News – Page 109 – Solar Factor .com

The U.K. proposed to reduce support for the solar and biomass-power industries to help consumers who fund the subsidies through their energy bills.

Ministers plan to end a government aid program for small solar projects a year early and will no longer allow small-scale renewables developers to lock in guaranteed power prices under the feed-in tariff program, according to documents on the Department of Energy and Climate Change website.

Prime Minister David Cameron’s administration is scaling back renewables assistance as part of its drive to keep a lid on public spending and reduce the costs to consumers of government policy. Today’s revisions follow cuts to onshore wind subsidies last month and to larger solar projects in April. The new measures are projected to save at least 600 million pounds ($940 million) a year by 2021.

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July 22, 2015

Distributed Solar Power Revenues May More Than Triple in Decade

Global revenues from distributed solar photovoltaic power are expected to more than triple in a decade as the technology becomes viable without subsidies, according to the industry analyst firm Navigant Research.
Revenue from the installations, which a…

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July 22, 2015

Some Hope for US Renewable Energy Tax Credits As Extension Bill Passes Committee

In a lopsided 23-3 vote, the U.S. Senate Finance Committee voted yesterday to extend a number of renewable energy production tax credits through the end of 2016. The vote allows developers of wind, geothermal, biomass, landfill gas, incremental hydroel…

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July 22, 2015

The Big Question: Can the US Commercial Solar Industry Survive with a 10 Percent ITC?

The U.S. Investment Tax Credit, which is a 30 percent federal tax credit for solar systems on residential and commercial properties, remains in effect through December 31, 2016. After that time it drops to 10 percent for commercial systems and zero for…

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July 22, 2015

How Solar Energy Zones and Easy Permitting Helped Create 3-cent Solar

Warren Buffet’s utility NV Energy has signed the lowest price contract for solar ever, at just US $0.0384 for First Solar’s 100-MW Playa Solar project, beating even its own record low price of $0.046 cents for SunPower’s 100-MW project in Boulder City, Nevada.

Both solar projects benefit from new streamlined permitting set up through the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Western Solar Plan, which designated 19 Solar Energy Zones (SEZ). This auction covered six parcels across 3,083 acres in Nevada. The previous case-by-case way to permit solar on BLM land was taking at least two years; and even longer if anything to tripped up the process.

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July 21, 2015

LG Electronics’ NeON 2 Solar Panel Available in the United States

LG Electronics announced that the LG NeON 2, will be available in the United States in August. The LG NeON 2 is equipped with newly developed LG “Cello” technology, which consists of 12 thin wires instead of three busbars. The company said that technology offers significantly improved performance and reliability even over the original NeON high-performance solar panel. For its “groundbreaking idea and technological innovation,” the LG NeON 2 was recognized last month with the Intersolar Europe Photovoltaics Award.

LG Solar is also bringing the “Mono X NeON 72,” to the U.S this fall, an all-new series of 72-cell solar modules, suited for commercial installations.

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July 20, 2015

California Approves Distributed Energy Resource Providers To Aggregate Renewable Energy Generation

If you live in California, there’s a chance that a neighbor with rooftop solar panels will help keep your lights on soon.

In a first, the state’s grid operator has approved rules allowing companies to buy electricity from numerous homes and commercial power systems, and then bundle it up to meet a threshold needed to sell energy on the wholesale market.

Companies including utilities will be able to consolidate the output of rooftop solar systems, batteries and even plug-in electric vehicles, the California Independent System Operator Corp. said Thursday in a statement. The shift demonstrates that small-scale power sources are becoming a more critical part of the state’s energy mix.

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July 20, 2015

California Approves Distributed Energy Resource Providers To Aggregate Renewable Energy Generation

If you live in California, there’s a chance that a neighbor with rooftop solar panels will help keep your lights on soon.

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July 20, 2015

Renewable Energy Giant SunEdison Continues To Expand With Purchase of Vivant Solar

SunEdison Inc. said it will entrench its position as one of the “super majors” of the solar power industry with the $2.2 billion purchase of rooftop panel installer Vivint Solar Inc.

The two agreed to combine for cash, shares and debt that value Vivint at 52 percent more than last week’s closing stock price. SunEdison will finance the deal with credit lines from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and by selling $922 million of assets to TerraForm Power Inc.

SunEdison Chief Executive Office Ahmad Chatila has been on a buying spree this year, snapping up wind, solar and hydroelectric assets around the globe. Vivint, the second biggest U.S. residential and commercial developer, will provide SunEdison and TerraForm with a U.S. growth engine that’s taking advantage of declining costs of solar energy.

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July 17, 2015

US DOC Enforces New Tariffs on Chinese Solar Manufacturers

The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) has ruled it will impose new punitive tariffs against Chinese solar product manufacturers, with antidumping duties of up to 260 percent and countervailing duties as high as 23 percent. The ruling represents the DOC’s latest efforts to control the dumping of low-cost solar products into the U.S. market by Chinese manufacturers.