OPINION
January 18, 2013
Re "DWP will buy excess solar energy," Jan. 12 Well it's about time. But why should the L.A. Department of Water and Power limit the amount of solar energy it will buy from customers through 2016 to 100 megawatts? Why not buy all the solar power available? Why can't residential customers sell all the power they generate? Residential customers' meters should simply run backward when they generate more power than they are using, essentially selling it back at the same rate they pay. We would end up with a broad-based system less reliant on large, centralized facilities with all the large liabilities (think San Onofre)
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
January 12, 2013 | Catherine Saillant
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power customers for the first time will be able to sell back excess solar energy created on rooftops and parking lots under a new program approved Friday by the city utility's board of commissioners. Described as the largest urban rooftop solar program of its kind in the nation, the so-called feed-in-tariff program would pay customers 17 cents per kilowatt hour for energy produced on their own equipment. The DWP has already accepted more than a dozen applicants and will be taking dozens more as it accepts contracts for up to 100 megawatts of solar power through 2016.
BUSINESS
December 13, 2012 | By Tiffany Hsu
Bay Area clean-tech company SolarCity Corp. had an uncertain path to its initial public offering, delaying and adjusting the size of its debut this week, but the stock was off to a running start Thursday in its first day of trading. The share price has boomed as much as 58.7% in trading so far on Nasdaq, hitting $12.70 after opening at $9.25. The San Mateo-based company sold 11.5 million shares at $8 each, raising $92 million total. The price values SolarCity at $584.6 million.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
December 9, 2012 | By Ralph Vartabedian, Los Angeles Times
The Delta Energy Center, a power plant about an hour outside San Francisco, was roaring at nearly full bore one day last month, its four gas and steam turbines churning out 880 megawatts of electricity to the California grid. On the horizon, across an industrial shipping channel on the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, scores of wind turbines stood dead still. The air was too calm to turn their blades - or many others across the state that day. Wind provided just 33 megawatts of power statewide in the midafternoon, less than 1% of the potential from wind farms capable of producing 4,000 megawatts of electricity.
NEWS
December 7, 2012 | By Joseph Serna
A report by the Little Hoover Commission released Monday suggested that state lawmakers could face consumer blowback if they don't get their renewable energy house in order. The bipartisan panel that advises state lawmakers warned that if California doesn't streamline its varied energy policies -- from reforming the cooling process for coastal power plants to mandating a third of the state's energy come from renewable sources by 2020 -- rates could spike and customers would revolt.
BUSINESS
November 28, 2012 | By Tiffany Hsu, Los Angeles Times
Bay Area solar energy company SolarCity Corp. is looking to raise as much as $151 million in its highly anticipated initial public stock offering. The San Mateo business - which helps residential, commercial and government clients such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., EBay and the U.S. military set up solar power-generating systems - said it expects its shares to sell for $13 to $15 each. The company plans to sell 10 million shares, while shareholders will offer 65,012 shares, SolarCity said in an amended filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.