Last week when utilities and other energy stakeholders were attending DistribuTECH in New Orleans, LA, a bit farther south, Puerto Rico’s utility PREPA was releasing a draft version of its 2019 integrated resource plan (IRP). [...]

Solar is breaking into a power market that’s long been the domain of big, conventional generators. A key reason: batteries. [...]

A Vermont utility is adding solar panels and battery storage in hopes of lowering costs and improving reliability on hot summer days when electricity demand — and prices — tend to spike. [...]

In 2018, 43 GW of new PV installation capacity was added to the grid in China, a decline of 18 percent from the prior year. Accumulated PV installed capacity surpassed 170 GW. Of the total, 20 GW were distributed PV, up 5 percent. Some 23 GW were centralized PV, down 31 percent. The country’s PV sector showed dramatic growth in electricity production last year. The curtailment rate of PV power systems declined from a double-digit number to around 3 percent. [...]

In New York, and cities around the world, extreme weather events have become the new norm. Even six years later as we prepare for the L train shutdown for storm-related repairs, we’re still seeing the effects of Hurricane Sandy, which knocked out power to more than eight million households. [...]

It is a bit ironic to visit a solar farm on a foggy, overcast morning, but you have to take whatever weather you are given – in New Orleans in early February. At least it wasn’t raining, which was definitely in the forecast just the day before. [...]

Facebook Inc. is boosting its clean-energy efforts with a deal to help run a Virginia data center where it leases space with solar power. [...]

Next week thousands of utility executives and energy industry stakeholders will flock to New Orleans to participate in DistribuTECH 2019 — a show predominantly for distribution utilities — and for the first time, a handful of solar equipment companies will be among the hundreds of exhibitors in the exhibit hall. [...]

Standard Solar Inc. announced an agreement with the town of Burrillville, Rhode Island for the ground-mount solar system. It is planned to contain more than 11,000 solar modules and produce 5.3 GWh of electricity. [...]

On January 31, 2019, Georgia Power, the largest utility in the state submitted its newest integrated resource plan (IRP) to the state utility commission for approval. [...]

GE announced today that it sees a future in housing its renewable generation businesses (onshore and offshore wind, hydropower) alongside its grid businesses which include substations and transformers plus solar, storage and distributed energy resource (DER) control software. GE Renewable Energy CEO Jerome Pecresse said in a press conference that the move will simplify the lives of GE’s customers by giving them one point of contact for all of their renewable energy power needs. [...]

This week the parent company of Recurrent Energy, Canadian Solar, said that Recurrent had signed a build-transfer agreement (BTA) for a base purchase price of approximately $138.4 million with Entergy Mississippi for a 100-MWac solar PV project in Sunflower County, Mississippi. [...]

Duke is focused on emissions reduction by retiring coal-fired plants, increasing nuclear generation capacity and has add close to 650 MW of built or purchased solar energy. [...]

ENGIE has signed a 25-year power purchase agreement for two solar photovoltaic projects in Senegal, Africa. [...]

EIA expects non-hydroelectric renewable energy resources such as solar and wind will be the fastest growing source of U.S. electricity generation for at least the next two years. EIA’s January 2019 Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) forecasts that electricity generation from utility-scale solar generating units will grow by 10 percent in 2019 and by 17 percent in 2020. According to the January STEO, wind generation will grow by 12 percent and 14 percent during the next two years. EIA forecasts t [...]

Global funding for clean-energy projects sagged in 2018 after China’s decision to curb subsidies dragged down installations in the world’s biggest solar market. [...]

Utilities and renewable-energy advocates have long had a complicated relationship. Yet the prospect of PG&E Corp. tipping into bankruptcy by the end of January has sent shivers through the solar-and-wind sector. [...]

The initiative aims to install more than 30 million solar panels by 2030 and the project will be the largest including solar installation by a regulated utility in the world. [...]

The Czech Solar Association is sounding the alarm about planned legislation that would exclude solar PV projects being entered into future Renewable Energy Auctions. The Czech Ministry for Industry and Trade has recently submitted an amendment proposal to the law which explicitly bars solar energy from future auctions. If passed in its current version (Act. No. 165/2012 Coll., on promoted energy sources) the law would lead the Czech Republic down a needlessly expensive path, warns the Solar Asso [...]

It’s hard to find a common thread between the business models of Gap, Bloomberg, Cox, Salesforce and Workday but today they are announcing that they all have one big thing in common: their desire to clean up their organizations’ energy supply by using renewable energy. [...]

China set three-year targets for allowing more wind and solar power onto the power grid after the rapid addition of panels and windmills forced some electricity distributors to partly block that energy from flowing into their systems. [...]

Arizona State University researchers have set a new record for solar efficiency, 25.4 percent. Working with tandem photovoltaics, or stacking different materials in a solar cell, the ASU team has continued to improve solar efficiency and lower costs. [...]

India’s effort to spur its own solar power equipment industry seems to be failing, with only one company so far bidding for the nation’s tender to set up a factory. [...]

China will start building pilot wind and solar power projects that won’t receive national government payments as it pushes to improve the competitiveness of renewable energy and rein in subsidy bills. Shares of solar manufacturers surged in New York and Hong Kong. [...]