LYON, FRANCE—(eSolarEnergyNews)—Enphase Energy today announced a strategic partnership agreement with Groupe Solution Energie (GSE), a leading provider of advanced residential solar solutions, to address sustainable solar development in France, Switzerland and Belgium. Enphase will be the exclusive inverter technology partner for GSE’s advanced solar photovoltaic solutions.

«GSE is a formidable and pioneering force in the industry with years of experience in the field of end-user sustainable energy solutions in continental Europe,” said Olivier Jacques, managing director, EMEA, Enphase Energy. “We believe that the winning combination of the Enphase microinverter-based system, over hybrid DC technologies, and GSE’s innovative BIPV solutions provide a compelling offering to address the new self-consumption trends emerging in continental Europe.”

Founded in 2008 and with over 12,000 “turnkey” installations since inception in France, GSE is a key player in the French residential photovoltaic market. The company is already well-positioned to address next generation residential solar solutions in the upcoming smart grid environment. With relevant expertise in distribution, design, manufacture and installation, GSE provides a full range of end-to-end sustainable energy solutions and energy-efficient products, ranging from solar PV and solar thermal to insulation, heating and LED lighting — along with financial packages.

Enphase will supply microinverters for GSE’s integrated solutions:

•     GSE In-Roof System, the leading integration system for framed photovoltaic panels with over 60 percent market share of residential installations (below 9 kWp) in France. From 2011 the GSE In-Roof System has equipped nearly 800 000 m² of roof per year;
•     GSE Ground System, a ground-fixing system designed for several use types such as supplementary PV installation and flat-roof gardens, optimized for self-consumption.
•     GSE Sunshade, the first photovoltaic electric blind, an integrated system for façades, applicable without roof removal.

Furthermore, the GSE In-Roof System combined with the Enphase® Microinverters, will be the ideal solution to be coupled to the brand-new GSE AIR’SYSTEM, an hot air recovery system which gather the heat generated by the photovoltaic modules and recycle for heating needs and warming water inside the house.

«Following thorough benchmark analysis, Enphase Energy clearly stands out as the best and only inverter technology partner for our smart solar home solutions roll-out in Europe,» said Ylan Sabban, CEO at GSE. “The Enphase Microinverter system offers a number of advantages such as field-proven reliability, higher productivity yields and seamless flexibility, which make us extremely confident that we will provide an unmatched customer-satisfaction experience in the long run.”

Enphase continues to see robust demand for its market-leading microinverter technology with current and new customers from larger companies like GSE to smaller professional solar installers. The company has shipped more than 6.4 million microinverters worldwide, which are installed in 197,000-plus systems, accounting for over 2.5TWh of energy produced.

CAMBRIDGE, MA.—(eSolarEnergyNews)—EnergySage, the online marketplace for solar energy systems, today announced a partnership with Staples (SPLS) that makes it easier than ever for Staples customers to install solar on their homes and businesses, while being rewarded for reducing their environmental impact. Consumers who install solar through the Staples-EnergySage Solar Marketplace will receive Staples e-gift cards ranging from $125 to $300 for a residential installation and from $500 to more than $2,500 for commercial installations, depending on the size of the solar panel system installed at their property.

The EnergySage Solar Marketplace, a comprehensive consumer destination site for solar photovoltaics (PV) systems, will serve as the program’s engine, helping homeowners, businesses and non-profits to research solar and obtain multiple, competitive quotes for solar power systems, for all financing options, at no cost to them. Incorporating the best practices of online shopping, the EnergySage Solar Marketplace is the only online shopping platform for solar PV systems. Its unique, innovative and user-friendly comparison-shopping experience injects unprecedented levels of simplicity, choice and transparency into the solar shopping process. Multiple quotes provide customers with options including choice of solar panels, brands, installers and financing options that include $0-down solar leases, power purchase agreements (PPAs) and solar loans. By fostering transparency, choice, and market efficiency, EnergySage helps consumers save on average 9%, or over $2,500, compared to average industry prices for a residential solar panel system.

