solar

New Jersey looks to boost large-scale solar on farmland

Bill would support solar arrays that feed utility companies, not homes or businesses

Proposed legislation aims to expand utility-scale solar projects by using the state’s existing farmlands.

Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight

The state wants to sharply ramp up efforts to build utility-scale solar projects in New Jersey, a strategy that could result in opening up existing agricultural land to huge new solar farms.

Under a bill (S-2605) now under consideration by lawmakers, a policy initiated during the Christie administration of steering new solar projects away from farmland would be scrapped. That would open up land to accommodate large solar projects that supply power directly to the grid.

Without more utility-scale solar projects that provide at least 10 megawatts (MW) of solar power and the land to locate them, the state will not achieve its goal of transitioning to 100% clean energy by 2050, according to proponents of the bill.

“It ain’t going to happen unless we change our policies,’’ said Sen. Bob Smith, the sponsor of the legislation and chairman of the Senate Environment and Energy Committee, which kicked off debate on the issue during a hearing in Trenton. No action was taken on the bill Wednesday.

“It is complicated,’’ Smith (D-Middlesex) conceded.

Utility-scale solar projects are widely viewed as the most cost-effective way of delivering solar power, largely because of the economies of scale associated with building bigger projects rather than putting solar panels on a residence or on warehouse rooftops.

The Murphy administration’s energy master plan identifies solar energy as one of the primary ways New Jersey can convert to using cleaner energy. By mid-century, that plan suggests 34% of the state’s energy needs will be produced by solar. Today, solar accounts for only 5% of its power.

The legislation aims to expand utility-scale projects by using existing farmlands where such projects might be more easily located in the nation’s most densely populated state. It probably would require roughly 25,000 acres to achieve the 3,000 MW of utility-scale projects the bill projects to build by 2030, according to Smith.

Why many environmental groups are opposed

Many environmental groups oppose opening up farmland to big solar projects, calling the bill premature and unnecessary, given that the state Board of Public Utilities (BPU) is currently engaged in an extensive discussion with solar advocates over how new solar projects will be financed going forward.

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Solar deal brings Wells Fargo and Shell together

The big bank and the big oil company show widening corporate interest in renewable energy

A boarded-up Wells Fargo Bank in Washington. (Joshua Roberts/Getty Images)

By Steven Mufson Washington Post – June 23, 2020 at 9:00 a.m.

Wells Fargo will buy electricity generated by solar plants from Shell Energy, a move that demonstrates widening corporate interest in renewable energy even among some of the strongest supporters of fossil fuels.

The deal is modest: Wells Fargo says its share of the plants’ combined capacity, purchased from three locations in Virginia and one in California, would add up to 62.7 megawatts and would meet about 8 percent of its global energy needs.

But it carries symbolic value. Wells Fargo, the second-biggest lender to fossil fuel companies over the past four years, is buying carbon-free electricity from Shell, a company that’s been in the oil business since the 1880s. The deal also shows the appeal of solar projects even in the midst of the punishing economic downturn brought on by the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Rockefeller heirs to Big Oil find dumping fossil fuels benefits the bottom line

Shell Energy, a unit of oil giant Royal Dutch Shell, which entered into a long-term contract to buy power from the solar plants’ developers, will resell some of the energy to Wells Fargo. The Wells Fargo contract for solar energy from California will last seven years, and those from the Mid-Atlantic will last six years and seven months.

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Curt Radkin, senior vice president and corporate properties sustainability strategist at Wells Fargo, said that the bank has “a pipeline of additional transactions that we’re hoping to bring to closure.”

The continued push for renewable projects comes amid the economic downturn. In April, Wells Fargo set aside $3.1 billion for potential losses and said its quarterly profit fell nearly 90 percent.

Wells Fargo has been a target of climate activists, who point to a Rainforest Action Network report that said the bank had provided nearly $200 billion of financing for fossil fuel firms and projects since the Paris climate agreement was signed in December 2015.

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FERC regulatory decision could cripple rooftop solar

From Inside Climate News

Rooftop solar as we know it is under threat from a case before federal regulators, and a broad array of clean energy advocates and state officials are getting nervous.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is considering a request from an obscure consumer group that wants to end net metering, which is the compensation mechanism that allows solar owners to sell their excess electricity to the grid. By selling the electricity they don’t need, solar owners get credits on their utility bills, producing savings that help to cover the costs of solar systems.

Monday was the deadline to file comments in the case, and those who responded were overwhelmingly opposed to the petition, but clean energy advocates say there is still a real chance that FERC will decide to throw out state laws that allow net metering.

“We want to be able to decide for ourselves what happens on the local grid,” said Brad Heavner, policy director for the California Solar & Storage Association. “This is clearly a local issue.”

He told me that getting rid of net metering “is pretty close to saying solar is illegal.”

I wouldn’t go quite that far, but it would be accurate to say that ending net metering would fundamentally undermine the economics of rooftop solar.
This case exists because the New England Ratepayers Association, a New Hampshire-based nonprofit organization, filed a petition in April that says net metering is an unfair subsidy that leads to a shift in costs to consumers who do not have rooftop solar.

The argument is a familiar one, often made by utilities and fossil fuel companies. It overlaps in some ways with arguments made by social justice groups that have long said that white people are getting a disproportionate share of the economic benefits of solar.

But the key difference is that utilities and fossil fuel companies are often trying to hold back development of rooftop solar, while the social justice groups are often trying to expand access to solar. Also, there is little evidence that the growth of solar leads to noticeably higher bills for non-solar customers.

