By Jeffrey Hess for Valley Public Radio

With work on California’s High-Speed rail about to take off, interest in the trades that the rail will need appears to be increasing. That’s according to groups that run pre-apprenticeship programs that teach people the skills necessary to work on building the train. Talk of the project is driving interest in programs intended to train the men and women that will be needed to build it.
One of those programs is the five week high-speed rail pre-apprenticeship run by Chuck Riojas with the union Building Trades.
He says talk of the rail has thousands of people applying for his course that teaches a wide range of trade skills needed to construct everything the train needs from the power to rail and support structures like train stations.

“Anything that is construction related. From electricians to sheet metal workers to operating engineers, laborers, carpenter, cement masons. They all have a role,” Riojas said.

At their facility in Fresno, an instructor teaches a group of 20 students some basically electrical work.
Over the course of the program these students will get a taste of a wide range of trades to see where their skills lie.
One of those students is Aaron Fillmore, who used to drive a tractor on a farm until the drought killed his job.
He is hoping that learning a trade could provide him more stability.

“That is what brought me to the program. I saw the high-speed rail and I thought ‘well there is a lot of jobs there’ it is a big project and I know it last a long time. I thought this was a way to get my foot in the door and hopefully that works out,” Fillmore said.

After the five weeks, most if not all of the students will become an apprentice in a craft and hone their skills.
Another student, Angela Tyars, a high school basketball coach and warehouse worker, moved to Fresno from Southern California to pursue the apprentice program.

“I am learning a lot. And it is interesting. I feel like I can get out there and do almost anything. I feel like if I pay attention, and do the job, and show up on time, it will be alright,” Tyars said.

This is the third high-speed rail funded class.
Students are not guaranteed a job when they finish.
But student Terryll Woods says he is confident he will have a job.

“You hear things on the news that it is coming and I would like to be a part of history. (A part of history) Yeah. (so you think this is really going to happen?) Yeah, I really do think so, Woods said.

The careers are a big step up for many involved.
Some of the higher paying trades can reach salaries of 80-thosand dollars a year.
And even though the union’s class sizes have tripled, positions in the pre-apprentice program are still highly competitive.
Instructor Chuck Stanton says applicants have to pass a math test and go through a series of interviews before they are allowed in.

“Of the people that apply, probably 10-percent get in. So we are looking for the best and the brightest. If you are somebody that has struggled throughout high school or college. Chances are you are not going to make it into the building trades,” Stanton said.

The program is free, but it is also full time for the five weeks it is in progress limiting the ability of the students to work outside of their training.
But the people in the course say it is a big chance to start a new career that could keep them gainfully employed for years to come.
Read original article here.

Press Release 4/18/15 General Dynamics Nassco
SAN DIEGO – On Saturday, General Dynamics NASSCO launched the world’s first liquefied natural gas (LNG) powered containership at a ceremony at the company’s shipyard in San Diego. The christening and launch ceremony also commemorated NASSCO’s 100th ship launch.
U.S. Representative Duncan D. Hunter was the principal speaker. The ship’s sponsor, Mrs. Sophie Sacco—wife of Michael Sacco, president of the Seafarers International Union of North America, AFL-CIO—christened the ship with a traditional champagne bottle break over the ship’s hull. General Paul J. Selva, Commander of the U.S. Transportation Command, also spoke at the ceremony.
The ship’s name, Isla Bella, was unveiled during the ceremony. The ship was built for TOTE, a leading transportation and logistics company.

“The launch of the Isla Bella signals a very significant milestone for the thousands of men and women at NASSCO. Not only does it commemorate NASSCO’s 100th ship launch, it validates NASSCO’s capability to break new ground in green ship technology and lead in the design, construction and conversion of ships to take advantage of the economic and environmental benefits of LNG,” said Fred Harris, president of General Dynamics NASSCO.

As part of a two-ship contract signed in December 2012 with TOTE, the 764-foot-long Marlin class containerships will be the largest dry cargo ships of any kind in the world powered by LNG. This ground-breaking green ship technology will dramatically decrease emissions while increasing fuel efficiency as compared to conventionally powered ships. The ships will also include a ballast water treatment system, making them the greenest ships of their size anywhere in the world.
Upon delivery in late 2015, the Jones Act-qualified ships will operate between Jacksonville, Florida, and San Juan, Puerto Rico.
As a complement to its government new construction business, which over the past decade has delivered 16 ships to the U.S. Navy, NASSCO maintains an extensive history of commercial shipbuilding. In the past decade, NASSCO delivered eleven commercial ships and currently has ten commercial ships under contract, including the two Marlin Class containerships for TOTE.
For its commercial work, NASSCO partners with South Korean shipbuilding power, DSME, for access to state-of-the-art ship design and shipbuilding technologies.
NASSCO is the only major shipyard on the West Coast of the United States conducting new construction and repair.
Read original article here.

by Mary Kate Francis

In 2014, we avoided 26.4 million cars worth of carbon pollution by generating electricity from wind power.

Additionally, wind power generation reduced power plant water consumption by approximately 68 billion gallons, the equivalent of roughly 215 gallons per person in the U.S.
Please take a moment to share these updates with your federal legislators, and emphasize that you want to see these trends continue. With stable policy, the wind energy industry is positioned to achieve the growth described in the U.S. Department of Energy’s recently released Wind Vision report – double within the next five years to supply 10% of U.S. electricity by 2020, 20% by 2030, and 35% by 2050.
Thank you in advance for your help!  And, if you’re interested in taking a deeper dive into the wind energy numbers, please take a look at the executive summary of the 2014 U.S. Wind Industry Annual Market Report. 

Says Hard Data Backs Its Claims of Full Heavy Tractor Capability as Company Awarded Funding for Demonstrations and Expansion

March 27, 2015 from fleetsandfuels.com

San Diego-based Transportation Power, Inc. is throwing down the gauntlet on heavy duty all-electric terminal tractors, claiming it’s got more data than anyone on range and heavy-load capabilities.

“We believe our battery-electric vehicles are the only proven, fully operational zero emission trucks in the world capable of hauling loads up to the Class 8 truck limit of 80,000 pounds,” TransPower president and CEO Mike Simon said in a release.

TransPower conducted a demonstration of four fully functional battery-electric Class 8 trucks this week, “just hours,” the company says, after the California Energy Commission announced its award of nearly $9 million to TransPower for new electric truck and tractor demonstration projects.
Navistar and Kalmar Chassis

“We are especially proud of the fact that we drove all four of these trucks from the heart of San Diego County 110 miles to the Los Angeles-Long Beach port region,” Simon said. “These four trucks have made more than ten intercity trips of about 80 to 120 miles over the past year.”

In addition to the Navistar International ProStar-chassis vehicles, TransPower has converted five Kalmar tractors to electric operation, “three of which are being used in daily commercial service hauling loads equal or greater than those typically handled by conventional tractors,” says TransPower president and CEO Mike Simon.
Ikea, Dole, SA Recycling: ‘Heavy, Heavy Loads’
“One of these tractors is now the primary use tractor at Ikea’s main California distribution center, where it has accumulated more than 5,000 miles of in-service use,” Simon says.
“Another is in operation at Dole Fresh Fruits,” he told F&F, “and the third is being operated by SA Recycling, which hauls scrap metal.
“All three of these tractors carry heavy, heavy loads.”
Demos This Week at TTSI in Rancho Dominguez
The four trucks demonstrated at Total Transportation Services, Inc. headquarters in south central Los Angeles this week were also partially funded by CEC, TransPower says, noting that TTSI is one of five private companies using its Class 8 electric vehicles in day-to-day service.
The new funding is to support three new TransPower truck and tractor demonstration projects, “expected to begin by this summer and to result in new vehicle deployments by next year:”

