Green Energy

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.

Electrek‘s Michelle Lewis spoke with head of Enel North America Enrico Viale about why clean energy is better and cheaper than fossil fuels, and why modernizing the grid and battery storage are vital for EV charging and renewables implementation.

Toronto-headquartered global energy transition platform Amp Energy is going to build what will be known as the Scottish Green Battery Complex. They will be the two largest grid-connected battery storage facilities in Europe.

Massachusetts-based Ko-Solar wants to put solar panels in places no one really notices, like on industrial building roofs, in parking lots, and sound barriers on highways. It may finally get its chance, in the Boston area. And that will be a US first.

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. 

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) announced that it has finalized contracts with BP and Equinor for the Empire Wind 2 and Beacon Wind 1 offshore wind farms.

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 window manufacturing giant Andersen Corporation is leading a series B $30 million funding round of solar window company Ubiquitous Energy.

Late Tuesday evening, Tesla CEO Elon Musk weighed in on a controversial topic in California: the state’s solar tax proposal. Musk tweeted that California’s proposal was a “bizarre anti-environment move by govt of California.”

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.

Fossil fuel heating is bad for the environment and super expensive right now: Three Democratic legislators wrote a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission today asking them to protect consumers from unfairly high energy costs. Geothermal heating is fantastic, but it’s not yet widely available – and it’s still financially out of reach for many. Enter Swedish energy giant Vattenfall with high-temperature heat pumps that can easily replace gas boilers.

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. 

In 2011, Scotland set a target of reaching 100% clean electricity consumption in 2020. And last year, the country almost reached its target – 98.6% of gross electricity consumption came from renewable sources, according to the Scottish government’s December energy statement.

Stockholm-headquartered Hexicon, which develops floating offshore wind farms and designs patented dual turbine floating wind power platforms, has formed a 50-50 joint venture with Bologna-based clean energy developer Avapa Energy to develop offshore floating wind farms for Italy.