The bill requires state officials in Maine to begin the development of renewable marine resources “as soon as possible” and “without compromising the environment.” The Maine Public Utilities Commission will oversee the tendering and selection of project leaders invited to propose pilot wind farms of 25 MW located in deep water. It is also planned by the committee of managing pilot projects in parks and tidal stream or tidal area that can produce up to 5 MW. According to Governor Baldacci, everything has been provided in this Act by the legislature to ensure maximum transparency in the authorization to be given to the establishment of offshore projects. The bill complements a proposal to borrow $11 million that the state of Maine will ask voters to approve in early June 2010 and its purpose: to fund research and development of demonstration sites wind at sea as well as the birth of an industry manufacturing infrastructure in Maine. Baldacci says: “The success will depend on innovative leadership and a unique public-private partnership. For too long we have been dependent on fossil fuels to heat our homes, power our industries and transport goods and people. Together we will take the path of clean, renewable energy and we get out of oil consumption.”

And even if Maine dependent on imported fossil fuels for about 85% of its total energy needs, there is no doubt that the oil slick effect has borne fruit and accelerates decision making. Last year, the State of Maine has selected three sites for sea trials of prototype wind turbines and giant floating blades which were to be built and ultralight material which should benefit from anchoring systems and stabilization unpublished, but nothing had been realized. Today, not only we like to remember that these selected sites are located in the territorial waters of Maine and require no federal license, but it also produces a precise plan of development. A consortium led by Mr Dagher and trained with the AEWC (University of Maine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center) has set dates:

- The first pilot wind of 30 meters high will be deployed in 2012 off Monhegan.

- A second wind of 90 meters (actual size) will be deployed two years later.

- Between 2014 and 2016, the team plans to build a Dagher reducing wind park consisting of five windmills that will produce 25 MW offshore and employ 320 people.

- An intermediate phase is to build an initial fleet of 200 turbines producing 1,000 MW and employing 4,500 people by 2020.

- The final phase will involve construction from March to July slices (various capacities) between 2020 and 2030 totaling March to July by GW and work from 7000 to 15000 people.

Estimated cost to date of operation: $20 billion.

The CSP aims to concentrate and capture the sun’s energy as heat, which is, by then converted into electricity using turbines. 13 projects should receive funding announced, with the common goal of increasing the autonomy of power 18 hours a day. For this, the selected projects will explore the development of new materials to store heat over long time periods to allow the station to operate after sunset.

Among the 13 selected projects, 10 should focus on research and development of new storage materials and improving energy efficiency of thermal systems. Each of these projects would receive an envelope between $1.4 and $4.5 million. The remaining funds should be allocated to three major projects aimed at assessing the potential of this energy as a source of baseload electricity generation (so that renewable energy is typically used as energy for the production of peak). The development of new storage materials allow it to store heat over long time periods and thus increase the backup time of these plants. In this context, companies Abengoa Solar, Inc. eSolar. And Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, located in Colorado for the first and California for the other two, should reach nearly $11 million each.

One problem

The U.S. have no, properly speaking, a real energy policy in the sense that can be heard in Germany or France, probably being the one to try to keep the oil prices at the lowest possible… The market for solar photovoltaics in particular suffers from the severe lack of funding, local political and non-uniform, very restricted access to land and building permits issued once in a blue moon. Despite the California Solar Initiative, the advantage of solar, which consists of projects scattered power generation not connected to the transmission grid but the grid is not yet exploited. The distribution of “wholesale” (Whole-sale Distributed Generation) appears in this view to be the solution to the current situation in California.

One solution: Whole-sale Distributed Generation (WDG)

The WDG consists of generating facilities at most 20 megawatts (MW) and directly connected to the grid, all the energy produced is sold directly to a distributor. A 20 MW project has the advantage of occupying a relatively small space while delivering a considerable amount of electricity (it could while still achieving the requirements of peak consumption day supply enough power for 20,000 homes). This solution must be compared to its rival distribution “large scale” (Large Scale Distributed Generation). Indeed, this production suffers from the difficulty of connecting to transmission lines structures which generally take a decade to build (from the moment when the permit was granted …) and which results in many losses during transportation of energy, not to mention the environmental debate on the merits of the conversion of natural areas into huge energy farms caused and very often are due to such projects. The high cost of such projects related to construction of transmission lines is still a possibility too restrictive.

In addition, WDG projects, by their inclusion in the distribution network and moderate in size, can be hired and funded immediately. Their independence vis-à-vis the transmission network also avoids all the constraints of limited power output. A recent study by the California Energy Commission has updated the existence of 27,000 MW currently produced and potentially reliable distribution network in this way, this power is half of energy demand in California …

A catalyst: the advantageous pricing

One of the key factors that could encourage the development of this market lies in the establishment of an advantageous legislation whose example has been shown by Germany, first to establish such guidelines. These rates must meet the following three conditions:
1) guaranteed access to the grid,
2) a long-term contract guarantee,
3) a purchase price for any competitive project to generate cash.
This attractive pricing allow everyone to have its own source of renewable energy and sell the network. Currently, four tariff incentive policies have been implemented in North America, these four regions will see renewable energy projects bloom, confirming all the added value of the process …

In this context a number of projects funded largely by electricity producers are emerging. This applies to the Pacific Wind project: enXco, a subsidiary of EDF Energies Nouvelles and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG & E) signed an agreement for the construction of a wind farm in Southern California with a capacity of 140 MW. enXco will own and construct the facility, while SDGE agrees to purchase the power generated for 20 years. The project is pending approval by the CPUC is expected to be operational by late 2011 – early 2012 and be maintained by enXco Service Corporation.

