(Reuters) – California’s supreme court refused to consider a lawsuit filed by an influential environmental group seeking to delay construction of a solar plant because it might harm rare plant and animal species.

The state supreme court said it would not review the Sierra Club’s complaint against the Calico Solar Project — one of a string of lawsuits accusing solar power plant projects across the largest U.S. state of harming the environment.

The court offered no explanation. In its complaint, America’s oldest environmental organization argued to the courts that the California Energy Commission had approved the Calico project improperly, failing to take into account potential harm to native flora and fauna.

The commission cheered the ruling, while the Sierra Club said it would wait and see before taking further action. Complicating things, the project had recently changed hands — from original developer NTR’s Tessera Solar to K Road Sun, an arm of a New York-based investment firm.

David Graham-Caso, a spokesman for the environmental group, said the new developers may use different technology that might alter projections of how the giant project could impact the natural habitats of species like the desert tortoise and big-horned sheep. He said the group would keep a close eye on the project’s evolution under new management.

“We support well-planned projects. This was not one of them,” Graham said. “Different technology affects the land in different ways.”

Conflicts between solar proponents and foes are taking on growing importance as the industry experiences a boom, particularly for California.

Other companies with plants under development that are raising environmental concerns include First Solar Inc and SunPower Corp.

The Sierra Club’s lawsuit charged regulators failed to fully mitigate the project’s impact on rare plant and animal species, and asked the court to void approval and permits.

It was one of a string of suits targeting planned solar plants, potentially setting back the development of solar energy and derailing state and federal commitments to lessening dependence on fossil fuels.

In December, a group called La Cuna de Aztlan, which represents Native American groups such as the Chemehuevi and the Apache, filed a challenge in federal court to the federal government’s approval of six big solar plants. That same month, the Quechan Indian tribe won an injunction blocking construction of the Imperial Valley solar project, under development near California’s border with Mexico.

The Calico plant was under development by Tessera until the company sold the plant last month to K Road Sun, a subsidiary of New York investment firm K Road Power.

Last year, just three new utility-scale solar plants serving California came online, according to the California Public Utilities Commission. Now, there are more than 40 plants with contracts or pending contracts with the state’s utilities under development.

While fostering renewable energy has become an important federal and state goal, proposed plants are meeting increasing resistance from groups that believe the plants will do irreparable harm to threatened or endangered plants and animals or historic areas.

The ruling “is a boon for California’s economy and could pave the way for hundreds of construction and operator jobs over the next several years,” California Energy Commission chair Robert Weisenmiller said in a statement.

Article by Nichola Groom and Edwin Chan; Edited by Bernard Orr and Richard Chang; appearing courtesy Reuters.

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Some places actually have “better” sun than others for producing solar power, but identifying those places isn’t always intuitive.

Contrary to what I would have guessed, Hawaii does not have the best sun for solar energy production. Factors like cloud cover, water vapor and atmospheric pressure determine how effectively the sun’s energy can be converted into electricity, so even places one might consider to be “sunny” aren’t necessarily the best for electricity production.

Follow the sun
According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the San Luis Valley in southwestern Colorado has “better” sun than Hawaii for producing solar energy.

It also has 50 percent higher average “direct normal solar irradiation” (read: good sun for producing energy) than Denver does. From a power production perspective, that explains why it’s more efficient and cost-effective to site large solar generation plants in ideal locations.

My house in Denver has a great orientation for solar generation and a shade-free roof, but it’s not as efficient or cost-effective as arrays near Alamosa that can produce 15 percent more energy annually with the same solar panel.

Many utility-scale solar arrays have trackers that tilt toward the sun as it moves across the sky. SunPower’s trackers, used in its much larger San Luis Valley installations, can generate 30 percent more energy than a fixed-angle array the same size. And that’s on top of the production increase afforded by an ideal location. The additional cost of the tracking feature can be justified in larger installations, but probably not on a system like the one on my home, which has a static array.

