The New York Times takes a cursory look at the state of interest in solar power, noting that solar power has captured the public imagination, but so far failed to capture much by way of significant technology advancements. The story itself, however, seems a bit lacking in imagination, at various points concluding that "there is limited encouragement to take up the challenge" and "[solar power] is not an arena where private energy companies are likely to make the breakthrough". Vinod Khosla - and Silicon Valley in general - are mentioned by name, but there's no mention of the amount of money pouring into solar power R&D from the venture capital community. Over the past couple years it's amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars into dozens of companies. Not to mention the successful IPO/spinoff of SunPower, SunPower's acquisition of PowerLight, movement by talented entrepreneurs from "dot-com" tech into solar businesses such as SolarCity and Akeena Solar. All of this provides plenty of evidence that private companies - provided they're given a level playing field through government policy - can and will lead the charge. On that note, the article makes a good point: nearly three times as much federal money is spent on coal R&D than on solar. So it goes.
del.icio.usAdd Macy's to the quickly the growing list of retailers who are making a significant deployment of solar energy systems on some of their California stores. This list includes Whole Foods, Staples, Kohl's, and Wal-Mart, who are all pursuing solar energy service arrangements by which they purchase electricity from a solar generation system located on their roof but owned by someone else. In this case, SunPower/PowerLight will build 26 systems, sell 15 of them outright to Macy's, and operate the remaining 11 under solar energy services Power Purchase Agreements. The solar energy services model is compelling - clearly a lot of big names are jumping on board - but Macy's, at least, seems willing to explore the financial and logistical impact of owning the solar photovoltaics compared to just buying the output.
At some point the city of Bentonville, AR, population 30,000, became damn near the center of the world. Bentonville is home to Wal-Mart. Today, news out of Bentonville that everyone has been (well, we have) waiting for. Wal-Mart will move forward with their pilot of solar power systems at 22 of their stores in California and Hawaii.
While Wal-Mart has been hush hush about the details until now, the names on the short list are perhaps unsurprising. PowerLight, SunEdison, and BP Solar will split the contract, with each doing 7 or 8 installs. Interestingly, while we have seen the service provider owning the RECs generated by their installs (presumably to sell them after market), in this case Wal-Mart will retain ownership of them. Presumably that knocks their contract cost up a bit, and provides evidence that Wal-Mart is thinking about a little bit more than just the bottom line in this case. Huzzah.
While Wal-Mart has been hush hush about the details until now, the names on the short list are perhaps unsurprising. PowerLight, SunEdison, and BP Solar will split the contract, with each doing 7 or 8 installs. Interestingly, while we have seen the service provider owning the RECs generated by their installs (presumably to sell them after market), in this case Wal-Mart will retain ownership of them. Presumably that knocks their contract cost up a bit, and provides evidence that Wal-Mart is thinking about a little bit more than just the bottom line in this case. Huzzah.
Well someone in the Pentagon is thinking green. The Air Force is breaking ground on a new 15-megawatt install at Nellis Air Force Base outside of Las Vegas. It will generate 25% of the needed electricity in the peak summer months. It is a 70,000 panel array and will take up 140 acres. That is a lot of glass.
PowerLight is building the site and MMA Renewable Ventures is going to fund it. I find it slightly odd that they are using outside financing for this...guess all the Air Force cash is being burned (literally) elsewhere.
here is the official press release.