Just across the bay from Vote Solar HQ, the team of researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab has been busy as ever cranking out detailed reports of valuable information on clean energy markets, policies, costs and benefits. We found two recent reports particularly illuminating:

State RPS Policies are Key to U.S. Solar Market Growth (more…)

I was keeping a tally sheet at last week’s Renewable Energy Finance Forum, so I could let readers know the issue that was brought up most often and granted the most overall prominence. The clear winner: China is eating our lunch in the migration to renewables. Inexplicably and tragically, the US is content to drop further and further behind in the development of energy (more…)

On Friday, Sept. 23, the California Air Resources Board (ARB) – in the absence of a California Legislature vote on the issue – approved a greenhouse gas reduction target of 33 percent for 2020 for the Los Angeles and greater San Francisco Bay areas – a target originally set by AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act in 2006.

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Heading into the new year, we are left wondering what impact Copenhagen’s legacy (a nonbinding Accord) will have on the US Senate’s cap-and-trade bill.  With the House “ACES” bill passed, the attention is now squarely focused on the Senate as it reconvenes and takes another crack at legislation regulating greenhouse gas emissions.

Cap-and-trade legislation from Washington may include a federal renewable electricity standard (Washington’s version of a renewable portfolio standard).  How this standard would be integrated into existing state standards or vice versa will remain a hot topic throughout 2010.

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Ormat Technologies, Inc. announced this week that it has signed a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with NV Energy, Inc. for the purchase 30 megawatts (MW) from the McGinness Hills Geothermal project, which is currently under construction.

The PPA is subject to various approvals including the approval of the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada and is projected to come on line in 2012.

When completed, the McGinness Hills project will increase the total output supplied from Ormat to NV Energy, Inc. to approximately 135 MWs, helping NV Energy to meet its renewable energy requirement. Nevada’s renewable portfolio standard legislation requires 15 percent of all electricity generated in the state to be derived from new renewable energy sources by the end of 2012.

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These are the days for clean tech observers and professionals. Our most innovative companies are finally bringing game-changing technologies to market and into competitive parity on cost. The political will that has been lacking for decades seems to be gaining critical mass. Even corporate America seems to be on board with making a profitable shift to a green economy.

Still, it’s not all rosy in the green tech picture. Getting climate change legislation through the house was a bloodsport and, as previously noted on the CleanTechies Blog, the Senate looks increasingly unlikely to put anything substantial on the President’s desk this year. And that is just the new policy. Around the country, existing policies designed to enable clean energy adoption are floundering, and even with all of the aforementioned momentum, in a down economy policy makers cannot afford too many false starts.

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