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SFCE Aug 20
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Suntech and Adani Power Collaborate on 200 Megawatts of Solar in India
Aug 20, 2015 | EQ International
Suntech has announced recently that it will further collaborate with Adani Power Ltd., one of India's largest private power producers, in developing solar energy in India. Suntech has agreed to supply approximately 200 MW of solar panels towards a project that will be developed, designed, built, and operated by Adani Power. -
Adani to sign $3bn solar cell manufacturing deal with Softbank and Foxconn?
Aug 20, 2015 | Greentech Lead
By Rajani Baburajan
...In another recent development Adani partnered with Suntech for a major solar project in Tamil Nadu. The 200 MW project, the largest individual solar project in the world as per the claims from Adani, will employ Suntech’s Vem PV series modules... -
Adani dumps SunEdison in favour of richer contenders
Aug 19, 2015 | PV Tech
By Mark Osborne
...Perhaps the prequel to the latest Reuters story was the signing of a large (70MW) PV module supply deal between Adani and Hanwha Q CELLS for planned projects in India, as well as a bigger 200MW supply deal with Suntech. Surely if the relationship with SunEdison was going well the deals would have been struck with them? ... -
China Sees Consolidation of Solar Companies
Aug 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
China's government said Aug. 19 that it expects consolidation to accelerate among solar companies, which are struggling to cope with a shift in market conditions. Companies with the strongest technology, capital, management and brands are best equipped to benefit from market opportunities, according to the Ministry of Industry and... -
New calculation suggests China's emissions have been overestimated
Aug 20, 2015 | CNN
By Michael Hopkin and Eliza Berlage
New estimates show that for more than a decade China's greenhouse gas emissions have been overestimated by international agencies, while the country's energy consumption has been underestimated. The research, published Thursday in Nature, shows that from 2000 to 2013 China produced 2.9 gigatonnes... -
Chinese Solar-Panel Maker Loses EU Duty Exemption
Aug 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jonathan Stearns
Chinese solar-panel producer Znshine PV-Tech Co. lost its exemption from European Union tariffs after EU trade authorities said the company breached the terms of a price-floor agreement. Customs authorities in two EU nations discovered that imports of solar modules made by Znshine were declared... -
Solar Developers Benefitting From Crowdfunding in China
Aug 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
When Kong Sun Holdings Ltd. went looking for money to build a small-scale solar power plant in Inner Mongolia, large banks weren't interested. The Hong Kong-listed developer of solar projects instead headed online and got a finance-lease credit line. -
Global Climate Deal Under Threat
Aug 20, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal
By Gabriele Steinhauser
A planned global deal to keep average temperatures from rising more than two degrees Celsius to contain climate change is under threat unless more countries submit emission-reduction targets and technical negotiations are substantially accelerated, the European Union’s energy and climate commissioner warned Thursday. -
The Politics of Net Metering Get Picked Up in the Presidential Campaign
Aug 19, 2015 | Greentech Media
By Julia Pyper
Net energy metering didn’t come up in Hillary Clinton’s town hall meeting in Nevada yesterday, although both supporters and opponents of the solar policy hoped that it would.Nevada has become central to the value-of-solar debate, as the solar industry and NV Energy once again clash over how to address the state’s net-metering cap... -
SkyPower Lines Up $12B in Deals for Solar Power
Aug 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alexander Longley
Seven years ago, Kerry Adler watched as the disaster at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. scuttled his vision of renewable power riches. Today, he has reassembled assets from the collapsed investment bank, laying the foundation for a green energy colossus. Adler's SkyPower Ltd. has lined up deals to build utility-scale solar... -
Talk Is Cheap. Renewable Energy Isn't.
Aug 20, 2015 | Bloomberg View
By Christopher Flavelle
If promises matter, it's been a very good stretch for renewable power. At the end of July, Hillary Clinton said that as president she would aim to get 33 percent of the U.S.'s electricity from renewable sources by 2027 -- up from about 13 percent today (half of it from hydro). A week later, the Barack Obama administration said its new power-plant...
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Suntech and Adani Power Collaborate on 200 Megawatts of Solar in India
Aug 20, 2015 | EQ International
Suntech has announced recently that it will further collaborate with Adani Power Ltd., one of India's largest private power producers, in developing solar energy in India. Suntech has agreed to supply approximately 200 MW of solar panels towards a project that will be developed, designed, built, and operated by Adani Power. The project, which is currently in pre-development in the Tamil Nadu state in Southern India, is expected to be operational by 2016. This project will be the biggest, individual solar project across the globe.
