Record-breaking rates of solar connected to the power grid in 2024
A new report by the Business Council for Sustainable Energy and BloombergNEF unpacks the market and policy trends facing the U.S. solar industry.
Sunrise brief: Sunnova cuts about 15% of workforce
Also on the rise: Enhanced geothermal projects could scale greatly as costs decline. Invenergy CEO and spouse give $100 million to advance the energy transition. And more.
Enhanced geothermal projects could scale greatly as costs decline
A team of researchers and industry participants predict a significant near-term energy contribution from enhanced geothermal projects, saying in a journal article that the technology could provide “stable baseload and potentially dispatchable electricity.”
State solar policy increasingly moving away from traditional net metering
The N.C. Clean Energy Technology Center 2024 annual review and Q4 edition of The 50 States of Solar finds that most states took some distributed solar policy action during 2024, with most related to net metering policies, residential fixed charge increases and community solar.
Google-supported solar projects more than double Oklahoma solar capacity
Five planned solar facilities will add 700 MW of capacity to a state that currently has only 376 MW of solar installed.
Development of solar fuels that could transform chemical industry
The Liquid Solar Alliance looks to reimagine the chemical industry by coupling electricity from solar energy with semiconductor materials to transform carbon dioxide into ethylene.
Energy Department announces $22.92 billion in loans to upgrade transmission
Utility projects supported by these loans are expected to add much-needed transmission capacity by building new transmission lines, reconductoring existing lines and implementing grid-enhancing technologies that will get more out of existing grid.
Just a fraction of federal land could power carbon-free future
Millions of acres on federal land are suitable for renewable energy, of which less than 5% is needed to be carbon-free by 2035, found National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
After liftoff, DOE looks to accelerate virtual power plants
Virtual power plant capacity must double to meet demand, the Department of Energy said in its latest report on virtual power plants.
The impact of wildfires on PV power generation
Scientists have studied the impact wildfires have on the availability of direct normal irradiance and global horizontal irradiance. The research found that direct irradiance is more sensitive to smoke than the PV-relevant global horizontal irradiance.
