Follow @EngelsAngle</scrip Portland General Electric has outlined a path to net-zero emissions that relies on tripling clean energy assets and utilizing customer-sited distributed energy resources for grid resiliency. The Oregon utility shared plans Friday to reduce emissions by at least 80% by 2030, 90% by 2035, and to reach zero emissions by 2040. To reach the 2030 goal, PGE will eliminate coal from its portfolio and approximately 1,500 – 2,000 MW of clean and renewable resources an [...]

Follow @EngelsAngle</scrip A joint venture between global energy giant TotalEnergies and Simply Blue Group, a developer of floating offshore wind projects, aims to capitalize on the "vast potential" of floating offshore wind projects in the U.S. Together, TotalEnergies and Simply Blue Group have more than 9 gigawatts of offshore wind in development around the world. “We are convinced of the large potential of floating offshore wind to provide U.S. coasts with renewable electricity, [...]

Follow @EngelsAngle</scrip North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper on Wednesday signed into law a bipartisan mandate that will require the state to reduce carbon emissions by 70% by 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2050. House Bill 951: Energy Solutions for North Carolina directs the Utilities Commission to "take all reasonable steps" to achieve the emissions targets from electric public utilities. "Today, North Carolina moves strongly into a reliable and affordable clean energy future," C [...]

The opportunity to encourage clean energy adoption via roof replacements is enormous, and the potential positive impact on the climate crisis is significant. Congress created the solar investment tax credit (ITC) in 2006 to spur solar energy growth in America and drive economic gains through the creation of new, clean manufacturing and construction jobs. Fifteen years later, it’s clear that the policy has succeeded. The solar industry grew 10,000% and added hundreds of thousands of well [...]

Follow @EngelsAngle</scrip An Arizona project will receive $20 million in funding from the U.S. Dept. of Energy to demonstrate technology that produces clean hydrogen energy from nuclear power, as part of the agency's goal of reducing the cost of clean hydrogen production by 80%. The project at Palo Verde Nuclear Generation Station in Phoenix will produce 200 MWh of electricity from six tonnes of stored hydrogen during times of high demand. Project lead PNW Hydrogen LLC will receive $12 [...]

By Karen Uhlenhuth, Energy News Network Nonprofit groups have established resource centers in St. Louis and the Kansas City metro to help building owners upgrade properties as advocates press cities to adopt more stringent energy efficiency standards. Energy efficiency advocates in Missouri’s two largest cities have launched new efforts to help building owners comply with the more demanding building efficiency standards that are gradually taking hold across the country. In St. Louis, [...]

The Toowoomba Regional Council in Queensland has endorsed BE Power Pty Ltd to progress to the next stage of the tender process for the council’s 400-MW Big-T pumped storage project. Toowoomba Region Mayor Paul Antonio said he was pleased with how the tender process was progressing. He said the approval allowed the council to continue taking steps toward using its existing land and water assets to generate energy. “BE Power is proposing to develop a pumped hydro energy storage facility [...]

Southern Co.-owned utility Georgia Power is going to build and operate the first standalone battery storage system on the state’s transmission grid. The Georgia Public Service Commission has approved plans for the Mossy Branch Battery Facility. The 65-MW/260-MWh grid-charging battery system will be sited on 2.5 acres in Talbot County near Columbus, Ga. It will connect into the Georgia Integrated Transmission System and will be part of a larger future 80-MW battery energy storage portfoli [...]

Follow @EngelsAngle</scrip Barring significant changes in policies or trends, U.S. Energy Information Administration modeling forecasts increasing global energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions through 2050. The EIA released the International Energy Outlook 2021 on Wednesday, which makes assumptions based on U.S. laws and regulations as of May 2021, and incorporates existing international laws. The report forecasts that renewable energy will be the primary source for new electri [...]

A dozen of the major power providers in the western U.S. are banding together to pursue future market services which could offer both reliable electricity and carbon reduction, they say. The informal Western Markets Exploratory Group members deliver electricity to millions of customers. They are exploring the potential for new market services including day-ahead energy sales, transmission system expansion, and other power supply and grid offerings. The Western Markets Exploratory Group inc [...]

Patrick Parenteau, Vermont Law School and Rachel Stevens, Vermont Law School The Biden Administration has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help Puerto Rico transition to a greener and more resilient energy future, but it’s on the verge of making a multibillion-dollar mistake. Since Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in 2017, many residents and environmental advocates have called for new clean energy sources for the island. Currently, Puerto Rico gets more than 97% of its electrici [...]

Originally published on ILSR.org Nearly seven gigawatts of new power generation capacity came online in the second quarter of 2021. Renewable energy generation capacity growth was comparable to last quarter, while new fossil gas construction dropped dramatically. In four of the last eight quarters, the fossil gas contribution to new power generation capacity has been less than 10 percent. It has been two years since fossil fuel plants made up the majority of quarterly added generation capaci [...]

