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Consumer Reports Finds Consumers Like Renewables, Hate Utilities

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

Steve Hanely over at CleanTechnica reports that a new Consumer Reports’ survey reinforces what most of you have known since you joined the solar industry – renewable energy is popular among Americans.

In words someone like me can appreciate (because I wish I’d written them first), Hanley writes:

The Trump maladministration wants to choke us all with more emissions from coal-fired generating plants, but a survey of 1200 Americans conducted by GfK for Consumer Reports finds the vast majority of Americans want more renewable energy and less power plant pollution. The survey also reveals that plenty of utilities seem to have a credibility issue with their customers. Consumers Union has submitted the results of the survey to the EPA as part of the public comment process on rolling back the Clean Power Plan that ended October 31.

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But it’s even better than that. According to the survey, 81% of thsoe surveyed say they want their power plants to produce less pollution, and that even included the four states where the majority of power is produced by coal (those states would be Ohio, Tennessee, Illinois and Virginia). So here’s a news flash: renewable energy is even popular in coal country, something I’ve been telling you since the Kentucky Coal Museum switched over to solar power last year.

But here’s the other finding of the survey that Hanley highlights and that should strike fear into the hearts of utility executives across the country: Consumers don’t trust utilities to do the charge fair prices and provide excellent service. I don’t know why they don’t trust their utilities.

Oh wait, yes I do. It’s because their utilities lie to them all the time, especially when it comes to solar and the fake “cost shift” they are constantly going on about.

The Consumer Reports survey just proves what most of us have known all along. The renewables revolution is coming, and utilities better figure out how to harness that revolution or they will be assigned to the ash heap of history right quick.

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Consumer Reports Survey Finds Most Americans Want More Renewable Energy

No Bridge Necessary: Solar+Storage Cheaper Than Natural Gas In Southwest

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

According to a report from Bloomberg, natural gas is going to run into significant price competition from solar+storage in the coming years – perhaps even eliminating the need for new natural gas plants in parts of the American Southwest.

The report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance advances a story SolarWakeup has been telling you about for months, which is that new natural gas-fired plants are increasingly being seen as unnecessary as the costs of solar+storage, especially at the utility-scale level, continue to come down.

Prices are so low, in fact, that Bloomberg predicts solar+storage will replace nearly 7 GW of coal-fired generation in the region – but that’s not all.

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This won’t be contained to the Southwest,” said Hugh Bromley, a New York-based analyst at BNEF in the article. “This is spreading and will continue to spread.”

Bloomberg offers the following example:

For example, a 100-megawatt solar farm that goes into service in Arizona in 2021, coupled with a 25-megawatt storage system with four hours of capacity, will be able to provide power for $36 a megawatt-hour, according to BNEF. That’s well below the $47 price from a new combined-cycle gas plant, according to the report.

This finding mirrors what’s going on already in California and Arizona, where public service commissions (in Arizona called the corporation commission) are already looking askance a utility requests for new natural gas plants. In the past, utilities have relied on natural gas plants to fuel their electrical grids once the sun goes down, but with battery storage coming into significant usage, natural gas is increasingly obsolete.

In California, the Public Utilities Commission has become far more unwilling to allow its utilities to build or fix natural gas plants and is insisting far more often that they produce grid support through the use of solar + storage instead. And in Arizona, the Corporation Commission told Arizona Public Service (the state’s largest utility) to throttle back its plans to build 5.3 GW of natural gas plants in its latest integrated resource plan and instead resubmit it with more renewables (read: solar) in it.

Energy storage is the key.

California Universities Set Aggressive Renewables Path: 100% By 2025

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

The state university system of California just took the aggressive renewable energy goals set at the state level and turned them up to 11. The University of California system is committed to reaching its own goal of being powered 100% by renewable energy by 2025 – 20 years before the entire state’s deadline of 2045.

The announcement is in parallel with the system’s intent to become carbon neutral the same year. According to the release, the California universities’ system has already saved $220 million with its energy efficiency programs, and continues to leverage the benefits of its solar farm in Fresno, the largest solar purchase of any university in the United States.

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“From LED lighting to all-electric fleets, we are proud of the countless energy efficiency and clean energy actions we have taken to tackle climate change,” said David Phillips, UC’s associate vice president of Energy and Sustainability. “These ambitious new targets, which align with those of our student environmental leaders, will ensure that our electricity comes from clean sources, extending UC leadership in modeling sustainability solutions.”

The systems new goals go far beyond just increasing renewables, however. Among the related goals are:

Clean energy: In addition to its 100 percent clean energy commitment by 2025, UC will endeavor to reduce its energy-use intensity (energy per square foot per year) by 2 percent year over year through more efficient measures. By 2018, the university’s own power company will provide 100 percent clean electricity to participating UC campuses.
Green buildings: No new universities’ buildings or major renovations after June 2019, except in special circumstances, will use on-site fossil fuel combustion, such as natural gas, for space and water heating.
Sustainable procurement: UC will use its market power to drive the availability of more sustainable products and services. Examples of new goals include 25 percent green spend and 25 percent economically and socially responsible spend. Enhanced requirements for its procurement departments and new standards for their suppliers will further support sustainable sourcing.

As usual, California is leading the way, and in this case it’s the students leading the charge. It makes one almost take stock of the future and not freak out. Almost.

Pelosi, McCarthy Top Solar Representatives As SEIA Brings Its Summer Advocacy Blitz To A Close

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

If there’s one thing Republicans and Democrats can agree on, it’s the increasing political power of solar energy. Just ask the more than 100 representatives the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) visited this summer during what it called its Summer Advocacy Blitz.

And solar is a bipartisan power source. After all, the representative with the most solar jobs in her district is none other than Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. And the representative with the most actual installed solar capacity in his district is Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

Those two don’t agree on anything – but they’d be hard pressed to disagree about the importance of solar energy in California, where both of their districts reside.

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As SEIA President and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper says:

Many Members of Congress do not know what a robust solar industry they have in their district, making this advocacy blitz to educate representatives and staff a critical step in continuing our industry’s growth across the country. We have long said that solar is a bipartisan economic engine and visiting the top 100 solar districts this summer was a clear indicator that that is the case.

That’s why SEIA spent its summer crisscrossing the country and visiting 107 House districts – those with the largest amount of solar in either jobs or installations – to explain to them the industry’s importance. The solar industry has long maintained it is a bipartisan issue, and Hopper and her team set out to prove it.

Exactly 107 congressional districts rank in the top 50 of one of these categories: total solar capacity, number of solar installations, solar jobs and solar companies. SEIA visited with 101 of these offices to educate members and staff about the robust solar businesses in their districts, and how policymakers can ensure continued job growth and investment.

The 107 congressional districts included in SEIA’s advocacy blitz are diverse with Republican (42) and Democratic (65) members.

SEIA’s blitz was a delightful show of political force from the solar industry’s advocacy agency, but they can’t do it alone (and it can’t be just a summer thing, either). It’s up to each of us to make it part of our daily lives to get politically involved and remind our representatives how important solar is to us – and them. Let’s keep the momentum going – and then vote like your livelihood depends on it, because it does.