Solar Thermal Legislation Advances In California

By SI Staff, Solar Industry Magazine

In a 10-2 vote on Wednesday, the California Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee passed A.B.2460, a bill that would expand consumer incentives for rooftop solar thermal technologies.

“I am pleased the committee took the important step of moving this bill forward,” says Assembly member Jacqui Irwin, D-Thousand Oaks, author of the bill. “Using California’s abundant sunshine to do something as simple as heating water is sensible for our state and a key way to diversify our energy resources, protect public health and clean up our air.”

According to the California Solar Energy Industries Association (CALSEIA), the bill would extend California Solar Initiative Thermal program funding for 10 years through 2027, providing certainty to the growing solar water heating market. Under the program, consumers would get an upfront rebate as well as be eligible for the 30% federal tax credit. A typical residential solar hot water system costs around $6,000 before rebates.

The bill would also target significant resources for solar thermal on low-income housing and buildings in disadvantaged communities. CALSEIA says demand for solar water heating in low-income multifamily housing buildings is high, accounting for nearly half of the applications in 2015. A.B.2460 would also ensure that the maximum rebate cap works for industrial customers, the group adds.

According to CALSEIA, the bill is part of a response to the massive natural gas leak at California’s Aliso Canyon and efforts to reduce natural gas use statewide, meet greenhouse-gas reduction goals and improve grid reliability. The organization says that solar thermal technologies can reduce natural gas demand within a building by up to 80%.

“To meet our statewide climate change goals and address the challenges posed by Aliso Canyon, we need consistent consumer access to the sun,” comments Bernadette Del Chiaro, executive director of the CALSEIA. “We thank Assembly member Irwin for her leadership on this important issue.”

Source: http://solarindustrymag.com/solar-thermal-legislation-advances-in-california

California: Solar heating proposed as alternative to natural gas

By Tanja Peschel, Sun & Wing Energy Magazine

After a massive gas leak in a storage facility in California, solar thermal comes into focus as an alternative energy source for heating Californian homes. The administration under Governor Jerry Brown proposed an action plan to increase rooftop solar technologies and reduce the natural gas demand of the region. 

The Aliso Canyon gas leak refers to a massive natural gas leak that occurred in October 2015 in the Californian underground gas storage facility – the second largest one in the U.S. During the nearly four months it took until the leak had been plugged, an estimated 97,100 metric tons of methane were released into the atmosphere.

With the help of solar energy systems such as solar water heating, solar space heating and solar electric systems, natural gas use in buildings could be drastically reduced. Roughly a quarter of the gas from Aliso Canyon is used to heat buildings. If solar heating systems were installed on just 7% of the multi-family buildings in the Los Angeles area, this would offset the yearly natural gas demand for all buildings served by Aliso Canyon. Local rooftop solar energy technologies can help to reduce the dependence on natural gas and to meet greenhouse gas reduction goals in the near and long-term, while also preventing blackouts and voltage-drops (brownouts) in the grid.

“Aliso Canyon shows us that natural gas is not safe or environmentally friendly, despite the ‘natural’ descriptor,” said Bernadette Del Chiaro, Executive Director of the California Solar Energy Industries Association (CALSEIA).  “Instead of burning gas to heat water and run power plants on summer days when the sun shines brightest upon our cities, California should continue to aggressively support solar technologies in Los Angeles and statewide now and into the future.”

The National Renewable Energy Lab published a report about the solar PV capacity of the United States of America and estimated that in California rooftop PV systems with a total capacity of nearly 80 GW could be installed. Policy recommendations by CALSEIA include the expansion of consumer incentives for solar heating technologies and better access to rooftop PV technologies for consumers of municipal utilities, since Californian utilities so far have not done enough to encourage and invest in renewables.

Source: http://www.sunwindenergy.com/solar-thermal/california-solar-heating-proposed-alternative-to-natural-gas

Study: California could get 74% of power from rooftop solar

By Sammy Roth, The Desert Sun

Rooftop solar panels could meet three-quarters of California's electricity needs and about 40 percent of the country's electricity needs, according to a new study from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Researchers at the federally funded lab, which is based in Colorado, had estimated in 2008 that rooftop solar could generate 800 terawatt-hours of electricity per year, supplying about 21 percent of the country's current electricity demand. Now they've upped their estimate to 39 percent, in an analysis sure to be embraced by clean-energy advocates who see solar power as critical to fighting climate change.

