Too cheap to keep: How throwing away power is the best way to balance the grid
Don’t build a battery that costs $1 billion, only works 2% of the time and only moves around 100 GWh of electricity. Instead, build an Energy Imbalance Market or an Extended Day Ahead Market for $100 million that moves around hundreds of GWh of electricity.
Unbound Solar busts residential solar myths
After surveying 1,000 people who have either installed or strongly considered installing solar on their homes, Unbound Solar has identified many of the common misconceptions and concerns that could be holding back residential solar development.
5 predictions for the corporate renewable energy market in 2021
Since it’s a slow news day — we’re publishing the first of our 2021 predictions with Rob Collier of PPA marketplace, LevelTen Energy, prognosticating on renewable energy procurement.
Breaking: PanelClaw acquired by Esdec in a consolidating solar racking market
The solar racking market has quiet revenues of billions of dollars and continues to consolidate — driven by equity firms such as Esdec and Tenex. The market segment has become a small hotbed of M&A.
Morning Brief: Community solar as energy reparations, LIPA could replace more than half of its aging peaker plants with energy storage
Also in the brief: Germany had a strong solar September, solar siting in Maryland generates friction, threatening climate goals.
Dominion announces 500 MW of solar project proposals in Virginia
As part of the company’s recent Integrated Resource Plan — which looks to add 16 GW of solar by 2035, Dominion has submitted to state regulators a nine-project proposal that will bring nearly 500 MW of solar to the state.
Norway’s Statkraft to buy UK’s Solarcentury in latest solar-hydropower blend
The Norwegian hydropower business wants to pay $152 milllion for the London-based clean energy developer which claims to have brought to life 1.2 GWp of project capacity in seven countries since 2013.
Morning Brief: Fight over the value of solar continues in Utah, Kansas, Virginia and everywhere
Kansas’ largest utility Evergy wants to charge PV panel users — or everyone, plus Dominion fighting community solar, Utah PSC decides to lower export rate.
The drama and intrigue of a long-duration storage bill in California
What appears to be an innocuous and neutral bill to promote gigawatts of long-duration energy storage in California is alleged to be a Trojan horse for Florida utility NextEra’s pumped hydro plans. And while that long-duration energy storage drama plays out, load serving entities are not waiting for state regulators — they are starting to procure 8-hour storage on their own.
Utah PSC decides to lower export rate, impacting a recovering rooftop solar industry
In a long-fought battle, Utah’s PSC just decided to lower the rooftop solar export credit rate from 9.2¢/kWh to about 5.8¢/kWh. Both solar advocates and the utility are expected to be unhappy with the decision.
