Montana utility wants gas units; Sierra Club suspects biased modeling
In developing its resource plan, NorthWestern Energy apparently used modeling assumptions that favor gas-fired generation, says the Sierra Club. The group has filed a legal motion requesting access to the modeling inputs, and to the model itself.
Sunrun proposes solar+storage virtual power plants across Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico’s Energy Bureau has its hands full in ensuring the island’s utility gets the grid working well at a reasonable cost, while moving to 40% renewables by 2025. Sunrun and environmental groups point a way forward.
Energy access for Puerto Ricans two years after Hurricane Maria
In this op-ed for pv magazine, Roy Torbert and José Juan Terrasa-Soler, of Rocky Mountain Institute and Resilient Power Puerto Rico, respectively, analyze the cost of energy recover in Puerto Rico and the role that microgrids play in reconstruction and resiliency.
States could save consumers billions with solar, by requiring transparent utility modeling
Many utilities prepare resource plans using biased modeling choices that disadvantage low-cost solar. With transparent utility modeling, states and intervenors could easily see the bias. And if they also have access to the same model used by the utility, they can fix the errors by running the model themselves.
Gas crowding renewables in Puerto Rico, EDF acquires PowerFlex, pvMB 9/4/19
Happy Wednesday and welcome to the pvMB. Today we’ll be checking out Three 10 MW installations coming to Missouri, Baker University’s 1 MW project, a SEIA permit process survey and more!
Sunnova launches $300-350 million IPO
Sunnova has put some numbers on how much it expects to raise as it goes public.
Latest proposed steel tariffs could hit the solar industry
A finding that Mexico and China are subsidizing the structural steel products that they export to the United States could have impacts on racking and tracking systems makers.
ABB exits solar inverter business
This Swiss giant is following a trend as large multinational high-tech companies see their role as redesigning infrastructure rather than supplying inverters at ever lower margins. Schneider Electric has pulled out of large scale solar, Siemens’ Kaco acquisition and Junelight launch show increasing interest in the C&I and residential markets, and GE is likely to divest its power conversion business due to low profit margins in that sector.
Enphase begins tariff-free shipments from Mexico, TVA caps solar in final plan: pvMB 07/01/19
In today’s brief we also feature conditions on Dominion’s future IRPs and some tax benefits recognized from Georgia solar.
Mexico reaches 4 GW milestone
Of the nation’s installed operational PV capacity, 3,364 MW is in the form of solar parks while distributed generation contributes around 693 MW.
