Stuffed into the envelope with the electricity bill is sometimes a little pamphlet telling you where that energy comes from. Sometimes, it’s pretty detailed; other times, not so much. But the percentage of energy coming from renewable sources often isn’t that high, and part of the reason for that is that renewable energy is generated in bursts and is then hard to store. Energy storage on a large scale would help even out the intermittent nature of renewable energy; in fact, techniques such as batteries and fuel cells are used on smaller scales right now to manage grids with high percentages of renewable sources. The problem with wide-scale use is that energy storage systems are not cheap. The Falling Cost of Technology While energy storage tech is expensive now, any consumer will note that the price of technology (whether that’s computers, ...

The Chinese government has today given short shrift to proposals from a group of US solar firms for new import duties on low-cost Chinese solar panels, which they allege have benefited from 'illegal' subsidies.

A serialized version of ILSR‘s new report, Democratizing the Electricity System, Part 4 of 5. Click for Part 1 or Part 2 or Part 3 or Part 4. Overcoming the Roadblocks to Democratizing the Electricity System

The electricity grid system has become host to a distributed generation phenomenon that has developed in a largely hostile environment.  It’s possible that distributed generation has enough inherent economic and political advantage to be sustainable, but new policy could significantly expand distributed generation in the electricity system.

The following policies illustrate the many ways that the electricity system can incorporate the benefits of  distributed energy generation.

Distributed Generation or Solar Power Carve-Outs

With nearly 30 states already mandating the development of renewable energy, more states should focus on power that can be generated locally and with greater economic returns to the state.  Already 16 ...

The price of solar is dropping fast, opening new opportunities for community-scale renewable energy across the country.  But despite the improving economics and tremendously sunnier skies, the United States lags far behind Germany in installing new solar power.

The biggest difference is policy. The U.S. has two major federal incentives (a 30% tax credit and accelerated depreciation) for solar power, and a few state programs for solar power. Germany and most other developed countries use a feed-in tariff for renewable energy, a policy responsible for three-quarters of the world’s solar power capacity.

What might happen if the U.S. adopted Germany’s flagship “feed-in tariff” policy, responsible for 10 gigawatts of solar in just two years? Let’s take a look at how such a program would be priced.

First, we’re marketing-conscious in America, so we’ll call it something better, like a CLEAN contract, for Clean Local Energy Accessible Now.

Then we’ll need to adjust the ...

Imported Gasoline Was Available in Oregon During the Fuel Crisis of 1973-74 at Double the Cost of the Domestic Fuel. Photo: David Falconer /National archives

I’ve just been notified by one of my senators (I have two) that the administration has announced a hike in CAFE standards to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. I heard the news several day ago but most of us have better sources than the Senate.

I had to sit down for a minute to let that shocking information sink in. I wondered for a second or two why they went for the fraction — what was it about the last 2640 feet per gallon that so tested their courage or was so beyond the range of their vision that they didn’t simply roll all the way to 55 mpg?

I was around ...

Solar start-up Semprius is on the verge of generating more than 250 new green jobs over the next five years with a new ultra-small solar cell that is half the size of a pinhead, called a high concentration photovoltaic cell. The company has just announced plans to build a new factory to make the cells in Henderson, NC, which has been struggling with an unemployment rate as high as 13.3 percent this year. The kicker is that the commercial potential of the new cell was pushed forward in partnership with federal research and development funding, without which the new cell and all those new jobs would still be a twinkle in someone’s eye.

Federal Support for Green Jobs

The new factory ...

Rather than treating carbon dioxide as a waste, as is the case with high-profile Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology, energy, industrial and power industry participants, as well as people all over the world, would be better served investing in researching and developing Carbon Capture & Utilization (CCU) systems, according to a research and policy paper from The Centre for Low Carbon Futures (CLCF).

CCS has been the energy and power industries’ favored solution when it comes to climate change mitigation, but it’s turned out to be a straw man, as well as a seeming dead end. Nothing in the way of real-world CCS is even on the road to fruition, despite all the hype and touting energy and power industry proponents have put into it.

Plus, it’s become apparent that CCS has a number of significant drawbacks: high start-up costs; high ...

The International Hydropower Association (IHA) just launched the “Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol” at its bi-yearly Congress in the town of Foz do Iguaçú, Brazil, last week. The Protocol is in reality only a scorecard that rewards hydropower companies and financiers with a greenwashed stamp of approval; it does not represent a true step towards the actual practice of sustainability in the sector.

The Protocol is a risky way of helping developers achieve true social and environmental sustainability, because it doesn’t require developers to meet any standards, nor fulfill any laws. At the heart of the Protocol is a point-based rewards system, similar to a frequent flyer program: accumulating a higher amount of points would allow a developer to claim that its projects are sustainable.

However, the governance committee formed by the IHA to oversee the terms and conditions ...

Solar photovoltaic panels on home in Germany, one of many now featuring solar PV panels.

There’s a nice little statistic for you. Germany Trade & Invest (GT&I) recently reported that its latest figures show Germany’s solar photovoltaic (PV) industry employs over 100,000 ‘green’ workers now, more than the US steel industry. Here’s a little more from PV-Tech: The main requirement for ‘Made in Germany’ components is driven by the country’s domestic solar market, which installed a total of 7.4GWp in 2010. Yet Germany is also a manufacturing platform for other European PV markets, including Italy, where the feed-in tariff adjustments stipulate that installed technology must be ‘Made in Europe’. At present, approximately 75% of European solar cells, modules and other BOS are currently made in Germany. More Germany stories on CleanTechnica: Germany: Talk of the ...

Following up on a great guest post by Chris Varrone on wind intermittency and why it’s not a big deal, apparently the International Energy Agency (IEA) now has a new book and report out, Harnessing Variable Renewables: a Guide to the Balancing Challenge, that tells us the same thing that Chris was explaining. “The report, which features case studies of eight geographic regions with sharply different power attributes, shows that there is a greater technical potential for balancing variable renewable energy output than is commonly assumed,” IEA IEA press release states. The report was launched at EREC 2011, Europe’s Renewable Energy Policy Conference, last week in Brussels. Of course, as wind and solar continue to grow in leaps and bounds, the flexibility of the grid will be critical to using their produced power and using it efficiently. ...