EDP Renewables NA Distributed Generation, the distributed generation business unit of EDP Renewables, has been given the green light to develop the company’s 13th community solar project in New York State in 2021.
The project brings the company’s total community solar capacity to 54 MW in New York alone. The company has not yet shared the project’s specific location, what hardware will be used in the installation, nor any details on potential construction partners.
In the last two years, New York has made unprecedented community solar capacity additions. According to the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), the state added 549 MW of community solar capacity in 2020, leading the nation. More than 90% of the state’s 2.7 GW pipeline of projects under development that have been awarded NY-Sun incentives, and are expected to come online in the next two years, are community solar, comprising more than 800 projects.
Flint Mine Solar slated for 100 megawatts in Coxsackie and Athens
The proposed Flint Mine Solar farm here cleared what is perhaps its last major hurdle Wednesday when the state Public Service Department’s Siting Board lent its approval to the 100 megawatt project.Andrew Aitchison/Corbis via Getty Images
COXSACKIE — The proposed Flint Mine Solar farm cleared what is perhaps its last major hurdle Wednesday when the state Public Service Department’s Siting Board lent its approval to the 100-megawatt (MW) project.
Flint Mine had been on track for approval since August 2020 when the Public Service Department found that the plan was “compliant” with guidelines and requirements for such a project. But Wednesday’s decision brought it a step closer to groundbreaking.
“Today’s unanimous approval is a very big step for FMS—after five years of development effort,” Bill Moore, the principal in Hudson Energy Development, which is building the farm. “I think the path forward to a groundbreaking, possibly later this year, is clear.”
Still needed is the specific construction plan and a separate approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. That’s because a small part of the project would be in wetlands under federal jurisdiction.
But even opponents said the project appeared poised to move forward.
“I don’t know what we can do at this point,” said Nancy Harm, a member of Saving Greene, a group worried about the size of this, and other projects, including a 50 MW proposal by Hecate Energy.
All in all, Saving Greene notes that seven solar projects have been proposed for the area around Coxsackie and Athens, where part of the Flint Mine will also be located.
Subsidies for developers needed, state says, to boost green energy
File photo: Rooftop solar panels at Newark Liberty International Airport
By Tom Johnson, NJ Spotlight
State regulators on Wednesday formally adopted a new solar incentive program with the aim of developing 3,750 megawatts of new solar generation by 2026, a target that would double New Jersey’s solar capacity.
New Jersey Board of Public Utilities President Joseph Fiordaliso described the new program, approved after three years of discussion and debate with executives in the solar sector, as a monumental change and one that will help advance the Murphy administration’s goal of 100% clean energy by mid-century.
Solar energy is one of the cornerstones of that strategy and is projected to provide 34% of New Jersey’s electricity by 2050. Once the new program is fully implemented, solar energy is expected to generate roughly 10% of New Jersey’s electricity needs, up from a little more than 5% currently.
In unanimously approving the new program, the BPU touted the incentives — markedly lower than the past subsidies, which were frequently criticized as overpaying for new projects — as minimizing the cost to ratepayers at the same time as encouraging growth in the solar sector.
The sector, once one of the fastest-growing industries in New Jersey, now employs 5,384 in the state, a drop from a high that once topped 7,000 workers. Solar advocates hope the increased number of solar projects expected to be built each year will maintain a robust sector in the state.
Installing at a fast pace
Under the new program, 750 MW of new solar arrays are projected to be built each year, nearly double what has been built in the past. To get to those numbers, the state needs to expand the rate of installations, Fiordaliso said.
Whether the new incentives will rein in costs to ratepayers remains to be seen. The new program scraps key provisions of a cost cap imposed by the Legislature to reduce subsidies paid by utility customers.
“I do think the staff is trying to reel in the industry and reel in the prices,’’ said Rate Counsel Director Stefanie Brand, who argues revisions to the cap could raise the cost to ratepayers from $800 million to $1.2 billion a year. “I don’t think you can say this is really reducing costs.’’
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.
For two days this week, much of the financial media was paying close attention to a Delaware courtroom where Tesla CEO Elon Musk faced intense questioning about the 2016 merger of Tesla with SolarCity.
Because of Musk’s celebrity and tendency to say wild things, much of the coverage treated this as an entertaining performance, but the case touches on a pivotal moment in the U.S. solar market that set the stage for where we are today.
In 2016, SolarCity was the dominant player in the U.S. market but it was running out of money. Musk, who was chairman and a major shareholder of both Tesla and SolarCity, helped to engineer Tesla’s $2.6 billion purchase of the solar company. The deal may have saved SolarCity, but some shareholders are now suing Musk, arguing that the transaction amounted to a bailout of SolarCity that was not in the best interests of Tesla.
