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UK Solar Feed in Tariff Review Likely To Be Brought Forward

October 24th, 2011 Posted by Admin in News, Renewable Energy, Solar, Solar Investment, Uncategorized

Is now the optimum time to invest in UK solar

The UK solar industry is about to enter its next phase. Since the introduction of the UK feed in tariff back in April 2010 the industry has grown at an exponential rate. The below graph demonstrates this meteoric rise.

The falling price of solar panels coupled with aggressive marketing by solar developers has seen Septembers solar installation exceed all expectation.
This curve will only escalate as we get closer to the feed in tariff review in April 2012. However there could be a substantial drop off should the government decide to bring forward its feed in tariff review as is looking increasingly lively.

The feed in tariff when conceptualised back in 2010 was never meant to be this profitable for developers or rooftop owners alike. A privileged owner of a south facing rooftop in the Devon or Cornwall can expect a return on investment well in excess of 15% pa rising with inflation. This would result in a payback period of some 7 years at very conservative inflation levels.

You may also have seen adverts for free solar installations, large funds and institutional money are poring into the sector trying to secure as much of the feed in tariff as possible before the reduction. There wont be many opportunities like this to secure a double digit, inflation linked, government backed return, and I suspect these contracts will be changing hands for vastly inflated prices in the next 5 years given inflation rates.

So how much will the feed in tariff be cut by? The figure most people are bandying around appears to be 40% this would bring it back to somewhere near to where the original ROI was positioned still make the industry profitable if slightly less appealing.

In the recent blog post by David Owen, Founder and CEO of Solar Media, points to the fact that solar PV is likely to once again become the victim of its own success. The “unless earlier action is deemed necessary” quote used by Solomon-Williams most certainly refers to the amount of PV installed in recent months, pointing towards a significant cut in feed-in tariffs which could take place at another fast-track review.

So we know the review is coming its now a matter of making hay while the sun shines…

We know solar is profitable, and if you have a south facing roof there has never been or probably ever will be a better time to fit a system to your roof. Not to mention the rising cost of energy bills, you may also have aspirations of owning an electric car one day, with a free fuel pump attached to your roof this will prove more than just a small saving given petrol prices.

But not all of us are blessed with a roof let alone a south facing one, I personally live in an apartment next to a very tally shady oak tree. So is there any way I can get a piece of the feed in tariff before its gone without moving house?
Willow Rivers has partnered with one of the South Wests largest Solar developers who have successfully signed up a large number of South facing residential and commercial rooftops for the benefit of private investors into solar.

This is a Win Win for all parties involved, the rooftop owner who is unable to afford the outlay for the systems gets money of their utility bills and a small income form the export tariff and you the investor takes ownership of the generation tariff and the income stream this achieves for the next 25 years.

This equates to a 9.5% first year yield rising with inflation over the next 25 years (average 14% pa base on 4% RPI). By only taking rooftops in the south west we maintain the highest return on investment and optimise our investors returns.

Sadly given the above changes to the FIT this opportunity will not be around for much longer, the drop in feed in tariff will likely bring the yield down to 6% however for those that do get in before the closing date they will own one of the most valuable and fully tradable commodities around for the next 25 year. Given the difficulty in finding inflation beating investments we expect the gold rush to continue for some time yet.

To find out more about owning solar rooftop systems in the South West please visit http://www.willowrivers.com/solar-investment-uk-asset.shtml

Growth of the UK solar sector since the advent of the FIT

Growth of the UK solar sector since the advent of the FIT

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Solar Bond: Power Plant Site Visit amidst the Solar Rush

April 6th, 2011 Posted by Admin in Renewable Energy, Solar Investment

At the end of March the Willow Rivers team met with our Solar Bond’s solar power plant development team in Sofia, Bulgaria, to visit the power plant site as well as other plants connected or under development by the developer. With photo-voltaic teams from all over the world trying to secure their share of the ’solar gold rush’ in Bulgaria, the visit was a resounding success and only emphasised the unique opportunity that exists in Bulgaria at the moment.