It's unlikely the United States will tap all the sunlight at its disposal, at least not soon. The study focuses only on rooftop solar's theoretical potential, without considering which systems would make financial sense for the owners of homes, businesses and other commercial buildings. Dramatically scaling up rooftop solar would also require big investments in the electric grid, which was built to accommodate large, centralized power plants.

But even if the United States never reaches the 1,432 terawatt-hours of annual rooftop solar generation that NREL estimates is possible, the study gives policymakers a starting point for discussion, said Pieter Gagnon, an engineering analyst and the study's lead author.

"It doesn’t speak to whether or not that’s something that should be supported through policy or not. That’s ultimately up to whatever institutions are making those decisions," Gagnon said. "But they can do it in light of the understanding of how much electricity could conceivably come from rooftop solar."

The research lab was particularly bullish on California, which has a lot of sunlight, many large buildings and low per-person energy use. Researchers estimated that California could generate 74 percent of its electricity from rooftop solar — far more than any other state. The next-highest percentages came from the six states of New England, which get relatively little sunlight but don't use much energy to begin with. Unsurprisingly, large, sunny states such as California, Texas and Florida have the greatest overall generation potential.

UC Riverside solar energy expert Alfredo Martinez-Morales said that while he hadn't seen the study, he trusts NREL, a widely respected, privately run research lab funded by the Department of Energy. Still, he cautioned that even if California could theoretically get 74 percent of its electricity from rooftop solar, there would be many obstacles to making that work in practice.

In 2014, California got about 2.4 percent of its electricity from rooftop solar, according to calculations by the California Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group. Getting that number into the double-digits — let alone close to 74 percent — would require big changes in how the electric grid is operated, according to Martinez-Morales, the managing director of UC Riverside's Southern California Research Initiative for Solar Energy.

“My feeling is you should definitely exploit the rooftop option, but there are some challenges. It’s always a tradeoff," he said.

California is working to solve those grid challenges and ramp up rooftop solar, but not without pushback from utility companies such as Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric. They've have been fighting a state program that gives people a financial incentive to go solar, saying it has forced non-solar homes and businesses to spend millions of dollars subsidizing their solar-powered neighbors.

Solar advocates reject those claims, saying any subsidy is small if not nonexistent. They also say utilities fail to account for rooftop solar's main benefits: that it reduces human-caused climate change, and that it limits the need for new power plants and transmission lines. But even the technology's staunchest defenders acknowledge that California can't keep incentivizing rooftop solar at current rates forever. Eventually, policymakers will have to figure out how to allocate the costs fairly, and that could involve new charges for solar customers.

"I think there’s a need to come up with something that doesn’t penalize solar, but allows utility companies to recoup some of their investments," Martinez-Morales said.

The NREL study could provide ammunition for opponents of large-scale solar, who say big solar farms such as Desert Sunlight and Ivanpah have harmed species and ecosystems in the California desert. Many of those critics believe California should fight climate change exclusively through rooftop solar, which has fewer environmental impacts. Large-scale solar supporters have countered that big solar farms can generate electricity more cheaply than small rooftop systems, and that the environmental impacts can be minimized by building large-scale plants in the least sensitive locations.

Gagnon, the NREL researcher, said there are "excellent arguments" for both kinds of solar.

"Some of that rooftop area would be great in terms of cost effectiveness," he said. "Some of it would be less optimal."

NREL researchers estimated the country's rooftop solar potential by examining specialized aerial images — known as light detection and ranging, or LiDAR — for 128 cities, including Los Angeles, St. Louis and Buffalo, and then extrapolating their results to the rest of the country. The research lab didn't have access to LiDAR data during its previous analysis of rooftop solar potential, which is one of the reasons the estimates changed so much from 2008, Gagnon said. The estimates also went up because solar panels are much more efficient now than they were a decade ago, and because there are more buildings now than there were then.

Researchers estimated that "small buildings" — homes, for the most part — account for 65 percent of the country's rooftop solar generation potential. In California, that number is 59 percent.