“Our partnership with EnergySage is a natural extension of our commitment to help our customers run their businesses and homes more sustainably,” said Jake Swenson, Director of Sustainable Products and Services, Staples, Inc. “This relationship provides them a simple way to learn about and install solar for a great price, lower their electricity bills, and reduce their impact on the planet.”

“EnergySage and Staples are committed to making it easy for consumers to research and shop for the best deals on solar panel systems,” comments Vikram Aggarwal, Founder and CEO of EnergySage. “And by providing access to transparent information, we are confident that more consumers will install solar PV systems.”

CHANGZHOU, CHINA—(eSolarEnergyNews)— Trina Solar today announced that it supplied 28.5MW of PV modules to sPower (Sustainable Power Group), a leading renewable energy provider, and Camborne Capital, a prominent UK solar developer.

A total of 105,560 of Trina Solar’s 270W monocrystalline DC05A.08 Honey M silicon solar PV modules will be used on Camborne and sPower project sites in the UK. The panels will be installed over the coming months to ensure the facilities are energized and accredited to meet the March 31, 2015 1.4 Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROC) deadline.

«We are pleased that our superior products and services have led to our selection by Camborne Capital and sPower,» commented Ben Hill, president for Trina Solar in Europe and Africa. «Our financial strength and industry leading sustainability credentials are always critical elements in such long-term investment decisions. We very much look forward to our continued partnership with sPower and Camborne Capital.»

Ryan Creamer, CEO of sPower, added: «Contracting with Trina Solar to supply their high-efficiency PV modules fits strategically with sPower’s focus on solutions that are both environmentally and economically responsible.»

«This is a significant milestone for Camborne and sPower as we move to the construction phase of the first nearly 30MW of projects,» said Declan Mackle, CEO of Camborne. «After evaluating several PV module suppliers, we decided to work with Trina Solar because of the company’s quality product, proven track records in solar projects and its commitment to client service. We look forward to continuing our partnership with the Trina Solar team as we further maximise opportunities in the UK solar industry before the ROC deadline.»

SANTA CLARITA, CA—(eSolarEnergyNews)—  In their ongoing efforts to provide «reliable quality water at a reasonable cost to the Santa Clarita Valley,» Castaic Lake Water Agency (CLWA) and its retail division, the Santa Clarita Water Division (SCWD), are always looking for innovative and sustainable ways to reduce the cost of transporting, treating and storing water. To that end, CLWA and SunPower (NASDAQ: SPWR) today announced the completion of a 3.5-megawatt (MW) photovoltaic solar plant. CLWA estimates that, in combination with the agency’s existing 1-MW SunPower solar plant, it will reduce electricity costs by approximately $20 million over the next 25 years.

«Santa Clarita Valley residents use about 250 gallons of water per capita per day, which equates to moving about a ton, or 2,000 pounds, of water for each resident every day, 365 days a year. It requires a tremendous amount of energy to serve that demand, at significant cost,» said CLWA General Manager Dan Masnada. «SunPower’s high performance solar technology is built to last, ultimately reducing the cost of energy over the long term. The savings we generate can be used to improve services to our rate payers, while the avoided fossil-fuel related emissions benefit the community with cleaner air.»

The new solar power plant, when combined with the output of an existing 1-MW SunPower solar plant completed in December 2011, is expected to offset about a third of the energy used at all facilities owned by CLWA and SCWD. Both solar plants are located at the agency’s Rio Vista Water Treatment Plant.

SunPower® Oasis® Power Plant technology is installed at the site. The technology positions SunPower’s high efficiency solar panels to follow the sun’s movement during the day, increasing sunlight capture by up to 25 percent over conventional fixed-tilt systems, while significantly reducing land use requirements. The Oasis Power Plant also uses robotic panel cleaning technology that reduces water use by up to 90 percent in comparison to traditional panel cleaning methods.

