Tesla has not always had an easy time breaking new ground in the electric roadster market. There have been plenty of hiccups along the way, and it doesn’t help that their first production vehicle costs well north of $100,000. That is, unless you live in Colorado.

The state best known for its snowy peak and undefeated football team (boooo Broncos) also offers a substantial tax break on all hybrid and electric vehicles. For the Tesla Roadster, that amounts to an amazing $42,000 off of the $109,000 car.

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Global Solar Center just finished a comprehensive, 50-state survey of solar incentives and adoption. Who leads the nation? It is surprising. As they say, it is the states who were “solar laggards” that are now “solar leaders”. But incentives aren’t the only issue.

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If you live in Colorado and own a Prius, here’s a New Year’s Day gift for you: $6,000 off a plug-in hybrid conversion.

Earlier this year, Colorado passed House Bill 1331, “Incentives for Efficient Motor Vehicles,” which creates new tax credits of up to $6,000 for the purchase of, or conversion to, a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle.

Background: plug-in hybrid and electric car retrofits.

The new credit will be a substantial discount off the average price of a plug-in conversion, which generally run around $10-14,000. On top of the Federal Tax Credit of 10% (up to $4,000), plug-in retrofits could start to make a lot of sense for some car owners.

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Magnum D’Or Resources Inc., a rubber recycling company, now owns one of the world’s largest tire landfills in Hudson, Colorado. But they’re not going to just leave it there. Old tires are bad because they breed mosquitoes, and a tire fire will burn for months.

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Recognized as one of the US’s 100 best gold courses (Golf Digest), the ‘Sanctuary’ will once again host the 5th annual Water For People Golf Classic on August 19, 2009. Situated in Sedalia, Colorado, and adjacent to over 12, 000 acres of protected open space, the Sanctuary was carefully designed and “placed” within one of the most fragile and beautiful ecosystems in the State, if not the entire country.

The  private course offers stunning 180 degree vistas of Pike’s Peak (southward) and Long’s Peak (northward) and is home to some of the tallest pines in the State. To preserve its core beauty and “balance with Nature”, the Sanctuary permits only 9,000 rounds of golf annually, and the majority of these are for charity fund-raising tournaments.

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Until this year, there were three Western states where it was illegal to have a rain barrel in your back yard: Washington, Utah, and Colorado. A change to local laws means we can scratch the latter off the list!

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The first car I fell in love with was a ‘69 Mustang I saw at a car show almost too long ago to remember. It was red, it was clean, and it made the most delicious, delirious, devious sound when the owner cranked the 289 motor over. As much as I wanted to own a Mustang after that, I live in an area that is saturated with the classic pony car, so I went with its more obscure cousin, the Mercury Cougar. But with gas prices on the rise once again, not everybody can afford (or wants) to feed a gas guzzling V8 just to cruise down their local strip and meet up with their buddies. So then, is it heresy to take an American symbol of power and excess, remove the horsepower heart, and replace it with an electric motor? I don’t think so, and neither do the guys and gals at Duke’s Garage, who took a ‘65 droptop ’stang and put not one, but two electric motors in this ultra-classic.

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I came across an equally inane law this past week - the ban on collection of rainwater in the state of Colorado. This law has historical ties, as Colorado long ago developed a system whereby a group of individuals or corporations referred to as ‘downstream water-owners’ had rights to a certain amount of flow from a reservoir, stream, or aquifer. The harvesting of rain by non water-owner Colorado residents is prohibited because it is considered water theft, even when the water is falling on their own property. Basically a rain barrel is depriving a downstream water-owner of the full flow to which they are legally entitled. Kevin Lusk, water supply engineer of Colorado Springs Utilities, explains:

All the water was spoken for here in the Arkansas Basin 100 years ago or more. If the water falls as rain, that’s water that was going to get to the stream system, and somebody already has dibs on it, and if somebody intercepts that, its the same as stealing.

Thankfully this law, which carries with it a $500 fine for an installed residential rain barrel, is rarely enforced. But even if the authorities are looking in the other direction, there would still be a large number of people that are hesitant to install rain barrels for fear of being subject to a fine.

