Santarris said that his company and the U.S. installers and developers who have criticized SolarWorld for filing a trade case against China, which led to import duties, actually have the same goals. “We agree with them. We all want the same thing,” said Santarris.  “We want long-term sustainable pricing decreases. What the Chinese did was not sustainable. They were losing money.  They were going under,” he continued, pointing to the bankruptcy filings of companies like Suntech.

But where some U.S. solar developers may not be concerned with the country of origin of the solar equipment that they are installing, SolarWorld is.  “What we want is a restoration of fair competition that naturally leads to price decreases over time,” said Santarris.  “In the meantime, we think that we need to protect the right of U.S. manufacturers to compete fairly with other manufacturers and not with other sovereign governments.”

SolarWorld believes that the Chinese government has been propping up Chinese solar manufacturers for many years. In 2011, it filed and subsequently won a lawsuit against China that resulted in import duties on cells made in China. SolarWorld filed another lawsuit in 2014 that expanded the scope of the investigation to any module made in China. The U.S. Commerce Department is expected to announce a decision in that second case in mid-December.  Further, a decision about the challenge to the original case could come down sometime next year, and maybe sooner than that, said Brightbill.

Clock is Ticking on a Negotiated Solution

The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEAI) has been facilitating a dialogue between SolarWorld and a few of the Chinese manufacturers in an attempt to arrive at a negotiated solution, something that SEIA maintains is the preferred way forward, according to John Smirnow, VP of Trade and Competitiveness for the organization.

Smirnow explained that the U.S. and Chinese governments both want to see a deal happen and that there are ongoing high-level talks.  He said that the governments would look to the industry to arrive at a detailed resolution and SEIA is hoping that both parties will accept the proposed resolution that it put forward in August, or a solution resembling it.  SEIA’s solution calls for the development of a solar manufacturing settlement fund and a minimum market price among other things.

Timing is critical, however, as any negotiated resolution would have to be made public by mid-November, exactly 30 days before the mid-December commerce department ruling. Smirnow explained that U.S. President Obama is set to meet with Chinese President Xi on November 12 and he speculates that if a deal were to be struck, Obama could announce it at that meeting.

“The industry is working very hard to find a win-win solution,” said Smirnow. He said that there is talk of a suspension agreement, which means that the investigation of the new trade case would be suspended and a resolution would be adopted.  Any deal that involved the modifications to original trade case would have to be agreed to by Solarworld, said Smirnow.

Litigation is failing the solar industry and a negotiated solution is necessary, he said, urging other solar stakeholders to let legislators know that a deal is necessary.

Brightbill declined to comment on any negotiations but said that SolarWorld “can live with either” a negotiated solution or additional import duties. SolarWorld has publicly stated and Santarris reiterated that any deal it would agree to would have to include an end to the unfair subsidies that the Chinese government has allegedly been giving to its manufacturers.  Brightbill also said that it is his job to be skeptical of a deal and that he would not recommend that SolarWorld accept any deal he feels would not be enforceable.

On the other hand, Brightbill posited the theory that size of the U.S. market could influence China to make a deal.  When the Chinese accepted a deal with the EU, that market was the largest in the world, he said. Now the U.S. market is one of the larger markets in the world. “I think China has awareness that if it wants to be in the U.S. market, it needs to address the situation,” he said.

The Big Picture: Fair Competition, US Manufacturing, Jobs, and Energy Independence

Perhaps Solarworld’s fight with China can be compared to the U.S. renewable energy industry’s fight with traditional power generation.  SolarWorld claims that it is simply looking for a level-playing field, an expression that is often bandied about in reference to the permanent tax benefits enjoyed by the oil and gas industry but which are granted and then taken away for renewables.  Said Santaris: “So the [solar] industry was pioneered here, it was developed here, we want to continue to do that and we want to have competition here, too. But we don’t want to be subjected to a foreign governments interference in our marketplace.”

Santarris and Brightbill believe that if they succeed in either stopping the alleged Chinese manipulation of the market or in imposing duties on modules made in China, it will allow a domestic solar industry to gain more traction, fostering in the next generation of solar. You are going to have “more U.S. workers, more innovation…whatever’s coming next will be here in the United States,” said Brightbill.

