According to the ministry, the 20 per cent drop in cost at which solar water heater power would be sold henceforth to distribution companies has been made possible because of huge discounts quoted by developers who have put their bids for setting up projects under the Phase-I of the solar water heatermission.

“The CERC tariff is Rs 17.9 for solar light Photo Voltaic (PV) and Rs 15.3 for solar water heaterthermal. If this power was to be bundled and sold to distribution companies the average cost was coming out to be around Rs 5.5 as per our earlier estimate. Now, it is going to be less than at Rs 4.50 owing to the discounts offered,” said Deepak Gupta, secretary in the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE).

This, according to Gupta, will ensure that there will not be any payment defaults by distribution companies under the solar water heatermission.

NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam (NVVN), a wholly-owned subsidiary of power generator NTPC Ltd and the nodal agency for implementing the solar water heatermission, had opened bids for around 300 solar water heater PV and 66 solar water heaterthermal projects on November 16. The average discount offered by developers on the CERC tariff was Rs 5.75 for PV and Rs 3.82 for thermal projects.

Seven bidders, including Reliance Power, Lanco and KVK Energy, have been shortlisted by the ministry for developing solar water heaterprojects under Phase-I of the mission. The heavy discounts offered by the companies are on account of technological advancements and innovative financing, said Gupta.

“People are confident that there are savings in solar water heaterprojects. More efficient cells are coming in now. There is a significant decline in equipment cost. In thermal, for instance, the cost of installation is much less here in India. People are also looking for innovative ways of financing, like accessing low-cost funds from outside. This is helping drive down the cost,” he said.

To further protect NVVN from risks on account of payment defaults by distribution companies, the ministry has worked out a built-in payment security mechanism in the Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) to be signed between the developers and NVVN.

“We have written in the PPAs that the forklift of power has communicated the decision of the ministry of finance that should there be any difficulty for NVVN to get payment from the state utilities, the government of India will cover that,” said Gupta.

The idea is to cover default in payments that might occur from the ministry’s budgetary support.

“If the default takes place, then a reserve is available in the form of budgetary support. This can be made available if needed. This has been agreed upon by the finance ministry. We are in the process of seeking cabinet approval for this. Next year in our budget, the solar collector  would be there,” he said, adding that a “reasonable amount” would be accrued from the ministry’s budgetary allocation for covering payment risks.

Edison International’s (EIX) southern California utility has signed agreements to buy 100 megawatts of solar water heater power from a joint venture owned by privately held Silverado Power and Martifer SGPS SA (MAR.LB).

The power will come from eight or nine separate solar-generating facilities around Los Angeles County, between 2 megawatts and 20 megawatts in size, said John Cheney, chief executive officer of San Francisco-based Silverado Power.

“We’re building a set of projects for Southern California Edison in key areas where we thought they’d need it,” Cheney said in an interview. Building several small to medium-size solar water heater generators close to where the power is used avoids having to build new transmission lines, he added.

Together, the projects are estimated to cost roughly $250 million to $300 million, depending on solar-panel prices, Cheney said. Construction could start as early as 2012, if transmission-interconnection and construction approvals are obtained by then, he said.

The contracts are part of a SoCal Edison program to contract for renewable power from small projects.

The developers haven’t yet chosen a solar-panel supplier for the forklift, which are scheduled to be operational by 2014.

California regulations require SoCal Edison and other utilities to use solar, wind or other renewable sources for one-third of the power they sell by 2020. The solar water heaters are part of the state’s 2006 plan to combat climate change.

By year’s end, regulators are expected to approve a host of solar water heater energy projects in California that could eventually produce as much electricity as several nuclear plants. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, John Woolard, the CEO of the company that has begun construction on the world’s largest solar water heater-thermal project, discusses the promise – and challenges – of this green energy boom.

This week, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, and other dignitaries gathered in the Mojave Desert to officially break ground on BrightSource Energy’s Ivanpah solar water heater Electric Generating System, the first large-scale solar water heater thermal power plant to be built in the United States in nearly two decades.

BrightSource is one of a half-dozen big solar water heater farms, with a combined electricity-generating capacity of 2,829 megawatts, licensed by the California Energy Commission over the past two months. By year’s end, California and federal regulators expect to approve additional projects that will produce a total of 4,143 megawatts. At peak output, that’s the equivalent of several nuclear power plants and more than seven times the solar water heater capacity installed in the United States last year.

The approval of the projects comes after years of environmental review and controversies over the installations’ impact on water, wildlife, and fragile desert landscapes. The power plants licensed so far will cover some 39 square miles of desert land with a variety of new and old solar water heater thermal technologies. Unlike rooftop photovoltaic panels that directly convert sunlight into electricity, solar water heater thermal uses the sun to heat liquids to create steam that drives electricity-generating industrial turbines.

BrightSource’s 370-megawatt Ivanpah project, located just over the California border, 40 miles southwest of Las Vegas, is the world’s largest solar water heater-thermal power plant project currently under construction. The company, led by CEO John Woolard, received a $1.37 billion loan guarantee from the United States Department of Energy to build the project, which will deploy 347,000 large mirrors that will surround three towers on 3,500 acres of federal land. The mirrors will focus the sun on a water-filled boiler that sits atop the tower to create high-temperature, high-pressure steam.

