It’s inevitable. In comments to nearly every story about California’s drought, someone will rage that if Gov. Jerry Brown really wanted to do something to save water, he’d put an end to fracking in the state. This line of thinking was highlighted on social media recently when the Sierra Club tweeted a link to a… Keep reading →
Renewable energy is often presented as hopelessly contentious in the United States, but there’s a new survey – or maybe we should say, there’s another survey – that shows Americans overwhelmingly believe in the stuff, have a sense it could save them money, and want government to support it. Even Republicans. Solar and wind finished… Keep reading →
Global growth in renewable energy sources – especially wind and solar PV installations – continues to break records while the installed capacity of these systems steadily increases. Wind and solar power still account for a small share of the overall power generation mix, but the growth of these energy sources continues to impress analysts and… Keep reading →
Actually, California Got 7.4 Percent of Its Electricity from Solar in 2014 Federal energy number-crunchers reported on Tuesday that in 2014, California became the first state to generate 5 percent of its electricity from utility-scale solar power. A decade ago, in 2005, solar’s contribution in California was just 0.26 percent of generation, so ramping… Keep reading →
Two years ago, before it was even built, the Macho Springs Solar Facility in New Mexico made headlines thanks to a 20-year, 5.7-cents per kilowatt-hour power purchase agreement with El Paso Electric. The 30 percent federal investment tax credit and a generous New Mexico production tax credit helped make that price possible, but another factor… Keep reading →
Conventional hydropower fell from its perennial perch as the source of the majority of U.S. renewable energy in 2014, yet another sign of the rise of a new wave of renewables – wind and solar, especially – on the U.S. electrical grid. Data released Wednesday by the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed hydropower with net… Keep reading →
US renewable energy sources continued to grow in 2014, as reported by Breaking Energy, with data from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission showing that “15,384 megawatts of new generation went into service in 2014, and 49.9 percent of [all that capacity] came from wind, solar and other renewables.” According to the International Renewable Energy Agency… Keep reading →
The growth in installed solar power capacity over the past several years is nothing short of astonishing. Decreased costs and innovative financing mechanisms, along with supportive policy at national, state and local levels has helped solar power take off. Traditional fossil-based power generation sources like coal and natural gas had a huge head start and… Keep reading →
Is that massive Apple solar play that made news on Tuesday burnishing the tech titan’s green cred? It might be, but environmentalists aren’t thrilled about the whole thing. Not that they’ve got anything against Apple – or solar power, they say. Kim Delfino is California director of the group Defenders of Wildlife, an organization that has… Keep reading →
Desert Sunlight is online and the U.S. Department of Energy has dropped the mic. The world-record-tying 550-megawatt photovoltaic solar plant in Southern California, formally dedicated on Monday, is the last of the big PV plants supported through the DOE’s loan guarantee program, the one that Republicans love to malign but which keeps showing solid results.… Keep reading →
