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Tuesday, Aug 13, 2013

IREC Releases 2012 U.S. Solar Industry Overview

The Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC) recently released its 2012 U.S. Solar Market Trends report. While the data aligns closely with previously released reports on the 2012 solar market, IREC’s report also features installed capacity figures for 47 states, DC and the territories.

Monday, Jul 29, 2013

Rocky Mountain Institute Examines Distributed Solar PV Cost/Benefit Studies

In its review of 15 distributed solar PV benefit and cost studies, the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) finds significant variability in estimated distributed PV values, owing to differences in methodology, local context, and input assumptions.  RMI highlights areas in which consensus and standardization could be established to allow for better comparison between studies.

Monday, Jul 01, 2013

IEA Predicts Power from Renewables will Exceed Gas by 2016

In its Medium-Term Renewable Energy Market Report, the International Energy Agency predicts 40% growth in renewable power generation over the next 5 years.

Monday, Apr 08, 2013

40% of U.S. Supermarkets at Grid-Parity for Installed PV

A recent NREL report finds that in 2011, 17% of U.S supermarkets were in utility territories where PV could be installed at or below the cost of traditional generation.  In 2012, they estimate that this percentage increased to 40%.  The report is NREL’s first step in examining PV grid-parity at all big-box retailers.

Friday, Mar 08, 2013

U.S. Solar Market Insight 2012 Year in Review

Add summary: U.S. Solar Market Insight™ is a collaboration between the Solar Energy Industries Association® (SEIA®) and GTM Research that brings high-quality, solar-specific analysis and forecasts to industry professionals in the form of quarterly and annual reports. Released March, 2013.

Thursday, Feb 21, 2013

U.S. Renewable Energy Technical Potentials: A GIS - Based Analysis

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) routinely estimates the technical potential of specific renewable electricity generation technologies. These are technology-specific estimates of energy generation potential based on renewable resource availability and quality, technical system performance, topographic limitations, environmental, and land-use constraints only. The estimates do not consider (in most cases) economic or market constraints, and therefore do not represent a level of renewable generation that might actually be deployed.

Thursday, Feb 07, 2013

Enabling Greater Penetration of Solar Power via the Use of CSP with Thermal Energy Storage.

At high penetration of solar generation there are a number of challenges to economically integrating this variable and uncertain resource. These include the limited coincidence between the solar resource and normal demand patterns and limited flexibility of conventional generators to accommodate variable generation resources. Of the large number of technologies that can be used to enable greater penetration of variable generators, concentrating solar power (CSP) with thermal energy storage (TES) presents a number of advantages.

Thursday, Feb 07, 2013

Simulating the Value of Concentrating Solar Power with Thermal Energy Storage in a Production Cost Model.

Concentrating solar power (CSP) deployed with thermal energy storage (TES) provides a dispatchable source of renewable energy. The value of CSP with TES, as with other potential generation resources, needs to be established using traditional utility planning tools. Production cost models, which simulate the operation of grid, are often used to estimate the operational value of different generation mixes. CSP with TES has historically had limited analysis in commercial production simulations. This document describes the implementation of CSP with TES in a commercial production cost model.

Thursday, Feb 07, 2013

Comparing Germany's and California's Interconnection Processes for PV Systems.

Establishing interconnection to the grid is a recognized barrier to the deployment of distributed energy generation. This report compares interconnection processes for photovoltaic projects in California and Germany. This report summarizes the steps of the interconnection process for developers and utilities, the average length of time utilities take to process applications, and paperwork required of project developers.

Thursday, Feb 07, 2013

Impact of Financial Structure on the Cost of Solar Energy.

To stimulate investment in renewable energy generation projects, the federal government developed a series of support structures that reduce taxes for eligible investors--the investment tax credit, the production tax credit, and accelerated depreciation. The nature of these tax incentives often requires an outside investor and a complex financial arrangement to allocate risk and reward among the parties.

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