The success of this policy change is due to years of lobbying by the solar industry and collaboration with LADWD staff members. In November of 2018, LADWP Commissioner Aura Vasquez, working with Solar Forward CEO, Mark Smith, helped start a Solar Working group made up of LADWP staff, CALSSA staff and local LA based solar contractors. Stake holders have been meeting every few months and working together to streamline the solar installation process. Success has come slowly, but definitive progress has been made and the solar industry welcomes the progress.

There is still plenty of room for improvement in streamlining the paperwork and interconnection process, especially with larger solar systems. Clearly, there are cultural differences between LADWP, a utility that was founded in 1902, and the evolving solar industry. Finding common ground and developing a smooth working relationship, is vital to insure a robust energy grid and clean sources of power, for future generations.

The solar industry is appreciative of the hard work that LADWP staff put into creating the new Electric Service Requirements.

mark.smith@solarforward.com

Infrastructure investment has historically served as open platforms for economic and geo-political stability. Currently China has an overcapacity for the production of solar panels, steel and many other products. Utilizing these resources to build railroads from Laos to Budapest is the largest transportation and energy development project in history.

The One Belt and One Road Initiative (OBOR) may not have an acronym that spells success, but the pay off, if it is successful, will ensure that China can ship products and influence with ease. It envisions a Silk Road Economic Belt, encompassing railroads stretching from China to Europe to host trade and infrastructure, and a 21^st Century Maritime Silk Road, establishing sea-based network of shipping lanes and port developments throughout Asia, Pacific and Africa.

GM, Ford and other companies are building technical development centers in China to piggyback on this huge marketing opportunity. China is committed transforming their transportation infrastructure to 25% electric cars by 2025. This will drive technological development and create new markets in alignment with the Paris Agreement.

The complexity of getting over sixty countries to agree to Chinese investment and Chinese owned infrastructure circumnavigating their borders is by itself a political and economic victory. The risks are high, but the long-term rewards can enable China to look back at Mr. Xi as a bold visionary who is building roads and bridges while Trump is obsessed in building a wall and renouncing Trans-Pacific Partnership, the largest trade agreement in the world.

One of the architects of OBOR is Wang Huning, former college professor and now leading communist party official. He is well traveled and has had conversations with many American academics and government officials. Wang has never run a state ministry or governed a province, yet he is a key figure behind Xi’s centralized power through enforcing his theory of neo-authoritarianism. He became a top member of government in October 2017, joining the seven-man Politburo Standing Committee. The New York Times called him, “an ideologue focused on rivalry with the United States.” Exploring his past and following his footsteps will draw a path to the future of China.

Together, the 64 nations involved with OBOR account for 62% of the world’s population and 30% of its economic output. [1] To date, all these nations have consumed less energy and inserted less carbon into the atmosphere than the United States. As OBOR is rolled out the technology utilized will be modern and more efficient than legacy infrastructure in the western world.

The United States has no game plan to expand our reach, our markets or even recognize the Paris Agreement. Instead, within two months the Trump administration will implement an import tariff on all solar panels that will cripple the economics of the solar industry. This will put people out of work and increase our dependence on fossil fuels – an inverse policy of the Chinese, unsustainable and more expensive in the long run.

In Montana, the Northern Cheyenne Indians successfully fought the coal industry and embraced solar energy. Solar power, to the Cheyenne, embodied the worldview they were raised with, “You don’t take and take and take. And you don’t consume and consume and consume. You take what you need and then you put back into the land.”

Red Cloud, is a Cheyenne solar entrepreneur. He tells his students that deriving energy in a way that heals and protects the natural world is not just about employment. It’s a continuation of, “what the ancestors shed blood for, we always fought for-the earth.” He is training them not just to be technicians, but to be “Solar Warriors.” Reinvestment in renewable energy was seen a long-term solution to save money and protect the earth.

Our carbon footprint is an undisputable historical fact. If we put a price on our past consumption and the cost of climate change, the debt would bankrupt the United States. To pay off our injustice to the planet we would have to reabsorb our CO2 and find a way to keep the planet from warming, killing coral reefs and melting polar ice caps.

