Energy Exchange

Lowering The Price Of Residential Solar Starts In The Neighborhood

By EDF Blogs / Published: April 11, 2013

By: Guest Blogger Scott A Robinson, University of Texas at Austin – Energy Systems Transformation Group

Source: SolarCity

The price of solar panels has been decreasing rapidly in recent years. This decrease in price has been reflected in residential markets, with installation numbers booming. However, the total costs of the system remain high enough to discourage mainstream adoption of the technology—even in places like Texas, which have abundant solar resources.

From a customer’s viewpoint, there are two components of the cost of a solar photovoltaics (PV) system. The first is the “sticker price” of the system: the price you pay out of pocket. The second is information cost: the time you must spend researching the technology to understand if it would be a good investment overall. This is a more difficult task for PV technology than it is for a new phone, or even a new car. The complexity of assessing solar PV creates a cost barrier on top of the reported price of the system.

To better understand these costs to consumers, and what can be done to decrease them, Dr. Varun Rai and I looked at data from PV owners across the state of Texas. We wanted to better understand the drivers behind the length of time people spent researching solar PV before deciding to buy. Our paper describing the results of the research, “Effective Information Channels for Reducing Costs of Environmentally-friendly Technologies: Evidence from Residential PV Markets”, was published last month in Environmental Research Letters (ERL). Read More »

Posted in Investor Confidence Project, Renewable Energy, Texas / Read 1 Response

Hannon Armstrong Raises Capital For Clean Energy Finance

By Brad Copithorne / Published: April 10, 2013

Late last week, I had the chance to peruse Hannon Armstrong’s SEC filing for their upcoming Initial Public Offering (IPO), which is expected to start trading next week on April 18^th. The company is in the business of financing energy efficiency and other clean energy projects, and hopes to raise as much as $245 million.

Since 2000, Hannon Armstrong has provided or arranged over $3.9 billion of debt and equity financing deals for around 450 sustainable infrastructure projects. To date, most of these assets have been sold to other investors. Out of the $3.9 billion in financing deals they have arranged, Hannon Armstrong currently holds less than $200 million of these obligations on its balance sheet. The company plans to use the IPO proceeds to increase its investments, and has already identified $110 million of financing opportunities that can be closed within 45 days of the IPO. Additionally, the firm has secured $400 million of credit capacity from Bank of America to finance projects.

Our understanding is that the majority of the company’s projects are energy efficiency retrofits for the federal government or municipal properties, universities, schools or hospitals – often referred to collectively as the MUSH market. These properties tend to be attractive to lenders because the owners generally have high credit quality and the buildings are not generally mortgaged. Read More »

Posted in Energy Efficiency, On-bill repayment / Read 1 Response

EDF Energy Innovation Series Feature #19: Energy Analytics From FirstFuel Software

By Jim Marston / Published: April 9, 2013

EDF’s Energy Innovation Series highlights innovations across a broad range of energy categories, including smart grid and renewable energy technologies, energy efficiency financing and progressive utilities, to name a few. This Series helps illustrate that cost-effective, clean energy solutions are available now and imperative to lowering our dependence on fossil fuels.

Find more information on this featured innovation here.

Driving improvements in the built environment is extremely impactful because buildings emit more than a third of our country’s greenhouse gases. Furthermore, according to IBM, roughly 30 percent of building energy usage is wasted. From location to location, however, these changes are sometimes hard to prove beforehand or demonstrate quantitatively after changes or investments are made. As the need to comprehensively tackle energy inefficiency has increased, so has technology’s ability to identify and measure the impact that building upgrades (retrofits), operational shifts or basic behavior changes can make.

Companies like Lexington, Mass.-based FirstFuel Software (FirstFuel) are doing for energy information what Google has done for online search: using complex algorithms to help make simple, usable sense of the massive amounts of energy data being collected by smart meters and other energy management devices. Needing only one-year of hourly meter data and an address, FirstFuel’s Remote Building Analytics platform screens entire building portfolios for high-potential opportunities, conducts deep building audits and tracks energy savings – without ever going onsite or installing connected devices.

Using hundreds of proprietary algorithms and external weather and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping technology, FirstFuel can provide detailed insight into each facility’s energy use and lay out specific, actionable recommendations for improved efficiency. “We call it a ‘zero-touch’ approach,” said FirstFuel Software CEO Swapnil Shah. “It’s a very simple and compelling value proposition for the customer. No hardware and no on-site visits mean you can begin to achieve true scale.” Read More »

Posted in Energy Innovation, General / Comments are closed

In Texas, Freshwater Use For Oil And Gas Should Be Reduced Strategically

By Virginia Palacios / Published: April 9, 2013

Texas is suffering from a water deficit; one that is spurring lawmakers at the Texas Capitol to discuss unprecedented, and much needed, investments in our water infrastructure. With roughly 98 percent of the state in drought and water use restrictions in place in 70 percent of Texas counties as of April 3, 2013, it is crucial that our legislators consider every tool available to protect Texas’ water supply. One approach is reducing freshwater use in the oil and natural gas sector, which can help alleviate competition for scarce water resources; however, this should be deployed at strategic places and times to minimize pollution risks and ensure a sustained future water supply for Texas.

