The incredible shrinking solar plant

By Jeff Postelwait
Online Editor

In the U.S. solar power market, developers are looking for access to the cash they need to build large, utility-scale solar projects, but that money is proving hard to find. If this keeps up, makers of solar farms in excess of 20 MW could be eclipsed by firms who put solar panels on rooftops.

In the first quarter of 2012, there were 506 MW of new solar projects that went online — accounting for some $1.9 billion in spending. This is a drop from the last quarter of 2011, which saw $3.1 billion worth of investment.

One factor? Shrinking and disappearing subsidies. Government funding is fading fast, and it's hard to say when Washington might feel like investing in solar power again — particularly with elections looming. It goes without saying that any whiff of uncertainty isn't good for upstart solar companies and their projects.

However, where the industry has recently favored big solar projects like the 290 MW Agua Caliente Solar Project being built by First Solar and NRG Solar in Yuma County, Arizona, we could soon see an uptick in small and medium solar power projects.

A huge undertaking like Agua Caliente was once thought to represent an industry sea change toward big solar power, but even proponents of solar power as a generation source can't deny that Agua Caliente would still be a patch of bare sand out in the desert without the Department of Energy loan guarantee that made it possible.

It's much easier at this point for solar developers to pursue smaller projects, like say teaming up with a big-box electronics store and installing some solar panels on the rooftops of a few stores. The chain gets good press, the solar manufacturers sell equipment, the projects are easier to approve, nobody has to worry about harming the desert tortoise's habitat, and generally everyone goes home happy.

But is this the way for the solar industry to finally get off what I've heard energy analysts describe as "the crack cocaine of public subsidies" once and for all and stand by themselves as their own industry? It's hard to say yet because there are still too many factors to consider.

Cheap natural gas is still a fierce competitor to just about any other generation technology, whether it's coal-fired plants or a solar farm. On the other hand, many state governments still have renewable portfolio standards to think about. On the other, other hand, there's the problem of incorporating too much solar energy onto the grid too soon without infrastructure upgrades. On the other-other-other hand, solar still has the advantage of being "sexy," meaning companies who want to look hip or forward thinking are still going to want to invest a little in solar — like Google, Inc. for one example.

Whether solar as an industry is ready to take off the training wheels and pedal without extensive tax breaks and subsidies is too large a question for me to answer. But from the way things are looking now, I expect to see fewer mega-sized solar projects going up in the U.S.

What your email address says about your energy use

By Jeff Postelwait
Online Editor

Do you Yahoo? Maybe you prefer Gmail. But did you know what email address you're registered with could reveal something about how much energy you use at home?

According to energy efficiency technology firm Opower, Yahoo Mail users could be paying $110 more annually on their energy bills than people who use Google's Gmail.

It's not that the act of sending emails eats up less energy if you use Gmail. This analysis has more to do with demographics. Opower looked at the overall household energy use of 2.8 million households across the country. Of those, roughly 1.15 million of them used either Gmail or Yahoo.

The average Yahoo Mail household used 11 percent more electricity than a Gmail household. The Yahoo users are eating up nearly a whole megawatt-hour more ever year than Gmail users.

Why is that? Well, Opower thinks the people who prefer Yahoo are more likely to live in larger households and use more energy per square foot. Gmail users typically are city dwellers who live in more compact, energy-efficient housing. Gmail users are also more likely to take an interest in their home energy usage by signing up for an energy audit or similar program.

So if you are interested in using less energy in your house, it's not as simple as registering for a new email account. It's more that people who care a little more than average about cutting their energy use tend to prefer Gmail over Yahoo. No matter what email you use, though, there are still plenty of things you can do to use less energy.

Talking Congress, security and generation at EEI

By Jennifer Van Burkleo,
Associate Editor

At the EEI Annual Convention this week, I caught up with former EEI Chairman Tom Farrell and Lew Hay, the new EEI chairman and CEO of NextEra Energy, to talk about what conventioneers were talking about in Orlando this year. I was glad to be inside, given how hot and rainy it was most of the time.

At the convention, held at the Marriott, my editor in chief Teresa Hansen and I were able to meet with both the incoming and outgoing chairmen. Hay said that although he is the incoming chairman, he will work closely with Farrell on industry priorities like cyber security, distributed generation, workforce issues and the direction of EEI.

Utilities compete in many ways, but they also pull together and work together for mutual advantage, Hay said. He also credited Farrell for helping build a consensus among EEI's member utilities.

As we sat down, the two men tackled the topic of cyber security. Hay and Farrell agreed that EEI would support a legislative solution in Congress to help private industry and the government share information on cyber threats. Such a bill is making its way through Congress, having earned approval in the House of Representatives in April and now awaiting a vote in the Senate.

The bill was introduced by Rep. Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican, who heads the House Intelligence Committee. The Obama administration threatened to veto the bill, claiming that the country's critical infrastructure would not be adequately protected by the legislation. The administration also expressed doubts about the level of protection the bill offered for consumer privacy.

"I think my company's system gets attacked more than a million times a day, but most aren't robust and we detect them," said Hay as he ate a giant cookie, provided at the meeting.

Hay and Farrell agreed that the government and Congress should let utilities share information to better protect their customers.

"The government clearly has information (about threats) that they aren't sharing with us," Hay said. "It will take an act of Congress to work these issues out."

When we asked about the future of distributed generation, Farrell stated that it will grow in a variety of forms, many that are still unknown. Utilities should be sure that they have in place a fair way to distribute the cost of upgrading the distribution grid to accommodate distributed generation now rather than when it might be too late in the future, Farrell said.

EEI's outgoing president Thomas Kuhn, who stepped into our meeting later on, used Germany's current cost problem as an example of why the U.S. should prepare for the future now. Because Germany waited too long to deal with the issue of electric costs, utility prices are now double those seen in the U.S.

According to Hay, utilities need to communicate the value of electricity to their customers. They need to find a way to communicate what is driving utility bills.

As technology changes, so do employees and their skills. Companies need to update their training materials by including more detail to what the position is, Hay said. Utilities shouldn't assume that potential employees know what the position description is.

Hay also suggested that companies look toward military personnel and veterans to fill their open positions, adding that troops are much better trained than they were 20 years ago.

Farrell has been chairman, president and CEO of Dominion since 2007. Hay is CEO and chairman of NextEra Energy. Hay's last day as CEO will be July 1, 2012, where he will then take over as executive chairman of NextEra through 2013.