Colorado

The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory examined five-year data to observe the most common system failure points and how to prevent them. Researchers considered residential, commercial and utility scale plants and found interesting results. While failures cannot be avoided completely, a key takeaway was that close monitoring and timely repair can effectively mitigate the financial effects of failures.

“Electricity providers will have to treat renewable energy customers as cost-conscious customers once these customers can look at data across the board.”

Also in the brief: Powerhome named to Fast Company’s ‘Most Innovative Companies’ list, a Colorado town goes 100% renewable municipal electricity from a solar installation, a Minnesota couple wins a $50,000 prize for a module heating solution and more.

Getting the most out of a bifacial module requires a rethink at almost every level of system design and the industry is hungry for field data generated by such systems to better inform energy yield modeling and define the best approaches to maximizing yield at minimal cost. NREL’s three-year study into bifacial performance is beginning to yield results.

Lawyers for Good Government: “To meet their renewable energy goals, municipalities need to know state energy, municipal and land use laws as well as existing local policies.”

Solar contractors added another 1.8 gigawatts of small-scale solar in the ten sunniest states last year. In Hawaii and California, solar groups described their ambitious policy goals to keep the momentum going.

Today we’re serving up Bank of America’s carbon neutrality, a Kearsarge Energy and NEC Energy Solutions project in Massachusetts, Sunnova expanding to Colorado and New Hampshire, and more.

Tri-State Generation and Transmission has revealed new aspects of its Responsible Energy Plan, including the addition of 1 GW of wind and solar by 2024 and a 90% carbon emission reduction from Colorado-based generation by 2030.

Boulder sees a public utility as a way to reach 100% renewables, while San Francisco aims for 100% clean energy, and Pueblo expects 10% to 14% savings.

Black Hills Energy is seeking 200 MW of solar power or wind plus energy storage capacity as part of an RFP, driven – not by any requirements – but by 2019 summertime bids solar and solar plus storage bids of 2.4¢/kWh and 3.6¢/kWh and the pending step down of the 30% investment tax credit.