Last week, on October 5th, Ohio Governor Strickland announced with great fanfare that a new 49.9 MW solar project, dubbed Turning Point Solar, will likely (pending approval of regulators) be constructed in a remote part of southeastern Ohio. In governor Strickland’s press release, he is quoted as saying: “We recognized the future when we established our state’s aggressive renewable portfolio standard, invested in the energy industry and eliminated taxes for new energy facilities to create jobs and grow Ohio’s advanced energy industry,” said Strickland. “Today, the future has recognized Ohio. One of the largest solar farms in the nation is going to be built here in Ohio, with solar panels and solar trackers made in Ohio, built by Ohioans with the know-how taught in Ohio colleges.”

Zack Space, Ohio Congressman for the district in which the project will be located, jumped onto the political bandwagon and said that: “Today’s announcement of more than 300 jobs coming to Southeastern Ohio provides an enormous boost for our economy in the short-term, and paves the way for the kind of long-term development that will help Appalachian Ohio reverse the economic disparity that has been so devastating to our towns and communities.” Not missing an opportunity to appeal to his constituency, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown was quoted as saying: “Today’s announcement shows how Ohio is poised to lead the nation in clean energy” and that “Solar energy has the potential to bring a host of benefits to southeastern Ohio, including hundreds of new manufacturing jobs and clean energy for hundreds of thousands of rural Ohioans.”

The Turning Point Solar project is indeed a terrific solar project. Built on about 500 acres, the project will turn a former strip mine into green power generation. Since the project is chartered to use about 239,000 c-Si solar modules from Isophoton, it could (if state and local incentives are approved) reasonably employ 200-300 “Ohioans” to build modules in a 60 MW facility from solar cells made in Spain. Approximately another 300 employees would be needed for a year or two to build and install the project itself, and Prius Energy, that makes trackers and racking systems for solar modules, could reasonably employ a few more people. As importantly, the utility company American Electric Power (AEP) should be applauded for agreeing in an MOU to a 20-year PPA that underwrites the project and helps AEP to reach its RPS goals.

Isn’t it interesting, though, that this announcement occurred a few weeks before mid-term elections take place? Would the fact that Governor Strickland and Congressman Space are in tight races to keep their respective jobs have anything to do with the timing of the announcement and their repeated mentioning jobs for their constituencies? Also, why would such a large installation be limited to precisely 49.9 MW? Why not 50 MW? Could this slight difference be driven by easier approval of regulators?

Additionally, note that the Isophoton will build modules, not cells, in the US which, when combined with module manufacturing in the U.S. by SunTech Power and Yingli Green Energy, confirms a likely trend in which solar companies plan to build bulky c-Si modules here but not the easy-to-ship, more labor intensive c-Si cells.

China has long promised to reduce its carbon gas contributions to the atmosphere and greatly increase its use of renewable energy resources including solar. In March of 2009, China introduced a generous but complicated and vaguely defined subsidy for solar installations greater than 50 kW on buildings. Then, in July of last year, China boasted of their 500MW “Golden Sun” demonstration project that would pay 50% of the cost of building a solar farm and even the distribution infrastructure necessary to deliver the solar-generated power to consumers. Recently, according a report in March from China’s semi-official Xinhau news agency, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) reported that it recommended increasing the portion of China’s energy consumption from renewable sources to 15% from 9.9% in 2009. Note that China includes nuclear, hydro, wind and other non-fossil fuel sources in RE.

If we time warp to today, however, clearly defined Chinese support of solar for domestic installations is limited to a few regions while vaguely defined “goals” and “plans” and suggestions of an impending nationwide FIT are common place. Why would China’s support of solar have declined so dramatically? Could the cost of solar power at $0.22-.28/kWh vs. coal-fired plant power at $0.04-0.05/kWh have anything to do with China’s reluctance to support solar through incentives? And, now that the capacity of leading low-cost Chinese cell and module manufacturers is sold out for the balance of 2010 and likely into 2011, why would China need to support its domestic solar industry?

Yet with China’s GDP growth outpacing the world, China is now much larger than Japan in GDP and has achieved 3rd place in the world (2nd place if one considers only sovereign countries) in this commonly employed metric of a nation’s economic strength. This is demonstrated in the chart below.

So when will China, reflecting its size and economic strength, become a major consumer of solar power instead of just a major manufacturer of solar power? As shown in our base case forecast of demand in China, we expect China to just breach the 1 GW demand level in approximately mid-2011 and to grow to become a major demand market in 2013. What do you think? When will China drive beyond ethereal goals and plans and define a concrete, well-defined FIT or other subsidy to support domestic solar projects and to reduce its carbon gas emissions?

