The month of the battery just keeps on rolling! – “Under a new product offering, Engie won’t just design, supply and operate energy storage plants for customers. The company will also pay developers upfront for dispatch rights to use their batteries in the ISO New England wholesale markets. This gives storage developers and their financiers an additional source of secure revenue, while shifting the tricky merchant risk onto Engie, which feels confident in handling it.” Source: Greentech Media
Engie also announced today that it will be developing 19 MW, 38 MWh of energy storage across 6 projects under the Massachusetts SMART program. The projects are expected to be in operation for a minimum of 20 years. Source: Engie North America
Sunrun to bring Brightbox solar + storage solution to Dallas, Houston metro areas – “Starting this month, households in the greater Houston and Dallas areas can get Sunrun’s solar-powered home battery, Brightbox, from as little as zero dollars down and at a consistent, low monthly rate. Clean energy generated from rooftop solar panels is stored in Sunrun’s Brightbox battery throughout the day. When the grid goes down and there is an outage, Brightbox provides backup electricity to the home. For a typical customer, Brightbox can provide approximately 8 to 12 hours of backup electricity, helping residents power through the night until the following morning when the sun rises and recharges the battery.” Source: Sunrun
Musk hopes solar roof production will hit 1k roofs/week – “When Tesla launched its Solar Roof Tiles in 2017, the automaker said that they would start volume production and installation in 2018. However, the rollout turned out to be much slower and installations have been limited to the homes of some executives and a few customers… At Tesla’s 2019 shareholder’s meeting, Musk said that they are now completing a third version of the Tesla solar roof:
“We are about to complete version 3 of the solar roof. This is actually quite a hard technology problem to have an integrated solar cell with a roof tile, have it look good, and last for 30 years.”
The CEO explained that they had difficulties doing accelerated testing on the roof, but they now feel more confident.”
Our take: Despite Electrek’s optimistic spin, what Elon Musk actually said is that he “hopes” to manufacture 1,000 roofs per week by the end of the year. But as the Solar Roof product has to date been longer on hype than actual installations, so we’ll believe it when we see concrete evidence. Source: Electrek
The United States’ first solar airport – A round of applause for the Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport, which announced that it has become the first in the country 100% powered by solar energy. The airport is powered by a 2.64-megawatt solar farm, which was completed with about $5 million of funding from the Federal Aviation Administration. Source: Forbes
Green New Deal polls at 63% “good idea” – Public support for a Green New Deal rises by the day. Here we have a report from Marist, which shows that 63% of respondents consider the measure a “good” idea. To view the poll, follow the link provided and search “Green”. Source: Marist
Soltage invests in 14 MW in NC – “Soltage LLC announced that it closed on its acquisition of 14 megawatts (MW) of solar projects in a portfolio that is expected to total 35 MW after a second close slated for Q3 2019. The portfolio was acquired from ReNew Petra, a vertically-integrated solar developer, EPC and operations and maintenance company. The company secured long-term power purchase agreements with members of the North Carolina Electric Membership Cooperatives, providing fixed cost and affordable power. Soltage’s investment into these assets is part of a larger national trend of municipal utilities and cooperatives purchasing long-term solar power contracts due to solar’s cost competitiveness as compared to alternate electric generating resources.” Source: Soltage
1200 acre solar plant suggested for Michigan – Convis Township could soon have one of the largest solar energy facilities in Michigan. Invenergy LLC has request a conditional use permit to build a 1,200-acre solar energy center on land east of 12 Mile Road, west of 15 Mile Road, south of S Drive North and north of L Drive North. The 200-megawatt facility would produce enough energy to power 55,000 homes and also create roughly $1.1 million per year in new revenue. Source: Battle Creek Enquirer
Finally, let’s give some love to the up-and-coming scientists who are the next generation of leaders at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory:
https://twitter.com/NREL/status/1154828822564483081
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I would be happy if Tesla is installing 100 solar roofs a week by the end of the year. Even 10 would be an improvement.