Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Feb 8, 2012, 4:18 am
While the recent solar market has its dark side (bankruptcies, layoffs, slim profits, and consolidation), the industry continues to innovate and drive device performance ever upward. That means that when the solar sector makes it through these lean times, it will possess increasingly higher effici...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Feb 7, 2012, 1:18 pm
Can solar play nicely with coal and natural gas? Tucson Electric Power (TEP) is working with Areva Solar on a concentrated solar power (CSP) "booster" to the 156-megawatt Unit 4 at TEP’s H. Wilson Sundt Generating Station in Tucson. The Sundt plant is a dual-fueled unit capable of using coal or ...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Feb 5, 2012, 1:18 am
Aneesh Chopra, the nation's first Chief Technology Officer, resigned his office last week. Chopra was a champion of merging America's IT prowess with the health care and energy sectors. He also brought a focus on the cybersecurity sector. He had spoken about accelerating the smart grid through innov...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Feb 4, 2012, 10:18 am
The Brattle Group has issued an economic analysis on the impact of a 100 percent tariff on PV cells imported from China. Keep in mind that the study was commissioned by CASE, the Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy — the group that opposes the tariffs sought by SolarWorld and its anti-dumping ...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Feb 3, 2012, 7:18 pm
Building enough new solar and wind capacity to meet California’s 33 percent renewables by 2020 mandate will not be easy — but reliably getting the electricity generated by those resources to the places where it will be consumed may be even tougher. That is the responsibility of the California In...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Feb 3, 2012, 4:18 am
The Department of Commerce Finding · The U.S. Dept. of Commerce on Jan. 27, 2012 makes a critical circumstances finding on Chinese solar cells/panels. · The finding was based on import data from Suntech Power and Trina Solar for the three-month periods of October to December 2011 vs. July to S...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Feb 2, 2012, 1:18 pm
Silverado Power believes its approach to development can avoid the controversies impeding the advance of renewables in Southern California. In response to those controversies, major renewable energy projects got some not-so-great news from Los Angeles County’s Board of Supervisors in the last we...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Feb 1, 2012, 10:18 pm
PALM SPRINGS, California — Reporting from the Clean-Tech Investor Summit. Ira Ehrenpreis is the cleantech partner at VC-investment firm Technology Partners. For the eighth year in a row, Ehrenpreis is serving as the Conference Chairman of the Clean-Tech Investor Summit today and tomorrow in Palm...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Feb 1, 2012, 7:18 am
Element Power’s proposed Wildflower Renewable Energy Farm, which would be composed of 150 megawatts of wind and 100 megawatts of solar, got dealt a significant setback on January 24 when the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously rejected the company’s application for new meteorolog...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Jan 31, 2012, 4:18 pm
First Solar is the largest solar module firm by market capitalization, the largest thin-film solar firm, and one of the largest solar firms by capacity, shipments, and certainly by cumulative profits. The company is in the cross hairs of every other solar firm and continues to set the bar in terms o...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Jan 31, 2012, 1:18 am
According to a bulletin from CASM, The Department of Commerce "will begin collecting duties back 90 days on Chinese imports" if it finds duties are warranted. The CASM statement said that CASM lauded "the U.S. Department of Commerce for taking expedited action against a massive, evasive surge of C...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Jan 30, 2012, 10:18 am
Solar energy has grown “from a cottage industry to a mature industry in less than a decade,” said Schiller LLC Managing Director Mark Willingham. Schiller Automation, a 30-year-old, 260-employee manufacturing firm, based near Stuttgart, Germany, seized the opportunity early in solar’s focus on...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Jan 28, 2012, 1:19 pm
California’s 46 publicly owned utilities manage about a quarter of the state’s power. Of them, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), the state’s (and the nation’s) largest public utility with about nine percent to 12 percent of California’s generation, has been thought the...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Jan 27, 2012, 10:19 pm
First Solar is the largest solar module firm by market capitalization, the largest thin-film solar firm, and one of the largest solar firms by capacity, shipments, and certainly by cumulative profits. The company is in the cross hairs of every other solar firm and continues to set the bar in terms o...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Jan 27, 2012, 7:19 am
In 2010, the market value of all residential solar installed in the U.S. was just shy of $ 1.8 billion. Once tallied, the 2011 dollar amount will be substantially larger. According to data collected by GTM Research, there are well over 2,000 experienced residential installers fighting for a piece o...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Jan 26, 2012, 4:18 pm
MidAmerican Energy Holding Company, the Midwestern utility subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, announced today it will form a branch dedicated exclusively to the development of renewable energy. The renewables platform will, unlike four of MidAmerican’s five other highly regulat...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Jan 26, 2012, 1:19 am
Background: On December 20, 2011, Jigar Shah, President, Coalition of Affordable Solar Energy (CASE) and founder of SunEdison, publicly asked Gordon Brinser, President of SolarWorld Industries Americas and the Coalition for American Solar Manufacturing (CASM) to withdraw its petition to the U.S. ITC...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Jan 25, 2012, 10:18 am
