Electrek Green Energy Brief

Columbus, Ohio, headquartered American Electric Power’s 998-megawatt (MW) Traverse Wind Energy Center in Oklahoma is now online. It’s the largest single wind farm built at one time in North America.

As the global energy crunch deepens, thanks to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, new analysis from the nonprofit think tank Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) looks at how home insulation and heat pumps could reduce the UK’s need for Russian gas. The approach could certainly be applied in other countries, too.

The UK’s total pipeline of offshore wind projects has now reached 86 gigawatts (GW), according to new research published today by not-for-profit renewable energy trade association RenewableUK.

Dust on solar panels reduces their output significantly, so they need to be kept clean. But what’s the best way to do that? Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) say they have a solution.

Environmentalist, author, and journalist Bill McKibben wrote about an innovative idea that would help curb Europe’s dependency on Russian fossil fuels, and the Biden administration might actually implement the plan.

Power plant developers and operators are expected to add 51 gigawatts (GW) of new solar and battery storage projects to the US power grid from 2022 to 2023, which will make up 60% of new generating capacity, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Norwegian energy giant Equinor and UK-headquartered bp announced yesterday that they have made an agreement with New York City to transform the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal into a major offshore wind operations and staging hub.

2021 was a record-breaking year for investment in and deployment of clean energy, battery storage, and EVs in the US, according to the “2022 Sustainable Energy in America Factbook” published today by BloombergNEF (BNEF) and the Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE).

On January 12, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) would hold an offshore wind energy auction for more than 488,000 acres in the New York Bight. It’s now complete, and the auction achieved $4.37 billion in high bids. It’s a huge leap forward for the fledgling US offshore wind industry

Seoul-headquartered LG Electronics Inc. is pulling out of the global solar panel business. The decision was approved yesterday by the LG board of directors in South Korea.

The China Photovoltaic Industry Association (CPIA) said today that it expects China to add 75 to 90 gigawatts (GW) of solar power in 2022.

Petrofac, a London-headquartered global company that designs, builds, and operates energy facilities, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Amsterdam-based Seawind Ocean Technology to deploy the latter’s two-bladed floating wind turbines.

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.