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.

Chinese solar company Hanergy Thin Film Power Group has won a deal to build the first solar PV plants in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

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.

EON SE is now supplying all of its 3.3 million residential customers in Britain with 100% renewable electricity, the first of the U.K.’s “Big Six” utilities to do so.

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.

Voith has received an order for the Ritom pumped storage power plant in Switzerland, which began operating in 1920 and will be replaced with a new facility.

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

Arlington, VA based Summit Ridge Energy (SRE) announced that it will acquire 11 projects from Pivot Energy in Illinois totaling 29 MWs, increasing SRE’s portfolio of community solar projects in the state to more than 20.

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.

Dozens of new solar and wind projects are sprouting up on tribal lands across the U.S. as Native Americans seek new ways to boost their economies beyond casinos and untaxed cigarettes.

Plans are under way to rebuild one of Ontario Power Generation’s oldest hydroelectric generating stations, which was damaged by a tornado in 2018. Constructed in 1917, the 5-MW Calabogie Generating Station has produced renewable, low-cost electricity on the Madawaska River for decades.

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).

The projects include a 999-MW wind facility being built north of Weatherford, a 287-MW wind facility being built southwest of Enid, and a 199-MW facility being built south of Alva. They are being developed by Invenergy.

General Electric Co. agreed to sell a majority stake in a solar-energy business to BlackRock Inc., giving the investment giant footing in a growing market as the ailing manufacturer shifts its focus elsewhere.

India’s ambitious plan to take the leadership position among nations as one of largest producers of renewable energy may have run into some unfavorable weather.

On Monday, July 22, about 30 HydroVision attendees visited the beautiful Hood River Valley outside of Portland, Oregon to tour in-conduit hydropower projects and learn how modernizing irrigation districts is a sustainable solution to help combat a changing climate.

New York has signed the biggest-ever deals for offshore wind power in U.S. history, a key part of the state’s plan to get all of its power from emissions-free sources by 2040.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, is poised to start generating wind power within three years as part of an effort to harness renewable energy to cut local demand for fossil fuels.

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

Missouri’s smallest investor-owned utility is charting a dramatically different course two years after being acquired by new owners.

Last week, Corvias announced that it had entered the final phase of its geothermal installation and energy upgrades effort at the U.S. Army’s Fort Polk in West-Central Louisiana, a milestone that once complete will not only modernize the aging infrastructure but save the Army significant money and benefit military families.

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.

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.

Global wind turbine makers are expanding manufacturing capacity in India to boost exports from the South Asian nation even as the country’s domestic industry faces headwinds.

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.

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.

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo has announced that the New York Power Authority is launching a 15-year modernization and digitization program to significantly extend the operating life of the Niagara Power Project.

The Skeleton Creek project will be located in three Oklahoma counties

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.

This week, DNV GL said that it acted as a technical advisor to the energy company AES Colombia during its planned purchase of the Jemeiwaa Kai portfolio of wind power projects. DNV GL carried out an independent analysis of the La Guajira wind farms wind and power generation regime.

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

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

California, long a progressive leader on renewable energy and climate change mitigation, has neglected a key market segment for renewable energy: the “community-scale,” or “wholesale distributed generation” (DG), market. This market segment is defined as projects below 20 megawatts that connect to the distribution grid and export power to the grid for sale.

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.

Of all the efforts to break up utility monopolies in the U.S., the one unfolding in Arizona may be the most important to watch.

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.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt has unveiled changes to the implementing regulations of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) that Interior says is “designed to increase transparency and effectiveness and bring the administration of the Act into the 21st century.”

The national average price of wind power purchase agreements dropped to below 2 cents/kWh in 2018, according to the annual Wind Technologies Market Report released by the U.S. Department of Energy.

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.