California Touts the Economic Upsides of Clean-Tech Investment

Since the solar energy company Solyndra LLC filed for bankruptcy earlier this month—taking with it $535 million in federally backed loans—the company’s failure has generated all manner of questions about government investment in clean-energy technology, among them: Is it worth the risk to public dollars?

The U.S. Department of Energy is saying yes, pushing ahead with its support of $9.2 billion worth of government-guaranteed loans to 14 other clean-tech companies. So too are states like California, where renewable energy goals—which were passed into state law last spring—are driving conversations about financing and investment in local power projects.

“The California renewables mandate is at least as ambitious as any in the country—and probably more so,” says Steven Weissman, director of the energy program at the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment (CLEE) at UC Berkeley School of Law. California is one of 31 states in the U.S. that maintains either the Renewable Portfolio Standards or Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards, each a set of requirements that say a certain percentage of a state’s energy needs will hail from wind, solar, and other forms of non-fossil-based sources.

With regards to the singular, if high-profile, failing of Solyndra, Weissman says: “It’s a vast oversimplification to point to [the failure] of one company and draw any meaningful conclusions.” The purpose of the federal loan-guarantee program is to shift risk in uncharted waters from the private sector to the taxpayer, and “whenever there’s risk, that means some things are going to succeed and some things are going to fail,” he adds.

Where the federal loan guarantees, built into the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, have focused on the development of new technologies, California is currently more focused on the implementation of local energy systems, which are located in close proximity to where the energy is consumed.

In April, Governor Jerry Brown signed SBX1 2 into law, which established that at least 33 percent of the state’s energy needs will be met by renewable sources by the year 2020. Of that, California is aiming to develop 12,000 megawatts worth of localized energy. These thresholds carry even more heft, says Weissman, because they are part and parcel of California’s measures that govern the reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions.

The renewable standards are also closely tied to the governor’s Clean Energy Jobs Plan [PDF], which has the stated goal of creating half a million jobs in the clean-tech sector over the next decade. An introduction to the plan, available on the governor’s website, alludes to California’s recent past as a leader in the renewable energy field, which is now dominated by China:

DOE expects Renewable energy to surge

Renewable energy is projected to be the fastest growing source of energy worldwide over the next quarter-century, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s annual international outlook report released Monday.

Global renewable energy consumption is expected to increase by 2.8 percent per year and the renewable share of total energy use to increase from 10 percent in 2008 to 15 percent in 2035, according to DOE’s Energy Information Administration.

Fossil fuels would continue to supply much of the energy used worldwide throughout the period projected, and still account for 78 percent of world energy use in 2035, the report said.

The DOE study is based on current laws and regulations, and assumes no action by governments to require the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The projections could “change significantly if laws and policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions are changed or new ones introduced,” the report said.

The report said natural gas has the fastest growth among fossil fuels over the 2008 to 2035 period. World natural gas consumption increases from 1.6 percent per year, from 111 trillion cubic feet in 2008 to 169 trillion cubic feet in 2035. Unconventional gas — such as shale gas and coalbed methane — increases substantially, especially in the United States, the report projects.

World coal consumption increases from 139 quadrillion Btu in 2008 to 209 quadrillion Btu in 2035, the DOE projects, at an average annual rate of 1.5 percent. China alone accounts for 76 percent of the projected net increase in world coal use, and India and other Asian counties account for another 19 percent of the increase, the DOE said.

Coal use in the U.S. totaled 22.4 quadrillion Btu in 2008, and is expected to increase to 24.3 quadrillion Btu in 2035.

“In the electric power sector, a more rapid rate of increase in the use of other fuels, particularly renewables, leads to a decline in coal’s share of total energy consumption for power generation from 43 percent in 2008 to 37 percent in 2020,” the DOE report said. “After 2020, however, similar growth rates for the consumption of all fuels except liquids keep coal’s share of total energy use in the electricity sector relatively stable through the remaining years of the projection.”

U.S. coal-fired electricity generation is expected to increase between 2008 and 2035, accounting for 22 percent of the growth of total U.S. electricity generation. But high-cost estimates for new coal-fired power plants result in limited projections of new coal-capacity, the report said.

“Furthermore, in the near term, low natural gas prices lead to considerable displacement of coal-fired generation from existing plants in the early years of the projection period,” the report said. “Increased generation from natural gas accounts for 39 percent of the growth in total U.S. electricity generation from 2008 to 2035, and increased generation from renewables satisfies 32 percent of the increase.”