"After recently completing a 9.3 MW project with Adani Power in Gujarat, India, we're excited to be continuing our partnership with Adani Power, who has proven to be an important and strong partner to have in developing the solar industry in the region and in India," said Haibo Xiong, president of Suntech. "We first hosted Adani Power at Suntech's manufacturing facility and testing lab in Wuxi this past April. They were impressed with the quality of Suntech's technology and panels, along with Suntech's esteemed value in R&D, which is aimed at upgrading its solar technology in order to ensure continual high performance yields and power outputs. We expect that this 200 MW project is the breaking point for Suntech's presence in India as we continue to collaborate with Adani Power."
The 200 MW project will employ Suntech's Vem PV series modules, which produce high-performance yields for utility-scale size power plant installations. The solar plant systems are expected to generate approximately 330 gigawatt-hours of electricity, which will power approximately 367,000 households and offset approximately 281,700 tons of carbon emissions annually."China has launched massive infrastructure investments in 'One Belt and One Road' countries. Clean energy infrastructure and solutions are definitely high priorities in China's investment strategy, which will provide developing countries with energy alternatives that weren't previously accessible," explains Eric Luo, CEO of Shunfeng International Clean Energy, Suntech's parent company. "The Indian government has provided positive incentive policies for solar development as it looks to accelerate its 2020 100 GW solar mission. We believe this landmark project will help showcase solar energy's capabilities in providing India with clean and sustainable energy. We are very pleased to be a part of the largest solar project in the world to date."Link: http://eqmaglive.com/EQ-ARTICLE-34563-Suntech-and-Adani-Power-Collaborate-on-200-M.html#.VdXItWOlZpW
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Adani to sign $3bn solar cell manufacturing deal with Softbank and Foxconn?
Aug 20, 2015 | Greentech Lead
By Rajani Baburajan
Adani Group is planning to join hands with Softbank and Foxconn to set up $3 billion solar cell manufacturing project in India, according to media reports.
The announcement comes as the outcome of talks held by Gautam Adani, the founder, with Softbank chairman Masayoshi Son and Foxconn head Terry Gou.
The deal may represent one of the biggest such investments in the solar energy industry in India and will accelerate the Make in India initiative.
Launched by the Narendra Modi government, the objective of Make in India initiative is to boost the manufacturing sector in India and create new employment opportunities to its people.
During his recent visit in India, Foxconn chairman committed massive investment in the country.
In what seems to be a real push for the solar industry in India, Softbank, Foxconn and Bharti Enterprises have already committed about $20 billion in solar projects in India. The new deal with Adani will further boost the momentum and encourage future investments in the sector.
None of the parties involved in the deal have not confirmed on the agreement.
In another recent development Adani partnered with Suntech for a major solar project in Tamil Nadu. The 200 MW project, the largest individual solar project in the world as per the claims from Adani, will employ Suntech’s Vem PV series modules.
Link: http://www.greentechlead.com/solar/adani-to-sign-3bn-solar-cell-manufacturing-deal-with-softbank-and-foxconn-27607
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Adani dumps SunEdison in favour of richer contenders
Aug 19, 2015 | PV Tech
By Mark Osborne
Despite Reuters and a whole bunch of mainstream media as well as some specialists in the renewable’s field having initially pronounced a major US$4 billion JV between SunEdison and India’s large conglomerate, Adani Group, was a done deal back at the beginning of the year, those that did so should re-acquaint themselves with the terms 'memorandum of understanding' (MOU) and 'feasibility study'.
Now according to Reuters, Adani has dumped SunEdison as a manufacturing partner in India to chase after Japan's Softbank and Taiwan’s Foxconn to build a PV manufacturing plant to feed aggressive plans to build a mere 10 gigawatts-plus of PV power plants in the country.
Even if an MOU has been signed, rarely is it worth the paper it is signed on, simply because it doesn’t mean anything other than several people having signed a piece of worthless paper.
Back in January, 2015 SunEdison and Adani Enterprises signed an MOU and even bothered to mention that the production plant would be based in Mundra, Gujarat, India over a three-year period. Though exactly what three-year period that would be undertaken in wasn’t made clear, unsurprisingly.
Other than it was only an MOU, a further caveat was that both parties would undertake a “comprehensive analysis of the joint venture opportunity and business plan”. This would be completed in the first half of 2015, according to a press statement at the time.
Not content with the signed MOU, both parties had added a further get-out-of-jail clause in the form of the feasibility study, something SunEdison had done the previous year (2014) with a grander US$6 billion JV including polysilicon production in Saudi Arabia.
On both occasions PV Tech took a more balance view on such plans, using such language as ‘considers’ and ‘potential’.
Nothing has really been said on either MOUs or feasibility studies by SunEdison since both plans were announced.
Indeed, SunEdison’s president and CEO, Ahmad Chatila, did later highlight that the purpose of the MOUs was to significantly minimise SunEdison’s involvement in manufacturing as well as its capital contribution by going down the JV route.