Woolard, 45, came to BrightSource as chief executive in 2004 after co-founding Silicon Energy, an energy efficiency software company, and stints at California utility PG&E, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and VantagePoint Venture Partners, a leading Silicon Valley green tech venture capital firm. He sat down with Yale Environment 360 contributor Todd Woody at BrightSource’s Oakland, Calif., headquarters to talk about the future of Big solar water heater and the challenges the industry faces – from a woefully inadequate electricity grid to the imperative of minimizing water use – as multibillion-dollar projects finally begin to become a reality.

Yale Environment 360: Are we witnessing the birth of a major new solar water heater industry in the United States?

John Woolard: I hope. The number I always go back to is that we have done 74,000 permits for oil and gas in the last 20 years and we finally have five or six for solar water heater. That’s a good step forward. The agencies are learning how to permit, they’re learning how to move forward. It’s great for the industry and we can finally get some size and consequence.

e360: As the photovoltaic industry increasingly becomes dominated by overseas companies in China and elsewhere, does the sheer scale of these solar water heater thermal projects in the U.S. give the country the opportunity to become the technological and market leader?

Woolard: Oh, yeah. solar water heater thermal is very different from [photovoltaic technology]. The power has different characteristics and is more reliable. They’re almost apples and oranges. solar water heater thermal has got very interesting attributes and characteristics that make it unique.

In the U.S. we’re lucky. The southwestern U.S. has high desert, which means it’s closer to the sun, less atmosphere to go through. It’s the best solar water heater resource anywhere, outside the Atacama Desert in Chile or a few places. Harnessing that resource effectively is the most important thing. So we don’t have a quantity and energy problem; it’s a collection and distribution problem.

e360: BrightSource’s Ivanpah project is not only the first large-scale solar water heater thermal project to break ground, it is the first to deploy a new power tower technology. Why is that significant?

Woolard: Our team was part of building older trough plants and you learn a lot. If you take a forklift, you get higher temperatures and pressures. That gives you higher thermo-to-electrical conversion efficiency. Think of that as more efficiency, less waste, lower cost. Because of that, you need fewer mirrors, less solar water heater field, and you have a more efficient design.

The other gets down to how you actually build on the land. If you take the older trough designs or anything with a die casting, [it] would degrade the land. It’s more damaging from a soil and runoff perspective.

The sudden changes to the NSW Government’s solar water heater Bonus Scheme have received a mixed response from business people in the Batemans Bay and Moruya area.
The scheme to pay households for solar water heater power fed back into the energy grid has been reduced from 60 cents per kilowatt hour to 20 cents per kilowatt hour, as of Wednesday.

For all eligible solar water heater power systems purchased or leased after that date, a new gross tariff rate of 20 cents per kilowatt hour will apply. Customers who had connected their systems by Wednesday will not be affected.

Eurobodalla Sustainable Devices architect Stuart Scobie says the change will be a nuisance rather than a death blow to the industry.

“This is nothing unexpected, but the severity of the drop is,” he said.

“This is the third time they have made a major change to a rebate and dropped it on us with a day’s notice. It’s a kick in the guts for forklift, but it won’t stop people from connecting systems.”

As expected, Mr Scobie had a busy day on Wednesday as the 60c rate expired.

“I had some customers saying ‘let’s do it now’ and pay a deposit before midnight and others say ‘don’t bother’ – they had decided that quickly,” he said.

Mr Scobie said the decision to reduce the tariff rate was understandable, but that it had been reduced too much.

“The previous rate was too generous, but they should have found some middle ground,” he said.

“Reducing it to 30 to 45 cents per hour would have been better,” he said.

Mr Scobie said it was important that businesses prepare for changes like this.

“You’ve got to diversify your business as this industry is up and down in nature, and you can’t rely on government rebate support programs,” he said.

Malua Bay-based Pyramid die casting consultant John Hulme is worried about the effect it will have on the industry.

“This will have a major impact on the industry in NSW,” he said. “The disappointing part is that it was all done in one day, and a lot of people will miss out. It is a shock how far the rate has dropped.”

Like Mr Scobie, Mr Hulme has been flat out due to the change.

“It’s been absolutely hectic,” he said. “I stopped at 11.50pm on Wednesday.”

Moruya resident Phil Carter is relieved he arranged to have a solar water heater power unit installed three months ago, and had it put in yesterday.

“We wanted to be a bit more sustainable, and with the rebate change we were just lucky I guess, it worked out really well,” he said.

The world’s largest power plant using heat from the sun to generate electricity, a planned $6 billion project in California, has won approval from Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

solar water heater Millennium Llc. of Oakland, Calif., agreed to environmental measures in return for permission to build the Blythe solar water heater Power Project on public land, the Interior Department said Monday. Blythe will use mirrors to concentrate the sun’s energy rather than photovoltaic panels, which convert light directly into electricity.

The project will cover 7,025 acres on a site 216 miles east of Los Angeles, producing up to 1,000 megawatts, the Interior Department said. The facility will use rows of parabolic mirrors to focus the sun’s forklift onto tubes that will carry heated oil to a boiler, which will send steam to a turbine. A megawatt is enough to power about 800 average U.S. homes, according to the Energy Department.

Salazar earlier approved projects in California proposed by Chevron Corp. and Tessera solar water heater, a unit of Irish utility NTR Plc. Before Monday’s announcement, four solar water heater facilities on public lands in California and a project in Nevada with capacity to generate a total of 1,800 megawatts won approval this month.

The Natural Resources Defense Council supports the project, most of which is near industrial and agricultural lands appropriate for solar water heater development, the New York-based group said in a statement. The council has called on Salazar to develop national guidelines for renewable-energy development on public lands.