One of the most game-changing news events in the electric vehicle and energy storage industry, is the acquisition of Maxwell Technologies by Tesla for $218 million, according to Frost & Sullivan.

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.

When Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, it cut short nearly 3,000 lives, displaced thousands of families, and subjected the commonwealth to the longest energy blackout in U.S. history. This tragedy invited a new vision for Puerto Rico’s battered electric grid, and I hoped that a central tenet of the rebuilding effort would be an aggressive move toward safe, abundant and resilient clean energy.

An energy storage system has been installed at the largest single-site solar park in the world.

A trailblazing wind-solar hybrid project in western Minnesota could be a preview of what’s to come as renewable developers look for new ways to bolster projects.

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.

New research shows that small run-of-river (ROR) hydropower projects can provide just as much baseload stability as reservoir-based hydropower plants while being highly responsive to real-time grid and market changes. This means that as the U.S. seeks to expand renewable energy sources without compromising reliability, one option is more flexible (and profitable) hydropower that doesn’t involve dams.

America’s national parks are one of the nation’s greatest assets. They preserve and protect vital ecosystems and offer people from all over the world the chance to experience the beauty and majesty of these great spaces.

Distributed Energy Resources (DER), such as residential solar panels, are not only changing the way energy systems operate, they also present an opportunity to change the way local communities operate by giving consumers the ability to sell excess energy, generated by microgrids or renewable set-ups, to their neighbors – it’s the new energy paradigm.

Last week, the Energy Web Foundation (EWF) announced it had officially signed more than 100 affiliates in an effort to become the world’s largest blockchain ecosystem.

The partners will work together to develop projects in Spain, the Middle East and South Africa. The projects could add several gigawatt hours of storage capacity by 2022.

New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo has launched an initiative to advance the design, construction and operation of low- or zero-carbon emitting buildings in the state.

Connor, Clark & Lunn Infrastructure (CC&L Infrastructure) and Regime de Rentes du Mouvement Desjardins, Desjardins Financial Security Life Assurance Company, and Certas Home and Auto Insurance Company (together, Desjardins) have acquired Regional Power Inc. from The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company (Manulife).

On Friday, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed the state’s groundbreaking Energy Transition Act (ETA) into law, meaning that by 2045, the state should be fully powered by clean, carbon-free electricity.

Oriden – a play on the English word “origin” and the Japanese word “denki” meaning ‘electricity’ – is the start of a new type of power generation organization. 

Royal Dutch Shell Plc took a step forward in its aim to become the world’s biggest power company with an aggressive move into the U.K. retail market by offering one of the cheapest tariffs available.

Idaho Power unveiled a goal Tuesday to provide 100-percent clean energy by 2045 on the heels of an announcement that it will purchase 120-MW of solar energy through a PPA with Jackpot Holdings at a price of less than US $0.022 cents per kWh.

The unit of NextEra Energy announced plans to build a 409-MW energy storage facility in Manatee County. FPL says the Manatee Energy Storage Center will be the world’s largest solar-power battery system by four-fold.

It was a milestone deal, not for its size but for the number of parties. In January, five big companies, each with differing energy requirements and renewable strategies, agreed to pool their investment and collectively purchase 42.5 megawatts from a North Carolina solar project.

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.

ABB and Rolls-Royce on Tuesday announced a global partnership on microgrid technology and advanced automation. Together the two companies will offer a microgrid solution for utilities, commercial and industrial entities.

BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest money manager, is boosting its bet on clean energy.

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.

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.

Two years after Britain had its first coal-free day since the Industrial Revolution, the nation’s network operator is readying itself for life without any fossil fuels.

Recently there has been a great deal of interest in a ‘Green New Deal’ for the United States. It is seen as a way to solve pressing environmental, employment and economic problems with a single comprehensive plan. Modeled on Roosevelt’s New Deal, which created jobs, invested in large infrastructure projects, and pulled the US out of the Great Depression, the Green New Deal is a modern version of that program, but with green energy investments, 21st century job training, and deficit reduction as the key components.

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

Cities and renewable electricity have, respectively, become the habitat and energy of choice globally. The two are increasingly inseparable. Urbanization and electrification trends have turned cities and the grid into leading platforms for human activity, presenting unique opportunities for today’s utilities to partner with municipalities to achieve their smart city goals.

Experiments have shown the ability to store ten-times the capacity of water, and for months on end. It is hoped the technology will help overcome any weather-related fluctuations in renewable generation from wind or solar.

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.

On Thursday, Puerto Rico’s Governor Ricardo Rosselló signed into law the Puerto Rico Energy Public Policy Act which lays the groundwork for the island’s transition to 100 percent clean energy by 2050.

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.

This weekend at its “Earth Day Every Day Fair,” Green Mountain Power announced an energy vision to have a 100 percent carbon free energy supply by 2025 and 100 percent renewable energy by 2030. The utility said the move is among the most aggressive carbon targets for a utility of GMP’s size in the country.

This week the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) released a report that is says will help utilities and other industry stakeholders understand and prepare for the grid of the future

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.

Yuba College, a community college part of the Yuba Community College District, this week completed a 1-MW solar carport installation that it says could result in $10 million of avoided utility costs over the life of the system. The District purchased the solar outright, which resulted in optimal savings.

Utilities and other energy experts convene each year at DISTRIBUTECH International (DTECH) to discuss the future of energy and this week Clarion Energy, organizer of the event, announced that the call for abstracts for the 2020 event is open.

This week New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced that $280 million of support is available for energy storage projects.

The insurance industry has lots of exposure to climate change. But as Warren Buffet has explained, not so much for companies that do annual policy adjustments, like Berkshire Hathaway. Their exposure is limited because the trends are baked into the premiums. But there is an opportunity for reducing insurance risk due to climate change, and it comes from the insurance industry itself. The business model is to have car insurance salespeople provide leads to virtual electric car charging services. This has perfect demographics because electric vehicle owners are very receptive to solar electricity. Who wouldn’t want a clean transportation solution with local job creation that can’t be offshore?

In 2018, more than 300,000 residential solar systems were installed and that number is expected to grow in 2019. To make it easier for these green-minded consumers to go solar, last week, two companies, EnerBank USA and Mosaic, each announced offerings that will help solar installers and homeowners gain access to the capital needed to pay for solar PV systems.

AES Gener is moving forward with the Virtual Dam project, which is being built next to the 178-MW Alfalfal I hydropower plant in the San Jose de Maipo district of the Metropolitan Region in Chile.

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.

ComEd sees a significant role for energy storage on Illinois’ electric grid as the state works toward realizing its ambitious renewable goals.

Climate-conscious Vermont utility, Green Mountain Power, is partnering with Tesla Inc. as it aspires to install battery systems in every home it serves.

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.

As of 2018, the city of Los Angeles boasted close to 350 MW of installed local solar power, according to reports. Its solar capacity increased some 44 percent year over year.

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.