Michelle Lewis is a writer at Electrek. She has previously worked for Fast Company, The Guardian, News Deeply, Time, and others. She lives in Massachusetts.
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In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):
In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):
Since COVID-19 officially arrived in the US, average electrical usage increased 9.3% from April through August 2020 compared to 2019, a reflection of people using more electricity while they stayed home, combined with wildfires in the West and heat waves across the US.
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Texas, Utah, and Iowa may have cast their 2020 presidential electoral votes for fossil-fuel champion Donald Trump, but Irving, Salt Lake City, and Des Moines are implementing ambitious green energy plans to reach net zero – and one is the first in the US to set a truly groundbreaking goal.
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In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):
The Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, a group composed of more than 1,800 current, retired, and former employees of the National Park Service (NPS), is calling on President-elect Joe Biden’s administration to fight the climate crisis and protect national parks and public lands.
And the Coalition calls for an NPS director, because under the Trump administration, for the first time in its over 100-year history, the NPS has been without one for an entire presidential administration term.
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In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):
In December, Electrek reported that President-elect Joe Biden named the NRDC’s Gina McCarthy domestic climate czar. McCarthy and her deputy, Ali Zaidi, will coordinate action across multiple federal agencies and Congress. Here’s a brief background on six of Biden’s latest appointments to McCarthy’s climate team [via E&E], and more hires will follow.
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In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):
In an exclusive, Reuters reports that Siemens Gamesa and Siemens Energy will develop commercial offshore wind turbines that can produce hydrogen via electrolysis. “It is the renewable industry’s most concrete plan yet to capitalize on an expected boom in hydrogen demand.”
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In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):
Tesla models S and X offer HEPA air filtration, and some Model Ys in China are featuring it, too. But as a whole, electric vehicles don’t come equipped with HEPA – high-efficiency particulate air – filters. That’s where Scosche’s new FrescheAir Portable HEPA Air Purifier comes in, as it’s made especially for cars.
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Birds.ai, a Delft, Netherlands-based artificial intelligence (AI) company that specializes in visual inspections by “converting images into meaningful figures and numbers,” has debuted its newest product, View Solar, at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
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In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):
The addition of utility-scale solar capacity is expected to set a new record by adding 15.4 GW of capacity to the US grid in 2021, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) announced today.
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In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):
Robots aren’t going to take over the world, but they can definitely make life a lot easier for humans. And that was the aim of BladeBUG, a UK startup that has developed insect-like robots to inspect, maintain, and repair offshore wind turbine blades without the need for rope access.
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In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):
In December 2019, plugin electric vehicles (PEVs) made up 6.6% of the UK market share. In December 2020, PEVs made up 23.4% of the market share. That’s a huge jump in just one year for PEV sales in the UK.
And the Tesla Model 3 was the UK’s best selling auto overall in the last month of 2020, at 5,798 vehicles.
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In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):
One of the big news stories of the day — which has now been massively eclipsed by the US Capitol being stormed by domestic terrorists — are the Senate race results in Georgia. Democrat Raphael Warnock has been declared the winner of one Senate seat, defeating Republican Kelly Loeffler. Democrat Jon Ossoff is about to officially defeat incumbent Republican David Perdue as of publication time.
And in a contest that’s getting less attention but is extremely important to Georgia, Republican Lauren “Bubba” McDonald won the race today against Democrat Daniel Blackman, who had hoped to become the first Democrat and Black member to serve in 15 years as a member of the five-person Public Service Commission (PSC) committee for District 4.
But here’s an interesting fact about McDonald: He’s a solar enthusiast.
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In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):
In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):
Wisconsin, a state that currently gets most of its electricity (42%) from coal, is quickly moving to adopt solar. The state currently has 20 solar farms under active development that will generate more than 2.2 gigawatts of power.
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