The filing asks FERC to rule that net metering should be subject to wholesale pricing rules enforced by the federal government, effectively ending net metering.

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The goal of the petition “is to eviscerate state net metering and therefore eviscerate financing tools to make rooftop solar systems affordable,” said Tyson Slocum of the consumer group Public Citizen.

His group has said that New England Ratepayers is not being forthright about its sources of financing and is falsely claiming to stand up for low-income consumers. New England Ratepayers, which does not disclose its donors, got 90 percent of its budget from 15 companies or individuals paying dues of $20,000 or $5,000 each, according to the organization’s 2018 tax form.

I asked the New England Ratepayers to respond to these points.

“NERA has hundreds of individual and business members, and like many organizations uses its own judgment on how it determines its budget and membership fee tiers,” said Marc Brown, president of New England Ratepayers, in an email. “The unifying common denominator for its members is that they all pay electric utility bills, and are concerned about the cost-shift imposed on them by retail net metering.”

Looking at the filings in the case, there is a striking difference between the diversity of the hundreds of parties who want FERC to reject the petition, and the fewer than a half-dozen who support it.

The opponents of the petition include Republicans who are wary of federal encroachment on state authority, such as Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds. They also include social justice organizations such as the San Diego branch of the NAACP, which says solar is a vital part of developing a fairer and cleaner energy system.

Meanwhile, the supporters include the Heartland Institute, a leader in advancing climate denial, and Citizens Against Government Waste, an organization that describes itself as a watchdog for fiscally conservative causes.

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Tesla canceling $1,000 deposit pre-orders of its popular solar roof for some customers

People who’ve paid a deposit three years ago are now being told they won’t get the solar roofs

By Derick Lila PV Buzz

What Happened?

Since it was announced, Tesla has been accepting paid deposits from those interested in placing orders for the product, but now things are changing.

The company is now canceling paid deposits, of $1,000 each, for some customers and advising them, through emails, that their homes are not located within Tesla’s service areas.

The email

The email reads: Upon further review, your home is not located within our currently planned service territory. The driving distance from our closest warehouse would make it difficult for us to provide you the high-quality service that our customers deserve. For this reason, we will not be able to proceed with your project.

Tesla goes on to say it will provide a refund of requested deposits within 7-10 business days.

The Reaction

Electrek reports that some reservation holders are obviously very disappointed that it took the company three years to figure out that they will not proceed with the order.

One reservation holder says he finds it “unacceptable” for Tesla to operate like that.

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India braces for 11,943 MW hit to solar power due to solar eclipse

By Aarushi Koundal ETEnergyWorld

Solar eclipse: India braces for 11,943 MW hit to solar power; POSOCO readies systems

Power System Operation Corporation (POSOCO) has started preparing power systems for the 21 June annular solar eclipse as it expects a reduction in solar power generation by 11,943 megawatt (MW) across India.

The solar eclipse will begin at 09:56 am IST at Dwarka, Gujarat and will end at 14:29 pm IST at Dibrugarh, Assam. This would be the fourth solar eclipse India would witness in the past decade. The last one occurred in December 2019.

“Eclipse would lead to reduction of all India solar generation by about 11,943 MW at maximum obscuration time and total estimated reduction in energy will be 20 million units compared to a normal day,” it said.

The state-run power operator is planning to manage the deviation of grid frequency from the nominal by flexing fast ramping sources such as hydro and gas-generating stations.

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“During the initial period, 8,900 MW of solar generation will reduce in a very short span of time i.e 1:48 hrs and after maximum eclipse, it would increase by 10,362 MW within 2:08 hrs,” POSOCO said in a fresh report.

As on 31 March 2020, with an installed capacity of 34.6 GW, solar PV constituted 9 per cent of the total installed generation capacity of Indian grid.

“Electricity grids with such a significant penetration of solar capacity will be adversely impacted by astronomical events such as solar eclipse, due to variation in solar generation reduction followed by rise in generation and associated large ramp rates,” POSOCO said.

It added that low generation from solar power parks results in high voltages at pooling substations, which needs to be maintained by timely switching of reactors or transmission lines.

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Illinois Opens Narrow Window for Critical Solar, Nuclear Relief Bills to Pass

Two energy bills that could make or break Illinois’ nuclear and solar industries will compete with COVID-19 emergencies in a special legislative session next week.

JEFF ST. JOHN reports for gtm

Can clean energy bills find time amid coronavirus pandemic relief, budget priorities in special session?

Can clean energy bills find time amid coronavirus pandemic relief, budget priorities in special session?

Two long-delayed energy bills in Illinois that could make or break the state’s nuclear and solar industries have been left in limbo by the coronavirus pandemic. 

Now, following the Wednesday recall of lawmakers to a special session next week after a two-month absence, backers of the two bills will have a brief opportunity to see them passed. Otherwise, they’ll need to wait for another special session that may or may not come later this summer or for a two-week “veto session” in the fall. 

In any scenario, the timing will be tight.

Next week’s special legislative session will be dominated by responses to the pandemic’s economic disruptions. But Exelon’s nuclear fleet and the Illinois solar industry both see a legislative fix as critical to their futures.

The Clean Energy Jobs Act’s nuclear protections

Exelon, the nation’s largest nuclear energy operator, wants any clean-energy bill to include a “fixed resource requirement,” or FRR, to allow its six Illinois nuclear plants to bid their capacity into a state-run system that prioritizes zero-carbon resources. Currently, Exelon’s nuclear plants participate in the capacity market overseen by mid-Atlantic grid operator PJM, which is dominated by natural-gas-fired generators

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