That’s a marked difference from January 2012, when coal led the way with 808 megawatts of the 1,693 megawatts added. Natural gas followed with 445 megawatts, and wind tossed in 276 megawatts to take the pole for renewables.

On Wednesday, President Obama sought to expand promotion of renewable energy by reviving the Commerce Department’s Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Advisory Committee.

Deputy Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank appointed 37 private-sector members to the committee on Wednesday. It will feature members from trade associations, private firms and nonprofit organizations from a range of energy industries.

The panel, originally formed in 2010, had previously worked on strengthening the renewable and energy efficiency’s industry’s export competitiveness.
“The renewable energy and energy efficiency sector holds tremendous growth potential, and transitioning to cleaner, safer, and affordable sources of energy is a high priority for the Department of Commerce and for President Obama,” Blank said in a statement.

The committee’s relaunch comes one week after Obama pledged during his State of the Union address to double electricity generating capacity from renewable energy by 2020.

The U.S. already doubled its electric generating capacity from renewable sources between 2008 and 2012, according to a Bloomberg New Energy Finance and Business Council for Sustainable Energy report released last month.

To double it again, Obama called on Congress to make the renewable energy production tax credit permanent.

Currently, Congress must renew that credit — which pays wind, biomass, geothermal and other energy producers on a per-kilowatt-hour basis — every couple of years.

Re-printed from 2013-02-20 TheHill.com

On November 14th, 2012, The Solar Foundation released its third annual National Solar Jobs Census report, which found that the U.S. solar industry currently employs 119,016 Americans. This figure represents the addition of 13,872 new solar workers and a 13.2 percent employment growth rate over the past 12 months. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment in the overall economy grew at a rate of 2.3 percent during the same period*, signifying that 1 in 230 jobs created nationally over the last year were created in the solar industry. The report, produced by The Solar Foundation and in partnership with BW Research and Cornell University, was released at the Interstate Renewable Energy Council’s Clean Energy Workforce Education Conference in Albany, NY.

*According to EMSI, the economy grew only 1.6 percent.

By comparing the job growth expectations from both our multi-year research effort and existing secondary sources, we can draw several important conclusions:

As of September 2012,

–  Eighty-six percent of the nearly 14,000 new solar workers added since August 2011 represent new jobs, rather than existing positions that have added solar responsibilities.

–  Installers added the most solar workers over the past year, more than offsetting declines in manufacturing. While this subsector is dominated by small firms, employment is growing most dramatically at larger firms, suggesting consolidation and maturation of the installation sector.

–  Solar employment is expected to grow by 17.2 percent over the next 12 months, representing the addition of approximately 20,000 new solar workers. Forty-four percent of all solar firms expect to add solar employees during this period.

–  Employers from all of the solar industry subsectors examined in this study expect significant employment growth over the next 12 months, with nearly all of them projecting percentage job growth in the double-digits.

– Nearly half of installation firms expect to add solar workers in the next year, adding a total of nearly 12,000 jobs (21 percent growth year-over-year).

– Approximately 90 percent of those who meet our definition of a “solar workers” (those workers who spend at least 50 percent of their time supporting solar-related activities) actually spend 100 percent of their time working on solar.

– Over half of all firms (across all subsectors) generate 100 percent of their revenues exclusively from solar.

– Employers are increasingly less likely to span multiple subsectors, suggesting that firms are beginning to specialize.

November 28th, 2012

Montgomery’s Devils girl’s softball organization recently received funding from 2K Solar and Dana Distributors (both local Hudson Valley businesses) for training sessions to be held at Gear Up in Walden, NY.

The non-profit organization, which has been in existence since 2000, currently has girls travel softball teams for various age groups from 9 through 18.

The value solar energy delivers exceeds its cost by 50% to over 100%

Bordentown- November 5, 2012 – The Mid-Atlantic Solar Energy Industries Association (MSEIA) and the Pennsylvania Solar Energy Industries Association (PASEIA) today released a study by consulting firm Clean Power Research showing that solar power in New Jersey and Pennsylvania delivers value to the electric grid that exceeds its cost by a large margin, making it a bargain for energy consumers.

Energy providers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania are required to buy certain amounts of solar power each year. They pay a premium for that solar power in the form of Solar Renewable Energy Certificates, or SRECs, and pass this premium cost on to ratepayers. The study found that solar power delivers a total levelized value ranging from $256 to $318 per MWh (25.6 cents to 31.8 cents per kWh). However, this includes a premium value in the range of $150 to $200 per MWh (15 cents to 20 cents per kWh), above the value of the solar electricity generated. The SRECs in New Jersey currently cost about $60/MWh (6 cents per KWh), and in Pennsylvania they cost about $20/MWh (2 cents per KWH).

