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.

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.

GE announced today that it sees a future in housing its renewable generation businesses (onshore and offshore wind, hydropower) alongside its grid businesses which include substations and transformers plus solar, storage and distributed energy resource (DER) control software. GE Renewable Energy CEO Jerome Pecresse said in a press conference that the move will simplify the lives of GE’s customers by giving them one point of contact for all of their renewable energy power needs.

Hundreds of young activists stormed Nancy Pelosi’s office after Democrats won the House in November, inspired by the new hero of the left, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who briefly joined them in a live-streamed protest to demand passage of a radical plan to fight climate change.

PG&E Corp. is seeking court protection to amend or cancel power purchase agreements with suppliers as part of its bankruptcy proceedings.

Federal energy regulatory commissioner Cheryl LaFleur announced on Twitter on January 31 that she will not be seeking a third term and will be leaving the commission later in 2019. She said in the tweet that this is not the outcome she had hoped for but that she felt very lucky to have served on FERC for more than 8 years. She said she plans to serve out the rest of her term, which is up at the end of June.

Analysts at Huajin Securities in China said they expect newly installed capacity nationwide for 2018 to be somewhere between 21 and 22 GW, and that the wind power curtailment rate would continue to drop. Newly installed capacity for wind power is expected to continue to grow steadily over the next two years, while the proportion of the country’s total power sourced from wind is expected to continue to increase as well.

Fortune 500 brands and a range of other non-utility entities are catalyzing America’s growing demand for renewable energy by purchasing a record amount of wind power in 2018, according to a recent report by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). Consumer demand combined with policy stability and low, stable prices helped wind power capacity installations rise to the third strongest quarter in the industry’s history.

According to an analysis by the SUN DAY Campaign of data just released by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), natural gas dominated new electrical generating capacity in 2018. However, renewable energy sources (i.e., biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar, wind) seem poised to swamp fossil fuels as new generating capacity is added over the next three years.

Sempra Renewables jointly owns all of part of seven wind farms and one battery installation in seven states. 

This week, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that rather than investing in the Haynes, Harbor and Scattergood natural gas power plants to meet the requirements of a 2010 law related to a practice known as once through cooling, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) will phase them out in favor of renewable energy.

The Jackson Smart Energy District aims to achieve the parent firm’s 2040 clean energy goals some 15 to 20 years earlier. Those goals include producing 40 percent of the district’s energy needs from on-site renewable sources.

Plenty of people, it seems, have plans for PG&E Corp. Even before the California utility giant filed for bankruptcy facing $30 billion in potential liabilities from wildfires, state regulators began studying whether it needed to be reformed, restructured or even taken over by the government. They asked interested parties -- city officials, unions, consumer groups and trade associations -- to chime in.

Instead of a wall, build a first-of-its-kind energy park that spans the 1,954 miles of the border between the United States and Mexico to bring energy, water, jobs and border security to the region.

According to an analysis by the SUN DAY Campaign of data just released by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), new solar and wind generating capacity has taken the lead over natural gas and all other energy sources for the first month of 2019.

RenewableUK highlighted last week that Great Britain’s onshore and offshore wind farms generated more electricity than any other source of power last week.

Denmark in many ways is the poster child for the generation mix of the future. It led the way for decades in wind generation. It has continued to set ever-more ambitious targets for renewable penetration. And it has shown in the real world how to make a grid work that includes a heavy presence of renewable assets. Along the way, though, it has faced many challenges.

A new textbook on offshore renewable energy has been released by M. Reza Hashemi with the University of Rhode Island, in collaboration with Simon Neill with Bangor University in Wales, the United Kingdom.

Amazon.com announced today that it plans to purchase the energy produced by three new renewable energy projects as part of its long-term goal to power all Amazon Web Services (AWS) global infrastructure with renewable energy. These projects – a 91.2-MW wind farm in Donegal Ireland, a 91-MW wind farm in Bäckhammar, Sweden, and a 47-MW wind farm in Tehachapi, California – will deliver an expected 670,000 megawatt-hours (MWh) of renewable energy annually.

