As the sun sets on California’s solar farms, a backup energy source deep in the Sierra Nevada Mountains springs to life.

The Scottish government has given utility Scottish Power the go-ahead to install Europe’s biggest industrial-scale battery to date to store energy generated at the 539MW Whitelee onshore wind farm.

Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (SGRE) said that is has begun operation of its electric thermal energy storage system (ETES), a milestone in the development of energy storage solutions, according to the company.

Sweden’s ambitious plan to drastically cut emissions from transport by bringing millions of electric cars onto the road could be derailed by a lack of power capacity for new charging stations in major cities.

Natron Energy said that the California Energy Commission (CEC) awarded it a $3 million grant for “Advanced Energy Storage for Electric Vehicle Charging Support.” Natron will use the money to manufacture and install a high powered, long cycle life energy storage system at an EV Fast Charging station.

Iowa economic development officials are tentatively endorsing a tax credit for battery storage to complement the state’s wind and solar generation.

Eleven million people were employed in renewable energy worldwide in 2018 according to the latest analysis by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

Hydrogen, which has been touted as the fuel of the future much of the past five decades, may finally be on the verge of converting its potential to reality.

New York is poised to pass its own version of the Green New Deal with a climate bill that would more than triple the state’s solar capacity and aggressively promote development of wind farms off the state’s coast.

Go Electric Inc. is a specialist in energy resiliency solutions for microgrids and commercial & industrial customers integrating renewables and generators

Eos Energy Storage is manufacturer and supplier of the zinc-based Aurora 2.0 battery system for Duke Energy's McAlpine substation and as a behind-the-meter solution at the University of California, San Diego. 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule and simultaneously repealed the Clean Power Plan (CPP).

While the industry is welcoming more women leaders, its rank-and-file workforce is still a lot like those at fossil-fuel companies: white and dominated by men. The lack of gender diversity is being driven by manufacturing jobs, and that means women are now missing out on the biggest jobs boom America has to offer.

Homeowners and businesses may now have an easier time getting solar panels on rooftops thanks to software developed at Sandia.

The Energy Web Foundation (EWF) this week announced that it has launched the world’s first public, open-source, enterprise-grade blockchain tailored to the energy sector: the Energy Web Chain (EW Chain). As a refresher, blockchain allows for peer-to-peer energy market transactions.

Vermont joined the ranks of other New England states that provide incentives for electric vehicles with Gov. Phil Scott’s signature on June 14 on a yearly transportation bill.

Nigerian distributed utility company, Arnergy, announced it has raised $9 Million in a Series A round of funding led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures with participation from the Norwegian Investment Fund for Developing Countries (Norfund), EDFI ElectriFI and All On.

Here’s the latest wrinkle in the battery boom: National Grid Plc is paying consumers to tap electricity from their power-storage systems.

8minute Solar Energy, NV Energy and the Moapa Band of Paiutes announced that NV Energy selected 8minute to develop the largest solar plus storage project ever built in Nevada and one of the largest in the world.

Miriam Gozalo is an electrification project development manager at BP, one of the largest oil and gas companies in the world. Her work is squarely focused on the energy transition. Read what she has to say about her role working on ultra-fast electric vehicle charging stations in a company that most people associate with drilling rigs and gasoline.

Yesterday, ENGIE Storage announced that San Diego International Airport (SAN) installed a 2 MW/4 MWh GridSynergy energy storage system. Paired with the airport’s existing 5.5 MW of solar capacity, the new energy storage system will reduce energy charges during peak demand, which according to ENGIE equate to approximately 40 percent of the airport’s monthly electricity costs. The system is expected to begin operation in early 2020.

Clearway Energy Group, one of the U.S.’s largest clean power developers, is launching a pilot electronic marketplace for renewable energy credits as more states push for solar and wind projects.

On July 1, Public Service of New Mexico filed a plan with regulators in the state for how it plans to get to a 100 percent emission-free power by 2040. The utility reviewed four scenarios, all of which involved the early retirement of the San Juan Coal Plant, to arrive at its recommended path forward.

According to data recently released by the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Association, the number of public charging stations for electric vehicles (EVs) owned and operated by its members totaled 401,000 units as of May 2019, of which 229,000 were AC charging stations, 171,000 were DC and 500 AC/DC were integrated, representing a year on year increase of 50.5 percent and 9,658 units from the previous month. Between June 2018 and May 2019, the number of public charging stations for EVs showed an average monthly increase of some 11,205 units.

Given the diverse benefits that microgrids provide – reductions in energy costs, business risk, and carbon emissions, and increases in resiliency and power reliability – one wonders why discussion of microgrids has only started to take off recently.

Last week in San Antonio, Texas, about 150 DISTRIBUTECH stakeholders convened to discuss industry trends, best practices for marketing and sales in the utility industry and set the educational agenda for the 2020 event.

Commercial property owners with existing energy storage systems, or owners considering implementing an energy storage system, may be able to benefit from a recent order by the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU) allowing utility companies to pay customers who agree to rely upon their energy storage systems and dispatch the energy during peak events.

In April 2019, in the heart of coal country, Indiana regulators rejected a proposal by its electric and gas utility, Vectren, to replace baseload coal plants with a new $900 million, 850 megawatt (MW) natural gas-fired power plant. Regulators were concerned that with the dramatic decline in the cost of renewable energy, maturation of energy storage and rapidly changing customer demand, such a major gas plant investment could become a stranded, uneconomic asset in the future. Regulators are now pushing Vectren to consider more decentralized, lower-carbon resources such as wind, solar and storage that would offer greater resource diversity, flexibility and cost effectiveness.