“This indicates that electric ratepayers in the region are getting more than a two-to-one return on their investment in solar energy”, said Dennis Wilson, President of MSEIA, “Although the current SREC prices are unsustainably low, our analysis indicates that SRECs can increase in price , deliver net benefits and still support strong solar growth. Solar power has proven it can deliver value that exceeds its cost by 50% to over 100%. This net positive benefit will only increase as solar technology continues to drop in cost”.

Full text of the report is available at: http://mseia.net/site/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/MSEIA-Final-Benefits-of-Solar-Report-2012-11-01.pdf

“Both states have considered expanded investments in solar energy. This study shows that such programs and policies are well justified from an economic standpoint and generate far more instate jobs than central plant generation. Add together the proven public health, security and environmental benefits, and it’s clear that aggressive solar power development is a win for these states and their residents,” said Lyle Rawlings, Vice President of MSEIA, New Jersey division.

“We are very excited about this study”, said Ron Celentano, President of PASEIA and Pennsylvania VP of MSEIA. “For the first time the solar industry can show the quantitative benefits of implementing solar energy technologies specifically in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. For more than three years we have been unsuccessful with enhancing our solar share requirement in Pennsylvania, largely because solar was perceived as only a cost to rate payers. But this study concludes that the value of solar far exceeds the costs to both the rate payer and taxpayer.”

“Solar PV does not get a fair shake in our current utility accounting protocols because those rules evolved for centralized, large scale power plants” says Roger Clark, manager of The Reinvestment Fund’s Sustainable Development Fund, a major funder of this study. “We supported this study because it is critical to understand the costs and benefits of solar so that our energy policies, such as Pennsylvania’s Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards Act, are grounded on an accurate perception of the value of solar energy.”

Both New Jersey and Pennsylvania are major solar markets in terms of the amount of solar capacity already installed. Each has great opportunity for continued clean energy industry growth. New Jersey, the nation’s second-largest solar market with 900 MW of solar capacity, is the first state to generate more than 1% of its annual electricity from solar energy. Its annual solar share is now approaching one and a half percent, with contributions during peak demand periods several times higher. Once one of the nation’s fastest growing solar markets, Pennsylvania has since fallen to eighth place in installed capacity. Increasing the state’s near-term solar commitment would put Pennsylvania solar growth back on track.

According to Richard Perez, one of the authors of the study, “This report broke new ground in that it incorporated a wealth of utility power cost data, enabling detailed analysis of economic drivers such as the ‘merit order effect’, according to which power can have different values depending on when it is generated. Solar energy has inherent advantages stemming from such economic drivers”. Today’s report assessed the value of modest solar penetration (15% of utility peak load) at six locations: Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Scranton, Philadelphia, Newark, Atlantic City, and Jamesburg. Research concluded that by offsetting the need for conventional power, distributed solar power delivers measurable benefits, including:

Lower conventional electricity market prices due to reduced peak demand;
Valuable price hedge from using a free, renewable fuel rather than variably-priced fossil fuels;
Avoided costs of new transmission and distribution infrastructure to manage electricity delivery from centralized power plants;
Reduced need to build, operate and maintain natural gas generating plants;
Reduced outages due to a more reliable, distributed electric power system;
Reduced future costs of mitigating the environmental impacts of coal, natural gas, nuclear, and other generation;
Enhanced tax revenues associated with local job creation, which is higher for solar than conventional power generation.

Prepared by Clean Power Research, the report was funded by the following organizations: The Reinvestment Fund’s Sustainable Development Fund, Mid Atlantic Solar Energy Industries Association, Advanced Solar Products, SMA Americas, Vote Solar, Renewable Power, and Geoscape Solar.

About MSEIA

MSEIA, the Mid-Atlantic Solar Energy Industries Association, is a solar energy advocacy trade association which represents over 100 solar companies doing business in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. Established in 1997 by solar energy advocates, MSEIA is an historic and highly-effective non-profit membership organization created to advocate for solar energy incentives, create permanent solar energy jobs and a renewable energy infrastructure, and promote solar energy as a viable and important source of energy for the future. Our efforts in the legislature and with the Board of Public Utilities have been instrumental in helping to create the New Jersey solar industry.