A unique combination of high irradition levels, comparatively low land and labour costs, a generous feed in tariff now fixed at €0.3579/kwh, a practically new market (with only 25mw connected as of Dec 2010) and a government strategy outlining at least 600mw needed to fulfill EU renewable energy requirements, there was a genuine buzz in the air.

team on site of solar power plant

team on site of solar power plant

Having recently agreed a line of finance form a Norwegian Bank (AAA rated) we were also joined by their representative from Norway who is supported by the Norwegian Government´s export finance division. His industry insight and PV financing experience from Spain to France and Germany re-enforced that this is the only place to be right now for solar PV development.

Our first stop after meeting with AAA co-guarantor banks in Sofia was an existing connected park owned and managed by EVN, a large Austrian/Bulgarian utility provider responsible for off-taking the electricity produced by our plant. The secure park housed a combination of standard fixed PV panels with double tracker systems, where the panel is mounted on a motorised platform, which can swivel to harvest optimal radiation levels throughout the days. Our solar bond power plant will have a combination of the two.
(more…)

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Spain’s Real Energy Problem

March 1st, 2011 Posted by Admin in Renewable Energy

Recent murmurings about changing Spanish renewable energy policies have caused serious discomfort within the renewable energy development and finance industry recently. An interesting insight into the Spanish energy industry below explains how the combination of a questionable long-standing energy policy, the slow accumulation of annual electricity cost deficit, EU renewable energy policy requirements and finally the credit crisis has left the Spanish government with few options but to get creative.

The Spanish regulation in question has limited how much electricity rates could rise for homeowners and industry each year over the past decade. As energy costs have surged this has left an annual deficit recently reaching €4bn in one year and finally totaling over €20bn by 2009. This debt was packaged in to securitized debt and sold on the capital markets.

In line with EU renewable energy policy goals, Spain was one of the first to make serious attempts to reach their RE goals. However with the very costly exercise of renewable energy funding, the country´s deficit only worsened. Despite their positive attitude, it seems Spain´s efforts were poorly timed. With the immediate onset of the credit crisis the government was no longer able to find buyers for their securitized debt.
(more…)

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Italy installs 2GW of solar PV in 2010

February 2nd, 2011 Posted by Admin in Renewable Energy

Official reports in last week confirmed that Italy installed nearly 2GW (1,850MW) of photovoltaic power plants during 2010 alone. This continues a rapid growth curve in Italian PV power plants over the past few years from just 60MW in 2007 to 340MW in 2008 and 711MW in 2009. Italy´s 2010 tally more than doubles the figure achieved in the United States who did not quite reach 1GW.

Italian utility provider GSE has outlined that an additional 4GW is already pipelined for installation in the coming years. In accordance with Italy´s 2020 renewable energy targets, the total installed PV target is 8GW in total which will produce almost 3% of the country´s electricity demand itself.

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U.S PV to double in 2011

December 14th, 2010 Posted by Admin in Renewable Energy

According to IDC Energy Insights the U.S total photovoltaic market growth is expected to double in 2011. With roughly 1GW of installations in 2010, as the PV market cost continues to drop this figure is expected to double to around 2GW in 2011. IDC Energy Insights have recently released a study that focuses on the U.S market, including production cost fall-off, government legislation subsidies and incentives, and technological advancements. Whilst the U.S currently lags behind European solar powers Germany and Spain the 2011 growth forecasts indicate that in the near future the global economic powerhouse may well catch up this decade. So much hangs on the legislation, which has ultimately caused the slow-down in Spain´s market.

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Americas Largest PV Plant Opens

December 8th, 2010 Posted by Admin in Renewable Energy

Last week the largest PV power plant in the U.S. quietly went online in Boulder City, Nevada, about 40 miles southeast of Las Vegas. Sempra Generation’s 48-MW Copper Mountain Solar Facility began construction in January 2010 and on Dec 1st, the company announced that it had finished the project and the facility was now generating electricity.

