Energy Funding: IPOs, M&A, VC and grants for flow batteries, fuel cells, PV trackers and equitable access to solar
Another busy funding week with solar IPOs on deck and venture capital investments — but no cleantech SPACs in the last few day, at least.
Morning Brief: Pennsylvania looks to make community solar legal, Constellation signs 100 MW of supply contracts
Also in the brief: Wyoming regulators are critical of Pacificorp’s transition plan and solar and renewable industry leaders have begun an initiative to increase workforce diversity and inclusion throughout the industry.
Solar-plus-storage replaces coal plant in New Mexico, makes carbon-capture retrofit moot
The utility is planning on replacing the San Juan coal-fired station’s 847 MW of capacity with 650 MW of solar generation and 300 MW/1,200 MWh of accompanying energy storage. The new plan all but kills a proposal from San Juan’s owner and the City of Farmington to add a carbon-capture retrofit to the station.
Trump pulls tariff exemption for bifacial panels — again
Proclamation issued Oct. 10 cites impact of imported bifacial panels on U.S. solar manufacturing, while also raising the scheduled fourth-year tariff rate from 15% to 18%.
Agrivoltaic project with vertically mounted bifacial panels goes online in Germany
The 4.1 MW array, developed by Next2Sun, was constricted with roughly 11,000 bifacial panels, provided by Chinese manufacturer Jolywood.
Project Sunlight wants to scale low-income solar nationwide — without subsidies
The end goal of the three-year project is to use market-based financing to install 20 MW of low-income community solar at multifamily affording housing, while trimming 20% off subscribers’ electricity bills.
Morning Brief: Dominion Energy issues an RFP for 80MW of new solar, Generac acquires Enbala
Also in the brief: Solar installer Sigora Solar acquired California-based Aztec Solar, first-of-a-kind utility plan could transform Southeast grid
Energy Jobs: Tesla dissolves its PR department, plus new execs at Sunrun, Amazon Climate Pledge, Generate, LS Energy and Talesun
Executive moves in solar, storage, cleantech, utilities and energy transition finance.
Utility-scale solar roundup: PV-powered steel from Lightsource, Savion in Ohio and Michigan
Dean Solon, CEO of Shoals: “A lot of people thought that the 100 MW fields were all dead, but those suckers are coming back with a vengeance.”
Shoals, solar balance-of-system player, had a strong 2020 and sees an even stronger 2021
Dean Solon of Shoals Technologies Group: “The short version is that it’s been a damned good year.” An interview with Shoals covers the growth of large solar projects in the U.S., high AC/DC ratios and the real costs of using cheap components.