Are rain barrels really that threatening to the delicate water balance of the water cycle in this arid state? A key point is that rain barrels are not a permanent removal of water from the system. Rain barrel owners are not collecting rain water and transporting it out of the watershed for their own personal gain. Barrels are temporary reservoirs where rain water is held before it is used for watering flower beds, gardens, or lawns, after which it will inevitably return to the ground water system.

And what is the alternative to rain barrel use? Colorado residents that do not have a rain barrel will be using water from the municipal water system for landscape maintenance (unless they are on a well). Treated potable water is not necessary for watering lawns and gardens - rain barrels would help to take pressure off of municipal water supplies in a state that suffers from chronic water shortages and increasing demands.

Two new recent pieces of legislation indicate that Colorado may be starting to embrace the rain barrel concept. The laws are restricted to well owners and a number of new residential developments in the state, but they are going to be used to assess the viability of larger-scale rain barrel allowances in the future.

Image: _ES at flickr under a CC License

Stephen Boles is co-founder of Kuzuka, a marketplace website that brings a new level of convenience and confidence to carbon offset customers and provide consulting services to organizations that want to assess and reduce their carbon footprint.

“I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth.”

You might recognize the opening line of “Substitute” by The Who. There’s no substitute for having money when it comes to pushing wind and solar development in the United States.

The concept of replacing fossil fuels with “free” alternative energy from the breeze and sun is great, but without money, it’s just a dream.

Here comes the silver spoon, a trust fund called EarthEra Renewable Energy Trust. It’s like having a rich dad.

The fund, run by NextEra Energy Resources, the largest wind and solar energy producer in the U.S., invests proceeds from renewable energy purchases by businesses and consumers into the construction of new wind and solar projects in the U.S.

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Editor’s Note: The is a guest contribution by Angiolo Laviziano, President and CEO of REC Solar Inc. This is the third post in a series from the CEO’s of major solar companies. The first post was by the SolarCity CEO, Lyndon Rive, and the second was by groSolar CEO Jeff Wolfe. You can follow the complete series here.

Two phrases that are often repeated in the solar industry are “Grid Parity” and “Cost Roadmap”. Grid parity is generally considered to be a key goal of the solar industry. Grid parity will be achieved in the U.S. when customers are motivated to buy solar because the investment has a sufficient return WITHOUT any subsidies from the federal or state government.  At present, most people consider PV to be a financially acceptable investment only if federal, state and rebate incentives are applied.

Currently, the rebates and tax credits offered by the government improve the financial return of a solar project together with other factors, such as the solar electric system cost (lower is better for the return), sun exposure on site (higher is better) and the cost of electricity that the solar system is substituting (higher is better).

The cost of electricity is of particular importance: solar substitutes for electricity demand on the customer’s side of the meter, where it competes with the retail price of electricity. This is in contrast to wind power, which is generated on the utility side of the meter, and therefore competes with the much lower wholesale rate of electricity.

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A rain barrel or two may seem like the perfect solution for watering the garden without waste and without adding to your water bill. Before you build your rainwater harvesting system, though, you might want to make sure that it’s legal to do so. There are three states that say the water that falls from the sky belongs to them, not to just anyone.

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A Colorado family is living in fear that their house could go up in flames at any moment. Amee Ellsworth of Hudson can turn on a faucet in her kitchen or bathroom, light a match and watch as flames shoot out because natural gas from nearby wells have seeped into her groundwater supply.

Officials from the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission say the gas is likely leaking from one of the nearby eight wells, but they are not sure which well yet, nor are they even sure which of the two companies—Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and Noble Energy Inc.—operating in the area own it

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Coyote attacks are on the rise in the Denver area this winter.  Unfortunately, the simple solution that people have come up with is to shoot coyotes.

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Shell Oil’s plan to acquire a junior water right for an 8% stake of Colorado’s Yampa River average April-to-June flow for oil shale development has been opposed by some twenty-five parties, all submitting letters of opposition to the District 6 Colorado Water Court in Steamboat Springs.

Among those opposing the plan were a bevy of federal, state, and local governmental agencies, a coal company, and several environmental organizations.

“Colorado’s future is the issue here,” said Roger Singer, the Sierra Club’s western regional representative, in a statement. “Do we commit this dwindling resource to energy development?”

The Yampa River is the only river left in Colorado with unappropriated water.