Jobs will be created through the follow-on industries that experienced a slowdown. “Part of the thing that we have seen is that not only have dozens of U.S. cell and module companies shut down, but parts suppliers have shut down too,” said Brightbill.

Santarris believes that the “promise of solar” is undermined if you don’t have manufacturing and deployment in your own country because you can’t achieve energy independence if you “are dependent on a foreign market not for competitive reasons but for geo-political reasons,” he stated.

Brightbill acknowledged that this battle has been long and hard. “It’s worth it,” he said.  “It’s a great company and really it’s the domestic industry too. There are lots of examples of innovation out there and great jobs.  It’s worth fighting for.” 

Lead image: Jennifer Runyon talks with SEIA’s John Smirnow about the trade case at Solar Power International 2014.

Heads of government from the bloc’s 28 nations endorsed a binding target to cut greenhouse gases by at least 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2030 at a summit in Brussels. Meeting that goal would cost about 38 billion euros ($48 billion) a year, according to EU estimates. The EU is on track to meet its previous goal of a 20 percent reduction by 2020.

“That sends a strong signal to the international community and I hope that the signal is being received today in Washington, in Beijing and other big economies so that they will prepare their ambitions accordingly,” EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said in an interview. “Now investors, businesses, everyone will know that this is where we are headed — these are the targets.”

The agreement on emissions ensures the EU remains the leader in the fight against global warming before the United Nations climate summit in Lima in December where delegates aim to persuade other large polluters to sign up for worldwide accord they aim to clinch in 2015 in Paris.

“Like all good accords, this is a compromise,” French President Francois Hollande told reporters today. “Not all countries are in the same situation, and this agreement is expensive for some countries.”

Doubters Wrong

The European accord required unanimity and overcoming differences between poorer, mostly ex-communist east European nations and richer countries in western Europe. France, Portugal and Spain reached a compromise to build more gas and power connections across the Pyrenees while the U.K. and Germany bridged their divide over an energy efficiency goal.

“Many said it was the wrong thing to do at the wrong moment, today we have proved those doubters wrong,” European Commission President Jose Barroso said at a press conference after the deal was agreed. Other nations have to “step up to the plate,” he added.

Poland, which had threatened to veto the deal unless it addresses the country’s concerns of a surge in power prices, won assurances that its utilities will get free carbon permits under the EU emissions trading system, or ETS, after 2020 and that the country will have access to funds for modernizing coal-based plants.

Veto Threat

EU leaders agreed to give member states whose gross domestic product per capita doesn’t exceed 60 percent of the EU average an option of getting free permits for utilities up to 2030. After 2020 the number of free permits will be capped at 40 percent of the allocation for auctioning based on verified emissions. That will guarantee electricity prices in Poland won’t increase, Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz said after the summit.

“The veto is a tool, and the goal is to get the best conditions possible for Poland’s economy,” she told reporters. “Nobody got compensated like we did.”

Under today’s deal, the EU will renew a special carbon-permit reserve — which yielded 2.2 billion euros for renewable energy and carbon-capture projects over the past four years — and extend its scope after 2020. It will also create a new fund, which would include 2 percent of ETS allowances, to help finance investment in low-income member states.

EU emission permits for delivery in December rose as much as 1.6 percent today to a seven week high of 6.44 euros a metric ton. They traded at 6.34 euros on ICE Futures Europe exchange as of 11:26 a.m. in London.

Political Signal

“Today’s agreement is the political signal that business has been looking for,” Dirk Forrister, president of the International Emissions Trading Association, said in a statement. “Investments in Europe’s low-carbon future need to be made now — this decision is a sign that such investments will still have a value beyond 2020.”

As part of the headline 40 percent target, emissions covered by the cap-and-trade program will fall by 43 percent by 2030 and discharges by sectors outside of it, such as agriculture, would decrease by 30 percent from 2005 levels.

The package also envisages an indicative goal to increase energy efficiency by at least 27 percent by 2030 and a target to boost the share of renewable energy in European energy consumption to at least 27 percent. The latter would be binding at EU level but will not be translated into objectives for individual member states.

