California Approves $2.9 Billion Solar Energy Initiative Walgreens to Install Solar Power on 112 Stores DOE Selects 20 Teams for the 2007 Solar Decathlon Whole Foods Market Buys 100 Percent Wind Power EPA Proposes Lower, More Realistic Fuel Economy Estimates USDA Offers $19 Million for Businesses, Emphasizing Renewables
Energy Connections
NOAA, NASA: 2005 Ties with 1998 as Hottest Year on Record
News and Events
California Approves $2.9 Billion Solar Energy Initiative
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved the 10-year, $2.9-billion California Solar Initiative last week. The goal of the program is to increase the amount of installed solar capacity on rooftops in the state by 3,000 megawatts by 2017. The funds will initially go toward rebates on solar power systems, starting at $2.80 per watt and decreasing by about 10 percent per year. The CPUC will soon extend the rebates to solar hot water and solar heating and cooling systems. In addition, parts of the initiative will focus on new housing; low-income customers and affordable housing; and research, development, and demonstration activities. The new initiative earned immediate praise from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA). See the CPUC press release and Web page and the SEIA press release.
The CPUC is also encouraging large-scale power production from solar thermal energy. In December, the CPUC approved a contract for San Diego Gas & Electric Company (SDG&E) to buy 300 megawatts of solar power from Stirling Energy Systems. The company plans to build an array of Stirling solar dishes on a three-square-mile site in California’s Imperial Valley. The solar dishes use a dish-shaped array of mirrors to focus the sun’s energy on a Stirling engine, which converts the heat into electricity. SDG&E also has options on two future phases that could add an additional 600 megawatts of solar power. The CPUC had previously approved a contract for Southern California Edison to buy power from a 500-megawatt solar power plant near Los Angeles, also to be built by Stirling Energy Systems. See the press release from SDG&E’s parent company, Sempra Energy.
Unfortunately, having a contract in hand does not necessarily mean a renewable energy project will actually be built. In fact, a new report prepared for the California Energy Commission (CEC) concludes that utilities should expect at least 20 to 30 percent of their renewable energy contracts to fail. See the report on the CEC Web site (PDF 851 KB).
Walgreens to Install Solar Power on 112 Stores
Walgreens announced last week that it will install solar electric systems on 96 stores and two distribution centers in California, and on 16 stores in New Jersey. Both states offer significant rebates for solar power installations. ImaginIt Inc. will install solar roof tiles on each of the buildings, allowing each facility to generate between 20 and 50 percent of its power needs. Walgreens expects the first of the systems to be installed early this year. See the Walgreens press release and ImaginIt’s brochure about its roof tile system (PDF 419 KB).
DOE Selects 20 Teams for the 2007 Solar Decathlon
DOE announced last week its selection of 20 teams for the 2007 Solar Decathlon, a competition to design and build energy-efficient solar homes. DOE selected the teams based on their submitted proposals, and DOE will award each team $100,000 over the next two years. Sixteen of the teams hail from 13 states?California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas?and the remaining four teams are located in Puerto Rico, Canada, Germany, and Spain. This will be the first time that a team from Germany has participated in the competition. For the full list of teams, see the DOE press release.
The Solar Decathlon is an international competition that brings student teams from universities across the United States, Europe, and Canada to compete in designing, building, and operating highly energy-efficient, completely solar-powered houses. In the fall of 2007, the teams will transport their homes to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and assemble them there. Contest rules require that each house generate enough energy from the sun to operate a household, a home-based business, and related transportation needs. Each team is judged in ten different categories, six of which focus on the house’s ability to provide utility and comfort with a limited supply of solar energy; others relate to communications and the design of the house. To learn more, watch the DIY Network’s one-hour special on the 2005 Solar Decathlon, which airs on January 29th and 30th. See the Solar Decathlon and DIY Network Web sites.
Whole Foods Market Buys 100 Percent Wind Power
Whole Foods Market announced last week that it has bought enough wind power to equa
l all of the electricity it uses. Whole Foods has made the largest purchase of renewable energy credits (RECs) in the United States, buying more than 458 million kilowatt-hours of RECs from wind power facilities. That makes Whole Foods the only Fortune 500 company to offset 100 percent of its electricity use with RECs. RECs represent the environmental attributes of renewable power and are a convenient way for individuals and businesses to support renewable energy, particularly when their local utility does not offer renewable power through a green power program. For national companies, RECs represent a way to buy renewable power without having to negotiate with hundreds of local utilities. Wind power plants can sell RECs throughout the country and then sell the electricity they produce as a commodity. See the Whole Foods Market press release.
