Good News for Colorado: Hickenlooper Signs Bill to Increase Rural Renewable Energy

Today is a good day for the people of Colorado. It was a little over two months ago that the Colorado legislature passed SB-252 to increase the renewable portfolio standard of large rural electric co-ops (more details on the bill here). All we were waiting for was the good governor's signature. Well, today Gov. Hickenlooper signed the bill into law! It wasn't a perfect bill (is there any such thing?), but the people of Colorado should be proud that their state is putting itself on a path of not only cleaner air, but more jobs and more glorious renewable energy. Thanks to our Colorado legislators for doing what's right for its constituents.

Call to Action: Increase Renewables in Colorado

Image courtesy of UCAR

It's been awhile since my last post and I apologize. Much of my free time has been dabbling in worlds of Twitter / Facebook / Google+. How I've neglected you dear Denver Sun Sponge readers! Well, I do have something exciting to tell you about, which came to me through the good people at Alliance for Sustainable Colorado.

Colorado Senate Bill 252 was introduced last week and if passed would require large electric cooperatives (with +100,000 meters) to increase their renewable portfolio standard (RPS) to 25% from 10% by 2020 as well as requiring 1% of retail sales to come from distributed generation (DG) sources. Colorado's current RPS requires investor-owned utilities (IOUs) in the state to generate or purchase enough renewable energy (RE) to supply 30% of their retail electric sales by 2020. In addition, IOUs must have 3% of their retail sales from distributed generation (DG) sources. The current Colorado RPS also mandates that electric co-ops and municipal utilities serving more than 40,000 customers need to generate or purchase enough RE to supply 10% of their electric sales by 2020. There is no DG requirement for electric co-ops and munis in the current RPS.

For more information on the Colorado Senate Bill 252 please check out the Power of Wind's backgrounder (as of this writing Senate Bill 252 was not posted to the Colorado General Assembly website). If you would like to express your support (or opposition) to your Colorado elected officials about this bill then please head on over to the Alliance for Sustainable Colorado website to learn how to contact them. Thanks for reading and supporting a more renewable, efficient, and sustainable Colorado!

Update 4/13/2013:
The Colorado Senate approved the bill. Rural electric co-ops with more than 100K meters and utilities that generate and supply electricity for electric co-ops need to acquire 25 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. Here's more info from the Denver Business Journal. Is this good for Colorado? What say you dear readers?

Update 4/10/13:
In an effort to look at both sides of the issue this Denver Post editorial titled, "Moving too Fast on Colorado's Renewable Energy Standard?" was published this morning and looks at some of the problems with the bill as currently written. (Hat tip to Anna Zawisza at Alliance for Sustainable Colorado for bringing the editorial to my attention.)

Cost of Installed Solar Power is Sinking Like a Stone

This should be music to all of our ears. According to the Tracking the Sun report by the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab the cost of residential and commercial installed solar installations dropped 11 to 14 percent from 2010 to 2011. Of course the larger the solar installation (like utility scale solar plants) the cheaper the price. These sinking prices will only help the adoption of renewable energy technologies by both home-owners and businesses alike. Can you imagine a lower and lower capex spend in addition to never paying for electricity again and reducing your carbon emissions? I certainly can.

Demand High for Xcel's Solar Garden Program in Colorado

The appetite is huge for solar gardens in Colorado! Xcel's solar garden program has received a slew of applications to build solar arrays up to 500 kilowatts. What is a solar garden? The Solar Gardens website gives a great definition: "a solar garden is a community shared solar array with grid-connected subscribers. Homes and businesses, even if shaded by trees, receive a bill credit as if the panels were on their own roof using 'virtual net metering'." Another thing that's cool about a solar garden is that people that don't own their property can acquire clean, green power from the sun. This includes renters and folks who live in home owners associations (HOAs) that don't allow solar modules on the roofs. The solar gardens program was a result of the 2010 Colorado Community Solar Garden Act. Kudos to Xcel and the people of Colorado for realizing the importance of renewable energy.

New Solar Modules Blossomed Despite a Tough Year for the Industry

From the NY Times Green Blog we have a bit of good news. Despite all of the doom of gloom that some would have you believe, the solar industry doubled its solar capacity from 887 to 1855 megawatts of sweet clean and free solar energy. I think the solar industry shows a surprising resilience and will continue to in the future. And the steep plummet in solar PV prices is beginning to raise the eyebrows of the most cost conscious among us. So, congratulations to all of the solar installers across the United States for your hard work doubling our solar capacity. The planet thanks you.

