Hurricane Florence was a Category 4 at its peak, at 130 miles per hour (or 210 kilometers per hour) wind two days before making its landfall on September 14, 2018. That was so close to the threshold (140-160 miles per hour) of the design of new solar farms. About a third of the 3,000 megawatts of solar capacity connected to Duke Energy Corp’s system went down initially, according to utility spokesman Randy Wheeless. As of this week, about nine projects in North Carolina remained offline. Four of these were due to damage to Duke Energy facilities and five were due to damage to the project themselves. Wheeless said facilities that suffered the most tended to be five megawatt projects connected to Due’s distribution system.
Duke had been trying to get developers to move toward larger solar projects to connect largely to its transmission system, the high-voltage wires that link Duke plants to the distribution system that delivered power to homes and businesses. With hundreds of solar projects connected to Duke’s grid in North Carolina, the number of damaged projects remained small. Senior vice president at Strata Solar, Brian O’Hara, said that the Chapel-Hill based solar developer with more than 140 projects in the state saw damage at only two facilities. O’Hara said, “Duke has done a commendable job responding quickly and getting our facilities back online shortly after we notified them that they were inspected and ready to reconnect….our teams have coordinated closely with Duke’s recovery team, and it has been professional, responsive and pretty seamless.” The chief operating officer for Durham-based Ecoplexus Inc., John Morrison, said his company also saw very little damage, with only two of the 16 sites operating in North Carolina suffering some broken modules, amounting to less than 0.34% of the the developer’s modules, “not enough to even exceed the insurance deductible.” Spokesman for the California-based Cypress Creek Renewables, Jeff McKay, also reporting no notable damage in its solar fleet. As for Duke itself, its only project that suffered damage was the 60-megawatt Monroe Solar project in Union County, with few panels being damaged by wind. Duke’s Fayetteville, Warswa and Camp Lejeuene solar projects were all undamaged and returned to service as soon as grid operations allowed. Most outages during and after the worst of the hurricane Florence were due to problems with Duke’s grid rather than problems at the projects themselves.
To see what solar had done for North Carolina, check out these videos below:
Video “The birth of a solar farm in Halifax, NC” below:
Video “What’s the future for solar energy in NC” below:
Video “Study shows North Carolina as number 2 for solar electric capacity installed through 2017“: below:
Gathered, written, and posted by Windermere Sun-Susan Sun Nunamaker
More about the community at www.WindermereSun.com
During this 4-part series of posts (started on March 20, 2015) about the importance of collaborations and Chinese solar companies, another company worth noting is BYD Company, an acronym derived from the phrase “Build Your Dream“. BYD Co Ltd (simplified Chinese: 比亚迪股份有限公司;traditional Chinese: 比亞迪股份有限公司; pinyin: Bǐyàdí Gǔfēn Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī) is a Chinese manufacturer of automobiles and rechargeable batteries based in Shenzhen, Guangdong province. It has two major subsidiaries, BYD Automobile and BYD Electronic. Hailed for its innovations, BYD has grown to become a major manufacturer of rechargeable batteries, most notably mobile phone batteries. BYD topped the 2010 Bloomberg BusinessweekTech 100 list, a list of large, fast-growing tech companies.
During the World Smart Energy Week 2015 (Feb. 25-27, 2015) in Tokyo, Japan, this has been presented about BYD, below (in italics):
BYD Co., Ltd is a leading-edge provider of green energy technologies that specializes in the IT, automotive, and new energy industries. Being the world’s biggest rechargeable battery manufacturer, BYD also has the largest global market share for cell-phone chargers and keypads. BYD branched out into the auto business in 2003, and has kept a robust yearly growth rate successively. In 2008, Warren Buffett invested $232 million to take a 9.89% stake in BYD. Today, BYD is the fastest-growing Chinese auto company and a global pioneer in the field of new energy vehicles including Dual Mode Electric Models and Pure Electric Models.
