Renewable Energy Focus
Renewable Energy World - Apr 4 The rapidly expanding solar energy industry could meaningfully contribute to curbing climate change only if governments and the private sector approach it more economically and efficiently, according to a new Stanford study. Researchers from Stanford’s Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance encourage the U.S. to reconsider a wide variety of its solar energy policies in order to maximize the industry’s long-term benefits to the global climate and to the U.S. economy. Their research was unveiled during an event at the Brookings Institution.
PV Magazine - Apr 3 Move over Germany. There is a new leader for integration of high levels of solar, and it is not located in Central Europe. According to data released by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration, of the 208 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity generated in California last year, 25 TWh came from solar PV, with slightly more than 1/3 of that coming from distributed generation. Add in another 2.4 TWh from concentrating solar power, and all solar sources together represented more than 13% of the electricity generated in California in 2016. Since California imports a significant amount of electricity, the state’s solar met just under 11% of demand. This is more than any nation known to PV Magazine staff, including Honduras, which last year became the first non-island nation to generate more than 10% of its power with solar. It is also nearly 10 times the average portion of solar in the U.S. as a whole.
Energy Storage - Apr 5 Arguing that energy storage is “critical to ensuring a resilient, reliable, cost-effective, and sustainable grid,” the Energy Storage Association joined with 52 other organizations to plead the place of storage in the Trump’s administration’s infrastructure priorities. Penning a letter to Congress, the coalition of energy storage advocates asserted that any dialogue on enhancing and rebuilding infrastructure and modernizing the grid must involve energy storage systems. Signing the letter alongside ESA's leadership were companies and groups including Johnson Controls, Lockheed Martin, 24m Technologies, AES Energy Storage, LG Chem, Enel Green Power North America, Green Charge, Greensmith, National Electrical Contractors Association, Panasonic, Parker Hannifin, Siemens, Stem, Sunverge, UL, and several others. The letter went on to argue the strong position in the storage market that the nation holds, with more than 50,000 domestic jobs in the industry and with commercial deployment of storage systems growing more than 100% over the previous year.
The Desert Sun - Apr 5 PacifiCorp, a Warren Buffett-owned utility with customers from California to Wyoming, said Tuesday it would spend $3.5 billion bringing hundreds of new wind turbines online over the next three years, reducing the West's reliance on coal-fired power plants that pollute the air and disrupt the planet's climate. Over the next 20 years, the utility plans to build or buy nearly 2,000 megawatts of wind power and more than 1,000 megawatts of solar power, roughly doubling its renewable energy capacity.
San Diego Union-Tribune - Apr 4 After finishing second behind Los Angeles for three consecutive years, San Diego came in first place in the nation as the city with the most installed solar power. “San Diego is setting a blazing example,” said Michelle Kinman, the clean energy advocate for Environment California Research and Policy Center, the organization that compiled its fourth annual Shining Cities report looking at solar data for major metropolitan areas across the country. Solar power increased 60% in San Diego in 2016, reaching 303 megawatts of installed photo-voltaic capacity, finishing 36 megawatts ahead of Los Angeles and almost 60% higher than Honolulu and San Jose, which finished third and fourth.
Bloomberg - Apr 3 Facebook Inc., Microsoft Corp., and venture capitalists at Allotrope Partners set up a facility to finance energy access projects in Indonesia, India, and East Africa. The Microgrid Investment Accelerator, or MIA, will seek to mobilize $50 million from 2018 to 2020, according to an emailed statement. It will tap grants and loans from foundations and development banks to attract private capital into projects that help to transmit renewable energy over small electricity networks.
Del Mar Times - Apr 5 Carmel Valley is home to San Diego’s first and so-far only hydrogen fueling station. The FirstElement pump, located at the Shell Station on Carmel Valley Road and I-5, opened in December 2016. With 17 stations across California, FirstElement owns 65% of all the hydrogen stations in the state. The California Energy Commission provided FirstElement with a $27.6 million grant to build its first 19 hydrogen stations, and they recently were selected to receive a second grant to build eight more stations, including one in Mission Valley.
