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1. The Shortlist of Cali Cities for Tesla Factory
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2. U.S. Wind Poised to Hit 150GW by 2020
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3. The Daily Sprout
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4. Wasn't T. Boone Supposed to Be Earning Money Off Green?
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5. PG&E Signs Massive 800 MW PV Solar Deals With OptiSolar, SunPower
The Shortlist of Cali Cities for Tesla Factory
Katie Fehrenbacher - Startups
Ever since California Governor Schwarzenegger enticed Tesla to move its factory plans away from New Mexico and back to California, we’ve been waiting to hear which lucky Northern California city will get the pop of hundreds of green jobs and the claim to fame. Here’s the short list that Tesla is mulling over, according to the San Jose Mercury this morning: San Jose, South San Francisco and Vacaville.
For these cities, snagging the factory where Tesla plans to assemble up to 20,000 Model S electric sedans per year is a big deal. San Jose’s chief development officer Paul Krutko says the construction of the factory alone would deliver 600 jobs and $40 million in wages. The factory could then employ another 1,000 workers ongoing.
So that means the cities could very well be offering Tesla even more incentives to win its business. San Jose has offered solar companies various financial deals, though the Merc reports that San Jose city officials would only say that their offer to Tesla was “compelling” and “competitive.”
Already the state is providing incentives like a newly approved program that exempts green car builders from paying sales tax and use tax on the purchase of manufacturing equipment, and a grant program for training employees. The equipment incentives could save Tesla as much as $9 million. The cities are likely ponying up their own valuable plans to compete for what is ultimately the most valuable thing that Tesla can bring to a city — green buzzfactor.
U.S. Wind Poised to Hit 150GW by 2020
Craig Rubens - Big Green
The booming U.S. wind market is set to cross the 150 gigawatt mark by 2020, according to a report from market research firm Emerging Energy Research (EER). That includes 5.33 GW installed last year, and another 8 GW currently under construction and planned for completion by the end of this year, EER says. But it will take actually double that 2020 projection — a total of 300 gigawatts — if we want to get 20 percent of our electricity from wind like the DOE and T. Boone Pickens think we can.
Well, we’ve got to start somewhere. Where’s the growth coming from initially? EER credits increased participation from utilities for that. According to the firm, utility-owned wind capacity grew from 4 MW of added capacity in 2000 to 820 MW added in 2007. Consequently, US wind independent power producers will be competing more and more with huge utilities like Xcel, MidAmerican and Alliant who currently dominate their regions’ wind markets.
All of this projected wind power capacity means we’ll need more wind turbines, a commodity in short supply. EER expects the domestic wind turbine market to reach $12 billion by the end of this year and then $16 billion by 2015. T. Boone alone has already ordered an initial $2 billion worth of turbines and is rumored to planning to spend several more billion.
Images courtesy of Emerging Energy Research.
The Daily Sprout
Craig Rubens - Misc
T. Boone Pickens: Oil Won’t Go Below $100: The inimitable Mr. Pickens predicted today that while oil may soon drop to $110 a barrel he doesn’t think crude will sink below the $100 mark. Meanwhile Boone’s own business prospects, his BP Capital and his Clean Energy Fuels, are reporting losses - Reuters.
Pelosi Calls for Tapping of Strategic Petroleum Reserve: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is the most recent Democratic voice to come out in favor of tapping into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an effort to offer some short-term relief at the pump - ABC News.
The Ups and Downs of Oil Reveal America’s Way Forward: NPR’s Ron Elving knows that America wants to expand its own oil exploration and production. Combine this with the fact that America can actively control its demand of oil, and he thinks we can address the short-term price spike and our longer-term energy problem - NPR.
Domestic Automakers Scramble to Boost Efficiency: American automakers are finding they must retool their lines to offer more fuel efficient cars for surging demand as American consumers shun SUVs and trucks in favor of much smaller vehicles - Reuters.
Gemonics: The Key to Better Biofuels: “Genetics and genomics can catalyze progress towards delivering, in the not-too-distant future, economically-viable and more socially acceptable biofuels based on lignocellulose,” said Eddy Rubin, Director of the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute - Science Daily.
