Utah's $600 Million Solar Power Plant Coming Soon!

        A multimillion dollar power plant will be soon built in Central Utah. The solar farm will be nestled near the small town of Delta, but it won't be generating clean energy for Utah. Instead, it will be sending its energy to California, but it'll prove to be a big boom for rural Utah's economy. At the same time, the Provo-based company contracted to do the project is placing the solar panels next to one of the worst polluters in the Western United States. Josh Case is the CEO of Energy Capitol Group, and he said that's a good location. 

       "We think we have the ideal location," he said. "We're adjacent to the Intermountain Power Plant and the transmission infrastructure and we're developing a 300 megawatt solar plant. We're leasing 1,754 acres from SITLA." The vacant landscape will become a sea of 800,000 solar panels spanning nearly 2,000 acres. Because the land belongs to SITLA, school children will also benefit from the energy harvested from the sun.

Obama's Climate Action Plan: Domestic Renewable Energy

In his augural speech, Obama had announced he would double the production of renewable energy in the United States in the next three years

         Last week, President Obama had presented his Climate Action Plan. The goals for the plan are as follows: to reduce greenhouse emissions, especially carbon; to prepare the United States for the impacts of climate change; and to lead international efforts to prevent global warming. Renewable energy is the key component to the plan, whereas the growth of clean energy sources are steadily increasing.
        President Obama had expressed his enthusiasm in his speech that "over the past four years, we've doubled the electricity that we generate from zero-carbon wind and solar power." He continued, "jobs installing the solar panels that now generate more than four times the power at less cost than just a few years ago." Wind has also shown exponential growth over the years: "jobs manufacturing the wind turbines that now generate enough electricity to power nearly 15 million homes." Moreover, "75% of all wind energy in the country is generated in Republican districts."
        Tom Kieran, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association, had praised President Obama's climate speech, stating "We welcome the President's initiative to proceed with climate actions focused at this time on executive agencies." "American workers," he added, "make nearly 70% of the equipment deployed here and wind power is more affordable than ever, protecting electric consumers with 25-year contracts and no risk of fuel price shocks."

How the Tesla Motors S is Made

      Tesla Motors, the company responsible for mass producing the electric car Model S, has claimed to be confident that the production would double to 800 per week until late 2014. In other words, they believe themselves to making equivalent to 40,000 Model S vehicles per year. The latest news provided with an interview with Co-Founder Elon Musk notes that he has said that right now they are "above 400 a week at the current manpower, and not trivially above it." Thus, this helps form the conclusion that they hold of the number they would be mass producing and selling.

       But, how is Tesla Motors S able to produce such a large number of vehicles in a short length of time? How are they different from other automakers when it comes to building the cars? What helps them be more efficient?

      The video below, produced by WIRED magazine, allows us to take a look inside the 5 million-square-foot New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI), which is currently known as the Tesla Factory, in Fremont, California.

New Bill Could Help Georgia Grow as a Solar Market

      Local Public Service Commissioner Lauren "Bubba" McDonald, Jr., had noted that "Georgia is the third best state for solar energy in the United States but ranks 35th in actual solar installations, even the cost of panels have decreased 33%." In fact, the state has the same solar potential as central Africa or India, with most areas of the state generating between 4.92 and 5.21 kilowatt hours per square meter per day.
      With all this to be considered, Georgia represents an unmarked opportunity to grow. Therefore, it's no surprise that Georgia Solar Utilities company is backing the "Rural Georgia Economic Recovery and Solar Resource Act of 2013." This bill is enabled to create a unique financing model for solar energy, wherein third parties (like Georgia Solar Utilities) can submit proposals to the Public Service Commission for financing and aggregating solar energy.
      Some of the details enlisted in the bill have the capacity to help Georgia grow in terms of the solar market. The statute clears roadblocks like interconnection and grid access for generating assets and this entire program is on an opt-in basis. Competitive bidding on construction and installation will be creating market incentives to help lower the soft costs of solar panel installations. Since photovoltaic and solar farms are covered under the statute, neighborhood homes in Atlanta could have solar power on their roofs while unused fields in the country can yield 30-megawatt solar farms. If the sun decides to shine in either place, ratepayers in both areas reap the benefits as well as this geographical distribution also brings about less variability.
     "The world has changed for the economics of solar in Georgia, but we're stuck with 40-year-old laws that block us from taking advantage of it," said Robert Green, CEO of Georgia Solar Utilities. "So we're offering a conservative, no-brainer proposition: let a private company bear all the downside risk for investing in solar with no upward pressure on utility rates, and let ratepayers reap the upside of future cost savings as solar prices fall."

