Solar utility in Hyundai’s new adventure vehicle, ACORE pitches nationwide renewable energy standard: pvMB 10/17/19

ACORE pitches nationwide renewable energy standard – “In a new white paper released today by the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, the organizations offer recommendations on how U.S. policymakers can most effectively design a federal high-penetration renewable energy standard (RES) that enhances grid reliability, creates American jobs, and increases American economic competitiveness globally. The new white paper, Enacting a Federal High-Penetration Renewable Energy Standard: Building on Proposals to Date and Addressing Important Additional Considerations makes the case for a federal high-penetration RES that embraces the following key features:

• Qualifying technologies should, at a minimum, include wind, solar, hydropower, ocean, tidal, hydrokinetic and geothermal energy.

• The required percentage of compliant electricity should be at least 50%, on a timeline consistent with climate commitments, recommendations from scientific experts, and other policy goals.

• Alternative Compliance Payments (ACPs) and penalties should be sufficient to achieve RES objectives.

• A federal high-penetration RES should build upon, and not preempt, successful state renewable energy standards.”

Source: ACORE 

New Hyundai utility car features solar capabilities – Hyundai will unveil the Veloster “Grappler” concept at the 2019 SEMA show, a small, yet rugged, adventure vehicle. What’s more is that the Grappler comes with a removable solar panel from Goal Zero®, powering an all-electric portable power station mounted inside the cabin for remote journeys. It’s one of the cooler looking concepts for an off-road vehicle. Source: Hyundai

Solar District Cup 2020 – “The Solar District Cup challenges multidisciplinary student teams to design and model optimized distributed solar energy systems for a campus or urban district. These systems integrate solar, storage, and other technologies across mixed-use districts, or groups of buildings served by a common electrical distribution feeder. The competition engages students in the engineering, urban planning, finance, and related disciplines to reimagine how energy is generated, managed, and used in a district. Teams compete in one of multiple divisions, each structured around a distinct district use case. A winner is selected for each division, based on the quality of their solar energy system design. The strongest designs provide the highest offset of annual energy and greatest financial savings. This is determined by a techno-economic analysis conducted by students and evaluated by judges. The goal is to design, model, and present the most reliable, resilient, and cost-effective system possible.” Source: Department of Energy

Vivint Surveys homeowners on power outages – In a survey, Vivint found that almost half of responding California homeowners felt that power outage lasting longer than two hours to be “very stressful” and nearly two-thirds believed a power outage was “inevitable” within the next year. Vivint also makes the claim that “ over 40% of California homeowners have considered purchasing residential solar + storage to ready themselves for the forecasted power outages” using the above data to back the logistics of the claim. Source: Vivint

Solar on Seguin Island – “Now that the 2019 tourism season has come to a close at Seguin Island, the nonprofit that owns the island is looking to raise money to install solar power next year. The Friends of Seguin Island will hold its annual FallFest on from 5-8:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 2. to raise money for the solar conversion. According to Cyndy Carney, executive director of Friends of Seguin Island Light Station, the nonprofit needs to raise $100,000 to switch to solar power in time for next year’s tourism season. Seguin is open to the public from Memorial Day to Indigenous Peoples’ Day and sees more than 2,500 tourists per year. The nonprofit hopes to use Assured Solar Energy in Yarmouth, but a contract has not yet been drafted.” Source: The Times Record