further boost if the governments of the world finally take climate change seriously.

Renewables now supply 22 percent of global electricity and nuclear only 11 percent—a share that is gradually falling as old plants close and fewer new ones are commissioned.

New large-scale installations of wind and solar power arrays continue to surge across the world. Countries without full grids and power outages, such as India, increasingly find that wind and solar are quick and easy ways to bring electricity to people who have previously had no supply.

Developed countries, meanwhile, faced with reducing carbon dioxide emissions, find that the cost of both these renewable technologies is coming down substantially. Subsidies for wind and solar are being reduced and, in some cases, will disappear altogether in the next 10 years.

Speed of installation

The other advantage that renewables have is speed of installation. Solar panels, once manufactured, can be installed on a rooftop and be in operation in a single day. Wind turbines can be put up in a week.

Nuclear power, on the other hand, continues to get more expensive. In China and Russia, costs are not transparent, and even in democracies they hard to pin down. But it is clear that they are rising dramatically.

Building of the proposed twin European Pressurised Water reactors, called Hinkley Point C, in Britain’s West Country is due to start in 2015, but the price has risen several times already. Estimated construction costs have now jumped from £16 billion to £24 billion—before the first concrete has even been poured.

The other problem with nuclear is the time frame. Originally, Hinkley Point C was due to be completed by 2018. This has now slipped to 2024, but even this is optimistic judging by the performance of the two prototypes in Finland and France, both of which are late and over budget.

The Finnish plant was due to open in 2009, but is still at least three years from commissioning. The French plant is five years overdue.

In many countries, there are plans on paper for new nuclear stations, and China, South Korea and India are among those that are continuing to build them. Other countries, particularly where private capital is needed to finance them, are putting their plans on hold.

A solar power project developed on a 750-metre stretch of canal by Gujarat State
Electricity Corporation in India. Photo credit: Hitesh vip via Wikimedia Commons

Extend life

The U.S., which still has the largest number of reactors of any country in the world, is opting instead to extend the life of its plants. Many operators are considering applying for such extensions from 60 to 80 years. Provided they are up to modern safety standards, there seems no barrier to this.

Many other countries, including the UK, are extending the lives of their plants as long as possible, so the industry won’t be disappearing any time soon.

But one of the key problems for the nuclear sector is that reactors have been designed to be at full power all of the time. With renewables taking an increasing share of the market, a combination of nuclear, wind and solar can produce more electricity than required—leaving a problem of what to turn off.

A way round this problem being developed in Britain is large, strategically-based batteries. A five-megawatt battery, the largest in Europe, has just been commissioned in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, in the middle of England.

This is charged up when there is too much power in the grid, and releases its energy when there is a surge in demand. 

If, during a two-year trial, this works to smooth the peaks and troughs of demand, and cuts the costs of switching on expensive gas turbines, then a network of batteries will be installed across the country to harvest the intermittent supplies of renewables.

The only bright spot for nuclear at the moment is the development of small nuclear reactors. These are from 30 megawatts upwards and are designed to be built in a factory and assembled on site—a bit like wind turbines are.

These can be installed singly or in a series, depending on the demand. Their two greatest selling points are that they would be good in remote locations far from other power sources, and are said to be much safer than their larger cousins.

Price tag

However, a drawback is the price tag of around $3 billion dollars. Both the U.S. and UK are supporting private firms in research and development, but commercial operation is a long way off.

Whether a small nuclear power station would be any more welcomed than a wind or solar farm to provide power in a neighbourhood is a question still to be tested.

Nuclear enthusiasts—and there are still many in the political and scientific world—continue to work on fast breeder reactors, fusion and thorium reactors, heavily supported by governments who still believe that one day the technology will be the source of cheap and unlimited power. But, so far, that remains a distant dream.

In the meantime, investors are increasingly sceptical about putting their money into nuclear—whereas renewables promise an increasingly rapid return on investment, and may get a further boost if the governments of the world finally take climate change seriously.

Richard Branson and Amory Lovins Join Forces to Accelerate Clean Energy Revolution

Richard Branson and Amory Lovins  ::  EcoWatch  ::  17 December 2014

The world’s three biggest carbon emitters—the U.S., China, and the European Union—have allannounced emissions goals or limits in the past few months. That’s great news, but global fossil fuel demand continues to rise, and with it, so do climate change’s risks—to the economy, to the environment, to security, to human health and to people living in poverty in areas whereclimate change will have a devastating impact. The most recent IPCC report (AR5) found that “warming of the climate system is unequivocal,” “human influence on the climate system is clear,” and “limiting climate change will require substantial and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.”

Combating climate change through energy efficiency, renewable energy technologies, clean transportation, and smarter land use can reap great rewards both economically and environmentally. Photo credit: Shutterstock

The 2014 report Risky Business: The Economic Risks of Climate Change in the United Statesdetailed the serious economic harm we can expect from climate change if we continue on our current path. But the challenge before us is about more than averting the worst economic impacts of climate change. As highlighted in the recently released Better Growth, Better Climate report from The New Climate Economy, it’s also about finding enormous economic opportunity in clean energy solutions that both tackle global warming and unlock growth opportunities for all.

