Oregon successfully attracted two solar manufacturers, SolarWorld and Solaicx, by highlighting available infrastructure like a mothballed semiconductor plant, a skilled workforce from its history in the semiconductor industry, and state incentives like tax credits. Other states like Massachusetts, Washington, and others are also actively recruiting solar manufacturers by offering tax incentives and policies to grow local solar markets and support in-state solar component manufacturing. Solar companies consider factors like available workforce, infrastructure for transportation and supplies, and market access when choosing production locations.
Solar employment in North Carolina grew from 3,100 in 2013 to 5,600 in 2014, adding over 200 jobs per month between November 2013 and November 2014. At over 80 percent year-over-year growth, the North Carolina solar industry grew nearly 40 times faster than overall employment in the state.
Solar employment in North Carolina grew from 3,100 in 2013 to 5,600 in 2014, adding over 200 jobs per month between November 2013 and November 2014. At over 80 percent year-over-year growth, the North Carolina solar industry grew nearly 40 times faster than overall employment in the state.
City Power Play: 8 Practical Local Energy Policies to Boost the EconomyJohn Farrell
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Former Ambassador and head of the US delegation to the Kyoto Protocol negotiations, Stuart Eizentstat, Partner with law firm of Covington & Burling LLP, delivered the keynote address at the GW Solar Institute Symposium on April 19, 2010. View more info at: solar.gwu.edu/Symposium.html
Courtney Hanson Nuclear Economics-20120630MATRRorg
Nuclear Economics presentation by Courney Hanson of Georgia Women's Action for New Directions (Georgia WAND) at the KNOW NUKES Y'ALL SUMMIT on June 30, 2012.
The benefits of running training as a profit center for your customers, your company, and yourself. A training profit center must give value to survive. Don't be a corporate tax man or the albatross around your organization's neck.
City Power Play: 8 Practical Local Energy Policies to Boost the EconomyJohn Farrell
A brief overview of ILSR's new report covering 8 powerful policies and practices that cities have employed to reduce energy use, save money, and create local jobs, all without waiting for someone else to act. It provides short case studies of the policies in place, and links to the text of the local rule.
Former Ambassador and head of the US delegation to the Kyoto Protocol negotiations, Stuart Eizentstat, Partner with law firm of Covington & Burling LLP, delivered the keynote address at the GW Solar Institute Symposium on April 19, 2010. View more info at: solar.gwu.edu/Symposium.html
Courtney Hanson Nuclear Economics-20120630MATRRorg
Nuclear Economics presentation by Courney Hanson of Georgia Women's Action for New Directions (Georgia WAND) at the KNOW NUKES Y'ALL SUMMIT on June 30, 2012.
The benefits of running training as a profit center for your customers, your company, and yourself. A training profit center must give value to survive. Don't be a corporate tax man or the albatross around your organization's neck.
Project management best practices ispi-fritschMichael Fritsch
Why do so many projects fail? How does the Project Management Office increase project success? What does a PMO do? How important is PMO maturity to project success? How can I accelerate the maturity of my PMO and project operations?
This document brings together a set
of latest data points and publicly
available information relevant for
Utilities Industry. We are very
excited to share this content and
believe that readers will benefit from
this periodic publication immensely.
Navigating High-Interest Rates in the US - The Bright Future of Solar Power.pptxSaraKurian3
Did you know that the sun provides more energy to the earth in one hour than we use in an entire year from coal, natural gas, and oil combined? This staggering fact underscores the immense potential of solar power as a sustainable energy source.
In the current economic climate of the United States, high-interest rates pose significant challenges for businesses and consumers alike. However, amidst these financial hurdles, one sector continues to shine brightly - solar power.
Solar Energy Solutions are not only environmentally friendly but also increasingly cost-effective. As we navigate through the complexities of high-interest rates, the future of solar power in the U.S. looks promising. This blog will explore how solar power stands as a beacon of hope in the face of economic adversity.
Solamon President Jay Yeo announced today the company intends to be fully represented at the Solar Energy Conference in Orlando this September. “This event will provide us an excellent opportunity to bring a lot of our partners up to speed on our recent activity,” Yeo explains. “We expect to meet solar professionals, utility executives, investors, technical experts and policymakers while there.” The conference will take place at the Orange County Convention Center from September 10-13, 2012.
