2010.1.21 – First Light Solar Powers Green Cycling Team at Mars Hill College

Posted January 26, 2010 By admin and has no comments yet.

ASHEVILLE – Through a charitable donation of $3500, First Light Solar (a division of FLS Energy), an Asheville-based solar energy company, becomes key sponsor of Mars Hill College Cycling and helps create a Green Cycling Team in the process.

According to Mars Hill College Cycling Coach Hugh Moran, the donation could not have come at a more opportune time.  In an economy being compared to the Great Depression and team travel expenses looming large, Mars Hill College Cycling was in desperate need of sponsorship funding and a new way to promote its cause.

“Calling and asking companies for money to support our cycling team was not an easy job,” says Moran.  “After getting rejected so many times due to the economy, I decided I needed a different strategy.”  Then came the donation from First Light Solar. 

“The donation from First Light Solar, a local company that shares our college’s commitment to environmental stewardship, was the spark that led me down the path to creating a Green Cycling Team,” says Moran.  “Once I started calling potential sponsors and explaining the connection between cycling – the most economical and sustainable form of transportation – and their company, and that we could be a promotional vehicle for their cause, the money came a lot easier!” says Moran.

To date, the First Light Solar donation is the largest charitable contribution that Mars Hill College Cycling has received.  “We would not be where we are today or able to support our riders if First Light Solar had not given us such a generous sponsorship and sparked the idea of a Green Team that has such obvious appeal to other eco-friendly companies,” says Moran.

“This sponsorship was a natural fit for us,” explains Grant Gosch, director of First Light Solar.  “We have 10 avid cyclists on staff, and when you add in the fact that FLS, the partner company of First Light Solar, is completing one of the top 5 solar thermal installation projects in North Carolina at Mars Hill College, you have a match made in environmental heaven,” says Gosch.

With continued support from First Light Solar and other eco-friendly companies, the Green Team at Mars Hill College can continue to compete at national competitions across the country while championing sustainability and environmental awareness.

For more on First Light Solar visit http://www.firstlightsolar.com or contact Grant Gosch at 828-545-7144.  First Light Solar, located in Asheville, N.C., is an award winning solar energy design and installation company providing residential and light commercial clients with the latest technology in photovoltaic (PV) and Solar Thermal (hot water) energy systems.  For more on Mars Hill College Cycling contact Hugh Moran at 828-275-3950 or visit http://marshillcycling.com/green-team/.

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2010.1.12 – Are WNC green jobs in the pipeline?

Posted January 13, 2010 By admin and has no comments yet.

excerpt from Asheville Citizen-Times

Stimulus funds could give boost to much-touted area of local economy

ASHEVILLE — As the national and regional economies struggle through the worst downturn since the Great Depression, Western North Carolina hopes to see green jobs sprouting up in the coming year.

“There is a lot of promise, but the green jobs seem to be slow to take root,” said Carl Donovan of Conservation Pros, an Asheville-based company specializing in making homes more energy efficient. “The business is certainly picking up, but I don’t see the jobs yet.”

That could change soon. The federal stimulus package could provide $4.2 million to weatherize homes in four local counties over the next two years.  Another $1 million in stimulus has been awarded to Asheville and Buncombe County for weatherization and other energy efficiency efforts, but that money has yet to be spent as federal guidelines were worked out, said Maggie Ullman, the city’s energy coordinator.  In addition to weatherization, the region also hopes to build on strengths in solar energy and biofuels. The result could be the creation of more jobs in a much-touted but so far relatively small sector of the local economy.

A place to start

Western North Carolina has seen brutal declines in the number of manufacturing jobs since the 1990s, and that drop has continued during the current recession. The number of manufacturing jobs in the Asheville metropolitan statistical area — Buncombe, Haywood, Henderson and Madison counties — dropped from 20,600 in January 2008 to 18,000 in October, according to the N.C. Employment Security Commission.

And that’s just part of the region’s struggling employment situation.  In November, the unemployment rate for the Asheville MSA was 8.6 percent, which meant that nearly 18,000 people were actively looking for jobs.  “I don’t know that we can say that green is the magic solution to bring back those jobs,” said Matt Raker, the new senior director of AdvantageGreen, an initiative to promote green industry from economic development group AdvantageWest. “But we do have a lot of opportunity to bring solar panel manufacturing and other components here.”

AdvantageWest sees potential in the Asheville area not only in local solar companies, but also in biofuel and weatherization. There’s also a potential workforce developing through Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College, which offers courses in green jobs.

