Dueling models: Solyndra ramps up manufacturing

In the world of computer hardware the days of dueling core architectures has long gone (though RISC seems to have a new lease on life in phones). What began as the 8080 chip, now represented by CPUs from Intel and AMD, have pretty much taken over the vast majority of computer architecture. However, even though solar power has been around as long, the scale hasn't been there to drive commodification.

One of the fascinating things to watch is the new solar architectures that are emerging to challenge conventional photovoltaic. One of course is thin-film, now on the verge of going live. But there are a number of new variants looking to duel. One of those is Solyndra's take which utilizes a circular design to capture more sunlight effectively increasing the efficiency of the modules.


To some degree this may be a duel between high-efficiency models, like Solyndra, which offer more power generation vs. thin-film which will offer ease of installation (and probably lower cost).

The Mercury News covers Solyndra's ramp-up.

Solyndra extended a growth spurt by signing a deal to rent 506,000 square feet in Fremont, bringing hundreds of jobs to that city and marking the Bay Area's biggest lease this year.

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The second factory being built for Solyndra will create thousands of jobs. A $535 million U.S. Department of Energy loan is providing the cash for construction of the new plant.

Solyndra says the new manufacturing complex, once all its phases are built, could eventually employ 2,000 people permanently. It would also produce 3,000 short-term construction jobs.

Rafael @www.climateatbay.net

Solar shingles: competition ramps-up

Solar installation may be climbing but it's nothing compared to where the market is headed. As local firms Nanosolar and Miasole are racing to get their products to market the competition is not standing still. Dow is putting a stake in the ground - vying to be first to market with large scale production of solar shingles.

Dow Chemical has unveiled a residential roof shingle in the form of a solar panel designed to be integrated into asphalt-tiled roofs.

Jane Palmieri, managing director of Dow’s Solar Solutions unit, said the Powerhouse thin-film shingle slashes installation costs because it can be installed by a roofer who is already building or retrofitting a roof.

“As a roofer is nailing asphalt shingle on roof, wherever the array needs to be installed he just switches to solar shingle,” said Ms. Palmieri, who said the solar singles are similarly attached to the roof with nails.

“You don’t have to have a solar installation crew do the work or have an electrician on site,” she added. “The solar shingle can be handled like any other shingle – it can be palletized, dropped from a roof, walked on.”

An electrician is still needed to connect the completed array to an inverter and to a home’s electrical system, but unlike conventional solar panels that must be wired together, the solar shingles plug into each other to form the array.

Dow plans to begin test-marketing the solar shingle in mid-2010, initially targeting new-home construction. Ms. Palmieri said the market could be worth $5 billion by 2015 and noted that 90 percent of homes in the United States use asphalt shingles.


Dow designed the shingles, which will initially be manufactured at the company’s Midland, Mich., facility. Global Solar of Tucson, Ariz., is supplying the thin-film solar cells.

Thin film solar, while currently less efficient than conventional PV, should dramatically reduce installation costs, a significant issue with PV. There's been discussion of PV shingles for a while but this looks like the first serious commercial scale offering. Lots of other players are vying to jump in and combined with the new financing models and ramped up Chinese competition, PV may well be set to really take off.

Rafael @www.climateatbay.net

Costs of solar installation: dropping but still more than Europe & Japan

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has its second edition of their report Tracking the Sun on the costs of solar installation. Todd Woody at Green Inc. (and Green Wombat) writes:

The report found that the installed cost of residential and commercial photovoltaic systems in the United States dropped 30 percent over all from 1998 to 2008. But prices had become relatively stagnant from 2005-7, as demand spiked and solar module makers ramped up production.

The global economic meltdown, however, along with a resulting oversupply of modules, led the cost of installing a solar system last year to fall from $7.80 a watt to $7.50 a watt, though the actual cost to homeowners actually increased slightly as state incentives for installing solar arrays fell faster than module prices.
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And although California is by far the largest solar market in the United States with 81 percent of all installed photovoltaic systems, it isn’t the cheapest place to install small-scale solar.

That distinction goes to Arizona, where the installed cost of solar systems smaller than 10 kilowatts was $7.30 per watt compared to $8.20 in California.

The United States still has a way to go before matching European and Asian nations, both in terms of the number of solar systems and their cost.

The price of installing solar in Germany, for instance, is $6.10 a watt and $6.90 in Japan.

But the United States is catching up and is the third-largest solar market after Spain and Germany. In 2008, 5,948 megawatts of photovoltaic systems were installed worldwide, more than double the number from the previous year.

It's ridiculous of course that the US is third after two countries whose population is an order of magnitude smaller (Spain 40M, Germany 82M, US 300M). But such is the reality of how far behind the US is in areas it should be leading in.

The other interesting question is the impact forthcoming thin-film solar will have on costs. Locally, Nanosolar has been moving on production now with a new partnership with SunLink for mounting systems. However, the proximity between "production" and "shipping" remains vague.

