pvMB 2/5/19: No Solar Freedom in Virginia, Growatt achieves rapid shutdown… and more!

It’s Tuesday, but more importantly, it’s Tuesday morning which means it’s time for the pv magazine morning brief. Today we’ll be looking at a Michigan school adding solar curriculum, Sunworks constructing a 1.5 MW system at Kingston Technology’s HQ, the complaints over Georgetown University’s proposed solar project and everything else on our solar slate.

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BELECTRIC expanding in the U.S. with two new service agreements – “BELECTRIC has been awarded as the long-term service provider for the preventive and corrective maintenance of solar plants in the US. The solar plants are located in Maryland, Washington DC, Indiana, Michigan and New Jersey. The two portfolios consist of commercial and utility scale ground mounted solar plants as well as rooftop and carport PV plants with a combined capacity of around 53.5 MWp in total. Inovateus Solar is the site manager for a portfolio throughout the Midwest and Northeast with a separate contract adding plants in a regional portfolio around Washington DC and Maryland. Including these plants, BELECTRIC is operating and maintaining a solar portfolio with an installed capacity of 138 MWp in the US.” Source: BELECTRIC

 

Solar Freedom Bill dies in Virginia – Virginia’s Solar Freedom Bill, also known as HB 2329 (Keam) and as SB 1456 (McClellan and Edwards) has been defeated. The bill was focused on a core of ‘Easy 8’ reforms, which, among other initiatives would have removed the 1% cap on net metered solar and allowed local governments to install solar facilities of up to 5 MW on government-owned property. Both the House and Senate versions were defeated in the Commerce and Labor Committee, with Republicans voting party-line to kill the bills. Source: Power for the People of VA

 

Sunworks putting up a 1.5 MW solar + storage project at Kingston Technology HQ – Kingston Technology’s Fountain Valley, California headquarters will be receiving a 1.5 MW solar + storage system to be constructed by Sunworks. Construction is expected to commence in mid-2019 and will include a 730kW ballast roof mount system and a 772kW solar carport. The storage aspect will be comprised of 10-30 kW inverters, 10-40 kWh battery banks and control management software. Source: Sunworks

 

Growatt inverters earn Tigo rapid shutdown – “Tigo Energy, Inc., today announced the new Underwriter Laboratories (UL) certification of its TS4 Platform Rapid Shutdown Systems (RSS) with Growatt, a global provider of residential & commercial inverters. The eleven Growatt inverters listed below were successfully certified with Tigo’s RSS solutions: TS4-F (Fire Safety), TS4-O (Optimization), and TS4-L (Long Strings).” Model numbers 4000 through 40,000 in the MTLP-US line all received the above certification. Source: Tigo Energy

 

Michigan School adds solar curriculum – Thanks in part to a $15,000 grant, Northside Elementary School will implement a solar curriculum for students in kindergarten through eighth grade to support the education of clean energy. The road to the curriculum began last year, when the school’s A2 STEAM program began fundraising for the installation a rooftop PV system and created the Solar at STEAM Project. The school plans on eventually covering the entire roof with a PV system. As for the educational program, each grade will spend 2-3 weeks researching different energy and sustainability projects that will educate students on solar energy and help grow the school’s garden. Source: The Michigan Daily

 

“You guys are going to be the ones who fix the mess we made:” Six NY Schools to go solar – “The Steinway school in Astoria will soon be a part of a cohort of solar-powered schools in New York City. On Jan. 30., City Councilman Costa Constantinides announced that solar panels will be installed in the Astoria middle school with construction set to begin this spring. The middle school will the be the first of six schools within the councilman’s district to receive solar panels in an attempt to mitigate the destructive impact of climate change.” Source: The Times Ledger

 

Pushback over environmental impact of Georgetown University solar project – Residents and environmentalists in Charles County, Maryland are raising concerns that Georgetown University’s proposed 32.5 MW solar farm would do more harm for the environment than good. This is because the project would require the clear-cutting of 240 acres of woodland. It’s interesting that this is the cause for issue for a solar project in Maryland. The state has been known to host uncertainty over solar farms encroaching on land, but the prior issues have been largely over agricultural land rather than forest. Source: The Baltimore Sun

 

Oh and let’s end the pvMB with some not-so-surprising climate change news, courtesy of David Roberts (No not the Red Sox David Roberts): 

 

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