The first step, though, is deciding which jobs count as green.  “A green job doesn’t mean we go out and hug trees every day,” Donovan said. As for the weatherization work his company does, Donovan said, “It’s hard work. It’s filthy stripping out old insulation from houses. It’s like any other construction job.”

Depending on which study you pay attention to, North Carolina already has somewhere between 6,500 and 63,000 green jobs, Raker said.   The North Carolina Employment Security Commission has gotten $1 million in grants to inventory the number of green jobs statewide. Similar efforts are under way locally through Land of Sky Regional Council, another regional economic development group.

Success to date

WNC can point to progress in the past year. FLS Energy, for example, has grown from three employees to 45, providing solar hot water systems for area businesses and hotels.  FLS is also working on a solar farm on the old Canton landfill, which will generate enough electricity for about 1,100 homes….

The year ahead

The $4.2 million in stimulus money will be used to weatherize homes in Buncombe, Madison, Transylvania and Henderson counties.

Community Action Opportunities, the local nonprofit that administers federal weatherization funds, will coordinate efforts to update homes with insulation, more efficient furnaces and other upgrades.  The group generally takes applications from elderly and disabled residents and families who make up to 150 percent of the federal poverty level, or about $16,000 a year for an individual or $33,000 for a family of four.

In addition, the city of Asheville has received $804,700 from an Energy Efficiency Conservation block grant, to be spent in the next year, Ullman said. Buncombe County received about $124,000 in stimulus money for energy efficiency.  Under federal guidelines, that money could generate 15 or so new jobs. Local officials and people in the industry hope that’s just the start.

In the coming year, Raker sees the potential for a few hundred green jobs in weatherization, solar and wind power and other energy efficiency sectors across North Carolina’s 23 western counties.  Weatherization efforts financed with federal stimulus funds are still expected to pump new energy into the economy in 2010 while saving energy costs for a number of residents.

Community Action Opportunities has already completed 50 homes this year, with 83 in progress and 250 more on the list, said Ben Watts, the nonprofit’s director of economic development.  By the end of next year, 459 homes could be weatherized in Buncombe, Madison, Henderson and Transylvania counties, up from the 100 or so the nonprofit typically renovates in most years, Watts said.  “We’ve added about 12 jobs and there are more to come,” Watts said. “We’re also contracting with more electricians and plumbers, and buying Energy-Star appliances at the local Home Depot, Lowe’s and Sears — so all that money trickles into the economy.”

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2010.1.11 – Large rooftop solar power array begins operation on Cary shopping center

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from dBusinessNews.com

Project is part of Progress Energy’s SunSense Commercial Solar PV Program

RALEIGH – Customers shopping at the Mayfair Plaza Shopping Center in Cary, N.C., will now be walking underneath one of the state’s largest rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) arrays.  FLS Energy, Inc. built the new 250-kilowatt (kW) solar PV array for the center’s owner, who is selling the entire output to Progress Energy for use by its customers. The shopping center is located at the intersection of Kildaire Farm and Maynard roads in Cary, and the PV array is installed on the rooftop of the Food Lion grocery store.

This solar PV project is made possible by Progress Energy Carolinas’ SunSense commercial solar PV program, designed to encourage the development of renewable energy by offering a premium price for solar power developed on commercial rooftops. In 2009, Progress Energy accepted proposals for a total of more than 2,000 kW under this program.

“We created the SunSense commercial solar PV program because we want to encourage a wide range of businesses to develop renewable energy resources across our communities,” said Lloyd Yates, president and chief executive officer of Progress Energy Carolinas. “Rooftop solar power will play an important role in a balanced approach to meeting the growing energy demands of our customers.”

The Cary solar PV array, which began operation on Dec. 22, 2009, is expected to generate approximately 325,000 kilowatt-hours this year. This is roughly the equivalent of the annual energy demand of 22 typical homes. The PV array will reduce annual carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 230 tons, which is equivalent to drivers conserving 26,000 gallons of gasoline.

“We are thrilled to be associated with FLS Energy, Inc. and Progress Energy on the development and use of the rooftop solar PV array at Mayfair Plaza Shopping Center and see this as a step forward in the expanded use of renewable energy to meet the energy needs of the people of North Carolina,” said North Carolina developer Frank Floyd Jr., who owns the Mayfair Plaza Shopping Center.

FLS Energy, a solar energy generation company headquartered in North Carolina, began installation of the 1,035 high-efficiency Suniva modules early in November. The company is also working with Progress Energy to build a 550-kW solar PV array in western North Carolina. For more information on the Cary solar PV project, or other FLS Energy projects, please visit www.flsenergy.com.

