ERCOT

To help manage battery storage and renewable energy assets, Habitat Energy signed an agreement with UBS Asset Management’s Real Estate & Private Markets business to optimize battery storage assets in four standalone projects in Texas.

The top state for solar deployment in 2023 is seeing tangible changes to its daily electricity supply, lowering the need for natural gas peaker plants, said the Energy Information Administration.

Solar, wind and battery storage accounted for nearly 95% of the capacity in transmission interconnection queues as of year-end 2023, based on preliminary data from Berkeley Lab, presented in a staff report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

To compensate for potential loss of solar energy flowing to the grid, grid operators will have to be ready to rely on other sources to ensure grid stability, as was done during the 2017 and 2023 eclipse episodes.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, Solcast, a DNV company, reports that persistent high pressure in the upper atmosphere led to irradiance as high as 30% above normal, and new records for solar generation and temperature in North America in mid-February.

Also on the rise: Grid operators in California and Texas earn “B” grades, others score poorly. Calculating potential impact of EPA’s $7 billion Solar for All program. And more.

With two million megawatts of generation and storage projects awaiting interconnection studies across the U.S., a report gives grid operators grades for their interconnection processes ranging from B to D-.

GridBeyond report notes that while a reduced reliance on imported fossil fuels and increased renewable use can lead to greater energy security and independence, grid operators have to overcome certain challenges connected to them, such as intermittency. 

As the economy and population in Texas grows, so does its demand for electricity as well as sustainable food production. Texas A&M researchers collaborated on a study that finds that agrivoltaics offers the potential to enhance the efficiency of both.

The 9.9 MW commercial solar project acquired from EDF Renewables North America expands the Standard Solar portfolio to 23 states.