A pale orange-and-gold sunset bathes the macadamia plantations and avocado orchards that sweep down to Australia’s Byron Bay. The coming dusk is a cue for two sleek Tesla battery packs in the garage at Amileka, a secluded holiday villa nearby. They stir silently into action—powering the appliances in the five-bedroom home’s twin kitchens, recharging a $100,000-plus Model X SUV, driving a filter pump for an 18-meter swimming pool sparkling in the shade of a century-old native black bean tree.

Dominion executives said in an interview this week that battery storage has the potential to improve the resiliency of the electrical grid

Dustin Yellin, a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based artist whose intricate 3D photomontages adorn the likes of New York’s Lincoln Center, wants to draw your gaze to climate change. Not in a subtle way, either. He plans to stand an oil supertanker on its end in the ground—a structure soaring 1,000 feet into the air.

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) has released its Short Term Energy Outlook for 2019 and we have summarized the key highlights for you below.

The four proposed central Virginia lithium-ion projects will cost about $33 million to build and offer 5-years’ worth of test data, according to Dominion.

A report recently released by the U.S. Department of Energy defines and evaluates cost and performance parameters of six battery energy storage technologies (BESS) and four non-BESS storage technologies.

South Australian energy storage company 1414 Degrees and Stone & Wood Brewing Company have agreed to undertake a feasibility study for the integration of 1414 Degrees’ electrically charged Thermal Energy Storage System (TESS-IND).

This week, San José’s Community Choice Aggregator (CCA) which is called San José Clean Energy (SJCE) and EDP Renewables SA (EDPR), through its fully owned subsidiary EDP Renewables North America LLC (EDPR NA), signed a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) for 100 MW of new solar energy capacity and 10 MW of battery storage at the Sonrisa Solar Park in Fresno County, California. The project is anticipated to be operational in 2022.

According to Vattenfall, the project will help provide less pronounced energy peaks and an overall more efficient use of energy infrastructure

The electric utility industry has been buffeted by two recent trends that threaten to upend the profitability, and in some cases the future viability of, those companies that are slow to adapt to a new, rapidly changing landscape. Specifically, in the past decade, the industry has had to grapple with both waning demand and the growth of distributed energy generation.

When two U.K. power plants shut down almost simultaneously in London’s first major blackout for a decade, it triggered a storm of questions about how to avoid another failure.

The UK’s North West Hydrogen Alliance (NWHA) is calling for government investment in hydrogen projects to meet ambitious carbon reductions targets in Britain.

A new battery made from affordable and durable materials generates energy from places where salt and fresh waters mingle. The technology could make coastal wastewater treatment plants energy-independent and carbon neutral.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), on behalf of the Australian government, has announced up to $40 million in funding towards the deployment of a pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) project in South Australia.

The renewable energy transition promises to reduce carbon emissions, but it’s happening at different speeds around the world. Read on for some key insights from BloombergNEF’s New Energy Outlook 2019, which provides a detailed road map to the future.

Energy Vault, the creator of a new way to perform utility-scale energy storage, announced that SoftBank Vision Fund (Vision Fund) invested $110 million in its Series B funding round. Energy Vault will use the funds to accelerate global deployment of its technology, which enables renewables to deliver baseload power for less than the cost of fossil fuels 24 hours a day, said the company. As part of the investment, Andreas Hansson, Partner for SoftBank Investment Advisers, will join the Energy Vault board of directors.

The financial benefits of buying and selling locally produced energy from rooftop solar, wind turbines and batteries within communities have been revealed in a test case run by energy tech firm LO3 Energy.

Freyr AS, a startup planning to build one of Europe’s first battery gigafactories in Norway, has a bigger vision for the region: a “Nordic Battery Belt.”

The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently released a major new report on hydrogen, underscoring the remarkable political and business momentum surrounding the fossil fuel alternative, and touting its potential as a vital component of global efforts to build a “clean, secure, and affordable energy future.” The report takes a bold and prescient stance, and has rightfully inspired a torrent of press coverage about the future of hydrogen and its role in the renewable energy mix.

Bernie Sanders wants renewable energy to power U.S. homes and vehicles by 2030 -- and he wants to do it by enlisting the federal government in building and running new solar, wind and geothermal electricity projects.

The Chinese government recently issued a whitepaper on the status and prospects of the hydrogen fuel and fuel cell sectors, indicating that energy derived from hydrogen will become an important part of the Chinese energy network.

The cost of producing hydrogen gas with renewables is likely to plummet in the coming decades, making one of the most radical technologies for reducing greenhouse gases economical.

Last week, the Hawaiian Electric Companies began Hawai‘i’s largest procurement effort for renewable energy resources to end the use of coal and reduce reliance on imported oil for power generation, moving the state closer to its goal of using 100 percent renewable energy by 2045.

Hydro Tasmania says it is accelerating detailed investigation of three key opportunities for pumped storage hydro development in the state as part of the Battery of the Nation initiative. Work has begun on a full feasibility assessment of pumped hydro development opportunities at Lake Cethana and Lake Rowallan in the northwest and near Tribute Power Station on the West Coast.

MORE THAN 170 NEWS OUTLETS from around the world have now signed up for Covering Climate Now, a project co-founded by CJR and The Nation aimed at strengthening the media’s focus on the climate crisis.