«By installing reliable, high performing SunPower solar technology on underutilized land and facilities, water agencies across California are significantly reducing operational costs for the benefit of the communities they serve,» said Howard Wenger, SunPower president, business units. «We’re very pleased to partner again with CLWA, and applaud the agency’s forward-thinking approach to serving their ratepayers and taxpayers.»

The new power plant was financed through a power purchase agreement (PPA) facilitated by SunPower. CLWA anticipates the PPA will provide an effective long-term hedge against future utility rate increases. In addition, CLWA is taking advantage of a program administered by Southern California Edison to receive financial credit for the power generated by the solar power system against the energy costs at all its facilities in the service area, including various well locations and pumping plants.

But what happens next? Specifically, what happens if the ITC drops from 30 percent to 10 percent? Will all the bar graphs still show a rising trend beyond 2016? Or will all of our ancillary partners and businesses cease to exist if there’s that much smaller of an industry to cover and support?

So, again, what happens next? This is a question the Solar Energy Industry Association (SEIA) public relations committee planned on brainstorming at last month’s Solar Power International (SPI) conference in Las Vegas. A brainstorm all of us begrudgingly know should have started a year ago. As an advisory committee, with more than 35 membership organizations represented, we meet via conference call every two weeks to discuss the ways the SEIA member base can support our premiere U.S. solar trade association. Our committee’s focus is on working with SEIA staff on crafting and disseminating the right messages to the right audiences at the right time.

The plan was to meet at SPI, because what better opportunity is there for us to meet in person than at our industry’s largest annual event? It took me ten minutes to make it from the back of the exhibit hall to the front, and two more to climb the escalators to the meeting rooms upstairs, just to realize that the room I was looking for was actually downstairs and in the back of the exhibit hall where I’d just been. Now I was late. I picked up the pace, and flew past the booth babes at RECOM (does that actually work?) and the beers being passed around at TerraSmart’s booth (and I was thirsty!) because I knew this meeting, was important — possibly the most.   

I burst into the meeting room we’d reserved, out of breath and disheveled. Sitting around a table set for 40, were three SEIA staff members, a SEIA board member, and the PR committee chair and vice chair.

“Is it over?” I asked, wondering if there’s a time difference between San Francisco and Las Vegas I didn’t factor in. “Did I miss it?”

The room reassured me that I was in the right place and the right time, but that we figured people were just having trouble finding it. The Polycom in the middle of the table beeped while we waited for any committee members who couldn’t make it in person, to dial in, but nobody called. We started the meeting 15 minutes late, and there were still no more stragglers who joined us.

I’m not telling you this story because I’m looking for a pat on the back. I selfishly went to the meeting because I get a lot of value from collaborating with my peers and the SEIA staff. I’m not telling you this because we weren’t productive. The discussion we had was great!  I’m telling you what happened because I think the lack of support and enthusiasm for this specific meeting is illustrative of our industry as a whole.

As an industry in its infancy, we need to fight for the support we want and throw punches with whatever resources we have — however limited they are.

The Koch-linked Americans for Prosperity is already lobbying against the wind production tax credit (PTC), and it could be assumed that they might come after solar and the ITC next. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when breathing clean air became a blue versus red issue — but it has, and it shouldn’t be. We need to vocalize our support for this growing industry and its proven track record overseas, and as a country ensure that we’re successfully developing it on American soil. After all, that is the American way, right?

SEIA can only do so much with the limited funds they’re operating with, and like most initiatives, the more you put in, the more you get out. We need to put more in. If that means joining SEIA at a higher membership level, then so be it. If money isn’t an option, than participate in the committees you have access to. And that doesn’t mean calling in and putting the call on mute. Call in and speak up!

