Grid solutions: An interview with Greg Tremelling of Oztek
In this interview, pv magazine sits down with Greg Tremelling, VP of business development at Oztek Corp, to talk about his company’s solutions and where he sees the energy storage industry going.
First Solar advises contracting for solar capacity, not MWh, to enable flexible operation
Flexible solar plant operation can save a utility money. First Solar says it’s time for solar power purchase agreements to catch up to that fact.
Hardware brief: Module pricing falling, Enphase at 450W, sexy solar panels get $3.2 million, more!
We were gone till November, now we’re here. The US Air Force is researching space based solar power, SimpliPhi has discounts on energy storage products for Californians, and ESS Inc has raised $30 million to help roboticize a 1 GWh/year capacity factory to build flow batteries in Oregon!
A penny for your powerlines
Research by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory suggests that overall costs of transmission needed to integrate variable renewables is between 0.1-1¢/kWh, on top of the 2.9-4.6¢/kWh utility scale wind and solar power costs.
Back to the battery future
Rocky Mountain Institute’s new predicts unprecedented battery storage development in the next decade and beyond. And, while li-ion will remain to be the tech that’s hot in the streets in the short term, the future is diverse.
America’s largest floating solar project completed
Ciel & Terre USA has completed a 4.4. MW floating solar array in Sayreville, New Jersey, the largest of such a project in North America. This is an important step for a technology that NREL predicts could reach 9.6% of current electricity generation.
Making fudge with the smartest people on earth
NREL opened the doors as scientists spoke of advancing perovskites with fundamental research, fast drying solar inks, refining solar windows, and actively pushing into high speed, high volume manufacturing capacity on the multi-terawatt scale.
FERC looks at potential cyberattacks on dispersed grid assets
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has agreed to evaluate the potential risk of a coordinated cyberattack on geographically distributed targets on the electric grid, as recommended by the U.S. General Accounting Office. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation has pushed back.
The Midwest’s solar future will be unlike anything seen before
Fitch Solutions Marco Research has boldly predicted the region will be a main driver towards the 100 GW of solar power capacity expected to hit the U.S. over the next 10 years. The procurmeent will be led by city and utility commitments to renewable energy, the falling costs of solar and the continued expansion of popular community solar programs.
Decentralization is more than a dream
Advocates say that PG&E’s power shutoffs for 750,000 California residents could have been at least lessened with the implementation of distributed solar + storage, and note that communities can keep critical facilities online with microgrids.
