This was the headline: "Taxpayers, ratepayers will fund California solar plants; A new bring about of prospectors - banks, insurers, utility companies - are party billions in subsidies while taxpayer and ratepayers are paying greatest of the expense. Critics say it's a fiddle." The front-page Los Angeles Era (LAT) unique final week raised questions about the economics of the most up-to-date generation of concentrating solar power (CSP) plants.
Equally its Ivanpah solar power battlement project got fact tending, BrightSource Pass on (BSE) responded.
LAT: "The demand for payment for decades to gain recognition will furthermore be borne by ratepayers."
BSE: "Ratepayers occupy always funded power plants - whether coal, nuclear, natural gas, hydro, biomass, wind or solar."
LAT: "In agreements concerning solar developers and utilities put down the lid in power prices two to four become old the demand for payment of standard electricity," the variety reported. According to Stanford Scholastic economist and California electricity flog importance Sincere Wolak, the state's renewable energy tactics "can spread electricity duty ten percent to 20 percent" or emphatically "by 50 percent."
BSE: A 2012 California City Utilities Lobby group (CPUC) report dyed how "the tumbling demand for payment of renewable energy is crucial to cost-competitive prices for utilities," BSE responded. "In 2020, the score statewide electricity expenditures of achieving a 33 percent RPS is planned to be 10.2 percent enhanced compared to an all-gas strategy [and] if California makes no beyond investments in renewable energy, this look at carefully projects that pattern electricity expense per kilowatt-hour will be thick with by 16.7 percent in 2020."
LAT: Critics of CSP solar power towers told the Era that "solar entrepreneurs are attainment too far off meting out cremation." San Diego-based electrical engineer and power plant shrink Deduction Powers called them "a enormous scum of cremation" and "an old twisted ripoff."
BSE: Governments always use incentives to step the development of home-produced energy resources, BSE replied, by means of "let the cat out of the bag subsidies, tax breaks, flog stand up, technology complaint programs, research and development (R&D) programs, procurement mandates, information generation and dissemination, technology loosen, directed purchases, and government-funded convention."
The prime beneficiaries of national energy incentives untouchable the final 60 being, BSE further, occupy been oil and gas, with about 60 percent (490 billion). Coal got 12 percent (104 billion). Bend, solar and geothermal got about 10 percent (81 billion).
LAT: "The incentives gift solar developers to collect annual yield on their investments of 8 percent to 12 percent, as far off as tripling their cremation in a decade. In assured personal belongings the yield can go as tall as 17 percent," the Era reported, delineation in "banks and Wall System."
BSE: "Subsidies lessen the demand for payment to fit into a power plant, which in fly in a circle lowers the demand for payment of electricity that requisite be charged to pay for it," BSE understood. In California, "renewable energy is procured nonstop a aggressive process, and subsidies are reflected in the bid prices. They do not advance the pockets of banks, insurers and utility companies."
LAT: "To make such projects economically attractive for developers, the meting out bent a mix of national let somebody use guarantees, grants and tax incentives," the Era reported. "Diligent cooperatively, the incentives can distribute solar companies with stuck-up than partly a project's expense in make amends for, with the what's left crusted by the federally constant loans." And, it furthermore understood, "the low-interest, government-guaranteed loans - stuck-up than 16 billion for renewable energy projects so far - pay up to 80 percent of a project's building expense."
BSE: "Demote color duty (as a judgment of open let somebody use guarantees) bring round to lower energy duty in the awfully way a low-interest mortgage reduces a homeowner's weekly hire."
LAT: "The 2.2-billion Ivanpah Astral Stimulating Generating Set of instructions is plug built by Oakland-based BrightSource Pass on Inc.," the Era reported. "The Ivanpah plant was made physically possible by government-backed loans at low duty - 4 percent to 4.2 percent. BrightSource and its responsibility investors will accept about 600 million in national grants once the plant starts producing."
BSE: "Government-backed loans are rewarded impetus with color to taxpayers, making the loans an investment, not a do good to. [And] payment and statute guarantees are leap for all power plants to coat ratepayers if everything goes amateurish. Without populate protections, a power plant - renewable or fossil - can not be financed and constructed." The bulk of the manage cremation provided to BSE "will be used to remunerate a carve up of the constant loanwith color," it understood.
LAT: "The California City Utilities Lobby group, which approves all rate agreements, won't solve the rate for Ivanpah," reported the Era. But unconnected experts, it understood, "critic that Ivanpah power is priced at 90 to 130 per megawatt hour - three to four become old the demand for payment of electricity in the state final court. BrightSource declined to detail the worth but understood it was in advance with the PUC's recommended renewable rate of 129 per megawatt-hour."
BSE: "The yield earned on renewable project investments are matching to the yield earned on other large connections projects of correspondence space with correspondence goad profiles. No stuck-up, no lower than," BSE responded. "California utilities don't net pay on fuel expense, such as natural gas. Otherwise, they are passed nonstop to ratepayers worsening a markup. Countrified gas is a commodity, its worth is nervous and it is planned to get taller untouchable sentence. In contrast, once a solar plant is constructed, the fuel - sun - is clear as ache as the plant operates."
Source: http://cleantechnica.com/2012/09/30/brightsource-corrects-numerous-la-times-mistake-regarding-solar-energy/
