Solar Power Milestones In 2009

Capturing The Energy Of The Sun, iStockphoto image in Science Daily, August 25, 2008.

The solar power industry continues its rapid evolution as evidenced by important milestones reached within the past few weeks. Progress in the solar power sector is being driven by practical economic, energy security, and environmental protection factors.

Guinness Atkinson Funds on December 31, 2008 for example argues that the long term prospects for solar power and other clean energies remain sound, in fact showing the potential to be one of the first sectors to emerge from the current financial downturn.

Guinness Atkinson invests in a wide variety of companies engaged in the production, exploration and discovery or distribution of energy, whether derived from fossil fuels or an “Alternative Energy” suite of solar, wind, hydro, efficiency, geothermal, biomass and biofuel.

Consistent with this appraisal, Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd. announced on January 9, 2009 that it has reached 1 gigawatt (GW) of solar photovoltaic (PV) cell and module production capacity in Wuxi, China. Suntech is the first solar photovoltaic company in the world to achieve 1 GW of solar cell and module production.

Suntech’s announcement comes in contrast to other companies that are scaling back production estimates for 2009 because of global credit and stock market declines. Suntech is headquartered in Jiangsu Province, People’s Republic of China, with offices in Schaffhausen, Switzerland; San Francisco, California; New South Wales, Australia; Munich, Germany; Madrid, Spain; Gangnam-gu, South Korea; and Tokyo, Japan.

In the United States, SunEdison on January 9, 2009 announced one of the largest solar distributed generation (DG) programs ever conceived. SunEdison is partnering in the venture with Developers Diversified Realty, a Cleveland-based real estate investment trust (REIT) engaged in the development and management of shopping centers.

Under the terms of the deal, SunEdison “…has the rights to deploy solar energy systems at more than 200 shopping centers, covering up to an estimated 30 million square feet. Potential capacity of the program is up to 259 MW and the centers are located in 24 states and in Puerto Rico.”

“Once a particular system is operational, Developers Diversified will be able to purchase energy from SunEdison. In addition, shopping center tenants can benefit and realize energy savings by opting to purchase the power generated through the program at rates lower than retail energy rates.” SunEdison spokesman Brian Jacolick stated, “…a typical sized solar energy system in the program will avoid an estimated 10 million pounds of carbon dioxide pollution.”

Also in the USA, the Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA) on January 7, 2009 released a new research report, “Facilitating Utility Use and Integration of Solar Electric Power.”

This report is based on work supported by the
US Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy through the Solar America Initiative.

The report contains two informative summary tables. One documents large-scale USA utility solar photovoltaic projects [those projects of more than 20 megawatts (MW)] either completed or in development as of September 2008. The second documents large-scale USA concentrating solar thermal power (CSP) projects either completed or announced as of July 2008.

The report says, “This year has seen an unprecedented number of utility-scale photovoltaic and concentrating solar thermal project announcements – some 3,000 to 5,000 megawatts over the next five years.

“However, SEPA believes this is only the cornerstone of what’s to come. The effect of the long-term extension of the federal investment tax credit—which includes eligibility for utilities—combined with the expansion of global solar manufacturing, rapidly declining cost and price curves, and federal and state environmental policies, is laying a foundation for utility solar innovation at unprecedented scales.”

The SEPA/DOE research offers critical insights into policy and procurement innovations that are possible with the solar power industry, but not possible with old technology power production and distribution. Because solar power is available everywhere the sun shines - albeit in greater or lesser degrees - utility companies are not limited to solar power solutions based on a central-station power generation, long-distance power transmission construct.

The SEPA/DOE report lists several benefits for utility companies to find ways to increase their portfolio of renewable energy in general and solar power in particular.

"Utilities need to compare solar costs with peak generation costs [and/or new plant acquisition] rather than base load [or avoided cost] electricity generation;

"The distributed nature of PV adds to grid reliability;

"The distributed generation of PV has limited transmission and distribution costs;

"Solar project developers actively pursuing residential and commercial customers to install their own solar generation are taking business away from utilities and driving utilities to acquire solar resources to remain competitive;

"In a carbon-regulated world, solar will offer utilities credits rather than costs that will be incurred for their carbon polluting generation;

"Increasing solar integration will be aided by and will in turn aid adoption of 'smart grid' technologies;

"Utilities improve their image to the public by taking voluntary environmental measures;

"Solar 'fuel' will remain free while costs of coal and natural gas continue to fluctuate in volatile markets.

"Although, historically, utilities outside of the Southwest have played a lesser role in the direct growth of solar power, within a decade solar power is expected to be cost-competitive in most regions of the U.S. on both a wholesale and retail basis.

"As utilities and others scale up their solar efforts, they are reaching economies of scale unlike anything seen in the past."