solar

October solar policy snapshots

A guide to recent legislation and research throughout the country.

By Kelsey Misbrener Solar Power World

House Democrats push for increased solar incentives in budget package
Washington, D.C.

A handful of Democrats are working to include a new Production Tax Credit for solar projects in the budget reconciliation package currently being debated by the House of Representatives. The draft package also includes an ITC extension and direct pay for solar incentives.

DOE Secretary asks all U.S. mayors to speed rooftop solar permitting process
Washington, D.C.

Dept. of Energy Sec. Jennifer Granholm wrote an open letter to all U.S. mayors asking them to adopt NREL’s SolarAPP+ instant online permitting process. Granholm wrote that SolarAPP+ is a rare, easy way to cut red tape and empower more residents to go solar.

DOE releases blueprint for massive solar energy expansion in the United States
Washington, D.C.

The U.S. Dept. of Energy recently published a study investigating the role solar power will play in the country’s urgent decarbonization. The department found that solar has the potential to power 40% of the nation’s electricity by 2035, but bold policymaking is necessary to reach that goal.

Read the full story here

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49-acre solar farm in Warren County, NJ, sells for $3.5M


By Derek Hall NJBIZ

Cushman & Wakefield has arranged the sale of the I-78 Solar Farm in Warren County for $3.5 million, the firm said in a statement.

The 10-megawatt solar farm, installed and operated by NJR Clean Energy Ventures III, sits on 49 acres just off Exit 3 of Interstate 78 in Pohatcong.

The property is fully leased to NJR, a subsidiary of New Jersey Resources Corp. and the largest owner-operator of solar farms in the state, Cushman & Wakefield said.

The team of Andy Merin, Kyle Schmidt, Andrew Schwartz, Jordan Sobel, and Andre Balthazard represented the seller, RDG at Pohatcong, and procured the buyer, Turner Group, the firm said.

“Considering the enormous barrier to entry and the fact this site took 10 years of planning, negotiating, and constructing to ultimately come online in January 2020, it’s no surprise that we saw strong interest in the I-78 Solar Farm,” Schwartz said.

The site is part of a 170-acre development that, once finished, will include 244 single-family townhomes and a 120-unit apartment complex, Cushman said.

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Dissatisfied with company’s plan, EPA takes over Raritan Bay Superfund cleanup

The Raritan Bay Slag Superfund site is in the center of the map, indicated by the encircled red arrow.

By Jon Hurdle, contributing writer, NJ Spotlight

The Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday it will take over planning for the cleanup of a heavily polluted Superfund site on Raritan Bay because it’s dissatisfied with a remediation proposal by a company it holds responsible for the contamination there.

The federal regulator will now design a program to remove lead, arsenic, and antimony from the Raritan Bay Slag site in the Laurence Harbor section of Old Bridge and Sayreville. Metal waste from blast furnaces was dumped into the bay during the 1960s and ‘70s by NL Industries, formerly National Lead Co., a Texas-based lead smelter that now makes ball-bearing slides and other products.

The company sent the EPA its plan for cleaning up the site, which is on the EPA’s National Priorities List for cleanup, but the agency concluded that the proposal failed to meet its standards.

“We’ve been dissatisfied with the progress and the timeliness and the quality of the work,” said Walter Mugdan, Acting Administrator for the agency’s Region 2 office, at a news conference overlooking the bay.

“Back in February, we gave them one last chance,” Mugdan said. “There was a whole laundry list of comments that you have to address and corrections you have to make, and they asked for a certain number of months to do that work. We got what they submitted; we were still totally dissatisfied.”

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How do we recycle solar panels that can’t be reused?


By PVBuzz editorial team

The problem with recycling solar modules is they usually last 20 to 25 years and are known to work for up to 40 years.

In an industry that is really only about a decade old, that’s quite a lag time. While most solar panel recyclers specialize in extracting value out of refurbishing waste solar modules, there are other companies that specialize in recycling glass, metals, and other components.

David Dodge of Green Energy Futures spoke with Cascade Eco Minerals based in Medford, Oregon. They are a division of Dlubak Specialty Glass a company with a long history in the glass business.

“We’re really focused on the end-of-life processing of the glass because these modules tend to be 65 to 85% glass by weight,” says Chris Stearns, who used to work in the solar industry, but now is Cascade’s national sales director.

Listen to the conversation

This podcast was produced and published by Green Energy Futures. It was originally published on their Soundcloud Channel. Its published here via a content partnership.

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World’s largest solar-powered battery system is now 75% complete

The Florida Power and Light (FPL) Company’s Manatee Energy Storage Center, the world’s largest solar-powered battery system, is capable of powering Walt Disney World for around seven hours.

By Michelle Lewis electrek

It’s in Parrish in Manatee County, which is south of Tampa and north of Sarasota, on Florida’s west coast. In March 2019, Electrek reported that Florida Power and Light had announced plans for its huge Manatee Energy Storage Center, and now it’s on the home stretch to completion.

Crews have installed the center’s first battery modules. It’s now 75% finished, with 100 out of 132 containers installed, and all 132 of the project’s inverters set. Each container will hold around 400 battery modules.

The Manatee Energy Storage Center will have a 409-megawatt (MW) capacity with the ability to deliver 900 MWh of energy – enough to power 329,000 homes for more than two hours. That’s the equivalent of around 100 million iPhone batteries, and when operational, it’ll be four times the capacity of the current largest battery system in operation.

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The energy storage containers sit on 40 acres, and the batteries are expected to have a life span of 40 years.

FPL explains:

Charged by the existing Manatee Solar Energy Center, the battery will increase the predictability of solar – extending its benefits even when the sun’s not shining, such as at night or on a cloudy day. By deploying energy from the batteries when there is higher demand for electricity, FPL will offset the need to run other power plants – further reducing emissions and saving customers money through avoided fuel costs.

FPL’s solar boost

The Manatee Solar Energy Center is expected to be launched later this year and replaces FPL’s coal plants.

In June, FPL demolished its last coal-fired plant, the Indiantown Cogeneration Plant in Martin County, east of the Everglades. And right before the plant imploded, FPL CEO Eric Silagy announced that the utility will build a solar center near the site.

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EDP Renewables awarded 13th New York community solar project

Image: Pixabay


By TIM SYLVIA pv Magazine

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.

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