California’s Struggle To Add Solar To New Homes

California is known for providing generous incentives that have successfully promoted solar energy production. But one program hasn’t been so popular, and it may remain so for some time.

The program is called New Solar Homes Partnership, and it aims to encourage homebuilders to install solar electric systems by offering rebates. Since the program’s launch in 2007, just over 12 megawatts were added or approved for installation as of May this year, according to data by the California Energy Commission. The goal is to get to 400 megawatts by the end of 2016.

In contrast, 968 megawatts have been installed on existing homes, businesses and other buildings since 2007 under another program called California Solar Initiative. In fact, this program is passing the midway mark to reach the goal of 1,940 megawatts by the end of 2016.

If you guess that the housing market crash has something to do with the new solar homes program’s popularity, then you are correct. The state crafted the program when the market was still booming, but housing starts – the number of new homes that began construction during a particular period – plummeted from 113,034 in 2007 to 44,925 in 2010, according to the California Building Industry Association.

“The market is horrible right now,” said Mike Hodgson, president of ConSol, an energy efficiency consulting firm Stockton, Calif., that works with homebuilders. “We were hoping the market would stabilize in 2011. But here we are in the third quarter, and we feel like we haven’t hit bottom.”

California Energy Commission has tried to modify the rules of the new solar homes program to make it more attractive. Starting in 2010, owners of new homes could use leases or power purchase agreements to help finance their solar electric systems. Under these financing options, homeowners typically pay a monthly fee for only the solar electricity under a long-term contract (at least 10 years). The equipment belongs to the financing firms, which make money not only through the contracts but also the sale of the energy credits associated with each installation.

The use of leases or power purchase agreements has prompted a greater number of solar panel installations under the California Solar Initiative, which is overseen by the California Public Utilities Commission. A solar electric system isn’t cheap. A 4-kilowatt system costs around $30,000 (the federal government offers a 30 percent tax credit to offset the cost).

The energy commission also eased other rules last year for home builders. For example, home builders now have more time to complete their applications and can include more homes in a single application. Those who build homes for low-income residents will only have to guarantee that the affordable housing status of those homes will remain so for 10 years rather than 45 years.

Home builders who have taken advantage of the program include Lennar, Standard Pacific, Pulte Homes and Woodside Homes of Central California.

The energy commission also recently launched an online calculator to help homeowners figure out the energy savings they could achieve by adding solar electricity to their energy mix. The energy commission hopes the calculator will help market solar homes when those homes are for sale.

Hodgson said the new rules certainly have helped, but installations rates won’t likely pick up significantly until the housing market regains its health. The entry-level homes are the “bread and butter” of the housing stock in California, and these new homes are having a tough time competing against the growing crop of older homes that have been foreclosed, he added.

In the California Central Valley, where ConSol is located, a new entry-level home can fetch $180,000 to $230,000, but a foreclosed home can be had for about $140,000, Hodgson said. Adding solar will raise the price of a new home even if doing so promises energy savings over the long run, he said…

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Petra – N.J. Solar Giant Hopes to Make It Big Out West

Petra executives are looking westward, eager to make California's roadways look a little bit more like some of New Jersey's

SOUTH PLAINFIELD, N.J. — It’s from a plain-looking office park in this central Jersey town that Petra Solar transformed the physical look of the Garden State.

In an effort to combat climate change and encourage renewable energy use, New Jersey’s public utility commission launched a landmark solar renewable energy certificate market in 2001. Ten years later, a state that could then only count six total systems now has more than 10,000 of them installed, and none are more visible than Petra’s, which are made up of tens of thousands of panels bolted directly onto utility poles across the state, delivering clean energy straight to the grid.

Now Petra executives are looking westward, eager to make California’s roadways look a little bit more like some of New Jersey’s — lined with row after row of pole-mounted panels throughout.

The reason Petra Solar is growing confident of future success in the highly competitive California market, they say, is the increasingly burdensome regulatory and litigious environment that’s keeping large solar plants out of the Mojave Desert and other environments. Concerns over plant and wildlife habitat loss are preventing the majority of new solar plants from being built in the state in a timely and cost-effective manner, if they are built at all.

That means a growing emphasis on city-based systems, a Petra specialty.

In California, “we find ambitious and generous goals on the renewables front, but we also find major delays due to the siting and permitting of these large projects that are needed to meet the renewable portfolio standard targets,” said Petra Solar CEO Shihab Kuran in an interview. “And that is where Petra Solar comes in.”

