FERC appointees want 4¢/kWh clean energy tax to fund fossil fuel welfare
FERC’s PJM Interconnection ruling: all utility scale nuclear and renewable energy bids must meet a new “minimum offer price rule” equivalent to any state-level incentives in order to “level the playing field” with fossil fuels.
Biased capacity markets accelerating gas over solar, storage
Regional markets for energy capacity favor new gas generation over solar and storage, at a high cost to consumers. Eight U.S. Senators have taken notice, while a new report marshals the evidence.
Google’s reverse auctions net 1.2 GW of renewables in 60 minutes
Google pre-qualified bidders and used reverse auctions to obtain the lowest price for renewable energy. Reverse auctions for corporate purchases could potentially benefit solar developers, if their transparency and simplicity can influence more corporations to procure green power.
Opening markets to solar & wind could save billions in the Midwest
A new report by the Wind Solar Alliance estimates that reforms to electricity markets which it has proposed in the PJM Interconnection and Midcontinent System Operator (MISO) grids could save consumers $48-$49 per year by allowing more wind and solar.
PJM’s proposed 10-hour storage minimum debunked
Four-hour storage can provide up to 4,000 MW of capacity in the PJM grid region, providing reliability value equal to that of conventional generators.
Going 10% solar would save Pennsylvania $619 million per year
Community Energy’s analysis of the Pennsylvanian electricity market showed that 7.5 GWac of solar power would save $619 million a year in wholesale electricity costs while keeping the system’s stability at 100% commercial probability.
Supersized solar in the Midwest
Long seen as a slow region for solar deployment, the U.S. Midwest has seen an explosion of project development in recent years. And while there is still a lot of speculation and uncertainty, one way or another this region is going to see major development.
Facebook’s solar fake news, Recurrent secures $50 million and more: pvMB for 4/3/19
Hello and welcome to the slightly-retooled pvMB. Today we’ll be looking at commercial development coming to southern Virginia, Dynapower’s new 500 kW DC-DC converter, the development of PJM and Argonne National Lab’s solar guidelines and everything else you need today.
Illinois community solar block grants 10x over-subscribed
Illinois regulators have received applications for 1.8 GW of community solar projects, far more than state authorities were planning for when they designed the block grant program.
Solar tsunami
Developers have applied to build 139 GWac of large-scale solar projects in the territory of six grid operators – around five times what is currently online across the country – and that figure doesn’t even cover the entire United States. By any metric, we are looking at an unprecedented boom in solar development over the next five years.
