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on December 14th, 2011% ![]()
China’s major solar panel companies — whose low-cost products led some American factories to close, helped create the Solyndra controversy and spawned talk of a trade war — were bankrolled in the United States by the world’s largest investment banks.
Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, USB Investment Bank and others raised $6.5 billion for seven young Chinese solar panel makers in the mid-2000s by underwriting their securities on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, a Tribune-Review investigation has found.
Documents show the process involved two steps. First, the Chinese companies were folded into holding company shells in the Cayman Islands. that allowed them to take the next step, which was selling specialty securities called American Depository Shares on the exchanges.
Shares in the companies, initially darlings of Wall Street, have plummeted because of an oversupply of solar panels, leaving investors with few alternatives.
“If you’re trying to get at assets that are in China, you’re going to be screwed,” said Thomas Shoesmith, a Silicon Valley attorney who establishes Cayman Island companies. “Any court decision in the U.S. is not enforceable in China.”
Worse, said Washington attorney Herbert Milstein, once chief corporate enforcement attorney at the Securities and Exchange Commission, China’s auditing rules are such that investors cannot always determine whether a company’s books are legitimate.
He led a class-action lawsuit against one of the big Chinese solar companies, LDK Solar co. Ltd., after a company controller blew the whistle on potential fraud. But Milstein said he could not access company records after LDK’s audit firm, a Chinese branch of auditing giant KPMG, said Chinese law forbids it from disclosing internal documents.
That some Chinese companies trading on U.S. stock exchanges contend their auditors do not have to provide documentation for their securities as other companies do is the focus of a showdown between the SEC and Chinese regulators.
At the center of the dispute is Longtop Financial Technologies Ltd., the first Chinese software company to be listed on the NYSE by registering itself in the Cayman Islands. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu of Shanghai said it could not disclose client Longtop’s supporting documentation for securities reports, even after a Deloitte auditor suspected fraud.
The wall protecting Chinese companies’ documentation will play a key role in a trade complaint that several U.S. solar companies have filed with the Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission, said Timothy Brightbill, a Washington lawyer leading the fight.
If the plaintiffs can show that the financial reports cannot be trusted, “it could greatly undermine” claims by Chinese companies that they abide by trade laws, he said.
Cayman connection
It’s not clear how the idea of using offshore tax havens to get listed on U.S. exchanges developed. But the Trib learned through SEC reports how Chinese solar companies grabbed onto the idea.
The first was Suntech Power Holdings co. Ltd., now the world’s largest solar company. It began operating as a Chinese company in may 2002, and by 2004 reported sales of $85.3 million.
In January 2005, the firm reinvented itself as Suntech BVI in the British Virgin Islands. Then, “in anticipation of our initial public offering, we incorporated Suntech Power Holdings co., Ltd., or Suntech, in the Cayman Islands as a listing vehicle on Aug. 8, 2005,” Suntech’s prospectus stated.
Goldman Sachs (Asia) was with Suntech all along. A branch of the investment bank bought 10.8 million shares of Suntech BVI for $2.31 a share. When Suntech switched to the Cayman Islands to go public, Goldman Sachs (Asia) followed, grabbing an 8.66 percent ownership share of the solar company.
In December 2005, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse First Boston brought Suntech public at $15 a share. as with other Cayman-based Chinese solar companies, the stock went wild, closing its first day of trading at $21.20 — an increase of 41 percent — and raising $320 million.
Suntech later raised $1.3 billion in secondary offerings and convertible debt. Shares reached $88 in December 2007 before clouds settled over the solar panel industry. Suntech shares closed on Friday at $2.72.
Suntech’s original stock registration statement spelled out warnings about the risks: “We are a Cayman Islands company and, because judicial precedent regarding the rights of shareholders is more limited under Cayman Islands law than that under U.S. law, you may have less protection for your shareholder rights than you would under U.S. law. … It may also be difficult for you to enforce in U.S. courts judgments obtained in U.S. courts based on the civil liability provisions of the U.S. federal securities laws against us and our officers and directors, most of whom are not residents in the United States and the substantial majority of whose assets are located outside of the United States.
“In addition, there is uncertainty as to whether the courts of the Cayman Islands or the (People’s Republic of China) would recognize or enforce judgments.”
The Trib found similar language in stock statements of six other Chinese solar companies: LDK Solar, JA Solar Holdings co. Ltd., Trina Solar Ltd., Yingli Green Energy Holdings co. Ltd, Hanwah SolarOne co. Ltd. and JinkoSolar Holding co. Ltd.
Plethora of panels
As the solar panel industry burgeoned in the late 2000s, the Chinese government and state-run banks jumped in, offering $47 billion in lines of credit and tax inducements for alternative energy companies.
