Trina cells on a championship solar car, LONGi achieves highest bankability rating: pvMB 8/12/19
Happy Monday and welcome to this edition of the pvMB. Today we’ll be looking at Engie’s storage installation for a school district, Virginia’s Fairfax County seeking solar and more!
Vivint’s $325 million credit facility, SC regulators nix Pegasus contract: pvMB 08/08/19
In today’s pvMB we also bring you EDPR’s big solar + storage contract with San José’s CCA, Dominion’s battery pilot, a new union-backed training program for renewable energy workers, and more.
Federal PV cost projections spin gold into straw
The same report that expects utility-scale PV costs to fall 54% from 2017 to 2021 also presents a constant-cost scenario from 2018 onward, on an equal footing with the “mid” and “low” cost scenarios. Utilities could be tempted to use the constant (high) cost scenario in their resource plans, and thus plan little or no added solar.
Bankrupt PG&E trading time for solar and storage discounts
Pacific Gas and Electric Company has requested that its bankruptcy court judge approve a 10% and 11% reduction on five contracts for solar and storage projects under development, in exchange for extensions ranging from 12 to 24 months to deliver working projects.
The rapid maturation of the U.S. energy storage market
This op-ed by Eversheds Sutherland looks at some of the financial drivers and supporting policies that underlie the rapid development of the U.S. energy storage market.
Empire Electric catches renewable fever, spreads it to neighbors
The small Missouri utility has proposed massive solar and wind development under its new integrated resource plan, with a focus on distributed solar.
Utility scale, rather than behind-the-meter batteries will drive energy storage take-up
BNEF has published its latest Energy Storage Outlook report and says large scale deployment will provide the majority of the 1,095 GW/2,850 GWh of battery storage worldwide in 2040, with prices driven down further by grid services demand and EVs.
California could restrict who can install energy storage
CALSSA says that a pending vote by the Contractors State License Board which could restrict most solar contractors from installing batteries could have “catastrophic” impacts on the state’s energy storage market.
Megapack marks Tesla’s new play for utility scale storage
The Palo Alto company says it has improved its large scale battery offering with the new product in the wake of the success of its Powerpack-driven big battery in Australia. The Megapack can be deployed at a 250 MW/1 GWh clean energy plant four times faster than a fossil fuel alternative, claimed the business in a blogpost.
California gas plant to be re-powered with batteries + solar
For the second time in a month a fossil fuel-fired power plant in California is set to be replaced by a battery powered by a solar, including distributed solar. A small portion of the former plant will be retained.
