Solar, Wind Are Quickly Becoming Preferred Electricity Generation Worldwide

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

A new Deloitte Global report, “Global Renewable Energy Trends,” indicates solar and wind are becoming the preferred electricity-generation sources worldwide.

There are three key reasons for the increase: price and performance parity with fossil fuels; better grid integration infrastructure and improving technology. In other words, solar and wind are now cost-competitive with fossil fuels and are delivering the same performance. As that continues (and other technologies like blockchain come into play), Deloitte expects the trends to continue.

“Demand for renewable energy sources has grown tremendously in recent years,” says Marlene Motyka, Deloitte U.S. and global renewable energy leader and principal, Deloitte Transactions and Business Analytics LLP. “Governments, communities, emerging markets, and corporations increasingly understand that renewables are sustainable and affordable, and they want them included in current and future procurement plans.”

[wds id=”3″]

Most exciting, the report indicates that although wind and solar are already among the least expensive energy sources available globally, they are nowhere near reaching peak deployment. As costs continue to fall and accessibility increases, the demand for renewables is growing rapidly, driven by:

Smart renewable cities:

Migration to the world’s cities has encouraged many cities to take a “smart” approach to their infrastructure using sensor technology and data analyatics to improve the quality of life, competitiveness and sustainability for their residents. As it happens, solar and wind are at the center of many of these developments because they help answer the challenges posed by constructing “smart cities,” including depollution, decarbonization and resilience while enabling clean electric mobility, economic empowerment, and business growth.

Community energy:

Piggybacking of community solar, storage and management systems allow communities more flexibility in adding renewables. They allow on-grid cities to power themselves off te gird, and off-grid communities can keep their investments local, building economies based on the electrification of areas that had previously been electricity-free.

Emerging markets: Though the innovation in solar and wind have traditionally been considered the province of wealthier nations, that is increasingly less the case. Emerging markets are developing renewables at a pace that will soon overtake that of the developed world. As a result, emerging markets are where the innnovations are now coming from – innovations, by the way, that could eventually help developed countries, too.

Corporate involvement: As we’ve seen in the United States, corporations are also leading the renewable energy revolution, With the advent of power purchase agreements (PPAs) and aggregation (for smaller corporations), two thirds of Fortune 1000 companies have set renewable energy targets – meaning this revolution has hit the C-Suite and could be unstoppable as they race to outdo each other in their commitment to solar and wind energy.

“Wide-scale integration of renewable energy sources is no longer a question of if, but when,” Motkya said. “Countries such as China, the United States, and Germany have already reached price parity for certain renewable sources. With prices continuing to drop, developed countries and emerging markets alike have the ability to integrate renewables into their grid systems to ensure competitive advantage.”

The Energy Show: Climate Change – Time To Start Panicking

The Energy Show: By Barry Cinnamon

These days you can’t watch TV, read a news story or listen to the radio without seeing catastrophic fires, hurricanes, and high temperatures. The world is getting hotter. To illustrate, Death Valley recorded the hottest month ever recorded on Earth. Temperatures averaged 108.1 degrees day and night, all of July 2018. That beat last year’s record monthly temperature. This is not just a U.S. only story, it’s a worldwide issue. During the month of July 2018 record high temperatures were set on every single continent in the northern hemisphere (it was winter in the southern hemisphere).

Politicians, policymakers and leaders all over the world created the Paris Climate Agreement in 2016 — which every country in the world joined except for outcast Syria. Syria stepped up to the Paris Climate Agreement in 2017 — and then during the same year President Trump withdrew from the Agreement. The U.S. is the only country in the world that is not a signatory of the Paris Climate Agreement, the intention of which is to avoid a likely slow motion global warming disaster. We have been euphemistically describing this problem as “climate change.” Yes, the climate is changing, and it is getting hotter. So I am back to describing this looming catastrophe as “global warming.”

There are a few scientists who still believe that this global warming is not caused by mankind, is part of a natural cycle, or is not really a problem (Iceland could be the new Costa del Sol). Nevertheless, according to ongoing temperature analyses conducted by climate scientists at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the average global temperature on Earth has increased by about .8 degree Celsius which is 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880. Two thirds of the warming has incurred since 1975 at a rate of .15 to .2 degrees per decade. Natural processes are generally not linear — this warming is speeding up. We may be getting close to a tipping point at which global warming dramatically accelerates, flooding coastal areas and creating conditions so hot in many countries that humans can no longer survive.

Please Listen up to this week’s Energy Show as we share various scientific and media perspectives on global warming. It’s time to panic and act.

