Renewable energy sources such as solar seen as safe from oil price drop

At first glance it seems like the price drop of crude oil might make solar power less desirable for utility scale projects, but the correlation between solar projects and the price of crude is less than you’d think. Some of the reasons why the price of crude oil won’t effect large solar projects are:

1. Solar is used to produce electricity and oil is mainly used for transportation. There is some cross over with natural gas being a byproduct of oil, but mainly oil is not used to create electricity.

2. Large utility scale projects that produce electricity have to choose upfront the fuel they will use for the life of the project. Once you’ve decided to install several acres of solar panels you can’t switch to natural gas just because the spot price is low right now.

3. Most large solar projects are funded by institutional investors such as pension funds and insurance companies that are looking for a steady, bond-like return on their investment. Solar projects provide this type of return by front loading the costs (the solar panels, inverters, etc.) and the fuel being cost free (free sunshine!). Petroleum based power plants can be greatly effected by varying fuel costs over the several decades that the plant will be in operation.

Even if you’re not an institutional investor, you can make the smart choice and invest in your own small solar power plant on your own roof! Consider investing in a secure asset now with solar panels.

Renewable energy produces as much as coal for first time

According to the US Energy Information Administration, renewable energy sources such as wind and solar are now producing as much energy in the US as coal power plants for the first time ever. As I’ve written about before, power producers are turning off coal plants as natural gas and renewable sources are cheaper. This has reduced coal’s portion of the US power mix from around half in 2008 to less than 20% now. On top of this bad news for coal, many coal mining companies have been paying out big dividends and buying back their own stock to boost investor’s profits. Now their revenue is down and the piggy bank is running dry.

Coal plants being shut down as demand decreases

Americans are using less electricity during the pandemic as factories and commercial facilities are closed. Power providers are reacting to this by shutting down the most costly source of electricity, coal power plants. With hydro, natural gas and renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power less expensive than coal, producers are retiring plants at an accelerated rate. According to energy consulting firm, Wood Mackenzie, US coal generation is expected to decline more rapidly than previously expected. Their previous estimate was a decline of 3.5% and they have now revised that to a decline of 25%. This shift is occurring despite the Trump Administration’s efforts to increase, or at least stabilize, the coal industry by rolling back environmental standards and barriers to building new power plants. As Nelson Peeler, Duke Energy’s chief transmission officer is quoted in the link article in the Wall Street Journal said, “We dispatch our fleet on economics.”

I guess the old saying, “Don’t fight the tide or economics” is right. Why not go with the tide and install some solar today?

East Asia shifts from coal to natural gas

So this bit of news isn’t strictly related to solar or solar panels, but it is about energy so I thought I’d write about it.

Natural gas in East Asia now costs about as much as coal in terms of units of energy. This is great news for the environment and people that like to breathe air since natural gas puts out about half the CO2 as coal and much, much less of the nasty stuff that contributes to air pollution and respiratory diseases like sulfur and mercury.

You can read more about the changes occurring because of the decline in price, but generally speaking countries such as Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and China are switching to this cleaner burning fuel for electricity production. Of course an even cleaner source of electrons is solar power!

Solar Energy viewed as stable investment

With these turbulent economic times, companies are looking for stability and turning to solar and other renewable projects. Solar and wind farms (or solar on your roof or property) offer long term stable returns on your investment. “There is certainly some increased interest and discussion around uncorrelated yields, and renewables falls into that category,” said David Giordano, global head of renewable power at BlackRock Inc. (no relation to Flatrock Solar).

The need for electricity isn’t going away anytime soon so why not look at solar as a stable investment for your home or business in the greater Durango area?

Stay-at-home changing grid usage patterns

The new stay-at-home orders across the US are apparently changing the electrical grid’s usage patterns with weekdays now looking more like weekends with everyone at home all day. Managing the grid is always a delicate balance of supply and demand and it will be interesting to see how solar energy plays a part of this balancing act with the new usage patterns.

As of now, solar panels are still available and only batteries are starting to be in short supply. Once this pandemic blows over and everyone gets back to work, will the some of the ‘new’ patterns vanish or will there be a lingering shadow remaining?

Covid-19 and solar

I’m getting a lot of questions these past days about solar panel availability here in the Durango area with respect to the coronavirus pandemic. I’m glad to report that so far I’m not seeing any price changes or inventory issues from my suppliers. This of course could change going forward, but for now at least things seem to be unchanged.

Wash your hands everyone and enjoy the spring sunshine!