That may have been OK in relation to the MOU with the government of Saudi Arabia, but Adani is not cash rich on any scale you want to use. Add in that SunEdison has debts of around US$10 billion and the match between Adani and SunEdison and a US$4 billion capital requirement was not going to be easy.
Perhaps the prequel to the latest Reuters story was the signing of a large (70MW) PV module supply deal between Adani and Hanwha Q CELLS for planned projects in India, as well as a bigger 200MW supply deal with Suntech. Surely if the relationship with SunEdison was going well the deals would have been struck with them?
Therefore, the move eight months later by Adani to go after SoftBank and Foxconn as its new manufacturing partners makes a lot more sense. Both companies have billionaire owners and want to be major project developers in India.
So it would seem Adani has ditched SunEdison for richer potential partners. The only problem is that should the talks go well, we can expect another MOU.
Link: http://www.pv-tech.org/editors_blog/adani_dumps_sunedison_in_favour_of_richer_contenders
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China Sees Consolidation of Solar Companies
Aug 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
China's government said Aug. 19 that it expects consolidation to accelerate among solar companies, which are struggling to cope with a shift in market conditions. Companies with the strongest technology, capital, management and brands are best equipped to benefit from market opportunities, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The ministry expects steady growth in China's solar industry in the second half of 2015. The fight for survival in the photovoltaic sector has been intensifying. The government is eliminating outdated production capacity by encouraging solar manufacturers to consolidate through mergers and acquisitions or restructuring. China's production output of polysilicon, the raw material used to make solar cells, increased almost 16 percent in the first half to 74,000 metric tons and imported about 60,000 tons of polysilicon during this time, the ministry said. China produced 19.6 gigawatts of solar panels, up 26 percent from the previous year, it added. Outside the country, Chinese solar manufacturers are building or expanding 3.2 gigawatts of solar cell capacity and 3.3 gigawatts of panel capacity, according to the ministry. They have a combined overseas capacity to make 800 megawatts of solar cells and 1.5 gigawatts of panels annually.
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New calculation suggests China's emissions have been overestimated
Aug 20, 2015 | CNN
By Michael Hopkin and Eliza Berlage
New estimates show that for more than a decade China's greenhouse gas emissions have been overestimated by international agencies, while the country's energy consumption has been underestimated.
The research, published Thursday in Nature, shows that from 2000 to 2013 China produced 2.9 gigatonnes less carbon than previous estimates of its cumulative emissions, meaning that its true emissions may have been around 14% lower than calculated.
Meanwhile, with a population of almost 1.4 billion, China's energy consumption grew 10% faster during 2000-2012 than reported by its national statistics.
As the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitter, China's recent pledge to peak its emissions by 2030 has been praised as responsible leadership on the climate issue, but its faster-than-expected energy consumption growth means meeting this target may present an even bigger challenge.
The researchers, led by Dabo Guan, of University of East Anglia's (UAE) School of International Development, used independently assessed data on the amount of fuel burned, and new measurements of emissions factors to re-evaluate emissions of two major sources of China's carbon dioxide emissions -- the burning of fossil fuels and cement production -- from 1950-2013.
Guan said the new estimates were compiled by considering fuel quality when establishing emissions inventories -- something that had previously been overlooked by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and most international data sources.
"While China is the largest coal consumer in the world, it burns much lower-quality coal, such as brown coal, which has a lower heat value and carbon content compared to the coal burned in the U.S. and Europe," said Guan.
Pep Canadell, Executive director of the Global Carbon Project at CSIRO, who was not involved in the study, said a lack of research resources meant that estimates of China's emissions relied on default values from global databases.
Guan's research team "visited thousands of mines and by actually exploring the coal they found there was less emissions," Canadell said.
This is a process done by many countries, but for developing nations like China the important task of compiling detailed emissions inventories has historically been too expensive.
"The default values can be quite far away from the real values," Canadell said. "In the future we would need real values for other places such as India."
Corinne Le Quéré, director of the UAE Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said there were a lot of uncertainties in China's data, especially given the discrepancies between national and provincial figures.
"The strong message here is that as we refine our estimates of carbon emissions we get closer to an accurate picture of what is going on and we can improve our climate projections and better inform policy on climate change." The good news and the bad news
The new findings are a positive step towards accurately measuring emissions, but their effect on climate policy requires acknowledging the negatives -- China's rapidly growing energy needs.
Frank Jotzo, director of the Australian National University Centre for Climate Economics and Policy, described continued work on primary data as important but said the findings that emissions were overestimated does not change the challenge China faces in moving away from coal.
"For global climate change mitigation to succeed, a shift from coal to other energy sources in China is essential." he said. "China is making good progress towards that goal."
With the Paris meeting of the UNFCCC in November this year, China's pledge to peak emissions from all activities by 2030 requires addressing its demand for electricity generation in production, transport and industrial systems.
