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Job openings have been a bit slow of late, given the recession and wintry weather, but it doesn’t take much of a pickup in business to create imbalance between jobs in line to be completed and the skilled workers necessary to get that work done. So groSolar, a leading solar installer, and One Block Off the Grid (1BOG), the famed community-buying organization, have combined to form a job training partnership program that puts job prospects onto solar rooftops and provides installers with an opportunity to teach their skills and gain some cheap labor.

A pilot program in Richmond, California, called Solar Richmond, has been successful and 1BOG and groSolar (installation partner on 1BOG projects) are looking to expand to other communities. Participants attend a series of construction, energy efficiency and solar training programs. Upon graduation from the program, they are placed in temporary, paid, on-the-job training programs.

1BOG, groSolar and the homeowners purchasing a given solar array each contribute to the cost of paying for the trainee’s wages. In the case of 20-year-old Clifton Broussard, as reported in the San Francisco Chronicle, the three parties paid $112 each to pay for Clifton’s experience. While the job is only temporary, it helps to ensure that he will step to the front of the line when the need for help picks up which, said groSolar CEO Jeff Wolfe, is an inevitability.

The Solar Richmond program is part of an overall community-building effort from 1BOG and its partners. It is an effort to maintain a self-sustaining local solar industry, where solar installations in a city will have maximum positive impact in that community. A well-trained, skilled workforce is vital to achieving that goal.

And the installers have no problem passing off their valuable experience and knowledge to a new set of solar workers. Any employer knows the value of finding an employee with an already established set of skills, as training is a major cost to employers in any industry.

Since Solar Richmond started training in August of 2007, some 90 graduates have sought careers in solar installation. 23 have landed permanent jobs and another 32 have found temporary work as extra help for solar contractors. If that success seem moderate, bear in mind that these trainees were looking for work during the darkest times the solar industry has seen since it took off early last decade. The majority of the students have found at least some work, and they are now part of a growing but still small skill set and industry that is destined to continue rising, with 2010 expected by many to be a breakout year for solar power.

Photo Credit: Climate Change Action

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Historically, utilities and solar power have had a tense, marginal relationship at best. The reasons are fairly obvious; most utilities today are deregulated, investor-owned companies looking for a profit. So how can interrupting their own revenue stream by facilitating the ownership of independent energy by their customers be considered a good business model? Yet regardless of that, utilities across the nation are getting more involved in the solar industry, and may even be guiding it.

Not without some motivation, of course. The primary impetus for utility interest in solar power came from the government. Renewable portfolio standards (RPS) require utilities to obtain a certain percentage of their power from renewable energy within a certain time frame — say, 20 percent renewable by 2020. Now, 29 states have mandatory RPS in place (four more have voluntary versions), and utilities have been forced to seek out renewable energy projects and promote energy efficiency.

Rebate programs, net metering and other incentives have popped up to help make that happen. The federal government and many state governments offer incentives for homes and businesses to adopt solar power which the utility can then buy through interconnection with that system. Before Congress extended the federal solar tax credits in 2008, utilities were not allowed to directly benefit from those credits. In other words, electricity providers had no incentive to purchase their own solar power generating systems. All the purchasing of such power was done through a power purchase agreement (PPA) with a developer or system owner.

But now, utilities do qualify and can cost-effectively build, own and operate their own solar arrays, and that is having a major effect on the solar industry. Even more so as remote, utility-scale solar thermal projects mired in bureaucratic and environmental red tape give way to more centrally located distributed PV projects. Now the question arises as to who is controlling who between the solar industry and utilities, as that inherently tense relationship gets more and more intimate.

California utilities, as per usual, are leading the way. Southern California Edison has announced a plan approved by the California Public Utilities Commission to install 500 megawatts of distributed, rooftop solar power in southern California. The utility will own and operate the systems, and will essentially lease rooftop space from customers, offering them a fixed long-term rate in return (very similar to SolarCity’s landmark solar leasing program). PG&E, northern California’s primary utility, has a similar plan currently awaiting approval.

