Sunrise brief: Great potential for floating solar in the U.S.
Also on the rise: Stanford report finds high electricity prices in California have nothing to do with renewables. Sustainable home takes shape. And more.
Potential floating solar generation is ‘ample’, widespread across U.S. reservoirs
Federally controlled reservoirs have between 861 GW and 1,042 GW of potential floating solar generation capacity, and it is well distributed across the U.S., according to a new study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Off-grid solar-plus-storage could power data centers used for training AI models
Firms building datacenters to train artificial intelligence models could power the centers with high-solar microgrids in the southwest U.S., researchers found. The power demand for such datacenters is estimated at 15 GW to 150 GW by 2030.
Patents to add AI to power grids are surging, says IEA
New patents to integrate artificial intelligence into global grids have grown sixfold over the past few years, with China driving overall innovation momentum. The European Patent Office, co-authors of the report, called for Europe to renew its efforts.
Survey captures wide-spread optimism for solar’s future, but respondents divided over AI
Nearly two-thirds of a survey’s respondents said they believe solar will become the dominant energy source in their country. However, the survey also captured many challenges the OEMs, technicians and solar installers face.
Flexible interconnection can generate 176% more revenue for community solar, report finds
A report by the Solar and Storage Industries Institute shows that flexible interconnection, which adjusts solar output based on grid conditions, can offer significant economic benefit to community solar developers.
String inverters best for partially shaded PV systems, says IEA-PVPS
The International Energy Agency (IEA) Photovoltaic Power Systems Programme (PVPS) has released a technical report exploring innovations and challenges in optimizing the performance of partially shaded PV systems.
U.S. sees a 22% drop in land available for solar sites
Available land in the U.S. for renewable energy sites is continuing to shrink, found a new report by Paces, a renewable-energy project-planning software developer.
DOE seeks experts in renewables siting to advise 13 state collaboratives
To improve renewable energy siting, the U.S. Department of Energy seeks permitting experts to provide technical assistance to state siting collaboratives. DOE expects to fund each collaborative, and to support additional collaboratives in other states.
The use of AI in hydropower plants is creating new challenges
Hydropower has long been used to stabilize the rid and store energy to compensate for the fluctuations of solar and wind power. Its use of artificial intelligence is helping cope with new demands but making it more sensitive to cyber attacks.
