All About Solar | Green Energy News

December 18, 2005 – Vol.10 No.39

All ABOUT SOLAR.

This week’s news...

Fuel cell cars, hybrid electric cars, natural gas cars, natural gas home refueling, fuel cells for the home, residential cogeneration systems, what’s the next green technology Honda will be dabbling with?

Solar of course.

The company has announced it will be producing and selling solar panels in 2006 made in a new facility in Japan. The mass production line will have a capacity of 27.5 megawatts per year, which is OK for starters. But don’t expect global sales of Honda solar products next year. The year after perhaps.

Honda did its homework well. (Which could be expected from the forward thinking company.) They chose a solar cell technology - thin film copper,indium, gallium, selenium (CIGS) cells) - because they use 50 percent less energy to make than silicon solar cells. Honda too, recognizing that CIGS cells were difficult to manufacture, also designed their own production process.

It was once rumored that Honda had a business plan that would put traditional utility companies out of business. Maybe they really do.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California has had little luck lately with his various initiatives. But he is adamant about one, his Million Solar Roofs Initiative (The Clinton Administration had a program of the same name.)

At first Arnie had problems with Million Solar Roofs; lawmakers, under pressure from labor unions, were concerned that panel installers wouldn’t get paid enough so they nixed it.

But Arnie now, in Terminator mode, has gone to the state’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to get the go-ahead. After a 30-day period of public comment the PUC will decide early in 2006.

The Initiative will include a $3.2 billion rebate fund filled with cash by a surcharge on utility bills. The fund would provide solar rebates for the next 11 years. The rebates would initially be $2.80 per watt (a 2-kilowatt system would get $5600) and would drop over time to 25 cents per watt by the end of the program in 2016.

The program could yield as much as 3000 megawatts of residential solar photovoltaic power for the state: a million 3 kilowatt solar systems.