The House of Representatives has passed H.R. 5771, the Tax Increase Prevention Act of 2014, by a vote of 378 to 46. The Tax Increase Prevention Act of 2014 (H.R. 5771) 1 would extend, for one year (generally through the end of 2014), a number of tax relief provisions that expired either at the end of calendar year 2013 or during 2014.

The development represents both good news and bad news for the US wind energy sector, according to Aaron Severn, senior director, Federal Legislative Affairs for the Power of Wind. On the plus side, the Power of Wind’s well-coordinated outreach campaign helped preserve what he called “common-sense wind policies” through this year: the production tax credit and investment tax credit.

This despite aggressive opposition by heavily financed lobbyists who had urged Congress to omit wind energy policy from the bill. “At a time when our opponents were fighting to eliminate wind policy, we powered through and gained an extension of the wind policies vital for clean energy growth,” Severn explained.

On the downside, the extension falls short of what wind energy advocates were pushing for. “We wanted to see a two-year extension, which would make a huge difference in providing more clean and affordable energy to Americans than ever before,” Severn noted.

But the fight is not yet done, Severn warns. As the bill is expected to move on to the Senate for consideration this week, he said the Power of Wind’s campaign will carry on.

The timing is critical, Severn notes, given the positive trends seen in wind energy development. According to the Power of Wind, energy prices generated by wind are rapidly declining; over the past five years, the cost of wind power has dropped by more than 50 per cent. At the same time, wind power has delivered a third of all new generating capacity over the past five years, with a record amount of new projects under construction.

More importantly, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), more than 500 factories across 43 states manufacture for the wind energy industry. “These factories provide well-paying jobs for American workers,” said Tom Kiernan, AWEA CEO. “Any disruption of the PTC now would increase the cost of future wind projects and erase much of the progress in creating this new US manufacturing sector.”

Kiernan is not exaggerating. When the PTC expired in 2013, new wind installations came to a screeching halt, resulting in a 92 per cent drop in new wind projects compared to 2012. Economically, that translated into a $23 billion falloff in private investment in the US, with nearly 30,000 American jobs lost as a result.

REFERENCES

1. By enacting H.R. 5771, Congress can continue to pursue its efforts to make certain expiring tax provisions permanent to provide certainty and stability to families and businesses.

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Borrego Solar Systems Inc., a leading designer, developer, installer and financier of grid-tied solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, and sPower (Sustainable Power Group), a prominent renewable energy provider, recently commenced construction on a solar project located in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York. Upon completion, the facility, located on sPower-owned land in the Town of Riverhead, will have the capacity to produce 6.3MWac (9.1MWdc) of solar energy.

“The sPower Riverhead Solar facility has been designed to be a very clean, very safe and very quiet neighbor,” said Ryan Creamer, sPower CEO. “We are pleased that construction has begun and are confident that — together with Borrego — we’ll soon be able to start providing reliable, renewable power to PSEG-LI rate payers while creating local sustainable jobs.”

When fully operational, the sPower Riverhead solar project is expected to generate enough clean solar energy to serve the electrical needs of about 1,100 homes per year, displacing roughly 8,300 metric tons of CO₂ annually. That’s the equivalent of taking more than 1,700 cars off the road, or the same amount of carbon that would be sequestered by 6,800 acres of US forests in a year.

In the works

sPower has two additional projects in Suffolk County which are currently under development with Borrego Solar slated as the engineering, procurement and construction company. The projects will supply energy to PSEG-LI under the utility’s first Clean Solar Initiative Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) program and will make sPower the owner of the largest portfolio of solar facilities under the program.

“These projects mark Borrego and sPower’s second portfolio under a utility FIT program — the first being an 8.3MW portfolio under Southern California Edison’s California Renewable Energy Small Tariff,” said Mike Hall, CEO at Borrego Solar. “Our partnership with sPower has been truly symbiotic. We look forward to building many more megawatts of solar capacity for them.”

The Energy Department has announced up to $7 million for two projects aimed at developing and demonstrating ways to reduce the cost of delivering bioenergy feedstocks to biorefineries.  By investing in this type of research, development, and demonstration, the Energy Department is supporting the production of renewable and cost-competitive biofuels.

The projects, located in New York and Tennessee, will focus on developing advanced machinery for efficient and low-cost harvesting, collection, and transportation of high-quality bioenergy feedstocks:

• The State University of New York—College of Environmental Science and Forestry of Syracuse, New York will receive up to $3.5 million to lower the delivered cost of short rotation woody crops; rapidly, accurately, and reliably assess feedstock quality; and improve harvest and preprocessing operations to produce feedstocks that meet key biorefinery partner specifications.
• The University of Tennessee of Knoxville, Tennessee, will receive up to $3.5 million to study how blending feedstocks could play a role in increasing the amount of available feedstock within a given delivery radius. The project will develop and demonstrate a state-of-the-art biomass processing depot to reduce sources of variation along the supply chain of multiple, high-impact biomass sources (pine and switchgrass) and deliver a consistent feedstock optimized for performance.

In particular, CFRTP will be used in a stack frame part, equivalent to the vehicle floor. To make the part, Toray and Toyota, developed a material which can achieve a short press molding time suitable for mass production, by developing the characteristics of thermoplastic. Toray says that is the first time in the world that CFRTP will be used for the structural part of a (mass) production vehicle.  

