Solar energy has been far and away the most successful of the renewable resources power companies have developed in North Carolina since the state's 2007 energy law required an increase in renewables and conservation.
Now advocates are pushing to double the state's mandated solar output by electric utilities, saying promoting solar power also promotes jobs needed to install and maintain solar facilities.
A bill introduced Monday in the General Assembly raises the solar requirement from 0.2 percent to 0.4 percent of all retail electricity sold by 2018. If the mandate is not lifted, utility companies are likely to stop at 0.2 percent for solar power, which is one of the most expensive forms of green energy.
The bill's sponsors are all mostly Republicans in the state House of Representatives: Tom Murry of Wake County, Ruth Samuelson of Mecklenburg County, Chuck McGrady of Henderson County and Tim Moffitt of Buncombe County. The lone Democratic sponsor is James Crawford Jr. of Granville and Vance counties.
But the state's two leading utility companies, Duke Energy and Progress Energy, don't support making changes to the 2007 law so soon after its passage.
"The most efficient way to do this is to stick with the policy you've developed," said Progress spokesman Mike Hughes. "We and others have made long-term investments based on the state's policy."
Duke Energy and Progress Energy are ahead of the current schedule on solar development. Not only have the two power companies passed their 2011 targets, as set in the 2007 energy law, but they are soon expected to pass their 2015 targets.
Raleigh-based Progress and Charlotte-based Duke have developed industrial-scale solar energy farms as well as household rooftop solar projects throughout the state.
According to the N.C. Sustainable Energy Association, a trade group for the renewable industry, the 2007 law had resulted in the development of nearly 60 megawatts of solar power in North Carolina. Three-fourths of the electricity comes from 20 projects that generate between 1 megawatt and 2 megawatts of electricity.
State energy policy allows the utilities to recover the cost of renewables and conservation projects through customers rates. Thus long-term contracts with solar farms, as well as incentives paid to customers to buy energy-efficient appliances, are covered by monthly bills all customers pay, just as costs for power plants, transmission lines, bucket trucks and other utility expenses.
Progress, for example, pays customers up to $10,000 for installing rooftop solar panels on their homes. The program was approved in November by the N.C. Utilities Commission.
The Progress SunSense program pays customers an upfront rebate of $1,000 per kilowatt capacity, depending on the size of the solar array, with the total rebate ranging between $2,000 and $10,000.
As part of the SunSense program, Progress is also offering a monthly bill credit ranging from $9 to $45, depending on the size of the solar array.
Duke Energy's solar projects include a 8.5M megawatt household rooftop program that will install solar panels on customers' homes, essentially creating mini power plants in neighborhoods throughout the company's service area.
Duke is also buying electricity from SunEdison’s 15.5 megawatt solar farm in Davidson County.
John Murawski has been a full-time newspaper reporter since 1991, with stints at Legal Times and The Chronicle of Philanthropy (both in Washington, DC), The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Palm Beach Post (in South Florida) before arriving at the N&O in December 2004. At the N&O he covers energy (nuclear, coal, renewable, efficiency), hydralic fracturing (or "fracking"), public utilities (both electric and natural gas) and health care. His beat includes Progress Energy, PSNC Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas, PowerSecure International, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Biogen Idec and others. You can reach him at 919-829-8932 or
Comments
30 year investment on a 20 year lifespan
Wed, 03/30/2011 - 09:28 — RdcressWhile solar, wind, and green all sound great and give lots of people the warm and fuzzies, the reality is far different. While the greenies claim huge reductions in CO2 emmissions, research provides a far different result. Tracking the life cycle of a solar panel we find that even if they live a 30 productive lifespan (highly unlikely) they will never negate the amount of pollution they generate during the production cycle. It's like the battery cars produced to save energy. People tend to forget production of batteries is nasty and without power there's no way to charge them. Forget solar for charging them unless you have a huge array you'll never generate enough to replace what you used to drive to work in time to drive to work the next day. Sadly our media and most people in general do not understand the concept and constraints of energy.
Koombuya idiocy pure and
Tue, 03/29/2011 - 21:23 — Joseph_L_CookeKoombuya idiocy pure and simple.
Liberals (and RINO's) are the problem. 2012. Solve the problem.
Costs
Tue, 03/29/2011 - 16:26 — mountainboyPlato, how did you determine the deconstruction costs for nuclear plants when we have no system yet identified for storing spent fuel? And why does the free market avoid building nuclear plants unless the government caps the possible costs of any accidents and insulates them from actual liabililty. If avoided costs and total government subsidies were actually used to compute energy costs it would be interesting to see where the various sources actually land.
Oil receives a massive
Tue, 03/29/2011 - 15:10 — fournaughtOil receives a massive subsidy in the form of the US military budget. Big energy companies generally externalize their costs very efficiently, forcing taxpayers to subsidize construction, waste storage, cleanup, and insurance.
"I profoundly object to the
Tue, 03/29/2011 - 15:05 — tbone85"I profoundly object to the state forcing me to give my tax dollars to the state in order for the state to motivate fools to do so."