Rafael @www.climateatbay.net

EV infrastructure: rush & confusion

Disruptive technologies not only change the landscape but frequently surface whole new questions that existing infrastructure and policies simply were not established to address. Energy is rife with this problem - despite the enormous benefits to be had, we must wade through a confusing morass as part of the birthing process.

Electric vehicles are coming and the utilities and Public Utilities Commission are trying to figure out the implications.

One of the biggest questions is whether to regulate Better Place, Coulomb Technologies and other companies that plan to sell electricity to drivers through a network of battery-charging stations.

California’s three big investor-owned utilities have split over the issue.

“The commission should establish its authority to regulate third-party providers of electricity for electric vehicles,” Christopher Warner, an attorney for Pacific Gas & Electric, wrote in a filing with the utilities commission. “Managing the increased electricity consumption and load attributable to electric vehicles in order to avoid adverse impacts on the safety and reliability of the electric grid may be one of the most difficult management challenges that electric utilities will face.”

Southern California Edison, meanwhile, urged the commission to move cautiously, calibrating any regulation to the specific business models of the companies.

San Diego Gas & Electric said the commission did not have the right to regulate companies like Better Place.

Load and time of use figure prominently in the discussions. And as Nissan and Coulomb Technologies rush to build out a fast charging network the Utility Reform Network is advocating a go-slow approach encouraging only 110 volt chargers. Nissan appears focused on 220 volts but Coulomb's chargers can do either 220 or 110. Lower voltage is fine for long charge periods like office or home chargers and this covers most driving needs but it will significantly constrain the incentive to setup a widespread synchronous charging network.

Better Place probably wants fast chargers too but is more flexible given its asynchronous battery-swap and offline charging model.

Clearly the regulatory approach will have significant impact on the business models.

Rafael @www.climateatbay.net

Clean-tech: transition but also job opportunities

Clean-tech continue to show promise amidst the recovering economy in the latest Clean Edge report. Here is a quick summary and below information on pay in the fields.

Clean Edge, which has been tracking the growth of clean-tech markets for nearly a decade, reports that global revenues for solar photovoltaics, wind power, and biofuels expanded from $75.8 billion in 2007 to $115.9 billion in 2008. For the first time, one sector alone, wind, had revenues exceeding $50 billion. New global investments in energy technologies—including venture capital, project finance, public markets, and research and development—expanded by 4.7 percent from $148.4 billion in 2007 to $155.4 billion in 2008, according to research firm New Energy Finance.

Severely tightened credit markets also began to take their toll. In late 2008 and early 2009, the extent of constrained credit became apparent, with a range of clean-energy companies delaying plans, laying off staff, or scuttling projects entirely. While we expect to see continued growth for the sector in the mid- to long-term, we believe 2009 will be a year of refocus, consolidation, or retrenchment for many firms. At the same time, new government spending, regulation, and policies should help the sector weather the current economic crisis better than most other sectors. On balance, we believe clean energy and energy intelligence will be seen as a means to help economies around the world pull out of the current economic malaise.

Not surprisingly, the Bay Area grabs the top spot for clean-tech opportunities.
Finally, via Earth2Tech, notes on the pay data:

Clean Edge worked with PayScale, a publisher of work-compensation data, to conduct a survey to determine median salary and wage compensation for a range of cleantech jobs. See the report (available for free as a PDF download), for a more comprehensive overview, but a sampling of salaries include: energy auditor for green buildings ($48,500 median pay); mechanical engineer for electric vehicles ($63,600); and solar energy systems designer ($42,600). Interestingly, the highest median salary listed was for project developers of renewable energy ($106,000) and the lowest was for insulation workers ($36,100).

Rafael @www.climateatbay.net

High speed rail weaves on routes

Causing the least disruption and trying to keep people happy is proving challenging all along the populated segments for high-speed rail, not surprisingly. It's a classic case of macro benefits and local disruption. In San Jose, residents are challenging the routes:

The California High Speed Rail Authority's preliminary proposal was to run the trains along the existing tracks from downtown's Diridon Station south toward the Tamien Station. But that route runs through the Gardner and North Willow Glen neighborhoods, where residents fear the increased rail traffic and accompanying noise. Neighbors also fear they could be forced to sell property adjacent to the tracks to accompany the new trains.

Willow Glen resident Larry Ames said the original proposal "would be very destructive to the northern Willow Glen area," where homes are right alongside the tracks. With high-speed rail eventually expected to run trains every 3 minutes, he said, "that would be maddeningly noisy."

The $45 billion bullet-train project, supported by bonds that state voters approved last year with Proposition 1A, is projected to run trains from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 2 hours and 40 minutes, beginning in 2020. The alternative routes will be evaluated as part of an environmental review expected to be completed in 2011.

