Energy Made Clean are pleased to announce the recent recruitment of five new staff who will provide energy independence solutions to mid-to-large commercial power users connected to the SWIS. This is the first sales team ever for EMC, after over 10 years of business, with more than 20 years combined experience in the solar energy industry.
New members Dale Burden, Sean Scott, and Eamonn McDonnell join existing business development agents Anika Sweetland and Peter Milner, in response to strong growth indications within the marketplace for commercial solar generation.
CEO John Davidson says, "We are seeing the beginnings of a major uptake in large-scale solar power for commercial businesses and government. Having now built a number of projects, we are ready to offer WA businesses owners and operators competitive, clean, electricity from dispersed generation."
Eamonn has a strong sales history within the solar industry, built over eight years of working within the solar power industry at a range of levels. Sean has built his sales experience over a range of industries, while completing multiple training certificates, including those in Communications and Retail Management, Computer Studies, and language tutoring. Dale completed his Bachelors of Engineering, with B Class Honours, at Murdoch University, with accreditations from the Clean Energy Council and ABSA. He holds rich sales experience in photovoltaic and renewable energies from multiple positions within the industry.
The skills of our new recruits complement EMC's strong engineering expertise, and will aid in the ongoing integration of technology and economy of solar power for the benefit of consumers.
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LINDE WILL BE THE EXCLUSIVE SUPPLIER OF HYDROGEN FOR THE SHELL EVENT
Shell is hosting its fifth annual Eco-marathon, where teams of students from various universities demonstrate the potential of hydrogen fuel cells in the transportation sector. Shell expects that 54 teams will compete in the event this year, showcasing their fuel cells and how these energy systems can be used in vehicles. Linde, a leading producer of chemical gases, will be the exclusive provider of hydrogen fuel for this year's event.
COMPANY CONTINUES TO PLAY A MAJOR ROLE IN THE EXPANSION OF HYDROGEN FUEL
Linde has played a major role in promoting the use of hydrogen fuel over the past few years. The company has helped develop new fueling technology and has bolstered the hydrogen infrastructures of the United States, Europe, and Asia. The company has shown particular support for clean transportation, highlighting the benefits of hydrogen over more conventional forms of fuel. In the coming years, hydrogen fuel is expected to become quite prominent in the clean transportation space.
Hydrogen Cylinders To Be Provided To Students Competing In The Eco-marathon
Linde will be providing ready-to-install hydrogen fuel cylinders to teams competing in the Eco-marathon this year. These cylinders can provide the hydrogen that fuel cells need to generate electrical power. They serve as convenient hydrogen supplies, reducing the need for fuel cell vehicles to spend time filling dedicated fuel tanks. The cylinders will also provide students with a chance to gain experience with new technology and understand how fuel cells can make use of hydrogen in different ways.
Event Could Provide Students With Valuable Experience Concerning Fuel Cells And Clean Technology In General
Shell's Eco-marathon represents a promising educational opportunity. Hydrogen fuel cells are gaining more popularity throughout the world and may soon become a primary source of power for the auto industry and residential sectors. Students gaining experience with these energy systems could equip them with the skills they need to find jobs in the fuel cell industry. The Eco-marathon is also meant to draw attention to the potential capabilities of hydrogen fuel cells in the transportation space.
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As a result of solar PV cost declines, rising utility rates, and supportive public policies and incentives, residential rooftop solar PV has become an affordable option for millions of customers, especially in America's 50 largest cities. This is especially true if customers have the ability to access low-cost financing options like longer-term loans, leases, and third-party power purchase agreements (PPAs) that eliminate the upfront cost. Thus, the availability of solar PV (and other ways to more efficiently use energy) has caused many customers to seek their own degree of personal "energy independence" by focusing on ways they can diversify their energy choices and exert greater control over their utility bills.
However, most of the customers who want a greater degree of personal energy independence (and the community leaders who wish to help them get there) often do not understand (or are simply unaware) of how solar PV technology can help them save money and reap the rewards of a largely risk-free long-term investment. Often, the lack of familiarity most customers have with solar PV has the effect of increasing the costs (often called "customer acquisition costs") that solar PV installers must incur to educate consumers and make a sale. When one considers that selling more PV systems is how solar installers can reduce their other costs and make their businesses leaner, more competitive, and cost-effective without incentives, educating customers and community leaders about the "dollars and cents" value of solar PV truly is paramount.
The NC Clean Energy Technology Center at NC State University, a partner in the U.S. Department of Energy's SunShot Solar Outreach Partnership (SolarOPs), has developed a series of tools to help do just that. This month, we released "Going Solar in America: Ranking Solar's Value to Consumers in America's Largest Cities". The report's analysis shows that the combination of rising utility rates, declining costs of solar, and the existence of supportive public policies and incentives make investing in solar PV a prudent and conservative long-term investment for people of all walks of life. We also crunched the numbers and ranked the best places within America's 50 largest cities for customers to invest in solar PV.