So much money flowing into the industry resulted in a flood of solar panel production, and prices dramatically dropped, said Shayle Kann, managing director of solar for Boston-based GMT Research.
“There has been a 40 percent decline in panel prices this year, and the least well-positioned will fall by the wayside,” Kann said. three American solar companies declared bankruptcy and three plants closed, he said.
LDK Solar garnered about $1.6 billion by selling American Depository Shares and senior convertible debt on American exchanges. The short-term debt LDK owed to Chinese banks increased from $57 million in 2006, the year it formed in the Caymans, to $666 million in 2008. By June, the company’s debt was $2.2 billion.
“If we do not successfully execute our liquidity plan,” LDK warned shareholders in its annual report issued in may, “we face the risk of not being able to continue as a going concern.”
LDK said it hoped to avoid bankruptcy by seeking more short-term financing, selling more shares on the NYSE and obtaining a five-year line of credit worth as much as $8.9 billion with the state-owned China Development Bank. That’s more than 16 times the loan guarantee that Solyndra got from the Department of Energy before the American solar panel maker closed its doors.
“There are so many (Chinese) subsidies that we can’t track them all,” said Ben Santarris, spokesman for SolarWorld USA, one of the American companies that filed unfair trade complaints against China.
Santarris said labor costs, usually cited as a reason for lower-priced Chinese products, account for 10 percent of the cost of a solar panel. He said the real reason Chinese products are cheap is unbound subsidies and dumping in the United States and elsewhere.
Chinese companies deny allegations of dumping and in recent weeks have talked about asking the People’s Republic to impose tariffs on American solar goods in retaliation.
“The idea that we should not act for fear that China might bully us is untenable,” Santarris said. “What industry would you defend? is the feeling that you don’t interfere with the schoolyard bully because he might pick on another victim?”
The International Trade Commission voted unanimously on Dec. 2 to investigate complaints about Chinese dumping.
‘A giant loophole’
Attorney Thomas Shoesmith, a Silicon Valley expert on Cayman Islands companies, said the reason Chinese solar companies registered there seems simple.
“They set up the company in the Cayman Islands so they can raise money in the United States,” he explained. “In the mid-2000s, there wasn’t much money in China. …There was money outside of China, but they couldn’t access it. you can set up a holding company outside of China, almost anywhere, but for tax reasons, the British Virgin Islands and the Caymans were favored.”
Shoesmith said Chinese companies can trade on U.S. exchanges only through foreign entities. while some large companies set up subsidiaries outside of China that are then traded on American exchanges, smaller ones — such as the seven Chinese solar firms — establish a foreign holding company that, on paper, holds assets in China. they then can sell American Depository Shares through designated depository banks on U.S. markets.
The setup can be problematic if shareholders believe fraud occurred, Shoesmith said, and can lead unhappy shareholders to consider suing accountants, law firms and insurance companies. Milstein, who led the LDK litigation, agrees.
Charles Situ, LDK’s financial controller, began warning company officials in 2007 about problems with inventory reported in financial reports.
“In many cases data is just a paper number and there are no items physically existing or just some unusable items,” he reported.
Situ reported his concerns to the SEC in September 2007 and left the firm.
The next month, the American investment bank Piper Jaffray made note of Situ’s exit and mentioned a 250-metric ton “inventory discrepancy.” The stock immediately dropped 24.4 percent.
Milstein said he thought he had a good case for 2,409 claimants who lost more than $300 million almost overnight.
Then he learned that LDK’s accounting firm would not turn over supporting financial documents. Milstein said he exchanged e-mails with Situ and flew to Hong Kong to meet him, but Situ never showed, and no one has located him.
The lawsuit against LDK settled out-of-court for $16 million, of which $6 million was paid by an insurance company.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup in the Northern District of California expressed outrage during the June 17, 2010, settlement conference with what he called “a giant loophole” that would allow Chinese firms to trade on American stock markets but not be subject to disclosing support documentation for annual stock market reports.
“(The) SEC ought to say that if somebody is not going to make their work papers available, they cannot trade on the national exchanges,” Alsup said.
more Print edition front-page stories headlines
on December 14th, 2011% ![]() December 09, 2011, 1:22 AM EST
Dec. 4 (Bloomberg) — China said a preliminary ruling by a U.S. trade panel that imports of Chinese solar panels are harming the domestic industry shows the country’s “inclination to trade protectionism.”
The U.S. International Trade Commission on Dec. 2 took the first step toward imposing added tariffs on Chinese solar imports, voting unanimously in Washington on a petition by Bonn- based SolarWorld AG that called for antidumping and countervailing duties. The commission will now hold a full investigation.