• A collaboration with four operators of yard tractor fleets – Ikea, Harris Ranch, Grimmway Farms, and Devine Intermodal – to deploy five battery-electric yard tractors in California’s Central Valley and Sacramento. Five new tractors will be distributed among these fleets, augmenting the five similar tractors built last year for Ikea, Dole, and SA Recycling. TransPower says that its proposal for the tractor demos was the highest ranked of 33 proposals received by the CEC.
• A project to demonstrate two additional electric tractors with Dole at the Port of San Diego, along with electric drayage trucks to be operated at the Port of San Diego by BAE Systems and Terminalift. This project will also involve the upgrade of a large battery-operated “reach stacker” vehicle which TransPower built with funding from Terminalift in 2014. “This proposal was ranked third among the 33 proposals reviewed by the CEC,” TransPower says.
• A project to install TransPower’s battery-electric truck system into a demonstration fleet of three refuse trucks. Two of these trucks will be operated by the County of Sacramento and the third will be operated by a major waste hauling firm to be named later. “This proposal was ranked fourth among the 33 funding requests received by the CEC.”

“These new contracts continue a string of recent TransPower successes in acquiring funding to support its electric vehicle research, manufacturing, and demonstration projects,” the company says. Last week the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District approved funding for a TransPower electric truck with a hydrogen fuel cell to extend its operating range.
TransPower late last month received a separate award from the CEC to fund expansion of its electric vehicle manufacturing facilities. TransPower says it “expects to soon receive another contract award, to expand its development and deployment of electric trucks with natural gas-fueled range extenders.
More than $16.1 Million in New Funding
“The total value of these new contract awards is more than $16.1 million, and they will increase TransPower’s current funded backlog to more than $21 million.”
“Our accomplishments create a strong foundation for deploying the larger fleets of trucks and buses we expect to be funded later this year,” Simon says in the announcement. “California’s 2015 investment plan for air quality improvement projects gives high priority to electric drayage trucks, yard tractors, and school buses – exactly those vehicles TransPower is best qualified to deliver.”
Read original article here.

Written by Brian Merchant, Senior Editor, Motherboard
April 3, 2015, 08:15 AM EST

Years of drought have left California so parched that governor Jerry Brown was finally forced to institute its first-ever mandatory statewide water restrictions. But those restrictions will primarily target urban and residential water use—golf courses, lawns, and water fountains. Agriculture, which consumes ​a far larger share of the state’s water resources, will be left mostly alone. And so will one of California’s least-known water sucks: its fossil-fueled energy supply.
The Golden State gets over half of its power from coal and natural gas plants—both of which are serious water drains. And according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), if California were to replace them with an energy supply that didn’t require water—like wind power—the state could save billion gallons of water a year.

“Replacing all of California’s remaining fossil generation with wind energy would cut water consumption by around 20 billion gallons annually, or roughly 45 days’ worth of the savings provided by the household water use restrictions announced yesterday by Governor Jerry Brown,” Michael Goggin, AWEA’s senior director of research, told me in an email. (Goggin is factoring in the amount of water already saved by the state’s fleet of turbines.)

The Union of Concerned Scientists’ energy-water database shows that gas and coal plants currently suck down nearly 18 billion gallons of water. Wind farms already save the state about 2.5 billion gallons of water a year, by eliminating the need to rely on hydro-hungry gas and coal plants. Phasing out the rest of the fossil fleet would save the state an additional 17.7 billion gallons of water per year—for a total of over 20.2 billion gallons annually.

“Using wind energy directly offsets water use at fossil-fired power plants,” Goggin explained. “Most fossil-fired power plants evaporate large amounts of water as part of their cooling systems. If you’ve ever noticed steam billowing from a power plant, you’re seeing water being consumed.”

Which is to say nothing of the vast amounts of water used to extract natural gas from the earth in hydraulic fracturing processes.

“Using wind energy, which needs no water to operate, allows those power plants to operate less, reducing their water use as well as their fuel use and emissions,” he said.

