Bright Future As Berkeley Starts Solar Program

Two Berkeley homeowners received checks for their new solar panels on Friday, becoming the first to flip the switch on the city’s much-ballyhooed, closely watched solar financing program.

“I’m a guinea pig, but there’s no way I could have afforded solar otherwise,” said Jeanne Pimentel, an editor who has 11 solar panels on her Allston Way home. “Because of this, I can help solve our energy problem without putting any money up front.”

Berkeley’s program allows property owners to pay for solar panels through a 20-year assessment on their property taxes. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. rebates and new tax breaks guaranteed in the federal stimulus package reduce the cost further, so most homeowners begin saving on electric bills immediately.

Twelve states, including New York, Washington and Colorado, and 50 California cities, including San Francisco and San Diego, are following Berkeley’s model and are closely watching how the program unfolds.

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Danville’s Athenian School Turns on New Solar Panels

Officials at the Athenian School have given themselves the top grade for a new solar power system they say will save money and the environment.

The private school in Danville on Wednesday launched its new power system - a baseball field-sized array of panels shaped into the letter “A” on the school’s hillside.

The 220-kilowatt system consists of 1,300 photo voltaic panels that cover 30,000 square feet, according to the school. It will provide half of the school’s electricity needs. It was designed and installed by REC Solar and Mitsubishi Electric and financed through a power purchase agreement with Tioga Energy that the school expects will save about $250,000, or 15 percent of annual energy costs, over 20 years.

The school said over the course of the 20-year agreement, the array will cut out the generation of nearly 12,800 pounds of smog-producing emissions and 66 million pounds of carbon dioxide.

Eric Louie
San Ramon Valley Times

California Solar Panel Installations Through The Roof In 2008

Despite a credit freeze that’s stunting renewable energy projects throughout the country, 2008 was a hot year for solar power in California.

Encouraged by state rebates, Golden State residents and businesses last year installed a record 158 megawatts of photovoltaic panels on their rooftops to turn the sun’s rays into electricity, the California Public Utilities Commission said Wednesday. That’s more than double the 78 megawatts installed in 2007.

Residential demand appears to be hanging tough in the face of the shaky economy. December saw the largest volume of homeowner rebate requests since the state launched the California Solar Initiative program two years ago.

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The Grapevine: Eco-Friendly Wineries in California

Just how big is your carbon footprint? Most of us haven’t a clue. We recycle. We use our own shopping bags. Does it make a difference?

You bet your sweet zinfandel!

Fetzer Vineyards, of Mendocino, Calif., made an eco-friendly decision to switch to lightweight glass bottles in 2009. The decision to lose the weight, i.e. drop from a 20.3-ounce bottle to a 17-ounce bottle, will reduce Fetzer’s production of greenhouse gases by 14 percent, or 2,985 tons of carbon dioxide (after factoring in the energy required to produce and ship the heavier glass vs. the new version).

As we know, trees process carbon dioxide and release oxygen. The impact of Fetzer’s decision within the span of one calendar year is the environmental equivalent of planting 70,000 trees and growing them for 10 years. Three years later, the impact will be akin to planting 210,000 trees and letting them grow for 10 years.

The reduction in glass alone (2, 173 tons) eliminates more than 4 million new wine bottles going into circulation each calendar year. If you do your part and recycle the lightweight bottle, you will also reduce the equivalent of 5.9 lbs worth of carbon dioxide emissions per bottle.

But it is the generation of electricity that is the leading contributor to air pollution in the United States. Most generator plants burn fossil fuels; this dumps millions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every year.

So Fetzer went solar. Its clean energy program, a 901-kilowatt photovoltaic project positioned on the roof of the bottling facility and red barrel room in Hopland, Calif., generates more than a million kilowatt hours of energy a year, supplying them with 80 percent of the electricity needed to function each year.

By sourcing its energy this way, Fetzer has further reduced its carbon footprint by eliminating 960,000 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions per year. The impact is akin to taking 80 cars off the road for 12 months.

But Fetzer isn’t the only eco-conscious wine producer on the market. In 2003, Rodney Strong Vineyards, of California, put solar panels on the roof of its 100,000-square-foot barrel house. This reduced energy use by 35 percent and electrical costs by 40 percent. The solar project generates enough clean energy to power 800 homes and reduces their carbon footprint by eliminating more than 8,700 tons of greenhouse gas production over the next 25 years. Again, to use the tree analogy, they’ve done the equivalent of foresting 2,500 acres with trees.

Shafer Vineyards, of California, went 100 percent solar in 2004. Its project will have the air-purifying equivalent of planting 17,000 trees.

Domaine Carneros, also in California, went solar in 2003. The energy generated by the photovoltaic system on its Pinot Noir winery handles 40 percent of the facility’s electrical load. Frog’s Leap Winery generates 100 percent of its own electricity with solar power.

Constellation Wines, now the largest wine company in the world (representing such brands as Simi, Franciscan, Robert Mondavi Winery, Kim Crawford, Ruffino, Tintara, Mouton Cadet, Arbor Mist, Cooks and Vendange), is going solar also. Their project, currently under production, is projected to eliminate the release of 1.6 million pounds of carbon dioxide, 1,636 pounds of sulfur dioxide and 2,909 pounds of nitrogen oxide each year, the equivalent of taking 2,000 cars off the road for 12 months.

When the winery is not using its electricity, that clean energy will be routed to supply energy for a quarter of the 1,695 households in the town of Gonzales, California.