The last 16 Academy Award winners in the Visual Effects category use Autodesk design tools, acccording to the company. Autodesk describes its multiple visualizing tools as “digital prototyping software.” The software allows users to create three-dimensional virtual realities in which to challe...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Jan 24, 2012, 7:19 pm
Texas has the oldest and most successful deregulated electricity marketplace in the U.S. A decade ago, deregulation was rolled out by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) in the wake of California’s $ 45 billion partial deregulation fiasco. By 2008, 80 percent of Texas registered...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Jan 24, 2012, 4:18 am
Although the GOP presidential primary race remains fluid, the front-runners are now Newt Gingrich, fresh from a victory in South Carolina, and Mitt Romney, the second-place finisher in Iowa and South Carolina and first-place finisher in New Hampshire. Barring a brokered convention, one of these ge...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Jan 22, 2012, 7:18 am
MiaSolé, the Kleiner Perkins- and Vantage Point-backed CIGS solar company, has laid off 30 percent of its workforce, according to sources close to the company. A company spokesperson has verified that there have been layoffs, but did not specify the extent of the reduction-in-force. We understand...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Jan 21, 2012, 4:18 pm
On the heels of accusations that the Chinese government is subsidizing its solar panel manufacturers so they can sell at below-market prices in the U.S., the U.S.-based Wind Tower Trade Coalition (WTTC) petitioned the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) and the International Trade Commission (ITC) to ...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Jan 21, 2012, 1:18 am
Plug-in vehicle people have never been good at waiting. When the major car makers told them the idea wouldn’t fly in the marketplace, they went out and converted leaders at General Motors and Nissan. With the Volt and the LEAF selling all the cars with plugs they can get to showroom floors, it l...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Jan 20, 2012, 10:18 am
GTM Research publishes the Polysilicon 2012-2016: Supply, Demand & Implications for the Global PV Industry report, a comprehensive analysis on global polysilicon markets, including the technologies, business strategies and economic roadmap for the industry. To learn more, click here. In 2011, t...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Jan 19, 2012, 7:18 pm
Last week we reported that Brian Stone, a VP at Nanosolar, had left the firm. Today, the personnel shifts continued at the CIGS thin film solar vendor. Geoff Tate, CEO for about two years, has been replaced by Eugenia Corrales, who will assume the position immediately.  According to a press r...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Jan 19, 2012, 4:18 am
One of the busiest booths at the 2011 Solar Power International show in Dallas last year was SunPower's unveiling of its low-concentration PV product. The efficiency-leading solar firm actually began as a concentrator company back in 1985. SunPower just announced the first commercial deployment of...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Jan 18, 2012, 1:18 pm
SolarWorld and its consortium might have a valid trade claim with the Department of Commerce and International Trade Association, alleging the dumping of Chinese photovoltaic panels into the U.S. market and unfair subsidies by the Chinese state. The U.S. government agencies will soon make their ruli...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Jan 17, 2012, 10:18 pm
Japan's Solar Frontier is, by far, the leader in CIGS thin-film solar panel production. While most of the CIGS startups have at various times produced more hype than panels, Solar Frontier has quietly ramped up production and honed its efficiency. Today, the firm announced that it has signed an ...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Jan 17, 2012, 7:18 am
As an experienced U.S. small business in the renewable energy technologies space, we have mixed feelings about the SolarWorld Americas anti-dumping case against Chinese imports of crystalline silicon solar cells. It's curious that the CEO of SolarWorld, Gordon Brinser, has spent money sending us i...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Jan 16, 2012, 4:18 pm
Solectria Renewables, a U.S. solar inverter manufacturer, grew its workforce by 65 percent in 2011 and looks to expand by 50 percent in 2012.  Solectria Renewables claims to be the leading U.S.-based grid-tied photovoltaic inverter manufacturer for residential, commercial and utility-scale solar in...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Jan 16, 2012, 1:18 am
From California, the land of policy-backed energy efficiency, comes a new plan to jumpstart investment in making buildings greener and more efficient — tying repayments to utility bills. The California Public Utilities Commission is now considering just such an “on-bill repayment” proposal p...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Jan 15, 2012, 10:19 am
I am writing to you today on behalf of my company, SolarWorld Industries Americas Inc., as well as the Coalition for American Solar Manufacturing (CASM) with its more than 150 associate member employers. Since SolarWorld filed trade cases on Chinese imports of crystalline silicon solar cells and m...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Nov 3, 2011, 8:18 am
Perhaps the idea has occurred to you as you were driving down the road. There's all this unused land by the side of our nation's highways — why not install solar there and feed the electrons generated to the grid or power the electrical requirements of the highway, such as street lighting or tra...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Nov 2, 2011, 5:18 pm
