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Small Missouri utility proposes big pivot to clean energy in latest resource plan

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




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Utility device and data management technologies revenue could exceed $22 billion by 2027edit

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%.





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On the brink of blackouts, Texas makes case for power plant boom

It may be time to start building power plants in Texas again.




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Disused South Australia zinc mine to pilot clean-energy storage for grids

Toronto-based Hydrostor Inc., a leader in advanced compressed-air energy storage (A-CAES), has announced a A$30 million technology demonstration project at the former Angas Zinc mine in Strathalbyn, Adelaide.




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BAE Systems awarded A$35 billion Future Frigates program

UK company BAE Systems has been selected as preferred tenderer for the SEA 5000 program to deliver the Australian Government’s nine Future Frigates for the Royal Australian Navy.




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Chinese fund invests A$45 million into South Australian health and biotech industry

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.




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Japan's Prime Minister Re-Election Risks Undercutting Clean Energy Push

Shinzo Abe’s re-election as prime minister risks undercutting Japan’s commitment to clean energy at a time when incentives are under review and the nation’s utilities say they can’t accommodate capacity already planned.




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Norway Utility Plans to Invest as Much as $8.1 Billion in Renewables

Statkraft AS, Norway’s state-owned power company, said it plans to plow as much as 60 billion kroner ($8.1 billion) into renewable energy around the world in the coming years after the government boosted its funding.




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Machining work performed to deal with bearing cooling problem at Lookout Shoals

A problem with bearing cooling at the Lookout Shoals plant helped Duke Energy uncover several other issues that needed to be resolved. Through creative approaches and significant machining work, the units are now operating dependably.




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Utility GDF Suez Plans to Double European Renewable Capacity by 2025

GDF Suez SA plans to double renewable power production capacity in Europe over the next decade as the utility shifts its focus away from developing more historic natural gas and nuclear energy sources in the region.




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Enel Putting Final Touches on Yieldco for US Renewable Assets

Enel SpA is putting the final touches on a yieldco that would hold its U.S. renewable energy assets, making it the latest power-plant owner to opt for a structure that frees up capital.




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Sweden, Norway Increase Renewable Target Amid Power Glut Concern

Sweden and Norway agreed to boost their target for renewable energy production amid concerns the additional capacity will exacerbate a power glut and strain the region’s electricity grid.




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Obama Orders US Agencies to Cut Carbon Emissions 40 Percent by 2025

President Barack Obama ordered the federal government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent from 2008 levels over the next 10 years by shifting to renewable energy sources such as solar power.




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Beijing to Shut All Major Coal Power Plants to Cut Pollution

Beijing, where pollution averaged more than twice China’s national standard last year, will close the last of its four major coal-fired power plants next year.




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Mexico Pledges to Cut Emissions 25 Percent in Climate Change Milestone

Mexico has become the first developing nation to formally promise to cut its global-warming pollution, a potential milestone in efforts to reach a worldwide agreement on tackling climate change.




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Australia’s Biggest Power Producer Sees Future without Coal

Australia’s largest electricity producer committed to close its coal-fired power plants within 35 years as part of an effort to cut the nation’s dependence on the fossil fuel.




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Japan Anticipates Clean Energy Will Edge Out Nuclear Power

Japan anticipates that by 2030 clean energy such as solar and hydro will generate slightly more of the nation’s electricity than nuclear power plants.




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Scientists Start $150 Billion Program to Cut Clean Energy Costs

Scientists and economists including BP Plc’s former chief executive officer, John Browne, are inviting governments to join a $150 billion program that aims to make clean energy cheaper than coal.




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Green Bonds Sprout as Wall Street Embraces Renewable Energy Debt

Bonds backing clean energy and other sustainable initiatives are booming. Investors are snapping up green bonds at the fastest pace on record, as big banks like Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Corp. pile in with new issuance to feed the growing appetite for socially responsible investments.




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Uruguay Spends $2.6 Billion to Become South America Wind Leader

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.