“Frank Floyd is to be commended,” said Michael Shore, president of FLS Energy.  “He is ushering in the movement to install solar energy systems on the endless miles of flat rooftop spaces found on retail centers throughout the Carolinas.”

About Progress Energy
Progress Energy (NYSE: PGN), headquartered in Raleigh, N.C., is a Fortune 500 energy company with more than 22,000 megawatts of generation capacity and $9 billion in annual revenues. Progress Energy includes two major electric utilities that serve approximately 3.1 million customers in the Carolinas and Florida. The company has earned the Edison Electric Institute’s Edison Award, the industry’s highest honor, in recognition of its operational excellence, and was the first utility to receive the prestigious J.D. Power and Associates Founder’s Award for customer service. The company is pursuing a balanced strategy for a secure energy future, which includes aggressive energy-efficiency programs, investments in renewable energy technologies and a state-of-the-art electricity system.  Progress Energy celebrated a century of service in 2008. Visit the company’s Web site at www.progress-energy.com.

About FLS Energy
FLS Energy (www.flsenergy.com) is a solar energy generation company based North Carolina. FLS Energy engineers, installs and finances solar energy projects. FLS Energy is among the most experienced and fastest growing solar companies in the Southeast, tripling in size within the last year.

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2010.1.03 – Utilities start soaking up sun

Posted January 11, 2010 By admin and has no comments yet.

from: CharlotteObserver.com

By Bruce Henderson
bhenderson@charlotteobserver.com

For the first time, Duke Energy will be making a small part of its electricity this year from the sun, using its solar rooftops program

Thousands of panels are soaking up the winter sunshine as Duke Energy launches its solar rooftops program under North Carolina’s new green energy law.  For the first time, in a small but significant step, Duke and Raleigh-based Progress Energy will have to make a smidgen of their electricity this year from the sun.  Energy from other renewable fuels, such as wind, wood wastes and chicken manure, will join the mix in two years. Renewables have to account for 12.5 percent of utility retail sales by 2021.

Renewable-energy mandates like North Carolina’s, the first in the Southeast and one of 29 nationwide, won’t save consumers money. Duke will add 16 cents a month to residential customers’ bills to cover its costs.  Advocates say their value is in prodding utilities and smaller operators to invest in power that pollutes less than the coal that fuels much of the state, leaves no radioactive waste and taps free energy.

Large-scale solar is making its debut across the Piedmont.  Duke’s panels are going up atop a Childress Klein Properties industrial building in Charlotte, National Gypsum’s wallboard plant in Mount Holly, a Food Lion distribution center in Salisbury and an industrial building in Greensboro. All will be online by April.

Duke will announce more commercial, industrial and residential rooftop sites as the year unfolds. The $50 million program will make 8 megawatts of solar power, enough to supply about 1,300 homes.

Construction is also under way on one of the nation’s biggest solar farms, a land-based installation in Davidson County, 50 miles northeast of Charlotte.  Its owner, Maryland-based SunEdison, will sell Duke the 16-megawatt output. The first phase went online Christmas week. SunEdison is also under contract with Progress Energy for a smaller solar farm in Wilmington.

Large-scale solar power hasn’t previously gotten traction in the Carolinas, despite abundant sunshine, because it’s expensive to produce and operates only about 20 percent of the time.  Solar produced less than 1 percent of the nation’s electricity this year and has grown little since the 1990s, the Energy Information Administration says. Wind power, by contrast, produced about 2 percent of U.S. energy but has nearly doubled since 2007.

Duke probably would not be heavily investing in N.C. solar without the green energy mandate, said renewable energy chief Owen Smith. But the company is warming to the technology.  “Solar is probably the piece of the renewables requirements that we feel like we have the best handle on,” Smith said. “We’ve received (more than 65) solar proposals from various developers, and costs over the last 12 months have declined.”

Companies that generate solar power also are growing innovative, he added, in how they site projects and take advantages of tax credits and stimulus money.

Duke can reap federal tax credits for 30 percent of its investment. North Carolina awards tax credits worth 35 percent of the investment and excuses property taxes on 80 percent of the property’s value.

Steve Kalland, director of the N.C. Solar Center, said the marketing clout and public profile of the nation’s third-largest utility will give solar power new credibility.  “There’s also the concept that a rising tide lifts all ships,” he said of the effect on smaller solar companies.

