We’ll cut right to the chase this morning — no clever lead-in or snappy recap. Just pure, unadulterated solar energy news…
First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR) today announced it signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with California utility PG&E for a 300-megawatt (mW) utility-scale photovoltaic installation in Southern California, via Solar Industry. These 300 mWs will join 250 mWs already under contract with Southern California Edison (SCE), ultimately creating a 550-mW installation called the Desert Sunlight project. Located near Desert Center in eastern Riverside County, Calif., the installation will generate enough electricity to power about 160,000 area homes.
In related news via Barron’s, J.P. Morgan downgraded First Solar, along with Evergreen Solar (NASDAQ:ESLR) and Energy Conversion Devices (NASDAQ:ENER), citing an impending supply glut of solar panels over the next 12 months.
In California solar news, Roseville-based Solar Power Inc. says it plans to build a manufacturing plant and a large solar-energy farm in Sacramento County, according to Central Valley Business Times. See this coverage from GetSolar’s Margaret Collins for more details. This Sacramento solar story comes on the heels of Kyocera Solar’s announcement that it will open a solar-panel manufacturing facility in San Diego.
On the other side of the country, Martin LaMonica of CNET provides a concise overview of the MIT Energy Conference, which was held in Cambridge, MA this past Saturday. The facts that framed the conference, LaMonica relays, are well known: between now and 2030, global energy demand will grow at an astonishing rate, mostly because developing countries are, well, developing. New roads, new buildings, new diets, new lifestyles — all of this adds up to a boatload of energy demand. To meet it — and to have a chance at stabilizing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels at 450 parts-per-million, a commonly used target among climate scientists — Nobuo Tanaka, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, noted that the world would need to build “18 nuclear power plants, 17,000 wind turbines, two or three huge hydroelectric dam projects, and 94 concentrating solar power plants every year between now and 2030” …this on top of a broad-based rollout of energy efficiency measures. Check out LaMonica’s post for more details and links, along with the inescapable discussion on China’s energy policies. Interesting pull quote on that front: “There are some cultural differences. To be honest, Chinese people tend to listen better. When our president Hu says something, we say, ‘Yes, sir.’ But in the U.S., people respond to directions by saying ‘Says who?’ or offering second thoughts.” No comment.
Shares of Phoenix Solar AG were up as much as 10 percent this morning in German trading, reports BusinessWeek. After boosting sales in the domestic market in 2009, the German solar-energy developer beat analysts’ expectations on earnings.
Writing for the New York Times, Elisabeth Rosenthal yesterday offered an insightful profile of Puertollano, Spain, a city that suffered from a boom-and-bust cycle brought on by that country’s hastily implemented solar energy policies. The city’s experience should serve as a cautionary tale for any government pondering how to structure renewable energy incentives. All is not lost in Puertollano, however, as Rosenthal reports: “Even with the reduced incentives and local economic downturn, the solar industry gave Puertollano something of a face-lift and, potentially, a new economic future. Research institutes there are developing cutting-edge technologies. Unemployment, though now up around 10 percent, has not returned to the 20 percent figure. The city is home to a number of solar businesses: a new 50-megawatt thermal-solar plant owned by the Spanish energy giant Iberdrola created hundreds of jobs.” Turns out a good old-fashion oil boom puts a solar-energy boom to shame.
The New York town of Tonawanda is considering a temporary moratorium on solar energy installations, reports The Buffalo News. Evidently town lawmakers need more time to determine how to best regulate solar projects. Oh, if we could only harmonize solar power rules and regs across the board…
Finally today, Greentech Media yesterday released a list of the Top 50 VC-Funded Greentech Startups. The big solar names were Brightsource Energy, Enphase Energy, eSolar, Nanosolar, SolarCity and Solyndra, among others. GetSolar didn’t make the cut this time around, but we’re pulling hard for 2011… Perhaps most instructive is how Greentech came up with their list: “We spread the names of 500 VC-funded firms on the Greentech Media dance floor and cut the head off of a chicken. Wherever the chicken landed — that was a winner. We stopped when we ran out of chickens.”
That’s all for this Tuesday. Be sure to stay plugged in with GetSolar.
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