Month: April 2021

This week Wiki-solar released its latest ranking of the top 32 utility-scale solar EPCs. The company ranks the developers by number of projects developed and cumulative capacity brought online.  This year, a new company tops that list. China’s State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC) rose to number one thanks to the 2.2-GWAC project its subsidiary Huanghe Hydropower …

Chinese conglomerate surges to top spot on global utility-scale solar developer list Read More »

MISO planning resource auction prices for the 2021 planning year did not live up to their expectations from 2020 auction results. In the 2020 auction, the Michigan zone cleared at a cost of new entry of $250-per-MW-day. But in the latest auction results from April, MISO capacity prices were mostly in the $5-per-MW-day range, and …

MISO capacity price fizzles, but opportunities for standalone storage lie with utility resource plans Read More »

Cat Creek Energy and Water has chosen Voith Hydro to design, manufacture and install 720 MW of ternary pumped storage equipment for the Cat Creek Energy and Water (CCEW) Project planned near Mountain Home, Idaho. The overall project, on the South Fork of the Boise River, includes wind and solar generation parks and the pumped-storage …

Voith Hydro to supply pumped storage equipment for Idaho combined energy project Read More »

There are 2,600 megawatts of solar power capacity installed in the U.S. today that can be considered community solar, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). That is a little less than 5% of all solar capacity in the country, and it is also not very widespread—only three states, Minnesota, …

Michigan bill may unlock community solar and your state should follow suit Read More »

By Marriele Mango and Abbe Ramanan, Clean Energy Group Solar+storage is increasingly being explored by low-income service providers, such as affordable housing developers, community institutions, and municipal facilities, to improve resilience in the event of an outage and reduce energy costs. Despite an increase in the occurrence and duration of power outages due to extreme …

Solar+storage for critical services providers: Barriers and opportunities Read More »

Ørsted and Eversource, developers of New York’s Sunrise Wind offshore wind farm, announced the launch of a research partnership with Stony Brook University. The $5 million commitment will underwrite research initiatives specific to advancing offshore wind through Stony Brook’s Advanced Energy Research and Technology Center (AERTC) in connection with the Sunrise Wind Project. The AERTC, …

Ørsted, Eversource commit $5 million to university’s offshore wind research initiatives Read More »

This week developer CS Energy said it is working in partnership with the Goldman Sachs Renewable Power Group (GSRP) and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), to develop and begin construction on a 216-MWdc portfolio of new utility-scale solar projects across New York. The projects are expected to achieve commercial operations …

Upstate New York’s first utility-scale solar projects set to come online this year Read More »

Idaho National Laboratory is working with municipally owned utility Idaho Falls Power to test how small hydropower plants can serve as reliable sources of startup power during outages. The city of Idaho Falls owns five hydropower plants on the Snake River, from the Upper Power Plant north of the city to the Gem State Dam …

National lab, Idaho Falls Power test small hydro startup during power outage Read More »

by Elizabeth Outzs, Energy News Network Duke Energy’s effort to expand a popular energy-efficiency program to its entire North Carolina service area is drawing stiff opposition from a surprising quarter: Duke Energy.  For nearly four years, Piedmont Natural Gas — one of Duke’s wholly owned subsidiaries — and the state’s other major gas distribution company …

Duke vs. Duke: Electric and gas utilities at odds over efficiency rebates in N.C. Read More »

By Eric Brunner, University of Connecticut; Ben Hoen, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Joshua Hyman, Amherst College On the website for the local school district in Blackwell – a town of just over 300 people in rural Texas – school Superintendent Abe Gott says: “We believe that no matter your dreams, you can achieve them …

Wind farms bring windfalls for rural schools, but school finance laws limit how money is spent Read More »