Il World Energy Focus, nuovo mensile online della WEC's community, una e-publication gratuita per essere sempre aggiornato sugli sviluppi del settore energetico. Il World Energy Focus contiene news, interviste esclusive e uno spazio dedicato agli eventi promossi dai singoli Comitati Nazionali.
This white paper highlights current strategy, organization and leadership challenges for the Solar and Cleantech industries. It is based on conversations with industry leaders mostly in San Francisco Bay Area. The study was conceived and conducted by Mariposa Leadership, Inc and Emergent Solutions Inc. Conversations were held in the winter and Spring of 2009.
hot topic I ENERGY OUTLOOK14EXPECT THEUNEXPECTEDI .docxadampcarr67227
hot topic I ENERGY OUTLOOK
14
EXPECT THE
UNEXPECTED
I N THE FUTURE OF ENERGY..
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The crystal ball is murky when it comes to
predictions about energy consumption, markets
and future trends.
Consider hydraulic fracturing, for example.
Ten years ago, the U.S. Geological Survey
estimated resource potential in the Marcellus
Shale region was off by 70 times, according to
current federal surveys.
"I think it's essentially impossible to antici-
pate what energy markets are going to look like
in 20 or 30 years, because the rate of change in
technology and potential for climate change are
so great and so disruptive that the world is go-
ing to be fundamentally different than it is now,"
said John Petersen, the founder of the Arlington
Institute, a nonprofit research organization that
focuses on future global trends.
Howard Gruenspecht, administrator of
the U.S. Energy Information Administration,
echoed similar thoughts about the future.
"Predicting a particular game-changing
technology is difficult, if not impossible, to do,"
he said.
Despite this limitation, Gruenspecht said
his analysts spend a significant amount of time
thinking about how technological change might
occur in North American energy markets, where
crude oil prices have exceeded natural gas
prices by a 4-to-l ratio on an energy-equivalent
basis—converting the current price of crude oil
to its natural gas equivalent rate.
"Tlie implication is that there currently exists
a four-fold price advantage for substituting
natural gas for oil-based products," he said. This
price disparity could potentially last for some
time, triggering the deployment of natural gas
vehicle infrastructure because of favorable
market signals to investors.
Futurists like Petersen believe the electric
grid and energy markets are especially suscep-
tible to wild card events like drastic changes
in consumption, geopolitics, solar flares and
changing societal values.
"There is a new generation of young people
who see their relationship to the environment,
to the Earth and their social relationships with
one another in a really different way than all of
us old guys," he said.
Their strong reaction to a wild card event
could galvatiize them to say "never again" in the
same way that Three Mile Island impacted the
nuclear power industry.
"Industries and policymakers need to be
sensitive to this," Peterson said.
Expect the Unexpected
State policymakers can prepare to deal
with this unpredictable future in several ways,
Petersen said.
"Resilience is extraordinarily important,
not only for physical shocks to the system,
but there also needs to be resilience in terms
of technology," he said. Decision-makers also
need a "mechanism for anticipation, as well as
a commitment to use foresight in planning."
That's true, also, for utilities.
"I know this sounds antithetical to many
utilities, but they need more agility, even in
such a capital-intensive industry," Petersen
said.
Capital-intensive industries w.
Sowards h energy_recommended course of action for a state
Confoe Taking a Shine to Solar
1. RENEWABLE
ENERGY
WORLD
September 2007 (Vol:10 Issue:5)
Taking a shine to solar: US states woo manufacturers
Lisa Cohn
With the solar industry growing so quickly, US states are eager to make themselves attractive
places for solar manufacturers to set up plants. Lisa Cohn looks at what solar companies are
looking for in a potential new location and what incentives the states are offering to try to lure
them.
Nearly a year ago, Christopher Dymond, a senior energy analyst for the US state of Oregon’s
Department of Energy, decided it was time to brief the Oregon Governor’s Office and state
officials about the huge potential for attracting photovoltaic (PV) solar manufacturers to the state
- a potential that the Renewable Energy Project had recently identified as worth $910 million in
investment in Oregon by 2015.
In addition to telling the officials about the report - which pegged Oregon as among the top 10
states likely to benefit from the creation of jobs by the solar industry - Dymond stressed the need
to move quickly. ‘I told them the PV solar manufacturers were looking to build now,’ he says.
‘The window wouldn’t be open long. It seemed right to push harder than I had in the past.’