According to Canadell, cement production accounts for about 5% of global greenhouse emissions, but because China is "building so much" it is a much bigger fraction. China produces more than half of global production of steel and cement.
"I don't think this news is making it easier or harder [to meet climate targets]; the most important thing is to measure the speed and trends of energy consumption," he said.
Link: http://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/19/world/china-greenhouse-emissions-overestimated/
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Chinese Solar-Panel Maker Loses EU Duty Exemption
Aug 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jonathan Stearns
Chinese solar-panel producer Znshine PV-Tech Co. lost its exemption from European Union tariffs after EU trade authorities said the company breached the terms of a price-floor agreement.
Customs authorities in two EU nations discovered that imports of solar modules made by Znshine were declared by parties related to the company to be of non-Chinese origin and were shipped to the bloc via a third country, the European Commission said.
The commission said Znshine also violated rules governing quarterly reports by Chinese companies exempted from the duties, which are meant to counter alleged below-cost, or “dumped,” imports and alleged subsidies.
Znshine provided “misleading information” in its quarterly reports “concerning the date of a significant number of commercial invoices during a substantial period of time,” the commission, the 28-nation EU's trade authority, said Aug. 19 in the bloc's Official Journal.
The revelations are the latest evidence of weaknesses in an EU-China agreement in late 2013 to curb European imports of Chinese solar panels after the commission concluded that they unfairly undercut producers in Europe such as Solarworld AG. The case was the EU's biggest trade dispute of its kind, covering imports valued at 21 billion euros ($23 billion) in 2011 (168 DEN A-4, 8/29/13).
The accord set a minimum price and a volume limit on European imports from China of the renewable energy technology until the end of 2015. Chinese manufacturers that opted to take part in the pact are spared EU antidumping and anti-subsidy duties.
Tariff Exemptions
In June, the commission revoked tariff exemptions that had been offered to Chinese subsidiaries of Canadian Solar Inc. and to the ET Solar and ReneSola groups. The commission said those three producer groups violated the agreement to respect a minimum selling price in Europe.
In late May, the commission said it may extend the tariffs on solar panels from China to Taiwan and Malaysia because of evidence that Chinese exporters had used the two countries to evade the levies.
Also in early May, the commission said it would consider excluding Chinese solar panel prices in a benchmark that underpins the EU-China agreement. That could aid EU producers that want to prevent a downward price spiral in Europe.
Like the Canadian Solar and ET Solar groups, Znshine was exempted from a 41.3 percent antidumping duty and a 6.4 percent anti-subsidy levy when the EU imposed the trade protection against China in December 2013. As a result of the commission's decision published Aug. 19, Znshine faces those two sets of duties as of Aug. 20.
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Solar Developers Benefitting From Crowdfunding in China
Aug 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
When Kong Sun Holdings Ltd. went looking for money to build a small-scale solar power plant in Inner Mongolia, large banks weren't interested.
The Hong Kong-listed developer of solar projects instead headed online and got a finance-lease credit line. The 1 billion yuan ($161 million) loan it secured from Internet investment platform Solarbao.com financed a 10-megawatt unit.
“Banks decline to lend to small projects” because the due diligence takes too much time when compared with larger projects, said Liu Wenping, executive director of Kong Sun.
Kong Sun's case is emblematic of a broader challenge small developers in China face. Though solar installations are booming in the world's biggest market for the technology, the majority of growth is in sprawling industrial-sized projects.
The result is developers struggle to find lenders willing to bet on the more modestly sized solar projects typically found atop schools, factories and municipal buildings.
Ventures like Solarbao ultimately could prove an important source of funding for China's aspirations in clean energy. The nation needs investment of 737 billion yuan in photovoltaics between 2014 and 2017, more than 70 percent of that sum for smaller systems, according to professional services firm Ernst & Young LLP.
Early Days
Crowdfunding for these projects is still at a nascent stage. Solarbao, which started earlier this year, has helped more than 50 projects raise funds. It doesn't disclose how much money is involved.
Backers say crowdfunding in China will grow along with small-scale solar projects “distributed” close to power consumers. Last year, China completed 2 gigawatts of distributed solar, a quarter of what it had targeted, according the National Energy Administration.
China could add as much as 19 gigawatts of solar power this year, with distributed projects accounting for 5 to 7 gigawatts, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
Most smaller projects are developed by small firms or individuals, “which generally find it hard to get financing in China,” said Peng Xiaofeng, founder of LDK Solar Co., which was the world's second-biggest wafer maker until it entered liquidation in February 2014.
Seeing a gap, Peng worked with Solar Power Inc., a Shanghai-based developer of photovoltaic projects owned 20 percent by LDK Solar, to set up Solarbao in January.
