California utility re-starts gas plant using battery system
Imperial Irrigation District says its use of a battery system to restart a combined-cycle gas turbine is the first such “black start” use of a battery in the United States.
8minutenergy moves into energy storage with 1 GW pipeline
The solar developer says most of these early-stage projects are 10-100 MW in capacity, primarily in California, Texas and the Southeast.
U.S. residential solar market contracts 17% in Q1
According to the soon-to-be quarterly U.S. Solar Market Insight report from GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association, a severe contraction in California headlined the nationwide slide.
Renewables peak at 2/3 of California demand
As has happened many times in Germany, a week of high wind and solar demand coincided with a spring weekend day, and the result was record penetration of renewable energy.
Vivint moves into retail sales
The third party solar provider plans to set up kiosks in retail locations in five states by the end of June, with more to come by the end of the year.
California opens second SGIP round after awarding $50 million on May 1
The state’s popular Self-Generation Incentive Program accepted the first round of funding requests that nearly sold out in one day. The second round of applications will be accepted some time in June, with the goal of awarding $100 million for energy storage projects.
Sunrun bucks the trend and grows during Q1 2017
While other large residential solar companies are contracting or even going bankrupt, Sunrun gained market share during Q1 2017.
Smaller, leaner Vivint moves to direct sales (with chart)
Like other large third-party solar companies Vivint is increasingly moving away from the leasing model to direct sales.
California grid operator gets ready for August eclipse (with graph)
With California getting a higher portion of its electricity from solar than any non-island nation, the stakes are high with this summer’s eclipse. Fortunately, Europe has already been down this road.
Residential storage boosted by PetersenDean, Sunverge
The national solar installer and U.S.-based storage solutions provider have teamed up to bring energy-storage systems to California homeowners.
