Focus
GREENTECH MEDIA - Jun 22 The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released a new guidance Friday that establishes when the construction of a solar facility starts to qualify for the solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC). Under the new rules, projects that start construction in 2019 will receive the 30 percent ITC for four years, 2020 construction start projects will receive the 26 percent ITC for three years, and 2021 construction start projects will receive the 21 percent ITC for two years. According to the research firm Washington Analysis, the IRS guidance includes "few surprises or anything that would suggest an effort to limit the credit’s benefit for the industry." Washington Analysis researchers anticipate clarifying the tax law will produce an upside for solar companies, including First Solar, SunPower, Canadian Solar, Sunrun, Tesla, and Vivint Solar.
LOS ANGELES TIMES - Jun 27 Edison International’s Southern California Edison utility is looking to spend an additional $760.1 million on expanding electric car charging networks as the state works to get more emissions-free vehicles on the road. Edison said Tuesday that it filed a plan with state regulators to support the installation of 48,000 charging ports over four years. Southern California Edison already won $343 million from regulators to help build out the networks necessary to charge medium- and heavy-duty electric vehicles.
UTILITY DIVE - Jun 26 Leap, developer of a universal distributed energy trading platform, announced Tuesday morning that it was selected to supply 90 megawatts of demand response capacity to investor-owned utilities through California's 2019 Demand Response Auction Mechanism (DRAM). Leap boasts the largest share among participating DRAM vendors and will provide 45 megawatts each to Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric for delivery next year. Regulators launched the DRAM pilot in 2015, in order to test utilities' ability to procure aggregated demand response for resource adequacy.
PV-TECH - Jun 29
Following an overview of its businesses and asset portfolio over the past year, Sempra Energy intends to sell off several of its energy infrastructure assets, including its entire 2.6-gigawatt portfolio of U.S. PV and wind assets. Sempra Renewables currently has ownership interests and investments in nine PV projects in Nevada, Arizona, and California, along with wind projects in eight states from Hawaii to Pennsylvania.
RENEWS - Jun 21 EDF Renewables is selling 50 percent stakes in a portfolio of two wind farms and a solar plant totaling 588 megawatts to Dutch pension fund PGGM Infrastructure Fund. The portfolio consists of the 200-megawatt Red Pine and 154-megawatt Rock Falls wind farms in Minnesota and Oklahoma, respectively, and the 234-megawatt Switch Station 1&2 solar plant in Nevada.
MERCED SUN-STAR - Jun 27 U.S. wildlife officials have agreed to consider Endangered Species Act protection for a rare toad in northern Nevada's high desert where one of the biggest producers of geothermal energy in the nation wants to build a power plant. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday that conservationists presented substantial scientific information suggesting the Dixie Valley toad could be at risk of extinction. Its 12-month review will include examining the extent to which any conservation efforts have reduced the threats.
SOLAR BUILDER MAGAZINE - Jun 25 PCI Solar has completed construction of a 1.8-megawatt solar array for the City of Wasco, California. The project, developed by Siemens, is part of California’s RES-BCT program, which allows a local government with one or more eligible renewable generating facilities to export energy to the grid and receive generation credits to benefitting accounts of the same local government. The energy from the array will virtually offset some of the energy from various buildings operated by the City of Wasco. The project, a brownfield development, is located on a previous landfill site.
SOLAR INDUSTRY MAGAZINE - Jun 28 Clean Focus Renewables Inc. has completed the installation of solar arrays at Dignity Health – St. Rose Dominican Hospitals on the San Martin Campus in Las Vegas and the Siena Campus in Henderson, Nevada. Greenskies Renewable Energy LLC and Clean Focus Yield Ltd. will maintain and operate the projects, respectively, which are providing clean energy for the hospitals. Together, the projects total 3.84 megawatts.