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German Utility's Race for Renewables Seen as Too Little, Too Late

RWE AG, the German utility whose coal-fired plants make it Europe’s largest carbon emitter, officially started the company’s largest renewables project on Thursday: a wind farm in Liverpool Bay off Britain’s coast.




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The Way Humans Get Electricity Is About to Change Forever

Trillions of dollars will be invested in renewable energy over the next 25 years, driving some of the most profound changes yet in how humans get their electricity. That's according to a new forecast by Bloomberg New Energy Finance that plots out global power markets to 2040. 




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Germany Gives Dirtiest Coal Plants Six Years for Phase Out

German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said 13 percent of power stations burning lignite, a cheap form of coal, would be phased out by 2021 under a program to cut power industry pollution. The government abandoned talks on proposals to impose a climate-change fee that the industry said would have forced mines and plants to close, threatening jobs.




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Endesa Chile outlines Latin American hydropower ambitions

Endesa Chile has unveiled a plan to develop 36 projects, amounting to 6300 MW of power in Brazil, Chile, Peru and Colombia. The board of directors are looking at hydroelectric power in particular for the bulk of the new capacity.




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NHA announces 2016 Outstanding Stewards of America's Waters Award winners

Five companies were recognized this week by the National Hydropower Association during its annual Waterpower Week in Washington conference for work in hydroelectric power that exemplifies "extraordinary recreational, historical, environmental or educational value."




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Bolivia to carry out final design studies for 3,251-MW El Chepete, 425-MW El Bala hydro projects

Bolivia’s President Evo Morales has approved a supreme decree to carry out final design studies for the 3,251-MW El Chepete and 425-MW El Bala hydro projects in La Paz department.




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Manitoba Hydro announces workforce cuts, rate increases as debt rises

Manitoba Hydro has announced that it will eliminate more than 15% of its workforce while raising rates by at least 10% as the provincial utility's efforts to cut expenditures continue.




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ABB Customer World Panel: The future of mobility favors the electrified, autonomous

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.




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Opinion: Puerto Rico's energy future is renewable

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.




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Wind-solar pairing cuts equipment costs while ramping up output

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.




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San Francisco mulls creating its own 100 percent renewables-focused utility from PG&E wreckage

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




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New York utility installing battery to reduce peaks in non-wires alternative plan

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.




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Powering the future… thanks to your neighbor’s renewable energy

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.




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World’s largest utility joins EWF’s energy blockchain ecosystem

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.




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Collaborating for a more resilient energy future in Puerto Rico

Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) this week unveiled a vision to collaborate with communities, technical experts, businesses and investors to build low-carbon microgrids in Puerto Rico, and bring reliable, clean and affordable electricity to rural areas of the island. As described at the “BlackStart 2019: Future of Energy Summit” in San Juan, the new initiative will help modernize Puerto Rico’s electric grid and improve the system’s resilience.




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Ameren, Opus One Solutions partner on DER, transactive energy markets

Illinois microgrid to test transactive energy markets as a part of the company's commitment to innovation and clean energy




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Why lithium-ion technology is poised to dominate the energy storage future

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.




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Three ways utilities can partner with smart renewable cities to deliver on their objectives

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.




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Vermont utility launches vision for 100 percent renewable energy by 2030

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.




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DTECH asks experts to share what they know about the future of energy delivery

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.




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Tesla sued over fatal crash blamed on autopilot malfunction

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.





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Enel joins Boston’s Greentown Labs to scout for clean energy startups

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.




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Hydrogen: key to a zero-carbon future, or a costly distraction?

The U.K.’s push for a low-carbon economy has some notable successes, but the hardest part of the battle has barely started.




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EU corporates want renewable energy but bureaucracy and regulations are holding them back

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




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Ameren tests software that could unlock future ‘transactive energy marketplace’

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





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CellCube to bring grid scale vanadium battery to South Australia

Renewables firm Pangea Energy and vanadium battery producer CellCube have signed on to build a 50MW storage system alongside a solar farm in South Australia.




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Xcel Energy sets course for coal-free, renewable-heavy future

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.