In a major clean energy benchmark, wind, solar, and hydro exceeded 100% of demand on California’s main grid for 30 of the past 38 days.

California exceeds 100% of energy demand with renewables over a record 30 days

In a major clean energy benchmark, wind, solar, and hydro exceeded 100% of demand on California’s main grid for 30 of the past 38 days.

Stanford University professor of civil and environmental engineering Mark Z. Jacobson has been tracking California’s renewables performance, and he shares his findings on Twitter (X) when the state breaks records. Yesterday he posted:

Jacobson notes that supply exceeds demand for “0.25-6 h per day,” and that’s an important fact. The continuity lies not in renewables running the grid for the entire day but in the fact that it’s happening on a consistent daily basis, which has never been achieved before.

Click here to read the full article
Source: electrek

—

If you have any questions or thoughts about the topic, feel free to contact us here or leave a comment below.

Solar energy will play an increasingly important role in helping California achieve its clean electricity goal by 2045.

California is a solar superpower

California leads the country in a climate-related measure we can be proud of: solar power generation.

Why it matters: Solar and wind power — which produce a small-but-growing share of America’s overall energy supply — provide a bigger share of energy in some states than others.

By the numbers: California generated 68,816 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity from solar power in 2023, up 9% from 2022, per an analysis from the research nonprofit Climate Central.

Click here to read the full article
Source: Axios

—

If you have any questions or thoughts about the topic, feel free to contact us here or leave a comment below.

The Intertubes lit up today with news of a new, 190% efficient solar cell that could finally send fossil fuels packing once and for all.

A new dawn for solar cells: 190% quantum efficiency is possible

The Intertubes lit up today with news of a new, 190% efficient solar cell that could finally send fossil fuels packing once and for all. The research is still in the proof-of-concept stage, but other solar cells that shoot past the 100% mark are already in development, so anything is possible. However, if you’re thinking this blows the Shockley-Queisser theoretical limit to bits, well, guess again.

Solar cells can shoot past 100% efficiency, depending on what that means

The Shockley-Queisser limit refers to the ability of solar cells to convert sunlight to electricity. The theory emerged in the 1960s to describe the upper limit of basic silicon photovoltaic technology. The initial limit was determined to be 30%, later revised upward to 33.7%.

Click here to read the full article
Source: Clean Technica

—

If you have any questions or thoughts about the topic, feel free to contact us here or leave a comment below.

California’s highest court granted review to a lawsuit challenging a “regressive” rooftop solar policy called NEM 3.0.

California Supreme Court to review rooftop solar net metering

A controversial rooftop solar rulemaking decision has risen to the Supreme Court of California, with the state’s highest court granting review for a petition filed by the Center for Biological Diversity.

The case involves the state’s NEM 3.0 net metering scheme and the rate structure that went into effect in April 2023. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved a request by the state’s largest investor-owned utilities to cut compensation to customers that export excess solar generation to the grid, a process called net energy metering.

Click here to read the full article
Source: PV Magazine

—

If you have any questions or thoughts about the topic, feel free to contact us here or leave a comment below.

California ranks as the “greenest” state in America according to a report released Wednesday by the WalletHub personal finance website.

California ranked ‘greenest’ US state thanks to water conservation, EVs and rooftop solar

California ranks as the “greenest” state in America thanks to rooftop solar, water conservation and electric vehicles, according to a report released Wednesday by the WalletHub personal finance website.

“Eco-friendliness and personal finance are related,” noted Miami-based WalletHub in its introduction to the ranking. “Our environmental and financial needs are the same in many areas.”

States were ranked on environmental quality, eco-friendly behavior and contribution to climate-change using 25 metrics ranging from water quality to LEED-certified buildings to greenhouse gas emissions.

Click here to read the full article
Source: Times of San Diego

—

If you have any questions or thoughts about the topic, feel free to contact us here or leave a comment below.

Istanbul Airport will have its entire electricity needs met by a solar energy plant that is slated to be launched by the end of the year.