The question is not what will happen without the ITC? But rather, what can we do to extend it? It’s not too late to play a role in this nation’s energy future. It’s not too late to share some positive solar messaging with your neighbors or local press. It’s not too late to reach out to your elected officials and request they fight for solar to have the same incentives the oil and gas industry has and are still getting. It’s not too late to demand a level playing field. We’ve reached a critical mass that has perked up the ears of the faceless suits on Wall Street, but we have so much more work to do.  

Sure it’s hard to have a full time job, and mouths to feed, and still find time to volunteer and support our industry as a whole, but you’ve got to. Because YOU are a solar warrior. 

Lead image: Warriors via Shutterstock

BELMONT, CA—(eSolarEnergyNews)— SunEdison, a leading solar technology manufacturer and provider of solar energy services, today announced that it entered into a joint framework agreement with Aboitiz Renewables, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Aboitiz Power Corporation (AboitizPower). The agreement formalizes their intention to jointly explore, develop, construct and operate up to 300 megawatts of utility-scale solar photovoltaic power generation projects in the Philippines over the next three years.

«It’s an ideal partnership,» said Ahmad Chatila, chief executive officer of SunEdison. «AboitizPower has extensive utility-scale experience in the Philippine power market, and SunEdison has leading world-class solar technology and deployment capabilities. Together we are ideally positioned to swiftly bring cost effective solar energy to the people of the Philippines.»

«We are constantly exploring new energy sources, and this exclusive agreement with SunEdison is an important milestone and a welcome addition to our current portfolio of renewable energy,» said Erramon I. Aboitiz, chief executive officer, Aboitiz Power Corp. «Our deep knowledge of local markets, together with SunEdison’s proven track record and cutting edge technology, will enable us to rapidly achieve our goal.»

The partnership with Aboitiz Renewables aims to develop the first in a series of utility-scale solar power projects in the Philippines starting in 2015. This follows similar arrangements by SunEdison in India and China through continued leverage of its ability to deploy cost effective solar energy solutions to meet the growing power needs of developing and emerging power markets.

Jim Alberts, HECO senior vice president of customer service, said last week that, «Applying results of recent inverter testing over the next five months we expect that we’ll be able to approve almost all of the customers who have been waiting for interconnection on these high solar circuits.» Year to date, HECO has approved some 7,500 applications from customers to connect their rooftop solar systems to the grid. With the logjam broken, HECO projects that it will have 546 MW of installed PV capacity in its territory by the end of 2016.

Among new features that inverters will need to meet approval from HECO are: stricter settings to prevent transient overvoltage, or rapid voltage spikes; and specifications to ride through possible unstable frequency and voltage conditions during emergencies on the island-wide electric grid. Among challenges HECO acknowledges it faces is a determination of who pays for additional functionality it may require in inverters.

HECO’s inverter policy was “influenced by research provided by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and the Smart Inverter Work Group (SIWG) of the California Public Utilities Commission.” SWIG recommendations for functional upgrades to inverters will become commercially available in stages over the next two years. HECO notes that some advanced inverters may be installed in its area prior to the formal approval of UL standards.

In HECO’s 515-page Distributed Generation Interconnection Plan (DGIP), submitted to the Hawai‘i Public Utilities Commission in late August, the utility indicated that it is planning to spend $290,000 a year over the next three years to set up inverter test labs and conduct tests. The effort may save the utility some $19.5 million in avoided distribution transformer upgrades, the DGIP indicates.

Among tests HECO is conducting on the use of advanced inverters is one that will continue next year with SolarCity and the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) that includes the testing of distributed generation inverter transient over-voltage (TrOV), anti-islanding of multiple inverters, advanced inverter volt/volt-ampere reactive (VAR) support, and bidirectional power flow.

HECO also is working with Gateway, Fronius, Hitachi and EPRI on various inverter test projects, out of half a dozen that started this year and are slated to continue through 2016. Apart from residential PV configurations, HECO also is testing advanced inverters with electric vehicle charging stations in cooperation with companies from both the United States and Japan.

