New Jersey regulators on Tuesday approved a proposal from utility Public Service Electric and Gas to expand its solar loan program by $143 million and 51 megawatts.
The program expansion means a total of $248 million in loans, translating into an estimated 81 megawatts worth of solar systems available to interested homeowners, businesses, and municipalities across the state.
Public Service Electric and Gas already has a program to install 200,000 solar panels from Petra Solar on N.J. utility poles and street lamps.
(Credit: Petra Solar)Since Public Service Electric and Gas' (PSE&G's) first loan program for installing photovoltaic panels was approved in April 2008, about $105 million in loans, totaling 30 megawatts worth of solar systems, have been applied for by its customers, according to company statistics. While its seen as an expansion, the next round of funding is technically a completely new program approved by the N.J. Board of Public Utilities (BUP) with specific regulations.
The Solar Loan II Program will run on a first-come, first-served basis for the next two years, or until 51 megawatts in solar systems have been installed.
The loans should cover half the cost of a solar system installation, according to BUP estimates. They will be offered as 10-year loans for residential homeowners, and 15-year loans for commercial or municipal customers, which can be repaid in cash or via earned Solar Renewable Energy Certificates (SREC). One SREC is earned for every megawatt hour of solar energy created, according to PSE&G. The BUP also set preliminary monetary rates for SREC credits.
"Initially, the SREC floor price for residential systems is $450; for nonresidential systems up to 150 kw the price is $410; and for systems larger than 150 kw up to 500 kw it is $380. The floor prices offered for SRECs for new loan applications will be reduced by about 3 to 6 percent every 6 months," according to a statement from the BUP.
For the other half of installation costs, the BUP is recommending solar system owners apply for New Jersey Clean Energy Program rebates and federal tax credits.
"There's no question that providing a source of stable, secure capital--especially in our tough economy--has helped boost the number of solar energy systems in New Jersey," Ralph LaRossa, president and COO of PSE&G, said in a statement.
"We're pleased to do our part to make New Jersey a leader in solar energy installations, second only to California," he said.
LaRossa is justified in his assertion. While it can't compare to California, which has huge projects in the 550-megawatt range underway, New Jersey is a leading state for solar installations, as well as clean-tech projects in general.
The greater New York metropolitan area, which includes a large portion of N.J., was recently ranked No. 3 in the country for most clean-tech job activity in the U.S. by a recent report, with the solar sector leading the clean-tech job market overall. It was only lagging behind the greater metropolitan areas of San Francisco and Los Angeles in California, respectively. New Jersey was also ranked 7th by another recent report listing U.S. states doing the most to wean its residents off foreign oil.
In addition to its solar loan program, PSE&G was approved in July for a partnership with Petra Solar to install over 200,000 photovoltaic panels on N.J. utility poles and street lights to tie into the state's electrical grid. It was also approved to install 5 megawatts worth of solar equipment in New Jersey urban enterprise zones, and an another 10 megawatts to be installed on the properties of interested third parties.
GroSolar announced plans Thursday to acquire Borrego Solar Systems' residential solar installation business, in a move to expand its footprint nationwide.
The acquisition will enlarge GroSolar's presence in California, bolstering its efforts to be a national player in residential solar installations. Currently, the industry is largely made up of local installation companies.
GroSolar, which operates in 12 states and Canada, will add Silicon Valley, Berkeley, Sonoma, Orange County, San Diego, and Massachusetts with the Borrego Solar acquisition.
The company's acquisition comes at a time when the industry is poised to reap the benefits of solar tax credits receiving an eight-year extension as part of the federal stimulus bill.
"Dealers in GroSolar's existing distribution network will see immediate benefit, as we roll out additional best practices to serve our local installers, launch new programs to give homeowners easy access to solar power, and expand the largest distribution warehouse network in the industry and in California," Jeff Wolfe, GroSolar CEO, said in a statement.
Borrego Solar Systems plans to focus on its commercial and government business, following the acquisition. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Danny Kennedy may have come up with a way to make solar panels an impulse buy.
Sungevity, Kennedy's company, has come up with a Web-based system for evaluating the solar potential for a given home through satellite data. Customers log onto Sungevity's site and provide an address and some information about their monthly electrical bill.
