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Thursday, Feb 07, 2013

Federal and State Structures to Support Financing Utility-Scale Solar Projects and the Business Models Designed to Utilize Them.

Utility-scale solar projects have grown rapidly in number and size over the last few years, driven in part by strong renewable portfolio standards (RPS) and federal incentives designed to stimulate investment in renewable energy technologies. This report provides an overview of such policies, as well as the project financial structures they enable, based on industry literature, publicly available data, and questionnaires conducted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

Thursday, Feb 07, 2013

Southeast Regional Clean Energy Policy Analysis

More than half of the electricity produced in the southeastern states is fuelled by coal. Although the region produces some coal, most of the states depend heavily on coal imports. Many of the region's aging coal power facilities are planned for retirement within the next 20 years. However, estimates indicate that a 20% increase in capacity is needed over that time to meet the rapidly growing demand. The most common incentives for energy efficiency in the Southeast are loans and rebates; however, total public spending on energy efficiency is limited.

Thursday, Feb 07, 2013

High Penetration Photovoltaic Case Study Report.

Technical concerns with integrating higher penetrations of photovoltaic (PV) systems include grid stability, voltage regulation, power quality (voltage rise, sags, flicker, and frequency fluctuations), and protection and coordination. The current utility grid was designed to accommodate power flows from the central generation source to the transmission system and eventually to the distribution feeders. At the distribution level, the system was designed to carry power from the substation toward the load.

Thursday, Feb 07, 2013

State of the States 2010: The Role of Policy in Clean Energy Market Transformation.

This report builds on the emerging body of literature seeking to identify quantitative connections between clean energy policy and renewable energy. The methods presented test the relationships between a broad set of policies and clean energy resources (energy efficiency, biomass, geothermal, solar, and wind). Energy efficiency findings are an initial foray into this type of analysis and indicate significant connections between reduced energy use and buildings codes, energy efficiency resource standards (in some cases), and electricity price.

Wednesday, Feb 06, 2013

Sensitivity of Rooftop PV Projections in the SunShot Vision Study to Market Assumptions.

The SunShot Vision Study explored the potential growth of solar markets if solar prices decreased by about 75% from 2010 to 2020. The SolarDS model was used to simulate rooftop PV demand for this study, based on several PV market assumptions--future electricity rates, customer access to financing, and others--in addition to the SunShot PV price projections. This paper finds that modeled PV demand is highly sensitive to several non-price market assumptions, particularly PV financing parameters.

Tuesday, Feb 05, 2013

Solar Deployment System (SolarDS) Model: Documentation and Sample Results.

The Solar Deployment System (SolarDS) model is a bottom-up, market penetration model that simulates the potential adoption of photovoltaics (PV) on residential and commercial rooftops in the continental United States through 2030. NREL developed SolarDS to examine the market competitiveness of PV based on regional solar resources, capital costs, electricity prices, utility rate structures, and federal and local incentives.

Tuesday, Feb 05, 2013

Consortia Focused on Photovoltaic R&D, Manufacturing, and Testing: A Review of Existing Models and Structures.

As the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Solar Energy Technologies Program prepares to initiate a new cost-shared research and development (R&D) effort on photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing, it is useful to review the experience to date with consortia focused on PV R&D, manufacturing, and testing. Information was gathered for this report by conducting interviews and accessing Web sites of 14 U.S. consortia and four European consortia, each with either a primary focus on or an emerging interest in PV technology R&D, manufacturing, or testing.

Tuesday, Feb 05, 2013

Policymaker's Guide to Feed-in Tariff Policy Design.

Feed-in tariffs (FITs) are the most widely used renewable energy policy in the world for driving accelerating renewable energy (RE) deployment, accounting for a greater share of RE development than either tax incentives or renewable portfolio standard (RPS) policies. FITs have generated significant RE deployment, helping bring the countries that have implemented them successfully to the forefront of the global RE industry.

Tuesday, Feb 05, 2013

Solar Renewable Energy Certificate (SREC) Markets: Status and Trends.

This paper examines experience in solar renewable energy certificate (SREC) markets in the United States. It describes how SREC markets function--key policy design provisions, eligible technologies, state and regional eligibility rules, solar alternative compliance payments, measurement and verification methods, long-term contracting provisions, and rate caps. It also examines the trends of SREC markets--trading volumes, sourcing trends, trends in the size of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems driven by these markets, and trends in price and compliance.

Tuesday, Feb 05, 2013

Renewable Energy Finance Tracking Initiative (REFTI) Solar Trend Analysis.

This report is a summary of the finance trends for small-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) projects (PV <1 MW), large-scale PV projects (PV greater than or equal to 1 MW), and concentrated solar power projects as reported in the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Renewable Energy Finance Tracking Initiative (REFTI). The report presents REFTI data during the five quarterly periods from the fourth quarter of 2009 to the first half of 2011.

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