Some experts say that it’s entirely possible that California could run on a mix of wind, solar (which requires some water to keep the panels clean and cool), and other 100 percent renewable resources. AWEA is a wind industry trade group, so it clearly has a horse in this race. But it’s hard not to argue the fundamentals. Such a large-scale transition from fossil plants to clean power would be expensive

“Greater use of wind energy will play a key role in California’s efforts to both prevent and adapt to climate change,” Goggin said, “by reducing carbon pollution to prevent climate change, but also reducing water usage so the state can better cope with climate change-related droughts.”

Read original article here.

Posted on April 9, 2015 by Metro Magazine

Proterra was awarded a $3 million California Energy Commission grant for the design, development and construction of its new state-of-the-art zero-emission, battery-electric transit bus manufacturing line in California. Proterra’s expansion was prompted by the strong growth in market demand for the new Proterra Catalyst™ vehicle.
The proposed facility, to be located in the San Gabriel Valley, is expected to be operational by the fourth quarter of 2015 and will create more than 70 new local jobs. During the grant term, Proterra plans to manufacture an estimated 424 buses, resulting in a reduction of 900M lbs of CO2 over the lifetime of those vehicles. Proterra was the only bus provider selected for CEC funding and today also announced that existing customer Foothill Transit in L.A. County has placed another order for additional Proterra buses to meet increased demand from its ridership base.

“California continues to be a dynamic center for innovation and business opportunities due in part to advanced transportation manufacturers like Proterra,” said GO-Biz director Kish Rajan. “Furthermore, innovations like Proterra’s zero-emission transit buses support the state’s goal of achieving 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles on California’s roadways by 2025.”

Proterra selected the San Gabriel Valley as an optimal location to serve existing and future transit customers throughout California. The manufacturing facility will benefit economically distressed communities throughout the San Gabriel Valley—providing good living-wage jobs in southern California’s emerging center of high-tech manufacturing. Ultimately, implementing the California Zero-Emission Public Transit Bus Manufacturing Project will help further lower production costs, reduce the upfront cost of zero- emission buses and provide a strong spark to accelerate widespread deployment and adoption. The project will accelerate private investment in California, bringing in $5,411,352 in private investment to match the $3,000,000 Energy Commission investment, for a total project budget of $8,411,352.
Read complete article here.

by Christopher Martin and Jonathan Crawford, Bloomberg Business
California’s power grid could handle taking 100 percent of its supply from renewables such as wind and solar, and meeting the goal for half that amount will be no problem, the state’s chief energy regulator said. Governor Jerry Brown in January set one of the world’s most ambitious targets for cleaning up power generation, saying 50 percent of supply should come from renewables by 2030, a dramatic increase from the current goal of 33 percent by 2020. He didn’t make clear how the goal could be achieved.Michael Picker, president of the California Public Utilities Commission, said the grid already is comfortably managing solar and wind energy that reached as much as 40 percent of the total a few days last year. In the years ahead, authorities can add the flexibility needed to manage power that flows only when the wind blows or the sun shines.

“We could get to 100 percent renewables,” Picker said at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance summit in New York on Tuesday. “Getting to 50 percent is not really a challenge.”

The remark adds to evidence that grid managers can work with the variable flows of power that come from renewables, undercutting the argument from coal producers and some utilities that clean energy will damage energy security.
Germany got about 28 percent of its electricity from renewables last year, making it the biggest economy to rely on wind and solar.

Grid Balancing

Picker said that by placing renewable energy resources where they’re needed most to support the grid and shipping excess supplies to neighboring states, California can absorb more variable power flows than it is now.

“We’re generating cash from selling off excess,” he said. “On at least two occasions last year, for extended periods of the day, we actually met 40 percent of the state’s electrical needs through renewables.”

Sales of excess wind and solar power to Nevada totaled $4 million in the first two months of this year, he said. Utility regulators from New York to California are now considering changes to the traditional utility business model that would develop markets that attract solar and wind to the places on the grid that need it most. Cheaper energy storage will also help support the surge in intermittent resources.

“We actually have the technical problem of too damn much electricity on occasion,” Picker said. “We’ve had to curtail renewables on top of curtailing just about everything else except for the nukes.”