FedEx Kinko’s, a long-time buyer of green power, has also upped its renewable power purchases to 40 million kilowatt-hours per year, an increase of more than two-thirds over its previous purchases. The company now buys enough renewable power to meet 14 percent of its annual electricity needs. See the FedEx Kinko’s press release.
Throughout much of the country, renewable power is now available to customers of local utilities, typically by paying the utility a small premium. In some areas, though, recent price hikes for natural gas have pushed the price of “normal” electricity above the green power price. Austin Energy in Texas is now facing that situation, and since this makes its green power program rather popular, it plans to hold a drawing in March to see which customers will be allowed to sign up. See the Austin Energy press release, and for more information about green power, see DOE’s Green Power Network Web site.
EPA Proposes Lower, More Realistic Fuel Economy Estimates
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed last week to provide consumers with more realistic fuel economy information when shopping for cars, sport utility vehicles, and pick-up trucks. The EPA’s proposed new fuel economy estimates will include vehicle-specific data from tests designed to replicate three factors that can greatly affect fuel economy: use of air conditioning, cold temperature operation, and operation at high speed or with rapid acceleration. The EPA is also proposing an across-the-board adjustment to better account for other conditions that can affect fuel economy but that aren’t included in the tests, such as road grade, wind, tire pressure, load, and the effects of different fuel properties. According to a study released by the American Automobile Association (AAA), the new test methods will better reflect how people actually drive. However, even with the improved estimates, the EPA notes that actual fuel economy will vary, since no test can ever account for all individual driving styles, vehicle maintenance practices, and road conditions. See the AAA press release.
Under the new methods, the city mileage estimates for most vehicles would drop 10 to 20 percent from today’s labels, depending on the vehicle, while highway mileage estimates would generally drop 5 to 15 percent. The new methods will take effect for model year 2008 vehicles, which will generally be available for sale in fall of 2007. The proposed regulations will not affect the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program that sets fuel economy standards for automakers, since the CAFE program uses its own set of test methods and procedures to determine fuel economy. See the EPA press release and read the proposed regulations on the EPA Fuel Economy Regulations Web page.
USDA Offers $19 Million for Businesses, Emphasizing Renewables
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced last week that it will provide more than $19 million in grants to support renewable energy projects and the development of value-added agricultural business ventures. Under this year’s program, the amount that can be awarded to a producer in the form of a working capital grant has been doubled to $300,000, and $1.5 million is also being allocated to provide grants of $25,000 or less to eligible producers. Priority consideration will be given to those applicants who dedicate at least 51 percent of project costs to a biomass energy project. To date, the program has provided $20.5 million to develop and market renewable energy projects in 29 states, including wind and biomass energy projects and projects to produce biodiesel or ethanol. Applications are due on March 31st. See the USDA press release and the USDA Rural Development Web site.
Energy Connections
NOAA, NASA: 2005 Ties with 1998 as Hottest Year on Record
The past year was among the hottest on record for the globe, according to new analyses by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) originally pegged 2005 as slightly cooler than the record year of 1998, but its new, improved global temperature analysis places 2005 on top. NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) also marks 2005 as the hottest year on record. However, both agencies note that the temperature difference between the two years is statistically insignificant, placing them, quite literally, in a dead heat. It’s actually more important to note that global temperatures in 1998 were elevated by a strong El Nio event, whereas 2005 temperatures were nearly equal without the presence of an El Nio, suggesting a significant warming trend. The warming was highest over land at high northern latitudes, where the average temperatures were up to 9 degrees Fahrenheit above the average for 1961 through 1990. According to both agencies, global warming has proceeded at an accelerated pace since about 1975.
A number of records were set in 2005. Accord
ing to NOAA, the extent of sea ice in the Northern Hemisphere reached its lowest level in the historical record in September, at just 5.32 million square kilometers. The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season set many records, with 27 named storms, 14 hurricanes, and 7 major hurricanes, including three Category 5 storms. As noted by the National Hurricane Center (NHC), Zeta, the final tropical storm in the Atlantic this season, was itself a record breaker: forming in late December, Zeta was both the longest-lived tropical storm to cross into the New Year, and the longest-lived tropical cyclone in January. See the NCDC and GISS analyses, the NOAA press release from December, and the NHC’s discussion about Zeta.
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| Kevin Eber is the Editor of EREE Network News, a weekly publication of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). |
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