Renewable Energy Focus
Think Progress - Jan 5
The solar industry added jobs at a rate nearly 20 times faster than the national average last year, according to a recent Solar Foundation report. More than 31,000 solar jobs were added in the U.S. between November 2013 and November 2014. The report found that 85 percent of those jobs were new, rather than jobs that already existed but which added additional solar responsibilities. The solar installation sector beat out the oil and gas pipeline construction and crude oil and natural gas extraction industries in 2014, creating almost 50 percent more jobs than those industries did.
Desert Sun - Jan 11
Tesla Motors isn’t coming to town, but its plans to extract enormous amounts of lithium near the Salton Sea are steaming toward reality. Simbol Materials will soon start construction on a large-scale lithium plant in Calipatria, which the company says will employ 400 people during an 18-month construction period and between 120 and 150 people once finished. Many of those high-wage jobs could go to residents of the Imperial Valley, one of the state’s most impoverished areas. The Pleasanton-based company has spent more than a year demonstrating its innovative process for extracting lithium from geothermal brine, a leftover of geothermal energy production by the southern shore of the Salton Sea.
The Desert Sun - Jan 11
Residential solar power has traditionally been available only to a select few: homeowners with adequate rooftops and good credit scores. But California state officials are close to approving a new program that would allow renters, apartment residents, and homeowners with shaded rooftops to go solar for the first time. The program would allow energy consumers to buy electricity from "community solar" installations, built by private companies in or near their communities. Each installation would serve dozens or even hundreds of customers, but participants would pay for their electricity as if they had their own rooftop systems.
Climate Central - Jan 13
The city of Tehachapi is a bridge between the Mojave Desert and the San Joaquin Valley, a blustery area serving as an ideal location for a wind farm. It’s also the site of the Tehachapi Energy Storage Project, an experiment in storing wind power in giant lithium-ion batteries, so far the largest energy storage project of its kind in North America. The project is Southern California Edison’s $50 million effort to demonstrate how energy storage can improve the region’s power grid and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. With that and similar projects in the works, California is quickly becoming the U.S. leader in energy storage after the state’s 2013 mandate that its largest utilities have 1,325 megawatts of electricity storage operating by 2024. Storage will help the state reach its climate goal of having 50 percent of its electricity supplied by renewables by 2030.
Greentech Media - Jan 14
Millions of people live in cities where going solar would cost them less than their current utility rates, and most of them don’t even know it. According to a new report by the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center, backed by the SunShot Initiative, a fully-financed solar PV system costs less than the energy purchased from a residential customer’s local utility in 42 of the 50 largest cities in the U.S. Among single-family homeowners in those 50 cities, the center estimates that 9.1 million live in a place where solar would be cheaper than their utility bill if they bought the system outright.
Notable Renewable Energy Projects and Deals
PV-Tech - Jan 12
A $250 million investment in U.S. residential solar by Morgan Stanley has taken investment in the sector to $795 million in the first two weeks of 2015. A Morgan Stanley subsidiary, MS Solar Investments, will work with PV developer Main Street Power and Brite Energy, a subsidiary of home security firm Protection 1. The deal follows a $350 million agreement last week between JP Morgan and SolarCity, and Investec’s $195 million arrangement with SunRun. The latest investment, initially $200 million, will allow Brite Energy to offer solar in a number of states through the MySolar IX program.
PV-Tech - Jan 15
The 550-megawatt Desert Sunlight project in California is now complete, earning the distinction of being the world’s joint largest operational PV power plant. Developed and built by PV energy provider, First Solar, Desert Sunlight matches the record set by another one of First Solar’s projects last year, the 550-megawatt Topaz plant, also located in California. Although First Solar lists Desert Sunlight’s status as still “under construction” on its website, newly updated details published by the California Independent System Operator record the two elements of the project as having entered into commercial operation on December 5, 2014.
PV-Tech - Jan 15
SunEdison yield co TerraForm Power is looking to place $350 million of stock on the market. The funds will be used to complete its $2.4 billion acquisition of First Wind. The company said that the funds would be used for “general corporate purposes” if the First Wind transaction does not close. The First Wind deal would make TerraForm the largest renewable energy developer in the world with an operational capacity of more than 1.5 gigawatts and a multi-gigawatt pipeline of wind and solar projects.
San Diego Union-Tribune - Jan 19
French semiconductor maker Soitec is cutting 100 jobs at a solar factory in San Diego and an affiliated research facility in Phoenix as it seeks to exit the solar business, the company told investors. Soitec said the U.S. workforce reductions are part of a shift in focus toward its core electronics business that supplies silicon wafers to mobile phones and other consumer electronic devices. The company warned employees in late December of cutbacks at its Rancho Bernardo solar factory and offices after a major equipment order fell through and San Diego Gas & Electric ended its commitment to Soitec equipment, citing missed deadlines and milestones.
reNEWS - Jan 21
PermaCity Solar has wrapped up a 5.1-megawatt rooftop PV installation for fashion retailer Forever 21 in Los Angeles. The array at the fashion retailer’s headquarters, in the Lincoln Heights area, is the largest rooftop solar system in Los Angeles County and the third-largest in California. PermaCity designed and installed the system with the help of West Hills Construction, using SunPower solar panels.
