The record 99.4 TW hours the EU generated in solar electricity this summer meant it didn’t need to buy 20 billion cubic metres of fossil gas.

Here’s how solar energy saved Europeans $29 billion this summer

,

Solar power is helping Europe navigate an energy crisis of “unprecedented proportions” and save billions of euros in avoided gas imports, a new report finds.

Record solar power generation in the European Union this summer helped the 27-country grouping save around $29 billion in fossil gas imports, according to Ember, an energy think tank.

With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine severely threatening gas supplies to Europe, and both gas and electricity prices at record highs, the figures show the critical importance of solar power as part of Europe’s energy mix, the organization says.

Click here to read the full article
Source: World Economic Forum

—

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

Babcock Ranch has nearby solar array that generates more electricity than the 2,000-home neighborhood uses.

This 100% solar community endured Hurricane Ian with no loss of power and minimal damage

,

Anthony Grande moved away from Fort Myers three years ago in large part because of the hurricane risk. He has lived in southwest Florida for nearly 19 years, had experienced Hurricanes Charley in 2004 and Irma in 2017 and saw what stronger storms could do to the coast.

Grande told CNN he wanted to find a new home where developers prioritized climate resiliency in a state that is increasingly vulnerable to record-breaking storm surge, catastrophic wind and historic rainfall.

What he found was Babcock Ranch — only 12 miles northeast of Fort Myers, yet seemingly light years away.

Click here to read the full article
Source: News Channel 3 KESQ

—

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

At the end of 2021, the US had 1,144 gigawatts of utility-scale electricity generation capacity.

There’s a mind-bending amount of solar in the US pipeline

At the end of 2021, the US had 1,144 gigawatts of utility-scale electricity generation capacity. That includes everything from 130-year-old hydro dams to brand-new wind farms and solar projects with batteries attached. It took over a century to install all of it, and today, companies want to build almost that much capacity, all over again.

In its annual review of utility-scale solar, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory  analyzed data from seven independent system operators and 35 utilities, which together represent about 85% of the nation’s electricity load, to see what’s awaiting connection. It found more than 1 terawatt of potential new power generation or storage capacity that has requested connection to transmission networks. To put that in perspective, the whole world hit 1 terawatt of installed solar capacity earlier this year.

Click here to read the full article
Source: Bloomberg

—

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

ESS and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District announced that ESS would supply SMUD with flow batteries with total capacity of 200 MW/2GWh

ESS flow battery to supply 200MW/2GWh of energy storage to California utility

,

ESS is an Oregon-based company that manufactures flow batteries that rely on simple, abundant, and inexpensive materials — iron, salt, and water. The secret sauce is the membrane that separates the positively charged liquid from the negatively charged liquid. Last year, ESS entered into an agreement to supply SB Energy, a division of SoftBank, with 2 GWh of flow batteries by 2026. That was a big deal for the fledgling company, but because SoftBank is also an investor in the company, it wasn’t really a sign of full-fledged acceptance from the utility industry.

Last week, that changed when ESS and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District announced that ESS would supply SMUD with flow batteries with a total capacity of 200 MW/2 GWh beginning next year. The utility plans to be a zero emissions energy supplier by 2030 — one of the most aggressive carbon reduction plans in the industry and 15 years ahead of the target set by the state of California.

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.

US community solar is projected to grow substantially and represents a means of expanding access to underserved communities

Drivers of community solar in the US

In the race to deploy terawatts of solar power capacity across the US as a means to achieve the country’s clean energy targets, an often neglected area of deployment is community solar. There is at present around 4GW of community solar deployed in the country but the potential market size is more than ten times that when accounting for the various project pipelines that currently exist. And the speed of deployment is increasing.

Last year saw 1,154MW of community solar deployed in the US, up 29% year-on-year. And experts have commentated on a ‘paradigm shift’ when it comes to how the technology is viewed, with simpler, streamlined business models emerging and increasing financier appetite coupled with greater consumer appreciation driving the sector forward.

