Friday, February 01, 2008
California's surging solar power industry
The New York Times has an interesting story this morning about California's rapidly growing, venture-financed solar power industry. As the article makes clear, this is not your father's solar fantasy:
Not coincidentally, three-quarters of the nation’s demand for solar comes from residents and companies in California. “There is a real economy — multiple companies, all of which have the chance to be billion-dollar operators,” said Daniel M. Kammen, a professor in the energy and resources group at the University of California, Berkeley. California, he says, is poised to be both the world’s next big solar market and its entrepreneurial center.
The question, Professor Kammen says, is: “How can we make sure it’s not just green elite or green chic, and make it the basis for the economy?”
There also are huge challenges ahead, not the least of which is the continued dominance of fossil fuels. Solar represents less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the $3 trillion global energy market, leading some critics to suggest that the state is getting ahead of itself, as it did during the 1970s.
The optimists say a crucial difference this time is the participation of private-sector investors and innovators and emerging technologies. Eight of more than a dozen of the nation’s companies developing photovoltaic cells are based in California, and seven of those are in Silicon Valley.
There is also this bit of well-earned wisdom from Jerry Brown:
At a conference of alternative energy companies in San Francisco last month, to discuss how to encourage the industry’s growth, Mr. Brown, the former governor, joked that if the participants wanted to make real headway selling alternative energy, they should try not to come off as flaky. “Don’t get too far ahead of yourselves,” said Mr. Brown, now the state’s attorney general. “You will be stigmatized. Don’t use too many big words and make it all sound like yesterday.”
Yes, solar power still represents only one-tenth of one percent of the $3 trillion global energy market, so there is a long way to go. If, however, rising demand from the beneficiaries of subsidies and other early adaptors tips the efficiency of solar cell production the way it did with microprocessors, one can imagine a hockey-stick surge in both cell production capacity and installed systems. Combine that with a good plug-in hybrid car and we're off to the races.
Note, by the way, that New Jersey is second to California in the growth of installed photovoltaic capacity. The program relies on lavish subsidies which I oppose in principle. That said, it is just about the only pile of lavish subsidies available to me, so we are grabbing them with gusto. The plans for our solar system are being submitted for approval this week.
25 Comments:
By 
SR, at
Fri Feb 01, 09:08:00 AM:
Gotta heat that big house somehow.
By Georg Felis, at
Fri Feb 01, 10:04:00 AM:
Going to take quite a bit of work to make it as inefficient as Gore's or as efficient as the
Bush Ranch House .
By Georg Felis, at
Fri Feb 01, 10:04:00 AM:
*censored* links. I love HTML...Not.
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/g/gore-bush-houses.htm
By 
, at
Fri Feb 01, 12:08:00 PM:
Washington State says, "Me too".
A bill (HB-2421) has been introduced that would, over the next ten years, take over $8.5 billion dollars from the taxpayers to create incentives in the production of solar energy.
While production of solar energy may be a good thing, I don't see the need for any government to be the predominate partner in venture capital endeavors.
Governments incentives should be to create legislative streamlining in building up the solar energy market, reduce permitting fees, speed up the permitting process, give business tax breaks, give homeowners tax breaks for conversion to solar, and the like. If it looks like solar will be a great replacement, the individual should decide whether they want to invest in that private industry, not be forced to invest by government coercion – heck, for our “investment”, we don’t even get any stock certificates.
All of this particular legislation stems from the goal to combat greenhouse gasses and emissions. The legislature has also proposed other bills that would consume another $27 billion in carbon taxes the same ten years.
The Washington State Democrats spend a lot of time introducing bills that use “California Standards”. Sometimes makes you wonder when the annexation will occur.
By , at
Fri Feb 01, 12:46:00 PM:
The driver for the micprocessor revolution was the ability to fabricate vastly more transistors in a given area of silicon, i.e. an increase of 9 orders of magnitude in 30 years.
There is no prospect of decreasing the cost of solar cell production or increasing power conversion efficiency at anything even remotely approaching that rate.
I seem to remember some issues with using the "hockey stick" metaphor for sales projections.
By Ray, at
Fri Feb 01, 01:24:00 PM:
Ye cannae change the laws of physics, laddie.