At its peak, Sempra said, more than 350 construction workers were installing the 775,000 First Solar panels that power the plant on the 380-acre site.

The power from Copper Mountain Solar and Sempra Generation’s adjacent 10-MW El Dorado Solar plant has been sold to Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) under separate 20-year contracts. California utilities are required to procure 20 percent of their energy supply from alternative sources by the end of 2010, increasing to 33 percent by 2020.

The completion of the project eclipsed the 20-MW DeSoto PV plant in Arcadia Florida, which was the previous record holder for the largest U.S. solar power plant.

This moves the U.S. into the “top five” when it comes to large PV power plants; only Canada, Italy, Germany and Spain have bigger plants, according PV Power Plants 2010, which ranks the top 50 facilities.

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EUROPES PV MARKET INCREASING

November 30th, 2010 Posted by Admin in Renewable Energy

Global solar inverter shipments soared in the third quarter to a record figure of 7.3 GW, according to IMS Research.

Volume surged nearly 50% from 5 GW in the second quarter, largely due to growing demand in Europe and Asia, said the UK-based PV market intelligence firm. While the rise in German demand has slowed, other new European markets also fared well, expanding by more than 300% year-on-year.

Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) accounted for around 80% of inverter shipments in the third quarter of 2010.

“Again we are referring to a record quarter for inverter suppliers with the previous record of 5 GW of shipments in Q2’10 being beaten by almost 50% in Q3’10,” said Tom Haddon, a PV analyst at IMS Research.

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A History of Global Warming

July 26th, 2010 Posted by Admin in Renewable Energy

Following the start of the industrial revolution, in 1824 Jean-Baptiste Fourier discovered a global warming “greenhouse” effect and in 1896 Swedish and American scientists independently concluded that CO2 was the likely cause of global warming. Nearly 90 years later in 1987 the WMO and UNEP established a scientific advisory body called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which issued its First Assessment Report in 1990, finding that the planet had warmed by 0.5°C in the past century and would rise further by 0.3°C per decade in the 21st century, accompanied by global mean sea level rises of 6 cm per decade. In 2007 the IPCC released its Fourth Assessment Report, concluding with 90% confidence that human activity is causing climate change and that “Global GHG emissions due to human activities have grown since pre-industrial times with an increase of 70% between 1970 and 2004.”

In 2008 our planet was estimated to contain 385 ppm (parts per million) of CO2 in its atmosphere, the highest concentration of CO2 for more than 630,000 years. This is widely agreed to be due to human industrial advancement, specifically the production and consumption of power from the burning of fossil fuels that are estimated to have caused around 85% of CO2 emissions. It is known that global temperature increase must be kept within 2°C to prevent an irreversible chain reaction of greenhouse gas release from forests, peat bogs, Siberian permafrost and oceans, which would change the planet’s ecosystems irrevocably. To ensure this temperature rise does not occur concentration of CO2 must not pass 450 ppm, which means reducing CO2 emissions to 60% below 1990 levels before 2030.

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The Flexible Future of Solar

June 20th, 2009 Posted by Admin in Renewable Energy

Hefty upfront costs and heavy bulky units with installation issues are the two main problems restraining the proliferation of traditional solar panels in decentralized locations. Due to technological breakthroughs this may soon now change.

Lightweight and flexible thin-film technology discovered by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in conjunction with the Department of Energy in the 1990’s is now being applied specifically to solar panels. Traditional solar panel systems physically limit any installations’ capacity, whereas the flexible thin-film technology is expected to have far greater architectural applications, potentially integrated in to all large building surfaces.