Kudos to Constellation and the rest of the earth-friendly bunch. We should all give them a toast (serving their own eco-friendly wines, of course), then recycle those empty bottles. Together, we can do a world of good.

Lisa Airey
The View

Financial Incentives Mean California Home Solar Is Hot

While many in this troubled economy worry about making investments, Doris Dobkins didn’t think twice about sticking her money on her roof.

“Instead of paying PG&E, I’m paying myself,” said Dobkins, a Placer County homeowner who recently spent $36,000 for an electricity-generating solar system.

Based on projected savings in her electricity bills, a state rebate and a new federal tax credit, Dobkins expects to recoup her investment in six years.

The family anticipates saving $100 to $150 a month on Pacific Gas and Electric Co. bills, and the utility company will credit them for excess electricity generated, she said.

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Akeena Solar Powers Largest Commercial Solar Installation in San Francisco

Solar Power Partners Supplies Power Purchase Agreement Securing Clean Renewable Energy for Next 15 Years

LOS GATOS, Calif.,  — Demonstrating continued robust growth in the commercial sector, Akeena Solar, one of the nation’s leading designers and installers of solar systems, together in partnership with Solar Power Partners, Inc. (SPP) today announced the completion of the largest commercial solar installation in San Francisco. Solar Power Partners financed, developed and will operate the system through a power purchase agreement (PPA), which allows the site owner to purchase power at a predictable rate from SPP. The project totals 385 kilowatts and spreads 1,500 solar panels across four commercial buildings in the Hunters Point/Bayview neighborhood.

“I commend Akeena Solar and Solar Power Partners for their commitment to find economically viable ways to blanket San Francisco with solar panels and solidify San Francisco as a beacon of American solar energy,” said San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who in June signed the nation’s largest municipal solar incentive program into law. “Private sector efforts such as these are equally as important as publicly funded efforts like GoSolarSF to advancing our city’s renewable energy initiatives.”

The systems will provide an estimated 60 percent of the commercial buildings’ annual power needs — the equivalent to taking 75 cars off the road each year for 30 years. Located at the intersection of US-101 and Interstate 280, the impressive solar installation is visible to motorists on both freeways. Read more

Sempra Solar Energy Project Makes Advances In Costs

An analyst says a Sempra Generation project powering California homes beats conventional sources on cost-effectiveness.

LOS ANGELES - Generating clean electricity that’s as cheap as power from fossil fuels is the Holy Grail of green-energy companies. A new solar project powering California homes appears to be closing in on that prize.

Sempra Generation, a subsidiary of Sempra Energy in San Diego, just took the wraps off a 10-megawatt solar farm in Nevada. That’s small by industry standards, enough to light just 6,400 homes. But the ramifications are potentially huge.

A veteran analyst has calculated that the facility can produce power at a cost of 7.5 cents a kilowatt-hour, less than the 9-cent benchmark for conventional electricity.

If that’s so, it marks a milestone that advocates for renewable energy have longed for: “grid parity,” in which electricity from the sun, wind or other green sources can meet or beat the price performance of carbon-based fuels.

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Northern California Geothermal Plant Taps Solar Power

The Northern California Power Agency has completed a solar energy system to generate electricity for a pump station supplying water to one of its geothermal plants at The Geysers.

The $8.2 million solar array taps the sun for power PG&E previously provided to the pump station. The 2.2 million kilowatt hours of electricity generated annually is equivalent to the power needed for 300 homes.

The pump station supplies recycled wastewater from Lake County to a geothermal plant near the City of Clearlake. The NCPA injects the wastewater into the ground to help replenish geothermal steam fields while also providing a disposal solution for Clearlake.

A second, similar solar project under construction near Middletown will power a second NCPA geothermal plant at The Geysers. For more than 25 years NCPA has operated four geothermal power plants at The Geysers.

Based in Roseville, the power agency serves 17 cities and special districts in central and northern California including Ukiah and Healdsburg.

Michael Coit
Santa Rosa Press Democrat

Sempra Generation Completes North America’s Largest ‘Thin-Film’ Solar Power Installation

Sempra Generation, a subsidiary of Sempra Energy, today announced the completion of the company’s first solar energy project, a 10-megawatt (MW) photovoltaic power-generation facility adjacent to the company’s existing 480-megawatt El Dorado Energy power plant near Boulder City, Nev., about 40 miles southeast of Las Vegas.

The El Dorado Energy Solar project is the largest operational thin-film, solar-power project in North America. Construction began in July 2008, and involved the installation of more than 167,000 solar modules on 80 acres of desert property designated as a renewable energy zone and leased from Boulder City.

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Up on the Roof, New Jobs in Solar Power

MOVE over, Joe the Plumber. Spencer the Solar Panel Installer is here.

In this case, it’s Spencer Bockus, who created solar-powered fans and other contraptions for science fairs as a fifth grader in California. Today, at 22, he is on customers’ roofs, measuring where the shade will hit and hooking up photovoltaic arrays, better known as solar panels, to convert the sun’s energy into electricity.

“Sometimes I’m 50 feet up on a steep roof and it’s so hot the tar is melting onto the bottoms of my sneakers,” he said, “but I’m excited because I’m helping the environment.”

Even in the recession, Mr. Bockus has been putting in plenty of overtime for his company, Akeena Solar, which is based in Los Gatos, Calif., and has offices elsewhere in California and in Colorado and the Northeast.

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