Source: http://www.desertsun.com/story/tech/science/energy/2016/03/28/study-california-could-get-74-power-rooftop-solar/82360288/

County Supervisor Dianne Jacob helps rally protesters on behalf of solar energy incentives

By BJ Coleman, The Californian

The afternoon was sunny, and the solar power advocates were vocal on Wednesday, March 16, at the sidewalk protest rally outside San Diego Gas & Electric’s corporate headquarters in Clairemont. The protesters gathered to demonstrate opposition to SDG&E executives’ plans to lobby the California Public Utilities Commission for overturn of the CPUC’s decision that extends equal pricing treatment of customer-generated power from installation of rooftop solar panels with utility company-provided power.

The rally brought environmentalists and those advocating government interventions to mitigate climate change together with representatives of energy-cost ratepayers and solar energy businesses. There to represent residents of sunshine-abundant East County was Supervisor Dianne Jacob.

Organizers kicked off the event by explaining its purpose, to ensure that “making solar less affordable is not an option.” The activists reiterated their belief in a “100 percent clean energy future” that maintains solar power as a choice readily and equally available to local residents.

Jacob told the protesters, “We are here to deliver a loud message,” indicating one intended audience consisted of the SDG&E executives and employees in the nearby office building. “We are here to support competition in energy and to free up energy once and for all,” she said.

She cited the “8,000 jobs” in local solar businesses that would be cut, if SDG&E’s challenge for “modifications” of net metering is granted. Jacob said she was appearing at the rally to represent the “best interest of ratepayers,” and she listed recent questionable actions that SDG&E has taken, from the “unnecessary” Sunrise Power Line, to charging customers for closure of the San Onofre nuclear power station and costs associated with the East County wildfires.

“We are calling on the state regulators to stand firm,” Jacob continued. “The battle lines have been drawn. This is about who controls the energy future. We will continue to fight for the people.” Jacob predicted that the conflict over support for solar power could even spark a political campaign urging California legislators to “lift the cap on net metering once and for all.”

The relevant industry buzzword phrase is “net energy metering,” often abbreviated as “net metering.” The idea refers to customers with solar panels on their homes being enabled to transfer excess power beyond their household needs onto the energy grid and, in turn, being credited financially for that power supplied to other energy users, at the same rate as charged by the utility firm. 

In late January, by a narrow 3-2 vote, the CPUC approved a legally required update in “net metering 2.0,” affirming the continuation of full retail energy credit to customers for the power their solar panels send to the power grid. (Assembly Bill 327, which set out financial incentives to encourage rooftop solar panel installation, further required consideration of revisions to those incentives, to be implemented in 2017.) 

Should the CPUC vote stand, ratepayers with solar units will continue to have their utility meters “spin backwards” at the same use rate as meters are being charged when they need to take power from the grid at that time. Also under this CPUC decision, though, cost offsets will be added to solar power provider bills, as an accommodation to the regulated utilities. Customers with rooftop solar will pay an upfront installation fee and a monthly interconnection fee for power lines and maintenance of the grid.

Earlier this month, SDG&E, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) and Southern California Edison filed a rehearing application, seeking to vacate the January CPUC decision that favors equal pricing treatment of customer solar energy and utility-provided power. That legal challenge was impetus for the rally. 

For its organizational part, SDG&E responded after the rally with a press release, arguing that the fixed costs the company incurs translate into “unfairness” in higher energy bills shunted off onto low-income and disadvantaged communities to make up for the reduction of bills to those enjoying solar power benefits. Of SDG&E’s 3.5 million customers, over 82,000 have installed solar panels.

Also addressing the ralliers was Alejandro Montes, a student member of the Sierra Club, who spoke on behalf of the “next generation” and their desire for “a 100 percent clean energy future.” Montes decried the SDG&E stance as a “monopoly versus choice.”

Tara Kelly, who chairs the San Diego Chapter of the California Solar Energy Industries Association, closed out the half-hour protest, “We are blessed with sunshine most of the year here in San Diego.”

She described the choice as being between money for executive salaries and lobbyists intent on “stifling competition,” as “the solar revolution is upon us.” She urged listeners, “We must move forward united. This is the most important fight we have, the fight for our future.”

Source: http://www.eccalifornian.com/article/county-supervisor-dianne-jacob-helps-rally-protesters-behalf-solar-energy-incentives