A three-year effort to revamp California’s moribund community-solar market, spurred by state law and backed by solar industry groups, consumer advocates, environmental-justice organizations, labor unions, and the state’s homebuilding industry, may now be in jeopardy. An Administrative Law Judge for the California Public Utilities Commission issued a proposed decision that adopts positions advocated for by California’s major utilities. The proposed decision finds that the Net Value Billing Tariff (NVBT) “conflicts with federal law and does not meet the requirements” of AB 2316, the 2022 state law that ordered the CPUC to create an affordable and equitable community-solar program. The proposed decision will be reviewed by CPUC commissioners no earlier than its April 18, 2024 business meeting.
The United States added more solar energy to the grid than ever before in 2023, the Solar Energy Industries Association reported. The amount of new electricity-generating capacity from solar increased 51% compared with a year earlier and marks the first time that a renewable electricity source has made up more than 50% of capacity additions in a single year. Texas had the most solar installations, followed by California, which has seen a slower uptake on rooftop solar installations since enacting new policies that affect how much money homeowners can earn from their panels.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has issued ASHRAE a determination affirming that ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1-2022, which incorporates a renewable energy mandate for the first time, will improve energy efficiency in commercial buildings governed by the code. Within two years of the DOE’s affirmative determination, states must certify that they have reviewed their commercial building code energy efficiency provisions and updated those codes, if necessary, to meet or exceed the updated standard, ASHRAE said in a March 5 news release.
As part of a plan to address energy inequities across the country, the federal government recently announced $72 million would be spent on connecting tribal communities with reliable, renewable energy. A little over $7 million of that funding is allocated to four tribes in California, including the Yurok Tribe. The Tribe plans to use their portion of the funding to develop a small hydro-powered system that would generate 1.5 MW of power and connect unelectrified homes in the upper reservation with energy.
rPlus Energies recently amended a power purchase agreement with PacifiCorp to quadruple the battery storage capacity at the Green River Energy Center project under development in Emery County, Utah. The expansion would increase the project’s storage capacity from 400 MWh to 1,600 MWh, making it one of the largest solar-plus-storage projects under development in the U.S.
Primergy has raised $588 million in debt financing commitments aimed at funding its 408 MW Texas-based Ash Creek solar project. The company also announced the signing of a long-term power purchase agreement with Microsoft, covering the full capacity of the new solar plant.
Arevon Energy and Meta Platforms have signed two long-term environmental attributes purchase agreements for the Kelso Solar Project in Scott County, Missouri. The project’s expected 349 MW will be dedicated to supporting Meta’s operations running on renewable energy in the region.
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