Researchers at Vitex, owners of the technology license, are investigating how to apply their encapsulation and moisture-barrier technology to solar panels made from Cadmium Telluride, CdTe, the latest in efficient photo-voltaic panels. For building applications the new think-film flexible solar panels will need to withstand harsh UV light and also 25 years of Mother Nature’s worst. Their second major challenge is making this a commercially viable alternative by enabling mass production in order to reduce the costs and make the electricity produced challenge current utilities $/KW.

Governments and major companies continue to focus on centralized solar power stations using combinations of Solar Thermal Energy Generation (Concentrated Solar Power using mirrors) and traditional photo-voltaic cells. PG&E for example have over 300MW of solar capacity installed and almost 2 GW under planning. However this thin-film technology is a giant leap forward towards de-centralising the supply and therefore reducing transportation and storage losses.

Companies such as Evolution Solar Corporation see solar as the major growth industry as our economies move towards more green energy solutions. “With prices dropping and efficiency rising, we see solar as the next big thing in alternative energy at a time when demand is being pushed hard by Congress and the Obama administration” stated Robert Keepke, CEO of Evolution Solar Corp. EVSO commercialise alternative solar energy and related photo-voltaic technologies, equipment and next generation appliances. They expect to grow rapidly along with competitors such as Sun Power, First Solar, Trina Solar and LDK Solar Co.

thin-film solar panels

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Africa to supply 15% of European Energy Demands

June 19th, 2009 Posted by Admin in Renewable Energy

The inspirational DESERTEC foundation has recently received a boost to its program from a consortium of German energy companies dedicated to constructing enormous solar thermal plants in North Africa.

DESERTEC itself is a foundation set up to support, assist and advise all those interested in developing energy projects in global deserts. DESERTEC’s Founder Dr Gerhard Knies states “Within 6 hours deserts receive more energy from the sun than humankind consumes within a year”.

One of DESERTEC’s major stakeholders is TREC, the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Corporation, whose goals are to supply European energy demands by harnessing the enormous solar energy potential within North Africa.

The German consortium including around 20 major energy and financial groups such as Siemens, Deutsche Bank and Munich Re, intend on investing up to €400bn on developing solar thermal energy projects in the most politically stable regions of North Africa. It is believed that over the course of ten years, the ultimate potential could be to provide up to 15% of Europe’s total energy demands.

Fingers crossed for an incredibly ambitious project that could have significant impact on reduction of Carbon Dioxide from alternative coal-fired power stations.

Sahara Solar imagination

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India’s National Mission to capture 5 Trillion MWh

June 18th, 2009 Posted by Admin in Renewable Energy

With over 5 Trillion MWh per annum received from the sun every year, India’s future solar power production potential is obviously enormous.

Thankfully the Indian government have been working on a “National Solar Mission”, which outlines the plans for a national target of 10% of national grid supply by 2012, 20GW solar power production by 2020, 100GW by 2030 and an enormous 200GW by 2050.

India already possesses a solid PV manufacturing base, with 19 PV module manufacturing planets and total annual production around 300 MW, however 85% is currently exported. India also already has 33 solar power plants connected to its grid however with transmission and distribution losses large over long distances, many more in distributed locations are required. The plan encompasses a broad range of implementation from building large-scale solar plants, both PV and CSP, installing solar power units in existing power plants to onsite rooftop installation of PV cells on major buildings including telecom towers.

To finance these dream targets, the government requires around $20bn over the next 30 years which will be generated by taxing fossil fuel industries and supply chains as well as funds already promised from developed nations. India also plans to remove taxes on imported solar equipment and subsidize semi-conductor industries to ignite the local PV manufacturing market.

With a booming high-tech manufacturing industry and a skilled labour base, India hopes that within the next 10 years their mass production and technological improvements will have pushed solar energy production down to $8 cents /KWhr, making it a financially competitive alternative to fossil fuels.