Similar to crowdfunding websites including GoFundMe, Kickstarter and Indiegogo, Solarbao.com aggregates financing from anybody who wishes to make a contribution. Kickstarter last year funded more than 22,000 projects and almost $530 million was pledged, according to its website.
In Solarbao's case, contribution levels start as low as 1,000 yuan. That entitles the investor to a single solar panel which is then leased to developers, or to a slice of income from leasing the panel. The investment's return and period is set by Solarbao and the developer of the project.
Companies leveraging web financing are “grasping a good market opportunity, but their impact on the entire market is currently limited,” said Nick Duan, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance in Beijing.
Chinese banks tend to favor either large listed companies or those owned by the state, said Wang Yun, manager of the marketing at Solarzoom. The online organization helps project developers find contractors and loans.
‘Immature’ Model
Even if bank lending can be secured, smaller borrowers generally pay higher rates, he said.
That's the case even with Solarbao. Through the website, project developers pay an annual interest rate of 6 percent to 10.6 percent, said Peng of SPI. The People's Bank of China currently has the benchmark rate at 5.25 percent for mortgages of up to five years.
“The Internet finance model is immature” and is in need of good-quality projects that can be better evaluated, said Tang Wenqian, secretary-general of the China Photovoltaic Power Investment & Financing Alliance. “It's moving in the right direction, and the potential is big.”
United Photovoltaics Group Ltd., a Chinese solar-farm operator, plans to use more crowdfunding by the end of the year, Chief Executive Officer Alan Li said. In 2014, the Hong Kong-listed operator raised 10 million yuan for a 1 megawatt plant in the southern city of Shenzhen.
Crowdfunding's long-term success could depend largely on whether risk can be lowered, said Gong Siwen, an analyst at Northeast Securities Co. in Shanghai.
It has the potential to “become an important source of capital,” Gong said.
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Global Climate Deal Under Threat
Aug 20, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal
By Gabriele Steinhauser
A planned global deal to keep average temperatures from rising more than two degrees Celsius to contain climate change is under threat unless more countries submit emission-reduction targets and technical negotiations are substantially accelerated, the European Union’s energy and climate commissioner warned Thursday.
“The window of opportunity…is closing fast,” Miguel Arias Cañete said.
With just over three months to go until the Paris Climate Conference, which is meant to come up with a follow-up deal for the Kyoto Protocol, just 56 out of more than 190 countries, representing 61% of global greenhouse-gas emissions, have submitted targets for reducing these emissions, Mr. Cañete said.
While that is up from the 35 states that submitted targets under the Kyoto deal, proposals are still missing from some big economies, including Argentina, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
“There are big economies that should come on board.” Mr. Cañete said.
The EU last fall agreed to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 40% from 1990 levels until 2030. The U.S., which never ratified the Kyoto Protocol, has submitted a plan to cut emissions by between 26% to 28% from 2005 levels over the next 10 years. Related China Pledges to Cut Emissions Ahead of Paris Climate Talks G-7 Adds Thrust to U.N. Climate Talks With Ambitious Target U.S., Brazil Agree on Climate-Change Steps
In 2010, about 200 governments agreed to reduce emissions to ensure that global temperatures didn’t rise by more than two degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.
Researchers argue it is important to avert the two-degree temperature rise because beyond it the risks of high-impact changes—such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet—could become unacceptably high.
Mr. Cañete also warned that negotiations on a technical level, which are central to the drafting of the final deal, are progressing “painfully slow” and that the negotiating text, currently at 86 pages, is still too long.
“This will require all countries to show flexibility,” he said.
The EU wants emission-reduction targets to be legally binding and be reviewed every five years. Other countries, including the U.S. are calling for a looser agreement. Another issue has been raising enough money for an international fund to help finance the fight against climate change in poor countries.
“We need a very ambitious agreement in Paris,” Mr. Cañete said.
Link: http://www.wsj.com/articles/global-climate-deal-under-threat-1440071864
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The Politics of Net Metering Get Picked Up in the Presidential Campaign
Aug 19, 2015 | Greentech Media
By Julia Pyper
Net energy metering didn’t come up in Hillary Clinton’s town hall meeting in Nevada yesterday, although both supporters and opponents of the solar policy hoped that it would.
Nevada has become central to the value-of-solar debate, as the solar industry and NV Energy once again clash over how to address the state’s net-metering cap, which could be hit by the end of the month.
In late July, NV Energy filed a 500-page application with the PUC that would create a three-part charge for solar customers in the state. The proposal would reduce the credit solar customers receive for electricity they send to the grid from 11.6 cents to about 5.5 cents. The utility says the changes are needed to address an unreasonable cost shift between solar and non-solar customers.
The filing was criticized by the solar industry, which has pointed to several studies (including one in Nevada) that show net-metered customers cover their own costs and that distributed solar benefits all ratepayers. Failing to raise the net-metering cap in Nevada, they say, would effectively kill the state’s burgeoning industry.