Shell’s plan would divert up to 375 feet per second in spring runoff months and pump the water into a new 1,000 acre, 15 billion gallon reservoir. But the viability of oil shale development in the west depends on water and energy - energy that would most likely be provided by new coal-fired generation

Shell’s application and the opposition letters will be reviewed by the water court, a process that could take up to a year and a half, considering the high number of dissenters.

Image: CC Licensed by s_medgah at flickr

Since retail electricity prices are expected to increase, these “grid-parity” prices will be higher in 2013. In order to achieve a 7 year payback time in 2013 [assuming an electricity rate escalator of 6% per year] the solar system price in 2013 needs to be around $4/Watt DC in California, $2.25/Watt DC in Colorado and $7.85/Watt DC (!) in Hawaii. For a 4.5 kW residential system where an 8-year payback is considered satisfactory, the non-incentive grid parity price in 2013 will be $5.30/Watt DC in California and $1.95/Watt DC in Colorado.

The point when grid parity can be reached depends largely on the electricity rates increase and the speed of cost reduction from both the manufacturers in the upstream solar market and the system integrators in the downstream segment.

In the past four years we have seen a significant module price increase due to the shortages of silicon supply. This trend will shift in the next few years where the increase of module supply will drive down the cost of solar electric systems.

The above data points show that grid parity will be first achieved in Southern California and Hawaii.

Even with the high electricity rates in both regions, the end-customer price in California still need to decline by 44% between today and 2013.

Most industry players believe that the cost reduction potential in the upstream solar market is larger given the fact that the solar industry saw module prices of $2.80/Watt DC in 2003 - which is significantly below today’s average price of XX.

If the silicon, wafer, cell and module manufacturers contribute to 60% of the cost reduction and the system integrators and BOS-manufacturers contribute to 40% of the cost reduction, the module price in 2013 for California would have to be $1.95/Watt DC and the system integration price (including all BOS components) $2.06/Watt in order to achieve the 7 year payback return without government incentives. The end customer price needs to be $4.01/Watt DC.

The above paragraph explains the price point for modules and installation price. On the cost side, the manufacturers need to reduce their cost to $1.51/watt DC and the system integration and BOS cost need to be at $1.42/Watt DC. These costs assume an average sales tax of 3% (an average aiming to account for the different sales tax rules for PV) and a gross profit margin expectation of 25% in the upstream segment and 18% in the downstream PV industry.

Reaching these objectives will require an aggressive cost roadmap, especially when taking into account that the above numbers are only representative of the best solar locations in the US.

Theoretically if we aggregate the most competitive manufacturers in the upstream value chain we can get the cost down to approximately $1.25/Watt. In addition, the best-of-class system integrators in the German market are able to install large PV system at a turnkey system price of below $5.00/Watt DC with standard modules.

Thus, grid parity and the ultimate goal of bringing solar to the mainstream are within our reach!

Image Credit: richardmasoner via Flickr under Creative Commons License

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In my last feature — “Going Green? Learn from these Pros” — some of the stars were folks like Mike Turner, who retrofitted an old Honda Civic for a super imrovement in mileage, and Elizabeth Rogers, creator of a new Website (Shift Your Habit) that demonstrates the money-saving power of eco-friendly habits. This time, I’ve got some new green success stories to share:

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The European Union is investigating connecting a smart grid to solar thermal generators in Egypt and the Mediterranean. Mexico is also investigating solar thermal. Test plants have been built in Spain, California and Colorado.

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A proposal in Colorado to ban the use of plastic bags in supermarkets passed its first legislative hurdle as the the Senate Business, Labor and Technology Committee voted 4-3 to back the measure.

Spearheaded by a group of high school students from Kent Denver School, Colorado Senate Bill 156 (pdf) is opposed by supermarkets and big box stores who argue that the added burden would put unnecessary.

If the bill passes, stores would have to begin using biodegradable bags made from paper (or other organic materials) and/or encourage their customers to bring their own bags.

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PG&E may be installing millions of smart meters in Northern California, but the nation of Malta (pop. 400,000) is about to become the world’s first smart grid island. IBM is building the island’s national smart grid network, which will consist of 250,000 smart meters placed in homes around the country.

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