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About PASEIA

The Pennsylvania Division of MSEIA. PASEIA is an organization of manufacturers, developers, contractors, installers, architects, engineers, consultants and other industry professionals dedicated to advancing the interests of solar energy and to developing a strong local PA industry offering high quality installation and professional services to business and residential customers in the region we serve.

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The North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners (NABCEP) is the “gold standard” for PV and solar heating installation certification. Designed to raise industry standards and promote consumer confidence, NABCEP offers certification and certificate programs to renewable energy professionals throughout North America. 2K Solar, Inc. is proud to bring you quality installations backed by years of experience and many levels of green/sustainable certifications including NABCEP.

When you go solar before October 31, 2012, you get $1000 and Sungevity will contribute $1000 to the Sierra Club. It’s good for the planet, good for the Sierra Club and good for you.

Join the Rooftop Revolution today!

*Offer available to new Sungevity customers only and cannot be combined with other offers or promotions. Cash gift card will be mailed by Sungevity once home solar system has been installed and connected to the grid.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — America has a nasty addiction to fossil fuels. This addiction harms our health by spewing toxic chemicals into the air, and undercuts income mobility by disproportionately hurting poor communities and those who lack political power.

By exacerbating our trade deficit, American oil imports drag on domestic economic growth. Our dependence on fossil fuels also undermines our national security by sending hundreds of millions of dollars every day to undemocratic, sometimes hostile regimes.

It threatens our very survival, as we march closer and closer to the tipping point past which we irreversibly change the planet’s climate. And remember, there is a finite supply of fossil fuels — technology can expand extraction, but we cannot manufacture more coal, natural gas, or petroleum.

Economic Policy Institute

Ethan Pollack, senior policy analyst at the Economic Policy Institute.

Simply put, we must kick our fossil fuel habit, and this means drastically increasing the amount of energy produced from clean renewable sources. For another viewpoint, see “Green-energy policy hurts America.”

Luckily, this is an entirely reachable goal, requiring that we eliminate fossil fuel subsidies, put a price on carbon (either through a carbon tax or cap-and-trade), and increase investments in green technology and infrastructure. This creates a carrot-and-stick effect: eliminating fossil fuel subsidies and the carbon pricing makes fossil fuel energy more expensive, and the investments make the alternative — that is, clean renewable energy — cheaper. And this approach it doesn’t even have to have a budget cost because revenues from the subsidies and carbon pricing can be used to fund investments in renewable energy and more efficient energy infrastructure.

Despite the presence of green investments and subsidies, the playing field is heavily stacked against renewable energy in favor of fossil fuels. Between 2002 and 2008, federal fossil fuel subsidies totaled $72 billion, nearly 2 ½ times more than subsidies for renewable energy. Read Environmental Law Institute report on energy subsidies.

President Obama has pushed to eliminate many of these fossil fuel subsidies, only to be rebuffed by the same conservatives in Congress that also argue for “free market” solutions.

Furthermore, the historical dominance of fossil fuels creates an entrenched anti-competitive barrier to market entry for renewable energies.

If research came out finding that having driver’s seats on the right side of cars and driving on the left side of the road was far safer than the current arrangement, would the market naturally react? Of course not. We have an entire infrastructure in place predicated on driving on the right side of the road. More importantly, government itself made this decision.

Similarly, government decided a century ago to have a fossil fuel-oriented economy, and spent nearly half a trillion dollars over that time period to develop the industry and its infrastructure. Read Climate Progress blog “Creating a Truly Level Playing Field: Putting Renewables Subsidies In Context.”

Government created this Goliath, and now is telling David that it can’t give him a slingshot because that wouldn’t make it a fair fight.

Let’s get specific. One of the best green investments we can make today is to modernize and expand our national energy grid.

There are many reasons to do this: it will reduce the chance of blackouts, improve energy efficiency, and help shore up what an infrastructure currently vulnerable to national security threats. But it is also the case that wind energy — and to a lesser extent, solar — is disproportionately disadvantaged by our inadequate national grid (most renewable resources lie outside population centers), so expanding it would have the added bonus of helping wind energy compete with coal on a more equal playing field.

Finally, fossil fuels enjoy a subsidy that dwarfs all others: unpriced carbon emissions.

At its core, a subsidy is when the government allows a business to shift a portion of your production costs onto the rest of the country by cutting you a check and taxing everyone else. What happens today with pollution is essentially the same thing. Coal-fired power plants, for example, are able to shift their production costs onto American families by spewing toxic pollutants into the air, which we then inhale, costing us over $50 billion in damages each year (this cost rises to just under $70 billion if climate change impacts are taken into account).