While Solyndra burned, the executives fiddled — and kept feeding themselves healthy bonuses. Dana Hull of the San Jose Mercury News read the 277-page Solyndra bankruptcy documents so you wouldn't have to. She uncovered the fact that Solyndra bankruptcy law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher earned $ ...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Nov 2, 2011, 12:59 pm
According to the EPA, scientific evidence indicates that indoor air can be more seriously polluted than the outdoor air in even the largest and most industrialized cities. Other studies indicate that people spend approximately 90 percent of their time indoors. The math isn’t so great–for many pe...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Nov 2, 2011, 2:18 am
Renewable energy is rapidly gaining momentum and signs seem to indicate that widespread adoption could be right around the corner. Take your pick from any of a myriad of meaningful metrics and milestones — global investment in renewables topping $ 200 billion in 2010; a predicted 1.8 gigawatts ...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Nov 1, 2011, 11:18 am
According to GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industry Association’s latest quarterly U.S. Solar Market Insight report, the U.S. installed 4 megawatts of concentrating solar in the second quarter of 2011. The total quarterly installed capacity can be attributed to three concentrating photovolta...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Oct 31, 2011, 8:18 pm
We've long maintained that CPV is a niche product, albeit with some potentially large niches. Amonix announced their 5 megawatt Hatch project late last month although we covered it in August. The Hatch, New Mexico CPV project holds the title as the largest CPV system in North America. Amonix is th...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Oct 31, 2011, 3:14 pm
(Photo: Paul Marotta/Getty Images) Running marathons and swimming laps are not the only way to burn calories. Housekeeping and yard work can also help you keep off the pounds. Here are 12 of the most common, calorie-burning home and garden chores, with estimated hourly calorie-burn rates for an ...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Oct 31, 2011, 5:18 am
SPI 2011 lived up to the reputation of its host city, Dallas, Texas. It was bigger than any previous SPI, as everything in the Lone Star State is reputed to be.   After riding the SPI Dallas rollercoaster for three days and nights, it was apparent that: Module and technology companies aren’...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Oct 30, 2011, 2:19 pm
Solar grade polysilicon capacity and production in the United States grew just three percent in the second quarter of 2011, according to GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association’s latest quarterly U.S. Solar Market Insight report. The U.S. polysilicon industry is highly consolida...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Oct 29, 2011, 11:18 pm
Total installed photovoltaic (PV) capacity in Tennessee increased 44 percent from 2.34 megawatts in the second quarter to 3.37 megawatts in the third quarter of 2011. According to GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association’s most recent data, nearly 96 percent of installed capacity i...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Oct 29, 2011, 8:18 am
This week, Quanta Services announced that it has been selected as the engineering, procurement, and construction provider for the 20-megawatt Atwell Island solar farm in Tulare County, California. Solar Project Solutions, LLC (SPS), a joint venture between Samsung Green Repower and Enco Utility Serv...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Oct 29, 2011, 8:18 am
This week, Quanta Services announced that it has been selected as the engineering, procurement, and construction provider for the 20-megawatt Atwell Island solar farm in Tulare County, California. Solar Project Solutions, LLC (SPS), a joint venture between Samsung Green Repower and Enco Utility Serv...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Oct 29, 2011, 8:18 am
This week, Quanta Services announced that it has been selected as the engineering, procurement, and construction provider for the 20-megawatt Atwell Island solar farm in Tulare County, California. Solar Project Solutions, LLC (SPS), a joint venture between Samsung Green Repower and Enco Utility Serv...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Oct 28, 2011, 5:23 pm
A renewable energy boom in California’s Antelope Valley has developers scrambling to build utility-scale solar and wind projects and hotly pursuing power purchase agreements (PPAs), with utilities seeking to meet Governor Jerry Brown’s goal of getting a third of the state’s power from renewabl...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Oct 28, 2011, 2:18 am
America’s solar manufacturing industry should be one of the economy’s bright spots. The  booming U.S. solar business is one of the few growth markets in the current economy, yet America’s solar manufacturers have faced unwarranted plant closures and job reductions in recent years. So what lie...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Oct 27, 2011, 11:18 am
On October 19, 2011, a trade action was filed in Washington, D.C. alleging the unfair importation of crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells and modules from China. Trina Solar Response to the Trade Action Filed in the United States Trina Solar believes the allegations made by the U.S. petitioner...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Oct 26, 2011, 8:18 pm
First Solar, Inc. (Nasdaq: FSLR) is full of surprises lately. And Wall Street  usually doesn't like surprises. Yesterday saw the sudden announcement of CEO Rob Gillette leaving the firm. The CEO transition was carried out in a surprisingly (especially for the usually predictable First Solar) sloppy...
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Erva D. posted an article on Going Green - Oct 26, 2011, 5:18 am
Just last week I watched a confident Robert Gillette speak at Solar Power International in Dallas about First Solar's successes and job creation. Today he announced that he is no longer serving as CEO of the solar industry's largest PV module company by market share, First Solar (NASDAQ: FSLR). La...
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