Utility-scale sun power production growing
To make the most of that great sun in the San Luis Valley, SunPower just completed building the largest PV solar plant in Colorado (19-megawatts), and it has another even larger plant (30-megawatts) in the works. That definitely makes the beautiful drive through the valley on Colorado Highway 17 more interesting for all.

I like our home’s little array because it produces clean energy and lowers my family’s electricity bills. The utility-scale arrays are great because they’re more cost-effective while they produce clean energy for all of our customers.

Check out a time-lapse video of construction at the 19 MW plant in the San Luis Valley.

T20 Construction and Timelapse – Mosca, Colorado from SunPower Insider on Vimeo.

Article by Sheila Knudtsen, appearing courtesy Xcel Energy Blog.

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GE, already dominant in the U.S. wind turbine market, is getting into the wind tower business, with a recent announcement that it would buy Wind Tower Systems (Wind Tower).

Wind Tower is a Park City, Utah, company that designs towers for mounting utility scale wind turbines. While most existing utility-scale wind turbine towers stand at 65-70 meters, the company’s modular tower technology and lift system enable taller towers (100 meters high).

As this Greentech Media piece notes, taller towers permit longer turbine blades, which means more power per turbine.

Wind Tower’s product offerings include the Space Frame Tower and the Hi-Jack System for assembly and disassembly. The company owns at least one U.S. Patent and several U.S. patent applications relating to its tower structure and lift system technology.

U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0226785 (’785 Application) is entitled “Structural tower” and is directed to a wind tower assembly that includes composite damping members or struts to dampen wind-induced vibrations in the tower structure. Embodiments of damping members contemplated by the ’785 Application include a viscous or hydraulic damper and a spring element.

The Hi-Jack System is protected U.S. Patent No. 7,877,934 (’934 Patent), which issued last month. Entitled “Lifting system and apparatus for constructing wind turbine towers,” the ’934 Patent is directed to apparatus and methods for erecting a wind tower and turbine assembly.

The lifting apparatus (320) includes a pair of hydraulic rams (370) connected to telescoping members (375) of each of first and second lifting trusses (330, 331) via each hydraulic ram’s cylinder unit (371). When the hydraulic rams (370) are retracted, the transverse beam (345) is positioned fore of the top bay assembly (317).

According to the ’934 Patent this position facilitates hoisting of a turbine, after which the hydraulic rams (370) are extended, causing the lifting apparatus (320) to pivot. This raises the transverse beam (345) above the top bay assembly (317) to a position where the turbine can be lowered and secured to the top bay assembly.

U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0236161 (’161 Application) focuses on the hoisting part of the process. The ’161 Application is entitled “Lifting system and apparatus for constructing and enclosing wind turbine towers” and is directed to Wind Tower’s gin pole lifting component.

According to the ’161 Application, a ginpole (601) can be used together with the lift apparatus (660) to lift or control the lift of the turbine or blade assembly (675) and can be used raise or lower the lifting apparatus (660) itself.

With GE scooping up Wind Tower’s IP relating to wind turbine assembly technology, Philip Totaro’s wind patent trendspotting piece predicting the increased importance of “‘on-site’ assembly procedures” looks very prescient.

Eric Lane is a patent attorney at Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps in San Diego and the author of Green Patent Blog. Mr. Lane can be reached at elane@luce.com.

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BrightSource Energy, Inc., developer of utility-scale solar thermal power plants, has raised an additional $90 million in its most recent equity financing, according to a U.S. securities law filing.

Keely Wachs, a spokesperson for BrightSource Energy, reports that the Company has now raised $420 million in equity financing to date.

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The new year brings some good pieces of news on the energy storage front. If the first week of 2011 is any indication of trends to come over the next 12 months, there’s much to look forward to in the area of utility-scale energy storage.

