State poised to invest billions in solar power - San Jose Merc - 1/12/06 [View All]

[Coastie for Truth]

FRONT PAGE NEWS - TOP OF THE FOLD

Last year, hybrid cars zoomed toward mainstream popularity. This year, it could be solar power.

In a milestone for renewable energy, California is expected today to make the largest investment in solar power of any state in U.S. history.

Ending more than two years of debate among political leaders, the state Public Utilities Commission is scheduled to take a final vote on a plan to spend $3.2 billion to provide rebates over the next 11 years to homes, businesses, farms and public buildings that install solar energy systems.

Closely based on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's ``Million Solar Roofs Initiative,'' which died in the state Legislature last year, the new initiative will roughly triple the annual amount of state funding to subsidize solar power by tacking a new fee of about $1.10 a month on utility bills.

The goal is to install solar energy on 1 million buildings statewide by 2017, generating 3,000 megawatts of electricity -- the equivalent of six large power plants, or enough to serve 2.3 million people. By comparison, all the solar power installed in all 50 states today has a capacity of about 400 megawatts.

Snippets:

* The subsidy generally would pay about one-third of the costs for people wanting to put solar power on their homes or businesses. A typically sized home solar system of about three kilowatts costs about $27,000 to buy and install. The new program will pay $2.80 a watt toward that cost, or about $8,400 for the standard system.


* In Silicon Valley, venture capital firms have increased their investments in renewable energy -- including fuel cell, battery and solar technologies. VC firms invested a record $425 million into clean-tech start-ups during the third quarter of 2005, according to the Cleantech Venture Network.
*``The interest in solar power in Silicon Valley is higher than almost anywhere in the country,'' said Barry Cinnamon, president of Akeena Solar, a Los Gatos solar installation firm.

``It is a combination of the price of electricity and the forward-thinking mentality where people are looking for high-tech solutions to environmental problems,'' said Cinnamon, a former software entrepreneur who founded the solar company in 2001.

* Critics of the new program said the costs exceed the benefits, because solar power still costs three or four times as much as electricity from natural gas plants.
They said that about electric cars, hybrid cars, and nuclear power too - as we kill 2200 of our kids in Iraq for oil.


*Frank Wolak, a Stanford economics professor who specializes in electricity, said he has other worries.

``Who is going to be taking advantage of this subsidy?'' Wolak said. ``Not poor people who live in apartments, but rich people who live in big houses. But under this policy, the poor will be subsidizing the rich.''
This is the Northern California, SF Bay area - home of Berkeley - you have to expect that from the local libeal arts and crafts academics

MY EXPERTISE IS IN THIN FILM, AMORPHOUS SI PV - SO HERE'S MY 2 CENTS WORTH-->

* Very similar manufacturing technology to Flat Panel LCD's - we used the same fab line to "pilot" both. This means that the factors driving down the cost of LCD's also drive down the cost of Amorphous Si PV cells.
* Staebler-Wronski degradation has pretty much been solved.
* Amorphous Si PV cells work in the UV region - clouds do not block UV the way they block visible. We prototyped them in Northern Oakland - north of Detroit and north of Chrysler's Tech center - in Michigan's normal cloudy winter days.
* At a very simplistic level - using PV as a "time shifter" with Metal Hydride batteries -- metal hydride batteris are "sorta kinda" like fuel cells - except they generate their onw hydrogen (charge cycle) and store it as a solid hydride alloy internally.