Using the most current solar pricing data available (generously provided by EnergySage, the leading online marketplace for solar), we designed a ranking system for determining the "dollars and cents" value of investing in solar in these 50 cities. The rankings themselves are based on three metrics: (1) first-year average monthly bill savings, (2) the overall present-day value of a long-term investment in solar (as compared to an investment in a stock with an average return), and (3) the average or "levelized" cost of energy from a rooftop solar energy system.
The top ten highest ranking cities overall are:
* New York, NY
* Boston, MA
* Albuquerque, NM
* San Jose, CA
* Las Vegas, NV
* Washington, DC
* Los Angeles, CA
* San Diego, CA
* Oakland, CA
* San Francisco, CA
The three metrics factoring into the rankings, examined individually, show:
1. CUSTOMERS WITH A TYPICALLY-SIZED 5 KW SYSTEM CAN REALIZE SAVINGS OVER 100/MONTH, DEPENDING ON HOW EFFICIENTLY THEY USE ENERGY, AND HOW MUCH OF THEIR ENERGY USE FROM THEIR UTILITY THEY CAN OFFSET WITH SOLAR PV.
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2. WHEN CUSTOMERS CHOOSE A LOW-COST FINANCING OPTION LIKE A LOAN (OR A LEASE), SOLAR PV CAN BE A BETTER INVESTMENT THAN THE S height: 720px;">
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3. FOR CUSTOMERS IN 42 OF AMERICA'S 50 LARGEST CITIES, A FINANCED SOLAR PV SYSTEM IS ALREADY AT GRID PARITY, AND A SYSTEM PURCHASED UPFRONT IS AT GRID PARITY IN 14 CITIES.
Nevertheless, the non-hardware soft costs of solar PV still constitute 64% of the price of a solar PV system, and must be reduced in order for solar PV to offer customers significant savings and investment value without supportive public policies and incentives. Over the next two years, while solar PV may face some policy and market uncertainty with the scheduled expiration of the Federal Residential Renewable Energy Investment Tax Credit at the end of 2016, local governments can help lower the costs of solar PV by taking targeted actions to reduce soft costs, and allow an even greater portion of the American public to choose solar energy if they so desire.
Jim Kennerly is a Senior Policy Analyst, and Autumn Proudlove is a Policy Analyst at the NC Clean Energy Technology Center. Their special thanks goes to all of their colleagues working on the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency (DSIRE) project, whose knowledge of policies and incentives in their states made this project greatly benefitted this project.
For more information on how your city can expand its local solar market and save consumers money on their utility bills, please feel free to contact Autumn Proudlove (afproudl@ncsu.edu).
Nevertheless, the non-hardware soft costs of solar PV still constitute 64% of the price of a solar PV system, and must be reduced in order for solar PV to offer customers significant savings and investment value without supportive public policies and incentives. Over the next two years, while solar PV may face some policy and market uncertainty with the scheduled expiration of the Federal Residential Renewable Energy Investment Tax Credit at the end of 2016, local governments can help lower the costs of solar PV by taking targeted actions to reduce soft costs, and allow an even greater portion of the American public to choose solar energy if they so desire.
"Jim Kennerly is a Senior Policy Analyst, and Autumn Proudlove is a Policy Analyst at the NC Clean Energy Technology Center. Their special thanks goes to all of their colleagues working on the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency (DSIRE) project, whose knowledge of policies and incentives in their states made this project greatly benefitted this project."
"For more information on how your city can expand its local solar market and save consumers money on their utility bills, please feel free to contact Autumn Proudlove (afproudl@ncsu.edu)."
"AUTUMN PROUDLOVE"
"Policy Analyst"
"NC Clean Energy Technology Center"
"NC State University"
The post What's the Financial Value of Solar for Residential Customers? (Part 1): Ranking America's 50 Largest Cities appeared first on EnergySage.
The Most Extensive Study Yet Of The UK's Wind Resource, Blows Away Many Myths About Wind Power.
The research, conducted by Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute for the DTI, analysed hourly wind speed records collected by the Met Office at 66 locations across the UK since 1970.
The key findings are:
o The UK has the best wind resource in Europe. The recorded capacity factor for onshore wind energy in the UK is 27%, greater even than in Germany (15%) and Denmark (20%) where wind farms are currently most widespread.
o Availability of wind power in the UK is greater at precisely the times that we need it - during peak daytime periods and during the winter.
o The UK wind resource is dependable. The likelihood of low wind speeds affecting 90% of the country would only occur for one hour every five years.
o The chance of wind turbines shutting down due to very high wind speeds is exceedingly rare - high winds affecting 40% or more of the UK would occur in around one hour every 10 years and never affect the whole country.
