Del, here's a BIPV-for-free story:
Posts by fishamish, Jay Reynolds & blueflamedave on Yahoo the other day debating the costs and payback for Coca Cola’s PV roof in LA piqued my interest. Today, I finally managed to hear, for myself, Mr. Khouri’s short interview on CNBC Europe. Briefly, he said that Coca Cola was originally faced with spending $1M for a new roof but chose SIT’s BIPV membrane roof which “capitalized” to $3M. Khouri stated the new roof generates between 10% and 30% of Coca Cola's power needs and that Coca Cola would get “all their money back in 7 years”. He then explained to the Brit interviewer that SIT is expanding to EU because the EU renewable energy market is 5x the size and 10 years ahead of the US market and that SIT, having raised $22M via their recent IPO, will be building a new plant there.
Soooo, Coca Cola had the choice of a new ordinary roof with no rebates, no accelerated depreciation, no tax credits and no power generation-payback for $1million or a $3million “capitalized” power generating roof before rebates, accelerated depreciation, federal & state tax credits, property tax waiver and 20+ year power payback.
I’m pretty sure that Khouri's "all their money back in 7 years" is quite an understatement and I'm pretty sure that Coca Cola got their BIPV roof at close to zero cost with payback from rebates in weeks/months not years. And Coke's future avoided energy costs, whether tiered, time-of-use or whatever, are pure gravy IMO and here’s why:
Coca Cola being in the LADWP service zone and using a PV assembler certified as local area manufacturer by LADWP, SIT of course, qualified Coca Cola for LADWP’s highest rebate of $6/watt or 85% of costs, whichever is less, up to $2Million. LADWP considers the system to be 362kW STC rating and 335.3kW PTC rating. Both LADWP and the Ca Energy Commission base rebates on the PTC rating. So, multiply 335,300 x $6 = $2,011,800 resulting in a rebate check from LADWP to Coca Cola of the max, $2,000,000.
So. Calif. Gas Company has a distributed generation rebate program, I think funded by the Calif Public Utility Commission, for its’ customers (I understand Coca Cola is a customer) for systems larger than 30kW and up to 1.5MW that offers “The lesser of $4.50/watt or 50% of project costs for photovoltaics, wind turbines and fuel cells operating on renewable fuels…”
By my reading, Coca Cola was entitled to apply and I believe So. Cal Gas Company had the necessary funds ($12-14M?) to cut them a 2nd check for in excess of $1M earlier this year.
In sum, I think Coca Cola likely got this at close to zero cost... a BIPV power generating roof for less than a roof alone.
And the Gas Company, not surprisingly, found itself obliged to have SIT install a 30kW PV roof on their Energy Resource Center which may have allowed them to rebate themselves!
SIT as part of its’ location in an LA economic development area and as an LADWP service area certified PV assembler benefits from LADWP’s 30% reduced energy rates by virtue of their special business and location.
Meanwhile, LADWP has capped solar applications at 500 and will award $16-18M in the next month (?July 1st) or so and they are clearly oversubscribed.
SIT probably has some projects in that pipeline but even if awarded all of it they could only do 8 or 9 Coca Cola roofs which is less than 3MW and their capacity in February was already 13.5MW, hence, the outreach beyond LA to other parts of California and select states in the US and of course now to Europe.
Good luck to SIT, they are aggressive!
Al |
