Are You Ready for the Rolling Rooftop Revolution?

We conquered a flock of angry wild geese.

We faced roving packs of kids in need of a refreshing and tasty treat.

And now, much like the Muppets and so many others before us, we’re taking on MANHATTAN!

 

This summer Sungevity is celebrating our launch in DE, MA, MD, NJ, and NY by rolling out a Rooftop Revolution.  In our solar-powered biodiesel ice pop truck we are slinging ice pops along the Eastern Seaboard and teaching people how they can save money on their electric bills by going solar!

 

Check out this piece in the Huffington Post and follow our truck on Facebook and Twitter.

 

For every new “like” we get on Facebook we are donating $1 to The Solar Foundation, so start spreading the news!

 

The Ascent of the Sun: Say Good-bye to Ol’ King Coal (Part 3 of 3)

So how does solar stack up against coal?  If you ignore the externalities then coal power is cheap, but not for long as a couple of things happen:

1. We’re going to start running out of the easy stuff to get
2. We’re going to internalize some of the true costs of coal power.

I won’t go into detail about the coal supply in America but suffice to say that when someone tells you there are abundant coal reserves here, ask them how many are recoverable. The truth is that most coal production areas are depleted or on the way and America now sources 40% of its coal from one small river basin in Wyoming.

 

Powder River Basin (PRB) has 13 big mines but none of them will be viable in 20 years, in terms of producing coal at a cost structure that makes sense.  The main problem is the stripping ratio, or amount of ground that needs to be removed to get to the coal. The market is already reflecting some of Old King Coal’s problems as per these facts:

 

1. The delivered price of coal increased 3 times faster than inflation in the past 5 years

2. The cost of transporting PRB coal is 3 times greater than Its mining costs

3. Oil has twice the impact of mining on the cost of delivered PRB coal

4. States dependent on coal had the highest electricity price increases in the past 5 years

5. US coal mining productivity peaked in 2000 and declined 20% since

 

Remember that all of this is happening against a backdrop of solar power’s costs falling precipitously.  The only real question remaining is how long will coal be competitive?

 

Not for long. Indeed, you could not start on a new coal fired power plant in America today and have it up and running before it was more expensive than a solar plant.

 

Another reason this is a good change (aside from the climate benefits, saving the land from being blown up, and protecting our children from asthma) is that photovoltaics create more jobs than coal per kilowatt hour of power provided.

So our time in the sun is not done – we just have to bring it on. We’re very quickly realizing that coal is a pretty inefficient way to store the energy in sunlight. Digging it up and burning it to boil water is even more inefficient as a way to make electricity. Humanity will increasingly look up and access that same energy straight from the source. If you ever want to go solar in your own life please do so with Sungevity.  You can get your free Sungevity iQuote today if you are in AZ, CA, CO, DE, MA, MD, NJ, or NY.

 

We look forward to serving you…

 

Mark Ruffalo Wants to Go Solar With Sungevity!

Wow.  There’s dedication and then there is DEDICATION.  Mark Ruffalo, came to the Sungevity office IN PERSON today to get his iQuote.  Quite a trip from New York!

You probably know about Mark from movies like Shutter Island and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but Mark isn’t just an actor.  Mark is a man on a mission; that mission is to get the word out about hydraulic fracturing.

 

Hydraulic fracturing (also called fracking and hydrofracking) is a process used to retrieve hard-to-reach natural gas and oil. It involves injecting chemicals, sand, and millions of gallons of water into shale rock. The shale is then shattered, releasing trapped gas. So what’s the problem?  There are a bunch.

1. Most of the water used in fracking is left underground after the drilling ends, which means you can end up with contaminated wells.  With a mixture of 596 chemicals used in horizontal fracking, some of them carcinogens, that’s a recipe for disaster.
2. Methane gas leaks are a reality, and  recent research from  Robert W. Howarth, Renee Santoro, and Anthony Ingraffea at Cornell reveals that “The [greenhouse gas] footprint for shale gas is greater than that for conventional gas or oil when viewed on any time horizon, but particularly so over 20 years. Compared to coal, the footprint of shale gas is at least 20% greater and perhaps more than twice as great on the 20-year horizon and is comparable when compared over 100 years,”
3. DEAD COWS!

If you have a spare 7 minutes and 31 seconds then you should spend that time watching Mark talk to PBS about why people should be leery of fracking:

Also, if the mood strikes then check out Frack Action, and like them on Facebook.

 

Mark, I loved you in The Kids are All Right.  Just saying.

 

Solar on the Acela. And the Thalys. And the State Water Project?

