Author Archives: Frank Andorka

SEIA, HBCU To Partner With Aim Of Diversifying Solar Workforce

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

On the year anniversary of releasing its first-ever diversity report, the solar industry’s largest association – the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) – announced it is partnering with the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Community Development Action Coalition (HBCU-CDAC) to improve the industry’s recruitment efforts in minority communities.

During Solar Power International last year, SEIA and The Solar Foundation released the findings from its diversity survey, a hard and honest look at where the industry stood in terms of reaching non-traditional solar audiences like blacks, Hispanics and other minority communities. It also looked at how the industry treats women – and discovered the answer to the question of how the industry treats women was “not that well.”

In fact, the group that performed least well in the survey were women of color – and that is one of the inequities SEIA is trying to solve.

SEIA and the HBCU-CDAC, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to begin a comprehensive effort to help the solar industry recruit and employ more students from the nation’s 101 Historically Black Colleges and Universities. This will include hosting a national jobs fair, individual jobs fairs at the HBCU schools and bringing solar companies to campuses for recruitment.

[wds id=”3″]

“Diversity and inclusion is one of our highest priorities and, while we’ve made progress, we still have a long way to go to make the solar industry more accurately reflect the diversity of the communities we serve,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, SEIA’s president and CEO. “Those of us in solar joined this industry because we want to make the world better for all, which is why we’re excited to partner with CDAC, tap into the talent at HBCUs, and bring more of these students into our growing industry.”

I’ve been involved in diversity efforts in other industries, but never before have I seen an industry take such concrete steps to address the problems they found. I’m impressed with this first step, and I, for one, am looking forward to seeing how this program works toward improving the diversity of this industry as it gets implemented.

No Bridge Necessary: Solar+Storage Cheaper Than Natural Gas In Southwest

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

According to a report from Bloomberg, natural gas is going to run into significant price competition from solar+storage in the coming years – perhaps even eliminating the need for new natural gas plants in parts of the American Southwest.

The report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance advances a story SolarWakeup has been telling you about for months, which is that new natural gas-fired plants are increasingly being seen as unnecessary as the costs of solar+storage, especially at the utility-scale level, continue to come down.

Prices are so low, in fact, that Bloomberg predicts solar+storage will replace nearly 7 GW of coal-fired generation in the region – but that’s not all.

[wds id=”3″]

This won’t be contained to the Southwest,” said Hugh Bromley, a New York-based analyst at BNEF in the article. “This is spreading and will continue to spread.”

Bloomberg offers the following example:

For example, a 100-megawatt solar farm that goes into service in Arizona in 2021, coupled with a 25-megawatt storage system with four hours of capacity, will be able to provide power for $36 a megawatt-hour, according to BNEF. That’s well below the $47 price from a new combined-cycle gas plant, according to the report.

This finding mirrors what’s going on already in California and Arizona, where public service commissions (in Arizona called the corporation commission) are already looking askance a utility requests for new natural gas plants. In the past, utilities have relied on natural gas plants to fuel their electrical grids once the sun goes down, but with battery storage coming into significant usage, natural gas is increasingly obsolete.

In California, the Public Utilities Commission has become far more unwilling to allow its utilities to build or fix natural gas plants and is insisting far more often that they produce grid support through the use of solar + storage instead. And in Arizona, the Corporation Commission told Arizona Public Service (the state’s largest utility) to throttle back its plans to build 5.3 GW of natural gas plants in its latest integrated resource plan and instead resubmit it with more renewables (read: solar) in it.

Energy storage is the key.

California Universities Set Aggressive Renewables Path: 100% By 2025

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

The state university system of California just took the aggressive renewable energy goals set at the state level and turned them up to 11. The University of California system is committed to reaching its own goal of being powered 100% by renewable energy by 2025 – 20 years before the entire state’s deadline of 2045.

The announcement is in parallel with the system’s intent to become carbon neutral the same year. According to the release, the California universities’ system has already saved $220 million with its energy efficiency programs, and continues to leverage the benefits of its solar farm in Fresno, the largest solar purchase of any university in the United States.

[wds id=”3″]

“From LED lighting to all-electric fleets, we are proud of the countless energy efficiency and clean energy actions we have taken to tackle climate change,” said David Phillips, UC’s associate vice president of Energy and Sustainability. “These ambitious new targets, which align with those of our student environmental leaders, will ensure that our electricity comes from clean sources, extending UC leadership in modeling sustainability solutions.”

The systems new goals go far beyond just increasing renewables, however. Among the related goals are:

  • Clean energy: In addition to its 100 percent clean energy commitment by 2025, UC will endeavor to reduce its energy-use intensity (energy per square foot per year) by 2 percent year over year through more efficient measures. By 2018, the university’s own power company will provide 100 percent clean electricity to participating UC campuses.
  • Green buildings: No new universities’ buildings or major renovations after June 2019, except in special circumstances, will use on-site fossil fuel combustion, such as natural gas, for space and water heating.
  • Sustainable procurement: UC will use its market power to drive the availability of more sustainable products and services. Examples of new goals include 25 percent green spend and 25 percent economically and socially responsible spend. Enhanced requirements for its procurement departments and new standards for their suppliers will further support sustainable sourcing.

As usual, California is leading the way, and in this case it’s the students leading the charge. It makes one almost take stock of the future and not freak out. Almost.

New York Prepares To Go Full Speed Ahead With Energy Storage Goals

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

The New York Public Service Commission (NYPSC) has taken the next step toward reaching its energy storage goals when it accepted the environmental review report connected to the state’s Energy Storage Roadmap.

The roadmap, announced with great fanfare by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, envisions 1.5 GW of storage installed in the state over the next seven years. The NYPSC has undertaken steps to make that goal a reality in the most effective, environmentally friendly way possible.

According to a release announcing its acceptance of the environmental review, the NYPSC says the goal means that nearly one-fifth of New York households could have energy storage once the 1.5 GW is installed.

[wds id=”3″]

“Energy storage is not only crucial to achieving our goal of 50 percent renewable energy by 2030, it will improve the resiliency of the grid as we face extreme weather events and other emergency situations,” said Commission Chair John B. Rhodes. “With this step, we continue to advance the deployment of energy storage, in line with the target of 1,500 MW deployed by 2025.”

Under the state’s Environmental Quality Review Act, the NYPSC had to conduct the review whose findings it accepted. It found a number of positive effects assocaited with the roadmap thanks to the reductions of peak-load demand, increased grid efficiency and the displacement of fossil-fuel based generation. These outcomes would result, the report said, in improved economic, health and environmental benefits.

At the same time, the negative effects are negligible.

According to the release, the benefits may include:

  • Creation of approximately 30,000 jobs associated with energy storage research and development, development, manufacturing, installation and other support services;
  • Mitigation of the impacts of climate change from approximately 2 million metric tons of avoided greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; and
  • Improvement in public health from avoided emissions of criteria air pollutants, such as nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur oxides (SOx) and particulate matter (PM2.5). To the extent that these avoided air emissions occur from the displacement of peaker plants located in Potential Environmental Justice Areas (PEJAs), the associated benefits may accrue to these vulnerable communities.

New York’s Governor Cuomo has made renewable energy one of the hallmarks of his time in office, and while New York still lags behind California (and doesn’t even make the Solar Energy Industries Association’s list of Top 10 Solar States), aggressive targets like this are what will get them back into the game and put their renewable energy future on par with its New England cohort. States like Massachusetts and New Jersey await its arrival.