Read original article here.

A Comprehensive Resource to Help  Streamline Solar Power Purchase Agreements and Reduce Solar Costs

from irecusa.org
In an effort to reduce solar soft costs and assist local governments and other public entities seeking to install and finance rooftop solar systems, the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC) has developed a comprehensive toolkit on retail solar power purchase agreements (PPAs).
Under the PPA model, a third party owns a solar energy system located on the property of a host customer, such as a local government, and sells the electricity produced by the facility to the customer under a contract designed to provide long-term electricity cost savings.
For public entities, the PPA model delivers long-term energy cost savings without requiring large up-front capital expenditures. It also allows them to indirectly benefit from tax incentives that cannot be accessed by tax-exempt entities.
IREC’s new PPA toolkit is designed to help overcome the common challenges and costs associated with PPAs by providing a full suite of resources in a highly user-friendly format. With the addition of a free webinar and forthcoming toolkit workshops, IREC will supplement the toolkit with hands-on training to empower municipal entities that seek to utilize solar PPAs. The end goal, in line with the DOE SunShot Initiative goals, is to simplify, streamline and reduce costs for solar.

“The PPA trend has definitely been a little rocky in some instances,” says Justin Barnes, co-author of the toolkit. “Procuring solar under a PPA can be a complicated and time-consuming process. There are a lot things to consider and decisions to make, from how to design an RFP to select the most suitable provider, to establishing the terms of the contractual documents in a manner that allocates rights and risks in a mutually acceptable way. The details are often heavily negotiated, so a PPA deal in one jurisdiction can differ significantly from one in a neighboring locality.”

Prolonged PPA negotiations with significant transaction costs can ultimately deplete the value of the project for all participants, explains Barnes. This can be particularly troublesome for projects that are relatively small or that are financially compelling only if transaction costs can be minimized.  Many early adopters encountered PPA challenges that resulted in delayed or even canceled projects.

“These past experiences provide valuable insights that can help other public entities avoid common pitfalls,” adds co-author Kathleen Kapla, “and can help them navigate the many contractual issues present in these legal arrangements.”

“The toolkit is intended to provide local governments with the information they need to accomplish their solar procurement goals in a manner that suits their unique needs, and reduces the prospects for unpleasant surprises,” says IREC Regulatory Director Sara Baldwin Auck. Towards this end, the Toolkit includes:

• Background information on the PPA model and the associated contractual elements;
• Annotated model PPA and site right agreement documents, supplemented with numerous examples of how different provisions were addressed by individual local jurisdictions, and possible alternative language;
• “Clean” templates that may be customized for local use (for informational purposes, with each user expected to seek independent legal and tax counsel);
• General guidance on procurement design and implementation, also supplemented with numerous local examples;
• Short case studies of individual projects surveyed and links to project documents;
• Summaries of existing resources, such as previously published reports and fact sheets, other model PPAs, and prior webinars.

Free Solar PPA Toolkit Webinar

April 23, 2015, 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm EDT

Register

Kapla is Of Counsel with Keyes, Fox & Wiedman, which represents IREC in regulatory matters. She specializes in real property and related business matters for renewable energy projects. Barnes is a policy research manager for EQ Research, and has worked closely with KF&W on this and other projects. His work focuses on solar and energy storage policy issues, including net metering, third-party ownership and rate design.
The Solar Power Purchase Agreement Toolkit is a project of IREC, as part of the Solar Outreach Partnership, in coordination with ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability USA and with support from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) SunShot Initiative. The Solar Outreach Partnership (SolarOPs) is designed to help accelerate solar energy adoption on the local level by providing timely and actionable information to local governments. SolarOPs achieves its goals through a mix of educational workshops, peer-to-peer sharing opportunities, research-based reports, and online resources.
Download the Toolkit