However, the grid 50 years old is not prepared to integrate intermittent generation-related fluctuations and wind-dispersed over the territory. Therefore an update of the infrastructure and deployment of new technologies is essential for the future.

Storing the key to the wind

To offset the intermittent nature of wind energy to offset the fluctuations, the producing electrics rely on storage systems. Last November Obama had announced funding of up to $ 620 million stimulus package, including $ 435 million will be awarded for demonstration projects of the intelligent network. The remaining funding is allocated to 16 projects for storage capacity experimental eventually to greater efficiency and better reliability.

In this regard Pacific Gas & Electricity (PG & E) has won one of 16 projects and got $ 25 million to initiate work on possible ways of storing energy from the wind during the night. PG & E plans to develop energy storage technology based on compressed air. The idea is to store the air and compress it into cellars where wind can produce a lot of energy and use this compressed air to spin turbines and produce electricity when the wind is fell. If the test proves successful the technology, 300 MW could be produced for an initial investment of $ 365 million. The project, however, must be approved by the CPUC which will raise the remaining funds needed.

A similar project was being developed at Sandia National Lab’s premises. The Iowa Stored Energy Park is expected to save $ 5 million per year with a capacity of 268 MW of storage compressed air. Indeed, the storage can meet the needs of growing consumption peaks that require adding extra power very expensive.

Similarly Beacon Power Corporation has installed a storage system using flywheels inertia connected to a wind farm in Tehachapi California. The system is part of the demonstration project flywheels inertia carried by the Californian Energy Commission. Tehachapi is an area with high potential. According to a report of the California ISO, up to 4200 MW of wind could be added in the coming years. The main function of these flywheels is to keep current on the network. However during periods of large fluctuations in consumption or production of transmission lines, they can be used to compensate for the lack or excess electricity to the grid.

New transmission lines needed

Another key deployment of wind energy is the transmission network. Large regions with significant wind resources are not those where consumption is most important. The three major areas are Altamont Pass (east of San Francisco), Tehachapi (southeast of Bakersfield) and San Gorgonio (east of Los Angeles). The problems are posed at the delivery of electricity across the territory. Producer Southern California Edison (SCE) said it had completed the first phase of Southern California Edison’s Tehachapi Transmission Project Renewable. The transmission network will be able eventually to carry a capacity of 4500 MW of electricity from renewable energy produced in the Tehachapi Valley and distributed to three million homes across Los Angeles County. The total project cost is $ 2 billion for a network of 173 miles (~ 280 km). The project represents only a portion of the $ 5.5 billion that SCE plans to invest in the transmission network in next 5 years. The project when completed will help ease the Los Angeles Basin.

The total cost for the addition of transmission to meet the objectives of 33% renewable energy production for 2020 was estimated at $ 15.7 billion. Also transport problems of renewables is not unique to California. A report recently published by the American Wind Energy Association has highlighted the need for a standard for renewable electricity and an updated infrastructure to connect about 300,000 MW of wind projects still pending connection to the grid.

Approved projects may relate to various organs of the data center but can be classified into two broad categories :
- The projects directly housed equipment (servers, racks, etc.), such as virtualization servers or servers with renewed energy efficient models.
- Projects on the center’s infrastructure data. The latter, which includes power systems (PDU, UPS [four], etc..) And the cooling system, consuming on average as much energy as the equipment accommodated. To increase efficiency, projects can be to renew by models with power-efficient, or to the cooling system, the establishment of a Free Cooling System).

Data centers that are still consuming more energy

The move comes when he becomes more and more difficult for generators to follow the continuing increase in power consumption of data centers. By themselves, the data centers in New York state consume approximately 4.5 billion kWh / year, as much as the annual consumption of 700,000 U.S. households.

According to a study by the Lawrence Berkley National Lab , in 2005 data centers consumed 56 billion would Kilowatthours across the United States and 152.5 billion Kilowatt worldwide (roughly equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of a country like Mexico). With the development of technologies such as cloud computing, increasing the power consumption is also worrying: it has doubled between 2000 and 2005 and represented this year, 1% of global electricity consumption. If the trend continues, it will double again within 3-5 years

A competition at the 2010 conference of the Uptime Institute

to promote its program, the NYSERDA held a contest for a data center in upstate New York is distinguished by the implementation of projects with significantly reduced power consumption. The results of this contest will be announced at the 2010 conference of the Uptime Institute, which takes place in New York on May 19.

AWEA blamed the slowdown in the U.S. market to the lack of a stable long-term commitment. Therefore, the association has decided to complain to the Congress to implement a federal requirement range of renewable energy in the electricity mix, as that which already exists in some member states of the union, through so-called Renewable Energy Standards (RES) – to provide the necessary legal stability for investors.

Two key factors affect also the slowdown, according to AWEA. On the one hand, problems arising from lack of funding, which now takes an average of eighteen months, according to AWEA. Furthermore, the fall in demand for electricity consumption, which has affected the willingness of power companies sign new contracts for the purchase and sale of wind energy. With “a clear signal to the market, the industry could bounce back quickly and generate new orders,” according to Denise Bode, CEO of AWEA.

Additionally, “Americans want a RES” Bode added, referring to a poll, conducted by the consulting company Public Opinion Strategies and Bennett, Petts & Normington, indicating that 92% of Democratic voters favored a federal RES. The measure is popular at 65% of Republican voters and 69% of independents. Bode points out that the incentive programs of 2009 have rescued mature projects totaling thousands of megawatts and have avoided the loss of 40,000 jobs.

Dozens of wind energy companies have announced commitments for construction or expansion of productive capacity in the U.S., said Bode. If the federal government introduces stability in the market with measures of the long term support, wind energy companies could give a strong boost to the U.S. economy in the long term, according to AWEA. United States added 10 000 MW to its national wind farm capacity in 2009.

“Wind Cape is the first of many projects coming online along the Atlantic coast in the coming years,” Salazar said during the press conference announcing the above approval. According to the chief executive of the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), Christian Kjaer, this new step in the long process of promoting of this project marks the birth of a new phase of offshore wind, the decision is the first step in the transformation from the European market led to a global European companies, “added Kjaer.

The construction of Cape Wind Park is scheduled to start during the second quarter of 2011, ie ten years after it opened the process for handling the project. Salazar emphasize that the approval is conditional on the implementation of a series of amendments to protect environmental and historic environment of Nantucket Sounds site. As reported, Siemens will supply turbines for the Cape Wind project. In total, 130 machines of 3.6 MW capacity.

The Cape Wind farmhad strong opposition of sports lovers in the area, known for its aquatic leisure facilities of high standing, and several Indian tribes, who say they will oppose its implementation. According to local press, two of the tribes that opposed the installation of wind turbines would have rejected a “potential offer” of 2.5 million each to compensate for the damage. Cape Wind is in Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

The proposed wind farm in the state of Oregon, northwest of the US, which plans to install 338 wind turbines to complete an installed capacity of 845 MW, is paralyzed by the concerns of the Federal Aviation Administration (FFA, federal court regulates the airspace). The very Air Force supports the ban, which could even affect Iberdrola Renovables parks.

The issue has involved the highest officials in the White House, working to iron out positions. On the side of the developer of the park, Caithness Energy, which claims to pursue an investment of two billion dollars (1,494 million euros), Shepherds Flat project should begin in May, as it is estimated that the work carried 18 months.

The rush to make sense if one understands that to be eligible for federal incentive plans for renewables, the enterprises that wish to apply they must be completed in late 2012.

In addition, the case involving General Electric, which in December was awarded the Order of construction of the nearly 340 wind turbines, a transaction of $1,400 million (1,046 million euros).

According to the FAA, the park structures represent “a danger to air navigation.” In letters sent to owners of the lands of Arlington, in the north of the state, which would extend the complex, it is argued that the turbines would exceed the “standards of obstruction and / or have an effect of electromagnetic interference as well as seriously impair the ability of the (Department of Defense) to detect, monitor and safely conduct air operations in this region”.

In Fossil, about 80 km to the south, is a military radar station. The Pentagon makes sure that a certain position in the rotation of the blades could interfere with radar signals, used for air defense surveillance.

The matter involves Caithness Energy, General Electric, the FAA, the Pentagon, and the White House remains in suspense of 16,000 jobs.

As quoted in the Washington Post, and for a few months of 2006 the Pentagon, and for similar reasons, ordered the suspension of the operations of wind farms, prompting demands from companies.

In the same article mentions that the position taken by the U.S. Air Force could endanger nearby three wind farms developed by the Iberdrola Renovables subsidiary in the US, which could add to the  Shepherds Flat site project up to 3 GW.

Iberdrola spokeswoman Jan Johnson has been quoted as saying that the projects do not represent any danger to navigation, although there have been some minor amendments, which require the second round of review by the FAA.

No doubt, the move can be judged as a clever punch line advertising, but it is to have meaning. Not that the White House lacks solar installations, in fact there is already a 9 kW PVs and another thermal that provides hot water and pool complex of the president.

The Sungevity offers no cost system of 17.85 kw, and again according to the company installed in the Californian city of Oakland for 15 years would save carbon emissions equivalent to that of a car that can get more than 2.4 million miles.

In 1979, during the presidency of James Carter, and following the “oil crisis”, on the roof of the residence were installed 32 solar panels. On that occasion, Carter said: “Yet a generation, the solar system may be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of the road not taken, or may be a small part of one of the greatest adventures ever undertaken by the American people.”

In 1986, as in Ronald Reagan’s turn, that system was dismantled, and some of its panels, after being away for several years, placed on the roof of the cafeteria of a university, a few others ended up on the roof of the Jimmy Carter presidential library.

From their site, Sungevity invites to join everyone who regards this as an offer that cannot be rejected.

U.S. businesses took a share of the $5.3 billion in utility energy efficiency programs, which included $4.4 billion for electric energy efficiency programs, up 38 percent from the previous year, and $930 million for natural gas programs, up by 79 percent. Electric energy-efficiency programs focus on commercial and industrial facilities, while natural gas programs more often target residential customers.

In 2008, CEE member efficiency programs saved about 93,000 GWh of electricity and more than 343 million therms of gas, according to the report. These savings prevented the production of more than 55 million metric tons of CO2, up from 41 million metric tons in 2007 and 36 million metric tons in 2006.

The report, “2009 CEE Annual Report and Efficiency Program Report”,  finds that carbon-dioxide emissions prevented in 2008 are equivalent to the annual emissions from nearly 12 coal-fired power plants, and the electric energy savings are equivalent to the electricity needed to power 7.4 million homes for a year.

Utility energy efficiency programs also expanded geographically with programs now offered in 46 states, compared to only 37 states in 2008.

The CEE report reveals that electric energy-efficiency spending grew the fastest in the Southeast and South Central states, with a 76 percent increase to $800 million in 2009.

These energy-efficiency programs will control U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions over the next 20 years, but long-term costs have been underestimated, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The report finds that once the low hanging fruit have been picked the cost for making further emission cuts will increase, requiring more aggressive policies to drive energy tech improvements and lower long-term abatement costs.

Implementing energy efficiency programs are cheaper for utilities and their customers rather than adding new sources of electricity, according to an ACEEE report released last year. The report found that the average cost per kilowatt hour (kWh) of energy efficiency is about 2.5 cents, compared to 7 to 15 cents per kWh for adding new energy generation.

Still, the Bloomberg report finds that more fundamental changes to power and transport sectors are needed to meet the Obama Administration’s 17 percent cut in GHG emissions by 2020, but could still maintain a cost of less than $1 per day per U.S. household.

Another report from ACEEE last year estimates that the federal energy-efficiency target for reducing electricity and gas usage could result in utility bill savings of $168.6 billion for consumers and businesses.

Until 2021, North Carolina is planning to supply 12.5% of its power from renewable energy. “We concluded that you could generate enough electricity from wind turbines off the coast to power the entire state. You’d have to put up a tremendous number of turbines, and the power grid infrastructure would need to be upgraded. But even if you developed one-sixth of the offshore region suitable for wind farms, you could generate twenty percent of the state’s power needs.” said Pete Peterson, marine ecologist and co-author of the new study.

The goal of this study is to identify the best locations for the turbines and to examine the human and ecological viability of producing energy from wind turbines off the coast.

Researchers said that North Carolina has some of the country’s best wind speeds, the best wind resources being located in Onslow Bay and Raleigh Bay, about 20 miles off the coastline. If all goes well this state could become a national leader in the off-shore wind power sector.

This week two California utilities; Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison just signed up for the output from a very much larger combined 550 MW solar thin film project to be built by the company.

All three are power purchase agreements, whereby First Solar guarantees output for a period of years, and sells the power itself, not the project.

PG&E is presumably pleased with the first few months of solar electricity production from the 20MW pilot project that it contracted for from First Solar. Once that Blythe project was approved, it took only three months to build, and has been up and running since the end of last year.

The new thin film solar project is to be sited near Desert Center in eastern Riverside County near Los Angeles and use the company’s own thin-film PV modules made from cadmium telluride. PG&E will use the output from 300 megawatts of the new 550MW project, and SCE will buy the power from the remaining 250 megawatts.

Although the two new power purchase agreements with PG&E and SCE are subject to the approval of the California Public Utilities Commission; the project’s permit application has been fast tracked by the Bureau of Land Management, which under the new administration is now attempting to fast-track clean, safe and permanent renewable energy projects on desert land in order to slow climate change.

The alternative for California would be to build more electricity plants powered by natural gas. Natural gas drilling permits were fast tracked over the last ten years with about 900 new wells, which, as population expands, are increasingly sited dangerously close to urban water supplies. California produces about a billion cubic feet of natural gas a day, and uses about six times that much, some of that for electricity production.

But, if all goes well in approval land, First Solar plans to break ground by the end of this year and to be pumping out lots of clean sunshine power for Californians by 2013.

The innovative project is the brainchild of Transmission Developers Inc., a company created by former Bay Street investment banker John Douglas.

Since selling his wind power company Ventus Energy Inc. for $140-million in 2007, Mr. Douglas has embarked on startups in the power sector. In 2008 he financed the creation of Riverbank Power Corp. a company that proposes to build several huge, multibillion-dollar underground hydroelectric generating stations in Canada and the United States. Transmission Developers was spun out of Riverbank last year, and its plans are no less ambitious.

TDI’s key project is a $3.8-billion underwater power transmission line that would run 570 kilometres, bringing electricity from Quebec – and possibly Labrador – to New York City. A 100-km spur would run up Long Island Sound to Connecticut.

For most of the route, the cable would be buried along the bottom of Lake Champlain, then down the Hudson River, with small portions buried along railway lines to avoid disturbing PCB-laden underwater sections.

There are many regulatory and financial hurdles still to be dealt with, but the proposal is expected to meet with less resistance than building above ground transmission lines which are far more visible to the public.

TDI also has plans for a 240-km underwater cable carrying renewable power down the Atlantic coast from Maine to Boston.

Mr. Douglas said the idea for the underwater power line technology, which uses high voltage direct current to minimize power loss, was developed by Montreal engineering firm Groupe RSW.

That company came to him with the idea for Riverbank’s technology, which involves water falling down lengthy shafts to generate power underground, and the water being pumped back to the surface at times of the day when electricity prices are low. Essentially, that allows the storage of electric power.

RSW is a small shareholder of Riverbank and TDI, while Mr. Douglas owns the majority of both firms. His key outside backer at both companies was New York investment firm BlackRock Inc., while another deep-pocketed investor, Blackstone Group, now also has a substantial stake in TDI.

Both Riverbank and TDI involve “great Canadian ideas” which require U.S. financial support, Mr. Douglas said.

