SoCal wins $125 million for smart grid and energy storage

Two Southern California utilities were awarded more than $125 million in stimulus funds from the Department of Energy today to demonstrate “smart” electric grid systems and test energy storage projects.

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power received $60,280,000 and Southern California Edison Co. received $40,134,700 to test out and collect data on smart grid programs.

SoCal Edison was also given $24,978,264 for its Tehachapi Wind Energy Storage Project, using an 8-megawatt lithium ion battery technology.

In a statement, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger hailed the grants, saying they would "help modernize the state’s electricity infrastructure to make delivery methods more efficient," as well as save energy costs for consumers and create jobs.

Several Northern California projects in Alameda, Berkeley, Fremont and San Francisco also picked up energy storage grants, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu said in a statement today.

In all, California systems were awarded nearly $175 million, part of the $620 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act given to 32 projects across the country dealing with large-scale energy storage, smart meters, electricity distribution issues and a range of technologies.

Supervisor opposes massive solar project in San Bernardino County [Updated]

A solar energy project proposed for development on public land in the Mojave Desert would create jobs mostly for Las Vegas and electricity for San Francisco at the expense of the relatively pristine area of east San Bernardino County where it would be built, San Bernardino County Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt said Friday.

In an interview, Mitzelfelt, whose district includes the Ivanpah Valley project site about 20 miles south of Las Vegas, said BrightSource’s proposed 440-megawatt, 4,000-acre Solar Electric Generating System, “should not go forward.” [Update: An earlier version of this post listed the project as having 100 megawatts.]

The system is among 130 renewable energy applications to build wind and solar projects on more than a million acres of public land under review by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and California Energy Commission. Companies hope to begin construction on about a dozen of those projects by late next year.

State and federal regulators said the BrightSource project is furthest along in the process and could break ground late next year. Conservationists, however, are concerned about its impacts on several rare bat, bird, plant and reptile species including the threatened California desert tortoise.

The development of solar power facilities in the desert has been a top priority of the Obama administration as it seeks to ease the nation’s dependency on fossil fuels and address climate change.

“Obviously, there is a lot of political pressure to get this project expedited and under construction,” Mitzelfelt said. “But its impacts in San Bernardino County and sensitive and scenic Mojave Desert environment are not worth the benefits.”

“I would do everything I could to advance a project that would provide jobs, induce economic investment and increase the tax base in our county,” he said. “This is not that project.”

BrightSource spokesman Keely Wachs disagreed.

"Considering the project has been going through a state and federal environmental review process for more than two years, and will generate 1,000 jobs, $250 million in wages and more than $400 million in local and state tax revenue, we're surprised to see the supervisor's press release," Wachs said in a statement.

"We look forward to meeting with Supervisor Mitzelfelt and his staff," Wachs added, "to clarify any misunderstandings they might have about the Ivanpah project."

-- Louis Sahagun

Flat-tailed horned lizard gets boost from Arizona judge [Updated]

In the latest chapter in a 16-year legal battle to keep the flat-tailed horned lizard safe from urban encroachment, a federal court judge in Arizona has reinstated a 1993 proposal to list the creature as a threatened species.

U.S. District Judge Neil V. Wake’s ruling follows a recent U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals order that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reconsider its earlier decision to deny the lizard protection under the Endangered Species Act. That decision rejected a Bush administration policy that environmentalists complained favored development at the expense of the lizard and many plants and animals across the nation.

Since 1993, the agency has withdrawn three proposals to list the lizard on the grounds it was hard to find and, therefore, difficult to classify as threatened. Each withdrawal was successfully challenged in court by conservation groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, the Sierra Club and the Horned Lizard Conservation Society.

Solar Power International kicks off Tuesday in Anaheim

One of the largest alternative energy conventions opens Tuesday in Orange County.

Solar Power International, co-presented by Solar Electric Power Assn. and Solar Energy Industries Assn., is expected to draw about 25,000 attendees from 90 countries to the Anaheim Convention Center.

From Oct. 27-29, more than 900 exhibitors will converge on the convention floor as more than 200 speakers in about 60 sessions discuss the latest industry developments in policy, finance, markets and technology.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer, will deliver the keynote at 8 a.m. on Oct. 28. That night, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., doors open to members of the general public who want to learn more about solar power options.

Back in 2004, the convention was launched with only a few hundred attendees. Since then, the size has grown rapidly, doubling in the last year. This year’s exhibitors will take up 203,900 net square feet of floor space, compared to the 422 companies who reserved just 88,000 net square feet in 2008.

The conference has been held in Southern California for five of the past six years.