Cloudy N.J. becoming a beacon for solar?

So far, the company’s West Coast expansion is only just beginning.

About 15 full-time staff members are out West now trying to make it happen, Kuran said, and only 100 or so panels have been put up in various pilot projects with city governments experimenting with solar on their light poles.

But breaking out of New Jersey and into sunny California would cement Petra’s success and could see hundreds if not thousands added to its payroll. In a recent white paper the company produced to explore the West Coast market potential, Petra estimated that installing SunWave on half of California’s utility poles would add 720 megawatts of solar generating capacity to the state. Experts say California has about 10,000 MW of installed capacity today.

Mignon Marks, executive director of the California Solar Energy Industry Association (CALSEIA), acknowledges that Petra is entering the market at an auspicious time.

“There’s definitely support in the governor’s office to develop more of the state’s distributed solar resources,” Marks said. At the same time, she disagrees that the state is beginning to give up on large-scale solar plants outside cities, noting that the state government is working to ease the regulatory hurdles that too often get projects bogged down.

Petra has become virtually synonymous with the explosive growth in solar power in New Jersey, where the industry is believed by some to be growing faster than in California, creating some disturbances to the marketplace (Greenwire, Aug. 25).

By the end of the year, some experts believe, New Jersey could hit 500 MW of total solar installed capacity — with roughly 40 of those megawatts coming from Petra Solar’s panels, thanks to a program run by the state’s largest utility, PSE&G.

Last week, Boston-based Lux Research Inc. issued a report naming New Jersey the best place in the world to invest in solar power in the first half of 2011, in terms of internal rates of return. The small, relatively cloudy Northeastern state beat out Portugal, Australia, Italy and India in Lux’s rankings. California didn’t make the top five, but analysts at Lux still see opportunities for growth there.

“California, the largest market in the U.S., will continue to see steady growth thanks to stability and visibility with step-down incentives and recent RPS [renewable portfolio standards] legislation,” Lux Research said in the report.

New Calif. utility models could help

Kuran agrees. He cited Gov. Jerry Brown’s (D) “Clean Local Energy Accessible Now for California Act of 2011,” or “CLEAN California Act,” and S.B. 17 as proof that lawmakers there are getting increasingly frustrated with their own red tape. On top of the state’s ambitious 33 percent renewable portfolio standard, Brown is aiming to have 12 gigawatts of solar capacity installed in communities, while S.B. 17 seeks to have so-called “smart grid” technologies integrated throughout California’s energy infrastructure.

The state is exploring ways to streamline the process of approving large solar power plants, Kuran admitted. But he sees even stronger signs pointing to a concentration on solar in cities and towns, where it can be fed into growing power demand directly, he said.

Adam Browning, executive director of the Vote Solar Initiative in San Francisco, says the picture in his state is more mixed.

The state isn’t turning completely away from a model where utilities are forced to buy from independent power producers, many selling power from massive rural solar farms, Browning said. But utilities are allowed to experiment with building and operating their own systems directly. That growing trend could benefit Petra, he said.

“For this program, essentially the deal that has been worked out with regulators is that it’s a 50-50 split,” Browning explained. “The utilities can experiment with this sort of self-owned generation at the same time that they also buy an equivalent amount from independent power producers.”

The SunWave system, which has made Petra a success in New Jersey, is more than just a simple panel wired to a utility line, a point company officials take pains to stress when selling their products to customers and potential investors.

Each panel has attached to it equipment incorporating smart grid applications developed in conjunction with the Department of Energy. Though PSE&G hasn’t taken full advantage of all of Petra’s technological offerings, a completely fitted-out system has the ability to both send data and receive instructions wirelessly, bouncing signals off one another before they’re beamed to a central command terminal.

Pricing: the make-or-break issue

The idea is to allow the utility to control the array, no matter how widely dispersed it is, in much the same way that it could control any other power plant. Operators can tell how much electricity the solar panels are generating and reduce loads coming online from other generators to compensate.

The systems are also proving handy in more ways than just delivering carbon-free energy. During Tropical Storm Irene’s recent run over New Jersey, Petra says it helped PSE&G use the systems to determine where power outages were happening, enabling quicker response.

Joe DeLuca, vice president of development and product management at Petra, says the system can also prevent overloading, or outages should unexpected cloudy cover suddenly knock out a significant percentage of the power. The company is also experimenting with energy storage applications, an enhancement that could allow the panels to store extra power in batteries when it’s not needed, then draw on those batteries should clouds or storms disrupt generation.