These companies are essentially taxing us — without representation — in the form of higher mortality and morbidity to pay for their subsidized production.

What we find, ironically, is that the solutions listed above aren’t contrary to the free market; rather, they are exactly what are necessary to level the playing field and let the market work. Vote here: Are green-energy investments wise or foolish?

Eliminating the explicit subsidies for fossil fuels that our tax code currently provides and the implicit subsidy for carbon emissions by putting a price on carbon would mostly end government’s current favoritism of fossil fuels. And making green investments in areas like our national energy grid helps to counterbalance the historical and incumbent market power advantage of fossil fuels that is in part a result of government assistance over the last century.

Opposition to these solutions under the guise of the free market reveals an ignorance of government’s current and historical assistance to fossil fuels, which has over time created an addiction to fossil fuels. This addiction is too strong and destructive to for us to hope that it will go away on its own. We have to act.

Ethan Pollack is a senior policy analyst at the Economic Policy Institute. He has worked at the Office of Management and Budget and the George Washington Institute of Public Policy. He was a staff member for President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

KINGSTON, N.Y. — Ulster County legislators on Wednesday approved, 21-0, a resolution that puts the county on track to be the first in the state to offer a sales tax exemption to businesses that purchase and install solar energy systems.
In August, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed legislation extending to commercial solar installations the sales tax exemption now given to residential installations. Included in that state bill is a provision giving counties and cities the option to waive the local sales taxes charged.

Ulster County earlier had adopted local legislation exempting residential solar installations from the county’s sales tax, but the exemption never went into effect because the bill was never filed by the Legislature with the Department of State.

The county and state each levy a 4 percent sales tax on designated items purchased.

The measure will now go to County Executive Michael Hein for consideration. Hein has said he supports the exemption as encouraging use of solar energy and bolster the county’s solar manufacturing industry.

By PATRICIA DOXSEY
Freeman staff
The Daily Freeman

Published: Thursday, September 20, 2012

Reprinted from August 30, 2012

The story of eco-technology is one of constant improvement, sporadically livened up by minor breakthroughs along the way.

As a consequence of this relatively gradual pace of change, some of the advances made in the area have only just started being adopted by the average home-owner, making very eco-friendly homes relatively rare even among new builds. Making your property environmentally friendly before you put it on the market has the potential to make it more attractive and drive up the price, for the following five reasons…

1. Savings for the buyer

In many cases, buying a more environmentally-friendly home will pay you back a significant amount.

As a house is an investment for life, prospective buyers may well be able to factor in electricity, water and gas bill savings for as much as twenty years or more. Making sure your house has cost-effective, permanent insulation solutions can drive up the price of your home by as much as 5%.

2. Family-friendly

One of the perceived benefits of environmentally-friendly products and technologies is that, being ‘natural’, they have few-to-no harmful chemicals in them.

Green technology and building materials have a clean, wholesome image that plays well when selling a house to families, especially families with very young children. Compare that with trying to sell a family of five an apartment filled with asbestos! Rustic wood flooring from sustainable sources, for instance, presents a warmer, cosier and safer aspect than sheets of linoleum can offer.

3. Low maintenance costs

What makes a green house green, for me, is determined by two main things: sustainability, and availability of resources.

Did you know, for instance, that even softwood stairs last longer on average than steel stairs?Not having to replace or repair major chunks of the building for ages is a massive selling point – make sure you highlight this to buyers!

4. Green is beautiful

One of the best things about the greenest technology – such as water purification, renewable energy and energy conservation – is that it also tends to be the latest technology. Scientists and engineers just love efficiency.

And the great thing about the latest technology? That it looks like, well, the latest technology! It’s new, it’s shiny, it’s sleek, it’s sexy and it sells. Green technology tends to work very well purely because it’s newer than less efficient technologies. And it tends to look like it works very well, too – great news when you’re trying to sell your home.

5. Future proofing

To protect against a tax hike, or a new regulation requiring you refit your house to standard yourself, people are starting to buy houses based on how future-proof they are, especially in terms of how green or not they may be.

The metaphorical insulation from further pro-environment legislation makes the physical insulation you’ve had put in look very appealing to house hunters, even if they’re not that bothered about the environment on a personal level.

Rolling in green

Now that online estate agents are bringing property purchasing to an ever-wider audience, the average buyer is able to search for the exact kind of property they are interested in, meaning your eco-dome is now more likely than ever to find the perfect audience and buyer.

With these five arguments for how going green can really help sell your property, you’ve got no excuse to put it off any longer!