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DOE SunShot Repositions Grant Program

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) SunShot Initiative has presented a new funding opportunity for solar product development and awarded grants to reduce the soft costs of solar deployment. At the same time, the agency has reorganized its process for evaluating and awarding grants to for-profit enterprises in order to better reflect lessons learned and the realities of the product development cycle.

The larger of the two blocks of grants, the $45 million Technology to Market funding opportunity, essentially groups three historically separate programs - Incubator, Solar Manufacturing Technology and Scaling Up Nascent PV at Home - into one.

As the name implies, the Technology to Market program’s mandate is to fund for-profit entities that are innovating in the solar space. Lidija Sekaric, Technology to Market’s program manager, says the new funding opportunity will be looking across the solar value chain in order to further SunShot’s goal of getting the cost of solar power down to $0.06/kWh by 2020.

“For this solicitation, we are not calling for specific topics,” Sekaric says. “So, when we talk about manufacturing, we’re talking about manufacturing any product that is relevant to solar,” Sekaric says. “When we talk about innovation, this could be a software application or a financing platform for solar. Or, it could be a new gadget or new material. It is very definitely an open solicitation.”

At the same time, the program does insert subsectors for prototyping, manufacturing methods and piloting a product into the market-
place.

“We have called out certain topics of interest where we know innovation will have higher leverage,” Sekaric says, adding that the only requirement is that it work toward the cost-reduction goal. “If there was innovation that could reduce the cost of financing, for example, that would have huge leverage on the cost of the system overall.”

Minh Le, director of the SunShot Initiative, says that in the past, the agency would get almost the same application in multiple programs. This was because the proposed technology might straddle more than one program or because the programs, as defined, did not encompass all possibilities. Or maybe, applicants simply wanted to increase their chances of scoring a win. Whatever the reason, merging the activities into a single program reduces the replication of effort for applicant and SunShot alike.

“The major impetus for combining all the programs together was a recognition that companies operate on a continuum,” Le says. “The evolution of a product from concept all the way through manufacturing is not in discrete steps.”

SunShot has some notable success in helping commercial enterprises reach the marketplace with their solar products and services. Grant recipient Suniva has recently joined the ranks of solar module companies expanding their manufacturing operations in the U.S. Pick My Solar recently announced that it was bringing a solar data mining app to market with the help of a SunShot grant.

Le says SunShot is technology-agnostic in the sense that it accepts applications from many technologies. However, the agency performs a very thorough analysis to understand those technologies and those manufacturing processes that can actually be competitively manufactured in the U.S.

“So, we generally don’t invest in technologies that can be done cheaper overseas,” Le says. “Our investment is really focused on what can best be leveraged in the U.S.”

In addition to the Technology to Market program, SunShot is also awarding more than $14 million in grants for 15 new projects through the Solar Market Pathways program to help communities develop multiyear solar deployment plans. The awards are aimed at cutting the soft costs of solar, such as permitting, financing and grid interconnection.

- Michael Puttré

 

DOE Launches Program To Reduce Soft Costs

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced $13 million in funding for the Solar Powering America by Recognizing Communities (SPARC) program.

The goal is to establish a public awareness and technical assistance program for local governments to improve solar deployment.

Funding recipients will establish and administer a national recognition program and also provide technical assistance and share best practices with communities seeking national recognition for cutting red tape and improving local solar market conditions.

Once the program is established, communities that participate in SPARC will gain access to a network of solar experts while supporting local efforts to spur market growth.

The SPARC funding opportunity builds on the work of the DOE’s SunShot Initiative to cut the soft costs of solar energy.

 

EPA Plan Won't Hurt
Electric Reliability

A new report by the Brattle Group prepared for the Advanced Energy Economy Institute (AEEI) says that the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) to cut carbon emissions from power plants should not pose any problems for maintaining the reliability of the electric grid.

The report seeks to address reliability concerns expressed last year in a report by the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC). In a nutshell, the NERC report says some regions in U.S. areas may require significant infrastructure enhancements and industry may require additional time to ensure reliability in order to conform to the CPP.

“The NERC report far overstated the reliability issues of using more clean energy in the electric grid,” says John Moore, an attorney with the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC). “Rigorous analysis shows that the CPP’s measured shift toward renewable energy, its long lead time, and its flexibility will enable utilities and grid operators to cut carbon pollution without risks of blackouts or outages.”

Moore, who analyzes Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, grid and energy market issues for the NRDC, has written that the NERC report raises sensible concerns while overlooking certain dynamics that could mitigate them, such as grid operator, government and other studies showing that the grid can reliably integrate significantly more wind and solar power than current levels.

