Oklahoma Imposes Grid Fee On Residential Pv Installations

New solar customers in the U.S. state of Oklahoma will have to pay a monthly grid connection fee after state legislators passed the S.B. 1456 bill through the House - a decision that caught many local organizations and businesses by complete surprise."We knew nothing about it and all of a sudden it's attached to some other bill," Sun City Oklahoma owner, Ctaci Gary, told local media. "It just appeared out of nowhere."The bill will apply to homeowners who install residential PV or small wind turbines on their property. Residents with solar panels already installed will not be affected by the measure, which has been championed by state utilities and conservative groups. Local newspaper the Oklahoman reported: "Representatives of Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co. and Public Services Co. of Oklahoma said the surcharge is needed to recover some of the infrastructure costs to send excess electricity safely from distributed generation back to the grid."The surcharge amount is yet to be determined, but the House has confirmed that customers who sell excess clean energy back to the grid will have to pay a monthly fee.Solar strifeSolar power in the U.S. has found itself embroiled in a number of battles from coast-to-coast in recent months. Currently, 43 states have net metering policies in place, but the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) - a group backed by the ultra-conservative Koch brothers, powerful utility companies and a raft of fossil fuel corporations - has begun an aggressive campaign to have most net metering rules repealed.From Kansas via Arizona and North Carolina, conservative heavyweights of the U.S. landscape have backed efforts to roll back solar-supportive state policies, with battle lines now being drawn in Ohio, South Carolina and Washington. Their argument is that without net metering, solar power would be prohibitively expensive, and thus the current status quo undermines the power industry, giving solar an unfair advantage."If you are using the grid and benefiting from the grid, you should pay for it," said the executive VP of Edison Electric Institute, David Owens. "If you don't, other customers have to absorb those costs." For its part, ALEC has championed efforts to overturn a Kansas mandate that requires 20% of the state's power comes from renewable sources. "State governments are starting to wake up," said Christine Harbin Hanson, a spokesperson for Americans for Prosperity - the Koch brothers-backed advocacy group. "These green energy mandates are bad policy."Facing down the powerfully backed enemy, solar advocates and environmentalists across the U.S. have been unnerved, their confidence fed by support from the White House, which last week hosted a groundbreaking Solar Summit."I applaud the White House for highlighting the incredible success of the U.S. solar industry, and celebrating the hard work of the men and women who are driving our country's clean energy revolution," said Jigar Shah, president of CASE - the Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy."Since taking office, President Obama has been a champion for the solar industry, which has experienced rapid growth during his administration in large part because of the decreasing cost of solar technologies," added Shah. "The increasing affordability of solar energy is indeed driving our industry's growth, but this progress is now threatened."As part of his 2014 'year of action', I urge President Obama to continue to work with all the interested parties to negotiate a solution that will lay the groundwork for growth in all sectors of the U.S. solar industry."ACCESS TO MORE ABOUT LANDPOWER SOLAR PANEL MOUNTING: SOLAR MOUNTING SYSTEMS, SOLAR RACKING, SOLAR HARDWARE, PV MOUNTING

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Bmw And Volkswagen Form Partnership To Support Electric Vehicles

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COMPANIES COME TOGETHER TO BUILD NEW CHARGING STATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES

German automaker BMW has announced that it has formed a partnership with Volkswagen and ChargPoint in order to build a comprehensive infrastructure for electric vehicles. The companies will be building a network of fast-charging stations that will extend from the eastern United States to the west. This network will be comprised of 100 fast-charging stations that will serve as a boon for those with electric vehicles. The network will also add to the 20,000 ChargPoint charging stations that are already available in North America.

ELECTRIC VEHICLES CONTINUE TO GAIN SUPPORT AS THE INFRASTRUCTURE TO SUPPORT THEM EXPANDS

Electric vehicles have become quite popular in the United States, but consumers have expressed concerns over these vehicle's limited operational range. In the past, electric vehicles were somewhat unpopular, largely due to the lack of an infrastructure that is capable of supporting them. Over the past few years, however, new charging stations have been built throughout the United States, making it easier for owners of electric vehicles to charge their cars. As the infrastructure has improved, many people have begun embracing electric vehicles as an environmentally friendly alternative to conventional vehicles.

