The newly announced solar panel recycling agreement between Qcells and SOLARCYCLE is a first-of-its-kind partnership between a large solar panel maker and an advanced solar recycler in the US.

A massive US solar panel maker just went all in on panel recycling

Solar panels made in the US’s largest silicon-based solar panel factory will now be recycled, thanks to a new partnership.

The newly announced solar panel recycling agreement between Qcells and SOLARCYCLE is a first-of-its-kind partnership between a large solar panel maker and an advanced solar recycler in the US.

Recycled materials from Qcells’ panels, such as aluminum, silver, copper, silicon, and low-iron glass, will be reused in the domestic supply chain to manufacture the next generation of clean energy products. SOLARCYCLE says its patented solar panel recycling technology extracts more than 95% of the value in a module. That’s at the high-achieving end of the current solar recycling industry standard – the US’s largest solar company, First Solar, says it can recover 90% of the value.

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Source: electrek

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Energy Toolbase has completed commissioning on Ventura Energy’s five-site at critical water facilities throughout Ventura County, California.

3.7-MWh ESS system in California to provide emergency water backup

Energy Toolbase has completed commissioning on Ventura Energy’s five-site, 3.7-MWh energy storage portfolio at critical water facilities throughout Ventura County, California. The systems of standalone energy storage are comprised of Tesla Powerpacks and Megapacks controlled by Acumen EMS software and enable the end-users to have a reliable water source in the case of an emergency. A majority of Ventura County is served by wells, and some residents and farmers are left without a water supply when the area experiences a power outage. This portfolio of systems, spanning from Santa Paula to Thousand Oaks, will now provide backup power to water pumps at their locations.

The portfolio of sites is enrolled in California’s Demand Response Auction Mechanism program (DRAM), a pay-as-bid solicitation created to strengthen grid stability and synchronize the reliability demand response of utilities with CAISO, California’s grid operator. Acumen EMS provided these grid services through Leap, an energy market access provider for distributed energy resources. Through the Ventura Energy portfolio, Energy Toolbase created a partnership with Leap, which will allow projects to participate in demand response and grid services programs, augment revenue and aid the state’s grid through a unique revenue-share model.

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Source: Solar Power World

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There are ways for solar developers to make installations less harmful and even beneficial for many species.

The planet needs solar power. Can we build it without harming nature?

For pronghorn, those antelope-like creatures of the American West, this grassland north of Flagstaff is prime habitat. It gives the animals the food and conditions they need to survive fall and winter.

But for a nation racing to adopt renewable energy, the land is prime for something else: solar panels. The sun shines strong, the terrain is flat and high-voltage transmission lines are already in place from a decommissioned coal plant. Energy collected here could speed to major metropolitan regions across the West, part of a colossal wave of clean power needed to stave off the worst effects of global warming.

Animals need humans to solve climate change. But they also need places to live. Loss of habitat is the top driver of a staggering global decline in biodiversity, the variety of life on earth. The boom in solar, set to be the fastest-growing energy source in the United States, is predicted to fence off millions of acres across the nation, blanketing them in rows of glassy squares.

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Source: New York Times

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After CA gutted how much households are paid for excess solar power, Puerto Rico preserves net metering for clean energy & resilience.

As states slash rooftop solar incentives, Puerto Rico extends them

As states across the country roll back how much they pay rooftop-solar owners for the surplus electricity they send back to the grid, Puerto Rico is bucking the trend, protecting its generous solar credits until at least the end of the decade.

California, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, and North Carolina have all taken recent steps to change or get rid of these payments, which are known as net metering. But Governor Pedro Pierluisi signed a bill last month extending the U.S. territory’s program. The reason, advocates say, is that net metering is too essential to the archipelago’s clean energy goals, and the security of its people.

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Source: Grist

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The Edwards Sanborn Solar & Energy Storage project incorporates the highest capacity solar farm in the US with the largest battery storage system in the world.

Solar and batteries go big in the desert

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Discussions of solar energy can be quick to point out its intermittent nature: the Sun does not always shine in any one place all the time. It does, however, shine quite a bit in the Mojave Desert in California. And as it happens, the Mojave is the location of a large new solar power plant integrated with battery storage. The Edwards Sanborn Solar and Energy Storage project incorporates the highest capacity solar farm in the United States with the largest battery storage system in the world.

The facility came online in February 2023 and became fully operational in January 2024. The OLI-2 (Operational Land Imager-2) on Landsat 9 captured this image of the project and its nearly 2 million solar panels on January 12, 2024. The site lies approximately 60 miles (100 kilometers) north of Los Angeles, in an area of the U.S. with some of the largest amounts of solar energy reaching the ground.