This week, Scottish software company Smarter Grid Solutions (SGS) announced that it will be expanding into Europe after completing successful trials with a utility company in Germany.

Ameren Missouri, a unit of Ameren Corp., filed plans with the Missouri Public Service Commission to build three solar + storage facilities across Missouri

California’s energy storage incentive program has been a great success, with more than 11,000 battery storage systems installed to-date. The problem is, it’s not reaching the state’s most vulnerable communities. A new proposal from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) aims to fix some of the barriers preventing disadvantaged communities from participating in the program, and it allocates $100 million to a new program designed to offset the cost of battery storage systems for populations threatened by wildfires and related utility power shutoffs.

In recognition of the widely acknowledged studies that show that organizations with gender equality perform better financially, this year POWERGEN International, along with partner UL, is launching a new awards program that seeks out women of good character.

France’s Neoen SA has outlined plans to build a giant renewables complex in South Australia, including battery storage with up to nine times more capacity than the Tesla Inc. design at its nearby Hornsdale plant, which is billed as the world’s largest lithium-ion battery.

Eos Energy Storage and energy equipment firm Holtec International are creating a joint venture to produce Eos’ next generation of large-scale zinc batteries.

Vestas has become the first company to install 100 GW of wind turbines.

This week at the Assembly of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), political and business leaders from around the world outlined the far-reaching geopolitical implications of an energy transformation driven by the rapid growth of renewable energy.

The San Francisco-based utility is under investigation for any role its equipment might have played in the deadly wildfires of late 2018, only one year after getting blamed for an earlier, devastating rash of blazes.

While it’s well known that corporations were some of the earliest trailblazers of large-scale renewable energy purchasing — they’ve closed over 14 gigawatts of deals in the past six years, according to tracking by Rocky Mountain Institute’s Business Renewables Center — higher education has also made impressive strides. In fact, a report released last fall showed that the top 30 renewable energy-buying universities are using around 3 billion kilowatt-hours of green power annually. That’s enough to power 276,000 homes.

GE Renewable Energy and Future Wind said this week that they have signed an agreement to install the first Haliade-X 12-MW wind turbine prototype in Maasvlakte-Rotterdam this summer. The deal includes five years of testing and a 15-year full service Operation and Maintenance agreement.

Here we are in 2019, with more than 100 U.S. cities and 140 large corporations having established 100 percent clean, carbon-free and/or renewable energy goals. In several states, newly seated governors campaigned on goals of 100 percent renewable energy, and congressional representatives have arrived in Washington positioning for a like-minded national proposal.

Global funding for clean-energy projects sagged in 2018 after China’s decision to curb subsidies dragged down installations in the world’s biggest solar market.

The fallout from California power giant PG&E Corp.’s looming bankruptcy has been both sudden and widespread: Its electricity suppliers have seen their debt cut to junk. Banks are facing liabilities as buyers of last resort for more than $760 million of bonds the utility issued through California. And the rest of the state’s utilities have tumbled.

Utilities and renewable-energy advocates have long had a complicated relationship. Yet the prospect of PG&E Corp. tipping into bankruptcy by the end of January has sent shivers through the solar-and-wind sector.

In early December, I put out a call to the online energy professionals community to find participants for the world’s first Fantasy Energy League. Perhaps I saw the pending end of the 2018 fantasy football season and I wanted something to fill the coming void, or maybe I was just curious to see who else wanted to approach energy projections from a gamified lens. Either way, I put out my energy-industry bat signal for the Fantasy Energy League only to see my email inbox and my Twitter feed blow up.

PG&E Corp.’s woes are spreading to the East Coast.

EIA expects non-hydroelectric renewable energy resources such as solar and wind will be the fastest growing source of U.S. electricity generation for at least the next two years. EIA’s January 2019 Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) forecasts that electricity generation from utility-scale solar generating units will grow by 10 percent in 2019 and by 17 percent in 2020. According to the January STEO, wind generation will grow by 12 percent and 14 percent during the next two years. EIA forecasts total U.S. electricity generation across all fuels will fall by 2 percent this year and then show very little growth in 2020.

Recent political changes have shaken Taiwan, and could put at risk the development and growth of its nascent offshore wind market.

Digitalization has become a worldwide focus and the race to become the global leader in Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly competitive, with many countries, including Canada, China, and the UK releasing strategies in the last twenty months to promote the use and development of AI.

On January 14, 2019, California’s largest utility, PG&E, filed a bankruptcy notice stating that it plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy by the month end on January 29th. Given its business situation, PG&E must proceed with the bankruptcy process unless lawmakers step in because PG&E’s current liabilities from California’s 2017 and 2018 fires are about 10 times PG&E’s current market cap of $3.5 billion, which is down 90% since last Fall. Obviously, this is a big issue for the cleantech industry since PG&E covers a territory that runs from Eureka to Bakersfield, including 106,000 miles of electric grid.

A California incubator that houses and nurtures clean-energy startups is expanding into venture capital.

Tata Power Co. is seeking to set up electric vehicle chargers in the Indian capital, a company official said, as one of the most polluted cities on earth plans an ambitious push toward cleaner vehicles.

Tata Power in India has this week started utilizing a digital asset management system from GE to optimize its thermal fleet.

This week Siemens Gamesa said it signed its third contract in so many years with Voltalia in Brazil to supply wind turbines for wind farms the company is building.