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EGEB: Will County, Illinois ‘solar smart’; JPMorgan $25B/year into green; Blockchain EV charging; more

Electrek Green Energy Brief: A daily technical, financial and political review/analysis of important green energy news.

Will County is first in Illinois to be named ‘solar smart’ – SolSmart, Will County has simplified the language in its zoning ordinances and made “alternative energy” an option on its building permit application. It also has enhanced training for permitting and inspection staff and increased public resources regarding solar energy systems and consumer protection. As a developer of solar power – someone who is in as deep as possible – I often get some very strange questions from people about solar power. Its at those moments where I have to remind myself that it is me who is the weird one with the amount of knowledge I have in this field. For local institutions to make solar power accessible in ways like this goes a LONG way.

Why JPMorgan Chase committed $200 billion to ‘clean’ financing –  Over time, the company has helped finance more than 17 gigawatts of wind power capacity and 1.6 gigawatts of solar energy. JPMorgan signed a 20-year PPA with an NRG Energy subsidiary to support the construction of the 100-MW Buckthorn wind farm in Texas, a project scheduled to come online before the end of this year. That contract teamed the company’s commodities team with its sustainable financing specialists, which both will benefit from the deal. – Of any group that is putting money into any subject, the headline really shouldn’t be a mystery. The Wall Street banks have to push hard to make profits – and green energy production and financing energy efficiency are big money these days. Long term, clear cash profits. When the big banks are putting down hundreds of billions – its time folks.

‘Solar for All’: Can Illinois energy bill live up to ambitious promises? – The Future Energy Jobs Act calls for the installation of about 2,700 MW of solar in Illinois by 2030, a dramatic increase from the state’s current 75 MWAbout 40 percent of the new solar is to be utility-scale projects over 2 megawatts, about 50 percent is to be distributed and community solar, and two percent is to be on brownfields, with the remaining 8 percent left up to state officials’ discretion. The Illinois Power Agency and the Illinois Commerce Commission are in charge of setting the price of these SRECs. The price must be high enough to motivate enough entities to install solar. Illinois is a large state. Its in the MidWest. If  this state’s economy suddenly picks up precipitously because of solar power – then its neighbors will start to pay a lot of attention. This is the footfold in the middle the industry needs – East/West coast are already being built out. Texas has it in the South. Minnesota is already in the region, but its moves yet aren’t on this type of scale.

Blockchain-Enabled Electric Car Charging Comes to California – Participating EV driver is looking to park and charge while getting a poké bowl for lunch, and all of the public chargers in downtown Mountain View are taken. This driver could tap into the network, see an open charger in a driveway a few blocks away and plug in there. The homeowner sets the rate and the blockchain verifies how much the driver owes and settles up digitally between the parties. Yet another tool in the digital electricity marketplace. Under utilization of resources is a wasteful challenge – a car sitting around 90%+ of the time is an example. Car charging hardware not being used is another example. Now, make it so my Tesla will drive to the parking spot and charge on its own, then leave when it is full – and we have a truly revolutionary system in place.

Netherlands’ Prisma Systems offers to acquire SolarWorld – The assets of SolarWorld won’t stay on the market for long, and they won’t be cheap. This is prime product.

Scientists Watch ‘Artificial Atoms’ Assemble into Perfect Lattices with Many Uses – Now scientists from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have made the first observation of these nanocrystals rapidly forming superlattices while they are themselves still growing. What they learn will help scientists fine-tune the assembly process and adapt it to make new types of materials for things like magnetic storage, solar cells, optoelectronics and catalysts that speed chemical reactions. – This is cool for solar because: Atomically precise groups of nanoparticles known as nanoclusters can cut a single high energy photon into two lower energy ones, a discovery which could lead to major advancements in the development of solar cellsOf course, these types of research techniques take a decades – IF it turns out to be viable – to move from the lab to the field, but it speaks of where we’ll be in 2040.

How do you get to the point where your divide on science is the largest in the world (left-right difference of 55%!!)? Lying politicians paid by the wealthy (Koch Brothers) and corporations (#ExxonKnew #EEIKnew) to manipulate the populace.

Look at this beautiful art…then think about what it represents.

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