By the time this column is published, oral arguments in the legal challenge to the Clean Power Plan will have already been made. The en banc panel of 10 appeals court judges is not likely to render its decision before the New Year.  No matter the opinion, it will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Statkraft opened its renovated and expanded 350-MW Nedre Rossaga hydropower station on Oct. 18.

U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Patty Murray, D-Wash., today announced funding will be awarded to build the United States’ first open-ocean, power grid-connected wave energy test facility at a site off the Oregon coast, according to a U.S. Senate press release.
 

Nyadi Hydropower Ltd. and Zhejiang Hydropower Construction & Installation Company Ltd. of China signed an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract on Jan. 16 for the 30-MW Nyadi hydropower project, according to local published reports.  

The North Carolina Attorney General's Office has filed a court injunction against the German ownership group that owns the damaged Woodlake Dam in an effort to make it pay for dam safety repairs.

Power Africa and Trade Africa Coordinator, Andrew Herscowitz, announced on Feb. 14 during the Abuja Electricity Distribution Co.’s two-day Distribution Company Workshop in Abuja, Nigeria, that the U.S. will invest US$1billion in the country through the U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA).

India’s Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs announced today it has approved investment for the generation component of the 900-MW Arun 3 hydropower project on Arun River in Sankhuwasabha district of eastern Nepal, for an estimated Rs. 5723.72 crore (US$854.4 million).
 

The Philippines Department of Energy (DOE) released a report today saying its US$133.4 million 10.6-MW Pulanai hydropower plant being constructed in the southern province of Bukidnon on the Island of Mindanao, was attacked by armed individuals on Feb. 25.

The partnership between Manitoba Hydro and four First Nations via the Keeyask Hydropower Limited Partnership (KHLP) announced a significant increase in its control budget and a revised commissioning date for the 695-MW Keeyask Generating Station in a statement on March 7.
 

Only time will tell whether this is right, but EV adoption is clearly rising both on the individual and fleet fronts. Utilities such as Southern California Edison and Ameren, among many others, are working to build EV charging infrastructure and align power distribution in a way to handle it.

Trump's proposed budget severely cuts the EPA and DOE's efficiency and renewables offices, but allocates funding for R&D, clean coal and advanced nuclear.

What happens when a famously left-leaning city dives into the buttoned-down business of electric utilities? San Francisco may soon find out.

This week, ConEdison subsidiary, Orange & Rockland Utilities (O&R) and Key Capture Energy (KCE) announced that O&R has selected KCE, an Albany-based, independent developer of utility-scale battery storage projects, will plan, design, install and operate O&R’s new battery storage project in Pomona.

Italy must more than double its capacity to store electricity if it wants to slash pollution from burning fossil fuels, the head of the nation’s power transmission network said.

In a first for the country, Germany generated 54.5 percent of electricity from renewable energy in March 2019. This is according to data collected by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems.

Clean-energy visionaries have long argued that the world needs a better battery capable of selling skeptical consumers on electric cars and running the grid on renewable power. And yet the battery of the future—at least for the coming decade—will almost certainly be the battery of the past.

On Thursday, US Congressman from Pennsylvania Mike Doyle introduced a bill that would establish a federal investment tax credit (ITC) for energy storage. The legislation would allow energy storage project developers, both commercial and residential, to receive a 30 percent tax credit for large-scale, commercial-scale and residential-scale storage projects through 2021.

There are a total of about 530,000 potentially feasible pumped hydro energy storage sites worldwide, with a total storage potential of about 22 million GWh. These astonishing numbers come from a report recently released by Professor Andrew Blakers and other researchers with Australian National University’s RE100 Group.

Genex Power Limited has secured all environmental approvals required to develop the 250-MW Kidston Pumped Storage Hydro Project (K2-Hydro).

The Redford Center, a California-based non-profit co-founded in 2005 by Robert Redford and his son, James, announced that every morning, from April 15-22, 2019, the organization will post an episode a day of "Renewable Therapy for Climate Anxiety," a conversational mini-series featuring Filmmaker, James Redford, and Matthew Nordan, clean energy investor and managing partner at MNL Partners. In each two-minute installment, the pair explores questions that nag environmentalists when it comes to renewable energy. Watch the first episode below.

For more than 100 years, electricity has been reliably provided to end users through a centralized generation and transmission model. Large coal, hydro and (later) nuclear generating facilities produced huge amounts of electricity and, through a spider’s web of high voltage transmission lines, sent the power to distribution substations which in turn, through a secondary set of lower voltage feeders, distributed the power out to the end users. And when the end user flipped the switch, their lights would go on. This system was very reliable.

A new career map, Careers in Climate Control Technology, provides a first-of-its-kind interactive, visual tool to showcase the employment opportunities that exist in the swiftly growing HVAC/R industry – Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration. The sector is on track for projected growth of 15 percent from 2016 to 2026.

Tesla Inc. was sued by the family of a man who died as the result of a crash allegedly caused when the Autopilot navigation system of his 2017 Model X malfunctioned.

Yesterday during an earnings call, Danish offshore wind giant Ørsted announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire a subsidiary of US-based Coronal Energy a developer of large-scale solar and storage projects. Ørsted’s CEO and President Henrik Poulson said that Coronal is “a nationwide solar and storage developer with a significant pipeline of solar and storage projects” and that the acquisition will expand “our capability platform and exposure to new attractive regional markets.”

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.

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).

This week energy storage maker ESS Inc said that it had deployed an Energy Warehouse (EW) long-duration flow battery system at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego, California.

The United States in 2019 will become the world’s largest market for grid-connected battery energy storage, as solar-plus-storage and peaking capacity requirements drive increased procurement, according to IHS Markit.

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

Among my circle of friends and colleagues, everyone is aware of the impact of human activities on climate change - the melting of arctic ice, the destruction of species - and the major causes of it, namely, coal burning for electricity and fossil fuels burning for transport. What nearly everyone is unclear about is what specifically to do about it and how fast.

Big Oil wants to put a box in your hall closet that works like a human brain, can cut the lights, stop the refrigerator and will know how you move about in the privacy of your home better than you do.

The 2.25 MW/4.5 MWh project will be situated in Johnson City, Texas. Aggreko software will manage the battery system, which will provide services into grid operator Electric Reliability Council of Texas.

State-run NTPC Ltd., India’s largest coal-fired power producer, is appointing a new head of its renewables team to speed up its expansion into clean energy, according to a company official with knowledge of the plan.

Brazil is the second-largest producer of hydroelectric power in the world, after only China, and hydropower accounted for more than 70% of the country’s electricity generation in 2018. Brazil’s latest 10-year energy plan seeks to maintain this level of hydro generation while increasing the share of nonhydro renewables, particularly solar.

Genex Power Limited has signed a share subscription agreement (SSA) with Electric Power Development Co Ltd, trading as J-POWER, for a conditional investment of up to AUD$25 million (US$17.5 million).

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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’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.

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.

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%.

The Skeleton Creek project will be located in three Oklahoma counties

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.

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.

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.