Based on its core Fe Battery technology, BYD has worked out a Green City Solution, which aims to electrify urban public transportation systems by transitioning from gasoline and diesel buses and taxis to pure electric ones. In March 2012, BYD and Daimler AG officially announced the entirely new EV brand Denza in China.
In 2014, BYD andStrata (Strata Solar of Chapel Hill, NC) worked together to implement BYD’s world leading battery technology into a series of Strata Solar’s utility farm projects in order to maximize production and efficiencies. Markus Wilhelm, Strata Solar’s CEO said “We have been very impressed with BYD’s focus on solar and storage technology. BYD’s renewable energy division is highly vertically integrated, which benefits from strong engineering competence, and research and production capabilities in panel manufacturing, racking, inverter technology, and comprehensive storage solutions. During our meetings with Chairman Wang and his staff we had the opportunity to confirm Strata’s alignment with BYD’s global vision and strategy for solar energy. Strata’s unique and rapidly growing utility scale solar business will provide BYD with a large and scalable platform for their current and new technology.”
Strata Solar completed nearly 200 MW’s of solar across 30 installations in 2013. Strata added 300 – 400 MW’s in 2014 and has a pipeline of 1.5 gigawatts in the making. Residents in North Carolina have benefited tremendously from such collaborations that they are expanding their reach (to be presented in our next post).
With its combined expertise in PV and storage, BYD is providing comprehensive on-and off-grid solutions in various markets as power storage becomes an important component of PV solution. The company has shipped about half of its storage solutions to solar and the other half to other renewable energy applications.BYD has also collaborated with the U.S. multinational energy company Chevron in a project in the Middle East. For residential PV market in the U.S., where residential users pay the highest prices for electricity in the morning and evening, utilizing the DESS (Distributed Energy Storage System) of BYD, homeowners can tap the stored electricity in the morning and then do the same in the evening after the PV system has provided new energy to the battery. And during the night, the battery can be charged using power provided from the grid at off-peak rates.
Other international collaborative efforts: turning to Taiwanese cell manufacturers or setting up production facility in the U.S. in coming up with a duty-free solution for the U.S. market;expansion of module production plant in South Africa;partnership in Europe via juwi Holding AG in Germany for solar panels; positioning itself for the Japanese large-scale ground-mounted PV market; teaming up with the Canberra-based utility AGL Energy in supplying panels to a 400 MW PV project in Australia. With its chain of R & D centers in Shanghai, Ningbo, and Shenzhen providing strong base and its four 100 MW module production lines in Shanghai, BYD’s competitiveness is assured going forward in energy storage, solar energy products, and transportation vehicles.
It is clear that in order for any company, solar or otherwise, to succeed, the name of the game is: Solving Problems and Collaborations. In our 21st century global economy, barriers such as tariff or anti-dumping tariff no longer works. Our future belongs to those who are able to solve problems and to collaborate with others from all parts of the world. The sooner we all realize this and free ourselves from the obsolete mode of thinking, the better we will be able to play the game of Building Our Economy and Going Green.
~have a bright and sunny day~
Gathered, written, photographed, and posted by sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker
Any of your comments or suggestions will be welcomed via sunisthefuture@gmail.com“”.
Please also get into the habit of checking at these sites below for more on solar energy topics: www.sunisthefuture.net
Please let the SunShine In For American Solar Workers & Consumers by ridding the Anti-Dumping Tariffs! The Anti-Dumping Tariffs Hurts Americans More Than It Helps!(credit: sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker)
Please allow me to share with you the reaction from American companies (and American Consumers, yours truly included!) toward the new anti-dumping tariffs, below, recently released from CASE (Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy).
New Anti-Dumping Tariffs Will Slow the Growth of U.S. Solar Industry American companies demand negotiated solution to trade litigation to avoid further damage
Washington, DC – The U.S. Department of Commerce today imposed new anti-dumping tariffs as high as 165.04% on imports of solar products from China and 44.18% on imports from Taiwan. In response to the announcement, Jigar Shah, president of the Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy (CASE) released the following statement:
“Today’s determination is another unnecessary obstacle for the U.S. solar industry that will hinder the deployment of clean energy by raising the prices of solar products. Due to these tariffs, previously viable projects will go unbuilt, American workers will go unhired and consumers that could have saved money through solar energy may not be able to benefit.
