Renewable Energy Focus
Los Angeles Times - Aug 24 The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors has rejected a controversial solar plant proposed for the Mojave Desert’s Soda Mountains, citing concerns that the project would destroy habitat and block ancient trails used by bighorn sheep for thousands of years. In a 3-2 vote, the board on Tuesday declined to certify documents required under state law in order to issue county permits for the project on public land along Interstate 15 near the entrances to Joshua Tree National Park and Death Valley National Park. Menlo Park-based Regenerate Power, which recently bought Soda Mountain Solar from Bechtel Corp., said it intends to overcome this latest obstacle and press forward with the project.
Greentech Media - Aug 24 A new study from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory attempts to quantify how much energy storage California will need if the grid generates 50 percent of its power from solar by 2030. The state already has 3,100 megawatts of pumped storage, with 1,325 megawatts of additional storage set to be deployed by 2020, per the state mandate. Under the most optimistic flexible grid scenario and with PV prices falling rapidly to 3 cents per kilowatt-hour, California will need another 15 gigawatts of storage by 2030.
PennEnergy - Aug 24 Solar power energy system pricing is at an all-time low, according to the latest editions of two recurring “state of the market” reports released by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Within the market for distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, installed prices in 2015 declined 5 percent year-over-year for residential systems, by 7 percent for smaller non-residential systems, and by 9 percent for larger non-residential systems. Prices for utility-scale PV systems that came online in 2015 fell by 12 percent from the prior year. Preliminary data for the first six months of 2016 suggest that prices have continued to fall within most states and market segments.
Utility Dive - Aug 24 The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) last week approved changes to how the California grid operator treats some distributed, non-generator resources including energy storage, better aligning them with traditional market structures. The changes are designed to optimize demand response resources and better represent what storage assets are available to day-ahead markets. Because of how a storage asset's status is recorded, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) said the data did not provide scheduling coordinators with "a usable bid parameter in the day-ahead market."
Reuters - Aug 25 Tesla Motors Inc. has won U.S. antitrust approval to buy solar panel installer SolarCity Corp, the Federal Trade Commission said last Thursday. The deal was on a listing of proposed transactions that won quick approval because the merging companies have few or no overlaps. Tesla said in July after it made its first offer that by acquiring SolarCity the two companies would form a one-stop clean energy shop, offering consumers solar panels, home battery storage, and electric cars under a single brand.
University of California - Aug 18 A ribbon-cutting in Fresno County last week marked the opening of the Five Points Solar Park, a 60-megawatt solar power installation built to supply renewable energy to the University of California. The power supplied by the new solar farm represents roughly 14 percent of the total UC system’s electricity usage, and is a key step toward the university’s goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2025. An additional 20-megawatt installation is set to come online by mid-2017, for a total of 80 megawatts, the largest solar purchase by any university in the U.S.
Fresno Business Journal - Aug 23 Canadian Solar announced Tuesday that its wholly owned subsidiary, Recurrent Energy, has reached commercial operation of the 100-megawatt Mustang solar power project in Kings County near Lemoore. In 2015, Recurrent Energy secured a tax equity investment commitment for the Mustang project from U.S. Bancorp Community Development Corporation. The renewable energy generated by the Mustang project will be sold under long-term power purchase agreements to Sonoma Clean Power and MCE.
