Green Energy News | April 9, 2000

April 9, 2000 – Vol.5 No.2

ENERGIES... week of April 9, 2000

SOLAR BUILDS SOLAR. Solar and other renewables will be the source of energy for a new solar manufacturing facility now open in San Francisco. Built by PowerLight Corporation, the 18,000 square foot facility will manufacture the company's PowerGuard (r) photovoltaic roofing tiles. Solar electric output from a year's production of PowerGuard tiles will equal 15 megawatts.

On the roof of the factory is a 15 kilowatt array of PowerGuard tiles which will supply a portion of the energy needed for production. The remainder of the energy will come from GreenMountain.com's Solar for the Future (sm) program. California residential customers using Solar for the Future will receive 100 percent of their power from renewable sources, while part of their monthly payment will be set aside to contribute to future solar projects.

PowerLight is the first commercial customer for GreenMountain in the program. Like any Solar for the Future customer, a portion of the monthly electric bill paid by PowerLight to GreenMountain will turn around and be used to build more solar generating capacity.

At the dedication of the plant an additional 100 kilowatt solar array was announced that will be the largest in the Bay Area of San Francisco. Visit PowerLight at http://www.powerlight.com and GreenMountain.com at http://www.GreenMountain.com/ .

BUILDING A GREEN GRID. Pacific Power is the latest company to offer renewable power to customers. Through its Blue Sky program customers can buy 100 kilowatt hour shares of renewable energy for $4.95 per share. According to the company, 100 kilowatt hours is the average amount of electricity needed to operate a television for two months.

Like other renewable power programs, customers aren't guaranteed that the power that runs their home or business actually comes from a renewable source. It could come from a non-renewable source such as coal. However, the purchase of each share does buy renewable power that is added to the grid. The more customers purchase renewable power through programs like Blue Sky, the more renewables must be built to meet demand. The more that is built and added to the grid, the cleaner the grid becomes.

BUSINESS OF FUEL CELLS. As interest in fuel cells grows - and their business potential realized - companies are gearing up to meet market demand. Arthur D. Little's Epyx fuel processing business will merge with De Nora Fuel Cells to create Nuvera Fuel Cells.

The marriage seems perfect. Epyx’s specialty is fuel cell processors, also known as reformers. Processors extract hydrogen from fuels such as gasoline, natural gas, ethanol or methanol to power fuel cells. De Nora Fuel Cell has been building fuel cell stacks - the guts of a fuel cell - since 1990. Nuvera will pursue both stationary power and transportation markets.

As a minority share holder, Amerada Hess Corporation has also joined the pair. Hess is a U.S. East Coast distributor of oil, gasoline, natural gas and electricity that has its eyes on fuel cells to contribute to its growing distributed generation business, Hess Microgen.

Visit Hess at http://www.hess.com/ .