QUICK NEWS, April 28: THE NEED FOR COMMUNITY SHARED SOLAR; FIRST U.S. OFFSHORE WIND PROJECT BEGINS CONSTRUCTION; $102 BIL ROBOT CAR MRKT BY 2030

THE NEED FOR COMMUNITY SHARED SOLAR NREL Report Estimates Market Potential of Shared Solar and Discusses Relevant Securities Regulations

April 27, 2015 (National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

“Analysis from the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) finds that by making shared solar programs available to households and businesses that currently cannot host on-site photovoltaic (PV) systems shared solar could represent 32 to 49 percent of the distributed photovoltaic market in 2020…Shared solar models allocate the electricity of a jointly owned or leased system to offset individual consumers' electricity bills, allowing energy consumers to share the benefits of a single solar array…[explains] Shared Solar: Current Landscape, Market Potential, and the Impact of Federal Securities Regulation…At least 49 percent of U.S. households and 48 percent of businesses are currently unable to host a PV system when excluding residential renters, those without access to roof space (e.g., multi-unit housing, malls), and/or those living or working in buildings with insufficient roof space. There are several factors, including easier and less restrictive participation and economies of scale, that may cause shared solar deployment to be significantly higher than these estimates…[S]hared solar could lead to cumulative U.S. PV deployment growth of 5.5-11.0 gigawatts between 2015 and 2020 and represent $8.2 to $16.3 billion of cumulative investment…” click here for more

click to enlarge

Tweet

FIRST U.S. OFFSHORE WIND PROJECT BEGINS CONSTRUCTION Deepwater Breaks Ground on America’s First Offshore Wind Project; Block Island Wind Farm to Cut Electricity Rates for Residents by 40 percent

April 27, 2015 Sierra Club

Deepwater Wind broke ground on the first U.S. offshore wind project on Monday, the five turbine, 30 MW installation off Rhode Island’s Block Island. Construction, which will create an estimated 300 jobs, is expected to be finished by the end of 2016. The Block Island project, proposed in 2009, has a power purchase agreement with National Grid. The turbines will provide electricity to all the island’s homes and businesses in place of diesel generators. Excess generation will go into the mainland grid via a new undersea cable. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has designated an area off the Rhode Island and Massachusetts coasts for wind development that has a 9,000 MW potential and could create 43,000 New England jobs. There were about 7 GW of offshore wind installed globally at the end of 2014, most in Europe, where 6.6 GW were in construction and development…DOE funding for offshore wind has been substantial but hasn’t broken the U.S. logjam. None of the other 14 projects in development, representing 4.9 GW of capacity, have started construction. click here for more

click to enlarge

Tweet

$102 BIL ROBOT CAR MRKT BY 2030 The $102 Billion Opportunity for Automation in Cars

Sensors, software and apps will benefit from greater automation of cars, even as full ‘self-driving’ capabilities remain mostly over the horizon through 2030, says Lux Research

April 28, 2015 (Lux Research)

“Advanced driver-assist systems (ADAS) will have a $102 billion opportunity by 2030, up from a mere $2.4 billion today, as carmakers rush to add automation features…Sensors will account for 23% of the opportunity, while the connectivity and apps segment takes a higher 28% share; software to coordinate sensor fusion and enable critical safety operations will claim a 25% share…Cars with basic driver- assist features, like parking assist, will cash in early, with a potential $29.6 billion market by 2022…[Enhanced] features such as adaptive cruise control and lane merge offers the largest opportunity to automakers and tier-one manufacturers – worth $73 billion in 2030…Partial autonomy features – like self-driving on the highway – will be slow to roll out over the next 10 years, before growing to a $22.7 billion opportunity by 2030. In the most likely case, fully autonomous cars will not hit the market before 2030, largely because of regulations and a current lack of prototypes…Enhanced driver-assist features will add $527 to the price of new cars in 2020, and a lower $481 per car in 2030…” click here for more

click to enlarge

Tweet