At Solar Forward we have common goals with the Cheyenne. We are also “Solar Warriors.” Our staff is constantly working to enable our clients to have access to affordable renewable energy by lobbying legislators and negotiating with stakeholders to keep our solar installation business alive. We only know how to slow the advance of global warming; we don’t know how to reverse it. And we don’t have clear support from our government.

At times I am jealous of the Chinese. Clearly their vision is bold and they have much work to do, but they have goals that are cleaner and more defined from top down. Trump is threatening to build a wall that might have solar panels on it. Offers a Trojan horse on Twitter, while China is building a modern beltway into the future, send a clear message that ignorance is bliss.

We only have one Earth. Our responsibility for the next four billion years is to insure Earth is healthy as long as the sun keeps sending photons through space for us to catch.

You can call us photon farmers, solar warriors or renewable energy capitalists; Solar Forward is trying to save the planet, one solar system at a time.

Mark Smith, CEO, Solar Forward

[1] https://qz.com/983460/obor-an-extremely-simple-guide-to-understanding-chinas-one-belt-one-road-forum-for-its-new-silk-road/

Last weeks Republican Tax Proposal would eliminate the $7,500 income tax credit for electric vehicles. The impact would be devastating to the emergent electric car industry and adversely impact consumers and the environment. A New York City employee said, “it’s national suicide.”

In 1990, The California Air Resources Board (CARB), created a “zero-emissions vehicle mandate” requiring auto manufacturers that sold cars in California to offer an electric car model. The General Motors (GM) EV-1 electric cars, were loved by consumers, but after the mandate expired, GM repossessed the cars and destroyed them.

In 2006 an independent documentary explored the life and death of the EV-1 electric car. Actors Mel Gibson, Tom Hanks and Alexandra Paul are in the documentary film praising the car. As GM trucks were taking EV-1 cars away to be crushed, police stood guard and Ms. Paul was arrested, while protesting the death of her electric car.

I picked up an electric car in 2016 mainly due to the tax credits. Now it seems odd to visit a gas station. The car is clean and quiet.

In a replay of the California mandate in 1990, this month China announced an initiative: by 2025, 20% of all cars sold are to be electric. Warren Buffett backed, BYD (electric vehicle company based in China) has delivered over 50,000 electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles – including busses to UCLA. China already leads the world in the number of electric cars produced with an estimate of nearly 300 thousand new electric cars on the road this year.

Where is our clean energy policy and who is leading our industry into the future? GM, Ford and Renault-Nissan are setting up electric car research ventures in China. The Warren Buffett backed BYD share price is up 50% since September 2017.

Are we repeating history and pushing our cart backwards? Or can industry lead the way without being impacted by government obstacles?

Solar Forward installs solar systems and electric car chargers every week. As a new industry we rely on incentives to enable the market to establish a foot hold. We ask for your support in contacting your legislators and letting them know it is in the economic interest of this country and the interest of our grandchildren’s lungs, to support green technologies and enable the electric car industry and ancillary businesses to thrive.

Mark Smith
CEO Solar Forward
11/12/17

http://www.whokilledtheelectriccar.com
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-02/tax-credit-for-electric-cars-said-to-be-axed-in-gop-tax-proposal
https://jalopnik.com/what-could-happen-to-electric-car-sales-if-the-7-500-t-1820109797


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/business/china-hastens-the-world-toward-an-electric-car-future.html[/facebook]

The solar eclipse is expected to reduce solar radiation by around 62% in Southern California

On August 21st, our nation will experience a rare coast-to-coast total eclipse. For the first time in 99 years the moon will pass directly between the Sun and Earth, causing the moon’s shadow to traverse the earth. Known as the Great American Eclipse, this event will sweep the nation from the Pacific to the Atlantic.
For the residents of Los Angeles, this phenomenon will occur in the morning. At around 9:05 am, we will see the moon begin to edge into the disk of the sun. At 10:21 am, we will experience our maximum eclipse. The eclipse will end by 11:45 am.

The occasion promises to be fascinating and memorable, but it begs the question: how will it affect our solar power output in California?

The solar eclipse is expected to reduce solar radiation by around 62% in Southern California, beginning at 9:00 am. In the darkest hour of the eclipse, Southern California will experience a reduction of 5,600 MW in power generation. Solar production will return to 9,000 MW after the eclipse at 12:00 pm [1]

California’s grid operator estimated the eclipse would boost its net demand by 6,000 megawatts (Source: CAISO).

California’s grid operator estimated the eclipse would boost its net demand by 6,000 megawatts (Source: CAISO).

Solar power can account for as much as 40% of power generation in California. Power experts estimate that as much as two-thirds of solar power will be lost during the eclipse. This will make the grid more dependent on generation from natural gas, coal and hydroelectric plants, disturbing the power equilibrium already in place.

You can do your part for the energy grid by following the advice below to cut power consumption at home. If everyone is mindful of their energy consumption, we can avoid a shortage in energy supply, and our reliance on the dirty, non-renewable energy generated by natural gas and coal plants.

Follow these steps below to become a Solar Eclipse savior:

Back to home

A week ago we brought on line a 14 kW solar system with 48 kW-h of battery back up storage. This homeowner can be off grid for years at a time with little or no interaction with the utility.
As we move forward and develop new technologies, battery interactive systems with become more affordable and commomplace.
For now, this is still a custom installation with batteries and inverters that may not be cost effective for everyone.
If you have critical loads or are running a business, a battery back up system can pay for itself in less than a year.
We have several business that remain operational during power outages. Enabling 40 people to keep working has enormous value and pays for the battery back up element in one day.
Give us a call to learn more.

Olympic Studios Apartments uses solar panels to generate electricity for common area loads such as lobbies, laundry, and garages.

The US Conference of Mayors honored Santa Monica with a US Mayors’ Climate Protection Award for its successful Solar Santa Monica initiative.

Solar Santa Monica has helped Santa Monica residents and businesses convert their homes and commercial buildings to solar power for nearly a decade.

Adopting green energy sources like solar power is a key component in Santa Monica efforts to reduce citywide greenhouse gas emissions.

The City received the award in the small cities category on Friday, June 19 at the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) 83rd Annual Meeting in San Francisco.

“Santa Monica is being recognized because we’ve done more than just study climate change — we’ve taken action to slow it, and to protect our community from the impacts,” said Mayor Kevin McKeown.

With less than 1 percent of the City’s solar potential tapped, the City decided to create a program to stimulate installations, to help home and business owners, as well as the college, schools, and all others to invest in solar.

Solar Santa Monica was created by the City in 2006 to focus on energy efficiencies and growing solar energy use in the community, offers technical assistance to prospective residents and businesses by evaluating solar potential, navigating regulatory and rate changes, identifying financial mechanisms, vetting contractors and evaluating bids. In its first year, Solar Santa Monica doubled solar capacity in the City.

Since the program inception, Santa Monica has seen solar capacity increase twelve-fold increase from 376 kW to 4,656 kW as of the first quarter of 2015, enough energy to power over 1,170 California homes.

To date, community-installed solar has reduced annual emissions by 2,584 MTCO2e (equivalent of the average car circling the earth 267 times), helping the City of Santa Monica to achieve its 2015 target of reducing city-wide emissions by 15% from the 1990 baseline.

“We continue to take effective action, playing a leadership role for other cities,” said Mayor McKeown. “We’ve shown that reducing greenhouse gases, conserving water and other resources, and shifting our thinking about what we build and how we live, can all be done — and must be done — on the local level.”

Solar Santa Monica exemplifies how Santa Monica’s Office of Sustainability and the Environment helps to connect residents and businesses with smart energy solutions.

The program has helped residents, businesses and academic institutions go solar by reducing the anxiety and risk to the prospective consumer. The prevalence of solar technology throughout the community has continued to reinforce Santa Monica’s commitment to being a leader in sustainability.

The result is Solar Santa Monica is a valued resource and recognizable brand in the community.

“We’re excited that this program was recognized by the U.S. Conference of Mayors because it has been wildly successful here in Santa Monica and is a great model for other cities to follow,” said Dean Kubani, who manages the Office of Sustainability and the Environment for the City. “Solar Santa Monica has been embraced by residents and businesses alike and is responsible for increasing the amount of solar energy installations in Santa Monica more than 12 fold and eliminating 2500 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions.  It’s a good example of how local governments can kick-start sustainable actions in the community that provide multiple benefits for everyone.”

The award was presented during the Mayors Climate Protection Luncheon with an audience of nearly 300 of the nation’s mayors attending the USCM Annual Meeting. The work of the Mayors’ National Climate Action Agenda in the U.S. is a global cooperative effort among mayors and city officials working towards the reduction of local greenhouse gas emissions, enhancing resilience to climate change, and tracking progress transparently.

To learn more about Solar Santa Monica, visit www.solarsantamonica.com.

By DIANE CARDWELLMAY 1, 2015

In recent years, the fast-growing popularity of solar panels has intensified a central challenge: how to use the sun’s energy when it isn’t shining.

Now, Tesla Motors, the maker of luxury electric sedans, says it is taking a big step toward meeting that challenge with a fleet of battery systems aimed at homeowners, businesses and utilities. The company’s foray into the solar storage market will include rechargeable lithium-ion battery packs that can mount to a home garage wall as well as battery blocks large enough to smooth out fluctuations in the grid.

“We’ve obviously been working on building a world-class battery, a superefficient and affordable way to store energy,” said Khobi Brooklyn, a Tesla spokeswoman. “It’s just that we’ve been putting that battery in cars most of the time.”

To herald its ambitions in the field, the company scheduled an event Thursday night at its design studio in Hawthorne, Calif., with Elon Musk, its chief executive, presiding.

In a news conference before the event, Mr. Musk said the consumer battery, called the Powerwall, would sell for $3,500, and was derived from the batteries that Tesla uses in its Model S vehicles. The device, which Tesla will start producing later this year, will be installed by licensed technicians.

The batteries will be connected to the Internet and can be managed by Tesla from afar. Customers can connect up to nine battery packs to store larger amounts of power.

“If you have the Tesla Powerwall, if the utility goes down, you still have power,” Mr. Musk said. He added: “The whole thing is an integrated system that just works.”

Energy and auto analysts have generally responded positively to Tesla’s move. “Elon thinks that there’s a long-term gain to be made or a long-term play not only in electric cars but also in electric energy storage — and he’s probably right,” said Karl Brauer, an analyst at Kelley Blue Book. “There’s a universal application for portable energy and storable energy that goes to everybody. It’s really just a matter of getting the business model together.”

Tesla’s announcement comes as energy companies are moving in the same direction. Sungevity, a leading solar installer, announced a partnership this week with Sonnenbatterie, a smart energy storage provider in Europe, to begin offering their systems to its customers. NRG, one of the largest independent power producers in the United States, is also developing storage products.

“We have to be in this space,” said Steve McBee, chief executive of NRG Home. “If your goal is to build a meaningful solar business that is durable over time, you have to assume that that solar business is going to morph into a solar-plus-storage solution. That will be mandatory at some point.”

Still, the market is young and, some experts say, Tesla has the advantage of reach and scale — as well as a $5 billion battery production plant under construction near Reno, Nev., that it calls the Gigafactory.

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“Tesla’s not the only one doing it, but Tesla can bring it to a wider audience than most other people can,” said Shayle Kann, a vice president at GTM Research, which tracks clean-tech industries. “Once they get the Gigafactory up and going, they will be able to deploy on a scale that no one will quite be able to rival. So they may have a cost advantage in that.”

Tesla has been refining its storage business for a few years, working with a number of companies including Jackson Family Wines, the electric utility Southern California Edison and the installation company SolarCity, of which Mr. Musk is chairman and whose founders, Lyndon and Peter Rive, are his cousins.

The Tesla systems are designed for different scales. The home battery, roughly four feet by three feet, would allow solar customers to have power in the event of an failure, draw from it when utility rates are higher and use more of the electricity their panels produce, easing reliance on the grid.

For utilities, they can help compensate for fluctuations from intermittent sources like solar and wind — whose production can dip sharply or stop altogether — as well as meet demand during peak periods.

And for businesses, they can help lower demand for electricity from the grid, which in turn can lower costly demand charges.

Amazon Web Services, which manages cloud-based computing systems and has a goal to derive all its energy from renewable sources, is beginning a pilot program with Tesla in Northern California.

“Batteries are important for both data center reliability and as enablers for the efficient application of renewable power,” James Hamilton, distinguished engineer at Amazon Web Services, said through a spokeswoman. “They help bridge the gap between intermittent production, from sources like wind, and the data center’s constant power demands.”

LOS ANGELES — Gov. Jerry Brown issued an executive order Wednesday sharply ramping up this state’s already ambitious program aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions, saying it was critical to address “an ever-growing threat” posed by global warming to the state’s economy and well-being.

Under Mr. Brown’s order, by 2030, emission levels will have to be reduced by 40 percent compared with 1990. Under existing state law, emissions are supposed to be cut 80 percent from what they were in 1990 by 2050, and Mr. Brown said this tough new interim target was essential to helping the state make investment and regulatory decisions that would assure that goal was reached.

Mr. Brown faulted Republicans in Congress for “pooh-poohing” the threat of global warming. He said that he wanted California to set an example for the rest of the country and the world on the urgency of responding to what he described as a slow-moving crisis.

The fountain has been turned off and the pool drained in front of Compton City Hall. But in upscale Cowan Heights, homeowners shower their lush lawns and top off pools and koi ponds.

“It’s a real test,” Mr. Brown, a Democrat, said in a speech at an environmental conference in downtown Los Angeles. “Not just for California, not just for America, but for the world. Can we rise above the parochialisms, the ethno-centric perspectives, the immediacy of I-want-I-need, to a vision, a way of life, that is sustainable?”

Mr. Brown’s order marks an aggressive turn in what already was one of the toughest programs in the nation aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Under the law put into place by Mr. Brown’s predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state was required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 on the way to reach the 2050 target; California is already well on its way to meeting the 2020 goal, and may exceed it, officials said Thursday.

“With this order, California sets a very high bar for itself and other states and nations, but it’s one that must be reached – for this generation and generations to come,” Mr. Brown said.

The order marks the latest effort by Mr. Brown to position California as a leading force in the world’s effort to address climate change – and himself as a leader of that campaign effort as he faces his final years in public office. In his State of the State address in January, the governor called for reducing gas consumption by cars and trucks by up to 50 percent over the next 15 years.

These efforts come as this state has been struggling with a drought that Mr. Brown has said is, at least in part, exacerbated by global warming. “Climate change poses an ever-growing threat to the well-being, public health, natural resources, economy, and the environment of California, including loss of snowpack, drought, sea level rise, more frequent and intense wildfires, heat waves, more severe smog, and harm to natural and working lands, and these effects are already being felt in the state,” Mr. Brown said in his executive order.

The governor’s speech, coming at a time when he has been trying to rally the state behind tough water conservation measures, was a reminder of the often conflicting demands of these twin challenges. Some of the central efforts proposed to alleviate the drought – including the building of desalinization plants to make ocean water potable – are highly energy intensive.

Interactive Graphic: How Water Cuts Could Affect Every Community in California
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The governor’s order did not give details of how the state would reach the new goals, though Mr. Brown in his speech here noted the success of the auto and energy industry so far in meeting the emission targets that the state has set over the years. He disputed the argument — voiced by Republicans in recent years — that such efforts would increase the cost of doing business in California.

“We’re sending the signals to the private economy to create, to innovate, and to make the kind of response that will enable Californians to live in compatibility with the environment,” he said. “We can do it.”

Lawmakers in Sacramento have been pushing through legislation intended to help achieve long-term cuts in emissions. Kevin de Leon, the Democratic leader of the State Senate, said Mr. Brown’s order exemplified “California’s global leadership on climate change.”

“We see the framework of a new economy for tomorrow,” Mr. de Leon said in an interview. “And that’s why it’s critical that we move forward with these far-reaching and progressive policies. That is why the world is watching what we are doing here in California.”

California’s target reflects those set by other governments — including the European Union — ahead of the United Nations conference on climate change in Paris this year. Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the conference, issued a statement praising Mr. Brown’s order.

“California’s announcement is a realization and a determination that will gladly resonate with other inspiring actions within the United States and around the globe,” she said. “It is yet another reason for optimism in advance of the U.N. climate conference in Paris in December.”