Duke expects to have no problem hitting this year’s solar-power target of about 9 megawatts.   In addition to its rooftops program and SunEdison agreement, Duke will buy credits – proxies for solar power – from two Asheville-area firms, FLS Energy and Vanir Energy. It also plans to buy solar credits out of the state.

Power tools whirred last week as workers labored under a cold, gray sky to install 2,314 solar panels on a Childress Klein Properties building on Reames Road.   As it did with the three other sites announced so far, Duke leases the rooftop and owns the solar array. Its 532 kilowatts won’t power the building, instead connecting directly to the electrical grid.   Childress Klein, a real estate company, hasn’t invested directly in solar power because it would take years to recoup the money. But the firm proposed three buildings for Duke’s rooftops program to help avoid the need to build more power plants.  “We just decided it would be a good way to get our toe in the water,” said Chris Daly, a partner in the company’s industrial division.

The sites were picked because of their ready access to the grid and potential for making solar power. Apart from modest leasing fees, the companies who agreed to host the solar arrays say they will benefit from solar power’s green aura.

Food Lion, which prides itself on energy efficiency, volunteered as a low-cost way to explore energy alternatives. Among them is whether the supermarket chain could expand use of solar power in its 1,300 stores.

National Gypsum’s 400,000-square-foot plant makes recycled-content wallboard from gypsum, a byproduct of pollution controls at Duke’s power plants. The solar panels on the roof, said spokeswoman Nancy Spurlock, “just add to the fact that it is a green process.”

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2010.1.10 – Jobs: A seismic shift creates a difficult new playing field

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Asheville Citizen-Times editorial.

The past decade saw huge swings in where we work.  In the Asheville metropolitan area from 2000 to 2009, a third of manufacturing jobs vanished, dropping from 27,300 workers to 18,100.  On the flip side, employment in private educational and health services rose from 21,300 to 30,700.  While the kinds of jobs changed, so did the kind of employer.

The age of the large employer is virtually gone; the Mission Health System, Ingles and Buncombe County Public Schools Education Services are the sole players left standing with 3,000-plus workers.  In Buncombe County, nearly 11,000 businesses employ about 150,000 workers. Small business is more vital than ever.

There’s a tremendous opportunity for Asheville to become a focus in the green jobs field, with success stories like the rise of FLS Energy, an Asheville-based solar firm that’s grown from three employees in 2006 to 45 today and may double that figure in the next year.  One analysis concludes the current climate and energy push could create 65,000 jobs in the state in the next decade, and with RENCI, NOAA and the National Climatic Data Center located in Asheville, climate science and attendant jobs are a natural fit here.

The challenge at hand is replacing stable, good-paying manufacturing jobs like the 200-plus recently lost at Volvo with something other than low-paying service or tourism jobs.  Let’s not mince words regarding what’s at stake here: If we don’t have jobs paying a wage that can support a family, the character of WNC will be lost.  Our communities — American society as we have known it — can’t function as a two-tiered system consisting essentially of servants and those being served.

We need our leaders to step it up on this front; we’ll end this with a query posed by blogger and former Citizen-Times local columnist Tom Sullivan, a professional engineer who usually lands work out of town, regarding the closing of Volvo: “Why do the people charged with attracting jobs still have theirs?”

It’s a hard question.  The times call for asking them.

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2009.12.29 – Review of the Top 10 Stories of 2009; #7: Going Green

Posted January 5, 2010 By admin and has no comments yet.

excerpt from: The Mountaineer, Written by Kim Gardner

For Haywood County, 2009 was a green year.

The year started with the county commissioners approving the county’s first sustainability plan. The plan, available online at the county’s Web site, outlines ways Haywood County can be a sustainable community. ….

In Canton, the county’s first solar farm was constructed. FLS Energy, based in [Asheville], began constructing its 3-acre solar field in Canton in September. It is located at an old landfill no longer in use by Evergreen Packaging.

Constructed in phases, the field will ultimately produce 550 kilowatts to sell to Progress Energy, said Michael Shore, president of FLS Energy.

“The project has been a great success,” Shore said in mid-December. “It is being developed in six phases. Phases 1 to 3 are already delivering electricity to the grid. Phase 4 and 5 should be online before the end of the year.”

The $5 million project does not just provide clean energy. It has created jobs and infused money into local economies, Shore said in September. The steel is made in Western North Carolina, and the panels are made in the Southeast United States.

“We are very committed to buying locally and at least in the U.S.,” Shore said in September.

The project has created 45 jobs in the area, and Shore said the company is still hiring. ….

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