 

CALSEIA Issues California Net-Metering Update

Net-energy metering (NEM) has been a cornerstone of the California solar market since 1996. It allows a solar customer’s meter to spin backward, giving customers credit at full retail rates when they are feeding power into the electric grid. Customers pay only for their net usage of electricity from the utility.

Under state legislation passed in 2013 (A.B.327), the current net-metering rules for solar customers will end soon. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is reviewing the rules to determine if the new version of net metering (known as NEM 2.0) should be the same as the current structure or if changes need to be made. The commission has a deadline to create the new rules by December of this year. It issued a memo on Jan. 23 updating the scope and timeline of the proceeding.

Since the proceeding began last summer, most of the debate has been around building a model that will measure how much revenue utilities lose when people go solar. This “public tool” will be used to evaluate different proposals for NEM 2.0. A beta version of the model will be released in February, with a final version available in the second quarter of the year.

With all the debate focused on the yardstick, parties have not yet put their proposals formally on the table. However, it is clear that solar advocates want to continue with net metering unchanged and utilities want to scrap net metering altogether in favor of a feed-in tariff (FIT) at wholesale rates. Under a FIT, power from solar panels is fed directly into the grid and all of the power used by the building comes from the grid, rather than using the solar panels to power the building and exporting only the surplus or importing the shortfall.


Solar companies are concerned that a FIT at low rates would kill the market for new solar installations. Under a CPUC decision last year, existing solar customers will stay on the current net-metering rules for 20 years.

According to the Jan. 23 memo, the CPUC will solicit “comments on policy issues” in the first quarter and formal proposals for the successor tariff in the second quarter.

New solar customers will not be able to sign up for net metering under the current structure after the total amount of net-metered solar output reaches 5% of a utility’s aggregate customer peak demand, or July 1, 2017, at the latest. Based on the pace of solar installations for each of the state’s largest utilities, it appears that Southern California Edison will continue NEM 1.0 through June 2017, Pacific Gas & Electric will at least be close to that date and San Diego Gas & Electric will reach its cap somewhere between December 2015 and April 2016. - Brad Heavner

Brad Heavner is policy director at the California Solar Energy Industries Association (CALSEIA). He can be reached at brad@CALSEIA.org.

 

N.Y. Holds Microgrid Summit Series

New York officials, power sector business leaders and other stakeholders are holding a Statewide Winter Energy Tour to highlight the potential of community-based microgrids, which are seen as one solution to widespread power outages in the face of extreme weather events and other emergencies.

In addition to providing power to local residences, microgrids could help ensure that hospitals, first responders and other “critical operators” can continue to provide essential services. Under less trying circumstances, microgrids and distributed generation (DG) sources, such as solar, can also add electricity to the main grid during times when overall demand is highest.

New York is seen as a leader in the community microgrid effort, in part due to the experience of Hurricane Sandy.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority is leading the tour to build awareness for the NY Prize, a $40 million competition that challenges New York businesses, entrepreneurs and electric utilities to design and implement DG power systems and microgrids.

 

Hawaiian Electric
Redressing PV Backlog

Hawaii’s unique island topography divides the state into isolated grids and fosters a heavy dependence on imported fossil fuels to its electric plants. The resulting high cost of electricity has made renewable sources, especially wind and photovoltaic power, attractive alternatives. However, high levels of PV penetration do not come unattended by challenges.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency’s (EIA) monthly net-metering utility data, 9,200 net-metered photovoltaic systems were added in Hawaii in 2014 through October, bringing the total number of customers with net-metered PV to around 48,000.

In Oahu, where most of the state’s population resides, roughly 12% of customers have rooftop solar, compared to an estimated U.S. average of 0.5%, the EIA says, citing data from the Solar Electric Power Association. The average capacity of residential net-metered PV systems in Hawaii has also been increasing as larger and more efficient PV systems are installed.

The EIA points out that residential solar PV additions in Hawaii have been slowed by the delays customers experienced in getting approval to interconnect new PV systems to the grid. The delays stem from circuits on the Hawaiian Electric distribution grids reaching levels of rooftop PV capacity that are 120% or more of the circuit’s daytime minimum load - a key threshold for Hawaiian Electric’s interconnection approval process.

Hawaiian Electric recently entered a cooperative research partnership with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Electric Power Research Institute and SolarCity to study the operational effects of high levels of solar PV on electric grids. Preliminary research results have led Hawaiian Electric to announce plans to clear its backlog of PV applications by April.

The group of utilities also recently proposed a reduction in the rate it pays new net-metered customers in order to reduce demand for rooftop PV and help clear the backlog.

In December 2014, NextEra Energy Inc. announced an agreement to acquire Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc., the owner of three electric utilities. NextEra says it supports Hawaiian Electric’s plans to accomplish its PV interconnection goals.