Toray also supplied carbon paper for the electrode substrate of fuel cell stack and a high strength carbon fiber for the high pressure hydrogen tank. 

IBC SOLAR s.r.o. completed the plant construction in fall 2014, installing a total of 947 IBC PolySol modules on the roof of the hospitalin Lódz. Apart from the modules, IBC SOLAR also delivered the inverters as well as the mounting system IBC AeroFix.¹IBC SOLAR’s Czech subsidiary, which serves both the Czech and Polish market, not only contributed to the project’s success by delivering high-quality components, but also provided the technical know-how and trained the installers for the actual project execution.

1. IBC AeroFix is a very flexible, light-weight and at the same time stable PV mounting system which allowed IBC SOLAR to fully exploit the roof area. By aligning a part of the modules in an east-west direction, a maximum of modules could be installed. Thanks to a high degree of prefabrication and by using high-quality materials such as aluminium and stainless steel, the system offers the optimum solution for applications where an exceptional level of quality, efficiency and flexibility is required.

Cerritos College’s Technology Division, the Advanced Transportation Renewable Energy (ATRE) sector and True South Renewables, Inc., have launched a novel training program to certify military veterans and other qualified applicants to meet the growing need for electrical field service technicians (EFST).

The five-month college certification program will teach students how to maintain and repair solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, electric vehicle (EV) charging stations and equipment needing general maintenance. Many top solar companies, including True South Renewables — the largest independent solar operations and maintenance provider in the US — have jobs waiting for graduates of the program. 

“This is an important initiative to provide military personnel who were electricians in the service with training to receive certification in a high-paying, growing civilian field,” said Rue Phillips, CEO of True South Renewables. “In addition, these graduates are needed. Few outside the solar power industry are aware of the volume of operations and maintenance work required to ensure the optimum performance of large solar fields and photovoltaic systems on commercial and residential rooftops.”

Cerritos College and ATRE, a California Community Colleges workforce program, worked closely with True South Renewables to develop the extensive curriculum for this unique program. Typical job titles for graduates include:

• Solar OM Technician
• Electronics Repair Technician
• Solar PV Technician
• Electric Vehicle Service Equipment Technician
• Solar monitoring equipment Technician
• Test Equipment Technician

Upon completion of the program, graduates will be certified within three modules: Solar Inverter Maintenance and Repair, Electrical Vehicle Service Equipment (EVSE) Maintenance and Repair, and Solar and EVSE Related Instrumentation and IT Products. Program graduates will also receive a certificate of achievement in New Product Development from the Chancellor’s office of California Community Colleges. 

Qualified candidates interested in applying for the EFST program should contact Jannet Malig of the ATRE at jmalig@cerritos.edu.

Applied Energy Technologies (AET) recently announced the completion of a solar installation project at the Seattle Mariners spring training facility in Peoria, Arizona. AET provided its Rayport-B stainless steel roof ballast racking system ¹ for the 86kW rooftop portion of a 345 kW project, which was developed in partnership with Sky Renewable Energy.

1. The Rayport-B stainless steel roof ballast system, which fits all major solar modules available on the market today and is available in a variety of panel configurations. It is ETL listed to UL 2703, wind tunnel tested to 120 mph and comes with a 15-year limited warranty.

Gamesa has secured a new contract with Parques Eólicos Gestinver (a company 50%-owned by each of Gestamp Eólica and Genera Avante).

The new agreement calls for Gamesa to provide operation and maintenance services for 132 MW located in five wind farms in Spain. Specifically, Gamesa will perform maintenance services on 66 wind turbines of Gamesa 2.0-2.5 MW platform (11 G80-2.0 MW, 18 G87-2.0 MW and 37 G90-2.0 MW) located in Lugo, Coruña and Tarragona, Spain.

The new eight-year contract contains an option for a five-year extension, and renews the operation and maintenance agreement Gamesa has had for the five wind farms since their commissioning.

 The 40,000-square-foot solar addition will consist of a 240.9-kW system built with 765 panels, and will produce287,490 kWh more of electricity annually for the store.  Including the existing system, IKEA Canton’s total 1,218.5-kW solar installation of 4,925 panels will generate 1,426,490 kWh of clean electricity yearly, the equivalent of reducing 984 tons of carbon dioxide (CO₂), eliminating the emissions of 207 cars or powering 135 homes.

For the development, design and installation of this store’s enhanced solar power system, IKEA selected Inovateus Solar LLC, an industry-leading solar power distributor and integrator specializing in large-scale solar installations. 

Track record

Expanding this array contributes to the IKEA solar presence of nearly 90% of its US locations with a total generation goal of 40 MW.  IKEA owns and operates each of its solar PV energy systems atop its buildings – as opposed to a solar lease or power purchase agreement – and globally has allocated $1.8 billion to invest in renewable energy through 2015, reinforcing its confidence and investment in solar photovoltaic technology. 
Consistent with the goal of being energy independent by 2020, IKEA has installed more than 700,000 solar panels on buildings across the world and owns approximately 157 wind turbines in Europe and Canada, with 104 more being built in the U.S.  Other IKEA arrays have been expanded as well.

“We are thrilled at the opportunity to increase the amount of solar energy generated and used by this store,” said Matt Hunsicker, IKEA Canton store manager. “This is another example of the IKEA commitment to create a more sustainable life for communities where we operate.”