How again is this different than Duke-Progress Energy's request that they be allowed to charge taxpayers more for Nuclear plants that they MIGHT build?
No way that solar is remotely competitive.
Tue, 03/29/2011 - 11:54 — PlatowasrightThe only objective way to compare the cost of electricity generated by solar means v coal fired, natural gas fired and nuclear generated electricity is on a per kw basis, including cost of construction, delivery, maintenance fuel and deconstruction costs. On that basis, hydro, nuclear, coal and natural gas all come in at under 5 cents per kilowatt. On that same comparative basis, solar comes in at over 23 cents per kilowatt of electricity.
If it weren't for the ability of the state to take money from some people and give it to other people to build these inefficient solar generators, THEY WOULD NOT BE BUILT.
In a time of increasingly negative financial pressures, why the state is following this foolish program only makes sense to the fool liberals. If they want to build solar electric generation systems that cost over 5 times as much as the more efficient and cheaper alternatives, let them do so with their own money, but I profoundly object to the state forcing me to give my tax dollars to the state in order for the state to motivate fools to do so.
You don't even have your
Tue, 03/29/2011 - 17:47 — mhrivnakYou don't even have your units straight. Perhaps you mean kWh?
If nuclear costs $0.05/kW, then the Shearon Harris plant (900 MW) would cost $45000.
Get your units straight
Wed, 03/30/2011 - 09:05 — RdcressHe might have left off the h in kwh but you're using retail price to determine construction costs??? The Progress Energy web site states that construction costs for solar power are between $5000 and $7000 per kw. This is not kwh but kw rating of the panel itself. I'm guessing that the thin film is on the low end with PV panels being on the high end. The average panel is around 10 watts per square foot. Many are rated higher but typically degrade very quickly to this average. That means that 100 square feet of panel with one hour of full sun will generate one kwh. With the average of 6 fully productive hours in this area you will generate roughly 6 to 8 kw per day. There are 111 sunny days, 104 partly cloudy days and 150 cloudy days. So let's say we can produce 1500 kwh per year (a generous estimate). With a cost of $5000 for construction and a buy back of 18 cents per kwh from Progress energy, you will recoup your investment in approximately 18 years assuming zero maintenance and repair costs. Panels are claimed to last anywhere from 20 to 30 years but suffer siginificant decreases in productive capacity beginning in the first few years.
From the Progress Energy website -
"What is the average cost of a solar PV system?
The installed cost of a commercial solar photovoltaic system varies by system type and size. Typically, systems cost approximately $5,000 to $7,000 per kilowatt (before tax credits and incentives). Customers should contact a solar installer to determine potential benefits and exact pricing"
http://www.progress-energy.com/custservice/carbusiness/efficiency/programs/pvcomm/faq.asp#_Q4
Can you point me to point
Tue, 03/29/2011 - 12:22 — NCYankee0Can you point me to where in the article it says there is a subsidy from the state? You saw solar energy and got all fired up and just skipped straight to the comment section without actually reading the article. I know its really fun to dress up like Ben Franklin and rant about liberals and global warming conspiracy theories on the internet, but you should try to make comments relevant.
Would a Republican sponsored bill have any subsidies with the Tea Party looking over their shoulder?
Check out this site to see all the subsidies
Wed, 03/30/2011 - 09:09 — Rdcresshttp://www.dsireusa.org/
Also there's a fee built into your electric bill to allow the power companies to charge extra so they can purchase power from these inefficient solar operations at inflated rates.
Without subsidies and pyramid schemes to pay for them, there is no real incentive, other than warm and fuzzies, to invest in a losing proposition. It all sounds good and feels good but in the end, it's just a scam.
Platowasright
Tue, 03/29/2011 - 12:19 — interested860So can we keep the spent fuel rods at your house?
How about the billions of dollars in Federal money that goes to the poor struggling oil companies. You are trying to compare apples to oranges!
Power companies and oil companies have been able to externalize a lot of their costs by letting the taxpayer help them out. How much would gas be if Exxon had to pay the US military for the security of their fuel trucks in the middle east and elswhere?
Nuclear is the MOST expensive way to boil water ever invented! Concentrated solar makes lots more sense.
Solar has a big upfront cost but the fuel is FREE!
Get a clue.
Nuclear problem
Wed, 03/30/2011 - 09:19 — RdcressHere again government picked the winner in the nuclear technology and subsidized the development of the more dangerous ones. Had the market ruled in this we would probably have much safer plants that utilize more friendly systems.
As far as spent fuel, I understand that there is a recycling process used in Europe that eliminates the need to permanently store anything. Problem is, again, our government won't licence the process in the U.S.
No conspiracy, just bad policies based on historical records.
Concentrated solar is great when the sun shines; which is about 111 days a year here in NC with 150 heavily cloudy days during which there would be no power. Power plants can't just be switched on like a light so it's not practical to have them on standby for those days. It makes more sense to have a good energy policy that provides low cost energy for this nation. Without low cost energy our economy will not recover. Green jobs will not make up for high energy costs.