Military Goes Solar

Energy Department Loan Guarantee Would Support Large-Scale Rooftop Solar Power for U.S. Military Housing

September 7, 2011

Washington D.C. – U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced the offer of a conditional commitment for a partial guarantee of a $344 million loan that will support the SolarStrong Project, which is expected to be a record expansion of residential rooftop solar power in the United States.  Under the SolarStrong Project, SolarCity Corporation will install, own and operate up to 160,000 rooftop solar installations on as many as 124 U.S. military bases in up to 33 states.  SolarCity expects the project to fund approximately 750 construction jobs over five years and 28 full time operating jobs.  Many of the jobs are expected to be filled by U.S. veterans and military family members, who will be recruited, trained and employed to install, operate and maintain the photovoltaic (PV) systems.

“This is the largest domestic residential rooftop solar project in history,” said Secretary Chu.  “This groundbreaking project is expected to create hundreds of jobs for Americans and provide clean, renewable power to our military families. It can also be a model for other large-scale rooftop solar projects that help America regain its lead in the solar industry.”

The project, which could create up to 371 megawatts of new solar capacity, includes the installation of residential rooftop PV systems on existing privatized military family residences and other privatized buildings, such as community centers, administrative offices, maintenance buildings and storage warehouses.  The project will provide low-cost, renewable electricity to privatized military housing and is expected to avoid over 250,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually.  The SolarStrong Project will have the added benefit of helping the Department of Defense (DOD), the single-largest energy consumer in the U.S., secure its energy needs from domestic renewable sources that are independent from the utility grid, at no additional cost to taxpayers.  DOD has a stated goal that 25 percent of all energy consumed by 2025 shall be supplied from renewable sources.

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Reality of Community Solar

Can Community Solar Programs Bring Solar Ownership to the Masses?

Americans For Energy Leadership On 01.24.11, 

In Opinion, By McKenna Morrigan

Americans For Energy Leadership

http://leadenergy.org/

Community solar is a concept that has lots of cheerleaders. And what’s not to love? At it’s best, this market-based deployment strategy can expand access to clean energy, create jobs, spur local investment, and help drive down the cost of solar panels.
But while the concept of community solar has had strong support from policymakers and clean energy advocates for several years, actual community solar projects have been slow to materialize. Now, two statewide community solar programs and a host of other new state and local policies to encourage community solar may be catalyzing a wave of new projects. Will the reality of community solar live up to the ideal?

Community Solar Spreads the Benefits and Rewards of Clean Energy Investment
Community energy carries all the environmental, economic, and national security benefits of clean energy in any form, but with a distinct advantage. A review of research by Northwest SEED suggests that community energy projects deliver 2-5 times the economic benefits of projects built by out-of-state investors. And, in places that import electricity from outside the area, community energy can also keep utility dollars in the community, with multiplier benefits for the local economy. Community energy provides distributed generation, with associated benefits such as increased system reliability and resilience, lower peak power requirements, minimal transmission requirements and reduced line losses.


Examples of community energy began in rural areas of the Midwest, where farmers joined together to capture some of the benefits of the commercial wind development boom underway at the time. These projects blazed the “community energy” trail, developing novel legal structures and forms of financing, and proving that community energy could be a source of job creation and economic development.
But community wind has limited applicability, given the requirements of a strong wind resource, access to transmission capacity, and lots of open space to make a project financially viable. In contrast, solar photovoltaics (PVs) are well suited for modular applications of varying scales and can be placed on existing structures, making them a great fit for urban areas where retail electricity rates and demand loads are often highest.

Community solar is appealing in part because, despite broad interest among the public in solar energy, most people don’t have the ability to install solar PV on their own property. A 2008 study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory found that only 22 to 27% of residential rooftop area is suitable for hosting an on-site PV system after adjusting for structural, shading, or ownership issues. And in places like New York City, where home ownership rates are especially low, only a small number of people have incentives to invest in solar PV.

Community solar projects address this barrier by decoupling solar PV investment from on-site generation. Owners of community solar contribute funds to pay for a portion of a project, and reap benefits proportional to their investment. Community solar projects can be installed on the property of one of the project owners, on a separate private site, or on a shared location, such as local or state government property. Owners can include renters, homeowners, local businesses, even utilities.

Early Projects Suggest Two Different Approaches
Only a handful of community solar projects are complete, with another handful in development, so no definitive model exists. But so far, projects fall into two approaches.
The first and more common is the utility-sponsored approach. These projects are legally owned by a utility, and individuals voluntarily contribute funds to help finance them, either up front or on a monthly basis. In exchange, contributors receive credit on their utility bill equal to the output of electricity from their portion of the investment. Early examples of this approach include the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) SolarShares program and the Ellensburg, WA Community Solar Park. These public utilities have been very successful in using this approach to finance solar installation and the concept is spreading quickly.