I love trains.  Seriously, I do.  Trains, train stations, conductor hats, The Little Engine That Could, the word caboose…I love it all.  Can’t get enough. I remember riding with my mother on “The Ocean” when I was just a little tyke.  The Ocean runs from Montreal to Halifax and has a dome car with 360° views.  We sat in that car for hours gazing at the stars and singing “City of New Orleans,” which was the only train song we mutually appreciated.  As an adult, I still fantasize about taking train trips.  I’m actually hoping to take a trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway in the next few years.  Don’t worry — I’m already stocking up on warm winter hats.  Brrrrrrrr.

 

Speaking of trains, did you know that Sungevity is the first brand ever to take over all of the advertising on Amtrak’s Acela?  Our snazzy back-lit posters and seat-back information placards will be on the Acela trains until the end of the month.  We are also sponsoring the trains’ wifi.  Chugga chugga, chugga chugga, WOOOO HOOOOO!

It leaves you thinking – if solar can take over the Acela, what else can it take over?

 

In Europe, the high speed Thalys train that links Paris to Amsterdam just got an upgrade.  Along the route there is now a 3.6km stretch of tunnel that is covered by 16,000 solar panels.  Together they span an area of approximately 12 acres and produce 3.3 megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity each year.

 

Is 3.3 MWh a lot?  It’s roughly enough to meet the annual electric needs of 1,000 households, which seems pretty impressive until you think about the fact that the flux capacitor on the DeLorean time machine required 1.21 GW to operate 😛

If you want to see the tunnel in action, so to speak, check out this video.

Pro Tip: You only need to watch the first 15 seconds of so of the video unless you REALLY love looking at solar panels; all 3 minutes and 7 seconds of it are pretty much the same.

 

Okay.  Quick recap.  Sungevity covered the Acela in solar (advertising) and Enfinity covered a tunnel in Europe in solar (panels).  What else could be smothered in sunshiney deliciousness?  Those of you who live in California can probably think of something major; and when I say major I mean MAJOR.  Do you know what the single largest energy consumer is in California?  It’s the State Water Project (SWP), which moves water from Northern California to Southern California via a system of pumps and channels.  The SWP accounts for 6.5% of the state’s total energy usage!

NYT’s Green Blog pontificated on putting floating solar arrays on the California Aqueduct back in April, but people have been talking about solarizing the SWP for years now…and why not? It seems like an obvious next step for the state that is leading the nation in solar installations.

Do you have solar on your roof? If you could put a large-scale solar system somewhere where would you put it?

 

The Ascent of the Sun: Stepping on the Gas (Part 2 of 3)

Solar electricity comes straight from the source – by which I mean that most electricity is some form of converted sunshine.  I bet when you plug something into your wall you don’t think about the fact that you’re plugging into the sun.  Unless, of course, you already have a PV system.

 

The electricity that comes out of your outlets is about 50% coal-based in the US, but coal is really just sunshine that was stored underground for a couple of hundred million years.  After the coal is unearthed it is burnt in a box somewhere far away to boil water, generate steam and spin a turbine.  Pretty inefficient, right?

 

Increasingly gas is being used instead of coal as a slightly more efficient form of stored sunshine. In some markets gas-fired power is coming to dominate due to the fact it burns a little bit cleaner – although nowhere close to the cleanliness of direct solar. Gas-fired plants are also easier to turn on and off than coal plants, so they are used for peak load, which is when the demand for electricity is at its max and generation must be increased to meet that need. Peak load typically occurs in the late afternoon/early evening when businesses are still open, but many people have already gone home and turned on their air conditioning while they cook dinner, do laundry, watch TV, etc.

 

Solar is a great replacement for this load, since it’s clean power AND the peak hours of solar power generation line up pretty well with peak demand.  For people with PV systems who are on a Time of Use rate schedule then it works out perfectly because they’re producing electricity and selling it back to the grid when it’s more expensive and buying it back at night when it’s cheaper.

 

Speaking of cost, let’s look at what happened at Southern California Edison (SCE) earlier this year.  SCE, a big conventional utility, asked regulators to approve 20-year contracts to buy 250 megawatts of electricity from 20 small-scale photovoltaic farm. According to Todd Woody of Forbes, the 20 projects — which will generate between 5 and 20 megawatts — will produce electricity at a cost below what utility industry wonks call the “market price referent.” The MPR, as they call it, represents the levelized cost of electricity over 20 years of a combined cycle gas turbine like those typically found in natural gas power plants in the Golden State.  Translated into plain English, solar power is fast becoming cheaper than gas-fired power.

 

So in the real world marketplace of California gas is getting too expensive, when it compares to solar direct.  Here’s a graph to show you the same points (tip of the hat to VoteSolar for all these facts & graphs):

My third installment of The Solar Ascent is going to focus on coal.  Here’s a question for you to answer in the comments: Only two states don’t have any coal-fired generating capacity.  Which ones are they?  No cheating! 🙂  The first person to guess both states correctly wins a Sungevity t-shirt.

 

Next week: The Ascent of the Sun: Say Good-bye to Ol’ King Coal (Part 3 of 3)