“The ruling was made without sufficient evidence showing U.S. solar panel industry has been harmed,” China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on its website yesterday. The decision was taken “regardless of defense opinions from Chinese firms, as well as opposition from the U.S. domestic industries and other stakeholders, which prominently shows the U.S.’s strong inclination to trade protectionism and for which China is deeply concerned.”
The Chinese government uses cash grants, raw-materials discounts, preferential loans, tax incentives and currency manipulation to boost exports of solar cells, according to SolarWorld’s Oct. 19 complaint to the ITC and the U.S. Commerce Department. SolarWorld, a maker of solar modules, is seeking duties to offset the practices.
The ITC is examining possible economic harm to SolarWorld from Chinese imports, while the department determines the penalty for Chinese companies that illegally dump products.
The department may decide on preliminary remedies as early as Jan. 12.
Tariffs may raise the cost of modules by 10 percent, Aaron Chew, a senior analyst at new York-based Maxim Group LLC, said in a Dec. 2 research note.
“The United States should avoid abusing trade remedies which will affect bilateral trade and mutually beneficial cooperation between China and U.S. enterprises in the new energy sector,” the Chinese Commerce Ministry said in its statement.
China exported $3.5 billion of solar goods, including solar cells, to North America last year, according to the China Chamber of Commerce for Import & Export of Machinery and Electronic Products. North America is China’s third-biggest solar export market, following Europe and Asia in 2010, accounting for about 11 percent of China’s global solar exports.
Democratic lawmakers wrote a letter on Dec. 2 to President Barack Obama urging an investigation into the Chinese imports, which they say don’t fairly compete with domestic products.
Imports of Chinese solar products have more than quadrupled from 2008 to 2010, lawmakers said in the letter. Chinese imports control half the market, benefiting from government-provided loans, cheap land, tax breaks and an undervalued currency, the lawmakers, including Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, and Representative Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said.
SolarWorld and six other companies that haven’t been publicly identified have requested tariffs of 100 percent, saying Chinese solar manufacturers benefit from unfair government support.
The U.S. group asked the federal government to slap duties on more than $1 billion of Chinese imports.
China’s Commerce Ministry said on Nov. 25 that it would begin its own investigation into American state support for renewable energy and would consider the stimulus programs of the states of Washington, Massachusetts, Ohio and California, and two others in new Jersey.
Representatives of Chinese companies told the commission Nov. 8 that tariffs sought by U.S. competitors would make it more difficult to expand the use of renewable energy. China and the U.S. are among nations encouraging use of alternative energy sources, driving costs down across the board, so it would be unfair to penalize China, they told the panel.
SolarWorld said Sept. 2 that it was cutting almost 200 jobs at its facility in Camarillo, California. Solyndra LLC, a California maker of solar panels that received $535 million in U.S. loan guarantees, blamed cheap Chinese imports for its collapse. Solyndra filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 6.
“There’s a serious concern going forward with the current situation,” Gordon Brinser, the president of SolarWorld’s U.S. unit, said in a Dec. 1 interview before the ruling. “SolarWorld is a strong company, but others in the industry are struggling.”
The Commerce Ministry said yesterday it hopes the “U.S. side will objectively analyze the reason why some of U.S. solar panel firms lack competitiveness”.
Attorneys for Suntech Power Holdings co. ltd. and Trina Solar ltd., two of the biggest China-based makers of crystalline silicon panels, told the trade commission Nov. 8 that added tariffs would increase the cost of solar panels, which would then be passed on to the consumer.
Chinese solar manufacturers have said they may shift manufacturing to other countries to avoid tariffs if they’re imposed.
Executives at four of China’s biggest solar-panel makers have said they don’t receive special treatment from the Chinese government and that they pay higher interest rates for loans than U.S. or European competitors.
SolarWorld has said that China’s rapid growth in solar products is possible only with government support as it seeks to push out U.S. competitors by selling products for less than cost.
“If they continue at the rate they are going, it’s not a sustainable situation,” Brinser said.
China provided $30 billion in credit to its biggest solar manufacturers last year, about 20 times the amount provided by the U.S., Jonathan Silver, executive director of the Energy Department’s loan program, told a congressional panel Sept. 14. Silver resigned on Oct. 6.
first Solar inc., based in Tempe, Arizona, and SunPower Corp., based in San Jose, California, may benefit from higher sales prices stemming from the tariffs, Ahmar Zaman, an analyst at Minneapolis-based Piper Jaffray Companies inc., wrote in a Dec. 1 research note.
first Solar isn’t involved in the ITC case, spokeswoman Melanie Friedman wrote in an e-mail Dec. 2. SunPower is neutral, Chief Executive Officer Thomas Werner said in a Nov. 30 presentation at the Baird Clean Technology Conference.
–Zheng Lifei, with assistance from Zachary Tracer in new York. Editors: Paul Tighe, Andrew Janes
To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Zheng Lifei in Beijing at
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Tighe at
on December 13th, 2011% ![]()
Are you looking into utilizing the power of solar energy in your home? whether you’re building a new house, remodeling an old one, or simply looking for ways to reduce the electric bill. solar energy is the ultimate green resource that is free and renewable.
There are many professional grade solar panels for sale, but the cost can be prohibitive (up to $20,000 to outfit a single home). Portable solar panels average between $300 – $1000 and can be used to power a laptop and a few other smaller appliances all at once. Why not make your own for a few hundred dollars instead?
If you are a do-it-yourself kind of person, you can easily build a solar panel in a weekend. Doing it yourself is about 1/4 the price of a professional grade panel. all you need is a few hundred dollars worth of supplies that you can pick up from your local hardware or home improvement store.
All it takes is a little understanding of the concept of how a solar panel works. Basically, a solar panel is a Photovoltaic (PV) cell that converts light into electricity. They are made of semiconductors such as silicon, which absorbs a portion of the light that is passing through it. all PV cells have one or more energy fields that force the released electrons to flow in one direction and forms a current that can be drawn off to power electrical appliances. Even though this sounds very technical you can make your own PV cells. Instead of using silicon as your semiconductor you will need to use copper oxide (obtained by heating copper in a safe manner) as it is easily available.
Make sure you do plenty of research to find a solar panel guide that will take you step by step through the building process and show you exactly how to do it. there are many DIY guides on the internet but the one that pioneered the ease of DIY solar panels can be found here
on December 12th, 2011% ![]()
To international decision makers in energy and the environment, Stephan Ouaknine has become a full-blown curiosity.
While the government of Canada rejects the Kyoto climate treaty and refuses to make a second commitment to its emission targets, the Quebec high-tech entrepreneur is spearheading an ambitious business that aims to fundamentally change the landscape for renewable energy.
Canada is being cast as the villain in climate negotiations, a U.S. puppet with its head in the sand bent on protecting its oil exports at any cost. mr. Ouaknine, meanwhile, has his head in the clouds. He’s a big-picture thinker who believes the world is moving too slowly on clean energy adoption. And he’s got a scheme to quicken the pace.
Earlier this month at the World Climate Summit in Durban, South Africa — the international business conference that takes place alongside the UN-sponsored COP17 climate change negotiations — mr. Ouaknine shared the stage in a panel discussion with Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland, and Philippe Joubert, deputy chief executive of French energy giant Alstom SA.
The Montrealer talked about the need for new business models to speed up the adoption of clean energy and about the need for renewable energy technology to become cheaper to cut the dependence on government subsidies — themes familiar to anyone who has spoken with him longer than five minutes.
Then, the kicker. “I’d like to paraphrase Steve Jobs, who said the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the only ones that do,” he said, with his typical non-apologetic flair for self-promotion.
“I have a vision of the future where renewable energy is available everywhere, and at a price cheaper than coal.”
These are interesting times to be a Canadian, mr. Ouaknine confessed via email this week. perhaps no one is feeling that more than him.
Mr. Ouaknine, 37, is best known as a telecom wunderkind. from 1994 to 2010, he started three separate high-tech ventures — Emblaze, Airslide Systems and Blueslice Networks — and made three successful exits, each one richer than the one before. He sold Blueslice, a subscriber data management company, to Morrisville, N.C.-based Tekelec Inc. last year, pocketing a small fortune.
Now he’s putting that money to work with a new energy venture that consists of two companies: a $1-billion fund called Inerjys Ventures, which is raising money to invest in early to mid-stage companies involved in wind, sun, marine and biofuel power generation, as well as energy storage, transmission and distribution, and smart-grid systems; and a global utility company called Inerjys Renewables Corp. that sells clean power in various countries with local equity partners under the brand Inerjys.
The novelty of the idea lies in the interplay between the two.
The recent bankruptcies of U.S. clean power companies Solyndra LLC and Beacon Power illustrate that green technology startups are still scrambling to find the financing and support needed to cross the so-called “valley of death” — a predicament where a company’s technology is too capital intensive for a venture capital firm to continue investing but still too risky for a bank. in renewable energy, the gap is especially wide because some technologies are unproven and significant funds are needed up front to make them work.