New Charging Stations To Be Built In The West And East Coasts

The new charging stations are expected to be built in high-traffic areas of the country. In the west, these charging stations will be built in the metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Portland. In the east, stations will be constructed in the Washington, D.C. and Boston areas. The stations will be constructed no more than 50 miles apart in order to facilitate long-distance travel for those with electric vehicles.

Growing Infrastructure Will Help Make Electric Vehicles More Attractive To Consumers

One of the greatest challenges facing clean transportation currently is the lack of a supporting infrastructure. Electric vehicles have managed to gain significant momentum because of the relatively rapid construction of new charging stations. As the infrastructure to support electric vehicles continues to grow, these vehicles are likely to find more support among consumers throughout the United States.

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The Drought Is Boosting California Natural Gas Use

In a typical year, California gets almost a fifth of its energy from dams on its rivers and streams. But the last several years have been anything but typical: the ongoing drought has shrunk the state's reservoirs and cut the amount of hydro power the state can generate by about a third.

And since our consumption of energy hasn't dropped to make up the shortfall, says a report released this week by the Pacific Institute, California has stepped up its consumption of power from plants that burn expensive, carbon-polluting natural gas to fill the gap left by the drought.

As a result, says the report, ratepayers are shelling out almost half a billion additional dollars per year, and emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants from California power plants have risen significantly.

The report, entitled "Impacts of California's Ongoing Drought: Hydroelectricity Generation," also cites increased imports of out of state electricity (likely increasing the state's coal footprint) and more wind and solar as other ways in which the state's power managers have been dealing with the hydropower shortfall.

"This severe drought has many negative consequences. One of them that receives little attention is how the drought has fundamentally changed the way our electricity is produced," said the report's author, Pacific Institute President Peter Gleick.

The report's worth reading for its overview of California's in-state power generation as well. Our state is very much hooked on natural gas even in non-drought years, but as this Pacific Institute pie chart based on data from the California Energy Commission shows, the drier it gets the gassier our energy mix becomes:

California's 2013 in-state power generation from various sources Graph: Pacific Institute

Before you look at that razor-thin one percent of California's power mix filled by burning coal and start thinking our state was nearly coal-free in 2013, remember that in-state generation isn't the whole story. According to the California Energy Commission, we imported enough coal-fired power from "out" of state in 2013 to make up almost 8 percent of the state's total use for that year. The Pacific Institute chose to omit imported energy from its calculations because a lot of the electrical power the state imports -- around 12.5 percent in 2013 -- isn't assignable to a specific energy source.

Still, both the in-state generation figures in the chart above and the Energy Commission's total figures for 2013 show that in that year, well into the current drought, hydro power's contribution to in-state generation was around 12 percent.

That's including output from hydroelectric plants of 30 megawatts and larger, which are counted in a separate "large hydro" category by the state, and those smaller than 30 megawatts, which are considered "small hydro" and counted along with wind, geothermal, and solar in the state's renewable energy totals.

By comparison, check out this similar graph we put together from 2011's stats:

2011 in-state energy generation by source Graph: KCET

Nuclear power contributed only half the percentage of California in-state generation in 2013 that it did in 2011 because the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station shut down in 2012, leaving Diablo Canyon as the state's sole source of nuclear power. Solar and wind together rose by a cumulative three percentage points. Coal went down by a percentage point, and geothermal and biomass stayed the same.

But the really stark difference between 2011 and 2013 is in the relative output of hydro and natural gas. Hydroelectric power was 21 percent of the state's in-state generation in 2011, and dropped by nine percentage points to 12 percent in 2013 -- a power loss equivalent to San Onofre going offline.

And natural gas's share of the total rose from 45 to 61 percent to make up the difference, meaning a concomitant increase in emissions and energy costs -- as much as 1.4 billion in increased ratepayer costs from 2011 through 2014, according to the Pacific Institute report. And that increased natural gas burning is likely making the threat of future extended droughts worse due to increased greenhouse gas emissions.

Admittedly, 2011 was a reasonably wet year with great hydropower output; a statistical outlier in a string of increasingly dry years since 2007. That just underscores the state's need to conserve both power and water as we face an unpredictable future.

"We hope this report prompts a lively debate on how to factor in a changing climate when we plan for electricity generation," said Glick.

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