BP pledges to go carbon neutral by 2050

It always seems like its 30 years out, but I’ll try to take it at face value. BP recently announced that it will reduce its net carbon emissions to zero by 2050. This isn’t the first time BP has pledged to go green. A decade or so ago it rebranded its self as “Beyond Petroleum” and invested in solar and wind energy. It has since moved back to the black gold and invested only 3.2% of its budget last year in renewable energy while the average in their industry invested 7.4%. Sounds like a big about face to me.

The interesting thing about their pledge this time around is that they want to offset not only the carbon from their operations, but also from their products. Their operations produce around 55 million metric tons of carbon equivalent per year and the burning of the oil and gas products they produce emits around 360 million metric tons.

They don’t say how they are going to achieve they goal, but I say more power to them. Let’s just hope they are more successful this time and stick to their pledge. We’ll have to wait 30 years to see how it turns out…

While we wait for BP to change their ways, why not install a solar system on your home or business right now. The solar panels are here today and its something we can do today to make the world a cooler place and keep the snow falling on the Colorado Rockies.

Even Microsoft stuck in grid quagmire with local electrical coop

Shortly after Microsoft pledged to go carbon negative and eliminate all the companies carbon emissions since its founding in 1975 by 2050, it fired up its diesel generators in Fargo, North Dakota. It has an agreement with the local coop there to turn on its generators when needed to shave peak demand for the coop. It got cold in Fargo and when everyone turned up the thermostat, Microsoft put more electrons down the wire to power their furnace.

Even if they didn’t turn on their fossil fuel generators, they would still be using fossil fuels to power their campus there as the local coop utility gets most of its power from coal fired power plants. Lucas Joppa, Microsoft’s chief environmental officer is confident they will be able to switch to clean energy sources, but admits that it’s very complicated. Microsoft plans on purchasing wind or solar energy to offset their usage in Fargo, but since they don’t own the grid it won’t be easy. Mr Joppa said, “What we want is to just plug into the grid and have 100% of the electrons that enter our facilities be 100% from renewable sources, 100% of the time.”

Won’t it be great when that’s how it is for everyone? In the meantime, consider supplying your electrons from the sun and putting a little renewable energy onto the local grid with a solar system.

BlackRock and Flatrock have something in common

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with about $7 trillion under management and Flatrock Solar, one of the largest solar power companies on the west side of Durango, Colorado, have something in common; climate change.

In mid January of 2020, BlackRock announced that it will be looking for companies that it invests in to account for the impacts of climate change on their balance sheets. Flatrock Solar accounts for its existence mainly because of a concern about climate change. This is about where the two companies diverge in their similarities.

BlackRock has said that it will start to be inclined to vote against boards and management that don’t acknowledge the risks of climate change and have plans to mitigate the impacts on the companies they oversee and manage. This is not because BlackRock executives had a spiritual experience on a company team building weekend in the woods that involved some plants that are legal in some states, its because of…money. That’s what BlackRock does, make money, manage money, tries to not lose other people’s money, etc. To quote the CEO of BlackRock, Laurence Fink, “Climate change has become a defining factor in companies’ long-term prospects. The evidence on climate risk is compelling investor to reassess core assumptions about modern finance.”

BlackRock has already begun to get flack from their new position on climate change and I want to be clear that I think its great they are acknowledging its existence, but they aren’t doing it because they’ve turned in to a bunch of long haired tree huggers. They are doing it because they want to still be around in 50 years and not lose other people’s money.

The green energy lining of a storm

Storm Ciara whipped up some fierce winds in Europe last week and damaged property across Ireland and Britain. Damaging storms seem to be more common these days as the earth adjusts to the warmer temps. Although damage to property and human life is always a tragic event, I always look for the silver lining in the grim news headlines that seem to just keep coming. The silver lining in this story is one about green energy from the hurricane force winds that Ciara delivered. Ciara gave the gift of a record amount of wind energy to Europe, cranking out as much electricity as 44 nuclear power plants and covered 56% of the UK electrical needs for the weekend.

Sometimes you have to look hard and read between the lines, but usually there’s a silver lining in there somewhere.

Climate Change lawsuit thrown out

A federal appeals court threw out a case brought against the US government for not doing more to prevent climate change. Twenty one young people brought the case, ‘Juliana v. United States’ asserts that the government is violating young people’s constitutional rights by damaging their future on this planet. Although the case was ruled 2-1 against, the judges were understanding of the youth’s plea, “failure to change existing policy many hasten an environmental apocalypse.”

The one dissenting judge, Judge Josephine Staton said the government, “bluntly insists that it has the absolute nd unreviewable power to destroy the nation. My colleagues throw up their hands.” The majority ruling is that this is a matter for the political arena and not the judicial branch of government.