According to a review by the SUN DAY Campaign of data just released by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), within the past month, the agency has dramatically revised its three-year forecast for changes in the U.S. electrical generating capacity mix. Sharp declines are foreseen for fossil fuels and nuclear power while accompanied by even stronger growth in renewable energy (i.e., biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar, wind) than earlier projected.

This week artificial intelligence (AI)-driven energy storage services provider Stem said that it had formed a partnership with New York-based private equity company Syncarpha Capital to build 28.2 megawatt-hours (MWh) of large-scale storage projects co-sited with solar in Massachusetts.

Clarion Energy & iTEN Media announce the launch of POWERGEN India 2020 co-located with Indian Utility Week & DISTRIBUTECH India

Worldwide investments in clean energy projects have hit a six-year low.

Energy generation and consumption is rapidly transforming into a decentralized, decarbonized, and digitized model due to a number of market forces. The declining costs of solar energy systems, as well as the increasing price of energy from the grid has led to grid parity. This has caused PV proliferation to accelerate to such an extent that in the past five years alone, PV installed capacity has increased by 300%. Simultaneously, the EV market is also on the rise and is expected to reach the electrification tipping point by 2030. This is due to support from governments trying to limit the effects of climate change, thus leading to automotive manufactures transitioning their fleets from standard petrol- and diesel-powered cars to EVs. As a result of the acceleration of both of these markets, EV charging has created demand patterns causing an even steeper and faster ramp-up in the evenings than the PV duck curve. , This is causing the grid’s balancing act to be increasingly complex. In order to support this new energy dynamic, advanced management software is required to ensure grid stabilization and to unlock the value of these energy resources.

Clarion Energy’s Teresa Hansen, vice president of global content, for a webcast Wednesday  will be making some important announcements regarding this year’s event in New Orleans. Hansen also will offer key details on content, the exhibit floor and resources available to attendees.

Gas peaker plants may be among the first casualties of a new Minnesota law requiring utilities to include energy storage as part of their long-range plans.

Global infrastructure services firm AECOM said that Shell Retail has hired it to deliver ultrafast electrical vehicle (EV) chargers across the Netherlands. A total of 200 fast chargers – under the brand name Shell Recharge - will be available at Shell forecourts (filling stations).

Global demand for air-conditioning is projected to triple over the next 30 years, as the planet warms and urban populations grow, particularly in emerging markets. Meeting that demand will call for significant investments in new cooling infrastructure and the electrical generating capacity necessary to power it. Although traditional cooling technologies are expected to become more efficient in coming years, countries will need to plan for these additional loads, which will be expensive. Emerging markets can also make use of district cooling, an approach that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which consists of six Middle Eastern countries — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman — have successfully adopted.

In late 2018, I put out the call to see how many fellow energy nerds I could gather to indulge me in combining my passion for energy analysis and clean power policy with my love of fantasy sports. By the end of January 2019, I had my cast of characters who somehow thought this idea was as fun as I did (isn’t the Internet the greatest tool for finding people who share your interests?) and I released my Draft Preview. Coordinating this draft among 14 different teams with different time zones and schedules chock-full of actually helping to save the planet proved no easy task, but by the end of March we had conducted 5 rounds of picks for a total of 70 selections in this Inaugural Fantasy Energy League!

Fossil fuels, long regarded for their high-energy return on investment, are not as efficient as once thought. In fact, their final yields are not much better than those of renewable options, according to a new study.

The HydroVision International event is now under way in the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, with more than 3,000 hydropower professionals from around the world coming together for four days of learning and networking.

Finnish energy technology group Wärtsilä has signed an EPC contract for a 100 MW/100 MWh total capacity energy storage project in southeast Asia.

Last week, California’s Glendale Water & Power (GWP) received approval from the Glendale City Council to move forward with a plan to repower the aging Grayson Power Plant with a combination of renewable energy resources, energy storage and a limited amount of thermal generation.

A new report from Navigant Research released this week says that revenue from device and data management technologies could grow from approximately $14.8 billion in 2018 to more than $22.1 billion in 2027 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.6%.

Last week at the HydroVision International plenary session, a panel of three CEOs — Darrel T. Anderson, President and CEO IDACORP and Idaho Power, Mitch Davidson, CEO and Managing Partner, Brookfield Renewable Power, and Paul Jacob, President and CEO, Rye Development — along with moderator Elizabeth Ingram, Content Director, Clarion Energy, discussed both the merits and the challenges of hydropower development in the United States and Canada.

Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders stuck together, Pete Buttigieg took the middle path, Marianne Williamson took on racism and Beto O’Rourke faded into the background.

According to the latest forecast by BloombergNEF (BNEF), energy storage installations (not including pumped hydropower) around the world will multiply exponentially, from 9GW/17GWh deployed as of 2018 to 1,095GW/2,850GWh by 2040.

Consumers Energy says it’s happy with the launch of its electric vehicle charging station program and open to expanding the three-year, $10 million pilot.

ENGIE Storage has announced it will supply and operate a 19 MW/38 MWh portfolio of six energy storage sites that will contribute to the Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target Program and participate in ISO-New England wholesale markets.

The latest crop of utility participants includes NRG Energy, Cleco Corp., Entergy, Louisville Gas & Electric/Kentucky Utilities, AEP’s distributed energy ventures group AEP OnSite Partners and Hindustan Power from India.

The Skeleton Creek project will be located in three Oklahoma counties