“We’ve integrated in the capabilities to do this reactive power,” DeLuca said. “As the voltage rises due to too much generation, we sense it; we can inject this reactive power which can help stabilize that voltage level up to a point, and if it still keeps going, we can actually scale back the power output.”

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It Takes More Than Smart Meters to Make a Smart Grid

The smart grid is coming, but not as fast as experts predicted. To deliver energy and cost savings, the smart grid requires smart utilities, smart regulators and, most of all, smart customers.

The smart grid is coming. It…is…just…coming…very…slowly. In October 2009, President Obama stood in front of  an array of solar panels in a small town in central Florida to unveil $3.4 billion in federal recovery act grants to modernize America’s electricity grid. About 100 companies and communities in 45 states were awarded grants.

Upgrading the grid, the Department of Energy said then, will “promote energy-saving choices for consumers, increase efficiency, and foster the growth of renewable energy sources like wind and solar.”

“We’re on the cusp of this new energy future,” Obama said.

Nearly two years later, we’re closer but still on the cusp—at best.

That’s because, to do its magic, the smart grid requires smart utilities, smart regulators and, most of all, smart customers.

Florida is as good a place as any to look at how the smart grid is coming along, and not merely because that’s where the president launched his initiative. The state’s biggest utility, Florida Power & Light (FPL), which got a $200 million grant and played host to Obama in 2009, is rolling out Energy Smart Florida, one of the biggest smart grid projects in America.

Since then, FPL has installed about 2.2 million smart meters, said Bryan Olnick, vice president for customer service and smart grid solutions. That’s a big chunk of the five million smart meters that have been installed nationwide, a number cited in a June blog post by Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

If Chu’s five-million estimate is right—and grid data tends to be fuzzy–fewer than 5 percent of the nation’s 110 million homes are equipped with smart meters. Early last year, however, experts forecast that “the country will be at 20 million smart meters and 15 percent market penetration” by the end of 2010. We’re not even close.

Utilities have good reason to move slowly. They saw the backlash generated by a smart grid rollout in Bakersfield, Calif., and the cost overruns that plagued a deployment in Boulder, Colo. By contrast, FPL’s rollout is going smoothly because the company communicates frequently with customers and tests its equipment at every step of the way.

“We’ve taken a very methodical approach,” Olnick said. Typically, it takes three to six months between the time a smart meter is installed at a home and the time when it is used to calculate real bills.

Once meters are turned on, customers can monitor their energy usage on a dashboard that’s available online. They can compare one day’s electricity usage to the next, allowing them to see what happens when, for example, they adjust their thermostat up or down. The dashboard also “predicts what your bill is going to be at the end of the month. Our folks on fixed income really like it,” Olnick said.

But—and this is a problem—the meters, by themselves, do not tell customers what share of their usage they can attribute to their air conditioning, big screen TV, washer-dryer or refrigerator. Only about 500 homes are part of a pilot project where they are given home-energy controllers made by GE that give them more control over their consumption by allowing them to communicate with smart appliances.

What’s more, FPL does not have time-of-day pricing, so customers who might be willing to shift their power consumption to hours when there is less demand–by, for instance, running their clothes dryer and dishwasher at night–can’t get the benefit of lower rates. During off-peak hours, the utility’s generating costs are lower.

Without time-of-day pricing, instant readouts of usage and smart appliances that can react to price changes, the consumer benefits of the smart grid are limited. So are the benefits to utilities. It’s cheaper for them to pay users to temporarily curtail usage during peak periods than it is to build new capacity.

“Physical infrastructure isn’t enough,” says Truman Semans Jr., a principal at GreenOrder, a strategy and management consulting firm.  “Only an ecosystem approach is going to work.”

Microsoft and Google recently shut down their Hohm and Power Meter, their energy-saving software projects, in part because consumers weren’t interested. In an article at GreenBiz called How to Succeed in Energy Management Where Google, Microsoft Failed, Semans advised utilities to make efficiency “fun and fulfilling” for customers—or to make it easier by, for instance, inviting customers to sign up to have their usage automatically rationed.

Semans said: “More and more research out there that shows that a lot of people are not really interested in energy efficiency. So how do you get people involved in something that they don’t care about, or isn’t costly enough to make a difference on their bill?”

A new industry initiative called Grid 21 was formed, in part, to help answer that question. Its first project is an energy-saving contest called The Biggest Energy Saver in which Texas customers of utilities Oncor and CenterPoint Energy will compete to win an electric car or a suite of GE smart home appliances.

