Electric Grid
Texas Blackouts Due to Deregulated Energy Market
by SAMMY ROTH FEB. 18, 2021 6 AM PT This is the Feb. 18, 2021, edition of Boiling Point, a weekly newsletter about climate change and the environment from the LA Times. As a deadly winter storm plunged millions of Texans into darkness this week, politicians skeptical of climate change and loyal to the […]
US Military is Proving No Need for Coal Grid Security
Over the last two years, President Donald Trump has made every effort to rescue America’s ailing coal industry, opening public lands to mining, weakening limits on pollution and potentially eliminating protections for miners. It hasn’t worked. Utilities continue to shutter coal-fired power plants, and mining firms continue to shed workers. Read the entire article […]
New Florida Neighborhood has Zero Emissions, Embedded Tech and is Hurricane-Proof
In a fishing village south of Tampa called Cortez, a new community of small homes will run on solar power to reach a “net zero” energy footprint – using Google Home to help optimize how the power is used. Read the entire article at Fast Company. “It’s going to be a grid-interactive, grid-optimized virtual […]
Utilities have a problem: the public wants 100% renewable energy, and quick
Renewable energy is hot. It has incredible momentum, not only in terms of deployment and costs but in terms of public opinion and cultural cachet. To put it simply: Everyone loves renewable energy. It’s cleaner, it’s high-tech, it’s new jobs, it’s the future. Read the entire article at Vox. The Sierra Club notes that […]
Global Electrical System Will Soon Be Wind, Solar and Batteries
Every year, Bloomberg NEF runs its New Energy Outlook (NEO) for the future of the world electricity system, taking into account projections for country-by-country demand, technology costs, the transition in transport and many other variables – without assuming any new policy measures. Every year, this modeling exercise seems to produce a big surprise. Read […]
Devastation in Puerto Rico could produce a revolutionary power grid
Read the entire article at Brookings. Disasters often lead to unexpected and swift technology innovation. The calamitous collapse of Puerto Rico’s electricity system might be the next example of that phenomenon. As we know, Hurricane Maria devastated the island. Restoring its existing power grid of big diesel burning plants and long transmission lines […]
Duke Energy to Invest $6B for Solar, Batteries and EV Chargers
Read the entire article at Green Tech Media. Florida is set to get a lot more solar power and grid batteries – in exchange for losing a future nuclear power plant. Duke Energy Florida filed a revised settlement that lays out a four-year, nearly $6 billion investment into 700 megawatts of solar PV, 50 megawatts […]
A Carbon-Free City is Being Built From Scratch
Read the entire article at Scientific American. Can a city built from scratch be profitable to developers and enjoyable to residents as it tries to be carbon-free? That is the question facing owners and planners of a mostly vacant, sunburned 400-acre plot of land near this city’s sprawling International Airport as they plan an energy system […]
A German Village Generates 500% More Energy Than It Needs
Wildpoldsried, a Bavarian village of about 2,600 residents, is leading the way in Germany’s extraordinary renewable energy transformation. Over the past 18 years, the village has invested in a holistic range of renewable energy projects that include 4,983 kWp of photovoltaics, five biogas facilities, 11 wind turbines and a hydropower system. As a result, the […]
The Whole System Cost of Renewables
Dramatic cost reductions mean wind and solar can now compete on price with conventional sources of energy in many parts of the world. This turns the spotlight onto the so-called “whole system costs” of integrating renewables into the electricity system, which include backing up intermittent generation and strengthening grids. In a report published this week, […]
