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Articles by Adam Browning

Adam Browning is the executive director of Vote Solar.

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  • Clean Edge Energy Trends 2006

    Clean Edge just published their annual report on clean energy trends. The trends are upward:

    According to Clean Edge research, biofuels (global manufacturing and wholesale pricing of ethanol and biodiesel) will grow from $15.7 billion in 2005 to $52.5 billion by 2015. Wind power (new installation capital costs) will expand from $11.8 billion in 2005 to $48.5 billion in 2015. Solar photovoltaics (including modules, system components, and installation) will grow from an $11.2 billion industry in 2005 to $51.1 billion by 2015. And the fuel cell and distributed hydrogen market will grow from $1.2 billion (primarily for research contracts and demonstration and test units) last year to $15.1 billion by 2015.

    In total, we project these four clean-energy technologies, which equaled $40 billion in 2005, to grow fourfold to $167 billion within the coming decade.

  • Arizona passes renewable energy portfolio

    On Monday, the Arizona Corporation Commission voted 3-1 to proceed with a plan to require Arizona utilities to procure 15% of their electricity from renewable resources by 2025. A couple of things to note:

    1. 30% of the required renewable energy must come from distributed generation resources -- that is, energy generated on the customer side of the meter. This could provide support for up to 2,000 MW of solar, which is more, on a per-capita basis, then California's groundbreaking $3.2 billion, 3,000 MW solar initiative passed earlier this year.

    2. The commissioners are all Republican.

    There are still several procedural steps to get through before the proposed rule becomes final, but this was a significant hurdle. I've said it before and I will say it again: The most significant leadership on renewable energy and global warming issues is coming from the states, not the feds.

    Press here and here.

  • World’s largest solar PV installation announced

    This is big: 18 MW of solar photovoltaics to be installed at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.

    And Nevada's Renewable Portfolio Standard, which requires solar as part of the state's electricity portfolio, is the driving force behind the development. In the absence of federal leadership (and yes, I am refering to the President's underwhelming and already broken promises in the SOTU address), states are leading the charge.

  • New solar funding is almost comically inadequate

    As part of the SOTU hoopla, the Bush administration released some details of a major new initiative:

    The President's Solar America Initiative.
    The 2007 Budget will propose a new $148 million Solar America Initiative -- an increase of $65 million over FY06 -- to accelerate the development of semiconductor materials that convert sunlight directly to electricity. These solar photovoltaic "PV" cells can be used to deliver energy services to rural areas and can be incorporated directly into building materials, so that there can be future "zero energy" homes that produce more energy than they consume.

    It strikes me as a bit of an Austin Powers "ONE MILLION DOLLARS" moment. The solar industry is unlikely to turn down the money, but let's face it: The total, not to mention the increase, is peanuts. It gets us back up to the level of R&D funding during the Carter Administration.


    More to the point, what we need is not R&D, but deployment. California just passed a $3.2 billion program to put solar on 1 million rooftops in the next 11 years. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but if you take seriously the fact that global warming has the potential to destroy the foundations on which our current way of life is built, and we need to seriously reduce carbon emissions now, then this remedy is so pathetically inadequate to the problem that it seems more like an insult.