photonfuture

The Tennessee Solar Energy Association actively supports solar thermal technology and funding of this technology in the TN CET grant program should be allowed.  Solar thermal with solar photovoltaic can provide a home with the energy needed to service the home for the most part.  Someday, the thermal and the solar PV will be combined into one product, but until then, we need both technologies and both should be supported if funding is available.  While the emphasis has been on the advanced technology of solar cells, solar thermal has been and will continue to be a valuable asset to homes that want to conserve energy and thus reduce the need for more fossil-fueled electrical power plants.  With the combination of energy conservation, solar thermal and solar PV, we can reduce the demand for new power plants that will save each of us in our power bills and make for a cleaner world for future generations.

Stephen Levy, Technical Director

“Panasonic is going to create one of the hottest batteries available to date. The new lithium-ion storage cell should power up a whole house in 2011 when it could be available to the general public. I don’t know about you but I’d want to plug that battery right into my laptop and see how much life it will be able to offer me.
Furnio Otsubo, president of Panasonic said that the new battery should offer sufficient electricity for about one week of use. That’s certainly something I could get used to although I bet the new battery concept is not going to be that affordable.

Panasonic has become Japan’s second-largest electronics manufacturer after it completed the acquisition of Sanyo. It seems that the new giant has all the resources needed for such a bold endeavor. Creating a battery that can power up a house it’s not such an easy thing to do. But once such products become available, people will definitely want to use them.

Solar batteries and fuel cells which some of us already use to power up our homes can’t actually store energy. That’s why a lithium-ion battery that can last for about a week before needing a recharge is something else. Such a battery could help you save some money on that monthly electricity bill and it will also contribute to saving our little planet.

No specific details about the future home battery from Panasonic have been given yet. In two years time we should know more about the device and Panasonic will definitely want to periodically show everyone its progress.

Not only could we end up driving hybrid or electric cars by 2011 but we could also use rechargeable batteries to power all our devices in our homes. What do you say, folks, are you ready to switch to eco-friendlier energy sources? Do you think Panasonic will have a product ready so soon?”

Steve - When I first started working on the concept of the self-supporting solar home in the year 2000, it was obvious that there needed to be some sort of energy storage so that the home could have energy during the non-daylight hours.  Beyond the day-light hours, there would be days when the weather turned foul and one had to depend on the energy storage for power to continue powering the home.  The first concept was to create hydrogen by electrolysis, store it, and then pass it through a fuel cell to create the household power when needed.  But the ultimate goal was a simpler energy storage.  That lead one towards the battery.  This is the concept that will make a major impact on our daily lives should it come to pass.  It is a logical extension of the concept of distributed energy storage for everyone.  By the time this concept is adopted by this country the battery storage will be safe and should be affordable.  Affordable in the sense that it could be on lease from your electric power distributor who would own and maintain the energy storage and use the storage for their energy transfer planning. 

The question to our members is what do you think of the idea and how do you envision our future electric power delivery system will keep our lights on and our heat pumps working?

Most of us interested in solar power for our homes are not able to afford the initial cost of the solar installation.  PACE is the Property Assessed Clean Energy program recently approved by New York state.  They passed a bill authorizing municipalities to establish programs that will finance the installation of solar and other renewable systems which allows property owners to pay for the improvements over 15 to 20 years through an increase in their annual property taxes.  Right now 15 states have passed such a law.  The key feature is the spreading the initial cost of the system over many years for energy retrofit loans and structuring the loan repayments as annual property tax surcharges which are Federal Tax deductable.  It benefits both the homeowner and the lender.  For the property owner it improves the value of the home and to the bond holder it provides virtually no risk on the investment (PACE lien is senior in the right to mortgage debt).

Rhone Resch, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industry Association, says “the decision of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, removes a great cloud of uncertainty about the role of third-party solar system owners and paves the way for greater, more cost-effective solar deployments.”  In other words, solar companies doe not have to be under the same regulatory system as utilities.  The effect of the order is to remove the flood of paperwork needed to certify for wholesale or retail operation of solar installations.

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed H.R. 3585, the Solar Technology Roadmap, by a vote of 310-106. The bill establishes a process to create a roadmap for solar technology research and development activities conducted by the federal government in partnership with the private sector, with a focus on the department of Energy.

Specifically, the Solar Technology Roadmap would require DOE to appoint a group of experts to create a long-term plan to guide solar energy research and its transition into commercial uses. The panel would be subject to a comprehensive revision every three years. The bill requires that 30% of the DOE solar R&D funding in 2012 be based on the recommendations of the roadmap.

Bart Gordon commented, "I am pleased that we’re considering H.R. 3585, the Solar Technology Roadmap Act sponsored by Science and Technology Subcommittee Chair GABRIELLE GIFFORDS. This bipartisan bill has a number of cosponsors including myself, subcommittee Chair BRIAN BAIRD, and DAN LIPINSKI, as well as committee members MICHAEL MCCAUL and ROSCOE BARTLETT.

I assume solar power is not the first name that comes to your mind when you think of the State of Tennessee; but over the last few years we have really seen firsthand the major potential that solar energy has to create new jobs across the country and reduce our dependency on foreign oil in the process. Recently, two major producers of special materials used in solar panels have chosen Clarksville and Cleveland, Tennessee, as sites for their next large factories, each with over $1 billion investment creating hundreds of jobs, plus many more jobs in larger investment with the supply chain, as well as universities now setting up courses in management for the solar panel industries.