Within 24 hours, the company sends customers a quote for installing a solar system, an estimate of how much the system will save them over 25 years, the prospective increase in the value of their home, and simulated imagery of what their home might look like after solar panels are installed. Traditionally, the process that provides all that information takes days and a physical examination of the roof.
"We do all that (the calculations for preparing the estimate) in about 10 to 15 minutes," he said.
Your solar system, Sir! Click a few buttons and Sungevity gives you an accurate quote for a solar system. It cuts out a lot of the time and money of putting these in.
(Credit: Sungevity)And in a few more clicks, customers can schedule an appointment and put a deposit down on a solar system.
I did an estimate on my grandmother's home. The system would provide 25 percent of the home's power and cost $7,511 after rebates. It would save $27,360 in electrical cost over time, according to the quote. They gave the option of paying upfront or through installments. Visa, Mastercard, and American Express are accepted for the deposit. The quote came back two hours after I handed over the address.
Reducing a complex sale into a quick online exchange--the same trick that propelled Dell to the front of the PC world--helps reduce one of the nagging costs of the solar world: the install expenses. Installation costs come to around roughly half of the cost of a solar system. Sharp, Akeena, and other companies have tried to reduce installation costs through prefabricated frames for solar panels. Others have developed roof tiles with solar cells built in. SolarCity, meanwhile, has aggressively used software to coordinate solar panel deliveries and installations to cut down on the number of trips electricians and contractors have to make. SolarCity also leases solar panels.
Sungevity's software essentially eliminates the money and time it takes for an installer to drive out to someone's house, climb on top of it, and take a bunch of measurements to prepare an estimate. Only 10 percent of those visits lead to a sale, Kennedy added.
In all, Sungevity can cut the cost of a solar system by around 10 percent, he said, and cut out 80 percent of the on-site estimates. (Like Solar City, Sungevity also uses software to coordinate installations.)
The company's secret sauce is a trigonometry-heavy application that can take satellite imagery and create a 3D model of a house. From the model, Sungevity calculates the pitch of the roof, the azimuth (for instance, where the house faces in relation to compass points) and the available area.
"You introduce errors when you put a guy on the roof," Kennedy asserted.
Sungevity uses data from Microsoft Virtual Earth rather than Google Earth for its satellite imagery. Google Earth only provides a top-down view of a roof. Virtual Earth gives data from different angles, which lets Sungevity calculate pitch.
The data provides enough information to provide a fairly strong estimate even without customer input, he said. To prove its point, Sungevity is going to mail fliers to all of the homes in Albany, Calif. Each flier will come with a picture of the home that goes with the address on the flier, a picture of the home with simulated solar panels, and the cost savings. (To fine-tune the estimate, customers need to submit their power bills.) The company has largely been operating under the radar since it started in December.
Rather than install custom solar panel systems, Sungevity offers five different systems, ranging in size from 1.4 kilowatts to 5.6 kilowatts. Prices range from $7,500 to $38,500 for everything after rebates are subtracted.
While operating only in California right now, the company will try to expand to other states. It may employ solar installers as subcontractors in other states, or it may sell estimating services for installers in other states.
Real Goods Solar, which installs solar panels on homeowners' rooftops, filed paperwork on Thursday to go public with the goal of raising up to $57.5 million.
The company, now a subsidiary of environmental lifestyle company Gaiam, said it is the largest installer of grid-connected solar panels in California. It also operates in Colorado, where it is based.
The company was founded by John Schaeffer, who learned about solar electricity while living off-grid in a California commune in the 1970s.
It had revenues of almost $19 million last year. Including revenue from two installers it acquired, it had estimated 2007 revenue of $32.7 million and profits of $490,000.
The money it raises will be used for further expansion, which could include more acquisitions, it said in its S-1 form. One of its corporate goals is to consolidate the existing market for solar installers.
The solar market has been growing rapidly over the past few years, driven by supportive government incentives and growing interest among consumers in cleaner forms of electricity. Public solar panel makers have seen their stock prices go down significantly since the beginning of the year on fears of a shortage of silicon.
About half of the cost of purchasing solar panels is tied up in installation.
Real Goods Solar plans to list on the NASDAQ using the stock ticker symbol RSOL.
- prev
- 1
- next