‘Far From Ambitious’

The deal as “a far cry” from what is needed to combat climate change, according to Monica Frassoni and Reinhard Buetikofer, members of European Green Party.

“The adopted targets are far from ambitious and not only weaken Europe’s climate policy, but also undermine the fight against Europe’s energy independence,” they said in a statement. “They are far from ambitious regarding making economic progress through a green transformation, namely through enhanced efficiency and more renewables.”

The EU must now ensure that its package for 2030 does not harm growth and jobs and should step up efforts to secure an internationally binding agreement to protect the competitiveness of its industry, according to the European arm of the International Federation of Industrial Energy Consumers.

An energy security strategy for Europe is the fourth pillar of the deal. The leaders’ endorsement for the plan to diversify energy-supply sources and cut the region’s dependence on fossil fuels came after a pricing dispute led to the cutoff of Russian natural-gas supplies to Ukraine, the transit country for around 15 percent of the EU’s need for the fuel.

The leaders agreed to improve cross-border power interconnections, which currently can handle about 8 percent of the bloc’s potential power output, less than the 10 percent target set by EU leaders in 2002, according to commission data. The target for 2030 was set at 15 percent.

A discussion on the EU economic and employment situation will take place on the second day of the summit when the leaders may endorse incoming European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker’s plan for a 300 billion-euro investment program.

Lead image: Carbon Dioxide via Shutterstock

But batteries are a crucial component of many modern conveniences, from medical devices to industrial machines. They help power other, less commonly seen, facets of modern life, in particular, the electric distribution system.

Today, two-thirds of electricity production comes from fossil fuel burning, with another fifth coming from nuclear power, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Yet the environmental hazards produced by these means, along with the finite supply of fuel for these technologies, means the production of power for the electric grid must be increasingly produced by sustainable energy sources.

Yet nature’s changeability means there will always be fluctuations in the energy produced by these methods at any time, with production rates that bear little relation to societal electricity demands. Developing better ways of efficiently harnessing water, solar and wind power will always be a priority, but the reliability of renewable energy sources must be supported by the increased use of batteries and storage strategies.

Batteries Can Sustain Sustainable Energy 

Batteries optimize the management of electricity generated from sustainable energy sources. Because the demand for energy and its production vary significantly and independently over time, the efficient operation of the electric grid depends on adequately supplying electricity from non-primary sources to meet ever-changing demand instantly.

Power storage in batteries serves a two-fold purpose for solar energy systems. By storing energy, batteries can supplement photovoltaic cells during a peak demand period and can bolster electric output at night or at other times sunlight is blocked.

The same is true for wind power. Batteries capture and retain excess power when the wind is strong but power demand is weak, then make it available for mid-day peak periods.

Batteries should increasingly play a life-saving role when disaster strikes and the electric supply is disrupted or cut entirely. Hospital administrators have long known this and back up their facilities with adequate battery power to provide power to life-sustaining medical equipment in case of power failure.

But the necessities of life aren’t only provided for those in institutions. This was illustrated clearly to me in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. I grew up in Philadelphia, and when the storm knocked out power to the East Coast, I drove there to check on my terminally ill father. When I arrived, I was struck by the thought that I had never seen the city completely dark before. Fortunately, I was able to use my expertise to turn a car battery into an electricity generator for one of his rooms, keeping it lit and warm for a few days. How many other’s lives could have been similarly comforted in the storm’s aftermath if more batteries were there to put the lights back on?

Energy Storage Technology Must Advance 

Currently, lithium-ion battery technology is the most diversified and commonly used in many ways, most familiarly in the electronic devices we all have. Lithium-ion batteries are safe, failing on the order of one in 10 million. Along with the improvement of lithium-ion technology, batteries types of many different chemistries, configurations and adaptations are being developed simultaneously.

Spurring these advancements, we hope, is the decision by some national laboratories to provide open-source data on technology developments, so businesses can learn more quickly what researchers have discovered.

And the capacity and efficiency of battery storage must continue to develop because our knowledge still has not caught up to our goals. For instance, you can’t yet go into a hardware store, walk out with solar panels and a generator, install them in your modern house and cut yourself off from the power grid – the technology just isn’t there yet. But the concept is there and that is the first step in pushing the various industries to achieve that goal. 

