With new safety measures in place, APS looks to reengage with BESS
Arizona Public Service wants more battery energy storage capacity and has new safety standards in place, prompted by a 2019 thermal runaway event in a utility-scale BESS near Phoenix.
Honolulu legislates faster, easier permitting for rooftop solar
Hawaii’s continued move to online permitting reduces red tape — and has the potential to grow Hawaiian solar when the state needs the revenue. The broader industry is aiming for a “fundamental reshaping of solar permitting at the federal, state, and local levels.”
Solar 2020 year in review: Thriving markets despite a pandemic, import tariffs and expensive PV
We cover residential resilience, tariff trouble, big Texas solar, storage everywhere, IPOs, interconnection queues and more in a review of this difficult, ridiculous, successful year. Next year will be better.
Morning Brief: Swell raises $450M for VPPs, Terra-Gen and Mortenson start on world’s largest standalone solar and storage project
Also in the brief: CPS Energy opened bidding last week on a contract that will double its solar capacity and add 500 MW of backup power to the grid.
New CESA report claims California needs to deploy 55 GW of long duration energy storage by 2045
The new report is in-line with models developed by state regulators, however helping the state to achieve such rapid and exponential deployment goals will require significant regulatory and procurement overhaul.
QuantumScape finally unstealths — with breakthrough performance in solid state batteries
After ten secretive years, several hundred million dollars spent, and the efforts of hundreds of scientists and engineers, QuantumScape went public on a video call today with the performance results of its solid-state battery — and its potential impact on the electric vehicle industry.
SPAC, the final frontier: QuantumScape raises $680M for advanced EV batteries, TJ Rodgers raises $200M in SPAC IPOs, plus EVs galore and Stem
Once sort of disreputable, the SPAC is now a “financial innovation” and a “funding mechanism for ambitious companies who are in the midst of a growth phase-change,” in the eyes of some investors. Here’s a roundup.
The roadmap to the lowest cost grid is paved with distributed solar and storage
We wanted to know what the grid would look like, and cost, if we stopped ignoring the benefits of DERs and optimized the integration of these resources through a better modeling process. We found that when you use better planning models and scale both local solar and storage, as well as utility-scale solar and wind, you maximize cost savings and unlock the path to the lowest cost grid.
The US energy storage market was redefined in Q3
A record 476 MW/764 MWh were installed in Q3, with California’s deployment figures alone shattering all previous quarterly records.
Sungevity, once a residential solar installer of note, is auctioning its assets
The now former company has laid off its remaining staff, locked its offices and left dozens of customers, sub-contractors and former employees asking what comes next.
