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Solar power use – the top 20 USA commercial users

USA’s Top 20 Commercial Solar Power Users http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=3379 by Energy Matters, 12 Sept 12, U.S. commercial solar installations could power more than 390,000 American homes according to a new report from the Solar Energy Industry Association (SEIA) and the Vote Solar Initiative.

The top 20 corporate solar users’ installations alone combined generate an estimated $47.3 million worth of electricity each year; enough to power 46,500 average American homes.

Those who made the top 20 list, in order of on-site capacity are: Walmart, Costco, Kohl’s Department Stores, IKEA, Macy’s, McGraw-Hill, Johnson & Johnson, Staples, Inc., Campbell’s Soup, Walgreens, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Toys ‘R’ Us, General Motors, FedEx, White Rose Foods, Dow Jones, Snyder’s of Hanover, ProLogis, Hartz Mountain Industries and Crayola.

The report states the above companies have installed more than 1.2 million solar panels, which would cover more than 544 acres of rooftops. This is an important point – while large ground mount solar farms certainly have their place; our towns and cities offer a massive and under-utilised rooftop real estate resource. The area of suitable roof space available in Australia is said to be enough to provideall of the nation’s electricity needs.

The SEIA/Vote Solar Initiative report also says just two companies, Walmart and Costco, have more installed solar PV capacity than all of that deployed in the state of Florida, commonly known as the Sunshine State. Furthermore, the top 10 companies (by capacity) have deployed more solar energy than most electric utilities in the USA.

As of the middle of this year, businesses, non-profits  and governments across the United States have deployed more than 2.3 gigawatts of commercial solar power systems and during the first half of 2012 one non-residential PV system came online every 72 minutes.

While installing solar panels can help a company’s green credentials, it also makes good business sense in another very important way; slashing operational expenses and buffering against continually increasing electricity costs.
The full Top Commercial Solar Customers in the U.S. report can be viewed here.

September 13, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | renewable, USA | Leave a comment

Three Renewable Energy Bills Pass in California, Community Solar Bill Fails  http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/24049  SustainableBusiness.com News, 6 Sept 12,  California’s Community Shared Solar Bill (SB 843) died in an Assembly committee because of pressure from the utilities, says Senator Wolk (D-Davis), who sponsored it. The bill passed the Senate. The legislation would have enabled community renewable energy systems, which would give all residents access to solar even as renters or if they lived in houses that have to much shade, for example.

Customers would have received credit on their utility bills for their portion of clean power generated by a given solar project, much as if those systems were located on site.

It was expected to create 12,000 local jobs, and $7.5 billion in economic activity by expanding access to the state’s renewable energy market, says Vote Solar, which analyzed the plan.

Utility PG&E, for example, lobbied against the bill because it would “burden” customers who didn’t opt in to the program, they say in editorial.

The bill is being re-drafted to address concerns and will be introduced again next year.

Three Bills Head to Governor’s Desk

Three other renewable energy-related bills are close to being adopted, however. They await Governor Brown’s signature.

One bill would expand solar hot water heaters to community pools, another would cap permitting fees for solar systems and a third enables aggregate net metering by farmers, schools and other customers with multiple meters.

Assembly Bill 2249 extends solar hot water heater incentives to commercial pools by amending the Solar Water Heating and Efficiency Act of 2007. It encourages municipalities, schools and nonprofits to use solar hot water heating by extending incentives to commercial pools.

Senate Bill 1222 caps permitting fees charged by counties and cities for solar installations, a key barrier to deploying more systems.

For residential solar PV, fees can’t exceed $500 plus $15 per kilowatt (kW) for systems bigger than 15 kW. For commercial systems, it’s capped at $1000 plus $7 per kW between 51-250 kW, and an additional $5 per kW for each kilowatt above 250 kW.

SB 594, also sponsored by Wolk, allows customers that have multiple electricity meters, such as farmers and schools, to participate in the state’s net energy metering program.

September 7, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | renewable, USA | Leave a comment

Breakthrough to very cheap solar pholtovoltaics – from USA Dept of Energy

Photovoltaics from Any Semiconductor Berkeley Lab Technology Could Open Door to More Widespread Solar Energy Devices Lawrence Berkely National Laboratory USA Department of Energy JULY 26, 2012 Lynn Yarris (510) 486-5375  lcyarris@lbl.gov
A technology that would enable low-cost, high efficiency solar cells to be made from virtually any semiconductor material has been developed by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley.

This technology opens the door to the use of plentiful, relatively inexpensive semiconductors, such as the promising metal oxides, sulfides and phosphides, that have been considered unsuitable for solar cells because it is so difficult to
tailor their properties by chemical means….. http://newscenter.lbl.gov/feature-stories/2012/07/26/photovoltaics-from-any-semiconductor/…..http://newscenter.lbl.gov/feature-stories/2012/07/26/photovoltaics-from-any-semiconductor/

August 27, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | renewable, USA | Leave a comment

Every USA State has big potential for renewable energy

NREL Study Shows Renewable Energy Potential in Every State http://www.rdmag.com/News/Feeds/2012/08/materials-nrel-study-shows-renewable-energy-potential-in-eve/   by National Renewable Energy Laboratory A new study of renewable energy’s technical potential finds that every state in the nation has the space and resource to generate clean energy.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory produced the study, U.S. RE Technical Potential, which looks at available renewable resources in each state. It establishes an upper-boundary estimate of development potential. Economic or market restraints would factor into what projects might actually be deployed.

The report is valuable for decision-makers and utility executives because it compares estimates across six renewable energy technologies and unifies assumptions and methods. It shows the achievable energy generation of a particular technology given resource availability – solar, wind, geothermal availability, etc. — system performance, topographic limitations, and environmental and land-use constraints.

The study includes state-level maps and tables containing available land area (square kilometers), installed capacity (gigawatts), and electric generation (gigawatt-hours) for each technology.

“Decision-makers using the study will get a sense of scale regarding the potential for renewables, and which technologies are worth examining,” said NREL’s Anthony Lopez, a co-author of the study. “Energy modelers also will find the study valuable.”

“This is intended to be a living document,” NREL’s Donna Heimiller, another co-author, added. “We’ll be frequently updating the information as we get more data.”

For more information go to the NREL website: http://www.nrel.gov/gis/re_potential.html.

NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy’s primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. NREL is operated for DOE by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC.

August 25, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | renewable, USA | Leave a comment