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Top 50 Solar Energy Stories Of The Year (Part One: #1-10)
Read more at http://cleantechnica.com/2013/06/01/top-50-solar-energy-stories-of-the-year-part-one-1-10/#2eAIJTUZDYeCdyHe.99 

97% Of New Calif. Grid Power Will Come From Solar In 2nd Half 2013

A recent discovery by Herman Trabish of Greentech Media, in regard to California’s power grid, is that 97% of new electricity to be added in the second half of this year will come from solar power projects.

According to a 2012 report on market issues and performance (known as the ISO report), 1,633 megawatts of capacity are expected to be added to the grid in the second half of 2013, and 1,581 of those will come from solar power projects. 52 megawatts will come from biomass projects.

“By the end of the first half of the year, the ISO will have added 3,391 megawatts of nameplate capacity, of which 2,296 megawatts will be natural gas, 565 megawatts will be wind and 530 megawatts will be solar,” said Trabish.

Apparently this isn’t a one-time thing, either. According to V. John White, executive director of the Center for Efficiency and Renewable Technologies, solar is set to keep growing at a pretty fast pace in California thanks to solar hitting grid parity throughout the state. He also added that it will be crucial to broaden the mix in coming years, utilizing out-of-state resources to help develop a diverse portfolio of clean energy.

Overall, it is still unclear as to how California’s grid will continue to evolve, but the forecast is showing that solar power is growing at a rapid pace and isn’t set to slow down anytime soon. When combined with other forms of clean energy and the support needed to maintain a lucrative solar industry, California could definitely give a whole new meaning to why we call it “the sunshine state.”

Via Planetsave

Washington Is Outdoing California and Texas in Renewable Energy

California and Texas might be leading the nation’s rollout of solar and wind power, respectively, but Washington, where hydroelectric dams provide over 60 percent of the state’s energy, was the country’s biggest user of renewable power in 2011, according to new statistics released last week by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Hydro continued to be the overwhelmingly dominant source of renewable power consumed nationwide, accounting for 67 percent of the total, followed by wind with 25 percent, geothermal with 4.5 percent, and solar with 3.5 percent. The new EIA data is the latest official snapshot of how states nationwide make use of renewable power, from industrial-scale generation to rooftop solar panels, and reveals an incredible gulf between leaders like Washington, California, and Oregon, and states like Rhode Island and Mississippi that use hardly any.

The gap is partly explained by the relative size of states’ energy markets, but not entirely: Washington uses less power overall than New York, for example, but far outstrips it on renewables (the exact proportions won’t be available until EIA releases total state consumption figures later this month). Still, the actual availability of resources—how much sun shines or wind blows—is far less important than the marching orders passed down from statehouses to electric utilities, says Rhone Resch, head of the Solar Energy Industries Association.

“Without some carrot or stick, there’s little reason to pick [renewables] up” in many states, he says; even given the quickly falling price of clean energy technology, natural gas made cheap by fracking is still an attractive option for many utilities.

More than half of the 29 states that require utilities to purchase renewable power are currently considering legislation to pare back those mandates, in many cases pushed by (surprise, surprise) the American Legislative Exchange Council. “We’re opposed to these mandates, and 2013 will be the most active year ever in terms of efforts to repeal them,” ALEC energy task force director Todd Wynn recently told Bloomberg.

CONTINUED @ http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/climate_desk/2013/05/renewable_energy_map_wind_solar_hydroelectric_power_use_by_state.html

Green jobs grow four times faster than others

March 19, 2013|By Don Lee

WASHINGTON -- Clean-energy jobs make up a small part of U.S. employment, but a new federal report shows they are growing much faster than other work, even healthcare.

The nation had about 3.4 million green energy jobs in 2011, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Tuesday in its second annual and final look at this emerging category of employment. (More on why it's the last report later.)

In all, so-called green jobs accounted for just 2.6% of all employment that year, but a comparison with 2010 data shows that these jobs grew at four times the rate of all the others combined. Green employment jumped 4.9% in 2011 from the prior year. That compares with a gain of 1.2% for all jobs and 2.7% for restaurants, 1.7% for manufacturing and 1.8% for healthcare, which is often seen as the fastest-growing sector.  

Green jobs of course cut across industries. By the BLS definition, they include work that is primarily involved in the production of green goods and services -- for instance, renewable energy, pollution reduction and recycling, and natural resources conservation. The agency also counts as green those jobs that involve education and training related to environmental compliance.

The growth in green jobs in 2011 parallels a surge in public and private money plowed into clean energy that year. Total investments in clean energy business and development jumped 42% in the U.S. in 2011 from the prior year, to $48 billion, according to an earlier report by Pew Charitable Trusts. That was more than any other country, with China and Germany not far behind.

The BLS study showed that California added 17,366 green jobs in 2011 for a total of 360,245. Both numbers are more than for any other state, but taking its larger population into account, California's growth rate in green jobs, and share of all such work nationwide, are only average.

It was Maryland, Oregon and New Hampshire that saw the biggest increase in the rate of new green jobs created in 2011.

Washington, D.C., meanwhile, beat out all states in the share of its total jobs that are green-related, at 5.1% in 2011.

MORE @ http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/19/business/la-fi-mo-green-jobs-20130319

Solar Energy Incentives

Updated: Friday, 03 May 2013, 8:15 PM EDT
Published : Friday, 03 May 2013, 8:06 PM EDT

GREENFIELD, Mass (WWLP) - Governor Deval Patrick has set new goals for solar energy installations now that the state surpassed its clean energy goals four years early.

Massachusetts has reached its goal of installing 250 megawatts of solar power. That is enough electricity to supply 37,000 homes for a year.  But the push for clean energy doesn't stop there.

Read More at http://www.wwlp.com/dpp/news/local/franklin/solar-energy-incentives

FIND GREEN JOBS !

http://www.greenjobs.com/