In early February, during DistribuTECH, the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) hosted a workshop to discuss what requirements are necessary for successful distributed energy resource management systems (DERMS) deployment.

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.

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.

Over the past week, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced multiple funding opportunities to renewable energy research including $130M for early-stage solar and $28M for wind. Further, the National Offshore Wind Research and Development Consortium announced up to $7M in funding for offshore wind.

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.

Building solar and wind energy projects on potentially contaminated lands can be a golden opportunity, both effective and cost-effective, for developers. The 120-acre Reilly Tar & Chemical Corporation Superfund site was recently redeveloped with a utility-scale solar farm and is a prime example of the reuse potential inherent in thousands of Superfund sites, brownfields, retired power plants, and landfills.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Wind or solar now represent the least expensive option for adding new power generation capacity in approximately two-thirds of the world.

A series of U.S. renewable energy incentives violated international trade rules, according to the World Trade Organization, threatening to stoke tensions between the two countries as President Donald Trump prepares to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday.

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

Installed solar capacity in the United States exceeded 10 GW for the third year in a row in 2018, and the pace of growth is expected to continue. The first quarter of 2019 was the strongest in the history of the U.S. solar market, according to a recent report from Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables. Yet inefficient and costly project financing inhibits many solar developers from tapping into the market’s true potential.

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.

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.

The Skeleton Creek project will be located in three Oklahoma counties

The cost of producing hydrogen gas with renewables is likely to plummet in the coming decades, making one of the most radical technologies for reducing greenhouse gases economical.

A recent report by the Energy Futures Initiative (EFI), established by former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, and the National Association of State Energy Officials confirms that the energy sector as a whole grew 2 percent last year, which is .3 percent more than the national job growth percentage of 1.7 percent.

A new LBNL report offers concrete suggestions about what investments today will be most beneficial in tomorrow’s renewable energy future.

Clean energy advocates rejoiced as legislation was passed today in New Jersey that will support the development of a massive amount of renewable energy, specifically community solar, energy storage, offshore wind and energy efficiency. The bill also props up nuclear power in the state with the establishment of zero-emission certificates.

Continuing on U.S. President Trump’s campaign promise to revive the coal industry, on Tuesday, August 21, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced plans to significantly alter the Clean Power Plan (CPP), shrinking some of the emission reduction targets that were set in place under the CPP by former President Obama.

On Monday, global offshore wind leader Ørsted announced that it had entered into an agreement to acquire a 100 percent of Rhode Island-based Deepwater Wind at a purchase price of US $510 million. Deepwater wind built the first U.S. offshore wind farm — the 30-MW Block Island Wind — and is currently constructing two additional facilities off Long Island, New York (South Fork at 90 MW) and Connecticut (Revolution Wind at 600 MW).

The Gentleman coal plant was once the linchpin of Nebraska’s electricity grid, its twin smokestacks visible for miles across the prairie. Now, the state’s biggest power source is routinely pushed aside to make room for more wind and solar energy.

Last week, Siemens and Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) announced a new new academic partnership that they say will provide students with the skills needed to operate and advance the nation’s energy grid.

It’s been a whirlwind year for Packetized Energy, the Vermont-based clean energy sector start-up spun off from a U.S. Department of Energy project in 2016 by three University of Vermont electrical engineering faculty, Paul Hines, Mads Almassalkhi and Jeff Frolik.

Ontario plans to cut carbon gas emissions by 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, setting reduction targets for industries and encouraging private investments in clean technologies.

Exxon Mobil Corp. will use renewable energy to produce oil in West Texas.

Crowdfunding has become a popular tool for people and organizations to use to test out their new ideas for green products while securing funds to begin operations. The most well-known crowdfunding websites, Kickstarter and Indiegogo, have helped a significant amount of projects in renewable energy and sustainability get off the ground, projects that have been the focus of previous installments in my ongoing articles series about crowdfunding in energy.

While it’s well known that corporations were some of the earliest trailblazers of large-scale renewable energy purchasing — they’ve closed over 14 gigawatts of deals in the past six years, according to tracking by Rocky Mountain Institute’s Business Renewables Center — higher education has also made impressive strides. In fact, a report released last fall showed that the top 30 renewable energy-buying universities are using around 3 billion kilowatt-hours of green power annually. That’s enough to power 276,000 homes.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is set to hold more auctions for offshore wind power, plugging a current gap in tenders for the next three years that the industry has said would harm turbine makers and hamper green targets.

In early February, during DistribuTECH, the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) hosted a workshop to discuss what requirements are necessary for successful distributed energy resource management systems (DERMS) deployment.

This week the University of Nevada, Reno announced two discoveries in the Great Basin by the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology using a previously untried method for finding unknown, hidden geothermal resources.

Wind or solar now represent the least expensive option for adding new power generation capacity in approximately two-thirds of the world.

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

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.

The electric utility industry has been buffeted by two recent trends that threaten to upend the profitability, and in some cases the future viability of, those companies that are slow to adapt to a new, rapidly changing landscape. Specifically, in the past decade, the industry has had to grapple with both waning demand and the growth of distributed energy generation.

A Chinese fund has invested A$45 million to accelerate the development and commercialisation of translational health and medical research outcomes from South Australia. The investment will enable researchers from the University of Adelaide, University of South Australia, the state’s hospitals and other institutions to develop proof of concept, undertake clinical trials, and bring new drugs and technologies to the global market.

In many countries, needs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have led to increased installation of intermittent renewables such as wind and solar.

News on the global hydroelectric industry from November-December 2014

Clean energy investments in India increased to $7.9 billion last year and are expected to surpass $10 billion in 2015.

California’s bet on green energy is paying off, with clean technology companies creating more jobs and investing more money than competitors in any other state.

India said cheaper credit along with foreign investment will help the world’s third-largest polluter fund an ambitious renewable energy program that would build green power plants faster than China.

Sweden and Norway will probably exceed a joint target for renewable energy production by the end of the decade, industry consultant Nena AS said.

Uruguay hopes to generate as much as 38 percent of its power from wind by the end of 2017, up from about 13 percent now, cementing Uruguay’s position as South America’s top wind-energy user, according to Gonzalo Casaravilla, chairman of the state- owned electric utility UTE.

Publicly, the United Nations climate-change talks look mired in disputes over everything from money to the length of the proposed agreement.

A report released this month by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) indicates hydropower development in India can play a crucial role in the country’s sustainable energy security if sites for new installed capacity -- among other things -- are accessible, stable and affordable.
 

Canadian utility BC Hydro and the McLeod Lake Indian Band have forged an agreement that will give the aboriginal group "economic development opportunities and other benefits" related to the construction and operation of the Site C hydroelectric project.

As the water levels in dams in South Africa continue to dwindle, the 2015 Zimbabwe Humanitarian Situation Report notes that water levels in all of Zimbabwe’s seven catchment areas are about 18%, their worst levels in decades.