Greenline Energy News
State to embark on its biggest-ever photovoltaic project
By Craig D. Rose
Union Tribune
When the sun rises on New Year's Day, it will signal the start of California's most ambitious effort yet to generate electricity from sunlight.
The California Solar Initiative commits the state to spending more than $3.4 billion over the next 10 years to subsidize the installation of 1 million solar roofs, or about 3,000 megawatts of electricity capacity, enough at peak output to match six modern natural-gas-fired power plants.
Even more important, the initiative is aimed at driving down the cost of solar-generated power to the point that it's comparable to producing power from burning coal and natural gas.
As things stand, electricity from photovoltaic systems—the technical term for rooftop solar—costs roughly twice that produced by burning fossil fuels.
If the price of producing electricity from solar could be substantially cut, it would accelerate its adoption and reduce the need to burn fossil fuels to generate electricity. Coal-and gas-fired power plants, along with autos and trucks, are leading sources of planet-warming greenhouse gases.
In fact, many scientists believe economical solar power will be a critical component in shifting the planet to clean, sustainable energy production.
And if fears of environmental catastrophe weren't enough, fossil-fuel costs are rising sharply as world demand grows. At the same time, the long-term cost of solar electricity is falling.
“It's a 'perfect storm' for solar,” said Ron Kenedi, who heads the North and South American solar group for Sharp Electronics, the world's largest producer of photovoltaic panels.
This isn't the first time California has sensed an opportunity to develop more solar energy. But none of the previous attempts committed as much money over as long a period of time.
Although California is poised to undertake the most expensive, long-term solar incentive program in the United States, Japan and Germany already have programs that put them at the forefront of the solar industry.
Germany subsidized the installation of 837 megawatts of photovoltaic systems last year. That amounted to more than half the world market. Japan, which launched an incentive program earlier, installed 292 megawatts of photovoltaics last year.
By comparison, only 180 megawatts of photovoltaic systems have been installed in California so far.
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COSTAR GREEN REPORT: Greening the Supply Chain
Companies building environmental responsibility into their corporate mission statements can grow the bottom line even as they shrink their "carbon footprints." The problem is, most firms aren’t taking advantage of easy, low-cost energy efficiency steps that can yield big cost savings and provide much-needed cachet at a time when corporate America’s image could use a good burnishing.
That's the conclusion of CoreNet Global, which unveiled the results of a 10-month study and a checklist of recommendations at its Global Summit in Denver last week. The CoreNet study found a growing recognition of the importance of energy efficiency among corporate real estate execs. A large majority (83 percent) ranked sustainability as important or most important and 94 percent ranked energy efficiency as important or most important relative to other issues affecting real estate over the next 10 years. More than two-thirds of executives expect budgets devoted to sustainability and energy efficiency to increase over the next five years.
However, the report also found that less than half of corporations have energy policies or consumption targets in place. Only 40 percent of those surveyed say corporations are making use of quantitative targets, and only 42 percent say a company-wide energy policy is in place. Less than a third say that a senior-level executive is in charge of energy management. Only five percent are linking employee compensation incentives to energy efficiency.
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