Christian Roselund
California grid operator gets ready for August eclipse (with graph)
With California getting a higher portion of its electricity from solar than any non-island nation, the stakes are high with this summer’s eclipse. Fortunately, Europe has already been down this road.
Minnesota’s solar market is growing fast (with chart)
Minnesota installed 203 MW-DC of solar during the first quarter, adding to 207 MW deployed in 2016. The state is expecting to reach more than 800 MW of installed capacity by the end of this year.
California transmission fee overhaul could set a new deal for distributed solar
SB 692 has passed the California Senate. Clean Coalition says the bill would assign transmission access charges more fairly for distributed solar.
Dominion moving further into solar with 79 MW project in North Carolina
The power giant’s plans to buy the project from Cypress Creek add to its utility arm’s ambition to sign contracts with 950 MW of solar projects in the state by 2021.
EnergyWakeup: COSEIA Executive Director Rebecca Cantwell on the Xcel settlement and more
pv magazine USA brings you the latest from Yann Brandt’s EnergyWakeup podcast, featuring a conversation with COSEIA Executive Director Rebecca Cantwell on the organization’s ongoing work including the historic settlement with Xcel Energy.
Soltage, Basalt acquire 57 MW of PURPA solar projects in North Carolina
The projects are expected to begin construction in May 2017, as Duke chafes under the growing PURPA pipeline in the state.
SEC investigates Tesla, Sunrun over cancelled contracts
SEC has subpoenaed Sunrun, and is also looking into the number of Tesla customers who have backed out of leases, after state officials received hundreds of complaints about sales practices.
Tesla scales down solar deployment in Q1, readies Solar Roof
The first full quarter since Tesla’s acquisition of SolarCity shows a 30% fall in watts of solar deployed, as the company focuses on preparations for the roll-out of its Solar Roof and Model 3 electric vehicle, including expanded battery production.
SGIP Step 1 (mostly) sells out in 24 hours
Lotteries have been triggered in the service areas of all four participating utilities, meaning that most incentives were fully subscribed in the first 24 hours. Deployment of the systems supported will more than double distributed battery storage capacities in California.
Utilities try new tactics to discourage solar, but still aren’t getting what they want
The latest NCCETC report on state solar policies finds some new twists as part of an ongoing attempt by utilities to weaken the economics of customer-owned solar, but regulators still mostly aren’t on board.
