Renewable Energy Focus
NBC News - Jul 27 It's Tesla Motors' biggest bet yet: a $5 billion factory in the Nevada desert that could nearly double the world's production of lithium-ion batteries. Tesla officially opened its Gigafactory this Tuesday, a little more than two years after construction began. The factory is about 14 percent complete, but when it's finished, it will be around 10 million square feet, or roughly the size of 262 NFL football fields. That will make it one of the largest buildings in the world.
Sacramento Bee - Jul 27 Climate change policies appeal to a majority of Californians despite the possibility of higher energy costs, a new Public Policy Institute of California poll has found. The road ahead for California’s cap-and-trade program, which requires businesses to buy permits for the carbon they emit, has become unclear. A recent auction reaped a comparatively tiny amount of revenue, its legal foundation has come under question, and the program sunsets in 2020, spurring politically fraught efforts to extend it. Those headwinds notwithstanding, California residents still support cap-and-trade (54 percent) and the underlying goal of reducing greenhouse gases, according to the poll. A majority of likely voters (56 percent) also said they’d pay more for electricity generated by renewable sources like solar or wind.
Solar Industry Magazine - Jul 22 A group of tech and solar organizations and companies, including TechNet, Sierra Club, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), Vote Solar, The Alliance for Solar Choice, the California Solar Energy Industries Association, and SolarCity, has released a paper on designing electricity rates in the era of distributed energy resources (DERs). According to SEIA, some electric utilities have recently begun seeking ratemaking changes that would discourage customers from generating their own power and otherwise buying less electricity from their utility. The paper advocates for studying the costs and benefits of DERs, recommends a set of rate design principles to ensure fairness to all ratepayers, and advocates for a series of reforms that can better integrate DERs into the electric grid and maximize their value.
SolarServer - Jul 28 The global energy storage market is expected to double, from 1.4 gigawatt hours (GWh) added in 2015 to 2.9 GWh this year, offering unique growth prospects for many energy companies as global energy markets continue to cool. Global grid-connected energy storage capacity will surge to 21 GWh by 2025. Japan and the U.S. will be the largest energy storage markets, according to the report.
Greentech Media - Jul 26 In recent filings with the California Public Utilities Commission, groups including the Electric Vehicle Charging Association, EV charging companies ChargePoint and Volta, and consumer and environmental advocacy organizations, have laid out a plan they say would allow PG&E to boost EV adoption in Northern California, while avoiding what they called the most anti-competitive aspects of the utility’s proposal. The alternative proposal would limit PG&E’s pilot to no more than $87.4 million, or about half of the $160 million it’s seeking in its latest revised proposal, and keep the number of Level 2 chargers to 2,500, or one-third of the 7,500 it eventually wants to install. The alternative proposal would change the structure of the pilot in several ways its backers say will be critical to ensure it doesn’t become a utility-controlled and innovation-constrained deployment.
PV-Tech - Jul 28 Nevada’s largest utility, NV Energy, made a filing yesterday with the Nevada Public Utilities Commission to return existing rooftop solar consumers to the previous, more favorable rates for the next 20 years. The filing comes just a couple of weeks after Governor Sandoval’s New Energy Industry Task Force put forward a recommendation to grandfather existing rooftop solar customers into the state’s previous regulation for 25 years. The filing also comes just a few days before the Nevada Supreme Court is to hear arguments over whether Bring Back Solar’s ballot referendum, which seeks to reverse the PUC’s new net metering rates for all customers, is eligible for the November general election ballot.
San Jose Mercury News - Jul 27 Plans to install solar panels in a field near the Guadalupe Parkway in San Jose are getting pushback from nearby residents, who say they're worried that more homeless people will be drawn to the 9-acre, county-owned site and use the solar panels for shelter if a permanent access gate is built into an adjacent soundwall. The gate would remain after the work is completed so workers can periodically access the field for routine maintenance and repairs. When finished, the 2.1-megawatt solar panel system will generate approximately 3.4 million kilowatt-hours of renewable energy annually, or enough to power 215 homes, according to county documents.
SeeNews Renewables - Jul 22 Hong Kong-based independent power producer Sky Solar Holdings Ltd has completed the acquisition of 22 megawatts of solar power plants in the U.S. from Greenleaf-TNX and SunPeak Universal Holdings Inc. The company’s local unit Sky Capital America Inc. acquired 22 operating solar arrays in California and one PV installation in Massachusetts for a combined purchase price of about $56.9 million, less $21.7 million worth of existing financing on the facilities.
Utility Dive - Jul 25 AES is planning a 300-megawatt battery and a more efficient gas generator for a facility in Long Beach to replace an older gas plant that has been in operation since the 1950s. The Alamitos Energy Center (AEC) and the Alamitos Battery Energy Storage System are expected to cost up to $1.5 billion and be in service in 2021. The new gas plant will be able to begin generating energy within minutes, allowing AES to help smooth the integration of more renewables onto California's grid. The current plant can take up to 36 hours to cold start.
