The consortium will invest $6B as it recruits solar panel manufacturers in a long-term strategic plan to supply up to 7GW of solar modules per year from 2024

US solar developers to spend $6B to boost domestic panel supplies

A group of U.S. solar energy project developers on Tuesday said they would jointly spend about $6 billion to support expansion of the domestic solar panel supply chain.

The U.S. Solar Buyer Consortium, which includes developers AES Corporation AES.N, Clearway Energy Group, Cypress Creek Renewables and DE Shaw Renewable Investments, said in a statement that the funds would address current supply chain issues.

Since the start of the pandemic, companies that buy solar panels for large power plants have struggled with global supply chain disruptions that have driven up costs, as well as potential U.S. tariffs on imported panels from Asia. Duties on those products, which supply most U.S. projects, would make solar energy more expensive and less competitive with power produced by fossil fuels.

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Source: VOA News

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The new decision from the CPUC is one of the most significant changes to the interconnection process in decades.

Groundbreaking California rule transforms how renewables connect to the grid

A new decision from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) marks a significant milestone by dramatically simplifying the interconnection process for distributed energy resources (DERs), like solar and batteries, and providing valuable transparency for project developers.

This is one of the most significant changes to the interconnection process in decades and offers a model for other states, at a time when interconnection has increasingly become a bottleneck to renewable energy development around the country.

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Source: Clean Technica

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The Bay Area city is partnering with BlocPower to install thousands of heat pumps, solar panels and batteries by 2030.

Silicon Valley’s Menlo Park plans to electrify 10,000 buildings

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Facebook’s hometown of Menlo Park, California, has struck a deal to decarbonize 95% of its buildings by 2030, replacing the city’s fossil-fuel infrastructure with climate-friendly heat pumps, solar panels and electric car chargers.

The wealthy Silicon Valley enclave on Wednesday announced a partnership with BlocPower, a New York-based company that, in founder Donnel Baird’s words, “turns buildings into Teslas.” In New York City, the startup coordinates and finances retrofits of apartment buildings, replacing natural-gas and oil boilers with high-efficiency heat pumps and solar panels. BlocPower has focused on low-income communities and last year the city of Ithaca, New York, chose the company to lead an initiative to decarbonize its building stock.

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Source: Bloomberg

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Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables said in recent research that a total 3GW of utility-scale energy storage came online during 2021 in the US.

Solar-plus-storage potential is everywhere in the US

Lucas Moller, head of energy storage development at Recurrent Energy, discusses the rise of solar-plus-storage in the US: where the market has come from and where it’s heading.

Around 60% of new solar PV projects planned for deployment in US utility service areas over the next two years are hybrid resources paired with storage.

That’s equivalent to about 6GW and growing all the time. Although a clear majority of this new capacity will be clustered in the leading regional markets for solar, like California or Arizona, it’s increasingly becoming a national phenomenon.

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Source: Energy Storage News

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The proposed rules closely follow joint recommendations that the SEIA and its partners submitted in February 2022 on interconnection reform.

FERC reveals interconnection reforms that could unleash solar energy potential

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) detailing the proposed interconnection reforms the Commission would like to adopt in order to clear interconnection backlogs and speed clean energy deployment.

The proposed rules closely follow joint recommendations that the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and its partners submitted in February 2022 on interconnection reform. SEIA recently explained and expanded on these comments in an interconnection whitepaper it released earlier this week.

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Source: Clean Technica

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Researchers at Xidian University ran a successful test of the “world’s first full-link and full-system solar power plant” on June 5

New tower in China brings us a step closer to space-based solar power

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Researchers at China’s Xidian University are claiming to have completed testing and inspection of a ground array that could pave the way to space-based solar power—a concept long heralded as a potential solution to our energy woes.

Researchers at Xidian University ran a successful test of the “world’s first full-link and full-system solar power plant” on June 5, according to a translated statement published today by the university. The plant is a 246-foot-tall (75-meter) steel structure located on Xidian University’s southern campus, and it’s equipped with with five different subsystems meant to foster the eventual development of space-based solar power arrays.

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Source: Gizmodo

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NPR speaks with U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm about the Biden administration's actions that could triple solar manufacturing by 2024.

Energy secretary talks US plan to boost solar production

The Biden administration announced actions this week that could triple solar manufacturing by 2024. NPR’s Cheryl W. Thompson speaks with U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm about the plan.

This week, the Biden administration announced a series of actions to reignite the country’s solar energy industry. The president waived tariffs for two years on solar imports from four Asian countries. He also invoked the Defense Production Act to boost American solar panel manufacturing and other clean energy technologies. The administration says it can triple solar energy manufacturing in the U.S. by 2024.

To talk more about the administration’s plans, NPR was joined by U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.

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Source: Cap Radio

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The Department of the Interior has issued final approval for construction of the Arica and Victory Pass solar projects near Desert Center in eastern Riverside County.

US DOI approves construction of two solar projects in California

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PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — The Department of the Interior has issued final approval for construction of the Arica and Victory Pass solar projects near Desert Center in eastern Riverside County, a significant milestone in the Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to modernize America’s power infrastructure in the West and permit at least 25 gigawatts of solar, wind and geothermal production on public lands by 2025.

“The efficient deployment of renewable energy projects is crucial to lower costs for families, support good paying jobs, and achieve the Biden-Harris administration’s goal of a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035,” said Laura Daniel-Davis, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management. “Combined with the historic investments from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we will continue to work in partnership with states, cities and Tribes to boost climate resiliency, advance clean energy projects, and replace aging infrastructure.”

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Source: US Department of the Interior

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The recent decision by the Biden administration to waive tariffs on solar panels from Southeast Asia gave the industry a much-needed boost

The US solar boom is back on track

The solar energy industry in the U.S. has grown rapidly over the last decade, second only to wind power. But supply chain issues, made worse by the tariffs on solar panels manufactured in Southeast Asia, have been pushing costs up for the U.S. solar industry. This month, President Biden announced the waiving of certain tariffs on solar imports, sending stocks soaring, and potentially giving the sector a game-changing boost.

U.S. solar energy production increased from 1.82 TWh in 2011 to a giant 163.7 TWh in 2021, with significantly more sectoral growth than any renewable source other than wind. Solar photovoltaic (PV) installed capacity is now enough to power around 22 million homes, with solar power accounting for 50 percent of all new electricity-generating capacity added in the first quarter of 2022.

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Source: Oil Price

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This facility will be the largest industrial solar steam plant in the world and the first deployed in both Saudi Arabia and in the aluminum supply chain.

The world’s largest solar-powered steam plant will be built in Saudi Arabia

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MA’ADEN, a Saudi Arabian mining company, and GlassPoint, a U.S.-based solar energy solutions provider, have inked an initial deal to build the world’s largest solar-powered steam plant at the former’s refinery.

To aid in the decarbonization of the energy-intensive, coal-dependent process of producing aluminum, which ends up in our cell phones, computers, automobiles, and other products.

The new facility will help the mining company reduce its carbon emissions by approximately 600,000 tons per year, according to Arab News.

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Source: Interesting Engineering

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