John Hennessy III,
P.E.
As of December 2016, Recurrent Energy has nine operating solar photovoltaic (PV) projects across Kern County in Southern California. Community leaders discuss the impacts of utility-scale solar development and their experience working with Recurrent Energy.
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INTERNATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY AGENCY (IRENA)
Growing PV panel waste presents a new environmental challenge, but also unprecedented opportunities to create value and pursue new economic avenues. These include recovery of raw material and the emergence of new solar PV end-of-life industries. Sectors like PV recycling will be essential in the world’s transition to a sustainable, economically viable and increasingly renewables-based energy future. To unlock the benefits of such industries, the institutional groundwork must be laid in time to meet the expected surge in panel waste.
STANFORD UNIVERSITY
STEYER-TAYLOR CENTER FOR ENERGY POLICY AND FINANCE
The Obama administration has repeatedly identified the large-scale build-out of clean, renewable energy infrastructure as a key priority of the United States. The President’s calls for a cleaner energy economy are often accompanied by references to other industrialized countries such as Germany, the world’s 4th largest economy, hailed by many as a leader in renewable energy deployment and proof of concept. Indeed, the share of renewables in Germany’s electricity generation mix (28% ) is twice that of the United States (14% ), and the ambitious „Energiewende“ commits the country to meeting 80% of its electricity needs with renewables by 2050. The German renewables experience, however, is not without its critics.
ADVANCED ENERGY ECONOMY INSTITUTE
Questions have been raised about whether renewable energy (RE) and energy efficiency (EE) resources can provide substantial emission reductions at reasonable cost under EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan (CPP). These concerns reflect fundamental misperceptions about the performance and cost of today’s renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies, rooted in outdated information and perpetuated by inaccurate official market projections. This paper shows that RE and EE are competitive resources in today’s marketplace that will not only be cost-effective mechanisms for CPP compliance but should also be expected to grow strictly on the basis of competitiveness.
SOLAR ENERGY INDUSTRIES ASSOCIATION
Solar energy posted another banner year in the U.S. in 2014. Photovoltaic (PV) installations reached 6,201 MWdc, up 30% over 2013 and more than 12 times the amount installed five years earlier. By the end of the year, a cumulative total of 18.3 GWdc of solar PV and another 2.2 GWac of concentrating solar power (CSP) were operating in the U.S. Over 600,000 homes and businesses now have on-site solar (nearly 200,000 of these installations were completed in 2014), and six states are home to more than 500 MWdc each of operating solar capacity.
INTERSTATE RENEWABLE ENERGY COUNCIL (IREC)
In the last 10 years the percentage of electricity generated in the United States from renewable sources, has grown at an impressive rate, including significant amounts of generation located on the distribution system. Solar photovoltaic (PV) electricity systems in particular have evolved rapidly from a once-niche technology to one that is now widely used by schools, households, businesses and utilities across the country. Distributed renewable energy offers a wide range of environmental, societal and customer benefits, however their introduction in large numbers will require innovative and forward thinking regulatory policies in order to smoothly integrate them into the existing electrical system.
Most Americans are unaware of the true financial value of solar today. Seen by many as a technological luxury, solar energy is not seriously considered as an option by most homeowners in the U.S. However, our analysis shows that, in 46 of America’s 50 largest cities, a fully-financed, typically-sized solar PV system is a better investment than the stock market, and in 42 of these cities, the same system already costs less than energy from a residential customer’s local utility…So why aren’t more Americans investing in solar? There is a clear information gap, and with this report, we intend to open the eyes of average homeowners by showing that solar can generate both significant monthly savings and long-term investment value, and not infrequently, cost less than energy from some of America’s largest electric utilities.
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STANFORD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING
CO2 and air pollution emission reduction goals as well as energy security, price stability, and affordability considerations make renewable electricity generation attractive. A highly renewable electricity supply will be based to a large extent on wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) power, since these two resources are both abundant and either relatively inexpensive or rapidly becoming cost competitive. Such a system demands a fundamentally different design approach: While electricity generation was traditionally constructed to be dispatchable in order to follow the demand, wind and solar PV power output is largely determined by weather conditions that are out of human control.
SOLAR ENERGY INDUSTRIES ASSOCIATION
For concentrating solar, which includes both concentrating solar power (CSP) and concentrating photovoltaics (CPV), the U.S. is poised to become the global market leader in installations. After 20 years of near-dormancy in the industry, many large-scale concentrating solar projects are set to continue their expected ramp-up over the next few years including the expected completion of the world’s largest CPV facility (at 30 MW) expected before December.
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