With over 5 Trillion MWh per annum, India could easily survive on solar power alone, so we watch with anticipation as this program rolls out.

india-solar-power

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Amazon Hydro Project now full steam ahead

June 16th, 2009 Posted by Admin in Renewable Energy

Following much resistance from local campaigners and negative publicity and fines due to illegally de-foresting beyond the necessary limits, the “Energia Sustentavel do Brasil” have finally been awarded the environmental licence to complete the 3.3 GW Amazonian hydro plant.

Energia Sustantavel do Brasil won the rights to the R$9bn dam on the Madeira river after offering to sell electricity at just over R$71 per MWhr. Having won the project however they then tried to move the site 9km downstream and the projects environmental license had to be re-assessed.

The State of Rondonia will receive R$90m in environmental compensation funds, including a land swap for alternative existing forest and also R$69m to go to Porto Velho some 120km from the dam, to go toward schools and public housing.

The dam is expected to start producing energy in 2012.

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Electric Sports Car maker valued at half of General Motors!

May 25th, 2009 Posted by Admin in Carbon, Electric Vehicles, Renewable Energy

Popularity for, and the future of, the high-spec electric car industry is now further confirmed as Daimler invest US$50m for just 9% of Tesla Motors Inc. Daimler follow behind several other wise investors such as Musk, founder of PayPal Inc, who invested US$70m in Tesla last year along with the owners of Google Inc.

This latest investment now gives Tesla Motors a market value of around US$550m – nearly half the value of automobile giant General Motors. Considering Tesla have sold less than 500 cars in total, whilst GM sold over 8m vehicles in 2008, this valuation seems unusual. However with GM supposedly facing bankruptcy later this year, these latest valuations show the reality of the changing market sentiment. Supported by Obama’s latest bill, larget monster gas-guzzling trucks are now “out” and super-healthy super-slick environmentally conscious electric cars are most definitely “in”.

Stuttgart-based Daimler are owners of the european popular Smart Car and as such are increasingly interested in the most advanced electric car battery-technology. This investment displays their intent on pursuing this industry and Daimler’s realisation that the high-end electric car market will also be one for capture.

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Brazil wind potential for 140m homes

May 23rd, 2009 Posted by Admin in Renewable Energy

Brazil’s current installed wind turbines delivers just 341 MW, a tiny fraction of the global wind output of over 100GW and miniscule compared to Spain the World’s 3rd largest producer with a 17GW capacity. However things look set to change.

In the north-east states of Ceara and Rio Grande do Norte the windswept coastlines provide the perfect opportunity for wind farm development. Previously the costs related to storage and transportation from more remote locations have hindered progress, however the long-term benefits from this free renewable energy source are now finally appreciated.

This November the Brazilian government will hold its first wind power auction in which it is expected to buy around 1GW of generating capacity from competing firms …. enough to power 1m average Brazilian homes. With over 4500 miles of blustery coast, Brazil has the potential to deliver up to 140 GW of wind energy – enough to power 140m homes. Considering Brazil’s population is a “mere” 190m at the moment, wind energy production on this scale would have a significant influence on the grid.

The government intend on delivering 1GW per annum taking it to 10GW within the decade, making it 5% of national energy supply and a significant step towards their climate change plans. Whilst Brazil has no formal target of renewable energy supply by 2020, Brazil does have the significant advantage of having enormous solar power, hydro power and bio-fuel projects and ongoing potential, so we expect to see Brazil taking a leading role in renewable energy development over the years to come.

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Obama nails in the SUV coffin

May 21st, 2009 Posted by Admin in Electric Vehicles, Renewable Energy

At the current rate of global emission, drastic changes in our habits and lifestyles are needed now. US President Obama seems more than aware of this, and has taken the bold step in forcing through a bill which has been under argument in the US for the past 5 years.