Perhaps the biggest news (not in terms of scale but in terms of significance) is that the first utility-scale battery storage system in the U.S. is now in commercial operation. The system is an 8 MW lithium ion battery located in Johnson City, NY. The project, which is operated by AES Energy Storage, is operating simultaneously as a provider of frequency regulation services and load following, as well as customer electricity demand.

While there are dozens of MW of battery storage in various stages of development and testing in the U.S., the Johnson City installation makes history as the first one that is actually a full-fledged system playing in the natural gas dominated ancillary services market. The battery will compete alongside natural gas peakers to stabilize the New York Independent System Operator’s control area, which includes the entire state of New York. While the first phase of eight MW is in operation, plans are to phase in an additional 12 MW later this year.

The question of allowing batteries to play into ancillary services markets has been under examination over the last few years, as storage vendors have fought to allow their technologies to participate. FERC Order 890 made that a possibility, and only now, with the Johnson City Project, are batteries a part of the picture. Other non-battery storage technologies, such as Beacon Power’s flywheels, have been in operation on the grid providing ancillary services for some time. These storage technologies have advantages over traditional natural gas-based ancillary services including rapid response times and carbon neutral operation.

In other news, Xtreme Power, a Texas-based energy storage solutions company, announced a contract to provide energy storage and power management for the Kaheawa Wind Power II project in Hawaii. The project will be Xtreme Power’s fourth energy storage installation in Hawaii and its third project with Boston-based wind energy company First Wind. As in previous installations, this project will help integrate Hawaii’s wind energy resources with the grid.

At the other end of the storage spectrum, Gridflex Energy LLC just announced plans for five pumped hydro installations in Wyoming. The plants would increase the utilization rate of wind farms in the area for consumption in Wyoming and neighboring states. The total capacity of the five projects, if they all make it to operation, would be 1.9 GW with an energy storage potential of over 50 GWh.

No promises that the next few weeks will have as much buzz as the first week of the year, but 2011’s shaping up for a strong year for energy storage.

Article by Eric Bloom

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A new utility-scale fuel cell system that could potentially power more than 600 homes and produce one megawatt of electricity, is being tested by FirstEnergy and Ballard Power Systems at the former’s Eastlake plant in Ohio.

The companies claim it is the world’s largest proton exchange membrane hydrogen-powered fuel cell, a 54-foot-long unit mounted on a tractor-trailer to give it mobility. The good news: the device produces only heat and water as by-products. Energy is produced from a combination of hydrogen fuel and oxygen from the air.

“Finding new sources of clean, renewable peaking energy is important for meeting our customers’ energy needs and helping us meet increasingly stringent environmental requirements,” said Gary R. Leidich, executive vice president and president of FirstEnergy Generation.

Over the next five years, the system will undergo tests in real-world operating conditions so that the companies can get a better understanding of its capacity to provide generating capacity during peak usage periods between May and September. The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) will collaborate with the evaluation of the performance and operating data gathered in that period.

“This fuel cell system has the added benefit of being mobile, so it can provide peaking power when and where it’s needed”, said Mr. Leidich.

The system is comprised of nine fuel cell modules, a compressor compartment that provides air for the fuel cell reaction, an inverter compartment that converts the power from 640-volt direct current to 380-volt alternating current (AC), and a transformer to step up the voltage to 480-volt, three-phase AC power to the electrical system.

“With the increasing interest in clean energy solutions, we are seeing demand for this scalable product across a number of different distributed power generation applications” said Michael Goldstein, Ballard’s chief commercial officer.

Article by Antonio Pasolini, a Brazilian writer and video art curator based in London, UK. He holds a BA in journalism and an MA in film and television.

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It seems that the most important meetings at SunPower all take place in the Tiffany & Co. conference room. In fact, all the other conference rooms are named after significant SunPower installations—Nellis (14.2 MW), Bavaria One (10 MW), Moscone (675 kW), and Olivenza (18 MW).

