Tag Archives: Solar Foundation

Virginia’s solar job numbers rose 9% in 2018

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Workers install solar panels at the University of Richmond.

The Solar Foundation has released its National Solar Jobs Census for 2018, showing solar jobs in Virginia increased from 3,565 in 2017 to 3,890 in 2017, an increase of 9%.

That puts Virginia 20thin the nation for solar jobs, though only 34thif measured on a per capita basis.

Nationwide, solar job numbers fell 3.2% to 242,000 jobs as the Trump administration’s tariffs on solar panels took a toll, yet 29 states saw increases. The Solar Foundation projects a 7% increase in 2019.

The Virginia job numbers sound good until you compare us to the competition. To the south of us, North Carolina continues to eat our lunch, with 6,719 solar jobs, while Maryland to the north has 4,515. Both these states lost jobs compared to 2017, but remain way ahead of Virginia both in absolute terms and jobs per capita. (Not surprisingly, they also have a lot more solar installed.)

In fact, measured in solar jobs per capita, Virginia remains an East Coast laggard. Every state on the Atlantic except Georgia and Pennsylvania has more solar workers per capita than Virginia has—and those two states are not far behind us.

This is especially unsettling because while North Carolina and states to the north of us have renewable portfolio standards (RPS) that require their utilities to buy renewable energy, most southeastern states do not. The fact that they are beating Virginia on solar jobs suggests we have a lot of room left for improvement.

In spite of shrinking employment and the impact of tariffs, solar installations nationally rose 8% in 2018, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) in its Sustainable Energy in America Factbook. (BNEF also shows higher job numbers for solar than the Solar Foundation recorded, possibly due to different methodologies.)

More installed capacity by fewer workers may reflect higher productivity on the part of the industry, as installers learn to work better and faster, and as communities support them with streamlined permitting and public education.

The growth in utility-scale solar is surely a factor also. Rooftop residential and commercial solar is labor-intensive, while large, ground-mounted arrays allow significant economies of scale. Statistics from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) show utility-scale solar has been driving much of the increase in solar installations over the past several years.

Although solar remains a very small part of the nation’s overall energy mix, the BNEF report shows it makes up a significant share of new energy being built, even beating out natural gas in 2016 and 2017. BNEF also shows solar jobs run only barely behind jobs in gas. Considering only electric generation, solar jobs are way ahead of all other sources, including gas. (Coal lost the jobs race several years ago, even in Virginia, and in spite of the subsidies we throw at coal mining.)

For Virginia policy makers who are focused on job creation, solar is a clear winner. As the Solar Foundation notes, “In the five-year period between 2013 and 2018, solar employment increased 70% overall, adding 100,000 jobs. By comparison, overall U.S. employment grew only 9.13% during that same period.”

This article originally appeared in the Virginia Mercury on February 14, 2019. 

A 5-year plan for economic growth: 10% solar and 50,000 new jobs

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Source: The Solar Foundation

A new analysis from the non-profit Solar Foundation shows Virginia could create 50,400 jobs if it commits to building enough solar energy in the next five years to provide just 10% of our electricity supply.

The analysis takes the form of an “infographic” showing the implications of 10% solar. It would require building 15,000 megawatts of solar, divided among utility-scale solar farms, commercial installations, and the rooftops of houses. At the end of 2016, Virginia had a total of only 241 MW of solar installed, representing one-tenth of 1 percent of total electricity consumption. Getting to 10% by the end of 2023 would mean an annual growth rate of 61 percent. That would be impressive growth, but well below the 87 percent growth rate averaged by California and North Carolina over the past 6 years.

So 10% in five years should be doable. And indeed, viewed against the need to dramatically lower our carbon footprint, it seems like a very small step indeed. The McAuliffe administration wants to significantly cut statewide carbon emissions, and it is hard to see how we can do that without replacing the dirtiest fossil fuels with solar (and wind, and energy efficiency).

The good news is that the market is in our favor. Dominion Energy’s 2017 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) identified utility-scale solar as the least-cost energy resource available in Virginia today. And participants in local cooperative buying programs for homeowners and businesses, known as “Solarize” programs, report payback times of under 10 years for rooftop solar, after which they will have nearly free electricity for 20 or 30 years.

Recent solar deals involving Amazon, Microsoft, and now Facebook show just how strong the demand is from customers. The very companies that our political leaders want so desperately to attract to Virginia are insisting on renewable electricity.

These deals demonstrate the direction of the market, and they will give an initial boost to solar employment, especially in the rural communities that are the best locations for solar farms. But restricting solar to a handful of new companies just coming into Virginia won’t get us to 15,000 MW and 10% solar. It’s also fundamentally unfair to the rest of us who are stuck with a dirty grid. Why should existing customers get left with polluting sources, while big tech companies get solar?

For us, Dominion’s IRP caps its solar plans at 240 MW per year, an amount it admits is arbitrary. In other words, Amazon got 260 MW, Facebook is getting 130 MW, but all the rest of Dominion’s customers put together will get just 240 MW per year.

