Avoiding blackouts all together with behind-the-meter storage
Commercial storage company Stem had 100 MW on tap during California’s rolling blackouts, but could only provide 50 MW due to limits on how much power its standalone installations can export.
Sunrun and GRID fight California blackouts with free batteries for low-income households
“Storage is critical for equity,” says Sunrun CEO Lynn Jurich — and putting more standalone storage on the grid means less electricity going through wires in wildfire-prone areas.
Solar Power International goes all virtual
As Covid-19 cases surge across the country, SPI moves its October trade show from Las Vegas to virtual.
Racial equity in clean energy should be a key differentiator for the industry
When only 8% of the solar workforce is African American, framing the problem in terms of access issues for low-income communities sidesteps the inextricable link between race and energy, advocates say.
Neighborhood solar equity: community solar project splits benefits three ways
A 497-kW project on five roofs at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. uses SREC sales to provide $1.50 in community benefits for every dollar of power generated. Call it community solar-plus.
Electric co-ops lead growing wave of early coal plant retirements with ‘solar-for-coal swaps’
A new white paper from Energy Innovation found that 179 GW of U.S. coal plants were more expensive to run than solar, but only 10 GW per year were being retired. Swaps could accelerate the process.
Jigar Shah: Pandemic reveals solar as ‘one of the largest, most trusted industries in the country’
“It’s critical for us to recognize that we are being looked to by everyone from prominent political campaigns to elected officials in your town to provide the necessary economic development to get us out of Covid,” he said.
Chips, commercial CSP and a solar river: What the DOE is doing with its solar innovation dollars
President Trump’s unflagging support for fossil fuels has not stopped the DOE from putting millions of dollars into innovative technologies that could open new paths for market growth in the U.S. solar industry.
From Rwanda to Riverside: How the solar industry provided new opportunities for an immigrant entrepreneur
When Covid-19 hit his small solar engineering business, CEO Methode Maniraguha said, no furloughs or layoffs — we’ll pivot.
Democrats’ ambitious climate action plan targets a clean US grid by 2040
With a timely focus on jobs and environmental justice, recommendations in the 538-page plan range from a solar ITC extension to a pushback on FERC’s ability to create wholesale market barriers to clean energy.
