For more information and to register, please click here.

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First Annual Green Finance Series

A Constellation of Events Presented by the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce and ACRE at NYU-Polytechnic

Public and private sources of capital talk about current equity and debt programs to fund businesses and projects in the green space. Find out from government and non-government experts how best to fit their offerings with your business projects and investment needs.

Speakers include:

Diana Pangestu of Solar One (NYSERDA Programs)
Kevin Stone of Kevin Stone International, Inc. (SBA & other loans)
Michelle Bhattacharyya of NYC Business Solutions (NYC, Seedco, community based funding)
Michael Huerta, Bright Path Energy (private equity/Wall St capital markets)
Edward Wu, Senior Partner, Cora Capital Advisors
Sean Patrick Neill, Managing Director, Transcend Equity Development Corp.
William G. Lashbrook, III, Senior VP, PNC Real Estate
Betty McCain, VP, Citibank

Moderated by Ann Kayman, CEO, New York Grant Company

Presented at ConEdison, Con Edison
4 Irving Place, 19th Floor

$15/$25, please click here to register.

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It’s in the best interest of our planet to keep water conservation on our minds at all times. However, during the summertime, it’s easy to become frivolous when you’re having fun and trying to enjoy every single luxury that comes your way. Instead of letting water preservation fall to the wayside this season, be more [...]

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The hybrid field motor works by generating a magnetic force by synchronizing a permanent magnet and an electromagnet. The main advantage is that hybrid field motors only use half of the amount of rare-earth magnet, compared to a synchronous motor, that you can see in today’s hybrid or electric vehicles.

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Things are to be discussed, but it looks like scientists from the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, using their Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), created a symmetry-breaking bubble of space where parity, one of nature’s fundamental concepts, no longer existed for a tiny fraction of a second.

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Everyone knows that the internet is a massively used forum for information and interaction. Millions, perhaps billions, of people log on to the internet daily worldwide. Immense companies have grown through the internet, including Facebook, Apple, Yahoo and many others. These companies, due to their popularity and growth, have enormous data centers.
These data centers, according [...]

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Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Solar, Green Daily

Peder and Julie Nordby, two southern California residents, can proudly announce that both their homes and their beloved Mini E operate “virtually free” of charge. You see, the Nordbys are part of an ever-growing group of people nationwide who have decided to harness the power of the sun. They’ve installed solar panels on the rooftop of their home to meet their electrical needs and can proudly say that they no longer rely upon the grid for juice.

The solar panels located on their rooftop generate 12,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year. That much power is enough to power the entire home (9,000 kWh) and their Mini E (3,000 kWh). Generating all of the power consumed for their yearly use makes their home and driving needs a zero-energy-from-the-grid experience.

Yes, there is an upfront cost associated with the solar panels and an additional cost for purchasing an EV over a traditional vehicle, but its trivial when put into perspective. For example, the Nordbys figure the cost of equipment needed to power the Mini E comes in at $8,000. A replacement inverter will need to be purchased for $2,000 every ten years, bringing the total to $10,000. If a conventional vehicle is driven 12,000 miles per year at current gas rates, and driven for 10 years, fuel would cost north of $20,000, a difference of $10,000 which should make up the price difference for a EV over a traditional vehicle.

Upfront cost is a significant concern for many buyers. EVs cost more than traditional vehicles, and solar panels are expensive. But what price tag can you put on making your own electricity, eliminating your dependency on foreign oil and breaking away from the electrical grid? Let’s not forget to mention, no more blackouts from downed power lines. What’s that worth?

[Source: Green Car Advisor]

California couple powers home - and Mini E - with sunshine originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Wed, 31 Mar 2010 19:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Job openings have been a bit slow of late, given the recession and wintry weather, but it doesn’t take much of a pickup in business to create imbalance between jobs in line to be completed and the skilled workers necessary to get that work done. So groSolar, a leading solar installer, and One Block Off the Grid (1BOG), the famed community-buying organization, have combined to form a job training partnership program that puts job prospects onto solar rooftops and provides installers with an opportunity to teach their skills and gain some cheap labor.

A pilot program in Richmond, California, called Solar Richmond, has been successful and 1BOG and groSolar (installation partner on 1BOG projects) are looking to expand to other communities. Participants attend a series of construction, energy efficiency and solar training programs. Upon graduation from the program, they are placed in temporary, paid, on-the-job training programs.

1BOG, groSolar and the homeowners purchasing a given solar array each contribute to the cost of paying for the trainee’s wages. In the case of 20-year-old Clifton Broussard, as reported in the San Francisco Chronicle, the three parties paid $112 each to pay for Clifton’s experience. While the job is only temporary, it helps to ensure that he will step to the front of the line when the need for help picks up which, said groSolar CEO Jeff Wolfe, is an inevitability.