Aside from questions of whether this was a bailout, it is now clear that Tesla was not ready to build on what it had with SolarCity. While Tesla’s top executives were focusing on developing their make-or-break product, the Model 3 sedan, the company’s rooftop solar business was withering.
As the trial plays out, I asked Bryan White, an analyst for Wood Mackenzie, to reflect on the significance of the Tesla-SolarCity sale.
“The decline of SolarCity following the Tesla acquisition opened the door for companies like Sunrun, Vivint, and Sunnova to be the largest residential solar lease players,” he said. “And it’s hard to say whether Sunrun would have ascended and achieved enough scale to have acquired Vivint without Tesla-SolarCity’s decline.”
White was referring to Sunrun’s 2020 purchase of Vivint, which combined the companies that were then No. 1 and No. 2 in market share, while Tesla was No. 3. Sunrun is now acting like a market leader, with high-profile partnerships like the one with Ford, related to integrating the all-electric F-150 pickup for use as a home battery.
There’s no way to know if SolarCity would have taken a similar path to what Sunrun has done as the leader, but it’s a fascinating “what-if” because Sunrun has done so much. Also, it may be that SolarCity’s problems with its operations and finances were so great that it was going to lose its leading status regardless of the sale to Tesla.
But we can say for sure that Tesla has had a difficult time figuring out how to manage and build its solar business.
“I would describe Tesla’s approach (to rooftop solar) as very in flux,” White said. “They have been playing around with their pricing and product offerings quite a bit in the last year or so. As they try to re-assert their dominance in this space, they are clearly trying to figure out what works best for them to achieve profitable growth.
A massive solar farm is coming to the small Maine community of Buxton.
Glenvale Solar, based out of Boston, is creating a 119-acre solar farm on a plot of land in the York County town.
The owners of the property and Glenvale have been working for the last two years on the idea.
Aidan Foley, the founder of Glenvale Solar, said the farm will sell energy to ratepayers at a low price and will connect to existing Central Maine Power transmission lines.
Glenvale Solar said the massive solar farm will be tucked away out of sight.
“I think most people in Buxton wouldn’t know this project was here if they didn’t read about it in the newspaper,” Foley said. “It’s on a private, secluded piece of land that you don’t see from any main roads.”
Glenvale plans to start work next year and said the project will generate about 100 construction jobs.
EPEditor’s note: Even if Buxton ends up hosting the only solar farm unknown to opponents, it won’t be the town’s only claim to fame. In the film, The Shawshank Redemption, based on a story by Maine native Stephen King, Buxton is the site of the oak tree and rock wall where ‘Red’ goes after being released from prison to retrieve a message from his friend Andy Dufresne, who escaped from prison earlier. We trust you’ve seen the film as it seems to appear on one cable station or another almost every month. Despite that, I still haven’t. What’s your recommendation? Watch or skip? –FB
Sheep graze through the tall prairie grass, their bleats breaking the quiet as butterflies and insects flit through the native flowers.
The pastoral setting is not a restored prairie. It’s a solar installation in rural Chisago County — one of the 16 in Minnesota run by Enel Green Power, a global renewable energy company based in Rome that supplies Xcel Energy.
In Minnesota, at least, the solar farms are generating more than electricity. Instead of turf, bare ground or gravel, the land beneath Enel’s Minnesota installations were all seeded with native pollinator-friendly grasses, sedges and wildflowers. They’ve matured into rich native habitats for bees, insects and butterflies — in a landscape desperately short of them.
Minnesota state agencies, such as the Public Utilities Commission, Department of Natural Resources and the Board of Soil and Water Resources all encourage such plantings at solar sites as a matter of policy.
“One of the fastest-growing trends in solar, nationwide, is doing better than turf grass under and around the panels,” said Rob Davis, director of the Center for Pollinators in Energy at the St. Paul nonprofit Fresh Energy. That could be food or other types of vegetation.
Minnesota pioneered standards for what constitutes pollinator-friendly vegetation at solar sites — similar to standards for organic products — following legislation in 2016 to prevent greenwashing or false environment-friendly claims, Davis said.
The Monarch Joint Venture in St. Paul is among the groups studying the results.
Laura Lukens, the group’s national monitoring coordinator, has been at several Enel sites with her clipboard this summer taking inventories of the quality and abundance of flowering plants and milkweed, and the native pollinators using them. She’s also tracking the difference between the habitats growing directly under the panels vs. the ones in between. Lukens said she’s excited by what she’s seen.
“We’ve been seeing great things in terms of the floral community and the pollinators using the habitat there,” Lukens said. “I saw monarchs breeding at every site I visited.”
