Electrek Green Energy Brief

The US is now on track to achieve at least 30 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind generation by 2030 – a goal that the Biden administration announced on March 29, 2021.

 Hawaii-based Mauna Loa, one of the world’s major macadamia nut brands, just got a 1.2-megawatt solar farm and 500 kW battery storage system. The new solar and storage join existing clean energy sources at the facility, which means it’s now powered by 100% clean energy.

The solar industry in Illinois is reaping the rewards of the state’s Climate and Equitable Jobs Act that passed five months ago.

Most of the materials required for batteries and other clean energy technology are dirty to mine. They’re also mostly controlled by China. Can a recycling technology startup change that?

Electrek spoke with Megan O’Connor, cofounder and CEO of Nth Cycle, a Beverly, Massachusetts-based developer of a recycling technology that extracts critical metals from batteries for a second life, about how to enable a clean, domestic, and streamlined supply of critical minerals for the clean energy transition. Nth Cycle’s technology was developed at Harvard and Yale universities.

In April, Nth Cycle received $3.2 million in seed funding led by Boston-based clean energy venture capital company Clean Energy Ventures.

A year on from the big Texas freeze that knocked out the state’s power system and caused at least 246 deaths, new research released yesterday found that rooftop solar could have supplied more than enough electricity to meet the shortfall on all but two of the 13 days when power production fell short of forecasted demand.

State legislators in Florida have approved Florida SB 1024 and HB 741, which would require future rooftop solar panel owners to pay higher rates and curb net metering. Yesterday, solar workers traveled to Tallahassee and let legislators know what a terrible idea they think these bills are.

Electricity from solar is cheaper than sourcing it from coal-fired power plants, according to a new article published in the journal Energy and Environmental Materials.

Kansas state senator Mike Thompson (R-Shawnee), a former meteorologist, is not a supporter of clean energy. So he’s sponsoring a bill that could kneecap Kansas’ thriving wind power industry.

The European Commission wants to label some natural gas and nuclear power plants as sustainable, calling them “transitional” sources of energy in rules proposed yesterday. But that label comes with strings attached, and many, from environmental groups to countries, call the proposal a greenwash.

A federal appeals court yesterday ruled that Arizona utility Salt River Project, which services most of the Phoenix metropolitan area, can be held liable for violating antitrust laws because it charged customers who own rooftop solar panels higher electricity rates.

Homeowners who buy rooftop solar can track both the installation process and PV panel performance once their system is online with a free app from three-year-old software technology startup, Bodhi. The app makes buying into rooftop solar much more user-friendly.

The British government today announced that it will provide £31.6 million ($42.5 million) to fund the development of floating offshore wind projects in order to reduce the UK’s dependency on increasingly expensive natural gas.

US big-box retail and grocery stores have enough rooftop solar potential to power more than 7.9 million homes – utilizing all that unused space for clean energy is a no-brainer.

The US Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management today gave final permitting approval to South Fork – New York’s first offshore wind farm. It’s now the second US offshore wind project authorized by the US government to begin construction.

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) has forecast in its January Short-Term Energy Outlook that rising electricity generation from clean energy such as solar and wind will reduce generation from fossil fuel-fired power plants over the next two years. 

Crown Estate Scotland, which held Scotland’s largest-ever auction of offshore wind permits, today announced that it has selected 17 projects out of 74 applications in its ScotWind Leasing round.

Houston-headquartered renewables company EDP Renewables North America has completed a 200-megawatt (MW) solar farm in Randolph County, Indiana, northeast of Indianapolis. It’s now the largest-capacity solar farm in Indiana.

The Department of Energy (DOE) yesterday launched the Better Grid Initiative to develop new and upgraded high-capacity electric transmission lines, which is great news for electric vehicles, charging infrastructure rollout, and clean energy in the US.

US electricity generator operators have scheduled 14.9 gigawatts (GW) of electric generating capacity to retire during 2022, and the vast majority of those scheduled retirements – 85% – are coal-fired power plants, reports the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) today.

Offshore wind power needs energy storage and power regulation, and Ocean Grazer has invented an offshore energy storage system that will sit at the bottom of the sea and manage the flow of electricity through the power grid. The Dutch startup showcased their new product, Ocean Battery, at CES in Las Vegas last week.

Clean energy made up 46% of Germany’s net public power generation in 2021. That was down from 50% in 2020, according to Fraunhofer ISE, the largest solar energy research institute in Europe.