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July 7, 2010

America sizzles in heat, but remains unclear on tapping into it

So much sun, so little solar infrastructure

As much of the East Coast wilts in a heat wave at the moment, there seems to be a lot of solar energy going to waste.

In Washington DC, the heat may be making it even more difficult for the nation’s politicians to work on an agreement that might make the most of all this free energy.

Time magazine’s Ecocentric blog notes that Europe is now sourcing twice the proportion of electricity from renewable energy than the US, around 20% of its power from wind, solar, bioenergy and hydropower.

But Time’s Jeffrey Kluger is not so optimistic about the US following suit.

With the climate and energy bill now languishing in the place all good ideas go to die—the U.S. Senate—the prospects for  improving  those numbers in the near future look dim. Meantime, the 4 PM temperature in New York City is 102 degrees and the lights are still on—for now.

The Dayton Daily News is hopeful that another Senate Bill, the Investments for Manufacturing Progress and Clean Technology Act, might spur “exponential growth” in the solar industry.

The bill from the state’s own Senator Sherrod Brown seeks to extend tax credits for renewable energy as provided by 2009′s Recovery Act.

“It’s the right thing for our country. Why not become leaders in this clean energy economy — not buying solar panels from China and wind turbines from Germany,” says Steve Melink, owner of Milford-based solar firm Melink Corp.

Lacking PACE

While clean energy legislation is bogged down in Congress, trouble is also brewing for the nation’s fledgling Property-Assessed Clean Energy programs.

These are schemes allowing homeowners to finance new solar panels or efficient heating systems through an extra amount on top of their property taxes.

But the Wall Street Journal reports that mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with the Federal Housing Finance Agency, have rejected the idea.

The FHFA said Tuesday that PACE loans “pose unusual and difficult risk management challenges for lenders, servicers and mortgage investors.” The regulator directed local governments to suspend the programs, and Fannie, Freddie and the Federal Home Loan Banks to take action to “protect” their operations.

Officials in California, who believe a PACE system could support $1 billion of clean energy projects and more than 20,000 construction jobs, are fighting the FHFA’s ruling.

Transmission

While the East Coast suffers excessive heat, the Northwest has been deluged in rain this summer, leaving local hydropower operators scratching their heads about what to do with all the clean energy being produced at the region’s dams.

The New York Times Green Living column reports on the Bonneville Power Administration, one of the largest operators of hydropower in the Pacific Northwest, had to shut down its fossil fuel plants and ask neighboring utilities to curb their own generation activities.

Even then, it still had to cut output at the local nuclear plant to 22% normal levels.

With new wind farms on the way, the BPA is now looking into new transmission links to California, or smart grid systems, to find an avenue for all its renewable electricity.