There’s an unlikely name among the usual suspects that populate a recently released list [PDF] of leading U.S. solar cities. There’s Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, San Jose, Honolulu, San Antonio and then … Indianapolis? Yep. And the city just got even more solar, with the official opening last week of a 9 megawatt array… Keep reading →
The solar industry has been very hot. Record amounts of new solar capacity have been installed over the past two years. The accelerating pace of adoption of solar panels for distributed generation (installed at the point of use, rather than sold into the power grid) and the downward trend of module prices have created exuberance… Keep reading →
There are plenty of money-making opportunities from reducing energy use that go above and beyond implicit savings, but the market for energy reduction assets is opaque, and financing opportunities for smaller-scale projects are few and far between. Energy efficiency financing and insurance firm Joule Assets has introduced new services designed to grow that market, by… Keep reading →
Accounting giant Ernst & Young’s latest United States renewable energy attractiveness index confirms commonly understood perceptions of which states are friendliest to renewables, such as California and Hawaii, but also shows remarkable progress by individual states and the solar industry as a whole. The top ten states on the All Renewables Index, which you can… Keep reading →
In recent weeks, debate between between utilities and the residential solar industry has reached fever pitch and escalated to a full-throated public standoff in several states. Across the country, utilities are renewing efforts to roll back or address net metering (NEM) policies; in particular, APS in Arizona and Xcel Energy in Colorado both submitted plans… Keep reading →
Arguments about expensive, exotic renewables are dated If you are among those who still believes that renewables are exotic, expensive, unreliable, intermittent or whatever, you may be fighting a losing battle. With each passing day, renewables are gaining ground, and their shortcomings, most notably intermittency, diffused energy source and low capacity factor, are getting compensated in ingenious ways.… Keep reading →
Meeting an RPS is costing less than previously thought in many states. Late last year, a study found that California’s 33 percent renewable portfolio standard (RPS) could result in a “rate impact bomb” in coming years. A new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists, however, found that for fourteen of the 29 states with an RPS… Keep reading →
California’s Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS) requires that, by 2020, all utilities in the state use renewables to generate at least 33 percent of the electricity provided to retail customers. Reaching this RPS target will also play a key role in determining whether or not California will meet its ambitious greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. Many other states are in similar situations: Currently California is one of 29 states (plus the District of Columbia and two U.S. territories) (1) that have RPS targets, and another eight States and two more U.S. territories (2) have adopted renewables portfolio goals (see Figure 1).
Achieving these goals will require a number of states to rely much more heavily on electricity generated by intermittent wind and solar resources. In California, wind and solar generation are expected to provide virtually all of the additional renewable energy needed to achieve the state’s RPS target (see Figure 2). Keep reading →
Residents and businesses in the 13-state region covered by PJM Interconnect have now installed more than a gigawatt of solar power, enough to power between 800,000 and 1 million homes, and more than doubled solar capacity last year, the grid operator said.
The milestone, announced in mid-May, continues the trend of solar growth in the northeastern and mid-Atlantic territory in the last two years, and reflects a range of incentives offered by states that are striving to reach renewable-energy goals. Keep reading →
Allowing power from electricity storage to be counted toward meeting renewable portfolio standards would boost integration of advanced storage technologies into the electricity system, speakers told the Electricity Storage Association conference in Washington last week.
Terry Boston, CEO of PJM, the nation’s largest grid operator, said he’d like to see states let up to 25% of their RPS be met with storage when the storage systems are fed by clean sources like wind and solar. Keep reading →