-- Tiffany Hsu

Cost of solar panels drops--but tax breaks dip too

The average cost of solar photovoltaic power systems in the U.S. plunged more than 30% from 1998 to 2008, with a 4% drop between 2007 and 2008, according to a new report from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

But a simultaneous drop in total after-tax incentives for photovoltaics from 2007 to 2008 resulted in a slight rise in net installed cost, according to the lab, which is run by the Department of Energy.

Overall net costs for residential solar systems were up 1% in 2008 compared with the previous year, averaging $5.40 per watt. Costs for commercial photovoltaics averaged $4.20 per watt, a 5% increase from 2007.

After-tax incentives for residential systems were at a historic low of $2.90 per watt in 2008, while incentives for commercial photovoltaics were at $4 per watt, down slightly from the 2006 peak.

But excluding the incentives, installation costs dropped recently after a multi-year plateau due to the solar industry’s expanded manufacturing capacity and the pressures of the financial crisis.

The early end of the decline, from 1998 through 2007, was caused by shrinking costs of labor, marketing, overhead, etc.

The Berkeley Lab study considered 52,000 photovoltaic systems in 16 states. The average cost of installation dropped from $10.80 per watt in 1998 to $7.50 per watt in 2008, or a reduction of 3.6% per year.

Small residential solar systems completed in 2008, producing less than 2 kilowatts, cost an average of $9.20 per watt, while large commercial photovoltaics producing between 500 to 700 kilowatts averaged $6.50 per watt.

The cost of going solar varies widely across states. For systems producing less than 10 kilowatts that were completed in 2008, costs range from a low of $7.30 per watt in Arizona, to a high of $9.90 per watt in Pennsylvania and Ohio. California’s average is $8.20 per watt.

But the report suggests that costs could be driven even lower through large-scale implementation.

-- Tiffany Hsu

Renewable energy projects threaten some of California’s rarest plants

The proposed construction of massive wind and solar energy projects on public land in the California desert would hasten destruction and further fragment land that is home to 17% of state’s rarest plants, botanists said Saturday.

“Most of the solar and wind projects currently under review are in the wrong places,” said Greg Suba, conservation program director for the California Native Plant Society. He and other experts spoke at Cal State Fullerton for the Southern California Botanists’ 35th annual symposium.

“We believe that full surveys of all plants — not just of targeted species — should be required for all these project sites,” Suba said. “Plant species represent the underlying fabric of an ecosystem.”

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management and California Energy Commission are reviewing 130 applications to build wind and solar projects on more than a million acres of public land. Companies hope to begin construction on about a dozen of those projects by late next year.

The development of solar power facilities in the desert has been a top priority of the Obama administration as it seeks to ease the nation’s dependency on fossil fuels and address climate change.

But Suba and James Andre, director of the Sweeney Granite Mountains Desert Research Center in the east Mojave community of Kelso, urged that the projects currently under review by state and federal regulatory agencies be built on more than 200,000 acres of land already identified as ecologically disturbed.

“It’s the end of much of the California desert,” said Andre. “Millions of acres could eventually be bulldozed and fenced off. It’s your land, but you won’t be able to go there.”

Read more here

--Louis Sahagun reporting from Fullerton

 

Feds, Schwarzenegger sign pact to aid renewable energy efforts

At a news conference held on a Loyola University rooftop covered with solar panels, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this morning signed a memorandum of understanding to streamline siting and approval of renewable energy facilities on public lands.

The memorandum — the first between a state and the federal government involving energy production — aims to expedite about 30 solar, wind and geothermal projects on track to break ground by the end of 2010 and become eligible for more than $15 billion in federal stimulus funds.

“We know the future is in clean power, clean energy and clean technology,” Schwarzenegger said, “and we are taking action so that California will be able to meet its ambitious renewable energy and environmental goals.”

The memorandum, he said, will address a serious problem with the existing process for siting and approving facilities: It is too slow.

The development of renewable energy on public lands has been a top priority of the Obama administration as it seeks to ease the nation’s dependency on foreign oil. In addition, Schwarzenegger has urged that the state be able to draw one-third of its electricity needs from renewable sources by 2020.

-- Louis Sahagun

Schwarzenegger signs solar bills AB 920 and SB 32

Late last night, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed two major solar initiatives involving a feed-in tariff for utility companies and surplus electricity generated by customers.

It was the last day to sign bills from this year’s legislative session.

AB 920 requires utility companies to pay households or businesses for any extra electricity produced by the customer’s solar power system. Supporters said the bill would encourage customers, who previously had no incentive to use less electricity than was generated, to be more efficient.

SB 32 expands the feed-in tariff program for large-scale solar facilities from 1.5 megawatts to 3 megawatts, potentially pushing utilities to construct massive solar installations on unused spaces like parking lots and warehouse roofs.

Read more here.

-- Tiffany Hsu