The Solar Richmond program is part of an overall community-building effort from 1BOG and its partners. It is an effort to maintain a self-sustaining local solar industry, where solar installations in a city will have maximum positive impact in that community. A well-trained, skilled workforce is vital to achieving that goal.

And the installers have no problem passing off their valuable experience and knowledge to a new set of solar workers. Any employer knows the value of finding an employee with an already established set of skills, as training is a major cost to employers in any industry.

Since Solar Richmond started training in August of 2007, some 90 graduates have sought careers in solar installation. 23 have landed permanent jobs and another 32 have found temporary work as extra help for solar contractors. If that success seem moderate, bear in mind that these trainees were looking for work during the darkest times the solar industry has seen since it took off early last decade. The majority of the students have found at least some work, and they are now part of a growing but still small skill set and industry that is destined to continue rising, with 2010 expected by many to be a breakout year for solar power.

Photo Credit: Climate Change Action

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Historically, utilities and solar power have had a tense, marginal relationship at best. The reasons are fairly obvious; most utilities today are deregulated, investor-owned companies looking for a profit. So how can interrupting their own revenue stream by facilitating the ownership of independent energy by their customers be considered a good business model? Yet regardless of that, utilities across the nation are getting more involved in the solar industry, and may even be guiding it.

Not without some motivation, of course. The primary impetus for utility interest in solar power came from the government. Renewable portfolio standards (RPS) require utilities to obtain a certain percentage of their power from renewable energy within a certain time frame — say, 20 percent renewable by 2020. Now, 29 states have mandatory RPS in place (four more have voluntary versions), and utilities have been forced to seek out renewable energy projects and promote energy efficiency.

Rebate programs, net metering and other incentives have popped up to help make that happen. The federal government and many state governments offer incentives for homes and businesses to adopt solar power which the utility can then buy through interconnection with that system. Before Congress extended the federal solar tax credits in 2008, utilities were not allowed to directly benefit from those credits. In other words, electricity providers had no incentive to purchase their own solar power generating systems. All the purchasing of such power was done through a power purchase agreement (PPA) with a developer or system owner.

But now, utilities do qualify and can cost-effectively build, own and operate their own solar arrays, and that is having a major effect on the solar industry. Even more so as remote, utility-scale solar thermal projects mired in bureaucratic and environmental red tape give way to more centrally located distributed PV projects. Now the question arises as to who is controlling who between the solar industry and utilities, as that inherently tense relationship gets more and more intimate.

California utilities, as per usual, are leading the way. Southern California Edison has announced a plan approved by the California Public Utilities Commission to install 500 megawatts of distributed, rooftop solar power in southern California. The utility will own and operate the systems, and will essentially lease rooftop space from customers, offering them a fixed long-term rate in return (very similar to SolarCity’s landmark solar leasing program). PG&E, northern California’s primary utility, has a similar plan currently awaiting approval.

So now we may have utilities in control of solar projects. Both the SCE and PG&E programs have gained a lot of attention over the last year and are by far the biggest of their kind in the country. It would appear that the solar industry has changed utilities by getting them to embrace the idea that a growing number of their customers are and will become independent power producers. Yet now that utilities seem to be accepting distributed solar power as a way of life, they may in turn be changing the solar industry by turning communities into solar farms.

It seems the solar industry and utilities are growing and changing together, and there is still a lot of room for tension. As solar’s share of a utility’s electricity generation increases, the more it will cut into utility revenue. That is probably why (in addition to meeting RPS mandates) utilities are looking to gain more control over installations. At the same time, utilities may be turning new home solar power systems into something akin to new cars — often leased rather than bought. Utilities have the capital to pay for a roof covered in solar panels, while many home and business owners do not.

So, is the solar industry changing utilities or are utilities changing solar? It’s a tough question, and its true answer may not be revealed until these new additions to the game play themselves out. But in the meantime, you can listen to an informative podcast on the subject sponsored by Renewable Energy World.

Photo Credit: Choctaw County Utilities & Cotton, Shires, & Associates

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Date: 2010-03-29, 2:53PM PDT Reply to: see below

Start a new career in the Solar Industry. Plumbers needed immediatly for worlds Largest Solar Manufacturer. Minimum Two Years Plumbing Experience. Good attitude, Neat workmanship, We are backed up with projects.

Secure Stable Position with a Great working Environment
Our Business is Growing!!! Must be able to Passs Drug Test
***Training***
***Benifits***
Immediate Starting
Top $$$ Pay $$$

E-Mail Jim Today jim.good@hybridsolar.com
 
Location: Las Vegas

• Compensation: compensation based on experience
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don’t contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

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