He is talking to other large investors about further financing of both companies, and they may consider going public to get the big money needed when construction begins. Mr. Douglas hopes some of those funds will come from Canada. “It just seems a shame that these great ideas keep having to go south of the border to get financed.”

Still, Mr. Douglas has a number of Canadians helping him with the venture. The chief executive officer of TDI is electrical engineer Don Jessome, a former manager at Emera Inc., the Halifax-based energy firm.

Former Ontario premier David Peterson is on the board, and he introduced TDI’s executives to former New York governor George Pataki, who helped them stickhandle that state’s bureaucracy.

But there are many hurdles before TDI gets any cable in place, and not just financial ones. Hydro-Québec, for instance, is supporting a new transmission line through the Northeastern United States, and that could compete with TDI’s planned route for Quebec power exports.

Still, with the growing emphasis on renewable energy, there will be a need for both new transmission facilities and power storage, Mr. Douglas said. Both Riverbank and TDI together “will really help North America achieve its renewable energy objectives, which are pretty ambitious.”

This action subsequently causes an attached plunger to follow the same kind of ebb and flow movement. The plunger is attached to a hydraulic pump that changes the vertical movement to a circular motion, which drives an electric generator to produce electricity that is sent to shore through submerged cables.

When the initial project is finished, the first $4 million dollar buoy will measure 150 feet tall by 40 feet wide, weighing 200 tons. Nine more of these crafts will be set in motion by the year 2012 for a total cost of $60 million dollars. About four hundred homes will receive electricity from Oregon’s wave power farm by the completion of the project.

The wave energy project has promising potential, but has encountered some degree of skepticism and is faced with several areas of concern. One factor is that wave power is still in the early stages of development and is rather costly, running about five or six times more than wind power. Secondly, many people question how the buoys can be stabilized in the water to gather the energy from wave power. Another concerning factor is that waves are so unpredictable, and the size of the waves could result in either equipment damage of lack of cost effectiveness.

The wave power farm is a developing renewable energy source that could potentially compete with wind and solar energy, although it has had a bit of a shaky start. The first commercial wave power farm was developed in Portugal in 2008, but the project was suspended indefinitely last year for financial reasons. In addition, a wave-powered technology that was developed by a Canadian company sank off the Oregon coast two years ago.

The Oregon wave power farm is being funded by several sources, including Oregon tax credits, Pacific Northwest Generating Cooperative and the U.S. Department of Energy.

The wave power farm concept has a great deal of promise and there are other projects around the world that are being developed in Spain, Scotland, Western Australia and off the coast of Cornwall, England. In the United States, Oregon Power Technologies is developing a wave power technology program in Hawaii in conjunction with the U.S. Navy.

These solar technologies include solar photovoltaics, or PV; concentrating solar power (CSP); solar thermal hot water; solar space heating; and passive solar capture (for heating, lighting and cooling).

The uses for solar PV alone run the gamut from residential electricity production to crop drying, and include conversion technologies that allow PV technology to deliver both hot water and space heating, or cooling, via combination chillers.

In homes, solar photovoltaic panels could provide electricity while solar thermal delivers hot water. Adding passive solar design via skylights and well-placed, thermally efficient windows provides lighting and winter heating while also avoiding summer heat.

In commercial buildings, the combined use of solar PV and solar thermal also delivers electricity to run lighting and hot water for restrooms, cooking, and cleaning.

In factories, solar heating systems can provide all or part of the energy needed to create product. For example, in Kanjari, Pakistan, solar flat plate collectors and an insulated tank provide pre-heated boiler feed water for the cattle feed production line. The technology could easily translate to U.S. animal feed production facilities, including pet food production.

In transportation, solar PV allows EVs or hybrid vehicles to escape the need for recharging via the grid. In public transportation, solar power on buses enables operators to avoid pollution standards while idling. Eventually, solar-powered road grids may deliver public transportation vehicles that never need a drop of fuel or a plug-in recharging station.

Whether used in farming, to provide irrigation, or in communities to clean wastewater and pump clean water, solar energy technologies could not only rescue the nation from the need for foreign oil, but reduce the greenhouse gases implicated in climate change.

And, while eminently good news for America, the report is merely the icing on the cake present by a 2008 report (also by Environment America), which showed that the United States could meet all of its current electricity needs with a patch of concentrating solar thermal (CSP) plants 100 miles square.

The report, On the Rise: Solar Thermal Power and the Fight Against Global Warming, notes that this 100-mile-square area is only slightly more than all the land already excavated in the American Southwest for strip-mining coal.

Additionally, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, or NREL, the nation’s premier entity engaged in renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development, says that solar power on southwestern US lands could provide more than 7,000 gigawatts of electricity per year.

Some of the math appears to be shaky, notably the description of 7,000 gigawatts as “more than six times current U.S. electricity consumption” (that figure is actually 3,892 gigawatts), but the concept is astonishing. Essentially we could power the entire country’s electricity grid with land standing idle in Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and California.

This, incidentally, includes privately-owned and federal land that has not been designated critical habitat, either because it is already in use or has been used and abandoned without gaining designation.

“This investment will help cut utility bills, reduce carbon pollution, and create jobs our economy needs,” said Secretary Chu. “It’s a perfect example of the power of American innovation to create a stronger economy and a healthier planet.”

SAGE has developed the world’s only commercially available, electronically “tintable” window glass. SageGlass® allows natural light in while controlling unwanted solar heat and glare and can be used in building windows, skylights, and curtain walls. The technology consists of a series of thin ceramic material layers deposited onto sheets of glass, forming an electrochromic device that allows the user to switch the window between a clear state and a highly tinted state using a low-voltage electrical current.

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), part of the DOE lab network, considers electrochromic glazings to be the next major advance in energy efficient window technology, helping transform windows and skylights from energy liabilities in buildings to energy savers. Since energy lost through conventional windows accounts for approximately 30% of heating and cooling energy, the potential for energy savings is significant. LBNL believes SageGlass® also has the potential to reduce building heating and air conditioning equipment size by up to 25%, resulting in construction cost savings. SageGlass® could also potentially reduce overall cooling loads for commercial buildings up to 20% by lowering peak power demand and may reduce lighting costs by up to 60% while providing building occupants with more natural daylight and greater comfort.

SAGE estimates that construction of this manufacturing facility will create 210 jobs over 12 months.

The SAGE conditional commitment was made through section 1703 of Title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 which provides financing for projects which employ new or significantly improved technologies that avoid, reduce, or sequester air pollutants or anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases.

This is the seventh conditional commitment issued by DOE’s Loan Guarantee Program since March of 2009. SAGE adds to the program’s diverse portfolio of clean energy projects which includes wind turbine manufacturing, solar generation and manufacturing, electricity storage, nuclear power, and energy efficiency.

“This investment will create jobs and cut our dependence on oil, while promoting America’s leadership in the global race for the clean energy industries of tomorrow,” said Secretary Chu.

Located on the island of Oahu, the Kahuku project will contribute to Hawaii’s Clean Energy Initiative goal of meeting 70% of the state’s energy needs with clean energy by 2030. Currently, each island uses an isolated electric grid that relies upon the use of imported oil, which currently comprises 90% of the state’s energy supply. By harnessing wind power, the project is expected to supply electricity to 7,700 households and avoid the production of nearly 160 million pounds of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas.

The project sponsor, First Wind Holdings LLC, estimates that construction of the Kahuku project will create 200 jobs. After completion, the project will provide 6 to 10 full-time clean energy jobs in Kahuku. The electricity generated by the project will be sold to Hawaiian Electric Company, Inc.

This is the eighth conditional commitment for a loan guarantee for clean energy projects entered into by the Department’s Loan Guarantee Program Office. It represents another step toward making the United States a worldwide leader in the manufacture and deployment of clean energy technology.

The Dow news follows several recent announcements of new solar photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing facilities. China’s Suntech Power, the world’s largest manufacturer of crystalline silicon PV modules, announced in January that it would build a manufacturing plant in Goodyear, Arizona. The site will have capacity to make 30 megawatts (MW) of solar panels per year, but can grow to more than 120 MW. In November 2009, Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell announced that Heliosphera US plans to build a thin-film solar plant in Philadelphia’s Navy Yard, creating 400 jobs. The State of Pennsylvania helped the project with a $49 million incentive package of loans and grants. And SolarWorld, a global solar manufacturing firm, said in October 2009 that it will add a new solar module assembly line to its manufacturing plant in Hillsboro, Oregon. The addition will make the Hillsboro plant the first fully integrated crystalline silicon PV plant in the Americas. With the new addition, the facility will handle the full production cycle, starting with polysilicon rock and ending with finished solar modules. SolarWorld completed its initial 480,000-square-foot factory in 2008, and a new, adjacent 210,000-square-foot building will house the module assembly line, which will have the capacity to produce 350 MW of solar modules per year. See the press releases from Suntech, the State of Pennsylvania, and SolarWorld.

New solar technologies are also entering the commercial arena, as G24i, a manufacturer of dye-sensitized solar cells, announced its first commercial shipment of solar modules in October 2009. Mascotte Industrial Associates (MIA), a Hong Kong-based manufacturer, is integrating the flexible solar modules into bags and backpacks for on-the-go recharging of mobile electronic devices, such as cell phones. The relatively new solar cell technology employs dyes that absorb sunlight and generate electrons, which are captured by nanoparticles of titanium dioxide and channeled to an electrode to create current. The G24i solar modules are manufactured in Wales and are flexible enough to be integrated into a wide range of products. See the G24i press release and technology description and the MIA Web site.

As dye-sensitized solar cells start to gain a foothold in the solar market, thin-film solar cells have become firmly established. Last year was a banner year for U.S.-based First Solar Inc., which reports that it manufactured and shipped more than 1 gigawatt of its thin-film solar modules in 2009, becoming the first PV company to attain this production volume. First Solar modules use cadmium telluride semiconductor material deposited on glass. One gigawatt of solar modules produces enough electricity to serve the needs of approximately 145,000 average U.S. homes and saves roughly 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. First Solar’s successes also reflect a global trend of rapid expansion in the PV industry. According to the eighth annual PV status report from the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), worldwide production of PV solar modules and panels leapt to about 7.3 GW in 2008, an 80% increase over 2007. The JRC noted that a significant slowdown in PV investment in the second half of 2008 and early 2009 started to reverse itself by the second quarter. China became the leading producer of solar cells with an annual production of about 2.4 GW, followed by Europe with 1.9 GW, Japan with 1.2 GW, and Taiwan with 0.8 GW. If production continues to grow at the 2009 rate, the JRC predicts that China could have 32% of the world-wide PV production capacity by 2012.

