The Duane Arnold Energy Center in eastern Iowa, the current site of a now-idle nuclear power plant, will soon host a 690-megawatt solar farm. The new solar farm plus storage will replace the single-unit, 615-megawatt nuclear plant, which powered more than 600,000 homes.
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Duke Energy Florida has announced that it will build two more new solar farms in the Sunshine State. This time, they’ll be in Citrus and Hardee counties.
The utility reported in February that it is investing an estimated $1 billion to construct or acquire a total of 700 MW of solar farms from 2018 through 2022 in Florida and will more than quadruple the amount of in-service solar on the system over the next four years.
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The growth in building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) – solar PV modules that are flush with the existing roof and perform the waterproofing function of shingles or tiles – since Tesla announced its solar roof in 2016 has been largely disappointing. Since then, BIPV has been a niche part of the residential solar industry, perceived as too expensive or experimental compared to the cost of separately installing solar on top of a traditional roof.
But big drops in solar cost and an increase in panel efficiency over the past few years, combined with innovation in business models, mean that BIPV could become the most popular residential solar option soon.
Electrek‘s Michelle Lewis spoke with Martin DeBono, president of GAF Energy, about BIPV and the future of residential solar. GAF Energy is part of Standard Industries and is a sister company to roofing manufacturer GAF, the largest roofer in North America.
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In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):
There’s just something so natural-feeling about charging an e-bike from solar power. E-bikes are already such environmentally responsible alternatives to cars that they make me want to go the rest of the way and charge them in what feels like an environmentally responsible form too – with solar power that I generated onsite myself.
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The Alameda County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a 350-acre solar farm on agricultural land north of Livermore, California. This will be the Bay Area’s largest solar farm to date, once it’s built.
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Boston-based Nexamp, Inc., a renewable energy generator and community solar provider, has closed a $440 million senior secured credit facility for a 380-megawatt portfolio of solar and energy storage assets. It’s one of the largest debt financing agreements of its kind.
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The Biden administration is calling for action in order to stem climate change for a wide range of sectors, and that of course includes buildings and transport as major emitters. It’s going to require the rapid implementation of innovative new ideas and products.
Enter ready-to-roll – literally – “organic energy company” GO-OPV. All the products and applications are manufactured by GO-OPV from organic film printed by Brazilian company Sunew. The product is a thin film called ORENgE that can capture any light and convert it to clean energy in a more efficient way than traditional solar panels. The panels are thin, flexible, ultra lightweight, and can be used both vertically and horizontally.
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Electric vehicle DC fast charging network Electrify America has opened 30 solar EV charging stations in rural California – and they’re free for customers.
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Governor Greg Abbott (R-TX) wants to fight Biden’s clean energy plan, despite being the No. 1 state in the US for wind power. Texas is also a rising star of solar power, not to mention the home of Tesla’s Gigafactory Texas. Yet, Abbott has issued an executive order to “protect” Texas’ energy industry from federal overreach, or in other words, President Joe Biden’s endorsement of clean energy. Or to put it another way, what Texas is already doing.
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Sixty-six percent of registered US voters say developing sources of clean energy should be a high or very high priority for the president and Congress. That’s according to a study released last week by Yale University and George Mason University’s climate change communication programs.
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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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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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A Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) research team published a paper in the journal Science earlier this month on the development of a perovskite/silicon tandem solar cell that achieved 29.15% efficiency. That’s a new world record.
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In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):
Swedish electric off-road motorcycle manufacturer CAKE is preparing to help combat endangered wildlife poaching in Africa.
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Michael Phillips, the CEO of Sense, a technology company that makes a home energy monitor (pictured above) to track efficiency, cost, and reliability, told us about his predictions for six 2021 home energy trends.
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Researchers at the UK’s Lancaster University studied a crystalline material — a solid material with parts such as atoms, molecules, or ions that are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure — and discovered it has properties that allow it to capture solar energy. The energy can be stored for several months at room temperature, and it can be released on demand in the form of heat.
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Vote Solar, the Coalition for Community Solar Access, and solar provider Sunrun (Nasdaq: RUN) conducted a study that found that if just a quarter of US households were powered by local rooftop and community solar and storage, Americans would benefit financially and environmentally overall in a very big way.
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Aurora Solar, a San Francisco-based SaaS company that develops tools that enable solar professionals to design and sell solar remotely — rather useful in a pandemic, eh? — announced yesterday that it has raised $50 million in Series B, bringing the company’s total investment to more than $70 million. This round, which Aurora says is the largest single investment in this market, was led by ICONIQ Capital.
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Invenergy, a Chicago-based global developer and operator of green energy generation and storage, announced a 1,310-megawatt solar farm in northeastern Texas on Wednesday. It will be the largest in the US upon completion.
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Sonnen has released sonnenCore, a cost-effective, all-in-one home battery solution. Germany-headquartered sonnen, a subsidiary of Shell, is a global market leader in smart residential energy storage and virtual power plants.
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The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) last week announced that two 100-megawatt solar farms are being built in the Tennessee Valley to supply green energy for Vanderbilt University in Nashville and Google data centers in Bridgeport, Alabama, and Clarksville, Tennessee.
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The green energy industry is obviously delighted about Joe Biden’s US presidential win. Biden wants to rejoin the Paris Accord, rapidly accelerate green energy, and create millions of green energy jobs. Here’s what five CEOs had to say about the president-elect.
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