Both startups received loan guarantees from the U.S. Department of Energy under its 1705 program valued at US$16-billion. it was supposed to be a lifeline that would allow them to scale-up their products. it turned into an embarrassing mess that has tainted the notion of using public money to propel green technology.
“Even if, by some miracle, the government could make good business decisions void of political interference, such programs are still doomed to failure because the public and the media won’t allow for even one loan or one investment to fail,” David Gold, a clean-tech venture capitalist argued in a recent column.
Mr. Ouaknine recognizes that problem. Further, he sees a near-term future where governments won’t be able to afford this kind of corporate welfare because of they’ve borrowed too much themselves. but in his world, there’s no need for it.
The Inerjys fund attacks the valley of death difficulty by securing revenue for its portfolio companies. The orders will come from Inerjys Renewables, the sister company, which will buy the latest innovations and deploy them in its global network of utilities.
It will own those utilities with local governments, billionaires and other partners, under a variety of business models. but the international banner for the clean energy will be the Inerjys clean energy company, much like U.K. wireless service provider Vodafone built out its brand in nearly 200 countries.
In theory, the system will allow a network of clean tech companies to grow, breaking the oligopolies now enjoyed by incumbents such as Siemens AG. and lowering prices.
Mr. Ouaknine sees the same deregulation that happened in the telecom sector taking hold in energy, across the planet. Eventually, he says, people will be able to buy their power directly from an alternative energy supplier in the same way they can get television service from Videotron or Bell.
“What we have today is a highly fragmented set of wind farms and solar farms and guys like [General Electric] showing up and saying ‘You’ll pay what I tell you to pay for that turbine, that solar cell, that biofuel power station,’ ” mr. Ouaknine says. “We’re going to build an entity that is eventually going to have enough critical mass that it’s going to have leverage over its suppliers. So we’re going to change the balance of power. That’s part of how you negotiate prices down.”
This is all pretty ambitious stuff, loaded with regulatory risks and other obstacles. It’s a lot of moving parts for one guy to manage from a slick, second-floor office in old Montreal. And it is highly dependent on forging relationships internationally.
The odds are stacked against him.
Right now, the effort is very much in its infancy. mr. Ouaknine says the fund has $700-million in committed capital, roughly 20% of it from family offices and wealthy individuals who are in the mindset of “impact investing” — the concept that philanthropy and for-profit corporate greed aren’t mutually exclusive.
He is also eyeing strategic investors, namely established energy players he can partner with on contracts and who might end up buying the smaller technology companies the fund holds for a multiple later on.
As for the utility company, it has projects underway in seven countries: Canada, Germany, Ghana, South Africa, the United States, Vietnam and Indonesia.
In Indonesia, a country where people often wear gas masks in the streets because the air quality is so poor, Inerjys is partnering with the government and a local billionaire to power the network of base stations for the nation’s largest telecom operator.
The telecom network manager was using thousands of diesel generators to power the system. it was a dirty and expensive solution, mr. Ouaknine says. And local residents would steal the machines regularly to power their cars and trucks. Inerjys’s solution? a hybrid unit that combines a small wind turbine with a solar panel and a storage device.
The company will recover its $100-million capital cost in two years, after which it will earn profits for the duration of the contract, mr. Ouaknine says. And the telecom operator will get a solution which costs half what the diesel generators cost.
And the wind, solar and storage equipment providers? They’re among the 40 or so firms in the Inerjys pipeline, companies that the fund is investing in. With Indonesia, they get revenue certainty and cash flow they so desperately need as their sister company provides a captive marketplace for their products.
The Inerjys two-company model is a “phenomenally interesting proposition” if it can be made to work in the long term, says Jatin Nathwani, a professor at the University of Waterloo and the director of its institute for sustainable energy. The key is the global utility company winning contracts, he says.
“[Usually] companies end up either relying on governments for early handouts or investors who are on their backs every quarter,” says mr. Nathwani, who has been retained as an advisor to Inerjys. “To have that degree of certainty to actually get on your feet is what this model promises.”
Mr. Ouaknine is under no illusion that his $1-billion fund and sister company will rid the world of oil and coal. but he says efforts like his are certain to push up clean energy’s current 3% to 4% global power market share.
The same doubts about the Internet as an immature, unreliable technology that gripped the early days of the telecom industry transformation are at work now in the energy sector, he says.
“I see the same kinds of protectionist tendencies over monopolies and status quo. I see the same fear mongering. … I see the same opportunity to make money and to improve things by making these solutions more efficient.”
on December 9th, 2011% ![]()
Baton Rouge, LA (PRWEB) December 06, 2011
Renogy LLC—a Louisiana based solar panel manufacturer, has become one of the two solar panels suppliers for Lamar Advertising’s “Renewable Louisiana” Project. Lamar and Renogy have begun with a 30KW installation, and look forward to a successful trial.