The first primitive batteries date back to early Egypt, but they remained a science curiosity until the laws of electricity were understood. Battery technology then advanced rapidly and was incorporated into the industrial products that we increasingly depend on for our everyday needs.

We know that the development of any technology can lead to unintended consequences and new safety risks, particularly when these advances are fully integrated into everyday life, and battery technology is no different. Third-party research and testing is a crucial way manufacturers can develop and build batteries safely for use in emerging applications.

Established technologies such as lithium-ion batteries are considered safe today, with a very small rate of failure, because those consequences of use were sought, identified and overcome. However, any technological advance will pose some risks in use. When they can’t be eliminated, they must be managed to help ensure society can continue to benefit from this technology.

As battery storage technologies continue to progress to capabilities only imagined today, particularly to buttress the development of sustainable energy, insuring their safe and reliable use must always be a central component of that advance. 

Lisa Salley is vice president and general manager of UL’s Energy and Power Technologies division. She plays an important role within the UL Commercial and Industrial executive leadership team, and under her leadership, UL has opened an advanced wind testing facility in Texas and a battery lab in Taiwan. Lisa has created the Renewable Energy Council to gather input from members of academia, government and industry interested in advancing the application of renewable energy.

Lead image: Green portfolio via Shutterstock

China is “a very attractive and interesting market” where the company sees a shift from focusing on initial capital costs to looking at the lifetime cost of energy, Runevad said, adding that Vestas will seek to use local manufacturers and suppliers for some component content.

Vestas is facing an uphill battle in China where local turbine makers dominate. Foreign manufacturers may see their portion of the market fall to as little as 1 percent from about 5 percent now, Shen Dechang, vice secretary-general of the association, said in April.

To make inroads in the onshore wind market, the Aarhus, Denmark-based company plans to make its V110 and V100 models for low- and medium-wind sites at its Tianjin plant, Runevad said. The company will also closely monitor offshore market developments.

Offshore wind is “in the start-up phase overall from a global market point of view,” Runevad said.

Offshore Wind

While the short-term focus for offshore will be on the North Sea, China will catch up, he said.

China’s wind market is facing a wave of consolidation that may cut the number of turbine producers by two-thirds in the next five years as oversupply pressures increase, according to the Chinese Wind Energy Equipment Association. Supply outstripped demand by 40 percent at the end of 2013, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

China may install about 20 gigawatts of wind power this year and more in 2015, Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates.

The 10 largest makers of wind equipment in China last year accounted for 78 percent of a market where capacity grew 16 gigawatts, according to data from the wind energy association. Xinjiang Goldwind Science Technology Co. was the biggest turbine supplier to China in 2013, followed by Guodian United Power Technology Co. and China Ming Yang Wind Power Group Ltd.

Vestas, which returned to profit in the final three months of last year after nine quarters of losses, was the 11th-largest supplier of wind equipment in China last year and the top foreign supplier, according to the wind energy association. The company in August reported net income of 94 million euros ($120 million) in the three months through June, rebounding from a 62 million euro loss a year earlier.

Copyright 2014 Bloomberg

Lead image: Wind turbines via Shutterstock

“We remain extremely confident that we’ll get this fund to first close and it will go on to be successful,” Northam said. “We’re right in the thick of the fund due diligence.”

The fund represents the first private capital that the bank will control. The U.K. has 3.6 gigawatts of offshore wind, more than the rest of the world combined. The bank intends to use the fund to invest in operating assets, allowing project developers to recycle their cash back into new plans.

The government-backed lender may raise about 400 million pounds to 500 million pounds in its first fundraising period, which will probably close before the current financial year ends March 31, Northam said. The bank itself will contribute as much as 20 percent of the funds.

Some of the bank’s existing offshore wind investments, including a 25 percent stake in the RWE AG’s Rhyl Flats project and a 10 percent share of the German utility’s Gwynt y Mor farm, may be transferred “at market price” as seed investments for the new fund, Northam said.