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Source: Earth Observatory

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The CEC’s latest report takes a closer look at the role that long-duration energy storage can play in the CAISO system.

California could need up to 37 GW of long-duration storage by 2045 to retire gas resources

The CEC’s latest report takes a closer look at the role that long-duration energy storage can play in the CAISO system. It found that with a “business-as-usual” scenario under California’s clean energy policies, which would allow for 12 million metric tons of annual emissions from the electricity sector and retain gas resources, it would be cost-effective to add up to 5 GW of long-duration energy storage to the system by 2045. But to decarbonize the grid even further — such as by retiring in-state gas resources — it could make sense to add up to 37 GW of long-duration resources.

California’s Senate Bill 100, passed in 2018, set a goal for the state to derive all retail electricity sales from renewable and zero-carbon resources by 2045.

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Source: Utility Dive

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Many hands have been trying to make space solar happen for many years, and now the US Space Force may be helicoptering in to lend a hand.

The US Space Force is catching space solar fever

The idea of beaming clean energy down to Earth from orbiting arrays of solar panels seemed pretty wacky when it first crossed the CleanTechnica radar. However, the technology building blocks are already at hand. It’s just a matter of scaling, systems integration, and adjustments for space-hardiness. That sounds simple enough, but many hands have been trying to make space solar happen for many years, and now the US Space Force may be helicoptering in to lend a hand.

The Space Solar Race Is For Real

Research teams from the US, China, and the UK are among those chasing the space solar rainbow. The attraction of space solar is the potential for 24/7 solar power at the multi-gigawatt scale, all year long. That has implications for military use as well as civilian life.

The US Department of Defense has already begun using solar arrays and energy storage to build more resilience and security into its facilities and operations. Access to solar energy from space would kick that effort into high gear.

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Source: Clean Technica

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The three UC campuses leading the green transition have drawn on the collective brainpower of thousands of students and faculty to generate the most efficient, effective and equitable solutions for each campus.

How three UC campuses are phasing out fossil fuels

The plume of steam from UC Berkeley’s natural gas-fired power plant is a familiar sight on the skyline of San Francisco’s East Bay. But the facility’s days are numbered: The campus is on track to switch to an electrical heating system by 2028. As each UC campus prepares to publish its long-term plan for eliminating carbon emissions and transitioning to renewable energy, hear from sustainability experts on three campuses — Davis, Berkeley and Santa Cruz — that are phasing out fossil fuels ahead of schedule. 

Chancellor Cynthia Larive was barely a year into her tenure at UC Santa Cruz when a fast-moving wildfire nearly destroyed the campus. “It came to within a mile and a half of us. Everyone had to evacuate,” Larive recalled recently. “And if the wind hadn’t shifted overnight, I likely wouldn’t be talking to you from this office. The fires could have burned through campus to the sea.”

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Source: University of California

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The global floating solar panel market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 27.57% to reach US$2, 797.556M in 2028 from US$508.809M in 2021.

Floating solar panels market forecasts from 2023 to 2028

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The global floating solar panel market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 27.57% to reach US$2, 797.556 million in 2028 from US$508.809 million in 2021.

During the projected period, the worldwide floating solar panels market is anticipated to benefit from an increased focus on clean fuel power generating energy sources as well as an inadequate supply of land. Regulatory bodies across the world are establishing several clean energy-related goals that will aid in reducing pollution.

Increasing Demand for Renewable Energy

It is anticipated that the technical component of floating solar technology will see a significant increase throughout the predicted time due to the increasing demand for reliable renewable energy sources for power generation. According to the data published by the National Energy Laboratory, the total installed FPV (Floating Photovoltaic) capacity worldwide in 2020 was around 2.6 GW, with the majority of this capacity being in China, the Taiwan region, and Japan (Cox 2021). The fast FPV expansion across Asia has been facilitated by a lack of available land, stringent renewable energy objectives, declining PV prices, and targeted subsidies.

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Source: Research and Markets

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For about 5hrs on Jan. 28, under the scorching heat of the sun, over 1/3 of the electricity running on Texas’ power grid came from solar power

Solar power fuels over 36% of electricity demand in Texas for 5 hours

For about five hours on January 28, under the scorching heat of the sun, over one-third of the electricity running on Texas’ power grid came from solar power.

The solar spectacle, recorded by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), cranked up production to an impressive 15,222 MW of solar at 10:09 am, reported the KUT News.

Then, at the peak of the day’s crescendo, at 3:10 pm, the solar power waltzed in, powering a remarkable 36.1 percent of the electricity demand. The sun continued to contribute around a third of the overall energy demand every hour from 11 am to 4 pm.

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Source: Interetsing Engineering

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