Solar construction has been deemed ‘essential’ in New Jersey, following some confusion around Gov. Phil Murphy’s Public Health Emergency declaration. Solar projects, in terms of the declaration, fall under Executive Order 122, which stipulates “utility projects, including those necessary for energy and electricity production and transmission’’ may continue construction during the emergency. This order also covers single-family home residential projects, but does not specifically mention commercial and industrial. Source: NJ Spotlight
In a first for any month, renewables generated more electricity than coal on every day in April, new data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) shows. This impressive stretch actually began on March 25, when utility-scale solar, wind and hydropower collectively produced more than coal-fired generation, and has continued for at least 40 straight days through May 3, according to preliminary figures from the EIA’s Hourly Electric Grid Monitor. Source: IEEFA
Musk on cusp of $730 million award, even after tweet tanks stock: Not even a pandemic — or a tweet — can push Elon Musk off the path toward claiming the first piece of his moonshot pay package. Barring a sudden and massive plunge in the Tesla’s market value, its CEO is poised to meet the final performance threshold needed to claim the first of 12 tranches as early as next week, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The options would yield Musk a windfall of about $730 million if he exercised them immediately and sold the shares. Source: Bloomberg
The 16 MW Camilla Solar Plant in Pelham, Georgia has reached commercial operation. Developed by Invenergy, the project employed 300 during peak construction, with construction having begun in 2018. The project is expected to save the county more than $12 million in taxes over its first decade of operation. Source: WALB 10
Encore Renewable Energy secures approval for 5 MW solar project in Maine: Encore Renewable Energy announced the approval of all permits required to construct a 5 MW solar array in Oakland, Maine on underutilized land near the center of the town. Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the company continues to work remotely. According to SEIA’s Solar Market Insights Report, Maine is projected to develop 873 MW of solar over the next 5 years.
A new discovery redefines Egyptian mummification and burial.
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May 4 also had more RE electricity than coal, so 41.
In February it was “only” 18 days that wind+hydro+solar produced more electricity than coal. March it was “only” 22 days.
11 of those days in April had more wind and solar combined than coal generation without needing to add in hydro.
Somewhere there is a company, utility or Energy entity that will “go out on that limb” and adopt very large scale energy storage to firm up the grid during the fluctuating load demands during the day. We keep hearing of “economies of scale” several alternative chemistry energy storage companies have done their own analysis of their particular technologies. From this one can glean redox flow batteries are more competitive than coal fired and perhaps even natural gas fired generation facilities, when one gets to the GW or greater power storage capacity. What is not in place is a comprehensive modelling of the several separate yet partially connected grids in the U.S.. These GW and greater energy storage facilities may be best constructed in the mid-western states where there is access to Solar PV and Wind farms in the South Western States. Right now this co-op or CCA is installing a 50MW natural gas turbine to supply a local area, instead of a more efficient energy storage facility along the grid that may feed several smaller towns and cities that could share the cost of the energy storage asset and also share in the savings this one asset can provide services to the society as a whole, FCAS.
The paradigm is still alive and well in the electric utility industry. They still think you (have) to keep fueled generation online 24/7 running in spinning demand or spinning reserve burning fuel “just in case” the grid demand needs the extra generation. One could take the output of a solar PV farm, charge a multi-MW or GW battery and switch out the power on demand, be it for an hour or a day or two. No more fueled generation needed to meet grid load demands 24/7. Depending on (how) one designs this energy storage system, you could actually create an energy storage with switching output in (increments) of say 1MW/4MWh with a combined energy storage capacity of say 250MW/2GWh of output. Being able to bring online power blocks of storage and generation separately, when one detects a need on the grid, you could switch online as much generation as required to feed and stabilize the grid incrementally. IF you only need 50MWh or 100MWh of generated output, then access the amount of power blocks needed to supply that need. IF 50MWh is all that is needed for the grid load at this time, you would have energy storage available for 40 hours, can’t really do that with fueled generation.