Developing Solar Friendly Communities: Permitting, Interconnection, and Net Metering: An Overview of Model Standards and Policy Design Criteria

Over the past several years, procedures and policies surrounding permitting, inspection, interconnection, and net metering of distributed photovoltaic (PV) systems have been the subject of extensive analysis and scrutiny, given their substantial contribution to solar costs. This ongoing period of critical analysis has produced a wide variety of process innovations and model standards capable of streamlining processes for local governments and reducing solar PV costs. As a member of the Colorado-based “Solar Friendly Communities” team under the Rooftop Solar Challenge, Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) has evaluated a number of these standards, innovations, and policy design criteria and developed some specific recommendations. This document surveys a subset of existing permitting, interconnection, and net metering processes and is meant to serve as an initial point of inquiry for interested local governments and communities.

 

Achieving Low-Cost Solar PV: Industry Workshop Recommendations for Near-Term Balance of System Cost Reductions

This report synthesizes the specific design strategies and technical and process best practices that emerged from RMI’s June 2010 “Solar PV Balance of System” design charrette. BoS costs—all the upfront costs associated with a PV system except the module—account for over half of PV system cost and pose a barrier to widespread adoption. The charrette process identified many opportunities that could offer the potential to reduce balance of system costs to $0.60 - $0.90/watt, a 45 percent to 65 percent reduction over current best practices. This report quantifies and prioritizes cost reduction strategies and provides detail on specific recommendations to reduce costs.

 

2010 Micropower Database (September)

2010 (September) Edition: The purpose of the micropower database is to present a clear, rigorous, and independent assessment of the global capacity and electrical output of micropower (all renewables, except large hydro, and cogeneration), showing its development over time and documenting all data and assumptions. With minor exceptions, this information is based on bottom-up, transaction-by-transaction equipment counts reported by the relevant suppliers and operators, cross-checked against assessments by reputable governmental and intergovernmental technical agencies. For most technologies, historic data from 1990 through 2008 or 2009 is available, as well as forecasts through 2013. Available information includes global annual capacity additions and output, global cumulative capacity, and capacity factor. The Micropower Database Methodology is also included here. The 2008 Micropower Database (RMI ID E05-04) and the 2010 (May) Edition (RMI ID 2010-06) are also available.

Note: This update to the database incorporates recently released data that change the total installed micropower capacity by 2.9%.

 

Keeping the Lights on While Transforming Electric Utilities

This article discusses the new electricity paradigm required of electric utilities in the face of climate change, energy security concerns, and disruptive technologies. The new paradigm for utilities is based on energy efficiency, demand response, renewables, energy storage, and distributed generation.

 

Presentation of Achieving Low-Cost Solar PV: Industry Workshop Recommendations for Near-Term Balance of System Cost Reductions

This presentation provides a high-level overview of key technical and process best practices that emerged from RMI’s June 2010 “Solar PV Balance of System” design charrette in a graphical format. It includes the main charts and graphs that summarize the report analysis and recommendations. BoS costs—all the upfront costs associated with a PV system except the module—account for over half of PV system cost and pose a barrier to widespread adoption. This summary focuses on the recommendations to reduce costs across the PV industry.

 

Executive Summary of Achieving Low-Cost Solar PV: Industry Workshop Recommendations for Near-Term Balance of System Cost Reductions

The executive summary provides a high-level overview of key technical and process best practices that emerged from RMI’s June 2010 “Solar PV Balance of System” design charrette. BoS costs—all the upfront costs associated with a PV system except the module—account for over half of PV system cost and pose a barrier to widespread adoption. This summary focuses on the recommendations to reduce costs across the PV industry.

 

2010 Micropower Database (May)

2010 (May) Edition: The purpose of the micropower database is to present a clear, rigorous, and independent assessment of the global capacity and electrical output of micropower (all renewables, except large hydro, and cogeneration), showing its development over time and documenting all data and assumptions. With minor exceptions, this information is based on bottom-up, transaction-by-transaction equipment counts reported by the relevant suppliers and operators, cross-checked against assessments by reputable governmental and intergovernmental technical agencies. For most technologies, historic data from 1990 through 2008 or 2009 is available, as well as forecasts through 2013. Available information includes global annual capacity additions and output, global cumulative capacity, and capacity factor. The Micropower Database Methodology is also included here. The 2008 Micropower Database (RMI ID E05-04) is also available.

Note: A more recent version of The Micropower Database from September 2010 (RMI ID 2010-14) is now available. This update to the database incorporates recently released data that change the total installed micropower capacity by 2.9%.

 

Accelerating Solar Power Adoption: Compounding Cost Savings Across the Value Chain

This paper discusses common barriers to solar power adoption and techniques for getting around those barriers. The authors argue that for solar power to become a significant contributor to energy supply, and hence greenhouse gas emissions reductions, the industry has to achieve high annual growth rates for decades. The challenge cannot be overstated, especially once subsidies can no longer be relied upon to drive industry growth. Several barriers, including high costs, lack of reliable demand, supply chain dynamics, and utility integration issues, threaten to prevent adoption rates from rising as fast as is required. In particular, high costs are a major barrier, since solar power must soon be cost competitive unsubsidized. Fortunately, large cost reduction potential is available, which has not been captured during the hectic expansion of the industry. Based on experience in other industries, the basic tools of end use efficiency, whole systems design, lean manufacturing, and economies of scale will let technology manufacturers and PV installers drive down costs by a factor of two or more. These savings, enabled with support from government policies, industrial collaboration, and process efficiency gains, can bring today’s PV technologies to grid parity in many markets, allowing the exponential growth curve to continue.

 

Nuclear Power's Competitive Landscape

A hotly debated topic, the present and future state of nuclear power and its competitors are the subject of this presentation by Amory Lovins at RMI2009. This presentation was part of a plenary debate with Robert Rosner entitled, "Nuclear: Fix or Folly?". The accompanying video of the entire debate is available at RMI's Video page.

 

Nuclear Power: Climate Fix or Folly?

This semi-technical article, summarizing a detailed and documented technical paper (see "The Nuclear Illusion" (2008)), compares the cost, climate protection potential, reliability, financial risk, market success, deployment speed, and energy contribution of new nuclear power with those of its low- or no-carbon competitors.

 

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