So now we may have utilities in control of solar projects. Both the SCE and PG&E programs have gained a lot of attention over the last year and are by far the biggest of their kind in the country. It would appear that the solar industry has changed utilities by getting them to embrace the idea that a growing number of their customers are and will become independent power producers. Yet now that utilities seem to be accepting distributed solar power as a way of life, they may in turn be changing the solar industry by turning communities into solar farms.

It seems the solar industry and utilities are growing and changing together, and there is still a lot of room for tension. As solar’s share of a utility’s electricity generation increases, the more it will cut into utility revenue. That is probably why (in addition to meeting RPS mandates) utilities are looking to gain more control over installations. At the same time, utilities may be turning new home solar power systems into something akin to new cars — often leased rather than bought. Utilities have the capital to pay for a roof covered in solar panels, while many home and business owners do not.

So, is the solar industry changing utilities or are utilities changing solar? It’s a tough question, and its true answer may not be revealed until these new additions to the game play themselves out. But in the meantime, you can listen to an informative podcast on the subject sponsored by Renewable Energy World.

Photo Credit: Choctaw County Utilities & Cotton, Shires, & Associates

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Tiny generators developed at the University of Michigan could produce enough electricity from random, ambient vibrations to power a wristwatch, pacemaker or wireless sensor. The energy-harvesting devices, created at U-M’s Engineering Research Center for Wireless Integrated Microsystems, are highly efficient at providing renewable electrical power from arbitrary, non-periodic vibrations. This type of vibration is [...]
Posted in: Future Energy, Inventions

The germen manufacturing giant, Siemens, has announced that hundreds of jobs will be created through the construction of a new £80m wind turbine factory.

The offshore wind turbine production facility will be build on the east coast or in the north east of England.

According to the firm, around 700 jobs will be created with the formation of the new factory. The new turbines will be up and running by 2015, aiming to meet the increasing demand for renewable energy in the UK.

The firm said it was considering various sites in UK to formulate more renewable energy projects. The company also claimed that it has been working closely with regional development agencies.

President and chief executive of Siemens said that with the new wind turbine production plant in the UK, there will be advancements in strategy of investments in attractive growth markets for eco-friendly technology.

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Your Guide to Sustainable Community Development: Following Tracy to the Emerald City

The city of Tracy sets a fine example of how direct action at the state level can have a noticeable impact on building sustainability, conservation, energy efficiency and a better environment in a community.

Tracy began as a small city along the Pacific Railroad Line between Stockton and Sacramento. Over the years, the rapid population growth of San Francisco and other Bay Area cities spilled over into Tracy. More than 80,000 people now call Tracy their home, and that increasingly dense population makes building a clean and green city tantamount to maintaining Tracy’s long tradition of lush, fertile landscape and productive agriculture.

That’s where California’s Emerald Cities Program comes in. Developed to provide comprehensive green support to municipalities, Emerald Cities essentially creates a road map to sustainability. Tracy has joined Riverside as one of two cities participating in the pilot phase of the program. 2008 saw the inauguration of the Citywide Sustainability Efforts movement, leading in 2009 to the start of the Emerald Tracy program.

Tracy works closely with the California government to develop a sustainable model for any city to follow. It is the only city in northern California currently participating in the Emerald Cities program and, although Riverside was the first to get full status as an Emerald City, Tracy is a symbol of how a city can start from scratch, addressing the challenges that an average community faces on its quest to go green.

Targets have been set and the city is currently working toward achieving a wide range of goals on all fronts.

