State utility regulators have approved plans by Mississippi Power to develop and build its first-ever stand-alone solar energy and battery storage system. The Mississippi Public Service Commission signed off on the utility’s project to construct and operate the new solar-storage site in Walnut Grove. The 1.5 MW-solar array will be paired with a 5-MWh battery storage system. Subscribe to Renewable Energy World’s free, weekly newsletter for more stories like this Mississippi Power, a [...]

Technology and commercial advancements are expected to continue to drive down the cost of wind energy, according to a survey led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) of the world’s foremost wind power experts. Experts anticipate cost reductions of 17%-35% by 2035 and 37%-49% by 2050, driven by bigger and more efficient turbines, lower capital and operating costs, and other advancements. The findings are described in an article in the journal Nature Energy. The study summa [...]

A little sunshine will soon be in your next glass of whiskey as Jack Daniel’s partners with the Tennessee Valley Authority, Duck River Electric Membership Corporation, and Nashville-based solar power producer Silicon Ranch to provide the iconic Tennessee whiskey maker’s Lynchburg distillery with 20 megawatts of solar energy. TVA signed a long-term power purchase agreement with Silicon Ranch to build, own, and operate the solar facility just a few miles from the world-famous distillery in [...]

Norwegian renewable generation company Statkraft is to build its first windfarms in Chile. The 102 MW Torsa project comprises three windfarms totaling 19 turbines supplied by German manufacturer Nordex.In total, the windfarms are expected to produce more than 300 GWh of energy annually, which Statkraft says is enough to power 100,000 households. The project is located in the O’Higgins region, 124 kilometres south of Santiago, and when combined with the company’s existing hydropower a [...]

By Jeff Opperman, Michele Thieme, Rafael Guevara Senga, Amit R. Dalal and Pramod Jain, In parallel to the internet technology revolution there is another revolution taking place: the power generation industry is fast decarbonizing, moving inexorably from fossil fuels to low carbon sources; maintaining, or even improving, efficiency and reliability even as the leading generation sources are variable renewable energy (VRE). And although this revolution is generally framed as crucial for stabili [...]

BMR Energy, a Virgin Group company and developer, owner, and operator of clean energy projects in the Caribbean and Latin America, announced today that it is starting construction of the 6.4-megawatt (MWp) Donoe Solar farm on St. Thomas. The facility is expected to be completed and enter service in the fourth quarter of this year and will sell the power it generates to the Virgin Island Power and Water Authority (VIWAPA) under a newly negotiated 25-year Power Purchase Agreement. “After H [...]

On March 4, MISO filed a request to extend the deadline to implement a market participation model for electric storage resources at FERC. This new request moves the implementation date from June 2022 to March 2025. FERC should reject this request because the benefits of keeping wholesale rates just and reasonable with storage participation outweigh the costs of MISO parallel processing current and future market platforms. Electric storage can participate in the energy market and capacity market [...]

By Brynn Furey To repower our society with 100 percent renewable energy, we need to electrify our buildings. With electricity, we can hook our buildings up to a green grid that will eventually get all of its energy from the sun, the wind and the Earth. As they work to repower with clean energy, forward-looking cities, counties and towns, such as San Francisco, Seattle and New York City, are leading a growing movement to envision fossil fuel-free, electric buildings of the future. To re [...]

Research firm Wood Mackenzie says it anticipates the global wind power industry will install 1 TW of new capacity between 2021 and 2030. The world set a new record in wind installations in 2020 and saw a number of national and regional targets set for 2030, underscoring the important role of wind technology in the energy transition, according to Wood Mackenzie. Despite the growth in the wind energy market, there is a need for the enactment of new policies or revision of existing targets to [...]

The world added more than 260 GW of renewable energy capacity last year, exceeding expansion in 2019 by close to 50%, despite the economic slowdown that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic, according to data from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). IRENA’s annual Renewable Capacity Statistics 2021 shows that renewable energy’s share of all new generating capacity rose considerably for the second year in a row. More than 80% of all new electricity capacity added la [...]

Energy workers are paid more, their jobs came back more quickly, and they have greater growth opportunities than almost any other sector, new report finds. Putting people to work in the energy industry will reap more benefits for the U.S. economy than putting people to work in almost any other sector. That’s just one of a multitude of findings in a new report released this week from the National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO), the Energy Futures Initiative, and BW Research. [...]

Energy powerhouses, Ernest Moniz and Lynn Good, talk politics, R&D, stakeholder engagement, transmission, EVs and a host of other topics around the future of energy in the US. On Tuesday, March 30, the Washington Post’s David Ignatius presented the Washington Post Live, sponsored by GE, where he talked with energy leaders in a session called “The Future of Energy.” Former Secretary of Energy, Ernest Moniz, and CEO of Duke Energy, Lynn Good, were two of his guests, bringing with the [...]