Over half of renewable energy projects in EU financed by US companies

Over half of all renewable energy projects in the EU were financed by US companies. Companies such as Google and Amazon are purchasing power produced by solar and wind to offset their carbon emissions and save money. Google sourced all its energy needs globally from renewable sources starting in 2017 and Amazon and Facebook are looking to do the same soon. Purchasing solar and wind energy allows these companies to pay a lower price for electricity since these sources of power are cheaper than existing power sources and allows them to tout their green energy credentials.

The green energy revolution is fully underway not because of government subsidies, but because it makes dollars and cents.

Scheduled Blackouts promote battery backup?

With California on fire and without grid power, I have to ask myself if PG&E is trying to encourage grid defection? Are they trying to promote solar with battery backup? After speaking with my industry contacts in California, it sure seems so.

I always thought that there would be a tipping point sometime in the future where the price of batteries and solar panels would be low enough and the cost of electricity form the grid high enough that people would defect and go off grid. I’m not talking about a cabin in the woods either, I mean in a city. People will start to call up their local utility and say, “I don’t need my electric meter anymore, please come and pick it up”.

I just didn’t think that one of the largest utilities in the country would nudge people along the path; or should I say shove? California, the land of high technology and all things ‘future’… without power, no juice, no electricity.

Here’s my advice to PG&E, figure your grid out and make it work more often than it has in the past few months; people will get used to backing up their own homes and businesses and realize they don’t need you.

World's First solar powered satellite dish

Not sure why the reception is so bad…

Solar employs more than fossil fuels and nuclear combined

According to the department of energy, the solar industry employs more people than fossil fuel and nuclear.

So although traditionally coal and oil have employed many people and supported communities, today solar supports more families and there are no nasty by products! The time is now to switch to clean renewable energy by installing solar panels and wind turbines. Call today to get a free quote on installing solar panels in the Durango area.

Corporate America Investing in solar

Many US corporations are investing in solar power with Apple leading the way (see graph below).

These large corporations are investing in solar in order to lower their overhead costs and lock in electrical rates for the long term. Favorable financing terms and state and federal incentives are boosting the amount of solar installed. Current commercial installations in the US generate enough solar electricity to power about 1.4 million homes.

Utilities pay to use residential batteries

A utility in New England is paying some of their customers that have solar and batteries to use them during peak load times. A single battery pack could earn the owner up to $1,000 during one summer. This program helps the utility reduce their peak demand and reduces the requirement to build out more infrastructure. There is also another utility in Vermont, Green Mountain Power, that will install batteries in a customer’s home for $30 a month allowing them to ride out grid outages.

Renewable energy outperforms coal in US

Renewable energy sources in the US produced 16% more energy in April than coal for the first time in US history. It is projected that renewable sources will produce about the same amount of electricity as coal in 2020 for the entire year.

Solar power is a part of this trend, why not join in the new normal?

Solar Panel Efficiency

I get quite a few questions about solar panel efficiency so I thought I’d dive into this topic again.

I understand why this comes up. It has been pounded into our brains throughout our lifetimes that more efficient is better. Whether we’re talking about a car, water heater or our time management skills; more efficient it better. Inefficient car = more costly to operate and more polluting. I get it.

Now, with solar panels that story is a little more nuanced because sunshine is free and likely to remain so. Let’s go back to our example of a car. Imagine that gasoline is free (and non-polluting). How would that influence your decision between the cheaper gas guzzler and the more expensive hybrid car that sips gas? Again, assuming gas doesn’t pollute, I might choose the cheaper car that is less efficient. I know this kind of turns the efficiency topic on its head, but if you think about it, it makes sense.

The Rocky Mountain Institute recently wrote an article about building efficiency and the exponential cost of incremental R-value increases. In other words, to get that triple pane window from R-6 to R-7 is much more expensive than from R-2 to R-3. One of their conclusions that struck me was that at some point it is more economically feasible to add more solar panels to the roof than chase more efficient insulation in the home. This coming from the Rocky Mountain Institute is surprising because they are all about efficiency.

There is a use case where more efficient solar panels makes sense. If you have a small roof (and nowhere to put the solar panels on the ground), and a large electric bill and a large budget for the project, then by all means go for the more expensive solar panels.

I personally don’t run into this situation too often in the Durango area. Most roofs are large and we get a lot of sunshine so the most efficient solar panels aren’t needed. Besides, the more efficient panels usually only knock off one or two panels from the total array. Its not like you need half the panels or something.

It does feel weird to push ‘less efficient’, but in the end an electron is an electron and your TV won’t be able to tell the difference of where it came from. If you want the best bang for your buck, look at the unit of production with respect to the cost per unit or $/Watt. This is the most common metric used to compare apples to apples when evaluating solar systems.