Graham Sinden, author of the report from the Environmental Change Institute research team said:
"The UK wind resource offers a reliable source of electricity that is not only low carbon, but reduces the UK's reliance on imported fuels.
"By examining such extensive wind records from throughout the UK, we can be very confident that the study identified both long term trends and the most extreme wind conditions the UK will experience."
Many anti-wind farm campaigners persist in saying wind turbines are useless, don't work when needed, and inefficient. This evidence will hopefully finish the argument once and for all (who am I kidding?!).
More: Wind Power and the UK Wind Resource from the Environmental Change Institute
Last week, I wrote that the Sierra Club endorsed John Carney. While it hasn't been formally announced, the Sierra Club has endorsed Chris Coons as well.
The process reveals plenty about the divide between the parties when it comes to the environment. Chris Coons and John Carney earned their endorsements, which are decided by national and local leaders of the organization. As a member of the Sierra Club Delaware Chapter's leadership (I'm vice chair of the executive committee), I proudly voted to support them. But I am profoundly disappointed that their opponents never even bothered to return a questionnaire, despite repeated phone calls and e-mails asking for a response. In fact the only Republican candidate to represent Delaware in Congress who did fill out a questionnaire was Mike Castle.
In short, when it comes to the environment, Christine O'Donnell and Glen Urquhart don't even want to talk about it. You may remember that they both blew off a long-scheduled forum sponsored by most of Delaware's environmental organizations.
This is in sharp contrast with our current congressional delegation, who have made themselves and their staff available to environmental leaders. If O'Donnell and Urquhart don't bother to respond to environmental leaders in the campaign, one can only assume that they would ignore environmental issues if they were elected.
With Christine O'Donnell and Glen Urquhart at the top of the ticket, the Republican Party of Delaware has abandoned its historical interest in the environment. Russ Peterson who was elected governor as a Republican, and served as an environmental advisor to Richard Nixon, switched parties in 1996. Former Congressman Tom Evans, who is now an preservation advocate in Florida, was among the Republicans who endorsed Chris Coons yesterday.
Urquhart today published an op-ed in the "News Journal" that repeated the conservative campaign of misinformation on the economics of renewable energy. He claimed (without citing sources) that climate action would cost families 1,769 a year, 2.3 million jobs, a doubling of utility rates and 7-a-gallon gasoline.
Urquhart sounds like the opponents of wind power who wildly inflated the costs and dismissed the benefits of the Bluewater Wind proposal. He also repeated the rather thin accusation that John Carney improperly tried to get government funding for an enterprise to build the towers for the Bluewater Wind project. I refuted the criticism here and here, and applauded Carney for trying to bring wind power jobs to Delaware.
In his op-ed, Urquhart cites dubious and unsourced statistics about the economic costs of renewable energy, but when presented with the opportunity to weigh in on a tangible business plan, he preferred to attack his opponent and ignored the prospect of real, blue collar jobs at stake.
And speaking of spurious statistics, there is this startling assertion from Christine O'Donnell two years ago:
But only 1 percent of the oil pollution in the sea is the result of oil drilling, while 63 percent is the result of natural seepage on the ocean floor. If Glen Urquhart and Christine O'Donnell wanted to, they could sit down and have a genuine conversation, and perhaps be put at ease about their misinformed objections to environmental protection. But they don't seem to even care, which is another reason why we should send Chris Coons and John Carney to Washington.
THE WORLD'S LARGEST SOLAR PARK TO BE BUILT IN UPINGTON
It's uplifting to see that the South African government is embracing the use of renewable energy to contribute towards and supplement the country's electricity supply. In a R150-billion project, the government will partner with Eskom and the Clinton Climate Change Initiative (CCI) as well as private investors to bring the world's largest solar park to Upington in the Northern Cape.
WHAT IS A SOLAR PARK?
A solar park is a whole area (in this instance thousands of hectares) made up of clusters of solar plants, which will generate multiple gigawatts (or thousands of megawatts) of electricity from the sun. There will be two methods of electricity generation - both solar photovoltaic and concentrating photovoltaic. Solar photovoltaic electricity generation directly converts the sun's rays into electricity without the need for electricity storage. Concentrating photovoltaic, on the other hand, can be stored because this method of power generation captures the UV rays as heat and the resulting steam is used to power turbines, which create electricity. Both methods will feed electricity to South Africa's national grid and supplement the existing non-renewable energy plants.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS?
Aside from the direct benefits of an additional source of electricity being supplied to the national grid, the nine-year building plan for the solar park will create thousands of jobs and also provide a lucrative investment opportunity for both local and international private-sector investors. The solar park will also help to develop local industry in Upington, all the while supplying a much cleaner and far more secure power supply to the national grid.
WHY IS THE PARK BEING BUILT IN THE NORTHERN CAPE?