The transformation to a low-carbon future is arguably the greatest business opportunity of our time. Combating climate change through energy efficiency, renewable energy technologies, clean transportation, and smarter land use can reap great rewards both economically and environmentally.

Fortunately, an energy revolution is rising all around us—enabled by smart policies in mindful markets, and led by business for profit. Efficient energy use fuels more economic activity than oil, at far lower cost, while its potential gets ever bigger and cheaper. In each of the past three years, the world invested a quarter-trillion dollars—more than the market cap of the world’scoal industry—to add over 80 billion watts of renewable capacity (excluding big hydro dams). Generating capacity added last year was 37 percent renewable in the U.S., 68 percent in China, 72 percent in Europe and 53 percent in the world. Last year, the world invested over $600 billion in efficiency, renewables, and cogeneration.

This growth is accelerating: solar power is scaling faster than cellphones. Last year alone, China added more solar capacity than the U.S. has added in 60 years. Electric vehicle sales are growing twice as fast as hybrid cars did at a comparable stage. Shrewd companies are realizing climate solutions’ enormous business opportunities—a prospect scarcely dimmed by cheaper oil, which makes only a few percent of the world’s electricity.

Global companies like IKEA, Google, Apple, Facebook, Salesforce and Walmart have committed to 100 percent renewable power. Tesla’s stock is up an astounding 660 percent over the past two years and has half the market value of General Motors Corp. The NEX index, which tracks clean energy companies worldwide, grew by 50 percent over the past two years—far outperforming the general market—while equity raisings by quoted clean energy companies more than doubled. Many of the world’s top financial firms concur that the era of coal and of big power plants is drawing to a close; Germany’s biggest utility is divesting those assets to focus on efficiency and renewables.

Yet we need to create even bigger and faster change. Which is why we are delighted to announce that our two nonprofit organizations—Rocky Mountain Institute and the Carbon War Room—are joining forces. By uniting two of the world’s preeminent nonprofit practitioners of market-based energy and climate solutions, we will help turn the toughest long-term energy challenges into vast opportunities for entrepreneurs to create wealth and public benefit for all.

United we stand to make a greater impact more quickly. Indeed, we already are. Our first combined program, the Ten Island Challenge, is making progress in six Caribbean countries. Caribbean economies suffer from some of the world’s highest electricity prices—perpetuating poverty, swelling national debts, and blocking sustainable development. They are also on the front lines of climate change, facing earlier impacts from sea-level rise, rising temperatures, and extreme weather events. Our alliance is laying the groundwork to transform these islands’ energy systems from dependence on costly imported diesel oil to cleaner, cost-effective efficiency and local renewables. This will cut electricity costs, boost private investment, and enhance and diversify local jobs. We are demonstrating that entire economies can adopt low-carbon solutions while strengthening their economies.

And islands are just the beginning as we build on our organizations’ initiatives already underway and on our new joint efforts to go further, faster together. In trucking, the learnings of our North American initiative will seed a new China program—strengthening an exciting collaboration with the Chinese government’s energy analysts that’s already showing the maximum share of efficiency and renewables that could support the forecasted economic growth of what will soon become the world’s largest economy. In cement, we will join forces to offset the energy surge from construction in the world’s fastest-growing economies. And we will combine our work on cracking the biggest nut of all: energy efficiency in buildings. Since they use nearly three-fourths of U.S. electricity, that’s the key to making electricity supply affordable, distributed, diverse, resilient, and largely renewable.

Switching to a fossil-fuel-free energy system will not only cost less, but will help re-ignite the world’s economies. In the U.S. alone, Rocky Mountain Institute’s Reinventing Fire analysisfound that a 158-percent bigger economy could need no coal and oil and one-third less natural gas, yet cost $5 trillion less than business as usual. We are closer than ever before to transforming the world to a low-carbon energy system. Rocky Mountain Institute and the Carbon War Room are excited to coordinate their proven approaches to scaling transformational change worldwide. Together, we will more than double our impact on the scale and speed of the energy transformation to a clean, prosperous, secure and low-carbon world.

We will reach this better world only if we all collaborate. None of us can do this on our own.  That’s why we are thrilled to be joining forces, and hope that others will be inspired to do the same—so we can build this exciting new world of opportunities at the pace our grandchildren require.

"Plug-and-Play" Solar is Closer to Market

Scott Gibson  ::  Fine Homebuilding  ::  1 December 2014 

A solar electric system in kit form would allow homeowners to install their own
panels and connect them to the grid as easily as installing a new
appliance. The system, currently under development, is still a
few years away from commercial availability.

Although it won't be commercially available for a couple of years, a photovoltaic (PV) system under development by a Boston-based research lab is designed for installation and connection to the grid by any motivated DIYer in less than a day.

In a press release, The Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy Systems (CSE) said it had demonstrated the installation of its Plug-and-Play PV System. Technicians completed the job in an hour. (You can see how the demonstration went on on Twitter at #FhCSESolar.)

