77 Snydertown Road
Hopewell
New Jersey
08525
609-429-0779
dante@mr-sustainable.com
Earth Day 2013 is the perfect time to work on sustainable energy and sustainable building, especially at the New Jersey shore that was so heavily impacted by super storm Sandy.
Mr Sustainable, Dante DiPirro, will be a speaker at the Earth Day Gathering at historic Camp Evans, 2201 Marconi Rd, Wall, NJ, 07719.
Competitive bids for long-term solar credit contracts is an approach that has been adopted in several states including Connecticut, New York, Delaware, and Massachusetts. Will this be the next new trend in incentives and financing for solar electric projects?
In the United States, states have tried various approaches to provide incentives to spur development of the solar industry. The first was the rebate approach. With this type of incentive system, the state provides grant funding upfront to a project to lessen large initial costs and funds the rebate program with a small charge on the monthly bills of electric ratepayers in the state. New Jersey used this approach very successfully to become the second leading state in the United States for installed solar projects. Some policymakers wanted to move beyond a rebate system and others favored a more market-based approach.
This led to the second approach to state solar incentives: the solar renewable energy credit or SREC approach. Under the SREC system, the government does not provide financial assistance upfront to finance the solar project. Rather, after a business or residence has constructed the solar system, and put the system into operation, it will qualify for credits based on the systems production: for every 1000 kilowatt-hours of power generated, the system owner receives one solar credit which in turn can be sold for money on the open market. The demand for the purchase of such credits and is created by a state requirement that a certain portion of all electricity sold in New Jersey be generated from clean, renewable sources. As a practical matter, this means that the entity selling power must either have its own renewable energy generating systems or must purchase solar credits.
New Jersey is an example of the state that moved from rebates to SRECs. About two years ago, New Jersey terminated all rebates and moved exclusively to an SREC approach. At first, the SREC system worked because the credits had enough value on the open market to provide incentives for the construction of solar systems. Unfortunately, New Jersey’s lack of structure for the SREC market place permitted new construction to outpace the reasonable availability of demand for credits. In response, the value of SREC’s crashed in 2012. This has resulted in an extreme slowdown in the solar construction in New Jersey and has imperiled thousands of local, solar jobs.
In the past year or two, there has been a new movement toward the development of a long-term contract incentive approach. In this incentive system, project developers bid in competitively for long-term SREC contracts. For example, in a developer may submit a bid saying that it wishes to contract with an energy seller if the entity will guarantee a specified SREC value for a specified period of time. The state acts as a mere broker and the decision whether the bid will be accepted is wholly up to the energy seller. This approach is market-based because the price is set by private parties making decisions in an open market. It also has the value of establishing an income stream over a long-term which is what is required for developers to be willing to construct new projects since they know what they will receive in SREC income. This allows them the ability to calculate if the project will provide a return on investment and that in turn provides a substantial advantage over the current SREC system where, as in New Jersey, the parties have no way of knowing what the value that SREC will be more than 3 or 5 years out for a system that will be in operation for 20-30 years.
Delaware, Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts are all piloting long-term contracting programs. New Jersey, in addition to having its SREC system, does permit a small portion of the industry to be provided incentives through long-term contracts via its EDC program. However, the small size of the program, means that it has not reached its full potential there.
Whether competitively bid, long-term contracting will be the next big trend in solar remains to be seen. It must be said that it does try to target certain weaknesses that have been revealed in the SREC approach.
Mr Sustainable will speak at 2:45 pm about his off-grid, solar home and how to build using solar power and sustainable building materials. He will show pictures and discuss passive solar design and materials.
Sustainability will be the order of the entire day at the Expo.
Sustainable Lawrence is a large group of residents, businesses, congregations, and other organizations dedicated to creating a sustainable community in Lawrence Township, NJ.
Its mission is to encourage the people and institutions of Lawrence Township to cooperatively adopt fundamental principles of sustainability and to develop policies and practices that fulfill those principles.
Its policies and policies include:
The Expo is an event open to the public in which residents, non-profits, businesses, community leaders, government leaders, and experts get together to share information.
This year’s Expo will include numerous speakers, displays of electric and hybrid cards, and booths with sustainable items and information.
Previous year’s Expos were attended by hundreds of people and this year’s event is sure to please!
Open to the public. Held at Lawrenceville High School 2525 Lawrence Road, Lawrence NJ. Hours: Noon to 4pm.
Mr Sustainable, Dante DiPirro, will be speaking on sustainable energy & building 3/15/13 at 7 pm at 203 Hopewell Wertsville Road, Hopewell, NJ. The talk will include principles of passive solar design, solar power, and sustainable building materials, using information from the off-grid, solar home that he designed and built. The event is open to the public.