Vivint Solar, the second-largest rooftop solar installer in the country, recently announced it has suspended its expansion into Nevada amid the policy turmoil.
Now, the debate on how to value solar has made its way to the national stage. At a town hall meeting in New Hampshire last month, Clinton, the leading Democratic presidential candidate, expressed support for net metering and criticized utilities for blocking the practice.
"Number one, we've got to prevent backsliding," she said, according to a recording of the event. "That's why I said watch out for utilities that want to stop clean renewable energy, and enabling customers to sell back to the grid because they want to prevent the transition."
Republicans provoked Clinton to address net metering at yesterday’s meeting in Nevada, where the power company opposing the policy is owned by one of Clinton’s strongest supporters, Warren Buffett. Buffett’s company Berkshire Hathaway purchased NV Energy in 2013. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported on the political scuffle:
Republican operatives pointed reporters to Clinton's remarks [in New Hampshire], and to records showing Buffett made a $25,000 contribution to a pro-Hillary Super PAC last year. He also donated $2,700 to her campaign in April. The billionaire businessman has made no secret of his support, saying in May that "I'm going to vote for her."
In the view of her critics, Clinton is showing inconsistency. "Her willingness to raise money from the very people she slams on the campaign trail shows just how fake her rhetoric is," said Republican spokesperson Fred Brown.
Clinton’s stance on net metering is meaningful in the broader context of the 2016 election. She has been accused of lacking a sincere political platform in the presidential race thus far, but in recent weeks, her campaign has made a push to prove she’s a strong backer of clean energy.
Last month, Clinton released her climate-change plan that calls for boosting U.S. installed solar capacity from its current 20 gigawatts to 140 gigawatts by the end of 2020, through both distributed and utility-scale solar projects. Overall, Clinton pledged to increase renewable energy generation to 33 percent of the U.S. electricity mix by 2027. By comparison, President Obama’s Clean Power Plan would increase renewable energy generation to 28 percent by 2030.
Clinton also upped Obama on her environmental credentials this week by coming out against oil drilling in the Arctic, days after the president gave Shell the go-ahead to start production in the North.
To reach Clinton’s ambitious low-carbon energy goals, her campaign created the Clean Energy Challenge. The proposal includes defending the Clean Power Plan, increasing public investment in clean energy R&D, expanding renewable energy generation on public lands, fighting to extend federal tax incentives for renewables, and overcoming “barriers that prevent low-income and other households from using solar energy to reduce their monthly energy bills.”
Clinton’s support of distributed solar on rooftops would, on its face, put her at odds with utility-owner Warren Buffett. In reality, NV Energy’s solar policy is likely a few degrees removed from her personal relationship with the billionaire donor.
Meanwhile, Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, an outspoken clean energy advocate, has pointed the finger at Republican mega-donors for fueling opposition to pro-solar policies, the Las Vegas Sun reports.
Reid said NV Energy is part of a nationwide battle to limit rooftop solar that’s led by billionaire fossil-fuel barons Charles and David Koch. NV Energy's parent company, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, has fought to eliminate rooftop solar programs in legislatures, utility commissions and courtrooms across the country. NV Energy tried to thwart a measure that would have allowed more rooftop solar in Nevada during the 2015 legislative session.
“The Koch brothers are worth more than 135 million Americans combined," Reid said. “Why are they interested in stopping rooftop solar? It hurts their bottom line -- their tar sands project in Canada. Their coal, oil and gas here in America...NV Energy is part of it. [...] Their bottom line is money, profits.”
The PUC threw out a solar-based proposal last Wednesday to raise the net-metering cap through the end of the year. The PUC will meet with interested parties again this Friday to find a way to keep the solar industry alive before a new rate structure is approved in 2016. Regulators are expected to reach an interim solution on August 26, according to solar advocates.
Lauren Randall, a spokesperson for Sunrun, said her company strongly supports Hillary coming out in favor of net metering, but added that it isn’t only an issue for Democrats. Net energy metering started under President George W. Bush in 2005, and was recently backed by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R).
Rather than framing Clinton’s solar policy as a source of conflict, as some Republican campaigners have, it should be seen as further support for a bipartisan policy solution, and encourage regulators to prevent the solar market in Nevada from stalling, according to Randall.
“We don’t need to roll back a fundamental billing mechanism or put fees on solar users,” she said. “We need a different proposal than what the Nevada utility has rolled out, which would kill the solar market.”
Net metering and solar fees have become one of the top electricity policy issues in the country this year. According to a new report by the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center, there were 18 instances in 16 states of proposed or enacted changes to net-metering policies during the second quarter of 2015.
