systems

SUPERIOR, Wisc. — Groundbreaking has taken place for Superior’s first community solar garden along Hammond Avenue.

Superior Water, Light and Power will refer to space as Superior Sun to mark this renewable energy cycle. At 470 kilowatts, Superior Solar will be large enough to power more than 100 homes. Project managers will rely on local labor and Minnesota-made solar panels.

Project manager Joscelyn Scandel said: “Any customer interested in participating in solar energy can subscribe to the garden. Then, after they subscribe to the garden, the solar energy generated through the garden loans is offset against the actual customer’s account.”

This project has been under development since 2018 and is expected to produce energy by the summer of 2023. As most subscriptions fill up quickly, there are still some spaces available in the 1 kilowatt block.

If you would like to subscribe, you can visit Superior Water, Light and Power’s website.

What’s going on

stocks First Sun On Wednesday (FSLR 5.64%) rose 5.6%, continuing the solar panel maker’s share price gains following the passage of climate-focused legislation in mid-August.

So what

The Inflation Relief Act of 2022 was signed into law by President Joe Biden on August 16. The bill includes $369 billion in energy security and climate change investments designed to reduce US carbon emissions by nearly 40% by 2030.

Two weeks later, First Solar announced plans to build a new panel factory in the US for about $1 billion. The new site is projected to produce 3.5 gigawatts (GW) of solar modules annually by 2025. For context, the entire U.S. solar industry generates about 126 GW, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.

CEO Mark Widmar cited the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) as the main reason the company chose to invest in local manufacturing capabilities. “With this kind of alignment, you can create partnerships and opportunities to grow together, and maybe create a more win-win structure than we had before the introduction of the IRA,” Widmar said.

Now what

Wall Street is excited about First Solar’s new expansion strategy. On August 31 Bank of America analyst Julien Dumoulin-Smith reiterated his buy rating on the stock and raised his share price forecast to $152 from $141. Dumoulin-Smith expects the company’s new production capacity to enable a higher supply of premium panels from the US and to increase profits accordingly.

Later that day, Baird analyst Ben Kallo also raised his price target for First Solar to $164 from $119 and reiterated his outperform rating. Kallo believes the company’s manufacturing investments will strengthen its position in the US solar industry.

Bank of America is an advertising partner of The Ascent, a Motley Fool company. Joe Tenebruso has no position in any of the stocks listed. The Motley Fool recommends First Solar. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

This is the seventh in a series of blogs celebrating grant projects funded under the Clean Air Act with the owners of the ED Edwards coal-fired power plant outside Peoria, Illinois. The settlement calls for the plant to close by the end of 2022 and provides $8.6 million for local job training, lung health, energy efficiency, solar energy and bus electrification projects. Each blog features the great work one of the township grantees is doing to promote public health and quality of life in the Peoria, Illinois area.

At Woodruff Career and Technical Center, a public vocational high school in Peoria, Illinois, teacher Michael Bricks invites a second group of students to a two-year Renewable Energy Training course funded by the Peoria Public Schools District (PPS). Edwards Settlement Fund. The training grant complements a second Edwardian grant that PPS used to install a solar array on the Center’s roof, and the students’ coursework will include inspecting the panels and supervising their work.

Solar panels on the roof of the Woodruff Career and Technical Center in Peoria, IL.

Woodruff was built in 1937 and served as one of four comprehensive high schools operated by Peoria Public Schools until 2010. In 2011, it became a specialized career and technical school where students can take vocational and trade-oriented classes located in PPS’s three general secondary schools. Programs offered at Woodruff include construction, barbering, cosmetology, information technology and landscape design, among others.

The Renewable Energy Training course is designed to provide in-depth and hands-on training, and in each unit, students spend over two hours with Mr. Brix each school day. To complement the classroom sessions, Mr. Brix’s students organize field trips to look at renewable energy sources—solar panels being installed on 100 acres of cornfields, wind turbines operating nearby, an electric bus that recently launched with support, a separate one in Peoria’s public transit district (CityLink). From an Edwards Foundation grant and even an electric car Mr. Brix recently traded in for a truck. The course also provides students with internships to gain work-based knowledge in the renewable energy sector. The ultimate goal of the course, consistent with Woodruff’s mission, is for students to graduate ready to enter a two- or four-year post-secondary experience in a course-related field such as solar panel installation (construction), solar energy, or a living wage career path. energy monitoring (information technology), architecture or project management. With the growing demand for jobs in the renewable energy sector, Mr. Brix’s training at Woodruff should be invaluable to students.

Having worked in construction before moving into teaching, Mr. Brix is ​​incredibly passionate about renewable energy sources and all that they offer to his students. His enthusiasm paid off; Every student in the first cohort of the Renewable Energy Training course chose to re-enroll and complete the second year of the curriculum. We thank Mr. Brix and the Peoria Public Schools for their investment in Peoria’s clean energy transition, and we look forward to where the students will spend their education after graduation.

Other projects funded by Edwards include a solar array at Peoria’s Romain Community Center for Arts and Culture; Expanding the job assistance program operated by Jubilee Ministries of Peoria; electric buses that two Peoria-area school districts are adding to their fleets; increased scholarship for PeoriaCorps’ Green Infrastructure training program; Launching a new all-electric bus for Peoria’s transit district; and training two yoga instructors at a local yoga studio. NRDC and its bidders selected the projects with the help of community partners Central Illinois Healthy Community Alliance, Illinois People’s Action and the Peoria NAACP. For a complete listing of the project, visit EdwardsCleanAirSettlement.org.