Grid 21′s director, Steven Hauser, who works at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, says the contest is one of a series of experiments the group will run to see what motivates customers to save energy. Grid 21 is also running a contest for software developers to develop consumer-facing applications to promote the smart grid.

FPL’s Bryan Olnick says the utility doesn’t know yet whether its customers with smart meters are using electricity any differently from those whose only insight into their usage are monthly, often-inscrutable paper bills.  “We’re still in the early stages,” he said. Some customers have already told FPL that the smart meters help them save money and power.

Hauser, who has been working on the smart grid for more than a decade, sees lots of signs of progress. Eventually, he says, just as the Internet gave us new ways to buy music and airline tickets and pay our bills, the smart grid will offer new ways to consume electricity.

“It’s going to change pretty radically,” he says. Just not right away.

Solar power’s “elephant in the room” Module Effeciency

Solar power generation is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. This year, solar module shipments will exceed 7.8 gigawatts globally. Taking an average output of 200 Watts per module, this represents 39,000,000 modules per year with an annual growth rate of 30 percent expected over the next several years. Solar Engineering and Manufacturing Association president Matthew Holzmann discusses how module reliability is becoming a crucial factor in photovoltaics.

Germany and Japan have recently announced plans to exit nuclear power generation, and photovoltaic installations are one of the most attractive solutions to fill this gap. But there is a problem: solar power users expect modules to last between 25 and 30 years. However, there is little data to support this expectation and there are no recognized test standards in place to validate these assumptions. The current standards do not come close to the 25-year benchmark.

Companies have internal test methodologies, but there are no generally recognized standards. Warranties for manufacturing defects are typically five to 10 years, while efficiency warranties are between 10 to 25 years. Almost all of these warranties are based upon internal testing, which is held as “company secret” for competitive advantage. Additionally, there is little traceability. So, what happens in five or 15 years if a module goes bad? Solar installations are multi-generational. Some of the companies manufacturing and installing solar power now might not be around in 25 years. What then?

Most solar modules generate DC electricity, which is fed through a junction box to an inverter, where that electricity is converted to AC and then fed into a home or business, or directly to the grid. A typical home array is feeding approximately 2.5 kilowatts (kW) constantly while the sun is shining. There is no way to turn it off except to cover the array.

In the wide range of applications for global solar power, solar modules can be exposed to temperatures exceeding 65 °C (149 °F) and down to as low as -60 °C (-76 °F). Additionally, humidity has been identified as a significant contributor to module failures in tropical climates. Additional failure mechanisms based on the location of an installation include atmospheric salt exposure, corrosion from pollution, extreme weather conditions and exposure to ammonia in rural installations where livestock are kept.

Quality assurance and reliability

A two-day conference was recently held in conjunction with the Intersolar conference and exhibition in San Francisco. Organized by Japan’s Institute of Advanced Industrial Science & Technology (AIST), the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), SEMI and PVTECH, the Japanese solar power research association, more than 170 industry participants met to discuss the issues related to quality assurance and long-term reliability.

The packed house included representatives from the major test laboratories, national and international research institutes, module manufacturers, suppliers, the insurance industry, system operators, and other industry stakeholders. Michio Kondo, representing AIST, outlined that organization’s seven-year test methodology and a failure rate of 0 percent for some manufacturers, and up to six percent for others. Later, a representative from one of the world’s largest solar investment firms documented a 10 percent failure rate for inverters within the first seven years of operation.

Field failures in solar power installations include cell cracking, junction box delamination, module delamination, diode failure, junction box and gasket cracking, glass breakage, and soldering defects leading to circuit failure. One utility scale user has reported six fires in seven years in 50 megawatts of modules. Solar power generation requires the same safety factors as other forms of power generation. That same user expressed his concern that a major fire might occur within the next few years if this issue is not addressed.

The IEC test standards used and those from UL and TÜV are primarily fire safety standards and simulate approximately five years of harsh environment usage. None of these tests are performed while the device is under power, but rather are static tests. Many manufacturers perform additional tests and also benchmark their products versus their competitors. However, no national or international standard, or long-term test methodologies yet exist. The test specifications and standards for the materials and components are similar to those for modules.