Report: Utility Scale Solar Procurement Surged, Residential Solar Steadies in Q2 2018

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

Though the overall solar market declined in Q2 of 2018, there was good news to be had in the utility-scale and residential sectors. Those are the headlines from the Q2 U.S. Solar Market Insight Report from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Woods MacKenzie Power & Renewables (WKPR) (formerly GTM Research).

As some predicted, the decision by the Chinese to halt their domestic market sent component prices into a nosedive, which allowed the utility-scale solar market to procure nearly 8.5 GW of solar in the second quarter. Lower than expected tariffs – starting at 30% – also contributed to the surge.

But even the residential solar, which had struggled in recent quarters to the tune of a 15% contraction in 2017, is showing increasing stability, according to the most recent numbers.

[wds id=”3″]

“Once lower-than-expected module tariffs were announced in January 2018, developers and utilities began announcing new projects,” Wood Mackenzie Senior Analyst Colin Smith writes in the report. “As we move toward 2019, we expect to see continued procurement growth as developers look to secure projects they can bring online before the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) steps down to 10 percent in 2022.”

In the residential sector, 577 MW were installed in the second quarter of the year, which were flat compared to the previous quarter as well as year on year. According to WKPR, “declines in previous quarters were less a symptom of the tariffs but instead a result of customer acquisition challenges and the scaling back of several large installers. The report points to the leveling out of the market as a sign that customer acquisition challenges may be subsiding. Emerging residential state markets like Florida and Nevada posted large gains in installations and helped the segment rebound.”

In other words, as SEIA President and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper said, the tariffs have had some effect on the solar industry, but it is too strong to stay down for long. Indications are that the second half of 2018 will remain strong, and that 2019 could be a rebound year.

Other key findings from the report include:

In Q2 2018, the U.S. market installed 2.3 GWdc of solar PV, a 9% year-over-year decrease and a 7% quarter-over-quarter decrease.
In the first half of 2018, 29% of all new electricity generating capacity brought online in the U.S. came from solar PV.
For a second consecutive quarter, the residential PV sector was essentially flat on both a year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter basis – an encouraging sign of market stabilization after a year in which the market contracted 15%.
Non-residential PV fell 16% quarter-over-quarter and 8% year-over-year.
Corporate procurement of utility PV through physical PPAs, virtual PPAs, and green tariffs has grown to account for 12% of projects in development.
Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables forecasts flat growth in 2018 vs. 2017, with another 10.9 GWdc of new PV installations expected.
Total installed U.S. PV capacity is expected to more than double over the next five years. By 2023, more than 14 GWdc of PV capacity will be installed annually.

Vote Solar Comes Out In Favor Of Tom Steyer’s Arizona Proposition

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

Vote Solar announced today that it and the Arizona small business community have come out behind Proposition 127, a ballot initiative that would enshrine a 50% renewable portfolio standard (RPS) by 2030.

Arizona’s current RPS is 15%.

Prop 127, backed by progressive billionaire Tom Steyer, has been mired in controversy as the state’s three largest utilities – Arizona Public Service (APS), Tucson Electric Power (TEP) and the Salt River Project (SRP) – have all funded political action committees to oppose the proposition. APS even brought a lawsuit challenging the signatures on the ballot petitions, a suit that was settled when a judge decided enough of the signatures were valid to keep the initiative in front of voters in November.

[wds id=”3″]

In offering its support, Art Terrazas, Interior West director at the Vote Solar Action Fund said:

Arizona is one of the sunniest states in the nation, and the people of Arizona overwhelmingly support putting more of that plentiful sunshine to work supporting good jobs and healthier families. Proposition 127 gives Arizonans the opportunity to vote for that brighter energy future at the ballot this fall. “We are proud to be speaking up for Proposition 127 and a stronger solar powered Arizona with these local business leaders and community stakeholders across the state.

Arizona is the third pillar in Steyer’s three-state strategy. Under the leadership of state-level groups funded by him, Steyer already has an initiative on the ballot in Nevada, and his efforts in Michigan led to a negotiated settlement in which the state’s three largest utilities have pledged to eliminate coal from their portfolios by 2045 and increase their investments in renewable energy.

Rooftop solar installers, as you might imagine, support Prop 127 and are thrilled to have Vote Solar on their side.

“Thanks to innovation and the individual choices of thousands of consumers who have demanded new energy choices, solar energy has become one of the most affordable energy resources across the United States,” said Louis Woofenden with Tucson-based Net Zero Solar. “That’s especially true here in sunny Arizona. It just makes sense that Arizona should be using more of our plentiful and affordable renewable energy resources to power our homes, businesses and communities with a ‘yes’ vote on Proposition 127.”