“CASE members are particularly disappointed that SolarWorld’s request to expand the scope of products affected by the solar dispute remains under consideration by the Department of Commerce. Accepting a broader scope would disregard decades of legal precedent that define scope using the ‘single country of origin’ and ‘substantial transformation’ trade rules. The proposed new scope is also fundamentally inconsistent with the Department’s own previous determination in the 2012 solar cell dispute.
“We urge SolarWorld AG to work with the U.S. solar industry and choose to end their continued litigation in favor of a win-win solution like the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) settlement proposal. CASE members, which represent the industry majority, demand a solution that ends uncertainty in the marketplace by preventing further trade litigation and that allows solar power to compete cost-effectively with traditional energy sources, thus enabling the market’s further growth. To aid in this process, we ask President Obama to make resolving the solar trade dispute a priority on his clean energy agenda and convene the parties for negotiations.”
Reactions from the U.S. Solar Industry
Thanks to lower product costs spurred by thriving global trade and technology innovations, the U.S. solar industry grew at a record 20 percent clip in 2013 and added over 23,000 new jobs, according to the 2013 National Solar Jobs Census. Across the country, the solar industry now employs over 142,000 Americans, seventy percent of which are employed downstream in the system installation, sales, distribution and project development sectors. Solar product manufacturing remains robust, employing over 29,000 Americans, but the narrow solar cell manufacturing industry that would benefit from these tariffs represents less than 2 percent of overall U.S. solar employment.
Ron Corio, President of Array Technologies, based in Albuquerque, NM and representing over 100 jobs said, “As a U.S. solar manufacturing company, we’re very disappointed in today’s anti-dumping determination. By increasing the price of solar power through tariffs, SolarWorld is shrinking the market for our products here in the United States and punishing successful U.S. solar businesses. Our company is proof that American solar manufacturing jobs will decrease under these special trade protections.”
John Morrison, COO of Strata Solar, based in Chapel Hill, NC and representing over 1,000 jobs said, “Due to their scale, the utility and large commercial solar sectors are particularly sensitive to the uncertainty and price increases caused by these tariffs. Until this dispute is resolved, our industry will build fewer projects and install less solar. It’s time to end the litigation, negotiate a solution and put more Americans back to work.”
Ocean Yuan, Founder and CEO of Grape Solar, based in Eugene, OR said, “My company assembles and sells complete solar energy kits directly to customers and in major retail stores across the country. The number one reason customers cite when switching to solar energy is cost savings, but these misguided tariffs are inflating prices. A negotiated solution to this dispute will ensure the continued growth of our industry and small businesses like mine.”
For more information about CASE or to join the majority of the U.S. industry in opposition to these tariffs, please visit us at www.affordablesolarusa.org.
CASE is a 501(c)4 organization whose purpose is to educate the Administration, Congress, the American solar industry and the public about the impact of protectionism on the affordability of solar energy and the American workforce. Its primary focus is to show decision, policy, and opinion-makers that the majority of pro-solar Americans opposes the SolarWorld petition, as it will result in the denial of affordable solar energy to a nation whose demand for clean and renewable energy is higher than ever before.
Heavy Anti-Dumping Tariffs violate the Unites States’ commitments to WTO (World Trade Organization) rules, hurt American solar workers, and slows the deployment of clean energy.
Please Let The SunShine In For the American Solar Workers & American Consumers! Please Help To Rid of Anti-Dumping Tariffs! Please talk/write to your Senators, Representatives, Congress-person(s), Any/Every One! Don’t Let Them Take Our Sunshine Away!
The sentiment is best expressed by this nostalgic tune, video below:
