Morning Brief: Titan 1 breaks ground, Blackstone refinances Altus for $850 million
Welcome to another morning brief. Today we’ve got Goldman Sachs financing $200 million in Loanpal loans, Swiss RE and kWh analytics collaborating to accelerate solar adoption, Voltus’ 50 MW demand response award, SERES transitioning its battery division into a subsidiary and more!
Hardware Brief: King Window Cleaning in SoCal, REC 25 times three, Jinko in space, more!
Please companies, get your services known, your gear covered – send press releases and datasheets to USA-Editors@pv-magazine.com. What’s on the docket today? Module pricing is going down, higher efficiency products more so – enough that you ought call you supplier, Quasar bidirectionally connects your home directly to the DC side of your cars energy storage and SolRates is refining their offerings.
Solar industry gets $27.8 billion in corporate finance for company building and projects in 2019
Mercom Capital has released their annual report – describing the year as robust – showing company funding of $11.7 billion, up 20% over 2018, and announced project deals of $16.1 billion, up 14%.
South Carolina regulators about-face, reverse earlier decision on Dominion PURPA rates
A month after deciding upon the rates Dominion Energy will use to compensate PURPA customers, the state’s Public Service Commission has reversed the decision — raising the rates and laying the groundwork for a successful solar compensation structure.
Titan, Mustang and West of Pecos solar power plants move forward
RWE’s “West of Pecos” 100MWac Texas solar facility has turned on, Sunpin Solar is breaking ground on a 70MWac/98MWdc solar plant in southern California, and Solar Frontier Americas closed on finance for its under-construction 210MWdc Mustang Two plant.
How will the US-Iran crisis impact the solar industry?
Four days after the drone attack ordered by the U.S. which killed Iranian power broker Qassem Suleimani, energy forecasting service AleaSoft said the price of Brent was rising again today. The potential shake out of rising oil costs for the solar industry is difficult to predict.
2,000 gigawatts of solar power needed for 100% renewables
Stanford researchers have a plan that would balance 2,000 GW of solar capacity and 2,300 GW of wind power with 3,300 GW of battery capacity and a large amount of flexible load. Consumers would save 64% on total energy bills, partly from electrification of transportation and heating.
Florida municipal utilities should look to Florida Power & Light for guidance
Daren Goldin, CEO of Goldin Solar, describes the flaws in reasoning behind fixed-rate increase proposals and suggests that utilities instead focus on creating value for customers and exploring business models to benefit customers and their bottom lines.
New Mexico senator seeks solar sales tax to fund early childhood program
Senator Michael Padilla (D) of New Mexico has submitted the Renewable Energy Production Tax for consideration by the state. The 2.5% tax would fund early childhood education and care services, while exempting government and personal generation.
Six-year-old solar power plant partially repowered with new trackers and bifacial solar modules
OCI Solar Power has upgraded a portion of its Alamo 1 solar power plant in Texas from 295 watt solar modules on ERCAM single- and dual-axis trackers to bifacial modules on Array Technologies trackers.