I don't know a thing about the state of research in advancing photovoltaic cells, but if the advances aren't there, they're not there, and no amount of wishful thinking or government subsidies will make them magically materialize.
Scientific breakthroughs happen all the time, but it's fiendishly difficult to make them happen on demand. To the continuing despair of people trying to model, say, certain problems in hydrodynamics, which have been unsolved for almost a hundred years.
By jj mollo, at
Fri Feb 01, 01:32:00 PM:
Our best way to subsidize the alternative energy industries is to make sure that the carbon-based fuel prices remain high. How we do that is immaterial, except that it has to be obvious to investors that the high prices will be long-lasting.
By , at
Fri Feb 01, 01:56:00 PM:
Where a lot of people make the mistake with this, is in trying to power the whole house off of solar, which requires a large array to produce say 200 amps.
Most don't know how much their house draws on an average sunny day.
Get an electrician to measure the current with an average house loading of stuff running an size you installation a bit above that and you array will probably be cut in half size wise and lower your costs. But you have to have a unit that works in parallel with the house drop to do that.
You don't get the payback of excess generation feeding a reverse power meter but unless you really go big with a lot of sun they take a while to payback and are near the service life of the array anyhow.
By , at
Fri Feb 01, 01:59:00 PM:
Use of a solar pre heater for the water going into your hot water heater is much more efficient than trying to generate solar electric to do the same job in many cases.
By , at
Fri Feb 01, 04:01:00 PM:
UC Berkeley and its attached Lawrence Berkeley labs are doing some great research for alternative energy sources. They guy in charge of the Lawrence labs, nobel-winner Steve Chu, calls it the Helios program. (Solar, wind, biomass ultimately derived from the sun.)
By , at
Fri Feb 01, 05:35:00 PM:
TH, it is hypocrites like you who are responsible for lavish subsidies. It is always the "other guy" whose lavish subsidy we oppose.
Particularly in the energy field, the free market should be allowed to work without subsidies. Except for ethanol.
By , at
Fri Feb 01, 09:23:00 PM:
I'm no expert , but this sounds interesting:
nanosolar.com
By Hell_Is_Like_Newark, at
Fri Feb 01, 10:10:00 PM:
you might be waiting a while. NJ Clean Energy keeps running out of $$$.
http://www.njcleanenergy.com/renewable-energy/programs/core-rebate-program/incentives/core-rebate-program
[i]Due to overwhelming demand solar rebate applications are no longer being accepted for the private sector budget category for projects of any size. However, applications are still being accepted for public schools, public non-schools and SUNLIT projects until April 1, 2008. Please see the CORE Suspension Order in the Program Updates section.[/i]
By , at
Sat Feb 02, 08:50:00 AM:
I don't recall Standard Oil getting any subsidies and they almost went out of business when Edison invented incandescent lighting. By chance, they were in position to fuel a huge acceleration of the industrial revolution - which is what BUILT the lifestyle we ENJOY right now. Solar panel power will never amount to anything and it seems every investor knows that except loonie liberals in government. BTW, to whoever excepted ethanol - did you know that it takes more heat energy to distill a unit of ethanol than the amount of heat energy a unit of ethanol can produce? It's a NET LOSS! Not only that the US subsidary, (giveaway to huge farming conglomerates), is already adversely impacting world food supplies across the world. Stop this ethanol insanity NOW!
By , at
Sat Feb 02, 03:23:00 PM:
This morning I enjoyed some "passive solar" by opening the blinds, letting the winter sun heat the living room through the patio door. In general, I think subsidies to promote a favored energy source like solar or corn based ethanol are a bad idea. A better government action would be removing some zoning, etc. restrictions on solar collectors, grey water irrigation, etc. All regulations to promote energy efficiency should be subject to return on investment calculations showing payback within a reasonable time period appropriate to the product.
By M. Simon, at
Sat Feb 02, 03:23:00 PM:
Talk about difficult hydrodynamic problems:
WB-7 First Plasma
BTW if that reactor design works out solar cells will be worthless. Except for niche applications.
Always a problem with government getting into markets. By the time they move it is usually in the wrong direction.