California has waged a decades-long war against sanity and the laws of physics in the name of saving the planet by pouring tons of nonstop renewable energy into the grid. After years of destroying the grid and driving up energy costs, sanity seems to have prevailed.

California lawmakers last week approved legislation backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to extend the life of Diablo Canyon, the last remaining nuclear power plant. A $1.4 billion settlement may seem expensive, but it’s a steal compared to a power outage.

Pro-nuclear activists like Michael Shellenberger, Kristin Zaitz, and Heather Hoff deserve credit for making sure that this pillar of grid reliability, along with the Nuclear Mothers, continues for another five years, hopefully longer. They prevailed against good environmental groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which years ago pressured the state to close Diablo Canyon.

Not surprisingly, the Natural Resources Defense Council still plays a role in increasing the risk of blackouts for Californians. The agreement to close the plant “still serves as a model for an orderly and equitable transition from older power plants to less costly and more flexible clean energy sources,” said Victoria Roma, the council’s California Government Affairs Director.

By “flexible” he means unreliable. Wind and solar power are limited by weather conditions and cannot be turned up or down only on demand. The idea that renewables are “less expensive” is based on poor accounting that excludes the high cost of batteries and backup generation needed when the wind goes out or the sun goes down.

No amount of lofty rhetoric about the virtues of “going green” or apocalyptic climate propaganda can change the fact that wind and solar are not cut out to power the modern industrial societies that Europe is currently studying.

California gets about 34% of its electricity from renewable sources, mostly wind and solar. Not surprisingly, residential electricity rates in June 2022 were about 29 cents per kilowatt hour, more than double the national average. As California mandates 100% of its electricity to come from non-carbon sources by 2045, rates will only go up.

Diablo Canyon’s two reactors provide about 9% of California’s electricity. Shutting down this important source of electricity would be disastrous for residents and the economy as the state moves toward blackout.

Unfortunately, keeping Diablo Canyon running alone is not enough to save Californians from climate policies imposed by the political class and elites.

In the days following the Diablo Canyon vote, state lawmakers passed a series of climate bills with more aggressive targets to phase out fossil fuels and reduce emissions. Of course, nuclear energy has been excluded from the state’s “green” electricity mandate.

Earlier, California joined Oregon and Washington in opposing a major natural gas pipeline. Newsom wants to ban fracking, and regulators have already limited drilling permits. Don’t worry, there’s more!

California officials have banned the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035, effectively mandating electric vehicles. A week later, California’s grid operator issued a “flexible warning” for another heat wave and urged residents, among other things, not to charge their electric cars between 4:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m.

Why? The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) warned that this is “when the grid is most stressed due to higher demand and less solar.”

Diablo Canyon has certainly provided a stable power supply to the grid as temperatures rise, but it’s not enough. Given Newsom’s zeal for a “green” transition, it seems doubtful that common sense will yield more energy policy victories during his tenure. Or until the network reaches another breaking point… which probably won’t be long.

The fact is, California needs more Diablo Canyons. But for that to happen, their leaders will have to end the war in their sanity.

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According to industry officials, at least 25 GW of solar projects face delays or uncertainties due to rising module prices or supply constraints.

Cost pressures are significant for projects with Solar Energy Corp and GUVNL bidding for aggressive tariffs in the 2020-21 auctions to win contracts. National Solar Federation of India CEO Subrahmanyam Pulipaka said the tariff impact for these projects is Rs 0.5-0.8 per unit.

“These projects should have been either commissioned or in advanced stages of construction by now,” said an industry official.

“Since the Basic Customs Duty (BCD) for these projects auctioned during 2020-21 has not passed due to the change in law, they have become impossible and may not be implemented,” the official added.

He noted that the gap between awarded projects and implemented projects is widening. India imposed 40% BCD on solar module imports and 25% on cell imports from April this year to encourage domestic manufacturing.

Solar manufacturers have made several submissions to the government over the past 4-5 months, seeking relief from higher import duties and mandatory purchase of equipment from a government-approved list of models and manufacturers for a period of two years.

They also sought exemption of previous draft proposals from the new fee structure.

A senior government official said the issues have been taken up at the Center and the demands of the solar industry are being considered.

Industry sources said only 58 GW of the 100 GW capacity targeted by 2022 under the National Solar Mission. The problem threatens additional targets of 450 GW of renewable power by 2030, including 280 GW of solar power. The country has added 10 GW of solar capacity by 2021, and needs to add about 30 GW annually to meet the target.

A nearly 40% increase in module prices due to strong post-Covid demand, polysilicon supply bottlenecks and unprecedented increases in ocean freight rates and prices of commodities such as copper, silver, aluminum and steel have pushed up the cost.

The depreciation of the rupee by nearly 7% this year and the increased GST levy have further increased the project costs.

The Indian solar market is heavily dependent on imports as more than 90% of equipment is sourced from Chinese suppliers. The government has announced a Manufacturing Linked Incentive scheme to encourage local manufacturing.

“As modules typically account for 60-70% of the cost of an entire solar project, this increase in prices has exposed many renewable projects to large losses and non-renewable projects,” said the official.

Imported solar modules now cost about 40 cents per watt, compared to 27-28 cents for imported modules 18 months ago, while domestic solar modules cost 37 cents per watt.