As of 2012, all US car manufacturers will have to improve their fuel efficiency by 5% per annum and reach a target of 39mpg for all cars by 2016. This is estimated by the US administration as the equivalent of removing 177 million cars off America’s road systems and cutting GHG emissions by 900m tCO2 … aka a significant amount! This net 40% efficiency increase is the equivalent of shutting down 194 coal plants, and will almost definitely mean the death of the gas-guzzling SUV’s - which have always been nothing less than an extravagance.

Not only forcing manufacturers to focus design and manufacture on smaller lighter vehicles, and move away from the “bigger is better” attitude, this is also an additional incentive for manufacturers to invest more time and effort in to the alternative fuel markets. Countries like Brazil have already successfully rolled out bio-fuel cars operating at better efficiencies than petrol, and with BMW, GM, Mitsubishi and Nissan all rolling out mass production electric cars, this will hopefully add the necessary impetus for further development in these fields.

Undoubtedly frustrating to many with personal interests in the oil industry, this is a hands down positive move by Barack Obama and just the kind of swift decisive action we need.

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Solar Powered Spain

May 20th, 2009 Posted by Admin in Renewable Energy

At a cost of around €1.2bn, the 300MW solar energy plant being developed in the Andalucian countryside may eventually deliver enough energy to power 180,000 homes - the size of Sevilla itself.

Solar Thermal Electricity Generation is a far cheaper / kwh electricity generation method than photo-voltaic cells therefore this technology is certain to thrive in hot sunny environments with plenty of land. Mirrors track the sun’s path during the day, reflecting the light to a central tower at which point the thermal energy heats water pipes which in turn drive turbines to generate electricity. Whilst the technology is still being perfected, and STEG systems can only last up to 25 years, this will certainly be a major player in the future.

In Andalucia, various technologies are combined for the power plant, from low and high concentration photovoltaic to tower thermoelectric and parabolic-trough collectors. The PS10 solar power plant uses 624 enormous mirrors reflecting light to a central 115m high tower. Already under operation this system is working well and delivering electricity to Seville. An additional 1000 of these 120sqm mirrors are being installed to concentrate solar beams on a larger 165m tower. An additional 154 photo-voltaic receivers are also being integrated to deliver more power to the system before it reaches maximum capacity in 2013.

With enormous tracts of land available for energy development projects, Spain is already the 2nd biggest producer of Wind Energy in Europe, and as the sunniest country in Europe with several global solar-power leaders based here, Solar Power energy in Spain is already becoming very big business. Abengoa Solar is the Spanish company behind this development project, who have installations in America and North Africa also.

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Brazil Energy Industries Boom

May 19th, 2009 Posted by Admin in Economies, Renewable Energy

In the past decade Brazil has succeeded where most of the industrialized world has failed, in producing a fully-deployed cost-effective alternative to fossil-fuels for the automotive industry. Being the 5th largest land mass in the World, in an unequalled eco-system with good soil, warm climate and plenty of rain, Brazil is perfect for mass production of ethanol from sugar-cane. As a result ethanol can be produced and consumed cheaper/mile than gasoline, and so by 2009 the majority of “petrol stations” in Brazil are now “fuel stations” providing ethanol for flex-fuel cars.

Despite the abundance of land in Brazil, and the extremely agreeable climate, the fight for food and ethanol crops have until recently affected an otherwise rapid progress in both solar and wind energy developments. This year things are set to change with the governments first renewable energy auction on November 25th. Some projects include the Rio do Fogo wind farm in Rio Grande do Norte by Iberdrola, four wind parks in Ceara by Citigroup to generate 342MW, Ventania plan to offer another 10 projects with a capacity of 350MW and Brazilian firm Bioenergy plan to invest $1bn to deliver 4 more wind farms of up to 530MW in the north east.

Despite all the above, Brazil’s economic wealth continues with the oil industry itself still growing - having recently successfully extracted oil from what is considered potentially the largest offshore oil field ever discovered, the Tupi oil-field off Rio do Janeiro. Petrobas, the state-run company, is now drilling in over 2km of water and will continue test new holes for 15 months, whilst commercial production of up to 15,000 barrels/day is expected to commence imminently, reaching 1m barrels/day once all Tupi’s fields are up and running. Not only a further significant boost to the Brazil economy, one still strengthening despite the global crisis, Brazil will also re-inforce the oil industry with heavy future demands on drillships and drill equipment.