Perhaps the high-quality, luxury jeweler, Tiffany & Co., provides an apt metaphor for the SunPower brand positioning and business model. SunPower produces a high quality product that appeals to a very sophisticated customer. Travis Bradford with the Prometheus Institute states, “SunPower makes a damn fine product, but the sales process requires a bit of nuance to get the full value from customers.”

Julie Blunden, Executive Vice President for Public Policy and Corporate Communications, seemed pleased with the comparison of her company to one of the world’s most recognized global brands, yet added “we have to make a product that is within people’s grasp. Perhaps a better comparison is the old, reliable IBM.” So SunPower wants to be high quality, but not an elite, once-in-a lifetime purchase.

Perhaps SunPower is a mix of IBM and Apple—a company that is known for innovation and quality as well as premium prices. It is common to hear the following about SunPower: “Great Product, High Price.” And like Apple purchasers, many customers are willing to pay the higher prices. Currently SunPower is #1 in U.S. market share for both residential and utility scale installations and has the greatest number of installations as part of the California Solar Initiative.

Need to Reduce Costs
To increase and hold its customer base, SunPower is working aggressively to reduce manufacturing and installation costs through:

• Creation of Oasis Power Plant system. The “power plant in a box” allows rapid, efficient installation at rates of faster than 1 MW per day. According to the August 10, 2010 investor call, Oasis reduces balance of system cost by 25 percent.

• Construction of Fab3 manufacturing facility. Fab3 is expected to triple panel output and allow SunPower to meet customer demand. SunPower is currently sold out of panels and has strict product allocations among 1,000 worldwide dealers and its utility business.

• Vertical integration. SunPower is a fully integrated company with manufacturing, residential, large-scale commercial, and utility business units. Vertical integration raises SunPower’s absolute gross profit. The “May 11, 2010 Earnings Call Transcript” reported absolute gross profit can exceed $1.70 per watt for deployment of a fully integrated system in Italy. That would translate into $600 million gross profits by the end of 2011 for its 360 MW Italian pipeline.

Cost of Panel Does Not Equal Cost of System
SunPower also wants people to know that the cost of a panel does not equal the cost of a system. With 50 percent more efficiency and quicker installation times, the customer will benefit from shorter payback periods and greater returns on the investment such as higher internal rates of return (IRR) and higher net present values (NPVs).

But, where high efficiency really pays off is in places of limited or expensive square footage. This is why SunPower won a bid for 200 of the 250 MW of Southern California Edison’s distributed generation rooftop program. Gil Alexander, spokesperson for Southern California Edison, said, “when leasing roof space, one of the business interests is to get the biggest bang for the buck. In the end, SunPower’s high efficiency panels and rapid installation penciled out as the best product for our needs.”

Future Plummet or Profits?
With all these advantage, why is the SunPower stock in the basement?

To start with, 2009 was a tough year for SunPower. On top of the economic crisis that prevented SunPower from hitting its 2009 targets, SunPower had to restate its 2008 earnings. Investors are also cautious about the large bet SunPower is placing on the 100 MW European pipeline primarily coming from its purchase of SunRay. According to Julie Blunden, the stock price is also suffering from “a large amount of unrealized revenue for 2010.”

So it would seem to be a good time to buy SunPower stock if you believe:

• Fab3 begins producing panels by the end of 2010 as expected.

• SunPower can get costs down as predicted.

• SunPower will permit, finance, construct, and realize revenue for all 360 MW of its projected utility pipeline in Italy.

• The Italian Parliament will pass the pending bill that holds the feed in tariffs at a price that is attractive and in line with SunPower’s economic forecasts. Bloomberg cited that “the [June 2010] decision leaves the rates Italian utilities pay for solar power among the most attractive in Europe and may trigger a rush by developers to build solar plants in Italy.” With the 2010 SunRay acquisition, SunPower is poised to be first in line for these profits.