New legislation to create a U.S. national Renewable Electricity Standard was introduced by Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Sam Brownback (R-KS) that, according to a press release by Senator Bingaman’s office, would “create the first-ever national renewable electricity standard (RES)”. The release also noted that “under the proposal, electric utilities would be required to produce at least 11% of their power from wind, solar, biomass and other renewable sources of energy; the remaining 4 percent could be achieved through energy efficiency improvements”. Bingaman, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is also quoted as saying “Shifting our country toward home-grown renewable energy will create jobs and help reduce carbon pollution. I believe there is strong support for this bipartisan bill and I hope we can pass it through Congress in the coming weeks,” Finally, the release mentions that “the Senators are working to secure 60 cosponsors so that the bill can be brought up for consideration before Congress adjourns later this year”.

RES by year in the proposed bill are:

To qualify for the RES, electricity may be generated from renewable sources including “wind, solar, ocean, geothermal, biomass, landfill gas, incremental hydropower, hydrokinetic, new hydropower at existing dams and waste-to-energy.”

I applaud this new (or should I say resurrected) proposed legislation because I fully agree that the U.S. needs a national baseline requirement of power generation from renewable sources. Further, simply gaining national attention on the matter is a great idea.

However, I believe that the probability that this bill will actually be passed this year is low, and I question the motives of the senators that have introduced and may sponsor the bill. Note that Sen. Bingaman’s release indicates that they are looking for 60, yes 60, co-sponsors. Could the senate’s need for 60 of the 100 vote total to overcome filibuster delays have anything to do with this? Also, might the shortly forthcoming mid-term elections have any bearing on the timing of the introduction of the bill?

Also, a release from U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources (headed by Bingaman) suggests that “With only a few date changes and a couple of scoring/technical fixes, the 43-page bill is almost identical to the RES included in the bipartisan American Clean Energy Leadership Act, S. 1462.” This July, 2009, bill that failed to pass included many provisions beyond the RES including opening new “resource rich areas in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico” for oil and gas production. Perhaps failure to pass last year’s bill was fortunate for Congress in light of the BP oil spill.

However, note that the newly proposed RES would be a “first ever” because the widely inclusive bill of 2009 failed to pass. Also, note that no job-creation provisions (such as Ontario’s local content rule) in the new bill have been mentioned, let alone boldly emphasized to back claims of job creation mentioned by Senator Bingaman. Lastly, note that major solar markets in the US including CA, NJ, AZ, CO, NY and other states already have mandated RPS that exceed the requirements of this bill.

So, let’s summarize. The new RES bill probably won’t pass this year, it apparently doesn’t include job creation provisions, and important demand states already exceed its requirements. But, hey, the bill at minimum would start a national RE standard and it would place a floor RES on 15 states with no RPS or other goal. So let’s hope that the motives of the sponsors are more than to win votes in the mid-term elections and that the bill achieves 60 co-sponsors and passes this year!

Last week at the EU PVSEC show in Valencia, Global Solar introduced their new flexible panels for commercial and residential rooftops. Aptly called PowerFLEX, Global’s new modules are based on their Copper Indium Gallium diSelenide (CIGS) technology and provide up to 12.6% efficiency, well above the 8.2% efficiency of amorphous-silicon panels supplied the current rooftop panel market leader, Uni-Solar. If Global is able to keep cost per watt to about $1.80 or less in the near term, we expect that they will earn revenues and market share.

I had an opportunity to review PowerFlex with Global’s CEO, Jeff Britt, and Marketing and Business Development VP, Jean-Noel Poirier, just before Valencia. They described PowerFLEX panels as providing high power density, low BOS cost installation, light weight, no roof penetration, and outstanding esthetic appeal. They also mentioned that PoweFLEX panels are large in size (0.5 m X 5.75 m) and in power output (at about 300 W).

These features are just what are required to win market share in the rooftop portion of the BIPV/BAPV market. We are particularly impressed with PowerFLEX’s esthetics and power output, and we agree that PowerFLEX will most likely save a great amount of BOS costs. With 75MW of production in the US and Germany, Global only needs to demonstrate $1.80/W cost, ease of installation, and a distribution network that will yield rooftop installers in key markets worldwide in order to take market share from UniSolar.

As importantly, the worldwide residential and commercial rooftop BIPV/BAPV market will grow substantially in the next few years underscoring Global Solar’s outstanding move to introduce the right product at the right time. In fact, according to Pike Research analysis, the solar rooftop market will grow at a 21-24% CAGR and reach $1.1-1.5 billion by 2014 as shown in the following figure.