Istanbul hub to become 1st airport powered entirely by solar energy

,

Istanbul Airport will have its entire electricity needs met by a solar energy plant that is slated to be launched by the end of the year, according to its operator, IGA.

IGA will have invested around 212 million euros ($229.74 million) in the project, which will spread over an approximately 3 million square meter area in the central province of Eskişehir.

The plant will have 439,000 solar panels installed, boasting a total capacity of 199.32 megawatts (MW).

The photovoltaic power station is planned to produce 340 million kilowatt-hours of energy annually and will grant the aviation hub the distinction of being the world’s first airport to meet all its electricity needs from solar energy.

Click here to read the full article
Source: Daily Sabah

—

If you have any questions or thoughts about the topic, feel free to contact us here or leave a comment below.

Three large projects in CA, UT, and OR will cover water reclamation facilities with solar panels for energy production and water conservation

US states to conserve land, water with solar on canals

,

Three projects in California, Utah, and Oregon will soon integrate solar panels onto water canals, thanks to federal funding from the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which allocated $25 million for PV installations co-located with water reclamation facilities.

The three projects will receive a combined $19.5 million to support the projects, which are administered by the Bureau of Reclamation, an agency tackling the challenges of water and power management in the western United States.

This IRA carve-out was created with input from California Representative Jared Huffman. The program directed to study the water efficiency gains from covering canals with solar panels.

Click here to read the full article
Source: PV Magazine

—

If you have any questions or thoughts about the topic, feel free to contact us here or leave a comment below.

The Sunzaun vertical racking system will hold bifacial solar modules that produce energy from both sides of the vertically oriented array.

New Jersey farm studies agrivoltaics with vertically mounted solar

,

Rutgers University’s 170 kW agrivoltaic project on its farm on the Cook campus in New Brunswick, New Jersey features a vertical solar installation designed by California-based Sunstall.

The farm operates as a production farm, research facility and teaching operation in support of the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences and Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station related activities. At the farm, students, faculty and staff care for a variety of animals, including sheep, goats and cattle.

Click here to read the full article
Source: PV Magazine

—

If you have any questions or thoughts about the topic, feel free to contact us here or leave a comment below.

Elevated metro stations may highly benefit from rooftop solar power generation combined w/ battery storage, new research from China suggests.

Photovoltaics for elevated metro stations

Researchers from the Xi’an Jiaotong University in China have investigated how rooftop solar and battery storage may help cover energy demand in elevated metro stations and found this combination may achieve a self-sufficiency rate of up to 54% and a payback time of 10.2 years.

“Our work is the first study focusing on the PV potential of elevated subway stations based on real energy loads,” the research’s lead author, Haobo Yang, told pv magazine. “Our findings are based on measured hourly load demands and include the impact of battery energy storage on PV system performance.”

In the study “Technoeconomic analysis of rooftop PV system in elevated metro station for cost-effective operation and clean electrification,” published in Renewable Energy, Yang and his colleagues said their work is intended to provide a benchmark for cost-effective operation and clean electrification in urban metro networks.

Click here to read the full article
Source: PV Magazine

—

If you have any questions or thoughts about the topic, feel free to contact us here or leave a comment below.

Federal & state government officials announced a new project to place solar panels on the water in the Delta-Mendota Canal.

New canal project expands on UC Merced solar research

,

Federal and state government officials journeyed to the western corner of Merced County on Thursday to announce a new project to place solar panels on the water in the Delta-Mendota Canal.

The project is part of a $19 million investment through President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act announced by the Department of the Interior to install panels over irrigation canals in California, Oregon and Utah, with the aims of decreasing evaporation of critical water supplies and advancing clean energy goals.

The Delta-Mendota Canal floating solar project is set to receive $15 million of this funding. The Bureau of Reclamation said the agency will collaborate with the San Luis and Delta-Mendota Water Authority and the University of California through a public-private-academic partnership to assess the impacts of floating photovoltaic solar arrays on the canal.

Click here to read the full article
Source: UC Merced

—

If you have any questions or thoughts about the topic, feel free to contact us here or leave a comment below.