Greece Bets on Solar Power As a Debt Solution

This is just the type of outside the box thinking that I can really appreciate. Greece has racked up a substantial amount of debt in the European Union (EU) and in my mind there is really no way of repaying via traditional "cutting off the nose to spite the face" methods (i.e. raising revenues through taxes on folks without jobs or with stagnant wages or cutting spending through "austerity" measures like reducing or eliminating pensions). Greece is both sunny and beautiful. There are only so many tourists (and revenue) that can come through each year to see the beauty of Greek history and its people. So the smart people of Greece think they can capitalize on something that they have an abundance of - the sun by capturing it and exporting it to other EU countries. Cool huh?

Colorado Scores Another Win: GE Will Build a Solar PV Factory Here

The good times just keep rolling into Colorado. First there was the announcement earlier this week that Arrow Technologies was moving their corporate headquarters to the Centennial State. And then it was announced that GE is bringing a $300 million thin-film solar manufacturing plant to this state. This article from the Denver Business Journal says that reasons GE chose this state were because of an "well-trained workforce with access to higher education" and the "ability to move into a 700,000 sq. ft. facility" to name a couple. This is an incredible announcement considering that Ascent Solar in Thornton, CO announced recently that they are building a thin-film solar manufacturing plant in China. It's been a great for this state and I know that the Colorado Economic Development Office is working hard to bring in even more businesses.

DOE Explores a New Frontier In Quest for Cheaper Solar Panels

I love how ambitious the Department of Energy's (DOE) goal is in their "SunShot" program: "...eliminate 75% of the total installation costs for solar energy systems by 2020." That's incredible. There are working with utilities, software providers, and local governments to meet this goal so as to make rooftop solar arrays more affordable for property owners. With the collective brainpower of those entities, I think that this goal can definitely become reality in just nine years.

Study: By 2030 World Can Run On Renewables

Headlines like this excite me to no end. Here are some scientists from Stanford and University of California who say that they have a detailed plan to power the planet with clean, renewable energy in just 20 years. Some of the highlights include implementing hydrogen fuels cells to generate electricity, using offshore and onshore wind turbines, implementing a smarter grid, accessing geothermal, and making sure we aren't wasting any energy in our buildings or transporting materials. This study (Part 1 and Part 2) published in  Energy Policy journal is comprehensive and stunning. Everything from the financial cost of implementing renewables globally by 2020 to the amount of mined rare earth materials is included. Converting from fossil fuels to renewable energy is completely doable, as long as we start thinking about building the future and not building a bridge to the past. I'm ready, are you?

Online Solar Map Provides Data on 800,000 Colorado Buildings

This solar map from the Governor's Energy Office and the Denver Regional Council of Governments is unbelievable. If you live in the Denver metro area all you have to do is find your structure on a Google satellite map and it provides the potential kilowatt hours that could be generated from having a solar PV system installed on the roof of your residential or commercial building. The solar map also provides the estimated electric bill savings, the size of a PV array in kilowatts, and a form to fill out to have an installer (PV or solar thermal) contact you. This interactive map with the above data points is truly a way to generate interest in distributed generation solar PV and solar thermal. This is a cool tool. Please check it out when you get a chance. Read more about the solar map in this Daily Camera article.

On a Small Scale, Sustainable Energy Transforms Lives

Beautiful slideshow from the NY Times demonstrating how harnessing electricity from the sun can help improve the quality of life for a small village in Kenya. Check it out and imagine what we could do to improve the quality of our lives here in the states with clean, renewable power.

Obama Administration Releases Report for Solar Energy Development in West

I really am impressed with how much collective energy is being put towards renewables within this administration. President Obama and Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar have just released a report deliciously titled, "Draft Solar Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement." The 10,000 page report identifies locations in six Western states that are best suited for, "environmentally sound, utility-scale solar energy production." This report will be good news for utilities that need to meet renewable portfolio standards (RPS) in the states in which they operate over the next decade or so. It will also provide a little more validity to large utility-scale solar projects, by providing numerous facts for investors to digest and alleviating many of the concerns of environmentalists.

A Colorado Community Center Powered by the Sun

How cool is this? A community center in Glenwood Springs is generating 20.5 kW of sweet and clean renewable electricity from our friend the sun. Now this is only about 2% of the community center's electricity usage, but they have completed an energy audit of the center, which after implementing $250,000 in efficiency improvements, the center is expected to save another $31,000/year. That's about an 8-year ROI and less carbon going into the atmosphere each of those years and beyond. Congrats to the Glenwood Springs community for setting a good example and thinking about the future.

Final Approval Paves Way for Colorado’s Largest Private Solar Array

Good news coming from the Western Slope of Colorado. The Clean Energy Collective is going to build a private 1.5 megawatt solar array in Rifle, Colorado. "Private" essentially means that this will be a community-owned clean energy plant. The Clean Energy Collective builds the plant and then members from the community are allowed to purchase as much clean energy as they can afford. They then get a credit on their electricity bill from the local utility. This is a fascinating business model and is worth keeping an eye on. I wish we had some of this love on the Front Range.