Lamar Advertising, the nation’s largest outdoor advertising (billboard) company, is in the process of installing its second renewable energy project, here in Louisiana. as part of this project, Renogy solar panels will be incorporated onto many of Lamar’s billboards throughout the state, returning energy to the grid during peak consumption hours. this project will not only prove that solar energy is economically comparable to traditional power, but will also serve as example to raise more public awareness of using renewable energy.
Renogy is a global supplier that has a production line from solar ingots, wafers, cells, to modules. its vertical integration allows Renogy to offer superior quality control while reducing the cost. Renogy is also able to better serve Lamar with local logistical support from its headquarter in Baton Rouge, besides other major warehouses in California and New Jersey.
“Incorporating Renogy’s products onto billboards containing LED lighting will definitely help Lamar save on energy costs. besides, our products’ high PTC rating plus efficiency will allow Lamar’s billboards to solely rely on renewable energy”, said Yi Li, president of Renogy. “Our products are a perfect match for such a novel combination, and we are more than happy to participate in such a significant project that sets the bar for Louisiana’s green movement”.
“We are very pleased to have Renogy partnering with us as a supplier of solar panels for our Louisiana Renewable Energy Project”, said Greg Gauthier, Director of Sustainability at Lamar. “The high quality of the product is definitely a plus, as is the chance to support a local Louisiana company. we also think the Louisiana Business & Technology Center and LSU Innovation Park at LSU is an incredible resource, and this partnership highlights the important role that business incubators play in helping to bring new and innovative products to market.”
Renogy is a global producer and distributor of solar panels. being vertically integrated from solar ingots to solar modules, Renogy specializes in developing turnkey PV projects and delivering the most reliable and cost effective solar energy solutions. by strategically partnering with leaders from different industries, Renogy creates added value for their clients. Renogy’s state of the art production of top quality solar cells and the use of superior accessories enable them to produce high performance solar modules that maximize the energy yield of the solar system per unit area. Interested customers please visit renogy.com or call 225-578-5182.
on December 9th, 2011% ![]()
The city is poised to invest more than $10 million in a host ofsolar projects, including putting panels on the roof of the TucsonConvention Center’s exhibit hall.
The projects will also include maxing out the 51,000 square feetof roof space at the Thomas O. Price service center at South ParkAvenue and East Ajo way.
And they will pay to install some 150 solar parking spaces attwo police stations and have some installed at the new crime lab atthe police substation at West Miracle Mile and North Flowing WellsRoad. The solar panel parking provides shade for cars whilegenerating electricity for the buildings.
The city is funding the projects with clean Renewable EnergyBonds, which aren’t funded by the general fund. The money is paidback with rebates from Tucson Electric Power as well as with moneythat otherwise would have been spent on the utility bills.
The city has invested in about two dozen solar projects sinceits first one – Shirley Scott’s Ward 4 council office – in1999.
While none of the projects covers the full load of electricityusage, they’ve still saved money over time, according to the citystaff. So far, said solar energy coordinator Bruce Plenk, the citysaved $216,000 on utility costs in fiscal 2010-11 on its collectionof previous solar projects. Halfway through the fiscal year, thecity has saved about $76,000.
The new round of projects will generate about 3.5 millionkilowatt hours per year. With a typical residential solar projectgenerating about 8,750 kilowatt hours, that’s roughly theequivalent of 400 houses fitted with solar.
The Thomas Price center will be about 1,000 kilowatt hours -that’s twice the size of the city’s largest project to date at thePublic Safety Training Academy at 10001 S. Wilmot Road.
The panels have a guaranteed lifetime of about 25 years. Plenksaid the goal is to pay them off in 12, leaving 13 years of life onthe panels.
Plenk said there’s still more work to be done to make solar moreaccessible.
Tucson in 2007 received a Solar America City grant from the U.S.Department of Energy for $200,000, recognizing the city as a placethat was doing a number of solar projects. The city won a secondround of those grants for about $350,000 in 2009. The grants wereintended to identify and eliminate barriers to solar installationsin and around Tucson.
Plenk said in the first round, the city identified two barriers,the first being education. since then, Pima County and the cityhave teamed up to develop the Solar one Stop website, whichprovides information about everything solar on one site, from alist of installers to licensing information and permitrequirements.
The other hurdle the city identified was cost. Plenk said that’sstarting to change as prices drop. plus, he contends, it’ssometimes a matter of priorities. he tells the story of a mantelling him solar is too expensive yet was willing to plunk down$12,000 on granite countertops.