At that meeting, the Governor’s staff and state development officials were shocked to learn that
in 2006, solar manufacturing surpassed all other uses of silicon, he says. They were also
surprised to learn that the speed at which the PV solar manufacturing industry was doubling its
output was increasing. That meant end-user costs were dropping. ‘With every doubling of output,
you get an 18% reduction in solar costs,’ he says. What’s more, he told the officials, the PV solar
industry was growing at more than 35% per year.
At that time, sitting idle in Oregon was a mothballed semiconductor facility in Hillsboro with
enough equipment to ‘make your eyeballs pop out of your sockets’, Dymond says. It would be a
perfect facility for a company that manufactures silicon-based solar products. And Oregon, in the
heart of the US north west’s Silicon Forest, had plenty of workers skilled at melting, growing
and wafering silicon ingots - skills needed to convert silicon into solar cells. A few months later,
in March, SolarWorld announced plans to establish in the mothballed plant an integrated solar
silicon wafer and solar cell production facility. Once the plant reaches its projected capacity of
500 MW - in 2009 or so - it will become the largest solar factory in North America. At full
capacity, it could also create up to 1,000 jobs for Oregonians.
2. Silicon ribbon growth at an Evergreen plant.
The company is to begin construction of a
$150 million solar manufacturing plant this
autumn in Massachusetts that will create more
than 350 jobs when it starts up in 2008
EVERGREEN
Then, in June, Solaicx, a manufacturer of monocrystalline silicon ingots and wafers, announced
that it will establish its first high-volume manufacturing facility in Portland, Oregon. ‘That really
got the state officials’ attention,’ Dymond says.
Now, a year later, Oregon is following Dymond’s suggestion and speed-marketing the state’s
assets to solar manufacturers. It recently increased its 28-year-old business energy tax credit
from 30% to 50%. What’s more, the state in July released a new ‘PV recruitment plan’ aimed at
developing a solar cluster in the state. ‘This is one of the hottest, if not the hottest, recruitment
areas for Oregon right now,’ says Nathan Buehler, a spokesman for the Oregon Economic &
Community Development Department.
Oregon isn’t the only US state anxious to lure PV solar manufacturers to its borders.
Massachusetts recently outbid Oregon and drew Evergreen Solar to the state. Evergreen
announced in April its plans to begin construction of a $150 million solar manufacturing plant
this autumn that will create more than 350 jobs when it starts up in 2008. The plant, in the
Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MTC) campus in Westborough, will be built with the
help of state support, including up to $23 million in grants, up to $17.5 million in low-interest
loans and a low-cost, 30-year lease of MTC land.
Washington, California, Texas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Nevada are among the states that
are also hot to cash in on the industry’s booming growth and immediate need to expand capacity.
It is common to hear tales of governors dispatching limousines and throwing lavish dinners for
solar executives. Ultimately, however, the manufacturers base their decisions on whether the
state offers sites that meet their specific needs - not on the quality of the Governors’ food.
While mulling over a potential location, solar firms consider government incentives such as tax
abatements, tax credits, land grants or the promise to extend railway lines or highways to the
3. plant, says Michael Fritsch, President & Chief Operating Officer of Confoe, based in Austin,
Texas, and help to solar manufacturers and wafer manufacturers to build their plants faster and
more efficiently. Companies also consider the availability and wage level of the workforce. It’s
also important to be located close to suppliers and customers, as well as to have access to reliable
power to operate their plants, he adds.
Raw silicon as used by SolarWorld. The
company is to build its integrated solar silicon
wafer and solar cell production facility in a
previously mothballed semiconductor plant in
Oregon SOLARWORLD
Solar manufacturers include additional items on their must-have list. Like SolarWorld, new
manufacturers use much of the same equipment and processes involved in the semiconductor and
flat-panel display industries. It is a plus to find a mothballed plant like the one SolarWorld found.
In addition, their work often requires expensive equipment and raw materials. For example, Gen
7 glass panels are large at over 1.83 metres by 2.13 metres, which makes them difficult to
transport. ‘This makes supply lines to the plant critical,’ says Fritsch. ‘The location must have
easy access to rail lines, roadways and other transportation hubs,’ he says.