One possible alternative suggested by the city is a narrower high-speed rail footprint with three rather than four tracks to accommodate express trains. But the rail authority last week also unveiled four other alternatives suggested by residents and local officials that would ease neighborhood concerns — though likely at a much steeper price.

Similarly, all along the peninsula cities including Menlo Park, Atherton and Palo Alto are also challenging the routes but opponent recently received a legal setback as a judge ruled in favor of the HSR Authority regarding the routing decision.

Rafael @www.climateatbay.net

Videos From the Chamber Soap Opera

When it comes to climate change, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has really embarrassed itself. It has either lost or drawn rebuke from several of its members, including GE and Apple. Below are two of the best videos to come from this debacle.




and this one...

Apple leaves US Chamber of Commerce

In what is beginning to look like an exodus, Apple leaves the Chamber of Commerce citing the chamber's position on climate. Apple is making strides establishing its green cred.

More at NY Times Green Inc.

Hat-tip NRDC Switchboard.

Rafael @www.climateatbay.net

Transformative wind

It's important to recognize that the benefits of the clean energy economy are universal. Here is the remarkable story of William Kamkwamba of Malawi who built a windmill based on a photograph, thereby transforming his village - and hopefully setting the stage to tranform rural Africa.



William's story in Wired.

William's website.

Rafael @www.climateatbay.net

State-wide carbon fees proceed

California's leadership continues in moving to the new clean energy economy. The state is proceeding with fees that will begin to shift incentives from old polluting technologies to energy from sources that never run out.

Despite industry objections and threats of lawsuits, California air regulators on Friday approved the nation's first statewide carbon fee on utilities, oil refineries and other polluting industries.

The money raised by the California Air Resources Board, which voted 9-0, is intended to pay for the bureaucratic expenses of carrying out the state's 2006 global warming law, which requires greenhouse gas emissions statewide to be reduced by 25 percent over the next decade.

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The fee will be imposed at the end of 2010 and raise $63.1 million annually during its first three years. The amount will level off at $36.2 million in the fifth year.

Oil companies, manufacturers and utilities complained regulators had unfairly singled them out, leveling the fee on just 350 businesses in the state.
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About 350 businesses in California that make, sell or import gasoline, diesel, natural gas and coal would be charged roughly 15 cents for every ton of carbon dioxide that they and their customers emit into the atmosphere.

The average refinery would pay about $4.7 million and the average cement plant would pay about $150,000 a year, said Jon Costantino, manager of the climate change planning section at the air board. Cement plants would be subject to the fee because the chemical process they use to make cement produces greenhouse gases.

The charge would drop to 9 cents per ton of carbon dioxide in 2014 because loans approved in past years by the Legislature to initially run the program would be paid.

Among the things that this fee will enable is a rampup in improved energy performance such as the work by the Public Utilities Commission. Improved energy performance will pay tiself back many times over with great benefit to the economy.

State regulators yesterday committed more than $3 billion over the next three years for programs aimed at getting people to use less energy by retrofitting 130,000 homes, training 15,000 workers and using smarter appliances.

The programs will be coordinated by California's four investor-owned utilities and paid for through electric and gas bills.

The initiatives, which are an expansion of efficiency efforts long in place in the state, mark a change in direction by moving away from rebates for devices such as light bulbs and instead making buildings more efficient.

“The focus is to shift priorities away from rebates for widgets to sustained energy savings in the built environment,” said Dian Grueneich, a member of the California Public Utilities Commission, which approved the programs yesterday.

By increasing efficiency, efforts in 2010 through 2012 should preclude the construction of three 500-megawatt power plants; save almost 7,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity and 150 million therms of natural gas; and keep 3 million tons of greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere, Grueneich said.

Serious Materials raises more funds

One of my favorites, Serious Materials continues to gain favor among investors with $60 million in Series C financing.

Serious Materials remains among the few companies taking real aim at the essential building components market with likely the best high performance windows and drywall in the business.

It's products are clearly leading edge. It's challenge has been making the difference apparent to customers since all the players claim to have efficient windows and the EnergyStar ratings don't go high enough to make the difference apparent. Talking about "R-value" won't get it very far and expecting customers to ask about that isn't likely.

High performance buildings and materials need to be made more apparent and there is increasing discussion about cities requiring buildings energy ratings at time of sale. That may be a step in the right direction.

Rafael @www.climateatbay.net

Pics From Up North

These pictures were taken by Fresno native Joshua Paul, a top travel photographer who recently crossed the Northwest Passage on a military icebreaking ship. The photos are part of his series, "The Arctic," which is on display at the Clark Oshin Gallery at The Icon in L.A. through Nov. 14.

Do you see the three bears?

Here's a picture taken at the Barrow Strait.

The ship works its way through Lancaster Sound.

(Photos courtesy Kathleen Clark & Nan Oshin, Clark Oshin Gallery.)