Today, IREC proudly joins the collective voice of advocates and industry celebrating a milestone we have worked for 37 years to witness: two million solar installations now in the U.S. What better timing than in a year when children and governors, presidential candidates and corporate CEOs are all making headlines about the urgency of climate change action.

This week, Enel S.p.A. announced the opening of its newest Innovation Hub in Boston at Greentown Labs, the largest cleantech startup incubator in the United States. The Hub will provide Enel, one of the world’s leading power companies, access to Greentown Labs’ startup community and innovation expertise.

California’s rapid renewable energy expansion has led to a boom in large-scale solar and wind projects and a huge expansion of rooftop solar. As costs have fallen, solar energy has become much less expensive, and utility-scale solar and wind are now less expensive than new gas plants, and far less expensive than existing coal.

This week energy developer BayWa r.e. published its Energy Report 2019, which surveyed 1,200 European corporations about their attitudes toward renewable energy.

Incredibly, 1.1 billion people – 14% of the world’s population – still live without access to electricity. In rural, remote communities, many people simply have no light after sunset. That makes being productive at night—such as working and learning--extremely difficult. Limiting useful hours of the day by access to daylight holds back personal and economic development and wastes human potential.

Yesterday, the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) announced the launch of the Access Clean Energy Savings (ACES) initiative. ACES provides technical assistance to help rural electric cooperatives and public power utilities apply for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Rural Electric Savings Program (RESP), which provides zero-interest 20-year loans for improving energy efficiency.

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 rest of the world is handing out subsidies and incentives to speed up adoption of electric cars. But in nearly half of U.S. states, driving a battery-powered car requires paying additional fees.

Ameren is preparing to test a Canadian company’s software that could someday help usher in a radically different business model for the utility.

Tesla announced the successful completion of its previously announced offer to exchange all outstanding shares of common stock of Maxwell Technologies for 0.0193 of a share of Tesla common stock, together with cash in lieu of any fractional shares of Tesla common stock, without interest and less any applicable withholding taxes.

Two companies have come up with a potential solution to help mitigate power outages in California. Recent state utility proposals have called for new measures that would allow California utilities to increase the quantity and duration of Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS) as part of their wildfire mitigation plans. These PSPS, while important, can have severe impacts on businesses, hospitals and others who need reliable power.

People in Germany are more pessimistic than the rest of Europe regarding their country’s progress on its energy transition, or engergiewende.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s surprise victory in Australia’s election was a win for the coal industry and ensures the debate about tackling climate change will continue to polarize the nation.

On Monday, Portland-Oregon-based flow battery manufacturer ESS announced that it has joined Power Africa, a U.S. government-led partnership coordinated by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), as a private sector partner. ESS is the program’s first flow battery partner.

This week, Xcel Energy announced plans to retire its last two coal plants in the Upper Midwest a decade earlier than scheduled. The acceleration of the coal closures is part of the company’s clean energy transition that includes expanding wind and solar, using natural gas and operating its Monticello nuclear plant until at least 2040.

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.

United Parcel Service Inc. has agreed to buy the equivalent of 170 million gallons of renewable natural gas from Clean Energy Fuels Corp. over the next seven years in what the company described as the biggest-ever deal involving the alternative fuel.

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.

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.

Newly released figures from Zap-Map, a charging point platform, reveal that the number of public charging locations in the country has now surpassed the number of petrol stations.

Yesterday, energy storage company Saft said it delivered and installed a turnkey Energy Storage System to Bermuda Electric Light Company (BELCO). The system provides up to 10 MW power for spinning reserves and frequency response to maintain grid stability and has a storage capacity of 5.5MWh, said the company. The official ribbon-cutting ceremony was held on May 16.

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.

The nation’s largest electric grid operator is grappling with how to prevent state climate policies from merely pushing emissions — and costs — across state lines.

The energy storage resource is expected to help lower energy costs for National Grid’s customers in upstate New York

Duke Energy Florida (DEF) announced three battery storage projects, totaling 22 megawatts, that will improve overall reliability and support critical services during power outages, according to the company.

As the world responds to the challenges of climate change, energy systems are evolving, and evolving fast. The past 10 years have seen the rise (and dramatic cost reduction) of renewable energy such as wind and solar, to the extent that they are no longer considered alternative energy. They have become mainstream energy sources. Now, what will be the “next big thing” as the world shifts to a low carbon future?

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).

“Recognizing leaders in the power and energy industry not only gives us the opportunity to celebrate them and the projects that they are involved in, it also enables us to learn vital business and life lessons from these often exceptional individuals. We find out what makes them tick, what frustrates them and the processes they follow to address challenges – this is often inspiring, eye-opening stuff and cannot but contribute to the growth of the sector.“

The Scottish government has given utility Scottish Power the go-ahead to install Europe’s biggest industrial-scale battery to date to store energy generated at the 539MW Whitelee onshore wind farm.

Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (SGRE) said that is has begun operation of its electric thermal energy storage system (ETES), a milestone in the development of energy storage solutions, according to the company.

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.

Eleven million people were employed in renewable energy worldwide in 2018 according to the latest analysis by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

New York is poised to pass its own version of the Green New Deal with a climate bill that would more than triple the state’s solar capacity and aggressively promote development of wind farms off the state’s coast.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule and simultaneously repealed the Clean Power Plan (CPP).

While the industry is welcoming more women leaders, its rank-and-file workforce is still a lot like those at fossil-fuel companies: white and dominated by men. The lack of gender diversity is being driven by manufacturing jobs, and that means women are now missing out on the biggest jobs boom America has to offer.

The Energy Web Foundation (EWF) this week announced that it has launched the world’s first public, open-source, enterprise-grade blockchain tailored to the energy sector: the Energy Web Chain (EW Chain). As a refresher, blockchain allows for peer-to-peer energy market transactions.

Nigerian distributed utility company, Arnergy, announced it has raised $9 Million in a Series A round of funding led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures with participation from the Norwegian Investment Fund for Developing Countries (Norfund), EDFI ElectriFI and All On.

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

8minute Solar Energy, NV Energy and the Moapa Band of Paiutes announced that NV Energy selected 8minute to develop the largest solar plus storage project ever built in Nevada and one of the largest in the world.

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.

Yesterday, ENGIE Storage announced that San Diego International Airport (SAN) installed a 2 MW/4 MWh GridSynergy energy storage system. Paired with the airport’s existing 5.5 MW of solar capacity, the new energy storage system will reduce energy charges during peak demand, which according to ENGIE equate to approximately 40 percent of the airport’s monthly electricity costs. The system is expected to begin operation in early 2020.

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.

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.

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.

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.