Plenk said federal tax credits that kick back 30 percent of thecosts are good until 2016. Also available is a state tax creditcapped at a one-time credit of $1,000.
Solar is indeed starting to catch on, said Joe Salkowski, aspokesman for Tucson Electric Power. The number of residentialrooftop photovoltaic systems jumped from about 1,800 through 2010to about 2,500 this year, he said. Some 1,500 households haveinstalled solar hot-water systems as well. “We’ve had more interestin these systems in the past two years than in the eight years thatpreceded them,” Salkowski said. “More and more customers are comingto the conclusion that these systems make sense for them in theirhomes or business.”
But even Plenk will say solar is not the entire answer to theenergy picture. “You don’t want to get too narrowly focused onsolar. We need to reduce our dependence on outside utilities, butwhere your money is best spent is on energy conservation. Solar isjust one prong of a number of things the city is doing.”
Contact reporter Rhonda Bodfield at 573-4243.
on December 8th, 2011%  A protestor holds up a solar panel during a climate change summit held in the city of Durban, South Africa. (Schalk van Zuydam/AP) There’s a new paper out from Bryan Bollinger of NYU’s Stern School and Kenneth Gillingham of Yale finding that, in California, solar power seems to be contagious. having a bunch fo neighbors who are installing solar panels on their roofs makes a person more likely to try out solar for him- or herself. no surprise, peer pressure can be a powerful motivator. Specifically, the authors find, “a one percent increase in the zip code installed base leads to just over a one percent increase in the adoption rate.”
That explains why solar tends to cluster in specific California neighborhoods. (Interestingly, the authors note, the majority of solar adopters cite financial reasons, while only 26 percent say they’re installing panels out of concern for the environment.) but does it mean that rooftop solar adoption will eventually reach critical mass and trigger a fast chain reaction? John Farrell of the New Rules Project crunches the numbers and urges caution: “[I]f solar PV was being installed only once every 100 days at the outset, the peer pressure effect will take over 15 years to reduce the time between neighborhood installs to 10 days.” In other words, he says, “solar is contagious, but it’s not yet very virulent.”
on December 7th, 2011% ![]()
Nissan is currently demonstrating a future house concept where everything is autonomous thanks to two backup power supplies which even draw power from the car battery.
During the Tokyo Car show, which opened its doors on Friday the 2nd of December and will run until Sunday the 11th of December, Japanese automobile manufacturer Nissan has presented their vision of a house for tomorrow.This house is able to continue to operate even if there is an outage in the electricity grid following a blackout or natural disaster, thanks to the presence of two solar panels linked to an enormous battery in addition to the car. the house comes with a docking station which allows you to recharge your cars battery, or even draw power down if required.the energy supplied is enough to survive a few days in relatively good conditions even if the sun isn’t shining, as the car battery is able to provide 6KW of power, especially considering a house operating normally (lights, television, clock, refrigerator, and air conditioning) consumes between 1 and 2 KW per day.we can also imagine holiday houses that are powered entirely by rental cars, with this allowing the owner of a site to minimise their electrical installation while the holiday renters will only have to pay for the energy that they use.
on December 6th, 2011% ![]()
Things are starting to look up for solar energy. Historically, the cost to utilize solar panels was far too impractical for many consumers and companies. However, the high costs of this energy source are gradually starting to plummet, which makes it extremely appealing to those who can now afford it. many real estate companies are frantically installing solar panels on businesses while financing companies are creating financing plans to make solar power more realistic for people.
A new Era for Energy
From 2009 to 2010, solar power installations grew by 102 percent in the United States and they are expected to continue to grow in the years to come. By 2016, it is expected that solar power will be able to compete with fossil fuels even when the federal solar subsidy shrinks by two-thirds. while the electricity produced by natural gas still remains roughly 3 times cheaper than solar power, the cost is falling fast and more solar energy is being planned than any other power source available. The total share of power that solar energy has is still small, but there is great potential for growth.
In September of this year, Exelon and NextEra Energy, two of the nation’s biggest utilities, both acquired a large California solar power farm in the early stages of development. In addition, another utility called NRG Energy publicized their plan with Bank of America and the real estate firm Prologis to spend over a billion dollars to install solar systems on 750 commercial rooftops.
The Installation of Solar Panels
Solar installers and companies that build own and maintain solar systems are now making the money they need to grow thanks to the falling prices. they are now able to provide solar power systems that are affordable, which appeals to homeowners who want to save on their electric bill, not just reduce their footprint. The reasons why companies can maintain such an affordable price is mostly because federal and state subsidies pay for a portion of the installation. Other advantages include:
- Because it is generated near where it is needed, power doesn’t have to pass through hundreds of miles of wires, transformers and other equipment.
