Category Archives: Energy Self Reliant States
Lots of Solar Could Actually Reduce Electricity Prices
Whether German feed-in tariffs or U.S. tax incentives, opponents of solar rail at its perceived high cost. But a story making rounds this week, “why power generators are terrified of solar,” presents a powerful image that may flip this conventional wisdom on its head. Building lots of solar power can actually reduce electricity prices, to [...]
Ontario Feed-in Tariff Prices Drop
Ontario just completed a revision of their landmark feed-in tariff program and rates for renewable electricity generation and prices fell sharply: 30% for solar and 15% for wind power. This continues a trend of falling costs for renewable energy around the world. As a bit of background, Ontario’s feed-in tariff gives wind and solar producers [...]
How Energy Policy will Shape Solar Grid Parity
In their excellent interactive graphic, Bloomberg Energy Finance calls solar grid parity (when electricity from solar costs less than grid power) the “golden goal.” It’s an excellent illustration of how the right energy policy can help a nation go gold on solar or wallow in metallurgical obscurity. In the case of the U.S., it may [...]
How “Passive Activities” Hurt Clean Energy
If you care about the future of the American renewable energy industry, you need to learn what the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) calls “passive activities.” Because these important rules mean that as long as the U.S. relies on the tax code to provide renewable energy incentives, renewable energy can only grow as fast as Wall [...]
Building Energy Codes: A Big Deal
In energy policy, lawmakers often prefer carrots to sticks because it minimizes the opposition. But mandatory rules, like building energy codes, can save energy and payback several times over during the useful life of buildings. The state of Illinois is poised to become a regional leader by adopting the 2012 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC), [...]
Why Cost-Effective Local Solar will Change Everything
With the cost of solar power plunging and retail electric prices rising, 100 million Americans in the nation’s largest cities will be able to “go solar” for a lower price than grid electricity in the next ten years. Seizing this opportunity requires rethinking electricity policy and planning even while solar produces less than 1% of [...]
Distributed Generation: In The Sweet Spot
If the cost of electricity were the only factor in energy discussions, we’d probably have a lot more coal and a lot less renewable energy. But the truth is that renewable energy can compete on cost and distributed renewable energy has a lot more value beyond just electricity, as illustrated in this one facet in [...]
Solar for $2.24/Watt in Germany
The Germans have proposed significant revisions to their landmark renewable energy policy, the feed-in tariff, and the proposed prices should make Americans wonder why solar still costs so much on this side of the Atlantic. After a significant step-down in March, German utilities will be buying rooftop solar on long-term contracts from projects 10 kilowatts [...]
Solar Cost and Market Size
This one is for the chart nerds. A month ago I wrote about the changing cost of solar from 2009 to 2010, and the still remarkable lack of correlation between state solar market size and the cost of solar. In particular, one chart plotted the cost of solar against the size of the state market, [...]