In the Texas Legislature, the House recently passed a bill which will provide $2 billion to fund water supply projects. It might surprise you to hear that this high price tag represents less than 10 percent of the state funding that will be needed over the next 50 years to sustain water supplies for Texas’ growing population. In light of this, it is essential that legislators enact bills that encourage responsible water management solutions. Although the oil and gas industry’s water use appears miniscule when considered on a statewide basis, even small amounts can have a big impact in the most water stricken areas. EDF created a map of the counties in Texas currently being impacted by water scarcity and that would benefit greatly if the oil and gas sector reduced its use of freshwater.

Data used to create the map revealed the following:

The majority of water used for Texas oil and gas development in 2011 was in 13 counties, ten of which currently have water restrictions in place.
For 12 counties, oil and gas water use made up at least 25 percent of overall county-wide demand in 2011.
In 15 counties, oil and gas water use is projected to be greater than or equal to 25 percent of the water deficit in those counties in 2020.
In five counties, 100 percent of the water deficit projected for 2020 can be met by cutting oil and gas water use by half.

The oil and gas industry is a prime candidate for reducing its reliance on freshwater because – unlike the agriculture and municipal sectors – using non-freshwater is technologically feasible. Some of the most popular alternative water sources for the oil and gas industry include brackish (or salty) water, treated flowback water from hydraulic fracturing and reclaimed water from public wastewater treatment plants. Taking advantage of these options could be a win-win-win for industry, people and the environment. Read More »

Posted in Natural Gas, Texas / Comments are closed

America’s Schools On The ABCs Of Energy Efficiency

By Kate Zerrenner / Published: April 8, 2013

As part of my role at EDF, I keep track of stories about the benefits of energy efficiency. By that, I don’t just mean data and figures, rather stories about the real, tangible and positive impacts saving energy can have on everyday people. We live in a data-driven world, especially those of us who work on energy and climate issues, but it’s the stories about people that really stay with us. In the past few months, I’ve noticed a quite a few stories from local papers around the country discussing the benefits that schools have seen from implementing customer, or demand-side, solutions – such as energy efficiency, on-site renewables, like rooftop solar, and demand response (DR) initiatives – which allow customers to voluntarily reduce their high electricity use and receive a payment for doing so in the process.

For example, a story from the Louisville, Kentucky National Public Radio station WFPL covering the nation’s first net-zero school recently caught my attention. To be considered a true “net-zero” building is an impressive feat, because it means the facility’s net annual energy consumption, AND its carbon footprint, is zero.

The featured school, Richardsville Elementary in Warren County, has made some impressive improvements, from installing geothermal heating and cooling, bamboo gym floors, solar panels on the school rooftop and in the parking lot, efficient cooking technologies in the cafeteria to using a ton of natural lighting. As a result, the school receives zero utility bills. But the two most compelling pieces of this story are the energy costs and the educational opportunities.

Kentucky has some of the cheapest electricity prices in the country. Many states, particularly in the southern U.S., also have low electricity prices—meaning, the cost incentive is not as powerful for energy efficiency. But I would argue that, regardless of electricity prices, schools always have an incentive to save money. With schools, for every energy dollar saved, one more dollar goes to good teachers, textbooks and computers. And the non-monetary incentives are extra important when talking about children, whose developing lungs need the cleaner, indoor air and more natural lighting that come with efficiently-designed schools, as detailed in my previous post on schools. Read More »

Posted in Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy / Read 2 Responses

Don’t Turn The Lights Off On Demand Response

By Colin Meehan / Published: April 8, 2013

Source- FERC: National Assessment of Demand Response Potential

If Texas Legislators want to make sure the lights stay on this summer, they have a great opportunity to do so tomorrow, April 9, 2013, while saving electric customers money. There are two critical bills being considered at the legislature in Texas that would expand the use of demand response, a tool that allows customers to voluntarily reduce peak, or high, electricity use and receive a payment for doing so in response to a signal from their energy provider. We need to take advantage of tools like demand response to alleviate the pressures facing the Texas electric grid, what EDF refers to as the ‘Texas Energy Crunch,’ which include a shrinking water supply, growing population and rising summer temperatures.

Demand response has been identified by numerous experts as a key component to a reliable electric grid in Texas, and Tuesday’s Senate Business & Commerce Committee hearing at 8 am represents a great opportunity for the legislature to help meet future energy needs while providing direct benefits to customers and reducing water usage.

Demand response is critical to keeping the Texas electric grid humming. According to a comprehensive report on the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) reliability from the Brattle Group, “the energy-only market will not dependably support ERCOT’s current reliability target until sufficient demand response penetration is achieved.” Demand response can be deployed in a matter of months, while it usually takes two to five years to build a natural gas power plant, even after all the permitting and financing is completed. At the same time, demand response provides financial incentives; in the mid-Atlantic region, where demand response plays a critical role in the electric market, customers were paid a total of $330 million last year. At the same time, according to the grid operator for the region, PJM, demand response actually lowers overall energy system costs by bringing more competitive resources into the market. During the summer of 2012, PJM estimates this effect saved all customers around $650 million.

Posted in Demand Response, Texas / Comments are closed