After months of lobbying, the clean energy industry secured minimal tax credit extensions in the $1.37 trillion end-of-year deal U.S. lawmakers eked out this week to fund the government in 2020.
Of the possible extensions that may have been stuffed into the spending bill, wind was the only winner, and the industry secured just one extra year of incentives.
If the full deal wins congressional passage, as is expected, wind developers can now qualify for the production tax credit through 2020 — a year longer than anticipated. Developers qualifying projects in 2020 will receive 60 percent of the PTC if they bring those projects online by the end of 2024. Projects qualified in 2019 will still receive only 40 percent of the incentive.
That will benefit onshore wind developers at a time when their market would otherwise be under pressure. However, offshore wind developers, who typically opt for the Investment Tax Credit, would not get the same boost.
Meanwhile, lawmakers left solar— the industry that most aggressively fought for an extension of its ITC — and electric vehicles out of the deal. Storage, which lawmakers had sought incentives for in legislation like the November GREEN Act, will continue without credits.
What was billed as the opening of the state’s newest community solar project became a monumental day in New York solar history. The installation, a 6.12 MW project developed by ForeFront Power in Mechanicville, put New York at over 2 GW of solar installed. The Empire State has now become the 9th in the country to have more than 2 GW of solar capacity installed.
The milestone also keeps New York on track to achieve the statewide target of installing 6 GW of solar by 2025.
“Solar energy is a vital part of New York’s Green New Deal strategy to transition to a clean energy future, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality,” said New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. “The success of this initiative demonstrates we are on the path to meeting our nation-leading climate goals, and our clean energy agenda is spurring economic growth and jobs while leaving this planet cleaner and greener for generations to come.”
New York is in an especially interesting spot as it positions itself as a national solar leader. While nearly every state within the “2 GW installed” club is home to massive utility-scale projects, New York’s greatest potential lies in distributed generation. The state has no shortage when it comes to rooftops, a resource that is currently being used to develop a a 316 MW / 2528 MWh (that’s 8 hours) energy storage facility (pdf). Furthermore, a study done by City University of New York early in the decade found that 66.4% of all rooftops in New York city were suitable for solar installations, totaling well over 5 GW in capacity.
We’re always looking for stories that might interest our readers. If you come across something so interesting that it cries out to be shared, please send it to editor@enviropolitics.com If we agree, you’ll see it here soon.
The state has adopted a much-debated plan to help the solar sector transition to a new way of financing solar projects, an overhaul the Murphy administration hopes will rein in costs to utility customers who pay for the program.
The plan, the first step to scrapping a decade-old system of subsidizing solar projects, has met a mixed reception from solar developers who have helped build a robust solar industry in New Jersey. The industry employs about 7,000 people, and homes and businesses have installed a total of 117,893 solar arrays.
But the state Board of Public Utilities’ vote to approve the new program will allow the agency and solar advocates to focus on designing a more permanent program in which the sector can continue to thrive using a less expensive system. Ratepayers have been hit with $2.6 billion in subsidies since the program began about a decade ago.
The new incentive program reduces the subsidies given to developers and owners of solar arrays, as was sought by a law enacted in 2018. It sets up a tiered level of incentives depending on what solar projects are installed — those built on homes; on corporate campuses and businesses; on landfills and brownfield; grid supply projects and community solar facilities.
“Our mission is to achieve 100 percent clean energy by 2050, and we won’t get there without solar power, a critical industry for our state,’’ said BPU President Joseph Fiordaliso. “Ultimately, our aim is to balance ratepayer impacts with ensuring a thriving and stable solar industry.’’
Skepticism among solar advocates
Whether that is achieved provokes skepticism among some solar advocates. Modeling for a new energy master plan for the state projects solar energy will provide up to 34% of the state’s electricity by 2050.
“Our members are in a panic right now,’’ said Lyle Rawlings, founder of Advanced Solar Products in Flemington, referring to the Mid-Atlantic Solar and Storage Industries Association. “They don’t see how they can stay in business.’’
If you liked this post you’ll love our daily newsletter, EnviroPolitics. It’s packed with the latest news, commentary and legislative updates from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware…and beyond. Don’t take our word for it, try it free for an entire month. No obligation.
TurningPoint Energy and TurningPoint Energy have broken ground on the King community solar project in North Smithfield, R.I. The project, originally developed by TurningPoint Energy and now owned by Nautilus, is being constructed by DEPCOM Power as part of the State of Rhode Island’s Community Net Metering Pilot Program.
The project includes two solar arrays totaling 12.44 MW AC of community solar capacity and is expected to be operational in 2020.
The King community solar project abuts the Landfill Resource and Recovery Superfund site that is currently undergoing a long-term remedial response under the oversight of the Environmental Protection Agency. TurningPoint Energy and Nautilus have coordinated closely with Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management and EPA representatives to ensure that the project design has considered any potential future remediation which may be required. The project will incorporate environmental measures including a pollinator-friendly seed mix around and underneath the array.