ONYX Insight has released a new report providing recommendations on how the wind energy sector can remain successful and profitable for players. The Decoding Wind’s Future study states that successful renewable energy operators will need to be responsive to pricing mechanisms and tailor their operations to improve profitability. Three ways wind energy sector players can do so include: Eliminate silos: The study states that siloed data has over the past years prevented the wi [...]

Follow @EngelsAngle</scrip Massachusetts has found early success with its behind-the-meter energy storage incentive program. The ConnectedSolutions program compensates residential and commercial customers for allowing utilities to draw from energy from their grid-connected batteries and/or to curtail energy use via smart thermostats or electric vehicle charging at times of peak electric demand. Launched in 2019, ConnectedSolutions had about 34,000 customer participants with 310 megaw [...]

Follow @EngelsAngle</scrip President Biden's legacy-defining infrastructure and climate proposals face a challenging road ahead in Congress, in large part because of objections by two moderate Democrats in the U.S. Senate -- Sen. Krysten Sinema of Arizona and Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Arizona's renewable energy industry held a roundtable with a representative from Sinema's office, urging support for the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill and $3.5 trillion budget recon [...]

By Elizabeth Ouzts, Energy News Network A new coalition of environmental and clean energy groups is working to overcome barriers to offshore wind, including local pockets of opposition and an approaching ban on energy development in the southern Atlantic Ocean. An impending Trump-era ban on energy development in the southern Atlantic Ocean has entangled the future of North Carolina’s offshore wind industry with congressional Democrats’ reconciliation bill. Meanwhile, tony beach town [...]

More good news from the UK this month as the Government announced a new package of £265m to support green energy projects. The money will be channeled via the Contracts for Difference auction series, an incentive scheme launched just under a decade ago. How does it work? The CfD scheme was rolled out as part of the ambitious Energy Act back in 2013 and supports the development of most renewable technologies (although notably, biomass has been excluded from the latest round).  CfDs [...]

Scott Denning, Colorado State University The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has finalized a rule to start eliminating a class of climate-warming chemicals that are widely used as coolants in refrigerators, air conditioners and heat pumps. If that plan feels like déjà vu, it should. These chemicals, called hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, were commercialized in the 1990s as a replacement for earlier refrigerants that were based on chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs. CFCs were destroying th [...]

Eric Garcetti, Mayor of Los Angeles, USA, has launched the C40 Renewable Energy Declaration to help cities around the world accelerate the transition to clean energy resources in an equitable manner. Some 15 mayors have signed the declaration to increase the pace at which their cities are deploying renewable energy resources to create healthier communities, improve air quality, create green jobs and protect their most vulnerable residents from the impacts of climate change. The declaration [...]

Follow @EngelsAngle</scrip The Biden administration's Solar Futures Study calls for 45% of the U.S. electricity supply to come from solar by 2050. That means bigger (and more efficient) solar farms -- a massive opportunity for companies that inspect and optimize utility-scale arrays. Mark Culpepper, general manager of solar solutions for DroneBase, a renewable energy asset ariel imaging firm, foresees significant growth in demand for monitoring at scale to follow federal ambitions. D [...]

By Elizabeth Ouzts, Energy News Network Manufacturers, mills, and environmental interests oppose Duke-backed legislation because it hampers the role of regulators and costs ratepayers. It’s not often that paper mills and chemical manufacturers agree with the likes of the Sierra Club. But the debate over controversial energy legislation in North Carolina shows how companies like DuPont, Chemours, and Georgia Pacific are increasingly aligned with environmental groups on utility policy. [...]

With next week’s FERC meeting on SEEM proposal, the question is back on the table: will FERC approve a group of southeast utilities’ proposal for organizing a market? This fall is the first legislative session across the US and other states where the discussion is around clean energy and what incentives are needed for utilities to deploy more renewables. With the Biden administration’s “Build Back Better” model around infrastructure, will US Congress see a need to m [...]

Follow @EngelsAngle</scrip Ørsted has reached a 10-year, 100-megawatt power purchase agreement with European retail giant REWE Group for renewable energy from a future German offshore wind farm. The agreement will produce enough green power to equal the power consumption of 1,500 REWE stores, the companies said. The Borkum Riffgrund 3 offshore wind farm in the North Sea is expected to become operational in 2025 with an export capacity of 900 MW. "The world urgently needs to shift to [...]

By Lisa Prevost, Energy News Network Climate activists say the state’s progress on reducing building emissions has been far too slow given the pace of the climate crisis, and that it needs to end incentives for energy-efficient natural gas heating. Greenhouse gas emissions from heating and cooling buildings continue to rise in Connecticut despite the state’s efforts to improve energy efficiency. An annual greenhouse gas inventory released last week for 2018 — the latest avail [...]