The U.S. Department of Energy'sSunShot Initiative is paying for the research and development project, which CSE said would help bring the cost of solar electricity from $4 per installed watt to $1.50 per watt by 2020, a reduction of more than 60%. The lab said the system "addresses all aspects of the solar purchasing and installation process" by simplifying interconnection, permitting, and inspection.

CSE Director Dr. Christian Hoepfner said in the release the lab is focused on getting technologies such as clean energy into the hands of consumers.

"The Plug and Play system is centered around ease of use and installation to encourage people to adopt solar," the statement said. "Once commercially available, homeowners will be able to go to their local building supply stores, purchase the PV systems, and install them in less than 10 hours -- as easily as installing a washer/dryer combination."

Making installation as simple as possible

Hoepfner said in a telephone interview the panels use "pretty traditional" crystalline-silicone technology. The panels used in the demonstration have a rated capacity of 175w each, small and light enough for someone to carry under an arm, although they also could be produced with a higher capacity than that.

They're attached to the roof with an adhesive made by Royal Adhesives.

Developers had three major problems to solve, Hoepfner said: making the wiring on the rooftop and down to the side of the house as simple and safe as possible, connecting the panels to the electric meter, and simplifying the interconnection process -- that is, hooking it up to the grid.

"We put a lot of thinking into this and in particular a lot of focus on making it safer so that it is basically impossible to accidentally kill yourself on any high voltage on the roof," he said.

Panels would be connected to the house wiring via a PV socket installed behind the utility's meter. A licensed electrician or utility worker would have to pull the meter (not something a homeowner could legally do), install a "meter collar" incorporating the socket, and then re-install the meter, a process Hoepfher said should take all of about 10 minutes.

Once the socket was installed, the homeowner shouldn't need any additional help from a professional. It would be a matter of going to a retail store, buying the panels and installing them.

Once the panels have been commissioned, the system sends data to the local building officials and the utility, "automating the permitting, inspection and interconnection process," according to CSE.

Solving one of solar's most pressing problems

Assuming it gets to market, the Plug and Play system would address one of the biggest obstacles to a wider adoption of residential PV -- the relatively high "soft" costs of permitting, installation, inspections, and other non-hardware components.

In a 2013 report,The Rocky Mountain Institute said hardware costs have dropped sharply since 2008 while progress on bringing down soft costs has been "particularly unimpressive."

The report said in part: "Australia and Germany, both with healthy solar markets, have residential solar costs at about half that of the U.S. What's more, nearly every penny of the savings in upfront capital costs in those countries is due to much lower soft costs. In brief, soft costs have become a national embarrassment.

"Framed more concretely, in the U.S. you could give away solar panels for free and still end up paying nearly $20,000 for a residential system. That may seem absurd, but it's our current reality."

Northeast Utilities likes the program

Electric utilities haven't always been eager to see new residential PV systems. Some have complained that as more homeowners install solar and reduce their purchase of electricity, non-solar households have to pick up more of the cost of maintaining the grid. Lower sales of electricity also could lower earnings for shareholders in publicly traded utilities.

That could be a potential rub if homeowners suddenly have an even easier, cheaper path toward installing PV. CSE, however, said it has been working with several New England utilities, including Northeast Utilities, National Grid and Green Mountain Power, as it developed the Plug and Play system.

And Northeast responded positively to the demonstration project.

"We at Northeast Utilities see this program as incredibly important because it not only addresses installation barriers, but also simplifies the interconnection process," Penni Conner, Northeast's senior vice president and chief customer officer, said in the CSE statement.

"These systems make solar adoption a less complicated and time-consuming process for our customers and easier for us to bring new solar onto our systems. Our customers are going to have easier access to solar, helping us support a more sustainable energy future."

Why have utilities embraced Plug and Play?

"Most people and most utility executives would agree there are big changes ahead and a lot of uncertainty about that and how it will evolve," Hoepfner said of distributed solar generation. "On the practical level, however, utilities are required to do this already... Once you do this and the political decision has been made to do this, either voluntarily or involuntarily, then you want to make this as easy as possible."

Another reason is that Plug and Play would reduce the number of PV systems hooked up without utilities knowing about it. That may not be a huge problem now, Hoepfner said, but as solar becomes cheaper, more people will be tempted to buy panels and install them with or without utility permission.

The CSE Plug and Play, however, can't be energized unless the utility has actively given its permission to interconnect. That feature would give utilities an "unprecedented level of insight" into how much solar was actually on their grid. Utilities would like that, too.

Don't go shopping quite yet

Hoepfner said he's already getting calls from installers who want to know where they can buy the equipment, but it's two years or more away from store shelves.

In 2015, CSE hopes to move the system from the "technology demonstration" that took place earlier this month to a "commercially ready prototype," but it would be 2017 before all of the pieces were in place for retail sales.

It's not just a single product that needs more complete development, Hoepfner said, but the framework in which a standard is developed, allowing a lot of companies to take part and offer plug-and-play products. That's going to take time.