Ten years ago, Geof Moser had just graduated with a master’s degree in solar energy from Arizona State University – but he didn’t feel much opportunity lay at his feet in his home country.

So he headed for China.

“The solar industry was fairly small and there weren’t a lot of jobs,” he remembers. “Just a few for installation.” But the Chinese government had big ambitions to expand solar and Moser saw his chance.

He spent some years accumulating knowledge about the Chinese solar industry, before co-founding Symtech Solar, which designs solar panel systems using Chinese parts.

Market access

The idea is to make it easy for organisations outside China to access components without the hassle of having to source and assemble lots of different parts.

“You don’t want to buy a car door or a car engine, you want to buy a car,” he explains.

Symtech now has a portfolio of small projects dotted around the world and it is hoping to increase installations in the Middle East, thanks to a new office in Oman.

Moser isn’t the only US entrepreneur who turned to China. Alex Shoer, of Seeder, helped to launch a business that brings solar panels to the roofs of buildings within the country.

He deals with foreign businesses who, say, want to make their Beijing office a little greener. The firm says it has so far erected three megawatts’ worth of solar installations, with another 28 megawatts on the way for various clients.

“We will source the capital to finance, pay for the whole project and then sell the power at a discount,” Shoer says. Again, the model relies on sourcing the right parts at a favourable cost.

These kind of installations are known as “distributed generation” projects, in which electricity is produced on a small scale, at or very near to a specific point of consumption.

Within China, distributed generation is growing at an extraordinary rate, driven in large part by farmers who use the panels to power agricultural equipment that might not be connected to the grid.

Shoer comments that he was attracted by Beijing’s commitment to the solar industry. For years it has encouraged local authorities to do what they can to boostproduction, research and development.

Renewables growth

China’s rapid expansion of renewable energy facilities has since caught headlines around the world.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the country installed more than 34 gigawatts of solar capacity in 2016 – more than double the figure for the US and nearly half of the total added capacity worldwide that year.

Early figures for 2017 show China has added another eight gigawatts in the first quarter alone.

“It’s a huge market,” says Heymi Bahar at the IEA. Most of the world’s solar cells are made in China and Taiwan, he adds – more than 60%.

The impressive scale doesn’t stop there. The largest solar farm in the world – Longyangxia Dam Solar Park, all 30sq km of it – is a Chinese project. And the country recently opened the world’s largest floating solar farm, in Huainan, Anhui Province.

It has been constructed over an old coal mine, which over the years had filled with rainwater. Sungrow, the Chinese firm that provided solar cells for the venture, says its system automatically monitors current and voltage generated by the cells, along with humidity, which can affect their efficiency.

Because of the abundant water nearby, cleaning the panels – an endless task for solar farmers – will be easier, according to those behind the facility.

These mega projects have become possible, and indeed more common, thanks to the rapidly falling cost of solar cells.

“What we were all hoping for 20 years ago when the idea of cheap solar was just a dream, was that someone would come into this on an industrial scale and drive down the cost,” recalls Charles Donovan, at Imperial College Business School.

“That is exactly what China has done.”

But today, solar energy production accounts for just 1% of China’s total energy demand. A huge 66% of demand still comes from coal, something that the country’s National Energy Administration wants to change drastically by 2050 – not least because of China’s well-known air pollution problems.

But by that key date of 2050, a very different mix of energies could be powering China, should some projections become reality. One government report even suggested that renewables could supply 86% of the country’s energy needs, with solar providing around a third of that.

Can China do it? According to one expert observer, the answer is, “maybe”.

“What China is trying to do is rationalise a very large, fast growing system,” explains Jeffrey Ball at Stanford University’s Center for Energy Policy and Finance. Ball is the lead author of a recent report that details China’s success as an innovator in the solar panel industry.

Lofty ambitions

But as Ball points out, the revolution has not been without teething issues. For one thing, Chinese subsidies, which some argue are unsustainable, have not always been smoothly administered. The “feed-in tariff”, for example, often offered to solar companies that generate electricity, has sometimes been paid late.

“The government is often a year or more late in delivering that revenue – that wreaks havoc with the financials on a project,” says Ball.

The value of subsidies has recently been cut, too. What’s more, China’s large solar farms are largely in less densely populated areas in the west of the country, far from population centres like Beijing or Shanghai, in the east.

Building extra grid capacity to transfer it is time-consuming and expensive. This leads to a problem known as curtailment – a solar farm produces, say, 20 megawatts of electricity but can only find buyers for 15 megawatts.

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“Depending on who you talk to in the provinces that have by far the largest amount of solar production, curtailment rates are 30% and in some cases significantly higher than 30% – that’s extraordinary and that’s a real problem,” explains Ball.

Whether China can achieve its lofty ambitions for renewable energy remains to be seen – but it has certainly proved its ability to foster a world-leading solar industry. For US entrepreneurs like Geof Moser, that’s enough to propel his own business towards further growth for now.

“The reality is that renewable energy is very cheap – especially solar energy,” he says. “And the reason is China.”

Reference link: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40341833

今天，我们的话题是中国雾霾曾经的难兄难弟：洛杉矶。

几十年前，国外也不是天天都有无需滤镜处理的蔚蓝天空，尤其是洛杉矶。洛杉矶是世界上第一个遭受雾霾侵袭的城市，自二十世纪五十年代之后的数十年，整个城市都弥漫着灰褐色气体，空气污染程度十分严重。

 

几十年前，国外也不是天天都有无需滤镜处理的蔚蓝天空

 

经过五十余年的雾霾斗争，立法，设空气质量委员会，限排，清洁汽油，清洁燃料，洛杉矶终于还市民一片蔚蓝的天空。但是，全城供电仍然靠化石燃料—天然气发电。多年来，洛杉矶供电的传统方法是这样的：一到夏日下午峰电时刻，电力工程师就会打开他们所称的“峰电厂” （Peaker），也就是位于长滩一个天然气发电厂。有了它，其他电厂就能放心满足上午峰电需求，人们下班之后也能舒舒服服打开空调，电视机，以及享受其他电器。

 

灾难性的甲烷泄漏事件，导致不断面临随时全城停电的风险。

 

但是，这个峰电厂在2015年10月发生了灾难性的甲烷泄漏事件，导致洛杉矶在之后的近一年内供电压力山大，不断面临随时全城停电的风险。所以，政府令当地电力公司南加州爱迪生公司立即执行能源解决方案的采购计划，在各大能源公司争相竞标之后，政府决定不再用另一个峰电厂替代这个峰电厂，而是不破不立，不再继续使用传统的天然气发电厂供应峰电期用电，改用庞大的电网储能电池系统。中标的AES Corp，阿灵顿的可再生能源公司将为洛杉矶设计并建造的全世界最大的储能锂电池，能够每小时供电十万度，并持续4小时。

 

可以说，洛杉矶是因祸得福。

 

五年之后，虽然洛杉矶还是会有下午峰电时刻，但是却不会再有更多的化石燃料需求。因为

 

燃烧化石燃料的“峰电厂”没有了，取而代之的储能电池会在白天努力地储好廉价的太阳能电，供下午用电高峰使用。除此之外，储能电池还会在晚上储好风能，把第二天早上清晨用电的早高峰也顺带解决了。这样，洛杉矶的人民就能更安心用热水，用空调，看电视，不仅不用担心会像以前那样突然停电，还可以不用担心诸如碳排放会增加，空气会污染这种环保问题。

 

洛杉矶这个清洁能源的华丽转身，既能在政策上完成指标，无需消耗额外的化石资源，在2050年将温室气体排放减少80%; 也可以通过充分利用太阳能和风能等可再生能源，实现可持续经济发展。这是也是堪称历史性的时刻，可再生能源储能系统首次在政府采购方案中战胜了传统的天然气发电厂。这个五年储能电池建设计划，让洛杉矶摆脱“雾都”阴影，成为一名“战士”：在改善空气质量，对抗全球变暖的斗争中越战越勇。

 

可再生能源储能系统首次在政府采购方案中战胜了传统的天然气发电厂。

 

在洛杉矶选中AES Corp设计建造储能电池这个五年长期合同之外，为解当下用电燃煤之急，洛杉矶再次毅然决然地拒绝了化石燃料的诱惑，在为期3个月的短期公共能源储存计划中选中了特斯拉，令其在2016年年底前制造、运输与安装完毕一套20 MW/80 MWh的Powerpack储能系统。完全充电时，该系统将可支持超过2500个家庭的日用电，或为1000辆特斯拉汽车提供电力，满足为1500万居民提供电力的南加州爱迪生公司电力基础设施的正常运行。

 

以上种种说明，这不是哪家清洁能源公司的独角戏，而是清洁能源的一次全面胜利！

 

另外一家加拿大能源公司AltaGas Ltd. 也赢得了20 MW的合同。于此之外，据彭博社清洁能源财经统计，加利福尼亚州安装储能电池系统所需的时间也越来越短, 为电池储能全面推广的铺下了良好的基础。比如，加州的圣地亚哥也在同年8月与AES Corp签约，建造容量为37，5兆瓦的储能电池。

 

对峰电时刻，不再用更多的化石燃料发电，而是用储存下来的太阳能或风能，这可以说是实现清洁能源转型的关键。随着光伏电能成本日益下降，光伏发电效能日益提高，光伏储能的需求自然也日趋迫切。就像马斯克所说的那样，储能电池会带着光伏业走向下一个阶段。

 

曦得很高兴看见曾经雾霾的难兄难弟洛杉矶，能在饱受空气污染折磨之后，用储能电池实现一个华丽丽的转身！曦得也希望中国能通过储能等其他新技术提高太阳能的利用程度，继而完美实现清洁能源转型。