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Australia goes Green

May 18th, 2009 Posted by Admin in Carbon, Renewable Energy

Only a week after causing uproar amongst environmentalists by delaying their emissions trading scheme (despite Kevin Rudd’s election campaign focussing on immediate implementation of carbon-reduction schemes) Australia has doubled-back and now committed to fast-track to cut coal emissions.

Despite “clean coal” being a less popular environmental response, due to additional costs and energy-consumption involved with capturing and transporting CO2, with over 80% of Australia’s electricty delivered by coal-fired power stations this investment is vital.

With the World energy demand predicted to increase by 45% by 2030 according to the International Energy Agency, renewable energy source development will simply not proliferate fast enough to provide the full solution. For this reason the Australian Government are also joining with GE Energy in sponsoring carbon capturing projects worldwide by founding the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Insitute.

More positively, in affirmative attempts to develop renewable energy sources, a $1bn+ investment in clean and renewable energies will focus mainly on solar energy development programs and smart-grid technology, where residential electricity is delivered monitored and controlled digitally. Hundreds of millions of dollars will go in to solar technology projects as Australia obviously has the land space and hopes to become a global leader in these technologies. Prime Minister Rudd announced that 4 solar-power energy stations would be built to replace the alternative coal-fired power station. He also announced that Australia had joined the IREA International Renewable Energy Agency.

At the same time the Australian office announced the largest debt in its history with a deficit now stretching near to $60bn.

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Solar panel payback down to 1 year in sunnier regions

May 17th, 2009 Posted by Admin in Renewable Energy

A study published by the Institute of Science in Society has proven that in sunnier locations such as Spain, the latest thin-film technology CdTe (Cadmium Telluride) PV panels can reach full investment payback in as little as 1.1 years, despite only operating at a 9% efficiency. Minimum energy is expended during production ensuring that the small efficiency is less relevant to the fast pay back period. Incredibly the manufacture of CdTe PV cells actually prevents Cd being released in to the atmosphere, making this an all-round positive environmentally-friendly alternative energy source. Watch out as this CdTe technology takes hold and drops Solar Energy prices over the coming years, driving Solar Energy to the front of renewable sources.

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Obama switches on Plug-in Electric Drive Vehicles

May 15th, 2009 Posted by Admin in Electric Vehicles, Renewable Energy

In what could be one of the defining legacies of his regime, President Obama has outlined a number of incentives to boost the global Green Energy market development. His recent bill earmarks $16.8 billion in direct spending for renewable energy and energy efficiency programs over the next ten years, $4.5bn to modernize the US grid with smart technology, $2,5bn for renewable energy and energy efficiency R&D and $2bn toward manufacturing of advanced batteries.

The bill also significantly increases the advancement and feasibility of Plug-in Electric Drive Vehicles (PED) in the US. Tax credits for installing alternative fuel pumps at gas stations are increased from 30% to 50% ($30,000 to $50,000), whilst $2bn is also ring-fenced for manufacturing of hybrid or electric cars. Potential owners of PED will also receive credits. The bill increases the tax credit for qualified plug-in electric drive vehicles for the first 200,000 placed in service. This is a good start although has some way to go to replace the 200,000,000 cars currently used in the US.

The substantial bill also includes many alternative incentives to enhance the global Green energy markets, including Tax Credits for investment and production of electricity derived from wind facilities, geothermal, biomass, hydropower, land-fill gas, waste-to-energy and marine facilities.

The bill is a great start and shows the world’s largest economy is determined to lead from the front, and should also ensure a great incentive for larger flows of global capital from private investors and corporations.

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