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

2:00 – 3:00 pm EDT

Register Here
Key to the solar industry’s continued growth is the next generation of skilled professionals to support its technologies. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently launched a pilot solar installation training program to provide military veterans transitioning out of active duty with the skills needed to become the leaders of the nation’s clean energy economy. The Solar Instructor Training Network (SITN) is playing an active advisory role in the development of the pilot project. According to the White House, the SITN aims to train 50,000 new solar installers in total by 2020, some of who will be veterans. Since 1944, millions of veterans have used GI Bill education benefits to attend colleges, universities and other kinds of training programs.
In this webinar, the Department of Veterans Affairs will present how institutions and programs can secure VA approval so that veterans can use the GI Bill education benefits for solar workforce skills training.
The webinar is free, but you must register to attend. This webinar will be recorded and archived on the IREC website.

PRESENTER

Mark A Brenton

Management & Program Analyst, Department of Veterans Affairs, Education Service
Mark has been with the Department of Veterans Affairs for eight years. He is currently a Management & Program Analyst on Central Office’s Contract Management Team. Previously, Mark was the Education Liaison Representative (ELR) for Virginia before becoming the Supervisory ELR for the Buffalo Regional Processing Office. Mark recently retired from the USAF Reserve after 21 years of service both Active Duty and the Reserve Component. Mark is a graduate of the University of Dayton. He currently resides in Virginia with his family.

Five Reasons Why Zero Energy Buildings are the Real Deal

March 31, 2015 By Heather Flint Chatto for newbuildings.org

When New Buildings Institute published the first-ever list of verified zero energy buildings in 2012, an abstract concept turned real. These were documented examples of high-efficiency buildings coupled with onsite renewables that could produce enough energy to power themselves over the course of a year.
By NBI’s most recent count, the list of verified buildings has nearly doubled in just three years (http://newbuildings.org/sites/default/files/2015ZNEbuildingsList.pdf). Even more promising is the increase in emerging projects with zero energy intentions — from 39 in 2012 to 152 in 2015. While more than one-third of the verified projects hail from California, which arguably has the most aggressive zero energy policies in the country, verified or emerging buildings are currently located in 39 states across all eight climate zones.
…But despite the challenges, zero energy is the real deal. Here are five reasons why.
1) Designers and builders are proving feasibility with larger buildings and expanded types — including existing buildings. With a growing set of successful projects to serve as models, design and construction teams are quickly figuring out how to achieve zero energy performance while keeping costs in line with other green building projects. All agree that integrated design is fundamental to achieving the necessary energy performance and managing project costs. This process allows all stakeholders—owner, architect, engineer, building manager, etc. — to work together from the start ensuring that building form and function meet the needs of occupants as well as energy performance goals.
Analysis on verified buildings shows 16 different types including schools and college buildings, offices, retail, libraries, labs and healthcare facilities (http://newbuildings.org/sites/default/files/2014_Getting_to_Zero_Update.pdf). In addition, there is growth in the number of larger projects—more than 25% over 50,000 square feet and half of those over 100,000 square feet.
Most significant is the growth in existing building projects with about one-quarter of the verified buildings representing deep energy renovations. With this shift, zero energy performance has moved from a new-construction-only option to something that can be applied to the billions of square feet of existing building stock across the United States.

 
2) The cost of solar power is dropping. The lion’s share of zero energy verified properties are using photovoltaic (PV) systems, also known as solar power, to generate onsite energy. However, expensive PVs have deterred some exemplary energy projects from taking the final step of adding renewables to achieve zero energy status. That cost equation is changing now as prices for rooftop PV systems have fallen in recent years–29 percent from 2010 to 2013, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists (www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/our-energy-choices/renewable-energy/solar-power-technologies-and-policies.html#.VRRUEPnF8b0).
Owners and communities are also starting to think creatively about how to supply buildings with the requisite renewable energy. Communities and campuses are adopting commitments to make districts or groups of buildings zero energy with centralized generation within a campus or neighborhood. The U.S. Army and several leading universities have major commitments to get their portfolios to zero energy. These increases in scale will only help reduce the cost of renewables further.
Read the rest of the reasons why and the complete article here.