QUICK NEWS, January 6: CALIF GETS 50% NEW ENERGY BY 2030 GOAL; SOLAR MAKING IT BIG IN NY, NY; GLOBAL DISTRIBUTED WIND BOOM BUILDING

CALIF GETS 50% NEW ENERGY BY 2030 GOAL California governor vows to boost renewable energy, cut petroleum use

Robin Respaut, Rory Carroll, Megan Davies, with Jeffrey Benkoe, January 5, 2015 (Reuters)

“…[In his fourth inaugural address, California Governor Jerry Brown] laid out an ambitious plan for 50 percent of the state's electricity to be generated by renewable resources over the next 15 years…cut petroleum usage by drivers…double the energy efficiency of existing buildings and make heating fuels cleaner…Brown said California was on track to meet its goal of generating one-third of the state's electricity through renewable energy within the next five years…The governor's new initiative could be a boon for green energy companies, such as manufacturers of electric vehicles and those looking to build utility-scale solar projects or upgrade the state's aging electric grid…Since 2013 California's cap-and-trade program has raised nearly $1 billion from companies to offset their carbon emissions. The money could increase significantly as the program expands this year to cover distributors of transportation fuel like gasoline and diesel and home heating fuels like natural gas.” click here for more

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SOLAR MAKING IT BIG IN NY, NY The Big Apple takes a bite out of solar energy

Brad Quick, 3 January 2015 (CNBC)

“… Dan Neiditch, president of River 2 River Realty which operates the Atelier, had [solar] panels installed in 2011…[that generate] about 5 percent of the building's energy, subsequently cutting utility costs by roughly $40,000 a year…More solar projects are popping up across the Empire State, with sun technology increasingly dotting the skyscrapers and buildings of New York's urban landscape…Spurred by cheaper solar technology and incentives introduced under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg beginning in 2008, New York City is experiencing a solar renaissance…

“The Big Apple has a solar capacity of over 30 megawatts…up from about 10 megawatts just four years ago…[L]ast year, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced plans to invest more than $1 billion in solar projects, with the hopes of increasing the state's solar power by 10-fold by 2023…Neiditch plans to make even bigger bets on solar…[to get another 10 percent of the building’s energy and] about $120,000 in savings per year…Neiditch says he's using energy savings to reinvest in the Atelier building…” click here for more

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GLOBAL DISTRIBUTED WIND BOOM BUILDING Small and Medium Wind Power; Demand Drivers, Market Barriers, Technology Issues, Competitive Landscape, and Global Market Forecasts

4Q 2014 (Navigant Research)

“The overall market for small and medium wind turbines (SMWTs) is growing as a result of feed-in tariff policies in the United Kingdom and growing global demand for distributed generation…China and Italy remain important markets while the U.S. SMWT market has been limited due to a reduction in state-level incentives and competition from solar PV systems that have declined in price dramatically. Momentum is growing, however, around the wind lease model that has enabled the distributed solar PV market to scale…[The 30-year-old SMWT market is maturing and] an increasing number of applications are being enabled by the interest and investment in microgrids and hybrid systems that that integrate small wind with solar PV and diesel generators, among other renewable distributed energy generation technologies (RDEG). According to Navigant Research, global annual installations of SMWTs are expected to grow from an estimated 254.9 MW in 2014 to 587.7 MW in 2023…” click here for more

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