As for customers who are determined to take matters into their own hands with rooftop solar, a host of unnecessary restrictions continue to limit growth. Virginia needs to put policies in place to push utilities to do more, to support local governments and schools that want solar, and to remove the barriers that limit private investment.

Solar companies around the state say if we can do that, they will do their part by hiring more Virginians. Here’s what some of them had to say about the 10% solar goal, and how to achieve it:

“We believe, as Virginians, that we can solve our energy challenges. Ours is a Virginia company founded and based in Charlottesville, and we are committed to building Virginia-based energy production facilities that benefit all Virginians. But the fact is that over the past few years our growth has come from business in other states. We have 26 employees in Virginia now, and we could increase that dramatically if Virginia promotes solar through policy changes that incentivize business owners to invest, allows competition, and supports the environmental message.” –Paul Risberg, President of Altenergy, Charlottesville

“The economics have never been better for solar in Virginia than they are right now. Prospect Solar has grown from two employees in 2010 to 16 full time employees today. Roles such as electricians, skilled labor, engineers, project managers, and sales people are integral to the success of each project. We hope Virginia will commit to a rapid, sustained buildout of all sectors of the solar industry, allowing us to continue adding local jobs.” –Andrew Skinner, Project Manager at Prospect Solar, Sterling

“Nationwide, the solar market was a 23 billion dollar industry in 2016. One out of every 50 new jobs in America was created by the solar industry last year. Sigora has been part of that. We have doubled in size in the past year and now employ 80 people in the Commonwealth.” –Karla Loeb, Vice President of Policy and Development for Sigora Solar, Charlottesville

“Local energy, local jobs, local investment. Our workforce is made up of local people—three of us went to Virginia Tech, one went to New River Community College, which has an Alternative Energy Program. An increase in demand of this scale would mean we’d hire more local people.” –Patrick Feucht, Manager of Baseline Solar, Blacksburg

“Residential and commercial rooftop solar has created most of the solar jobs in Virginia to date, and it has to be a part of the push to 10 percent. As we know, rooftop solar creates more jobs than utility solar, and these are good-paying, local jobs for local people. That’s one reason Virginia should lift the outdated 1 percent cap on net-metered solar, and leave the market open to anyone who wants to invest in their own home-grown energy supply.” –Sue Kanz, President of Solar Services, Virginia Beach

“Ten percent solar is a modest goal to shoot for given the strong economics of solar and the demand we are seeing from customers. Virginia has been held back by restrictive policies that have made it a ‘dark state.’ Reforming our policies would lead to a lot more economic development around solar.” –Tony Smith, President of Secure Futures LLC, Staunton

 

Potential 50,000 Rooftop Solar Jobs in Virginia, for Ten Years

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By Will Driscoll

Virginia could produce 32 percent of its electricity from rooftop solar installations, according to a report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).  Yes, that’s a lot:

  • It’s 28,500 megawatts of solar capacity—almost double the 15,000 megawatts that Dominion Virginia Power found would save customers $1.5 billion, but said it wouldn’t know where to site the solar panels.
  • Installing that much rooftop solar in Virginia would yield about 50,000 jobs for ten years, based on the number of U.S. solar jobs in 2016 and the number of megawatts of solar installed.
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Al Chiriboga and Andrew Schultz of Convert Solar install a 10 kilowatt solar system on an office building in Virginia Beach.

The NREL analysis evaluated the potential for solar on buildings with at least one unshaded roof plane that is nearly flat, or faces east, southeast, south, southwest, or west.  If any such roof plane could accommodate at least 1.5 kilowatts of solar panels, NREL modeled solar on that roof plane.  Summing across all buildings in Virginia yielded a technical potential of 28,500 megawatts of rooftop solar.  NREL found that nationwide, 66 percent of large building rooftop area is suitable for solar, versus 49 percent for medium-size buildings and 26 percent for small buildings.

The technical potential is simply what the laws of physics allow, combined with common sense—i.e., no north-facing panels.  (NREL did count west-facing panels, which have value for meeting late afternoon electricity demand, and east-facing panels, which are equally productive.)  NREL assumed an average solar panel efficiency of 16 percent, and noted that if panels averaging 20 percent efficiency were used, the solar potential would be 25 percent greater (because 20 is that much greater than 16).  At least three firms make solar panels exceeding 20 percent efficiency.

The technical potential is just a theoretical maximum.  Yet the economic potential, or the sum of all money-saving rooftop solar investments, may not be far behind, especially over the next ten years, as solar costs keep falling due to technology improvements and economies of scale.  Each year more building owners realize they can save money with rooftop solar, including Virginia school systems.

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Ryan Phaup and Andrew Harrison of Shockoe Solar install photovoltaic panels in Urbanna, VA.

