Secretary of Energy Steven Chu

Rhone Resch listened carefully Friday as Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced “SunShot,” a new federal initiative with the ambitious goal of reducing the total cost of photovoltaic (PV) solar power systems by 75 percent by the end of the decade.

Resch liked what he heard.

As president and CEO of the nation’s largest solar trade organization, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), Resch calls the initiative “significant because DOE is focusing on driving down the cost of the other components of a solar system” — not just the cost of PV cells. In a statement following Chu’s announcement, Resch said that the cost of PV panels has been cut in half in the last two years, so focusing on other aspects is the right approach.

The $27 million SunShot initiative focuses on four areas:

• Increasing the efficiency of the solar manufacturing process
• Optimizing the performance of the installation
• Improving solar PV technologies
• Streamlining the permitting process

Not to minimize the importance of the first three areas on the list, but it is the fourth item — reducing solar “soft costs” — that is bound to please the solar industry.

Read the complete article at my Forbes blog, Edison 2.0

After months of uncertainty, California will be the site of the world’s largest solar power plant, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced today as he gave final approval for the 1 gigawatt Blythe Solar Power Project to be built on public land in the Mojave Desert.

“This is the kind of project that makes believers out of skeptics,” Salazar said at a press conference this afternoon.

I wrote this article for OnEarth magazine.. You can read the rest of it here.

The Solar Energy Industries Association released the following statement this afternoon, in response to the Senate climate bill, the American Power Act:

While we’re still analyzing the 987-page bill, we’re pleased with the effort to place a price on carbon, an essential step in stopping global warming and stimulating greater deployment of renewable energy sources like solar. But to really make a difference, we need to ensure that any revenue from this legislation is targeted directly at deploying renewable energy like solar – an energy source that 92 percent of the Americans say they want greater use of, now.

We also believe that for any climate legislation to succeed, it must embrace one of solar’s key strengths – its diverse applications. Distributed generation solar, like photovoltaics and solar water heating, as well as utility-scale solar power are both crucial to fighting climate change and should be rewarded for generating clean energy. These proven technologies have been working for decades and serve as one of the reliable ways to address global warming.

Lastly, we hope to see protection for the voluntary renewables market. Under previous climate bills, no effort on the parts of homeowners and businesses to generate their own carbon-free energy was recognized in lowering the ‘cap.’ We hope that this major issue has been addressed and individuals have been empowered to have a real impact on the amount of pollution released into our environment.

Senators Kerry and Lieberman deserve a great deal of credit for pushing ahead with these vitally important issues. We should not pass up this opportunity to move America’s clean energy economy forward. A well-structured bill that deploys more renewable energy will create stable, well-paying jobs, help achieve energy security, and fight global warming. We look forward to working with Congress and the Obama Administration to get the right policies passed into law.

Not exactly a full-throated endorsement of a bill that makes major concessions to the nuclear power, coal and oil industries. Clearly, though, SEIA understands both the political realities that necessitate some compromise and the giant step the bill makes by placing a price on carbon.

Oh, yes, and the need to “work with Congress…to get the right policies passed…” [My emphasis]