By , at
Sat Feb 02, 03:45:00 PM:
I think jj mollo had something to offer here but it was so poorly written I can't understand it. Could you try again, jj?
By wlpeak, at
Sat Feb 02, 04:58:00 PM:
Those who opine about the need for cost reductions similar to what happens in microprocessors should take note that Applied Materials, the largest manufacturer of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, is in the solar game now.
Link to AMATs Solar page
By , at
Sat Feb 02, 05:01:00 PM:
Two of these startups may be on course to change the economics of solar - and eliminate the environmentally negative life cycle of manufacturing and decommissioning [traditional PV solar is worse than coal on a life-cycle health basis].
One startup is Nanosolar, which attracted investments by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google. Nanosolar produces their panels using a printing process - very roughly analogous to scaling up the ink-jet printer on your desk. But in this case printing semiconducting ink. And Nanosolar is building factories and shipping.
The other is Bloo Solar, with new CEO Larry Bawden from Jadoo Power. Very much in the R&D stage, but developing a carbon nano-brush array claimed to slash production/installation cost, and to increase efficiency by 2x+. Bawden gave a talk at Stanford's Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Lectures, available as a podcast - more in my post here.
By , at
Sat Feb 02, 05:33:00 PM:
Oil & gasoline need to be taxed to reflect market externalties.
1) Price of oil does not fully account for defense costs to secure supplies.
2) Price of oil does not fully account for damage to the environment.
By M. Simon, at
Sat Feb 02, 08:20:00 PM:
2) Price of oil does not fully account for damage to the environment.
So true. Crops and trees grow faster with more CO2 in the air. This is so wrong. All true environmentalists know that faster growing plants would be a disaster.
Stunted growth is the answer. For plants and economies.
By , at
Sun Feb 03, 12:16:00 AM:
"BTW, to whoever excepted ethanol - did you know that it takes more heat energy to distill a unit of ethanol than the amount of heat energy a unit of ethanol can produce? It's a NET LOSS! Not only that the US subsidary, (giveaway to huge farming conglomerates), is already adversely impacting world food supplies across the world. Stop this ethanol insanity NOW!"
Its always rather amazing to see people getting exercised over things they obviously personally know nothing about. Regurgitation of constantly repeated sound bites does not knowledge make.
Any farm boy growing up around cattle raising areas can tell you that one of the distinct characteristics of such areas, besides the not so attractive aroma of bovine methane, is that of fermenting corn silage. For those who don't know, this is feed corn chopped and shredded by the harvesting machines and dumped in huge piles pushed around and compacted by bulldozers. After awhile, even in the winter, this bio mass heats up and guess what... it ferments. The somewhat attractive aroma of silage pits is this fermentation which results in a lot of naturally produced ethanol alcohol in the base of the pit - it can and often is drawn off. Now for those of you who like to make such a big deal about production costs, please tell me where this "NET LOSS" enters into the process. The silage is cattle food, just like any upscale ethanol production facility generates high quality protein mash used for not only cattle feed but also as additives to various foods enjoyed by the human species. To refer back to the bulldozers, there is more than one way to skin a cat (as in Caterpillar bulldozers), and there is more than one way to produce things above and beyond the shallow understanding of politically correct sound bite addicts.
By , at
Sun Feb 03, 02:15:00 AM:
Very nice post.
NJ's Solar power subsidy program is finished in the next state budget due to the financial crunch. It was a huge ($380+ million) boondoggle and a scam from conception to finish. Over 80% of grant recipients were political donors or the customers of political donors who worked in the alternative energy field. And the donors to PACs who donated to the original bill sponsors.
Corzine and Codey agreed to kill it, Weinberg and the other charlatans decided not to fight it so they didn't get exposed.
By M. Simon, at
Sun Feb 03, 09:37:00 AM:
This comment has been removed by the author.
By M. Simon, at
Sun Feb 03, 09:39:00 AM:
To refer back to the bulldozers, there is more than one way to skin a cat (as in Caterpillar bulldozers), and there is more than one way to produce things above and beyond the shallow understanding of politically correct sound bite addicts.
And then there is actually being able to do the thermodynamic and economic analysis.
i.e. run the numbers as opposed to hand waving.