Built to Last?
The challenge with solar is that it currently has the glitz of a dot.com era iPod but requires the longevity of a 30-year home mortgage. Putting a solar system on a roof or in the desert is a 30-year commitment. You want to make sure that the parts last, the system has long-term warranties, and the company will be around to honor those warranties. SunPower is a company that is planning for a long future. If they can get their costs down, SunPower is a company that will be here to provide high quality solar services for a long, long time.

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BrightSource Energy, Inc., developer of utility-scale solar thermal power plants, has raised an additional $150 million in its most recent equity financing. The Series D round brings BrightSource’s total equity financing to more than $300 million and positions the company for significant growth.

New investors including Alstom and the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS) joined existing investors in this round, led by VantagePoint Venture Partners, Morgan Stanley and Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

The additional financing will be used to support BrightSource’s 2,610 megawatts in contracts with Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and Southern California Edison to build 14 solar power plants in the US southwest by 2016. The funds will also be used by BrightSource to further its international expansion plans.

“A Series D capital raise of this magnitude reflects the market’s confidence in our world-class team and the important role of our Luz Power Tower technology in meeting the growing global demand for cost-effective and reliable solar power,” said John Woolard, Chief Executive Officer of BrightSource. “By adding new strategic investors to our current blue chip investor base, we strengthen our ability to make solar thermal energy a significant part of the world’s energy mix.”

As part of the financing, global power-generation leader Alstom has committed to invest up to $55 million. This investment in BrightSource represents Alstom’s entry into the solar market and underscores BrightSource’s leading position in this industry.

Philippe Joubert, Alstom Power President, said, “BrightSource Energy’s market-leading solar-tower thermal-power technology complements Alstom’s strong portfolio of renewable energy solutions, building on our strength in hydro, geothermal, wind, tidal power, biomass and waste-to-energy solutions. Following this investment, both companies intend to enter into an industrial relationship, which will enhance BrightSource’s leading position in this industry.”

In February 2010, BrightSource received a conditional commitment from the U.S. Department of Energy for $1.37 billion in loan guarantees to support the financing of BrightSource’s Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System project – the first of its US-based power projects. Once constructed, Ivanpah will be the world’s largest solar energy project, nearly doubling the amount of solar thermal electricity produced in the US today. The project will also create more than 1,000 local jobs at the peak of construction and generate $250 million in construction wages. The power plant will be constructed by Bechtel, the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor for the Ivanpah project. BrightSource expects to commence construction later this year.

“The BrightSource team continues to execute at the highest levels and set the bar for the utility-scale solar industry,” said Alan Salzman, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Partner of VantagePoint Venture Partners. “With BrightSource’s proven ability to hit commercial and technological milestones, we see no limit to the company’s potential in transforming global power markets.”

BrightSource is the parent of Jerusalem, Israel-based BrightSource Industries Israel (BSII), formerly called Luz II. BSII performs R&D, production and project engineering for its California-based parent company.

In June 2008, BrightSource launched the Negev Solar Energy Development Center, a demonstration plant producing the world’s highest temperature steam from solar, at the Rotem Industrial Park near Dimona, Israel.

photo: BrightSource

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A UK-based renewable energy company has received a $61 million grant from the Australian government to build the world’s first utility-scale wave power project.

Ocean Power Technologies will begin construction of the 19-megawatt project in the waters off Victoria in 2010. The project will provide enough electricity to power 10,000 homes.

Wave technology uses buoys riding up and down on waves to drive an electrical generator, and then sends the power ashore via underwater cable.

The project is part of a larger $218 million government investment in renewable energy that officials say will help Australia meet its goal of generating 20 percent of its electricity demands with renewable sources by 2020.

The other projects receiving government funds include two geothermal projects and a mini-grid that coordinates wind, solar, biodiesel and storage technologies.

Article appearing courtesy of Yale Environment 360

[photo credit: hippolyte photography]

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