Solar week in review

As we reach the peak of the holiday season, you’d think the world of solar would take a break. But that’s not the case. Rather the industry is staying hot, much hotter than the winter.

In fact, probably the biggest news of the year happened just this past Friday, when Obama signed the new tax bill into law. Whether or not you think the bill is flawed, the tax bill will extend the 1603 Treasury Grant program, which helps large-scale developers of solar receive a grant upon completion of a project, rather than wait for tax credits. Through an interagency effort, including the departments of energy and interior, the Obama administration announced the draft of the Solar Energy Development Programmatic EIS, which creates a process for approving large-scale solar on public lands in six western states.

In other big news, Abound Solar won a $400 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy. The loan guarantee will help the company secure financing to construct a new production facility in Tipton, Colo.

The South Bay Communities Alliance (SBCA) Hurricane Response Center in Coden, Ala. went solar with a 25 kilowatt photovoltaic (PV) system and battery backup this past week. The solar panels and battery-tied system will assure that even if the center is hit by a hurricane, the center will still have a reliable electric source.

In large-scale development news, SolarReserve got state approvals for two 150 megawatt (MW) solar concentrating systems it plans to install in Arizona and California. Also in Arizona, the Arizona Public Service Company signed contracts for two new PV power plants in Arizona with a combined capacity of 37 MWs. The company plans to add up to 100 MWs of PV power.

Mannington, N.J. is going solar with a 10 MW PV plant, which will supply more than enough power for the 1,500 or so people. The plant will employ about 100 people, 6 percent of the town’s residents.

To help move the enormous amounts of PV power in California, the Sunrise Powerlink transmission line broke ground. The line may carry as much as 1,000 MW of renewable electricity into San Diego.

In all, the news last week gave good reason for creating renewable energy training programs, like the Green Works AZ Program, which aims to train and place 200 workers in Arizona’s renewable energy market. And that’s a good thing, because new research published by the Solar Energy Industries Association last week showed that the U.S. solar industry is a net exporter of goods and created $2.6 billion in new revenue in the U.S. in 2009. The report found the industry will continue to add jobs in the near future.

Homeowners in the Northeast U.S. may soon be able to install solar on their homes with no up-front payment, thanks to Sungevity’s announcement that it will soon offer its solar leases there.

But Clean Energy Authority is not omnipresent and couldn’t keep up with everything that’s happened.

For instance, Fujitsu announced a new organic PV cell that also is capable of producing power through heat, called a thermoelectric process.

Other countries are also making a splash in solar headlines.

For instance, India—home to the world’s second largest population, behind China—announced that it chose 37 companies to develop solar projects in the country as it works to add 20 gigawatts of solar power in the next 10 years. Egypt said that its first PV plant, a 20 MW plant built as part of a 140 MW power plant with a natural gas-fired power plant will become operational in February 2011. All in all showing that the industry remains hot and growth will likely continue into 2011 and beyond.

Image courtesy of NREL.