California

Also in the brief: Environmental concerns could limit the foreign market lor liquid natural gas (LNG), Trump administration lies about fracking employment.

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.

The development company has eyes on the largest of large-scale solar for commercial, industrial and municipal customers, an untapped segment where the founders see great opportunity.

Nearly half of all respondents to a new Sunrun survey have had their interest in backup power increase since the outset of the pandemic, with millennials and Gen X showing the most significant interest.

Scientists at two of America’s biggest automakers knew as early as the 1960s that car emissions caused climate change, a monthslong investigation by E&E News has found. The discoveries by General Motors and Ford Motor Co. preceded decades of political lobbying by the two car giants that undermined global attempts to reduce emissions while stalling […]

“I think it’s somewhat unfortunate that the developers have focused so much of their attention on signing up well customers … as opposed to focusing on medical baseline or low-income residential customers,” said a CPUC commissioner.

What is it about California’s SGIP subsidy that brings out the worst in people and corporations? Usually it’s companies gaming the ratepayer-funded incentive, this time it’s installers helping individuals with second homes siphon off funds intended for the disadvantaged.

Also in the brief: CollectiveSun raises $4 million for San Diego nonprofits to go solar, EDP has closed on a power contract for 100 MW of solar generated by two projects in Ohio and more.

“Storage is the first truly digital asset that you can put on the electric network. That means the smarter we are with digital, the better job we can do powering the electric network,” Brett Galura, CTO at Fluence said, declining to disclose the acquisition’s price tag.

Stanford professors Paul R. Milgrom and Robert B. Wilson were awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in economics for developing a new auction theory and new auction formats for goods and services. Their findings were already successfully used in the electricity energy sector and may now meet the challenge on how to better shape clean energy procurements.