The Solar Foundation counted 260,077 U.S. solar workers in 2016, and the Solar Energy Industries Association reported 2016 U.S. solar installations of 14,626 megawatts.  Dividing the two yields 18 workers per megawatt of solar installed.  Finally, spacing out the installation of NREL’s 28,500 megawatts of Virginia rooftop solar over ten years would mean 2,850 megawatts of rooftop solar installed per year, times 18 workers per megawatt, or 50,000 workers—for a ten-year period.

For rooftop installations, the jobs per megawatt would tend to exceed 18, since rooftop jobs are smaller and more labor-intensive than the 2016 U.S. mix of utility-scale solar (10,000 megawatts) and rooftop solar.  That is the experience of Edge Energy, whose co-owner Anthony Colella reports that installing one megawatt of solar per year requires a staff of 20—a roofing crew, an electrical crew, a project manager, a production manager, and sales and administrative support staff.  He sees a growing solar potential in Virginia, and says his firm plans to add 15-20 staff members this year and a similar number in 2018.

On the other hand, as the rooftop solar industry grows to meet the NREL potential, economies of scale should also come into play, enabling firms to sell and install more panels in less time.  So on balance, 18 jobs per megawatt, and 50,000 jobs over ten years, seems like a good ballpark estimate.

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Henry Portillo (peak), Tulio Guzman and Carlos Cardona of Edge Energy celebrate an 8 kilowatt solar installation in Arlington, VA.

The NREL report noted that “In practice, the integration of a significant quantity of rooftop solar into the national portfolio of generation capacity would require a flexible grid, supporting infrastructure, and a suite of enabling technologies.”

Mr. Colella of Edge Energy said that “to reach for the big numbers,” Virginia needs to lift the size limits on residential and commercial systems; eliminate demand charges on larger systems; change the voluntary renewable portfolio standard into a requirement, with a closed Virginia market for solar renewable energy credits; and allow solar leases, solar power purchase agreements, and community solar.

In response to the NREL projection, a Dominion Virginia Power representative stated that the utility is installing solar toward a state goal of 500 megawatts of solar by 2020.  Appalachian Electric Power declined to comment.

Virginia currently has 238 megawatts of solar capacity, compared to North Carolina, which has 3,012 megawatts.

Solar industry group tells Virginia HOAs to let the sunshine in

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Solar panels on the sunny front roof of a house should be cheered, not banned. Photo credit: NREL

Solar panels on the sunny front roof of a house should be cheered, not banned. Photo credit: NREL

Solarize Blacksburg had barely gotten underway last spring when the first complaints came in: homeowners who wanted to participate in the community bulk purchase of solar panels reported resistance from homeowner associations (HOAs) worried about aesthetics. Some HOAs were willing to work with residents, but others were not. Some HOAs refused to allow solar installations at all, even though most blanket prohibitions now violate state law.

The problem repeated itself around the state as more solarize programs took off. Many HOAs hadn’t heard about the new law, passed during the 2014 session, that nullifies HOA rules banning solar panels, including bans that have been in place for decades. Under the law, the only prohibition still legal would be one written into the HOA’s “recorded declaration”—something pretty much unheard of in Virginia, according to Senator (and lawyer) Chap Petersen, who wrote the bill.

But the law still allows “reasonable restrictions” on the “size, place and manner of placement” of solar panels, and what that means is open to interpretation. The Blacksburg organizers consulted lawyers and industry members to come up with a set of guidelines they hoped their local HOAs would use. But meanwhile, the same problem kept popping up across the state.

Now the Maryland, DC and Virginia Solar Energy Industries Association—or MDV-SEIA, as the trade association is known—has weighed in with its own guide. Not surprisingly, it recommends that HOAs be as accommodating as possible to residents who want to install solar panels. It is, nonetheless, a good starting point for HOA officers coming to the question for the first time. In the absence of any other guidance, it also puts HOAs on notice that restrictions going beyond MDV-SEIA’s recommendations may be challenged.

The industry guide contains a list of restrictions it considers reasonable, and those it does not. In general, restrictions that make a solar energy system either more expensive, or less effective, won’t pass muster. The classic example here is a requirement that solar panels not be visible from the street. If the street side of the house happens to be the only sunny side, then restricting solar panels to the rear is per se unreasonable.

Restrictions the industry group thinks are reasonable include requiring homeowners to get approval from the HOA before installing the system, placing the panels more or less flat on the roof, and concealing the wiring and components as much as possible.

Virginians dealing with this issue will take cold comfort in knowing that the fight over solar panels is playing out among HOAs and homeowners nationwide. Start typing “can HOAs” into Google, and the first phrase that pops up is “ban solar panels.” Moreover, while many states now prohibit solar bans, allowing “reasonable restrictions” is also common, and there is no consensus on what that means.

The nonprofit Solar Foundation, working with the Department of Energy’s Sunshot Solar Outreach Partnership, prepared a guide for community associations that contains a comprehensive discussion of this issue. “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” was published before Virginia’s law was revised last year, but it remains an excellent resource for homeowners who want to educate their neighbors about the value of solar—and with any luck, head off disputes about what kind of restrictions the law allows.