...
In January, a company called Mosaic, made a splash
in the renewable energy world when it introduced a crowd-funding
platform that makes it possible for small, non-accredited investors to
earn interest financing clean energy projects. When Mosaic posted its
first four investments online – solar projects offering 4.5 percent
returns to investors who could participate with loans as small as $25 —
the company’s co-founder, Billy Parish, thought it would take a month to
raise the $313,000 required. Within 24 hours, 435 people had invested
and the projects were sold out. The
company had spent just $1,000 on marketing. All told, Mosaic has raised
$1.1 million for a dozen solar projects to date. Now it is connecting
with other solar developers to identify new projects for financing. More
than 10,000 people have already signed on and are standing by to
invest.
...
Last year, when Warren Buffett’s MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company floated an $850 million bond offering
for the Topaz Solar Farm, in California, it was the first time a public
bond offering for a U.S. photovoltaic power project had been deemed
“investment grade.” The offering was oversubscribed by more than $400
million and the company is now planning a second round to raise
potentially $1.265 billion more. And last month, it was reported
that First Solar, a manufacturer of solar panels, had signed an
agreement with the El Paso Electric Company to sell its power for less
than half the cost of power from typical coal plants. In 2011, almost
half of the 208 gigawatts of electric capacity added globally came from
renewable power, primarily wind and solar (pdf), and almost half of the additional power capacity in the European Union came from solar alone.
...
Over the past five years, the price of photovoltaic panels has declined
by about 80 percent. We’re used to hearing about Moore’s Law, which
refers to the steady and predictable increases in power and decline in
cost of integrated circuits. Swanson’s Law holds that each time global manufacturing capacity of photovoltaic cells doubles, the costs fall by 20 percent.
From 1977 to 2013, the price per watt of crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells dropped from about $77 per watt to 74 cents per watt. Couple that with another innovation — the spread of companies that lease, rather than sell,
solar power systems – add in some tax incentives — and decentralized
solar has become a viable option for many homeowners and businesses.
This is a far cry from the time when buying a solar system meant paying
upfront for 25 or 30 years of power.
FOR FULL STORY GO TO:
The New York Times www.NYTimes.com
[In Germany] ... 51 percent of the country’s clean energy production is owned by individuals or farmers, while major utilities control just 6.5 percent of it.
One of the Mosaic financed systems now
sits atop a 26,000-square-foot building in Oakland’s San Antonio
neighborhood owned by the nonprofit Youth Employment Partnership,
which provides education and workforce skills training to a thousand
teenagers each year. YEP’s system, which cost about $265,000, was
financed by a combination of its own funds, government and private
grants, and a crowdfunded loan. Its utility bills have dropped by 85
percent. Because of the grants, YEP is leasing its system for 10 years
and will have the ability to purchase it for a low price after that
period. (Without subsidies, the lease would likely run for 20 or 25
years.) YEP’s monthly utility and lease outlays are less than before....
...
Last June, Bloomberg New Energy Finance published a report (pdf)
estimating that the expected continuing surge in demand for solar
systems over the next nine years in the United States would require $62
billion in new financing.
...
But peer-to-peer lenders like Prosper.com and Lending Club
– once considered improbable businesses — have revealed new
possibilities. Combined, they have brokered over $1.8 billion in loans,
offering lower interest rates and higher returns than borrowers or
lenders could get from banks. At the same time, crowdfunders like Kickstarter, RocketHub, Indiegogo, Seedmatch and the aptly named Crowdfunder, have helped groups raise hundreds of millions of dollars for a multitude of projects and business ventures. Kiva
has built a bridge that has allowed individuals to lend over $400
million to microfinance institutions. Now, we’re seeing the early
application of this idea to clean energy, with Mosaic and others,
including SunFunder and Milaap.
... On Deck Capital and Kabbage,
leverage large data sets to evaluate lending risks cost
effectively....building a portal for solar developers to submit
project information electronically in an efficient manner that automates
initial credit screening and analysis....
...
Crowdfunding holds particular promise
for the developing world, where financing for renewable energy is even
harder to come by — and where distributed solar power is an urgent need.... The irony is that very poor people in the developing world who
lack electricity pay far more for kerosene and candles than they would for solar energy. Over a decade, a poor family may spend $1,800
on these energy sources, five or six times what it would take to
install a home solar system that could power lights, cellphones,
computers, television, and so forth.
Today, with NGO, businesses and
microfinance networks reaching into villages and shantytowns around the
world, an infrastructure exists to deploy solar systems using a
sustainable leasing business model. Just replacing kerosene — a fire
hazard and contributor to pulmonary disease – with solar would yield
enormous ... benefits.
...
Domestically, if the U.S. government changed regulations around Real Estate Investment Trusts and Master Limited Partnerships (a bill
recently introduced by Senator Chris Coons aims to do the latter), it
could open up billions for renewable energy investments.
Internationally, governments and multilaterals could reduce the
perceived risk of solar investments through loan guarantees and other
incentives.
...
Solar
power does best in the south ... — a system in San Diego provides
about 50 percent more energy over the course of a year than a similar
one in Seattle (pdf)
— but it is suitable for northern areas, too. New York City is home to
560 solar projects that generate 11.5 megawatts of power. But the city
has the rooftop capacity
to increase its solar output 500 fold. Theoretically, it could supply
40 percent of its peak electricity needs from solar. (For a look at the
city’s rooftop capacity in detail, check out this cool interactive map
developed by Sustainable CUNY. According to the calculations, the
Metropolitan Museum of Art’s roof has enough space to generate the
carbon saving equivalent of 6,600 trees – more than a quarter of the
total in Central Park.)
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FOR FULL STORY GO TO:
The New York Times www.NYTimes.com
March 6, 2013
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