The US budget sequestration will reduce grants for the solar industry. While the sequestration, which went into effect today, will not impact the 30% federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC) for commercial or residential solar projects, it will reduce the federal grant program (Section 1603 grant in lieu of ITC). The amount of the grant reduction has yet to be announced by the US Treasury Department.
When we rebuild residences and businesses after Hurricane Sandy, let’s use sustainable energy and building materials as much as possible.
Energy efficient and energy-saving materials pay for themselves in just a few short years, and provide tremendous cost benefits over the long-term. Since we’re going to be rebuilding anyway, and since what we build is going not be around for decades, let’s do it now and let’s do it right!
Good ideas for sustainable building materials to use include:
While we’re planning, let’s not forget about sustainable energy. Adding solar panels or a solar hot water system can easily be made part of the overall construction project. Even though NJ state incentives are not what they used to be, a solar system can still be paid off in a few years and the system will last for 25-30 years. And if you don’t want to put down money up front on construction of a solar system, you can opt for an arrangement where you lease the roof space to a third-party, who installs and owns the system, and you get a reduction in your electric bills.
Any way you look at it, sustainable energy and building materials can give you cost-savings, a comfortable living or working space, and satisfaction from living in a healthy and sustainable way.
Governments should support the effort too, providing fast tracking for construction that is sustainable, and special incentives to promote disaster relief that uses sustainable building materials.
This would be an excellent way to help those affected by the storm, and it would also reduce energy costs, save energy, and promote our economy and local jobs.
Let’s not miss this opportunity!
Germany is the world’s leader in solar adoption.
A friend commented to me that flying into Germany recently, he could not believe how many solar panels he saw as he approached from the air. And the panels were not just in big solar farms but on businesses and residences in great numbers too.
Germany’s success is not based on having more sun that other places in the world.
Its success comes from the fact that it adopted very successful policies for solar.
And Germany’s solar policy makes solar cost half as much to install as it does in America.
PV America East is one of the major conferences for the solar industry in the United States. It’s in town in Philadelphia this week with close to 4,000 professionals and nearly 100 exhibitors. Leaders in the industry and interested customers will all be there showing off the latest in technology, financing, and services.
Everyone is excited about the continuing drop in the cost of installing solar energy generating systems. Much of the cost reduction has come from the plummeting in the price of photovoltaic panels, which have gone down more than 75% over the past five years. This is making solar energy more and more affordable, and approaching “grid parity” the time at which the cost of solar will be equal to the cost of producing electricity from conventional, more polluting sources.
There’s also excitement about the continued rise in the amount of PV installed in the US. In 2012, the Solar Energy Industries Association reported that residential rooftop installations were up 30 percent from the previous year, and total rooftop installations, including commercial buildings, grew over 100% during this time.
Solar energy is especially beneficial when the demand for electricity is the greatest and cost of electricity is greatest. When a high level of power is called for – such as on a hot summer day when air conditioners are in use – solar and wind already out-compete coal, nuclear or natural gas, since the added cost of sending more electricity to the grid from solar panels or wind turbines is much less. This is sometimes referred to as the “merit order effect” and it has already cause savvy consumers to turn to solar power. See Bloomberg BusinessWeek “Solar Energy is Ready. The U.S. Isn’t.
And there’s good news from other countries about the success of solar providing larger and larger percentages of a country’s power demand. For example, Germany passed a notable benchmark in last year, when its solar power market met almost half of the country’s electric demand at mid-day on Saturday in May, and a third of its needs on a Friday, when industrial usage what high. Wharton School University of Pennsylvania Article “Germany proves solar energy is no mirage.” http://knowledgetoday.wharton.upenn.edu/2012/05/sunspots-germany-proves-solar-energy-is-no-mirage/
Germany, a world leader in the development of solar power, is not producing a small overall amount of solar power by any stretch of the imagination: on these very sunny two days, it produced power equal to the generating capacity of about 20 nuclear stations. See Wharton Article. These facts continue to establish that solar can play, and in places already has played, a successful role in large-scale energy production.
This all makes it a good time for the United States to get squarely behind solar. We can build our economy, provide good jobs, and reduce our dependence on foreign sources of fuel – all while improving our environment and health.
If you get the chance, check out PV America East 2013, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia Pennsylvania, and please stop back again to read future posts.
Solar-powered home is a shining example of what can be accomplished with innovative thinking outside the grid.
During the assault and aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, his East Amwell residence was bright with light gleaned from the sun through solar panels.
Every small step toward sustainability is a small step away from unremitting dependence on the Earth’s finite supply of fossil fuels.
When Dante DiPirro was 11, he built a contraption from old mirrors that directed the sun’s heat toward a single point. The makeshift solar collector was his sixth-grade science fair project.
Now, decades later, DiPirro is still experimenting with sunlight. Calling himself Mr. Sustainable, the lawyer, blogger and self-styled environmental consultant designed the system of solar panels that powers his off-grid East Amwell, New Jersey home.