The report also found 32 examples from 18 states of utilities seeking to increase residential customers’ monthly fixed charges by 10 percent or more over the same period. These charges don’t only affect solar customers, but weaken the rooftop solar value proposition.
While Nevada isn’t the only state grappling with its solar policies, it will be the state to watch in the coming days. In addition to the PUC net-metering decision expected next week, Nevada will host Sen. Reid’s National Clean Energy Summit on Monday, featuring a debate on the merits of net metering and its role in the future of rooftop solar.
Link: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/The-Politics-of-Net-Metering-Get-Picked-Up-in-the-Presidential-Campaign
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SkyPower Lines Up $12B in Deals for Solar Power
Aug 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alexander Longley
Seven years ago, Kerry Adler watched as the disaster at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. scuttled his vision of renewable power riches. Today, he has reassembled assets from the collapsed investment bank, laying the foundation for a green energy colossus.
Adler's SkyPower Ltd. has lined up deals to build utility-scale solar farms in North America, Asia and Africa worth more than $12 billion—though how the projects will be financed remains a mystery.
To date, SkyPower has completed 23 projects totaling 300 megawatts, ranking it just 34th among solar developers worldwide, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. But if Adler is successful in fulfilling all of his signed contracts, he will have more renewable power capacity than any operator currently has.
SkyPower aims to “kickstart this market in the hope of bringing power to people that really deserve it,” Adler said by phone from Kenya as he wrapped up his second major deal this year.
That was a $2.2 billion pact for 1 gigawatt of solar—about the capacity of a typical nuclear reactor, and massive for renewables—that will take years to build. SkyPower has also begun a joint venture in Mexico, and within two months expects two more deals in the Middle East and Africa, each about as big as the Kenya contract.
SkyPower has projects with a total capacity of about 25 gigawatts in the works, and Adler says he can build 7 gigawatts within five years. Even that would make it far larger than the biggest developers of commissioned solar projects: China's Huanghe Hydropower Development Co. Ltd., which has 2 gigawatts, and Arizona-based First Solar Inc., with 1.2 gigawatts, according to Bloomberg data. In terms of projects in the pipeline, only Missouri-based SunEdison Inc. is bigger, with deals representing 53 gigawatts on the table.
Lehman Collapse
“The next question is what is your probability rating—how likely is it that those projects will get built,” said Michael Morosi, a solar industry analyst at Avondale Partners LLC in Nashville, Tenn. He called SkyPower's ambitions “a stretch goal.”
Adler founded SkyPower in 2003 after a stint as chairman of outsourcing firm Sitel Canada. Lehman bought a majority stake in SkyPower in 2007. Lehman's collapse the following year choked off credit to SkyPower, which itself sought protection from creditors in 2009.
An affidavit Adler filed to an Ontario court said SkyPower was in “dire financial straits,” with C$214 million ($165 million) in debt. The SkyPower name and fledgling solar business were sold a few months later to a new majority shareholder, CIM Group, a Los Angeles private equity fund with $20 billion of assets in real estate and infrastructure. Adler was kept on as CEO, and he retains a stake in the business. He declined to reveal his ownership share or provide revenue or profits for the closely held company.
With the backing of CIM, SkyPower sold stakes in 16 projects totaling 200 megawatts to panel maker Canadian Solar Inc. for C$185 million. Then it started bidding for bigger deals, and in May 2014 Adler won a $5 billion contract to provide 3 gigawatts of solar to Nigeria.
Since then, Adler has wrapped up Kenya and other contracts with a total potential value of $7.2 billion. In Egypt, he has promised to build 3 gigawatts, and in India SkyPower has deals to provide 350 megawatts.
SkyPower offered “a very good rate, and we are hopeful that they will fulfill the contract,” said Manu Srivastava, commissioner for clean energy in Madhya Pradesh, one of two Indian states where Adler has deals.
Financing Questions
Despite Adler's success in getting contracts, it is unclear whether he will secure financing, said Jenny Chase, solar analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Many such agreements have scant repercussions for companies that fail to get financial backing and build the promised installations, she said.
“Developers go around signing deals with countries and anyone else who might buy power from them,” Chase said. “A lot of those deals won't come off.”
SkyPower says it has worked with “leading bankers to the renewable industry,” though Adler declined to name them. He wouldn't say whether there are any penalties in his contracts, but he insists SkyPower can line up the financial backing it needs.
“We wouldn't spend the time, money and effort pursuing a market,” Adler said, “if we did not believe that we have the capability to finance the project.”
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Talk Is Cheap. Renewable Energy Isn't.
Aug 20, 2015 | Bloomberg View
By Christopher Flavelle
If promises matter, it's been a very good stretch for renewable power. At the end of July, Hillary Clinton said that as president she would aim to get 33 percent of the U.S.'s electricity from renewable sources by 2027 -- up from about 13 percent today (half of it from hydro). A week later, the Barack Obama administration said its new power-plant rules would require renewables to make up 28 percent of power capacity by 2030.