Among Tracy’s existing sustainability efforts are:

• An expanded single-stream residential recycling program
• Green waste collection
• High-efficiency washing machine and low-flush toilet rebates (up to $125 per toilet)
• Free landscape and interior water audits
• A variety of waste reduction grant and education programs for homes, businesses and schools
• PG&E utility incentives for energy efficiency upgrades
• State rebates for home solar power and other renewable energy installations

Upon kicking off its sustainability efforts, Tracy started working with two consultancy firms, Town Green and Design Community & Environment (DCE), to put together a plan of action. That knowledge and support paid off when Tracy received an Energy Efficiency Conservation Block Grant from the Department of Energy to maintain their sustainable efforts, even as grants for cities dried up during the economic recession.

The plan began by tracking greenhouse gas emissions for a year to set a baseline to work from in reducing future emissions. And while renewable energy and energy efficiency are vital parts of its continually developing action plan (to be completed in 2010), Tracy is taking a broader approach, including efforts in: transportation, water conservation, waste reduction, air quality, agriculture, public health, economic development, biological resources and GHG reduction.

While many other cities already have sustainability goals and measures in place, including its Emerald City partner, Riverside, it is important to reiterate that Tracy had nothing of the sort before 2008. While other communities often feel overwhelmed at the challenge of turning nothing into something, Tracy is leading by facing its green challenges head-on, in the process becoming an active role model for similarly inexperienced communities. Tracy’s dedication to going “Emerald” will not only inspire, but lay out the groundwork for other cities to follow on their own path toward sustainability.

Photo Credit: mel_barries

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It’s generally accepted these days that solar panels are green. Yes, it does typically require some fossil fuel energy to manufacture a panel or its components, and end-of-life care is an ongoing question since solar panels last 30-40 years or more but certainly not forever. Still, it is almost universally accepted that the environmental gains of the average solar panel far outweigh the losses suffered during its manufacture. But not all solar panels are equally green.

Wanting to get to the bottom of this, the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, a noted solar industry watchdog, set out to discover how major solar panel manufacturers stack up in terms of greenness. SVTC sent inquiries to 227 solar companies worldwide and received responses from only 14, although those 14 represent one-quarter of the 2008 market share for solar modules.

The survey covered environmental health and safety, including recycling policies, as well as social justice, sustainability and worker’s rights. After rating the respondents on their answers, SVTC found that German companies scored the highest overall, with Calyxo, SolarWorld and Sovello rounding out the top three. Yingli, a Chinese company, came in fourth. First Solar and Abound Solar, the two US companies to respond, fell into the middle of the pack.

More than half of the companies said they would support mandatory take-back and recycling programs in their industry, but only 43 percent are actually setting aside money to make that happen. More importantly, perhaps, is the fact that nearly two-thirds of those surveyed do not conduct life-cycle analysis on their products, nor do they assess the risk of new chemicals used during manufacturing.

Nevertheless, the fact that over half of respondents would support mandatory recycling programs shows that there is a general sensitivity to the environment within the solar manufacturing sector. However, only 14 of 227 companies responded to the SVTC survey, and while the 25 percent combined market share represents a healthy portion of solar panels actually resting on rooftops, some big names in solar are missing. Sharp, Miasolé, Best Solar and Solyndra all failed to respond according to Business Green.

The need for environmental and social standards is especially important for solar given its default standing as an eco-friendly industry. Plus, in about 20 to 40 years, there will likely be a boom in disposal of solar products built and installed in recent years. Addressing the life cycle of those products today will make proper disposal of them later much easier, as will a standardized approach, which at least half of major solar companies apparently understand.

Via Business Green

Photo Credit: California Solar

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Scientists are quite optimistic that hydrogen will emerge as the fuel of the future and the world would be driven by ‘hydrogen economy’. The only byproduct of hydrogen fuel is water vapor. By using hydrogen fuel we can reduce the harmful effects of greenhouse gases. Currently many research labs are engaged in duplicating the [...]
Posted in: Environment, Future Energy, Solar Power

Alpha Energy, a member of The Alpha Group and a division of Alpha Technologies Services Inc., recently announced the industry recognition by the Southeast Pennsylvania Chapter, Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) Association of a 1MW Elevated Solar Racking system installed by Alpha on a major Auto Auction facility in Northern NJ.