Renewable Energy Focus
PV Magazine - Oct 27 West of the Rocky Mountains, the electricity mix in the U.S. and Canada looks something like Western Europe, a lot of gas, coal, and hydroelectric generation, but also an increasing supply of wind and solar, comprising 6% and 2% of total electricity generation in 2015. East of the Rocky Mountains (and excluding Texas) it is a different story. Coal remains king on the Eastern Interconnection grid, with wind supplying only 4% of generation and solar less than 1%. Likewise in Texas solar does not even show up on the map, although wind supplied 11% of power on the Texas grid last year. These sharp differences were highlighted in data released this week by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration.
Sacramento Business Journal - Oct 21 In a move to eventually save $2.5 million annually, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) is going to begin negotiating to join a growing Western states, real-time energy imbalance market, run by the Folsom-based California Independent System Operator. The imbalance market stretches across multiple states in the West, from Washington to Arizona. In addition to the annual financial benefit, the move is expected to increase reliability, better use renewable electricity generation resources, and reduce carbon emissions, said SMUD CEO Arlen Orchard.
Reuters - Oct 26 Thanks to its high power prices, hot summers, and large homes to cool, a greater share of Scripps Ranch residents have embraced solar power than anywhere else in California, itself the nation's solar energy leader. The rooftops of 26 percent of the homes in the San Diego community are fitted with panels, according to an analysis of state and utility solar installation numbers and U.S. Census Bureau housing data. However, after rising 64 percent in the first half of the year, installations in Scripps Ranch tumbled 50 percent in July and August combined. Across California, growth also has slowed this year, and, in the third quarter, installations dropped year over year. Industry watchers say many factors are at play, including shrinking incentives, wariness of future government actions, and consumer fatigue with marketing tactics. Also, many of the most likely buyers, affluent, environmentally inclined homeowners in sunny places, already have rooftop systems, making winning new customers harder and costlier.
Bloomberg - Oct 25 D.E. Shaw & Co., a New York hedge fund that manages about $38 billion, bid to become the operating sponsor of TerraForm Power Inc., a yieldco founded and controlled by bankrupt clean-energy giant SunEdison Inc. D.E. Shaw’s clean-energy unit D.E. Shaw Renewable Investments, or DESRI, made the bid on October 21, according to a filing Tuesday. DESRI’s offer is preliminary and non-binding and didn’t include a price.
Desert Sun - Oct 26 EnergySource, which runs the 50-megawatt Featherstone geothermal plant in Imperial Valley, has been testing a new process to extract lithium and other metals from the underground brine it uses to generate electricity, according to Eric Spomer, the company's president and chief executive. The results have been promising enough that a Texas investment group just bought a 38.5-percent ownership interest in the company. The firm has invested additional money to fund more thorough testing of the extraction process, which Spomer expects to take about six months. If EnergySource has figured out how to make money extracting lithium, the consequences could be enormous, not only for the electric carmakers, who are hungry for the metal, but for the region's geothermal industry, which has stalled in recent years. Building a geothermal plant is expensive, and lithium would be a lucrative new revenue stream that would make geothermal more attractive to investors.
San Diego County News Center - Oct 19 The San Diego County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a permit last week to build a solar farm in Jacumba that could generate enough electricity to power 5,000 homes. Proponents said the plant would help the region meet state goals of producing one-half of all electricity from renewable sources by 2030, and cut greenhouse gas emissions. The plant site is east of the Jacumba Hot Springs in the largely rural East County community, adjacent to the U.S.-Mexico international border fence.
reNews - Oct 26 Statoil is stepping up activity in the U.S. and has thrown its hat into the ring for a floating wind farm off the coast of California. The company responded to a recent request for interest for a 68,000-acre site northwest of Morro Bay in the Pacific Ocean. U.S. developer Trident Winds had earlier proposed a 100-turbine 765-megawatt project in the area and is targeting a 2025 commercial operation date. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management plans to continue collecting data and information on the area and may proceed with a competitive auction.
Solar Industry Magazine - Oct 26 The Indian Wells Valley Water District in California and OpTerra Energy Services, a subsidiary of energy services corporation ENGIE, have marked the start of a solar and energy-efficiency project program that is expected to yield $9.38 million in net savings over the life of the program. According to OpTerra, the program scope includes the installation of 2.08 megawatts of solar PV projects across five water well sites and the district administrative office.
