Archives for July 2015 | Highlands Energy

PG&E Celebrates 10,000 Solar Customers Each in Bakersfield, Fresno, and San Jose

Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) celebrated connecting 10,000 solar customers each in three of California’s largest cities – Bakersfield, Fresno and San Jose, on Tuesday, July 21st. These celebrations to place as part of PG&E’s milestone of connecting their 175,000th solar customer to its electric grid. These achievements, combined with a new survey showing that 25 percent of Californians are considering solar panels for their home, display just how quickly California residents are paving the way for a clean energy future.

“PG&E proudly supports customer choice when it comes to renewable energy. We connect thousands of new customer-owned solar installations to our grid every month with some of the fastest connection speeds in the nation. This rooftop solar power supplies clean energy to our customers and communities, and is a key part of California’s energy future,” said PG&E’s Senior Vice President and Chief Customer Officer, Laurie Giammona.

Each of the three cities passing the 10,000 solar customer milestone has their own “solar story”:

San Jose is committed to receiving 100 percent of its electrical power from clean, renewable sources by 2022.
In the Bakersfield area, the Kern High School District plans to install solar-power systems at 27 school sites by the end of 2016.
In Fresno, students work with GRID Alternatives, a nonprofit renewable energy company and longtime PG&E partner, on a program called Alternative Spring Breakers, installing solar panels on the homes of low-income families, as a part of a state energy grant program.

California’s First Commercial Solar Desalination Plant to be Built in the Central Valley

by saleson 16 July 2015in Clean Energy, News, Solar Energy, Water Conservation

Plans have been announced to build a commercial solar-powered water desalination plant in the Panoche Water and Drainage District in California’s Central Valley.

The plant, being built by HydroRevolution, a subsidiary of the independent water producer WaterFX, will provide a highly sustainable water source to local water districts by recycling salt impaired water into fresh water.

The new plant will be built on 35 acres of land currently being farmed with salt-tolerant crops, with the potential to grow to a 70-acre site. The land that will house the solar desalination facility is just a small fraction of the total 6,000 acres currently being used to manage and reuse irrigation drainage water for the Panoche Water District and other participating water districts.

The desalination plant will reportedly be able to provide up to 5,000 acre-feet of fresh water per year- enough water for 10,000 homes or 2,000 acres of cropland.

The system, utilizing WaterFX’s Aqua4 technology, is described as a concentrated solar still which uses large solar arrays to capture solar thermal energy from the sun. The sun heats mineral oil, which then flows to the Multi-effect Distillation system (MED) that evaporates freshwater from the source water. Over 90% of the freshwater is recovered during this process, while the briny remainder can be further treated to produce minerals and salts as useable solid co-products.

Panoche Water and Drainage District officials and WaterFX representatives are eager to see the possibilities for sustainable and consistent freshwater in the Central Valley grow through the construction of the HydroRevolution plant, and hope that this project is a first step in revolutionizing the way the state of California uses and sources water.

Energy Rates to Increase in California

by saleson 7 July 2015in Energy Conservation, News, Solar Energy

Expect your energy bill to rise over the next few years.

The California Public Utilities Commission voted last week to approve major rate changes sought by Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric, and their decision is being met with great controversy.

Fewer Energy Usage Tiers

Currently, pay rates for energy consumers are divided into multiple tiers- where the more energy you use, the higher your rate will be. For example, those in the fourth tier have a rate that is twice as high as those in the first tier, who use the least amount of energy. However, with the changes approved Friday, the difference between what high energy usage customers and low energy usage customers pay will shrink. By 2019, the number of tiers will be reduced from four to two, with a price difference of just 25 percent between the tiers.

Critics of the new plan are saying that fewer tiers will severely diminish incentives for reducing energy consumption and utilizing green energy such as solar power. Many are also worried that this change will lead to a redistribution of wealth from low-income to high-income families, arguing that wealthier people tend to use the most energy and are the ones who will benefit the most from this restructuring.

However, the commissioners behind the reform claim that the link between income and electricity use isn’t as strong as many believe. They say that many high-energy using customers are large families that have no choice but to consume more energy, or desert-dwellers that rely on constant air conditioning during the summer months to stay cool. The new plan, they say, is fairer for all consumers.

The new plan does, however, include one penalty for the so-called “energy hogs”. For those who consume over 400% of the baseline electricity usage, they will see a surcharge that hikes their rate up to double that of the low-energy users.

Time-based Rates

Another change that the restructuring will bring is different rates for energy usage during different times of day, with the highest rates in the afternoon. The plan, the commissioners say, can potentially reduce the strain on the state’s power grid when electricity demand reaches its daily, late-afternoon peak by encouraging customers to shift the bulk of their energy usage to off-peak hours.

Incorporating these time-based rates could help the state incorporate more solar power into the energy mix. Solar power plants hit their maximum output just after noon, so these time-based rates will provide more incentive for those wishing to avoid the higher rates to switch to solar.

Overall, the majority of Pacific Gas and Electric Co., Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric Co. can expect to see their energy bills increase as the new plan is phased in.