You could say the forecast is partly cloudy, with uncertainty in the current economic climate. But solar entrepreneurs are optimistic that economics and common sense will help the sun break through as official support for renewable energy grows.
Solar outlays in 2009 were down compared with 2008; permits for solar work are likewise down.
Officials of the New York Solar Energy Industry Association, (NYSEIA) lauded steps announced late last month by the state Public Service Commission as helpful in fostering solar electric and solar thermal business in New York state. But they cautioned more needs doing to foster a self-sustaining solar industry in the state.
On March 25, the PSC announced steps to strengthen the states”™ renewable energy supply. It set aside about $280 million over a five-year period for customer-sited renewable energy projects as part of the state”™s Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) program. It could provide funding for thousands of businesses and homeowners to install solar panels, fuel cells, wind turbines and other renewable energy devices.
The PSC approved an additional $150 million for large-scale solar photovoltaic, anaerobic digester and fuel cell projects in and around the lower Hudson Valley and the New York City metropolitan area, where energy shortages have been forecast in coming years due to a so-called bottleneck of energy flow thwarted by the area”™s archaic and inadequate power transmission infrastructure. The funding should help relieve the bottleneck by allowing for various forms of locally generated energy.
The funding comes from RPS, a charge on electric bills that is set aside to fund renewable energy projects.
The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) tracks PV spending and reports average PV outlay statewide for January and February of 2010 was $1.5 million per month, down from the 2009 monthly average of more than $5 million. Total PV program applications in the first two months of 2010 were down 40 percent from the 2010 monthly average and are down 70 percent from the same period in 2009, NYSERDA said.
“In these difficult economic times, we are keeping our focus on the long-term need to support the investment in renewable energy,” said PSC chairman Garry Brown. “The development and expansion of our critically important renewable energy resources will allow us to take greater control of our energy future.”
Brown said the spending would also help generate jobs and investment in the state. The state has a two tiered renewable strategy, one $200 million pool of funding announced last year is directed at large scale renewable production and the second pool of funding for on-site production. Brown said that the new PSC funding announced for on-site projects would, over the next five years generate enough power to supply about 750,000 on site homes and create cumulative economic activity totaling about $625 million on photo-voltaic projects.
“This historic multi-year commitment ensures the survival of the solar industry in new York for the next five years,” said Ron Kamen, president of NYSEIA. He particularly touted the length of the commitment as essential to encouraging investment in solar power and other renewable energy sources.
Also key is the inclusion, for the first time, of some $25 million in funding to help foster growth in solar thermal applications, said Kamen. While photovoltaic applications that produce electricity get most of the press, more than half the electricity used in New York goes to heating buildings and providing hot water and some 80 percent of the carbon emissions from New York City derive from those uses.
Adopting solar thermal could cut emissions and electric bills and generate tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in investment annually, he said, citing examples from Germany where solar thermal is well developed.
But Kamen said that the solar power industry is still suffering from long delays in approval of projects seeking to take advantage of state incentives and rebates  As opposed to a projected 30- to 45-day span to review applications the process take months, and thwarts business owners and homeowners trying to improve their energy and economic outlook through using renewable energy.
Kamen sadi steps were needed to reduce the delays. NYSEIAÂ officials say the delay is partly responsible for the alarming reduction in investment in solar and other renewable energy potential in 2010, compared to the rapid growth in recent years.
“Solar energy is following the same path as information technology,” said Kamen.. “Just as the costly supercomputers of twenty years ago evolved into today”™s affordable blackberries and I phones, so will solar energy”™s continued development result in the long-term, fuel-free, fixed-price energy resource that will power and heat our society in the coming decades.