Colorado Man Riding Renewable Energy-powered Tricycle 2,500 Miles to Raise Awareness

This guy is my freakin' hero! Tom Weis is riding his solar-powered (and human-powered) tricycle to D.C. to promote awareness of renewable energy to lawmakers. Although Mr. Weis' desire to have a 100% renewable energy grid by 2020 is "ambitious," I think that if we can spend a trillion or so dollars on war we can certainly spend a few billion on becoming energy independent and a moral leader once again in the eyes of the world. Am I wrong?

Xcel in Concentrated Solar Deal with Cogentrix Energy

There is an interesting article in Colorado Energy News about Xcel Energy signing a 20-year contract with Cogentrix Energy to purchase 30 megawatts of power from a concentrated solar photovoltaic plant in Colorado's San Luis Valley next year. The plant hasn't been built yet, but construction is slated to begin Q1 2011. I think that this contract probably seals the deal so to speak, and that this concentrated solar PV plant will be constructed since they now have a guaranteed buyer of power. This will also help Xcel meet a portion of the renewable energy portfolio requirements for the state of Colorado (30% renewable energy by 2020).

Although the distributed generation (DG) proponents in the San Luis Valley may not be happy with this development, I think that until someone is willing to put up the capital to place solar modules on 6,500 homes (the amount of homes this plant is estimated to provide electricity to) we will have to continue to use the centralized utility model. The price of solar PV modules is going down each day, but it is difficult for homeowners right now to come up with the will or the money to generate their own renewable power. If I could flip a switch, I would utilize a DG model, not the inefficient and outdated centralized utility model. However, right now the money to be made is in large-scale power plants (as understood by Cogentrix Energy, a subsidiary of the very large financial institution Goldman-Sachs). In other words the money making model is in a centralized power distribution model, not in solar PV modules on residential and commercial buildings.

Of course as always, I'm open to you folks challenging this position of mine.

Solar-powered Light Bulb Is One Denver Inventor's Brilliant Idea

Nice article from the Denver Post on the Colorado inventor of a cheap, solar-powered light bulb called, Nokero. According to the article, a quarter of the world still burns fuel to produce light. Imagine replacing all that fuel with a cheap, rechargeable photovoltaic light bulb. People in those countries will begin to educate themselves at night without the harmful fumes from burning the fuel. They also won't have to keep spending a portion of the family budget on this fuel since the light bulbs last for about five years and the sun is free. Now that's cool.

Xcel Tests Hybrid Solar-coal Project in Colorado

This is cool. The premise is similar to using solar thermal on the roof of your home, i.e. using the sun to heat water so that you don't have to use as much natural gas (or electricity) to heat the water in your hot water heater. But the method that Abengoa Solar uses is for a utility scale project. Instead of using coal all the time the utility will use solar power to heat the liquid that turns into steam and then turns the electric turbines. Why not take advantage of some free peak sun hours? Xcel is testing this at a coal-fired power plant outside of Grand Junction, Colorado. I look forward to the results.

Letter: Solar Power in Colorado's San Luis Valley

In my post, "Going Solar Is Harder than It Looks, the San Luis Valley Finds," I linked to the NY Times article that talked about the differences between one of the utility's viewpoints (centralized concentrated solar power plant with high-voltage transmission) and the residents of the San Luis Valley (distributed generation). In the NY Times article the utility used a wealthy rancher as a scapegoat. Well, the rancher has responded with a letter to the editor in the same newspaper.

One of the solutions that the rancher came up with was, "to use existing transmission corridors and federally mandated corridors." I wonder if this is a viable option instead of creating a new path for transmission lines. Can anybody shed some light on this?

DOE Funds to Stretch Concentrated Solar Power Through Salt Storage

Glad to see the Department of Energy (DOE) is investing $62 million in salt storage. It is cheaper and easier to store energy as heat than electricity. The way concentrated solar thermal power essentially works is that the sun's rays are focused on a tube of liquid, the liquid heats up to steam, and the steam turns a turbine which creates electricity. Once the sun stops shining the heat starts to dissipate and the process starts all over again in the morning. Well, instead of letting that heat dissipate into the atmosphere in the evening what if you could store it in something like salt? If you store the heat you can use it again in the morning so the concentrated solar power (CSP) panels don't have to work as hard to heat up the liquid to steam. Storing the excess heat will also allow a large-scale CSP plant to run for many more hours after the sun goes down. Doing this causes the economics of a CSP plant to start looking better and better!

Kudos to the DOE for recognizing an opportunity to help drive down the cost of renewable energy.