- In September, Google announced it would create a fund that local installers in every state can get to so they could offer consumers no-money-down plans.
Solar Panel Manufacturers
Many solar panel production companies are having a harder time maintaining their high profits due to shrinking subsidiaries and the excess of solar panels on the market. As bigger companies enter the market, the supply will increase and the cost will likely go down even further. The falling profit margin is scaring investors and stock prices for solar panel manufacturers are falling, meaning the market will not get any easier for small solar panel makers. while it’s been a hard road for solar panel makers, it has been a blessing for companies that market and install solar systems, for companies that make electronics and other parts for solar systems, and for solar customers.
on December 5th, 2011% ![]()
Are Home made solar panels possible, Economical, and useful?
With energy prices rising steadily throughout the last few decades with out reason to think they’ll fall in the near future, many householders are going through the use of powering their houses with renewable, or “green”, power systems. The two most common home green energy systems are wind generators and solar power systems. Of such two, solar technology panels emerged as being the most widely used, this can solid-state nature – meaning that with fewer moving parts, they might require less maintenance over the years.
Unfortunately, installing a solar powered energy system at home might be prohibitively expensive. Having pre-made solar power panels professionally installed costs a minimum of $3000 – as well as the price only rises quickly from there. To lessen this massive cost, many homeowners are studying the chance of building and installing their own home made solar panels. You will be at least one.
If that’s so, maybe you have a very great deal of questions. Can the person really develop a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) solar powered energy system inside their garage or basement? As long as they could, will it often be significantly less expensive having it professionally installed? last but not least, would homemade solar panels provide enough electricity to be worth continuously and also? this information will attempt to answer these questions.
Consider some of the Benefits of a house Solar technology System?
o You may reduce and sometimes even eliminate your power bill.o in the event you generate surplus electricity, marketing it in your local utility company.o You may raise the property importance of your own home.o You can find tax deductions for implementing eco-friendly home power systems.o Providing need to worry about power outages.o You shield the environment – solar energy produces no greenhouse gasses.
Which are the Benefits associated with Building Homemade Solar Panels?
o Money. Over 1 / 2 of a contractor’s installation fee is time and labor. in the event you provide this yourself, you’ll be able to drastically reduce the expense of building and installing your own house solar powered energy system.
o Time. You may create your homemade solar panels in phases, adding new panels and producing more electricity at your own pace.
o Education. By building a property solar technology system yourself, you’ll understand how solar electrical technology works. You’ll be able to perform your personal maintenance and repairs, further reducing your costs.
How can i Discover the Materials to develop a Homemade Solar cell?
Almost all the materials you’ll want to produce a DIY solar cell (such as copper wire, plywood, glass, silicone, etc.) are available at either the local hardware store (including Home Depot) or electronics store (for instance Radio Shack). Well the same for your tools and equipment you’ll need to make your homemade solar panels. any tool you don’t currently have inside your garage or basement (such as a voltage meter), you can purchase for your local hardware or electronics store.
The lone exception to this particular rule may be the photovoltaic solar panels that you’re going to have to build together into DIY solar energy panels. If you don’t are in a very large city using a specialized solar hardware store, you’ll likely need to order these web based or you can help it become by yourself.
Where Can i Place my Home made solar panels?
Two of the most common places that will put DIY solar panels are generally on the top of your dwelling, or in the grass in your yard.
The roof has emerged because hottest place for two reasons. first, so that you can convert sunlight into electricity, solar powered energy panels need to have a direct line-of-sight with shod and non-shod and also the sun. Trees, other buildings, or other obstacle providing you with shade or else gets in the manner will block the sun out of your homemade solar panels. The most effective way to solve this problem is always to enhance the solar panel systems up higher than the obstacles. For doing that, obviously, you must squeeze DIY solar panels on the roof.
Second, solar technology panels are big, and occupy a lot of space. Furthermore, you’ll likely require more than one to power your whole home. If you mount your homemade solar panels in the grass, you could possibly quickly fill your entire yard. Mounting Diy solar panel from the roof instead gets the advantage of keeping them taken care of and creating more your yard.
Ground-mounted solar panel systems, however, will have one big advantage: accessibility. it really is much simpler and advisable go out for your yard compared to your roof of your house to execute maintenance and repairs in your home made solar panels. The local surf forecast in a section of the country where there are few trees, for example the Great Plains or the Southwest, if you use enough property (like a farm) to mount several DIY solar panels and have room to spare, perhaps ground-mounted solar panel technology panels include the best option.
If you are searching for solar panels London then look no further you’re going to get all the details here!
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