California

Hydrostor’s GEM A-CAES has received a conditional loan guarantee of up to $1.76 billion from the US Department of Energy (DOE) to build the Willow Rock Energy Storage Center, a cutting-edge compressed air energy storage (CAES) system, in Eastern Kern County, California.

California has led the nation in electric bicycle adoption, helping more people than ever before switch away from cars and toward smaller and more efficient transportation alternatives. However, the proliferation of electric bicycles has also led to a major uptick in higher-power models that have flouted established e-bike laws, often being used on public roads and bike paths to the chagrin of many local residents.

A new law that came into effect this week has now further clarified which electric bicycles are street-legal and which fall afoul of regulations.

A new study published in the journal Renewable Energy uses data from the state of California to demonstrate that no blackouts occurred when wind-water-solar electricity supply exceeded 100% of demand on the state’s main grid for a record 98 of 116 days from late winter to early summer 2024 for an average (maximum) of 4.84 (10.1) hours per day.

Motiv Electric Trucks may not grab all the headlines, but it’s been quietly putting electric box vans to work throughout California for the past fifteen years. And, last week, the company’s commercial EV fleet logged its five millionth all-electric mile driven.

California’s new building codes will require EV chargers in most new overnight parking spots starting in 2026, going a big way towards solving the only actual problem with EVs.

On today’s episode of Quick Charge, the Trump administration has lost its first battle against state’s rights in California while Tesla faces down (what it’s calling) a union coup in Germany. Meanwhile, SoCal Edison puts 280 Chevy Silverado EV pickups to work on California’s roads and Colorado is putting up a bunch of new DC fast chargers.

The US Supreme Court today rejected a bid by Ohio and other states to stop California from implementing its own clean air rules, a legal right that California has had since the ’60s, which Donald Trump has repeatedly tried and failed to remove.

Nextracker just set a milestone in US clean energy manufacturing: It has delivered the first-ever solar trackers expected to meet 100% domestic content requirements under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

One of the US’s largest solar + battery storage projects is now online in Mojave, California. Arevon Energy’s Eland 1 Solar-plus-Storage Project combines a 384-megawatt (MW) solar farm with a 150-MW/600 MWh battery storage system.

GM and EVgo have now reached the milestone of installing more than 2,000 co-branded public DC fast chargers in the US.

California has proposed offering $7,500 state EV tax rebates to residents if Trump kills the federal EV tax credit, Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) announced today.

The Events and Transportation Department at UCLA has secured a grant from the state of California totaling nearly $20 million. The funding will be used to transition the university’s bus fleet to 100% electric vehicles, expand service, and fund California’s first in-road EV charging system with the help of Electreon.

Caltrain, the 160-year-old San Francisco to San Jose rail corridor, has ditched diesel and is now fully electric.

Arevon Energy has kicked off operations at Vikings Solar-plus-Storage – one of the US’s first utility-scale solar peaker plants.

Eco Wave Power (Nasdaq: WAVE) has secured the final permit from the US Army Corps of Engineers to install its first onshore wave energy system in the US at AltaSea’s site in the Port of Los Angeles. This pilot project will be the first of its kind in the US.

SWITCH-ON is a $21.5M funding project supported by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the South Coast Air Quality Management District (South Coast AQMD) that will see more than 70 of Volvo’s VNR Electric delivered to customers.

On today’s emotionally energized episode of Quick Charge, an independent test show that the latest Tesla Full Self Driving requires an intervention every 13 miles. Meanwhile, Hyundai, Kia, and California are making EVs better, AND more affordable.

Some of the world’s largest shippers and carriers will pilot heavy-duty EV charging along the “first-ever US over-the-road electrified corridor.”

The Biden-Harris administration announced today that the number of publicly available EV chargers has doubled since Biden took office.

An Oakland, California, school district is the first in the US to transition to a 100% electric school bus system with vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology. 

With the Paris 2024 Olympic Games wrapping up, Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass is in town to prepare the world for what the 2028 Olympics will look like in Los Angeles.

And one thing she’s promising, in a big surprise to everyone’s who’s even heard about the city of LA, is a “no-car Games,” using public transport instead of private cars to get around.