Another factor affecting long-term reliability is the drive to reduce the cost per watt. In the crystalline module market, the price of cells represents 70 percent of the total cost of the manufactured product and profit margins are thin. Module prices have fallen by as much as 25 percent in 2011, and manufacturers are desperate to reduce costs of materials while improving manufacturing efficiency. This has resulted in efforts to utilize new, less expensive materials that in some cases may meet the current standards, but are not as effective in the long run. A large number of field failures have been traced directly to materials and manufacturing processes.

Chain of responsibility

The solar power supply chain is a long one and the chain of responsibility is complex. Governments require safety and code compliance. Insurance companies and manufacturers provide warranties, liability and other forms of insurance. In 10, 20 or even 30 years from now, repair and maintenance providers will demand a safe, reliable product upon which to work.

With 40,000,000 new modules entering usage every year, it is incumbent upon all of the key stakeholders to act rapidly to develop and implement the methodologies and test methods to simulate long-term exposure under harsh conditions.

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Matthew Holzmann is the president of Christopher Associates Inc., a supplier to the solar power industry and president of the Solar Engineering & Manufacturing Association.

China Benefits as U.S. Solar Industry Withers

HONG KONG — The bankruptcies of three American solar power companies in the last month, including Solyndra of California on Wednesday, have left China’s industry with a dominant sales position — almost three-fifths of the world’s production capacity — and rapidly declining costs.

Some American, Japanese and European solar companies still have a technological edge over Chinese rivals, but seldom a cost advantage, according to industry analysts.

Loans at very low rates from state-owned banks in Beijing, cheap or free land from local and provincial governments across China, huge economies of scale and other cost advantages have transformed China from a minor player in the solar power industry just a few years ago into the main producer of an increasingly competitive source of electricity. … Continue Reading

Pennsylvania can clean up in clean tech

Philadelphia identifies with underdogs: Rocky, the Eagles, and now energy.

When business people or policymakers think of Philly, they naturally jump to the Big Five: pharmaceuticals, higher education, legal, finance, and technology. Clean tech, or renewable energy, rarely makes the list. But that’s about to change. We have the potential to be a full-fledged front-runner in one of the hottest growth industries.

Earlier this month, the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution ranked this region fifth in overall clean-energy jobs. With nearly 55,000 green jobs in the Philadelphia metropolitan area (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland), we beat San Francisco, Atlanta, Boston, Houston, and Dallas. (Yes, Dallas.) Since 2003, Philadelphia has created more than 6,500 clean-economy jobs, with an average wage of more than $43,000, according to the study.

Though jobs are important, the report only begins to describe this region’s potential. Thanks to our manufacturing heritage and diverse talent base, we have a surprising number of often-overlooked regional assets that are starting to be recognized by the rest of the world.

A prime example is the Philadelphia Navy Yard, which hosts the Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster for energy-efficient buildings. The Navy Yard was selected over dozens of national sites for this program. Over the next five years, the GPIC will receive $122 million from the U.S. Energy Department to design buildings that will save energy, cut pollution, and improve the nation’s energy position.

Another underrated asset is PJM Interconnection in Valley Forge, the world’s largest regional transmission organization. PJM serves more than 51 million energy customers and has 167 gigawatts of generating capacity.

And don’t forget water, a fundamental for all new energy and advanced-materials technologies. Companies such as GE Water, Severn Trent, American Water, Ashland Hercules, Siemens Water, and Aqua America all add to our clean-tech prowess.

In addition, our state, local, and federal representatives are huge resources in our fight to become the top green economy. For example, Pennsylvania’s Financing Authority recently approved $6.5 million in new alternative and clean-energy investments. This will leverage nearly $40 million in private economic investment statewide. And Mayor Nutter has developed an initiative – Greenworks Philadelphia – devoted to making Philadelphia the greenest city by 2015.

Infrastructure is the heart of our strength. To create self-powered facilities, such as the recently renovated Lincoln Financial Field, you need people, plants, policies, and programs. Whether making wind turbines, solar panels, or dual-fuel cogenerators, you need the brains and the space to work. Philly has it all. Thanks to our industrial heritage, we have thousands of square feet of laboratories and factories and space to make things. With our huge base of colleges and universities, we have more experts in nanotechnology, coatings, advanced fibers, engineering, mathematics, and physics than almost any region in the country.

Best of all, Philly has passion. You can’t manufacture that good old-fashioned entrepreneurial spirit. Brookings can’t measure it. The same drive that helped this region innovate in everything from electricity to the first computer is alive and well.

Over the next five years, this region has a better chance than most to become a world leader in clean tech. It’s time to drop the underdog mind-set and embrace our ability to win. Clean tech is a game we can’t afford to lose.