To attract these companies, US states are using two approaches, says John Langdon, Vice-
President of Marketing for HelioVolt, a manufacturer of thin-film semiconductors that is based
in Austin, Texas. ‘There are states that have a programme to create a solar market inside their
state - California and New Jersey being two. California is 80% of the market, and New Jersey is
80% of what’s left,’ he says. In addition, some states offer manufacturing incentives. They
include Michigan, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New Mexico.
Solaicx, based in Santa Clara, California, chose Portland in Oregon three years ago in part
because of state incentives but more importantly because the region had many workers
experienced in the semiconductor industry, says John Sedgwick, the company’s co-founder and
Vice-President of Sales and Marketing. ‘The primary and overriding criteria was that we needed
readily available, trained personnel. We came by a unique situation in Portland. A lot of foreign
companies had invested in the manufacture of silicon wafers and ingots in Portland. They spent a
lot of money building facilities and training people,’ he says. At that time, Sedgwick adds, the
4. solar market was ready to explode. ‘Our primary problem in trying to expand was locating
skilled people. Portland was rich in talent,’ he says, adding that Solaicx will employ 200 by the
end of next year. In addition, the company viewed the region’s hydroelectricity as reliable and
reasonably priced. Oregon also offered the business energy tax credit for investing in renewable
energy manufacturing. At the time, it was 30% but has since increased to 50%, with a cap of a
$20 million credit.
Just to the north, Washington state is taking a very different approach to luring solar companies.
Its goal is to ‘grow’ solar manufacturers, says Mike Nelson, Director of the Northwest Solar
Center, based in Seattle. ‘We’re trying to establish a market for solar energy based on reasonable
market messages.’ To do this, the state has established a system based on German and Japanese
production incentives. The state’s SB 5101 law aims to create a strong market for small
renewable energy projects, especially solar PV projects. The law establishes a renewable energy
feed-in production incentive, the first such application of this approach in a US state. Homes and
businesses with solar PV and wind power systems earn from their utilities a credit of 15 cents per
kWh of electricity generated by their renewable energy systems, up to a maximum of $2000
annually. This is roughly tailored to the yearly market output of a typical 3.5 kW PV system.
In addition to this credit, the law established economic multipliers that provide incentives for
residents and businesses to use project components manufactured in Washington. This can raise
the 15 cent/kWh credit to as much as 54 cents/kWh, says Nelson. This legislation, effective from
July 2006, makes solar power attractive to the average homeowner or business, Nelson says. As
a result of the legislation, residents and businesses have installed 263 systems that produce about
1 MW, he says. ‘We don’t want to take tax dollars and buy systems for big companies. This way,
the systems get installed on residences. Every little system represents a voting family,’ says
Nelson. Utilities that make these payments to homeowners and small businesses can claim a tax
credit against their public utility tax, says Tony Usibelli, Director of the Energy Policy Division
at the state’s Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development.
As a result of Washington’s efforts, module manufacturer Silicon Energy will begin delivering
its products in the first quarter of 2008, says Nelson. Since 2002, Washington has been home to
the world’s first dedicated plant for production of solar-grade silicon. In August 2002, REC Solar
Grade Silicon (SGS) was established as a joint venture between REC and ASiMI, at that time a
subsidiary of the Japanese industrial group Komatsu. The plant now employs about 200.
Also on the West Coast, California, the third largest market for solar in the world, has unique
attributes that are attractive to solar manufacturers. WorldWater and Solar Technologies - a
company that provides integration and some manufacturing of solar systems - has for about six
months been based there in an incubator in Fresno. The state’s high electricity loads, especially
agricultural loads, and the California Solar Initiative (CSI) drew the company to the state. The
CSI provides cash incentives on solar systems of up to $2.50 per watt. These incentives,
combined with federal tax incentives, can cover up to 50% of the total cost of a solar system. In
addition, Pacific Gas and Electric pays customers up to 26 cents/kWh to produce solar energy
and feed it into the system, says David Hakim, Regional Sales Manager for WorldWater. And
the state offers a 5-year accelerated depreciation on solar systems, he says.
5. Because the Fresno area struggles with air pollution, farmers and other large users are interested
in renewable energy, says Hakim. ‘In the valley here, going off fossil fuels is critical. Any way
to avoid releasing air pollution is important here,’ he says.