Supporters of the measure say that it will increase the use of solar technology and help offset high electricity costs. Clean energy advocate Bernadette Del Chiaro of Environment California lauds the measure: “It makes solar power affordable for people,” she said. “You couldn’t do that if you lost all that electricity.” The worry that inspired this Assembly bill was that the current 2.5 percent cap would lock out new solar users, thus discouraging solar power in California.

Opponents’ primary complaint about the bill is that it does not allow the solar energy purchased from customers by the utility to count toward state renewable energy mandates unless the utility pays that customer a surcharge. Subsequently, the detractors claim, the rest of the utility’s customers will have to pay higher rates to cover the added costs. “These customers should be allowed to make solar work, but we’re not out to make them rich,” said Matthew Freedman, an attorney with The Utility Reform Network, a consumer advocacy group based in San Francisco.

California’s mandates dictate that 33 percent of the state’s energy must come from renewable sources by 2030.

“Smaller, more localized renewable energy systems need to play a role in our comprehensive energy portfolio,” Secretary Chu said. “These projects will help create jobs, expand our clean energy economy, and help us cut carbon pollution at the local level.”

The projects selected by DOE will be leveraged with approximately $167 million in local government and private industry funding. DOE estimates that these projects will provide enough clean, renewable energy to displace the emissions of approximately 10,700 homes.

Projects selected for awards are listed below.

The City of Montpelier, Vermont plans to use $8 million from DOE to install a 41 MMBtu combined heat and power district energy system fueled with locally-sourced renewable and sustainably-harvested wood chips. The CHP system will be sized to provide heating to the Vermont Capitol Complex, city owned schools, the City Hall Complex, and up to 156 buildings in the community’s designated downtown district for a total of 176 buildings and 1.8 million square feet served.

The Forest County Potawatomi Tribe in Wisconsin will install a 1.25-MW biomass combined heat and power facility that will provide heating, cooling and electricity, a 150-kW biogas digester and generation facility, as well as three 100-kW wind turbines and three dual-axis 2.88 kW solar PV panels located at the Tribe’s Governmental Center using $2.5 million from DOE.

SMUD recieve $5 million to install the state’s first-ever ‘Solar Highway’, which will feature 300kW of concentrating PV, and 400 and 800 kW of flat plate PV distributed on 2 miles of highway right-of-ways. SMUD will also install a full scale co-digestion process of fats, oil and grease (FOG) and liquid food processing waste with sewage to produce biogas with estimated power recovery of 1-3 MW, and install two low-NOx anaerobic digesters fed by two dairy facilities that will produce 500 kW of combined heat and power, and generate 600 kW of electricity through a molten carbonate fuel cell.

UC Davis’ proposed Waste-to-Renewable Energy (WTRE) system will get $2.5 million. The system would generate power from a renewable biogas fed fuel cell. The organic waste will enter a receiving station in which it can be collected and prepared for digestion. Once the appropriate mix has been created in buffer tanks, the waste will flow to the reactor where methanogenic bacteria will generate methane and carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, etc.

Finally, Phillips County, Colorado will get $2.5 million to help develop a 650-MW wind farm within Sedgwick, Phillips, and Logan counties in Northeastern Colorado.

There is further expansion on the horizon. GEA has identified 6442.9 MW of new U.S. geothermal power plant capacity under development, though some of those may not go forward. However, there are seven projects with an estimated 125 MW of capacity that have drilling and facility construction underway. Those projects include two in California, totaling 85 MW; one in Florida generating 0.2-1.0 MW; three in Nevada, totaling 39.4 MW; and one in Oregon producing 0.2 MW. The Florida and Oregon projects will be the first geothermal projects in those states. One of those projects—at Jay Oil Field in Florida—will use the hot water produced by oil and gas wells to generate power. Two such projects started up in Louisiana and Mississippi in 2009, and more are planned for Louisiana, Nevada, and Wyoming.

The agreement (originally announced last June) was negotiated and signed by the Department’s Loan Programs Office, which supports the development of innovative, advanced vehicle technologies to create thousands of clean energy jobs while helping reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil.

“This is an investment in our clean energy future that will create jobs and reduce our dependence on foreign oil,” said Secretary Chu. “It will help build a customer base and begin laying the foundation for American leadership in the growing electric vehicles industry. This is part of a sustained effort to develop and commercialize technologies that will be broadly deployed throughout the American auto industry.”

Tesla’s planned Model S will consume no gasoline and will not produce any tailpipe emissions. It is being designed to offer a variety of range options depending on the battery pack used, from 160 to 300 miles on a single charge. Volume production of the Model S is planned to begin in 2012 with a target production capacity of 20,000 vehicles per year by the end of 2013. According to Tesla, the Model S project and power-train manufacturing facility are expected to create over 1,600 jobs.

This announcement marks the second loan arrangement agreement signed by DOE with an advanced technology vehicle manufacturer. In September 2009, DOE signed its first loan agreement for $5.9 billion to Ford Motor Company. The Department has also signed conditional commitments with Nissan North America, Inc. and Fisker Automotive. Tenneco Inc. became the first advanced technology component manufacturer to obtain a conditional commitment from DOE in October of last year. Nissan plans to build electric cars and battery packs at the company’s Smyrna, Tennessee manufacturing complex, while Fisker recently announced plans to build plug-in hybrid electric vehicles by reopening a shuttered GM plant in Wilmington, Delaware.