Plug Power Inc. and Brookfield Renewable Partners L.P. announced plans to build a green hydrogen production plant, which would use 100% renewable energy from Brookfield Renewable’s 252-MW Holtwood hydroelectric facility. Green hydrogen from this facility will support decarbonization of the transportation and logistics industries in the Northeast and the mid-Atlantic. The plant will be located along the Susquehanna River in south-central Pennsylvania, U.S., and is expected to be online by la [...]

Traceability is the next big frontier in demanding clean energy from source to socket, argues former IBM Global Smart Grid Systems Leader, Steve Hoy.   by Steve Hoy We track almost everything these days: packages, food, supply chains, even pets. But energy, especially clean energy, has remained obscure, hidden behind a confusing mesh of regulation, plans and wildly divergent pricing. When Texas suffered massive grid outages earlier this year, some consumers were smacked with eye [...]

The competitive retail market subsidiary of American Electric Power is contracting with an independent firm which will develop an 80-MW solar plant in West Virginia. Under terms of the deal, Opdenergy will develop the solar project in Jefferson County. AEP Energy will take the energy generated to its customers through its Integrated Renewable Energy solution—a long-term, fixed price plan to support new and locally sourced clean energy. “AEP Energy is proud to partner with Opdenergy to [...]

Today, EnergySage and NABCEP released the results of the sixth annual Solar Installer Survey, which they say is the largest and most comprehensive business survey of solar companies nationwide. Over 650 residential and commercial installers across the country participated in this year’s survey, which was fielded and authored by EnergySage in partnership with the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners (NABCEP). As was the case for every person and every sector, the story of 2 [...]

American multinational technology company Apple has announced that its 2020 green bonds will support the installation of 1.2 GW of renewable energy capacity. The company funded 17 green bond projects, from the $4.7 billion in green bond funding the company issued since 2016. From its green bond portfolio, Apple has so far allocated $2.8 billion to projects. In 2020, Apple has funded the development of 350MW of new energy generation capacity in Nevada, Illinois, Virginia, and Denm [...]

The New York Power Authority (NYPA) and Westchester County under the Community Distributed Generation (CDG) Partnership Program are seeking developers to install solar PV and energy storage systems for more than three dozen municipalities and school districts within the county. Initial analysis shows that the program has the potential to develop more than 35 MW of solar at more than 100 sites, increasing the supply of clean, renewable energy into the electric grid and providing electric utili [...]

Most people know solar power benefits the people who use it because it reduces their utility costs. In fact, some solar-powered homeowners don’t pay anything for electricity. A lesser-known fact is that solar powered homeowners help everyone in their community through net metering, even their neighbors who still depend on the grid alone for home energy. What exactly is Net Metering? Since today’s solar systems are all tied to the grid, if a solar-powered homeowner generates more electr [...]

by Michael Bakas, Ameresco President Joe Biden kick-started his administration with a slate of sweeping legislation focused on executing his proposed climate plan. As we welcome this new administration — and leader with ambitious goals to improve our climate — I implore his administration to consider issuing an early executive order to implement a national renewable thermal energy (RTE) standard. The institution of a national policy would complement renewable electrification eff [...]

A pioneer in Minnesota’s solar industry is attempting to replicate a green economic justice blueprint in the state’s largest African American community. Ralph Jacobson founded the solar firm Impact Power Solutions (IPS) in 1991 and was its CEO until 2019, when he shifted into a role focused on justice, equity, diversity and inclusion. Jacobson, who is white, has been working with the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians for a few years on a crowdfunded solar, microgrid and jobs training [...]

FERC Order 2222 guided stakeholders, including renewable project developers, to aggregate distributed energy resources (DER) such as PV solar with energy storage. President Biden’s FERC Chairman Commissioner Glick wasted no time closing the loophole in the earlier demand response order from FERC in this new order 2222-A. States with demand response programs no longer have the ability to opt-out similar to DERA order 2222. FERC also clarified DER interconnections in the new 2222-A order, in [...]

SolarAid, an international charity, has today announced the launch of a new pilot project that will provide solar lighting to all homes in a single super-rural Malawi community, with a view toward creating a model that could bring renewable energy to all super-rural households across the continent. SolarAid will equip every household in Ntchisi, a largely off-grid district in central Malawi, with pay-as-you-go solar home systems and provide access to a period of free lighting. Households [...]

Today, Solar FlexRack, a division of Northern States Metals announced that it supplied its tracker solution for Jack’s Solar Garden, a 1.2-MW community solar farm and the largest agrivoltaic research project in the U.S., located in Boulder County, Colorado. The solar project was designed and built by Namasté Solar. Jack’s sits on five acres of farmland for the dual use of agriculture and solar energy production. In partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable [...]