Acciona Solar’s $110 million, 54 MW solar
power plant in Nevada ACCIONA
HelioVolt is less interested in pollution and load issues as it searches for a site for its 20 MW
manufacturing plant, says Langdon. ‘The primary concern we have is workforce. That’s number
one,’ he says. ‘We’re also looking to see if there are enough trained technicians in the area. Is it a
place we will be able to recruit people? Is the cost of living in line enough to help us recruit
people to the area? We’re also looking at local incentives on issues like taxation and electricity
rates. We put all this into one big equation, adding other factors like accessibility to road and
rail.’
In part because HelioVolt wants to establish its first manufacturing plant within a day’s travel of
its Austin R&D headquarters, the company has narrowed its search to Texas and Oklahoma,
Langdon says. Both states offer a trained workforce and low cost of living, as well as some
incentives from municipalities. Austin’s workforce is particularly appealing because the city is
home to the University of Texas and boasts a large semiconductor manufacturing industry.
‘More people manufacture equipment in Austin than in Silicon Valley,’ Langdon says. IBM and
Intel have installations in Austin. ‘People trained to maintain systems for semiconductors could
work with our equipment,’ Langdon adds. ‘We also look for engineers. We need more chemical
engineers and people who have not traditionally worked in PV. We also need manufacturing
engineers who can adapt and improve the manufacturing methods.’
Like California, Texas has impressive solar resources. ‘If we put some incentives in place in
Texas, it could very soon be a bigger solar market than California,’ Langdon says.
Interestingly, European countries are now courting HeliVolt much more aggressively than US
states, Langdon says. ‘None of the states in the US is nearly as aggressive as the least aggressive
country in Europe. The European community has a basic framework of incentives, and then
regions can add to that. If you build in the far east of Germany, you can get more incentives than
in the west of Germany, for example.’
6. Langdon notes that Oregon and New Mexico seem to be the most aggressive states that are
targeting solar manufacturers. In New Mexico, legislators signed into law on 5 March a new
renewable portfolio standard (RPS) that expands the fraction of utilities’ total energy purchase
that must be renewable to 20% by 2020. Oregon also has a new and similar RPS. Legislators
there recently expanded the state’s RPS to 25% by 2025. New Mexico also offers an Alternative
Energy Product Manufacturers Tax Credit that is 5% of the taxpayer’s qualifying expenditures. It
also offers a solar market development tax credit, a customer solar PV production incentive, a
solar energy gross receipts tax deduction and an energy efficiency and renewable energy bond
programme.
In spite of these efforts to court solar manufacturers, HelioVolt will establish its second
manufacturing plant in Europe, says Langdon. ‘Many of the European countries have published
incentive programmes. You can log on to government websites and see maps of what’s available
in different areas. They have formulas for unemployment, for example. In Europe, you can get
incentives for 30%-50% of the cost of starting up a plant.’
Like sun-kissed Texas, California and New Mexico, southern Nevada is courting solar
manufacturers - in part due to a suggestion from former president Bill Clinton, says Somer
Hollingsworth, President and Chief Executive Officer of Nevada Development Authority. A few
years ago, when Clinton spoke at the authority’s annual luncheon, he suggested Hollingsworth
focus on solar research and development and manufacturing, relates Hollingsworth. At that time,
the 51-year-old non-profit development agency was already focused on recruiting non-gaming
technology, life sciences and renewable energy manufacturers. The state now offers a sales and
tax abatement on capital equipment, an incentive that saved Solargenix $15 million when it (now
Acciona Solar) built its $110 million, 54 MW solar power plant in Nevada. In addition, Nevada
has in place an RPS of 20% by 2010, and the state advertises the fact that it’s blessed with
sunshine more than 300 days of year.
‘The other thing the companies look at is corporate income taxes. In Nevada, there is no
corporate income tax, state or personal. That’s a benefit. And we’re probably number four in the
nation as far as not taxing companies too much,’ says Hollingsworth. He adds that providing an
attractive setting for solar manufacturers is just as important and is the ‘right thing to do’. And it
feels especially right at this point in time, given that the PV solar industry is growing so fast and
is so eager to meet its increasing demand quickly.
Says Dymond of the Oregon Department of Energy, ‘Until about five years ago, the solar
industry was basically a custom hand industry. Everything was kind of hand made. Now players
are getting into the game, players like plasma screen makers and wind manufacturers. I’ve been
waiting for this for a long time.’
Lisa Cohn is a freelance writer specializing in energy
e-mail: rew@pennwell.com