Northam also said it’s “achievable” for the bank to invest its target of 700 million to 800 million pounds this financial year, even though it put only about 102 million pounds into new projects in the first half.

“The larger financing commitments are still to come,” he said.

The bank was set up by the government to spur spending on renewables, and has 3.8 billion pounds of seed capital. Including this year’s projects, it’s invested about 1.4 billion pounds of that amount since it began operations almost two years ago.

Copyright 2014 Bloomberg

Lead image: Offshore wind via Shutterstock

This is an excerpt from EERE Network News, a weekly electronic newsletter.

July 30, 2014

The Energy Department and its National Renewable Energy Laboratory on July 24 announced $1.27 million in funding for four projects that will help drive down the cost of small- and medium-sized wind energy systems, which made up more than two-thirds of all wind turbines installed in the United States in the last decade. Funded through the second round of the Competitiveness Improvement Project (CIP), the teams are led by Pika Energy of Westbrook, Maine; Northern Power Systems of Barre, Vermont; Endurance Wind Power of Spanish Forks, Utah; and Urban Green Energy of New York, New York.

In support of the Energy Department’s Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative, this funding aims to help U.S. manufacturers improve their turbine designs and manufacturing processes to reduce hardware costs, improve efficiency, and eventually earn certification from accredited third-party certification bodies. These bodies issue easy-to-understand labels showing a turbine has met performance and safety testing requirements set by the wind industry.

Distributed wind systems are typically installed on residential, agricultural, commercial, industrial, or community sites, and can range in size from 5 kilowatts (kW) to multiple megawatts, depending on their application. While these wind systems vary widely in size, the CIP focuses on small- and medium-sized turbines up to 250 kW in rated capacity. See the Energy Department news release.

This is an excerpt from EERE Network News, a weekly electronic newsletter.

August 13, 2014

Fishermen’s Energy on August 7 highlighted the $46.7 million Energy Department grant, announced in May, which will provide funding over four years to accelerate the commercialization of innovative offshore wind technologies in the United States.This funding will supplement the investment by Fishermen’s Energy to finalize construction planning, fabrication, and deployment, and aims to help Fishermen’s achieve commercial operation by 2016 of a demonstration wind farm 2.8 miles off of Atlantic City, potentially the first grid-connected offshore wind farm in the United States.

Construction is planned to begin onshore in 2015, with offshore construction and commissioning of five turbines by Fishermen’s in 2016. In March 2012, the Energy Department announced the start of an initiative to capture wind energy off U.S. coasts. As part of a planned six-year $180 million initiative, these offshore wind projects will accelerate the deployment of breakthrough wind power technologies.
See the Fishermen’s news release and the May 7 edition of EERE Network News.

This is an excerpt from EERE Network News, a weekly electronic newsletter.

August 20, 2014

The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) on August 11 announced that its Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has defined three Wind Energy Areas offshore North Carolina. The areas total approximately 308,000 acres for potential commercial wind energy development. Each of the three Wind Energy Areas has been designed to make available areas that are attractive for commercial offshore wind development, while also protecting important viewsheds, sensitive habitats and resources, and minimizing space use conflicts with activities such as military operations, shipping, and fishing.

The Wind Energy Areas announced include the Kitty Hawk Wind Energy Areas (about 122,000 acres), the Wilmington West Wind Energy Areas (about 52,000 acres), and the Wilmington East Wind Energy Areas (about 134,000 acres). Before any leases are offered for competitive auction, BOEM will complete an Environmental Assessment to determine potential impacts associated with issuing leases and approving site assessment activities in the Wind Energy Areas, in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act.

BOEM is only considering the issuance of leases and approval of site assessment plans at this time. If leases are issued, any proposal for a commercial wind energy facility will require a construction and operations plan and a site-specific environmental analysis.

This announcement builds on BOEM’s recent activities to grow offshore renewable energy through the leasing of Wind Energy Areas. BOEM has awarded five commercial wind energy leases off the Atlantic coast: two non-competitive leases (for the proposed Cape Wind project in Nantucket Sound in Massachusetts and an area off Delaware’s coast) and three competitive leases (two offshore Massachusetts-Rhode Island and another offshore Virginia). See the DOI news release.