The political and legal obstacles to those goals are obvious. But behind them are more interesting questions: Is it even possible for the U.S. to increase so quickly the share of power it gets from renewables -- mostly solar and wind, given the public animosity to nuclear power -- by the end of the next decade? If so, what will it cost? And who would pay?
Solar Energy
One way to answer the first question is asking whether there's precedent for so rapid a shift. The answer is yes, but with caveats -- and those caveats suggest that the pace of change Clinton proposes could come at significant cost. Promising more renewable power, without considering the costs, only panders to those who already support that goal; it doesn't advance the debate over how to achieve it, or enhance the consensus needed to carry it out.
In 2014, six states got more than 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources other than hydro power. For many of those states, the ramp-up was very fast. The share of power generated in Kansas from renewables went from 0.9 percent to 22 percent in 10 years; in South Dakota, renewables grew even faster, from 2 percent in 2008 to 25 percent six years later.
If the U.S. could generate that rate of growth nationwide, it could easily meet the targets set out by Clinton, and even surpass them. But there's a catch: Much of the new renewable capacity was in states with landscapes ideally suited to large wind farms, built to export clean power to other states. That doesn't mean the U.S. couldn't do the same, but without a comparable source of external demand (and financing), which it won't have, that won't be as easy.
A better way to test the viability of the goals Obama and Clinton have set out is to look at the record of other countries. How fast can a nation move toward renewable energy when the right political consensus is in place?
Here the data seems encouraging: A handful of European countries got 25 percent or more of their power from wind and solar last year, and many achieved that with amazing speed. Belgium got 1 percent of its power from wind and solar in 2004, and 26 percent last year. Germany went from 14 percent renewables in 2004 to 42 percent in 2014 -- a shift led by solar, which jumped from 1 percent of its generating capacity in 2004 to 21 percent last year.
Those countries show that Obama and Clinton's goals are attainable. But they also show the cost. The burst of renewable power forced utilities to rely less on their plants fired by fossil fuels. As a result, those utilities "took huge write-offs on their coal and gas plants," said Monne Depraetere, a European power analyst for Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
Pushing harder on renewables will put similar pressure on U.S. utilities. Between now and 2027, total U.S. generating capacity will increase just 0.25 percent, according to projections from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Unless that changes, getting to 33 percent renewables by 2027 means eliminating about 145 gigawatts of power produced from fossil fuels -- an amount equal to almost 60 percent of the coal-fired generation the EIA projects would otherwise still be operating in the absence of Obama's Clean Power Plan.
What's different is who bears those costs. Unlike in Europe, most states still have regulated electricity markets, where utility companies recover the expense of building and upgrading plants by adding those costs to customers' monthly energy bills. If a plant is forced to close because of environmental regulations, customers would probably be forced to keep making those payments all the same, according to Steve Mitnick, a former energy adviser to the governor of New York and consultant at McKinsey.
In most cases, the expense of constructing the plants has been paid off. But recent Environmental Protection Agency rules, including 2012 regulations limiting mercury and other emissions, have forced utilities to spend billions of dollars on new equipment to capture those pollutants -- costs that are usually recouped over 15 to 20 years. "Customers will pay that off at the same time they would have to pay for new plants," as well as new transmission lines and upgrades to the grid, Mitnick told me.
It's hard to estimate that cost for any one state, but the total amount could be considerable. Last year the International Energy Agency projected the energy industry would have to idle about 165 gigawatts of fossil-fuel generating capacity that has yet to be paid off, with unrecovered costs of $120 billion. That's what's needed to keep atmospheric carbon dioxide to 450 parts per million -- the level experts say is necessary to limit the long-term rise in global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius.
Proponents of renewable power are understandably reluctant to discuss that cost. Clinton's campaign didn’t respond to my e-mails seeking comment, and the section of her website that discusses her renewable power proposals makes no mention of the dollars required or where they'll come from. And a spokeswoman for the EPA told me that whether and how to shut fossil-fuel power plants is effectively the states' problem.
None of this means the targets set by Obama and Clinton can't be met, or that their cost isn't worth paying. On the contrary, the economic toll of inaction could far exceed the bill for shutting down coal plants more quickly. The climate benefits of retiring coal plants faster are obvious. And if the price of solar power keeps falling, the resulting savings could make the other costs easier to bear, according to Rob Barnett, an energy analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
But the debate over renewables, as with climate change more broadly, needs to move past whether policy has to change (it does) and toward how much we're willing to pay for it -- and who gets the tab. Leaving that discussion for later, or pretending it doesn't need to happen, is the wrong way to turn promises into something real.
Link: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-08-19/talk-is-cheap-renewable-energy-isn-t-
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