Despite its popularity, the utility-sponsored approach has some significant limitations. According to an analysis by the New Rules Project at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), utility-sponsored projects can compare unfavorably to the economics of individual ownership. In some cases, contributors never even achieve full payback of their initial investment, making this approach much like other “green power” programs where utility customers simply pay a premium for clean energy. Only where there is a production incentive that generously rewards community projects (such as in Washington State) does this model seem cost-effective for contributors.

Still, for those who cannot invest in solar themselves, the utility-sponsored approach is often the only option. The second approach might be called a true community ownership model, where the risks and benefits of ownership are shared among individual participants, often through an ownership structure such as a cooperative or an LLC. This model is much stronger in concept, but it has proven very challenging to get off the ground, despite strong interest in many communities.

As David Brosch, lead developer of University Park Solar Community in Maryland, one of the first community solar projects in the country, said, “It took us over two years to develop our project structure and only two months to find our members.” The Clean Energy Collective’s Mid-Valley Solar Array in Colorado, a 77.7 kW community solar project, is another early and widely touted example of the ownership approach, which its founders hope to replicate around the country. Compared to the utility-developed approach, these projects have shown to be more attractive investments, with paybacks faster than would be possible through individual solar PV ownership.

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Community Solar

Ellensburg Community Solar Project
Ellensburg, Washington

In 2006, the City of Ellensburg municipal utility installed a 36 KW community Photovoltaic (PV) system, the first of its kind in the nation, in an effort to harness the 300 days of sunshine the region experiences to power their local homes and businesses.  As Gary Nystedt, Resource Manager for the City of Ellensburg and organizer of the Solar Community Project puts it, “Produce the power where you use the power.”  An important aspect of this story is that everyone in Ellensburg  has the opportunity to invest in this locally produced clean electricity.  The project uses an innovative and unique financing approach—families, individuals, and businesses in the community have been asked to partner with the city to help fund the project. 

In exchange for their financial support, the city gives the contributors a financial credit on their electric bill for the value of the electricity produced by the solar system. For instance, if a customer contributes 3% of the total funds contributed by local residents and businesses, that contributor will receive the dollar value of 3% of the power produced by the solar project.  The Ellensburg Community Solar Project began generating power in November of 2006, and has since produced more than 170,000 kilowatt-hours, averaging 58,000 kilowatt-hours, annually.

 In May 2009, Washington passed SB 6170, effective July 1, 2009. With the passage of this legislation, community solar projects will be able to receive the production incentive after an official rulemaking procedure in the fall. Community solar projects are defined as solar energy systems owned by local entities and placed on local government property or owned by utilities and funded voluntarily by utility ratepayers.

The base rate for community solar projects is $0.30/kWh and the multipliers are the same as those used for other renewable energy technologies. The actual production incentives range from $0.30/kWh to $1.08/kWh, as the incentive rate is higher for modules and inverters manufactured in Washington.  Each participant in the community solar project can apply to receive this incentive and may receive up to $5,000 per year. 

The Washington Department of Revenue (DOR) is responsible for submitting a report measuring the impacts of this legislation, including any change in the number of solar energy system manufacturing companies in Washington, and the effects on job creation, such as the number of jobs created for Washington residents.

25 by 25

Renewables in Rural Washington

Another force in the move towards more solar and renewable energy in the State of Washington is the “25x25” project, the goal of which is to produce 25 percent of our country’s energy from renewable resources like wind, solar, and biofuels by the year 2025.

A group of volunteer farm leaders first envisioned the goal of 25x25, and it quickly gained the support of a broad cross-section of the agriculture and forestry communities. Now leaders from business, labor, conservation and religious groups are joining this alliance as well. 25x25 is supported financially by the Energy Future Coalition, a non-partisan public policy initiative funded by foundations, and is endorsed by Washington politicians Sen. Cantwell, Rep. Inslee, and Rep. McMorris-Rodgers. The vision includes:

    * Bring new technologies to market and save consumers money.   
    * Reduce our dependence on oil from the Middle East.  
    * Create good new jobs in rural America.  
    * Clean up the air and help reduce urban smog and greenhouse gas emissions.

A national study undertaken by the University of Tennessee Department of Agricultural Economics (December 15, 2008) shows that if America’s farms, ranches and forestlands are empowered with the policies and incentives needed to meet 25 percent of the nation’s energy needs with renewable resources – biofuels, biomass, wind energy, solar power, geothermal energy and hydropower – an estimated $700 billion in new, annual economic activity would be generated, and 4 million to 5 million new jobs would be created.

The USDA, with their REAP (Rural Energy for America Program) Grants, is offering direct funding for energy efficient and renewable power projects, feasibility studies, and loan guarantees.  The BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) also has grants and loan programs in place specifically to develop renewable power on Native reservations throughout Washington and the rest of the U.S.

When one looks at the enormous support that renewables such as solar power have gained over the years in Washington State, from individual homeowners to government agencies and policy makers, along with the immense increase in the overall solar PV market in the U.S. and around the world, one can see that the climate is right for Efficient Life Technologies, llc. to join an industry where in Washington, like the world, the demand continues to grow.