And this is happening all across the State and communities all across our Nation. And that’s why we need a national plan, and that’s why we are discussing this important bill today. H.R. 3585 establishes a comprehensive road mapping process for solar technology research, development, and demonstration activities conducted by the Federal Government in partnership with industry.

The Secretary of Energy is also directed to award grants to carry out these programs by merit-based review specifically to provide awards to industry-led consortia research, development, and demonstration in solar manufacturing. The road map provision in the bill is molded on the successful National Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors, which has been instrumental in helping semiconductor technology advance rapidly over the past two decades. H.R. 3585 incorporates recommendations of the witnesses who appeared at the Science and Technology Committee, as well as input from a variety of academic, government, and industry experts.

Science and Technology Committee staff closely consulted with the minority in the development of this bill. We accepted several minority amendments, and the vast majority of items in our manager’s amendment in committee were also suggested or requested by the minority.

The bill was voted out of committee on a bipartisan voice vote. H.R. 3585 has been officially endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Solar Energy Industries Association, British Petroleum, IBM, Intel, and National Semiconductor."

- President Barack Obama said he planned to nominate to the Tennessee Valley Authority Board of Directors a professor who shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. The White House announced the president’s plans to nominate Marilyn A. Brown for one of two vacant seats on the nine-member board. Since 2006, Brown has been a professor of energy policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Before that, she worked at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managing an energy efficiency research and development program. In 2006, she helped launch the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance. Brown has written more than 200 publications, including the recently published book “Energy and American Society: Thirteen Myths.” At the Oak Ridge lab, she co-led the report Scenarios for a Clean Energy Future, described by the White House as a “cornerstone of engineering-economic analysis of low-carbon energy options for the United States.” Brown also is a commissioner on the National Commission on Energy Policy.

We met the Governor at the recent Tennessee Solar Symposium held in Nashville this month.   Jim, with his Stetson, and me, his sidekick, are listening to the Governor tell us how important solar jobs are to the State and its economy.  The Governor is leading Tennessee into the new era with his efforts to bring solar manufacturing to Tennessee. We mention that there are several barriers to the widespread interest in the state from domestic and foreign companies looking for sites to install panel manufacturing.   First, there needs to be a market for the product.  It would be advantageous to have a regional market for the solar panels produced in the state and that depends on one body, TVA.  The feed-in tariff is not enough of a draw.  What TVA must do is to have access to a revolving fund to loan their distributor customers the up-front cost of the solar and use the funds from the feed-in tariff to pay back the loan.  The money is then recycled so that more of our citizens can take advantage of the no-up-front cost to their getting solar for their homes.  Where is that money to come from?  We are working on that.

Steve and Jim working for TSEA to bring solar to you

Look at the scenery pass by you as you drive or ride through Tennessee.  Look at aerials or Google views of Tennessee and imagine the sites that are suitable for solar farms.  Rooftops, vacant lands, brownfields, parking lots, highway sidings and centerlanes; they are all around us.  With the price of solar PV dropping and the cost of electricity rising over time, these sites will be valuable income generators as our TVA generation partner pays an excellent feed-in tariff, somewhere between 19 cents to 21 cents per kilowatt-hour of solar power generated.  The price for solar PV today mounted in open fields can vary from $3.20 to $6.00 per watt installed depending on the technology chosen and the size of the array.  As the payback reaches 5 years or less, which in certain cases it has, then after the payback is completed, the expenses of the upkeep of solar arrays is minimal and the income is basically a continuous stream for the length of the contract between the purchaser and TVA through its distributor.  The present length of contract for the green switch partner program is ten years.  The banks are starting to realize the income stream is there and are investing in solar farms around the country.  Lets not continue the image that Tennessee is sleeping.

The State of Tennessee received notification that they were awarded the solar stimulus money mid-September. Why haven’t the state authorities released the information from the accepted stimulus grant? The amount of the funding is about 64 million dollars and we have been told that about half the money will go to establishing the solar farm in West Tennessee, but what about the rest of the funding? What solar programs will it support. There may be some revisions or changes that the University of Tennessee or Oak Ridge National Labs want to make with the grant monies? The money is two year money and time is moving on so when can we expect to get the details? Let us hear from you about what you think.
Steve Levy

We are looking for ideas on how you feel about solar electric financing for homes and businesses.  Obviously, the issue is the upfront cost of solar and how it can be financed.  The payback concept is based on TVA’s green-switch program where they pay you for each kilowatt-hour of solar electricity you generate.  The payment is based on what you presently pay for electricity, say 9 cents, plus 12 cents for each kilowatt-hour of solar you generate.  The 12 cents extra is called the ”feed-in tariff.”  Today, one can expect to reach break-even with the present green power switch program’s 12 cent per kilowatt-hour feed-in tariff in about 7 years.  Correct me if I am wrong about that assumed payback period.  Should the state of Tennessee create a revolving fund with zero interest, or should TVA do the revolving fund?  The idea of the revolving fund is that the money collected from the feed-in tariff would go to paying for the loan.  When the loan is paid back, the homeowner now starts collecting the feed-in tariff money which goes towards paying down their electric bill.  The contract you sign with TVA through your local distributor last ten years.  If the terms of the green-switch program improve to the customer’s benefit, those already on the program are automatically enrolled in the better program.  Not all the distributors of TVA power belong to this program so you need to check with your local electric utility.   The fund now loans others and with the expected decrease in cost of solar systems, the money in the fund goes further to finance more systems than before.  What are your thoughts?

Steve