Click here to read the full article
Source: PV Tech

—

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

Electricity-generating rooftop solar cells not only save on planet-warming carbon emissions, they also save a significant amount of water

Rooftop solar cells can be a boon for water conservation too

Electricity-generating rooftop solar cells not only save on planet-warming carbon emissions, they also save a significant amount of water, say a pair of Duke University researchers who have done the math.

A given household may save an average 16,200 gallons of water per year by installing rooftop solar, they found. In some states, like California, this saving can increase to 53,000 gallons, which is equivalent to 60 percent of the average household water use in the U.S.

You won’t see the savings on your home water bill, but they’re still important.

Click here to read the full article
Source: Duke Today

—

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

Taylor Farms is installing a microgrid at its largest facility in an effort to end the plant’s reliance on California’s strained power grid.

California blackout risk prompts produce plant to build its own grid

,

California’s repeated brushes with blackouts proved too much for Taylor Farms.

The produce supplier, based in the farm country John Steinbeck made famous, can’t afford to lose refrigeration at its facilities where lettuce and vegetables are trimmed, mixed into salads and packaged for sale.  So working with Bloom Energy Corp., Taylor Farms is installing a microgrid at its 450,000 square-foot facility near San Juan Bautista — its largest — powered by fuel cells, solar panels and batteries in an effort to end the plant’s reliance on California’s strained power grid.

Click here to read the full article
Source: Bloomberg

—

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

The US IRA stands to make solar energy a more viable option for renters and to people whose homes are not suitable for rooftop arrays.

You don’t have to own a home to go solar

Over the past decade, a boom in renewable energy made rooftop solar increasingly practical for US homeowners — but it largely left out the 44 million households that rent, and those unable to afford to go green. The Inflation Reduction Act is now poised to change that dynamic, expanding access to low-cost, carbon-free solar energy by providing generous incentives for what’s known as community solar.

Developers of these smaller-scale projects install solar panels on vacant land in or near communities, or on the rooftops of commercial buildings. Renters, apartment dwellers and people whose homes are not suitable for rooftop arrays can then subscribe to a community “solar garden,” paying a monthly fee based on their electricity consumption. In exchange, they receive a discount on their utility bills for the clean power they’re helping supply to the grid.

Click here to read the full article
Source: Bloomberg

—

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

The proliferation of solar requires PV projects to adapt to their grid surroundings, be it energy storage, other renewables or green hydrogen

The rise of solar-plus

On a sunny Sunday afternoon this May, California reached a major milestone on its path towards a carbon-free free power grid, as the state produced enough renewable electricity to meet more than 100% of demand for the first time.

Renewables generation exceeded demand for about 112 intermittent minutes and reached a new high of 103.45% for 1 – 2 minutes on 8 May, according to the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), which manages the flow of electricity for about 80% of the state.

The landmark followed a host of renewables records being broken in California throughout spring. Ashutosh Bhagwat, chair of the CAISO board of governors, said in April: “These moments help crystallise the vision of the modern, efficient and sustainable grid of the future.”

Click here to read the full article
Source: PV Tech

—

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

The latest disaster illuminates how much progress Puerto Ricans have made toward energy resilience and how far the island still has to go.

Solar is lifeline in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Fiona knocks out power

Just two days before the five-year anniversary of Hurricane Maria, Puerto Ricans received a brutal reminder of how vulnerable the island’s central electricity system remains. On Sunday, Hurricane Fiona slammed into the U.S. territory, bringing feet of rain and catastrophic flooding. All of the nearly 1.5 million utility customers initially lost power.

In a moment that was a bit too on the nose, Pedro Pierluisi, the governor of Puerto Rico, was briefing residents just ahead of Fiona’s landfall when the power suddenly went out in the conference room. Although service has since been restored to some customers and critical facilities like hospitals, it may take several days to fully restore power due to the ​“magnitude and extent” of the blackout, said Luma Energy, which operates the island transmission and distribution system.

Click here to read the full article
Source: Canary Media

—

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