The Department of Energy was appropriated $7.5 billion by Congress to support up to $25 billion in loans to companies making cars and components in US factories that increase fuel economy at least 25 percent above 2005 fuel economy levels. The Department plans to make additional loans over the next several months to large and small auto manufacturers and parts suppliers up and down the production chain. The intense technical and financial review process is focused not on choosing a single technology over others, but is aimed at promoting multiple approaches for achieving a fuel efficient economy.

The Air Force Real Property Agency agreed to lease 3,288 acres of land at Edwards AFB in the Antelope Valley for the solar project, which would also be the largest energy Enhanced Use Lease (EUL) for the Department of Defense, reports AltEnergyMag. More than 30 EULs are in development around the country, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The deal gives Fotowatio exclusive access to the site initially to conduct environmental and transmission studies, reports the Los Angeles Times. Construction will begin in 2013.

Fotwatio’s worldwide portfolio includes projects that produce more than 130 megawatts and more than 1,000 megawatts in development across the U.S. and Europe, respectively, reports the Los Angeles Times. One military project includes the installation of a 14.2 MW solar system at the Nellis Air Force base.

The Stewart Air National Guard Base in New York also plans a new solar energy farm that will serve as a model for other military installations, reports My Fox New York. The project, to be built this year, is expected to generate enough electricity to power 100 homes, according to the article.

Driven by new government requirements that call for each military branch to purchase or generate at least 25 percent of the energy they use from renewable sources by 2025, the project is funded by a $4 million federal investment under the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill, reports My Fox New York.

In other military news, the USDA and the Department of the Navy (DoN) have signed an agreement to develop advanced biofuels and other renewable energy systems, reports Domestic Fuel.

Secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus recently announced five energy targets for the Navy and Marine corps, of which biofuels is a major component.

By 2012, the Navy wants to have a Green Strike Group composed of nuclear vessels and ships powered by biofuel and a Great Green Fleet that has nuclear ships, surface combatants equipped with hybrid electric alternative power systems running on biofuel, and aircraft running on biofuel by 2016, reports Domestic Fuel.

In addition, the Navy wants to cut petroleum use in half for 50,000 non-tactical commercial vehicles by 2020, through the phase-in of hybrid, flex fuel and electric vehicles.

The U.S. Navy has reduced its overall energy consumption level by 12 percent in 2008 with projects centered on wind energy generation, solar photovoltaic systems, geothermal systems and ocean thermal energy conversion at military bases primarily in California.

These new projects place wind power neck and neck with natural gas ¹ as the leading source of new electricity generation for the country. Together, the two sources account for about 80% of the new capacity added in the country last year.

“The U.S. wind energy industry shattered all installation records in 2009, chalking up the Recovery Act as a historic success in creating jobs, avoiding carbon, and protecting consumers,” said AWEA CEO Denise Bode. “But U.S. wind turbine manufacturing – the canary in the mine — is down compared to last year’s levels, and needs long-term policy certainty and market pull in order to grow. We need to set hard targets, in the form of a national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES), in order to provide the necessary stability for manufacturers to expand their U.S. operations and to seize the historic opportunity we have today to build up a thriving renewable energy industry.”

Early last year, before the Recovery Act (ARRA), the industry anticipated that in 2009 wind power development might drop by as much as 50% from 2008 levels, with equivalent job losses. The clear commitment by the President to create clean energy jobs and the swift implementation of ARRA incentives by the Administration in mid-summer reversed the situation. Recovery Act incentives spurred the growth of construction, operations and maintenance, and management jobs, helping the industry to save and create jobs in those sectors and shine as a bright spot in the economy.

Solar advocates applauded the SCE program as an important piece of a comprehensive suite of policies being pursued throughout California to build a strong, self-sustaining solar energy market.

Sara Birmingham, West Coast Policy Director for the Solar Alliance said, “It’s exciting to see a utility affirm the value of rooftop solar generation in this way. It’s even more exciting to see SCE’s leadership in adopting a model for growth that includes open, competitive participation from the state’s solar industry – a prospect that will help drive further green job creation and deliver lower costs to ratepayers.”

Kevin Fox of the law firm Keyes & Fox LLP continued, “This program is the culmination of many months of work from the CPUC and an incredibly diverse array of stakeholders who were committed to driving an exciting new area of solar opportunity – smaller systems that feed our shared energy grid. Yesterday’s decision was the starting gun for serious growth in this sector. I expect to see a new wave of solar development begin in earnest as a result.”

Adam Browning, Executive Director of Vote Solar added “This program opens an exciting new market opportunity for quick and cost-effective growth in the solar sector, creating new jobs and eliminating carbon emissions. We believe this is just the tip of the iceberg—we are working to expand similar programs, targeted to solar wholesale distributed generation, throughout California and in other states as well.”

Most California utilities, including SCE, are required to procure 20 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources like solar by 2010, and Governor Schwarzenegger has issued an executive order to increase the RPS to 33% by 2020. To date, the utilities have primarily focused on central-station (10-500 MW) solar power plant development to meet their renewable requirements. While large-scale solar progress continues, smaller systems that fit into the existing distribution grid offer another path for bringing solar quickly online. SCE’s program is specifically designed to spur growth in that distributed market, primarily through rooftop projects of one to two megawatts in size. Northern California’s largest utility, PG&E, has also submitted a similar program that is currently undergoing final review at the CPUC.