Columbus, GA solar installers

Philanthropy helps NRG Solar Profits?

    CEO of NRG Energy, David Crane, has opened his eyes to the helpless in Haiti after encountering a life-changing experience with a naked young boy of about 10, emerging from underneath his car. He and his daughter had traveled to Port au Prince to volunteer with the Clinton Global Initiative and had left the reception to return to their hotel when they noticed a body from underneath the car. "This kid looked at me," Crane remembers. "There was no life in his eyes. No hope. Complete nothingness. I was so shocked. There were many things I could have done for that kid. I just stood there and did nothing, except act like a dumb American."
    Since then, NRG energy had committed an amount of $1 million through the Clinton Global Initiative and has a partnership with Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) to bring solar power to rural areas in Haiti. Crane hopes that this charitable action will spur the power of solar energy to develop economically in financially poor countries. This also helps create business opportunities in the Caribbean for the company. "The basic idea is demonstrate the flexibility of solar, particularly in distributed applications, and the difference it could make in a country that does not have a functioning electricity system," he said.
    In these last couple of years, NRG and its partners have developed many projects in Haiti to help in terms of their lacking of stable power. They have worked together to install a number of small-scale solar systems such as completing projects in 20 schools already and at a fish hatchery known as Lashto Fish Farm. The company also participated in installing solar panels at an orphanage run by the nonprofit organization, Partners in Health.

Japan to build nation's largest solar park

Softbank Corp., Japan's third largest mobile phone company, and Mitsui & Co. joined together to build what may be the nation's largest solar power plant. From previous nuclear disasters in a quarter of a century, Chairman of Softbank, Masayoshi Son’s ambition grew towards installing more renewable energy and had signed a pact with Mitsui & Co to build a 39.5 megawatts in capacity of solar energy. Since the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011, Japan's government had swayed away towards the reliance of atomic energy and moved onward favors of natural gas and renewable energy. Softbanks plans on investing about 230 megawatts of renewable energy, mostly towards solar. Mitsui will be getting 90% of the profit from trading in metals, oil, and gas and had took the role of Chief Executive Officer in project management.

Solar is #2 in Sourcing Electricity (with graphs to prove it!)

         Recurrent Energy CEO and Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) Chairman Arno Harris observed and seen that solar power capacity has been increasing in 2013 than any other electric power source, other than one of natural gas. By 2016, it perhaps may also be claimed that solar power, from this increasing rate of growth in society today, will be the #1 source for electricity.
        This solar power energy source has exponentially grew to be an outstanding presence in society today for a few years back, solar power was very costly as well as not being existent in many areas across the United States. However, as it is noted in a SEIA press release, data is extracted below to provide the analyzing trends in the U.S. solar market today.

From the statistics shown above, photovoltaic installations have grew 76% over time in 2011 to total 3,313 megawatts in 2012 (estimating market value of $11.5 billion)

Above is shown a graph with U.S. states increasing the numbers of photovoltaic installations from 2011 to 2012

North Shore YMCAs in Washington undergo energy efficiency changes!

      After many years of studying and researching, the North Shore YMCA gymnasium of Washington has launched energy efficiency programs to improve standards of the organization's social responsibilities, to save money and, most importantly, to save energy. These programs are featured in a project, which is known as "Greening our Y," and the project is to be commenced in the following YMCA locations: Haverhill, Ipswich, Beverly, Salem, Marblehead, and Swampscott. The locations have actually been undergoing many changes in their buildings such as obtaining new pool covers, new solar panels, new efficient boilers, computerized lighting and heating control.
      YMCA CEO Jack Meany commented, "We think that in doing something like this it can be replicable for not only YMCA but other organizations as well. And we think that it's pretty innovative."
       A recent announcement has claimed that this project was devised three years ago, where YMCA had submitted a work proposal to 20 Energy Savings Corporations (ESCO) that work with organizations (such as YMCA) to help develop and create plans to make their buildings more energy efficient while they are guaranteed a payback in savings over a lengthy period of time. In the first ten years of the payback period, 85% of the savings will be accumulated towards the debt service owed to ESCO to developing the program and 15% of the savings will be towards the organization itself.