Wasn't T. Boone Supposed to Be Earning Money Off Green?
Katie Fehrenbacher - Big Green
We don’t doubt that T. Boone Pickens will eventually make substantial earnings off of his green kick — including the world’s largest wind farm, and the proliferation of natural gas to power our vehicles. But Clean Energy Fuels, Pickens’ natural gas distribution company, reported earnings yesterday and, yep, it’s still losing money. The company reported a loss of $2.41 million for the quarter, though that was narrowed from a loss of $3.56 million for the same quarter a year ago.
Despite overall losses, the company’s revenues are growing — the Seal Beach, Calif.-based company reported revenues of $34.60 million for the quarter up from $30.66 million from a year ago. And actually, the company’s performing better than it has in several years. In the the third and fourth quarters of fiscal year 2006, Pickens, the company’s director and largest shareholder, actually had to extend the company a line of credit to meet certain margin requirements for contracts.
And beyond propping up his natural gas distribution investments, the NY Post reports yesterday that Picken’s bets on natural gas and oil commodities for his hedge fund BP Capital sank 35 percent in July — overall, they’re down 10 percent for the year. The fund, which overall manages $7 billion through two funds and is half-owned by Pickens, tells the Post that the drop was due to a more recent decline in natural gas and oil prices.
The Post thinks the lost funds are embarrassing:
Pickens’ stumbling is particularly biting since the oil-and-gas magnate has been portraying himself as a energy sage to the U.S. presidential candidates.
But perhaps a loss like this is exactly why Pickens is diversifying and placing such a large bet — $12 billion by last count — on wind. We’ll see if that, as well as his water investments, pays off.
PG&E Signs Massive 800 MW PV Solar Deals With OptiSolar, SunPower
Katie Fehrenbacher - Startups
Solar industry watchers wondering if OptiSolar’s gigantic 550 MW photovoltaic solar power plant was, in fact, being built or if it was just a figment of the startup’s enthusiastic imagination can put their fears to rest. The thin-film solar maker said this afternoon that it already has a utility signed up to buy the clean power: PG&E. So, yes folks, this is the real deal. The northern California utility said it has inked an agreement with OptiSolar unit Topaz Solar Farms to purchase electricity from the 550 MW San Luis Obispo County, Calif. farm, once it’s operational, in 2011.
The OptiSolar deal is part of a broader plan from PG&E to purchase 800 MW of solar power that will also see it buy 250 MW from High Plains Ranch II, a subsidiary of SunPower. The PV plant uses SunPower’s high-efficiency solar cells, while OptiSolar’s plant will implement that company’s amorphous silicon thin-film solar material.
OptiSolar’s plant is one of a new wave of thin-film solar farms being built in the U.S., and for now, appears to be the largest. To date the wave had largely been driven by thin-film darling First Solar. First Solar is building a 10 MW solar photovoltaic power plant for power company Sempra Generation near Boulder City, Nev., as well as a 7.5 MW plant (with the potential to scale up to 21 MW) in Blythe, Calif., in a contract with Southern California Edison. And then there’s First Solar’s contract for the first 2 MW installation of a distributed 250 MW rooftop system, again for SoCal Edison.
But OptiSolar has scored big time with this PG&E deal. It validates the company’s claims — and its massive funding. OptiSolar recently raised $77.8 million from investors, on top of a $132 million round raised back in April. Total funding over more than $200 million makes it one of the most well-funded cleantech startups around.
The SunPower folks will also be happy about the deal. Its power plants generally fall into the single to double-digit MW range; the largest listed on its web site is a 23 MW plant in Trujillo, Spain, though the company is also working on a 25-megawatt plant in DeSoto County, Fla., for FPL. This is the first we’ve heard of the High Plains II subsidiary, but it appears the solar maker has a lot of subsidiaries under its wing. The 250 MW plant is also in San Luis Obispo County and will be operational starting in 2010.
These two latest deals photovoltaic solar deals from PG&E are also a sign that PV is starting to make strides as a viable utility solar source. Previously many of the large utility solar deals had been for solar thermal plants.
Photo courtesy of OptiSolar and Copyright 2008 David Lena
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