Solar Industry News

LONDON | Mon Sep 12, 2011 10:58am EDT LONDON (Reuters) - Former Vice President Al Gore will renew his 30-year campaign to convince skeptics of the link between climate change and extreme weather events this week in a 24-hour global multi-media event. "24 Hours of Reality" will broadcast a presentation by Al Gore every hour for 24 hours across 24 different time zones from Wednesday to Thursday, with the aim of convincing climate change deniers and driving action against global warming among households, schools and businesses. The campaign also asks people to hand over control of their social networking accounts on Facebook and Twitter to it for 24 hours to deliver Gore's message. "There will be 200 new slides arguing the connection between more extreme weather and climate change," Trewin Restorick, chief executive of the event's UK partner Global Action Plan, told Reuters on Monday. "There will be a full-on assault on climate skeptics, exploring where they get their funding from." Gore tried to raise awareness about global warming in the 2006 documentary film "An Inconvenient Truth," which earned $49 million at the box office worldwide. The film was criticized by some climate change skeptics for being one-sided. Concern about climate change in the United States, the world's second biggest emitter, has fallen steadily to 48 percent in 2011, from 62 percent in 2007, an opinion poll showed in August. Gore's presentation will be available at: climaterealityproject.org/ (Reporting by Nina Chestney, editing by Paul Casciato) From:http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/12/us-gore-climatechange-idUSTRE78B2GT20110912

http://www.cleanenergyauthority.com/solar-energy-news/solar-energy-news-recap-082911/ Chris Meehan Aug 29, 2011 The solar industry was on a roller-coaster ride last week, echoing in many ways the larger market turbulence the world’s been experiencing since early August. Some companies filed for bankruptcy and others changed their strategies to remain competitive. But elsewhere plans, plants and projects moved forward, showing the industry is not facing a long, steep drop, but rather a lot of bumps. Evergreen Solar Inc. and SpectraWatt Inc. have recently filed for bankruptcy following a dismal second quarter driven by lower silicon costs and increased market competition. Evergreen’s proprietary string ribbon silicon technology was impacted significantly by continual precipitous drops in the price of silicon. SpectraWatt said it couldn’t compete with pricing competition from China. At least one analyst said that other companies may follow suit and that a drop in subsidies could have a large negative effect on solar manufacturers. Meanwhile, Solon, a German company with a U.S. subsidiary, said it would stop manufacturing modules in the U.S. as it seeks to change its operating strategy in the states. Instead it will focus on commercial and utility-scale turnkey solutions in the U.S. The news came after Solon reported earnings for the first half of 2011 that were lower than expected. Solar thermal power experienced a particularly bumpy ride last week. Based on Solar Millennium subsidiary Solar Trust of America's decision to transition the first half of its 1 gigawatt Blythe Solar Project from a concentrating solar plant (CSP) using parabolic troughs to a photovoltaic plant, some are wondering if interest in CSP is waning. There are a couple of reasons to support the theory. For instance, the cost of photovoltaics has come down quicker than expected, and photovoltaics are quicker to deploy in small units that large CSP systems. But to say the interest in solar thermal is gone is premature. BrightSource Energy recently filed to develop the Hidden Hills project, a 500-megawatt solar thermal project in California. That company, which already has broken ground on the 392-megawatt Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, is moving forward on plans to develop 2.6 gigawatts of solar thermal projects. One of the most important things for all utility-scale, gigantic installations planned for the U.S. Southwest is to get underway right now, particularly those like First Solar’s Desert Sunlight Solar Farm. Work on that project is set to begin in the coming weeks. In fact, to be eligible for the DOE federal loan guarantee, such projects must break ground by Sept. 30. Large-scale solar projects in the U.S. Southwest are starting to outpace residential and commercial demand. But residential solar in increasing. For instance, four homebuilders in San Antonio, Texas, are now offering photovoltaics as a standard option on new homes. That’s thanks partly to strong incentives offered by CSP Energy, the local utility, which set ambitious goals to increase the amount of renewables in its energy mix as opposed to cleaning up existing fossil-fueled power plants. In Santa Barbara, Calif., the county government took a slightly different approach. The government supported a project to install photovoltaics on low-income housing. Once completed, the project will give more than 1,000 families in subsidized housing access to solar power and lower-cost electric bills. Then there’s falling victim to your own success, as happened last week in Minnesota when Xcel Energy said its Solar Rewards incentive program for homeowners and commercial entities was fully committed for 2011. Applicants that didn’t apply in time this year can move forward with the installation process and remain eligible for the incentives in 2012. States are working to increase their share of the solar industry. For instance, the Missouri Partnership, a public-private nonprofit corporation, has helped bring more clean energy companies into the state. Photo: Chris Meehan / Clean Energy Authority.

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