Ira Magaziner, the technical advisor for the Clinton Climate Change Initiative says that the Northern Cape Province in South Africa was identified as the ideal location for the world's largest solar park because the levels of solar radiation are better there than anywhere else in the world. That coupled with the large segments of flat, unpopulated land owned by the government and available for use, as well as the reliable water supply from the Orange River make Upington the ideal spot for the solar park. The sun can be accessed for 12 months of the year and there are no geological risks like earthquakes, or meteorological risks like tornados and hurricanes. Magaziner also points towards the affordable labour costs in South Africa compared to those in the deserts in the United States, as a motivating factor to build here rather than there.
While the backing of an international initiative shows confidence in South Africa, it will be critical to manage the solar park in an effective and transparent way; to ensure there are no causes for claims in construction (such as time delays and fund mismanagement) as well as no reason for labour disputes. The eyes of the world will be on South Africa and we want them to like what they see.
BY TOMMIE CLARK IOWA Energy Mind The Part of Energy Tininess and Renewable Energy (EERE), on behalf of the Twist and Wet Management Technologies Part (WWPTO), has announced the importance to bring forward an energy research funding opportunity to company and minimize the dogmatic and profitable risks partner in crime with wind power development in locations with astute bat genus express the "DE-FOA-0001209: "Twist Energy Bat Compass reading Minimization Technologies and Area Imperfect Opportunities," funding project. The inclusive self-determining of the WWPTO, express this Endorsement Better Receipt (FOA), is to fund projects that series the routine and commercial enthusiasm of bat impact improvement and minimization technologies plus, but not incomplete to, bat deterrents and in effect changes that continue a relax occasion of reducing bat downfall at in effect wind facilities. This FOA chutzpah equally root the verification and study of near-commercial bat impact improvement technologies, which chutzpah provide regulators and wind facility owner-operators with helpful and presume solid tools to soak away bat downfall and moderate the dogmatic and profitable changeability appropriate to the development and persistent operation of wind farms in bat family. IT IS Proposed THAT THE FOA MAY Include THE Investigation AREAS OF INTEREST: * Cable of Relate to 1: Specifics of purpose and pattern enlargement express laboratory and small scale field-testing * Cable of Relate to 2: Helpful verification and confirmationKEY Expression OF THE Endorsement Better Receipt * "Cost Payment Requirement: "Cable of screw 1: EERE anticipates requiring a 25% cost-share of the national dollars awarded. Cable of screw 2: EERE anticipates requiring a 100% cost-share. * "Trained Applicants: "Most organizations are practiced to harass to this funding opportunity. * "Funding: "EERE envisions awarding combined profitable bracket awards in the form of mutual agreements. Cable of screw 1: two to four awards of thereabouts 250,000 per recognize. Cable of screw 2: one to three awards of thereabouts 500,000 per recognize. * "Duration:" The ballpark interval of work for all and sundry recognize chutzpah be 12 to 24 months. * "Deadline for Well-to-do Applications: "This Fastener is issued so that inquiring parties are have your home of the EERE's contend to issue this FOA in the meticulous circumscribe. All the information buried in this Fastener is topic to promotion. EERE chutzpah not come back with to questions during this Fastener. EERE Strategy TO Give out THE FOA IN THE Topmost Part OF Monetary Engagement 2015 (BY DECEMBER 31, 2014) express the EERE Key website (https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/). If applicants desire to rob official notifications and information from EERE almost this FOA, they prerequisite sign up with EERE Key. In wish of the FOA being free of charge, applicants are advised to utter the in the manner of ladder, which are Bounce for declaration submission: * File and create an tale in EERE Key. This tale chutzpah assent the parasite to sign up for any unconcealed EERE FOAs that are right away in EERE Key. It is optional that all and sundry bash or business unit, whether acting as a team or a separated object, use only one tale as the business unambiguous for all and sundry submission. Questions appropriate to the registration process and use of the EERE Key website prerequisite be submitted to: EERE-ExchangeSupport@hq.doe.gov * After deductions a Dun and Bradstreet Substantiate Sweeping Numbering Proposal (DUNS) tally (plus the plus 4 threaten, if suitable) at http://fedgov.dnb.com/webform * File with the Proposal for Funding Enjoy (SAM) at https://www.sam.gov. Designating an Electronic Solid Corner of Interaction (EBiz POC) and obtaining a remarkable password called an MPIN are significant ladder in SAM registration. Call prepare your SAM registration annually. * File in FedConnect at https://www.fedconnect.net/. To create an bash tale, your organization's SAM MPIN is be contiguous. For additional information about the SAM MPIN or other registration provisions, outline the FedConnect Prepared, Set, Go! Front. * File with www.Grants.gov to rob computerized updates seeing that amendments to a FOA are posted. 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