Across the three Hawaiian Electric Companies, more than 48,000 customers have rooftop solar. As of September 2014, about 11 percent of Hawaiian Electric customers, 10 percent of Maui Electric customers and 8 percetn of Hawaii Electric Light customers have rooftop solar. This compares to a national average of 0.5 percent as of December 2013, according to the Solar Electric Power Association.

In our 2012 book Clean Tech Nation, we talked about the need to leverage proven investment tools from the oil, gas, and real estate sectors, such as master limited partnerships and real estate investment trusts (REITs). Back then, such vehicles were basically non-existent for renewable energy and clean-tech investors. But fast-forward two years — the landscape for clean-energy financing vehicles geared to retail investors has changed dramatically.

There are now more than a half dozen yieldcos and REITs available to retail investors. These tools, which enable individuals to invest in publicly traded stocks which invest in renewables infrastructure and deployment, now include Hannon Armstrong Sustainable Infrastructure (HASI), Brookfield Renewable Energy Partners (BEP), Pattern Energy Group (PEGI), Terraform Power (TERP), NRG Yield (NYLD), Abengoa Yield (ABY) and NextEra Energy Partners (NEP). These vehicles enable investors to capture both yield/dividends and the potential upside, or downside, of a publicly traded stock. Clean Edge’s CELS stock index, which tracks U.S.-listed clean-energy pure plays, now contains two of these companies, HASI and PEGI. 

When Clean Edge launched CELS, its first stock index, back in 2007, there were only a handful of players. There are now approximately a dozen U.S. and globally focused exchange traded funds (ETFs) based on clean-tech and renewable energy indexes, from such ETF providers as First Trust, Guggenheim, iShares, and PowerShares. Assets under management stand at more than $600 million collectively (as of October 28, 2014) among three of the leading ETFs in the sector: solar-focused TAN ($337M), clean-energy focused PBW ($159M), and QCLN ($109M), the fund based on Clean Edge’s CELS index.

But clean-energy stocks haven’t been without their volatility. As we reported in our Clean Energy Trends 2014 report, annual performance has often outperformed the major benchmarks in up markets, but has also shown greater declines during bear markets. Clean Edge’s CELS index, for example, was up 67 percent in 2007, down 66 percent in 2008, up 44 percent in 2009, nearly even at 2 percent in 2010, down 41 percent in 2011, down 2 percent in 2012, and up a record 89 percent in 2013. 

While stock investing can come with the aforementioned volatility, the promise of steady income-type investment vehicles has been on the rise as well. Green bonds for institutional investors have increased dramatically in recent years: up from less than $1 billion in new issues in 2007, to $3 billion in 2012 and $11 billion last year. In the first eight months of 2014, the sum was close to $30 billion, more than twice as much as in 2013 as a whole.

More recently, additional bond and bond-like investment opportunities for retail investors have opened up as well, providing a potentially new source of capital. Mosaic, the first company to leverage crowdfunding for solar projects, has issued state-focused offerings for investors interested in financing local solar projects, selling in increments as small as $25. To date, their offerings have primarily been limited to residents of California and New York, with interest rates averaging between 4.5 and 7 percent for five- to 10-year terms. The company’s offerings are usually in the $100,000 to $400,000 range , and have been very popular with investors, reportedly filling up within days. In mid-October, SolarCity launched the nation’s first retail Solar Bonds, available to residents of all 50 states with rates ranging from 2 percent for a 1-year term to 4 percent for a 7-year term. SolarCity plans to issue up to $200 million worth of solar bonds with these first offerings, with more likely to follow.

Investors, of course, will need to weigh the risks of such offerings. But the opening up of debt securities to retail investors, especially impact-oriented ones looking for double bottom line returns, is compelling. As solar power, energy storage, microgrids, and other innovations displace the 20^th century centralized utility with a 21^st century distributed model, we’ll need retail-investor-focused financing vehicles to help get us there.

Lead image: Money via Shutterstock