“Projects like this, which simultaneously clean up our land and make our economy more green, are the future of our state,” says Governor Gina M. Raimondo. “I’m thrilled that once this array is complete, more than 3,000 Rhode Island households will have the option to use clean energy and save money.”
This is TurningPoint Energy’s and Nautilus Solar’s second Rhode Island community solar project to break ground as part of the Community Net Metering Solar Pilot Program, created in 2016. The Hopkins Hill community solar project broke ground earlier this year.
Nautilus is the owner of the project and responsible for managing the project, overseeing construction, and maintaining its long-term performance.
Above photo: Courtesy of Scott Lapham Photography. Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo (second from right) joined State Representative Carlos Tobon, Jared Schoch (president of Turning Point Energy), Laura Stern (co-CEO of Nautilus Solar Energy), Gary Ezovski (town administrator of North Smithfield) and Carol Grant (commissioner, Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources) for a ground-breaking ceremony at the King community solar project. Facebook10TwitterPrintEmail
The exclusion had been a reprieve for the solar industry which lost thousands of jobs and put projects on hold as a result of the Trump administration tariffs.
Due to the positive business case made possible by the exemption, some panel manufacturers had begun shifting supply chains to produce more bifacial panels abroad.
While bifacial panels accounted for just 3 percent of the solar market last year, they are gaining traction since their double-sided nature means they absorb more power and are therefore more efficient.
But like any other new technology in the early stages of development, manufacturers try to find cost-effective ways of manufacturing thereby choosing to produce in China.
Also, stripping the exemption represents a setback to developers building big U.S. solar projects.
This fresh blow to the industry means U.S. based solar panel manufacturers like First Solar and SunPower will regain an edge on these foreign-manufactured solar panels.
The news was described as “an extraordinary and unprecedented turn of events” by the Solar Energy Industry Association (SEIA)’s President and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper.
In a public statement, she noted that the exemption was hastily rescinded “without any opportunity for public notice and comment.”
$100 million fund marks CalCom’s first foray into owning the systems it develops. (Credit: CalCom)
In California, it’s not just vulnerable families and critical services that could use battery-backed solar systems to ride through wildfire-prevention power outages. Farms also have critical energy needs, like pumping water to crops on set schedules, or chilling them after harvest, that could face significant disruption under the state’s new wildfire prevention regime.
CalCom Energy, a long-time solar and energy services provider for California’s agricultural sector, thinks it has a solution. This week, the Fresno-based developer launched a $100 million Agriculture Energy Infrastructure Fund, aimed at combining low-cost solar power-purchase agreements with the backup power of energy storage.
The fund, developed in partnership with Symbiont Energy and Live Oak Bank, marks CalCom’s first foray into owning the systems it develops, David Williams, CalCom’s chief commercial officer, noted in Wednesday’s press release. But it’s far from CalCom’s first foray into solving the farm-specific energy challenges facing its customers in the state’s Central Valley.
Since its 2012 founding as CalCom Solar, the Fresno, Calif.-based company has developed more than 200 megawatts of clean energy projects, largely solar projects for farms and water districts. In fact, it’s one of the largest commercial solar developers in the territory of Pacific Gas & Electric, the Northern California utility now in bankruptcy reorganization under the weight of tens of billions of dollars in liabilities from deadly wildfires started by its power lines in 2017 and 2018.
Like many California solar developers, energy storage is playing an ever-increasing role in CalCom’s projects, leading it to rebrand as CalCom Energy last year. Changes to California’s net metering regime, including time-of-use (TOU) rates that reduce the value of midday energy and increase its cost in late afternoon and evening hours, have an outsize effect on commercial solar projects like CalCom’s that rely on meter aggregation for valuing their production.
CalCom also provides metering and billing analysis through its Energy Services management platform, to allow its customers to better manage how they consume electricity in relation to their solar-generated and battery-stored resources. For example, big Salinas Valley grower and shipper D’Arrigo Bros. of California, which has installed about 5.5 megawatts of solar PV through CalCom, has also added two 520-kilowatt batteries at its central cooling facility, to reduce demand charges, shift energy to different TOU periods, and provide backup power to critical loads.
But batteries have become even more critical under the much-expanded wildfire prevention “public safety power shutoff” regimes put in place by PG&E and other California utilities under state regulatory mandate this year. Agricultural customers are huge electricity users, largely to move water — pumping and treating water uses roughly one-sixth of the state’s electricity supply.
In fact, water treatment plants and other water infrastructure are among the classes of “critical services” that have been earmarked for special treatment under the California Public Utilities Commission’s latest revisions to the Self-Generation Incentive Program, which also included $100 million in incentives for disadvantaged or medically vulnerable customers who live in high-fire-threat parts of the state.
But farmers are also dependent on steady and reliable electricity to meet water-pumping schedules that are often fixed by law, or by the needs of its crops and the growing season. Solar-plus-storage projects that promise to reduce overall electric bills, as well as provide backup power, are becoming a far more attractive option than installing expensive and polluting backup generators to insure against a crop-ruining power outage.
