NJCEP November 2006 Greater Than 10kW CORE QUEUE Analysis

SunEdison’s business model dominates rebate backlog at PowerLight’s expense

Although it has been over two months since I reported about the NJCEP November 2006 CORE Queue Updates, I have now completed an analysis of New Jersey's Clean Energy Program™ CORE Queue for installations greater than 10kW (kiloWatt) in size.

The CORE Queue > 10kw Nov 22, 2006, has 285 rebate applications up from 199 in the September 15, 2006, release. While 88 new applications were added to the Queue, five (5) mystery applications were inserted: GT10PVT-0215, GT10PVT-0250, GT10PVT-0313, GT10PVT-0326A, and GT10PVT-0329A, while six (6) applications were deleted without explanation: GT10PVT-0074, GT10PVT-0081, GT10PVT-0098, GT10PVT-0161, GT10PVT-0236, GT10PVT-0236A, and GT10PVT-0246.

Applications GT10PVT-0368 and GT10PVT-0369 appear to have whopper class errors in the System Size column; they must be 18.928kW and 26.000kW instead of 18928kW (18.928MW) and 26000kW (26.000MW) respectively!

Five (5) rebate applications, GT10PVT-0251, GT10PVT-0252, GT10PVT-0273, GT10PVT-0274, and GT10PVT-0275, from MAK Technologies have been claimed by The Solar Center since their merger.

The 285 rebate applications break down as follows: 2 Complete, 6 Check Requests, 65 Approved, 174 under CEP Review, 28 Denied, and 9 Cancelled.

NJ Solar Power and Sun Farm Ventures completed small installations of 10.14kW and 12.852kW. Sun Farm Ventures received Check Requests for six (6) installations of 98.6 kWs of system capacity and $467,256 in rebates.

Per confirmation from SunEdison LLC’s PR agency, Media First Public Relations, I have combined rebate applications from New Vision Technologies and NVT Licenses, LLC, both SunEdison subsidiaries, and listed them as SunEdison.

On the approved list, the top five (5) companies were as follows:

Dome-Tech Solar, LLC 2102kW $6,885,000

PowerLight Corporation 1410kW $4,677,768

SunEdison 1241kW $4,668,048

NJ Solar Power 1155kW $4,088,474

WorldWater Corp. 1161kW $4,033,633

Dome-Tech takes the lead in approved projects. On January 10, 2007, Ted Turner partnered with Dome-Tech to create DT Solar as announced in Ted Turner Launches New Clean Energy Business Venture.

In my last major analysis, NJCEP Greater than 10 kWp Solar Rebate Application Queue for Private Sector Installations - Market Analysis, PowerLight led this category.

On the CEP Review list, SunEdison establishes itself as the breakaway New Jersey market leader in large photovoltaic installations project backlog. Here are the top five (5) companies with applications under CEP Review:

SunEdison 15718kW $45,029,694

PPL Energy Services 2800kW $8,872,500

PowerLight Corporation 2571.7kW $7,731,332

American Energy Technology 2078kW $6,559,136

NJ Solar Power, LLC 1594.3kW $5,344,349

PowerLight’s rebate backlog has halved since May 2006 while SunEdison has racked over five times the rebate backlog. The SunEdison approach is to deliver solar electricity as a service, not a product by maximizing business Investment Tax Credits, accelerated depreciation, tax write offs, and financial instruments. The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS) is a lead investor and advisor to SunEdison. I suspect PowerLight’s market position in New Jersey has been deteriorating since before their acquisition by SunPower Corporation (NASDAQ:SPWR). See Strange deal under the Sun for a reasonable analysis of the SunPower acquisition of PowerLight that goes beyond the mindless cheerleaders that applaud any development in the renewable energy space.

In an interesting twist to the rebate queue, the companies successful at landing business have the most denied rebate applications. Here are the top four (4) companies with Denied rebate applications:

New Vision Technologies (SunEdison) 2337.9kW $7,675,112

PowerLight Corporation 2097.9kW $6,930,912

altPower 699kW $2,291,416

WorldWater Corp. 501kW $1,657,765

Last but not least, Northern Power Systems leads the dubious Cancelled rebate application category with 250kW and $856,382 in rebates.

And Sunburn Solar’s website has been down since I first mentioned them here. I know if my blog were offline, it would drive me nuts until it was corrected.