Focus
Bipartisan Senate bill allocates $100M to ease residential solar and storage permitting
Utility Dive – September 10
Senators Martin Heinrich, D-New Mexico, and Susan Collins, R-Maine, introduced a bill this Monday to create a federal program to ease the permitting of distributed energy systems, including solar, battery storage, and electric vehicle fast chargers. S. 2447 would appropriate $20 million annually, from fiscal year 2019 to 2024, for a new nonprofit organization under the Department of Energy, dubbed the Distributed Energy Opportunity Board, to streamline local permitting and inspection for qualifying systems. Distributed energy developers hailed the bipartisan bill for its potential to reduce installation costs for distributed resources, and ultimately incentivize increased adoption of clean energy technology.
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News
Los Angeles approves deal for record-cheap solar power and battery storage
Los Angeles Times - September 10
For a long time, there were two big knocks against solar power: It’s expensive, and it can’t keep the lights on after sundown. A contract approved Tuesday by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power shows how much that reality has changed. Under the 25-year deal with developer 8minute Solar Energy, the city would buy electricity from a sprawling complex of solar panels and lithium-ion batteries in the Mojave Desert of eastern Kern County, about two hours north of Los Angeles. The Eland project would meet 6 percent to 7 percent of L.A.'s annual electricity needs and would be capable of pumping clean energy into the grid for four hours each night. The combined solar power and energy storage is priced at 3.3 cents per kilowatt-hour — a record low for this type of contract, city officials and independent experts say, and cheaper than electricity from natural gas.
U.S. storage market hits speed bump in second quarter, but residential sector shines
Greentech Media – September 10
Coming off record storage installations in the first quarter of 2019, the U.S. market slowed substantially in the second quarter, although the long-term picture remains unchanged. After delivering an all-time best of 149 megawatts in the first quarter of 2019, deployments dropped almost in half to 76 megawatts in the subsequent quarter. Slow activity in the utility-scale and commercial and industrial markets hampered growth. At the same time, the residential market had its best quarter ever, according to the new Energy Storage Monitor from Wood Mackenzie and the Energy Storage Association. The 34.8 megawatts installed in the second quarter beat all residential installations for the year of 2017. California leads by a longshot, followed by Hawaii, but this quarter saw increasing geographic diversity, including Colorado, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Nevada, and even Texas.
California enacts bill to extend tax protections for rooftop solar
Solar Industry Magazine – September 10
Governor Gavin Newsom has signed into law financial protections for consumer investments in rooftop solar. The law, under A.B.1208, which was authored by Assembly member Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, extends a prohibition on cities and counties from taxing the energy generated by rooftop solar panels for use by homeowners and businesses, explains the California Solar & Storage Association.
Chula Vista and La Mesa commit to San Diego-led community choice energy agreement
The San Diego Union-Tribune – September 11
La Mesa and Chula Vista have officially jumped aboard the community choice aggregation, or CCA, bandwagon — and both cities have agreed accept an offer from San Diego to join forces in a partnership to govern the nascent program. The La Mesa City Council voted 5-0 Tuesday night to adopt an ordinance authorizing a CCA and passed a resolution to enter a joint powers agreement led by San Diego, which has agreed to oversee all the initial startup costs to get the program up and running by 2021. About an hour later, the Chula Vista City Council passed a similar measure but the vote was much closer. City councils in Encinitas and Imperial Beach are expected to take similar steps in the coming days.
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Projects
Sony Pictures turns to solar to power its Culver City studio
Energy Manager Today - September 10
Sony Pictures Entertainment recently announced a commitment to generate clean, solar electricity with SunPower technology at its studio lot in Culver City. The 1.6-megawatt project is expected to generate over 58 million kilowatt hours of solar power over 25 years. When combined with the lot’s existing solar capacity, 1.83 megawatts of solar will generate clean, onsite power and account for approximately 8.5 percent of the studio lot’s electricity use. SunPower is installing complete rooftop solar solutions across eight Sony Pictures sound stages, including Stage 30 which is best known for its massive 90-by-100-foot water tank. Solar project construction is expected to begin later this month and reach full operation in early 2020.
Major solar projects change hands in Colorado and California
PV-Tech – September 11
The U.S. renewables business of Japanese oil and gas major Idemitsu Kosan has acquired a 100-megawatt solar project in Colorado from GCL New Energy, a subsidiary of China's GCL New Energy Holdings. Construction of the Pioneer solar project is expected before the close of the year. Meanwhile, 8minute Solar Energy has sold the equity interests of the under-construction 67-megawatt Lotus Solar farm in central California to investment management firm Allianz Global Investors. The farm, which is contracted to provide energy to utility Southern California Edison through a 20-year PPA, is Allianz’s first U.S. solar project. Its annual output is expected to exceed 125 million kilowatt-hours per year.
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