California

Malta announced a partnership with Bechtel to deploy electro-thermal energy storage systems that are capable of durations of 10-150+ hours.

Paperwork was filed with the California Energy Commission to develop the project for installation in Kern County, California, a hotbed for solar and energy storage projects.

The 20 MW/80 MWh grid-connected project is owned and operated by Hecate Energy and was built by Mitsubishi Power.

The project is expected to evaluate time of use and real-time pricing signals, load shaping and shifting, and event-based demand response.

The plant would be able to deliver 400 MW of electricity for 8 hours, and would be comparable in size to some of California’s largest fossil fuel power plants. 

Also starting up: Haliburton funds a company capturing and using waste heat from solar panels, and nonprofit Native Renewables connects Navajo and Hopi families with solar power.

John Fitzgerald Weaver argues that we need net metering to fully recognize the value of solar power on our homes and businesses.

Bloom Energy produced hydrogen fuel using CSP technology from Heliogen.

The Los Angeles transit agency will deploy 1.5 MW of rooftop and bus solar canopy paired with a 4.5 MWh energy storage system.

In what the Department of Justice described as “the largest criminal fraud scheme in the history of the Eastern District of California,” Jeff Carpoff has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering.