In green technology developments this week, for the first time ever, new solar capacity added in 2013 will exceed new wind capacity worldwide.
According to London-based Bloomberg (News - Alert) New Energy Finance (BNEF), it’s not that solar capacity has climbed that much; but rather that the flurry of wind installations has calmed, compared to 2012. Specifically, BNEF expects to see 33.8 gigawatts (GW) of new onshore wind capacity in 2013, as well as 1.7 GW of offshore wind—for a total of 35.5 GW in capacity. In comparison, analysts see a “flare” in the solar category, with a median forecast of 36.7 GW of new photovoltaic (PV), capacity. Looking at last year, wind (both on- and offshore) added 46.6 GW, while solar added 30.5GW—record figures in both cases. But the past few months have seen a downtrend in the world’s two largest wind markets, China and the United States, which is clearing the way for the rapidly growing PV market to outshine wind (if not by as great a margin as wind had claimed previously).
Justin Wu, head of Wind Analysis for the firm, said, “We forecast that wind installations would shrink by nearly 25 percent in 2013, to their lowest level since 2008, reflecting slowdowns in the United States and China caused by policy uncertainty. However, falling technology costs, new markets and the growth of the offshore industry will ensure [that] wind remains a leading renewable energy technology.”
Meanwhile—adding to the solar surge—San Mateo, California-based SolarCity (News - Alert) has signed new financing agreements with Stamford, Connecticut-based Viridian Energy and with Pittsburgh-based Direct Energy for residential and commercial solar installments, respectively. SolarCity and Viridian are teaming up to offer solar electricity directly to homeowners at a discount to their current electricity rates through Viridian's 20,000-contractor network. SolarCity and Direct Energy have created a dedicated investment fund capable of financing up to $124 million in solar projects for Direct Energy’s commercial and industrial (C&I) customers.
How will utilities hook up all of this additional distributed energy capacity? A new study from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) on the impact of increasing wind and solar power generation on fossil-fueled power plants in the West has found that— if utilities want to accommodate more wind and solar power on the electric grid—they will either have to ramp down and ramp up, or resort to “cycling” (a process of frequently stopping and starting conventional generators). The study revealed that carbon emitted because of frequent cycling was negligible (<0.2 percent) when compared to carbon reductions resulting from wind and solar power generation. Reductions in sulfur dioxide emissions from wind and solar were 5 percent less because of cycling of fossil-fueled generators while nitrogen oxides emissions went down by 2 percent. The study also revealed that increases in wind and solar power generation will reduce the cost of fossil fuel by around $7 billion each year in the West.
In a statement, Debra Lew, NREL project manager for the study, said, “Grid operators have always cycled power plants to accommodate fluctuations in electricity demand as well as abrupt outages at conventional power plants, and grid operators use the same tool to accommodate high levels of wind and solar generation. Increased cycling to accommodate high levels of wind and solar generation increases operating costs by 2 percent to 5 percent for the average fossil-fueled plant. However, our simulations show that from a system perspective, avoided fuel costs are far greater than the increased cycling costs for fossil-fueled plants.”
Finally, San Francisco-based Clean Power Finance (CPF) has expanded its platform to offer an online marketplace for operations and maintenance (O&M) services on installed residential solar systems. To date, the seven-year-old firm—which was founded Gary Kremen, the creator of Match.com—has done for residential financing what the dating site did for the lovelorn: The CPF Market site connects providers of capital with solar professionals who need residential solar finance products (such as solar leases and power purchase agreements) to grow their businesses.
CPF’s new O&M Marketplace addresses the lack of large-scale O&M services for distributed generation (DG) solar, which Standard & Poor cites as one of three obstacles to securitization of solar assets. The O&M Marketplace is enabling solar system managers and owners— particularly third-party financiers —to connect and contract with repair, maintenance and inspection professionals. The marketplace promises to ensure that the price, quality and speed of O&M servicing remains competitive by allowing those requiring service to choose the best vendor bid and rate job performance.