As plans for wind farms across New England’s waters progress, fishermen continue to express concerns about the impact of the burgeoning offshore wind industry on their livelihoods.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed wants to use PG&E Corp.’s bankruptcy to take over some of the company’s assets for the city’s power needs, a move that would shake up California’s largest utility and remake the state’s energy landscape.

Last week, LM Wind Power said it had successfully manufactured the world’s first wind turbine blade to surpass 100 meters in length.

The wind farm will produce renewable energy credits that, combined with the company’s previous agreement, should equal 100 percent of electricity used annually at General Mill’s domestic facilities.

This week global energy and infrastructure group, Eversheds Sutherland, announced that it helped Ball Corporation secure two virtual power purchase agreements (VPPAs) – one wind and one solar – for a total of 388 MW of new renewable energy. According to Ball, these agreements will allow the company to power 100 percent of its corporate, packaging and aerospace operations electricity load in North America with renewable energy by the end of 2021.

Energy advisory and certification body DNV GL has launched a new digital platform for renewable energy power purchase agreements.

British people need to fly less, drive electric cars, eat little meat and turn their home thermostats down to 19 degrees Celsius (66 Fahrenheit) in order to rein in greenhouse gases damaging the planet.

Even though there is only one small existing offshore wind farm in the Northeast, the 30-MW Block Island wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island, two announcements this week highlight the growing economic importance of the region's burgeoning offshore wind industry.

Last year was the first time since 2001 that growth in renewable power capacity failed to increase year on year.

Global energy powerhouse Siemens is to undergo a fundamental transformation by spinning off its gas and power divisions into a new entity which will also comprise its stake in windpower firm Siemens Gamesa.

This week in Seattle, Washington, Senate Bill 5116 was signed into law in by Governor Jay Inslee after passing the state legislature earlier this month. This bill cuts out coal power by 2025 and requires an equitable transition to 100 percent clean electricity for the entire state by 2045.

This week, diversified real estate acquisition and development firm Commercial Development Company and transmission developer Anbaric said they plan to build a renewable energy center at Brayton Point Commerce Center in Somerset, Massachusetts. The site is the former home of the Brayton Point Coal Plant, the cooling towers for which were demolished two weeks ago. (video of demolition at the end of article at this link).

On Thursday this week, Mayor Steven Fulop welcomed EnBW North America to Jersey City in a ribbon-cutting ceremony. New Jersey Economic Development Authority Senior Vice President Brian Sabina and others gathered to officially open the German subsidiary’s first U.S. office and marking its entrance into the competitive New Jersey/New York offshore wind market.

Enel Green Power North America announced on Thursday that it has signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) between its subsidiary White Cloud Wind Project, LLC and Associated Electric Cooperative Inc. (AECI), a power utility based in Springfield, Missouri. In line with the agreement, AECI will purchase the entire output generated by the 236.5 MW White Cloud wind project, currently in development in Nodaway County, Missouri.

Stakeholders including clean energy and community groups are watching closely as ComEd begins the second phase of a microgrid pilot project in Chicago.

Renewables energy investment in Asia excluding China will overtake spending on upstream oil and gas projects in the region as soon as next year, according to Rystad Energy.

A number of recent announcements highlight just how quickly and aggressively the U.S. offshore wind industry is growing in the Northeast. States are enacting offshore wind target capacity laws and initiatives and companies are setting up offices in the region and making strategic hires so they can participate in what will soon be a booming industry.

According to an analysis by the SUN DAY Campaign of data just released by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), U.S. electrical generating capacity by renewable energy sources (i.e., biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar, wind) has now - for the first time - surpassed that of coal.

On June 12, Target corporation said it was increasing its renewable energy goals by committing to source 100 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030. The goal applies to all of Target’s domestic operations.

BlackRock Real Assets is aiming to boost its renewables power portfolio in Asia by as much as 10-fold as it seeks to keep pace with the world’s fastest-growing region for green energy.

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.

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.

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.

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!

The Lockett Wind farm in Wilbarger has the potential to generate more than 700,000 MWh of renewable energy per year, enough to power the equivalent of 70,000 homes. 

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.

The project award is valued at about $98 million, according to IEA, and will be able to power up to 115,000 average homes

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.

It may be time to start building power plants in Texas again.