solar

Roiled over 2020 by the COVID-19 pandemic, two much-watched international power market outlooks surveying short-term and long-term implications caution the road ahead will be ridden by complexity. The

Feasibility Study Set for Netherlands’ CCS Plan. Neptune Energy in mid-December announced a feasibility study to develop a carbon capture and storage (CCS) plan for the Netherlands. The study will look at

With COVID-19 filling the news throughout 2020, it’s very likely you missed some of the most important developments that occurred in the power sector this year. Here’s a look at some of the highlights and big stories covered by the POWER staff this year. MOX Nuclear Fuel Loaded In January, Russian engineers announced the loading […]

JUNO BEACH, Fla. (Dec. 28, 2020) – Florida Power & Light Company (FPL) today announced five new solar energy centers will begin powering customers with clean energy by December 31. These new sites, each of which is about 500 acres, add another 1.4 million solar panels to the state and support FPL SolarTogether™ – the company’s popular […]

Congress agreed on legislation that would extend the investment tax credit (ITC) for solar projects for two years and the production tax credit (PTC) for wind projects for one year. The full legislative package combines a $900 billion COVID-19 relief package and an omnibus spending bill for 2021 with tax extenders and energy policy changes. […]

China is the largest manufacturer and installer of solar photovoltaic power systems in the world, and the country appears ready to increase its solar installations based on information contained in the country’s 14th Five-Year Plan (FYP). The plan, covering the period 2021-2025, is being developed and expected to be implemented beginning in March 2021. The […]

MENOMONEE FALLS, Wis. (December 10, 2020) – When Marc Maguire, assistant professor of construction programs at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, started testing the strength of piles made by Nucor and used in the support assemblies of solar panels, he didn’t expect such surprising results. These tests ― conducted by the Durham School of Architectural Engineering […]

Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) have found that a combination of lower capital, operating, and finance costs, in addition to better equipment performance, and longer useful lives, have driven power purchase agreement (PPA) prices and the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for utility-scale wind and solar projects to all-time lows. The findings were […]

ATLANTA (Dec. 8, 2020) – McCarthy Building Companies Inc. today announced that it has begun construction on two solar projects in south Georgia for Silicon Ranch Corporation. The utility-scale solar facilities include the 107-megawatt (MWAC) Snipesville II in Jeff Davis County in southeast Georgia and the 80 MWAC Lancaster Solar in Calhoun County in the […]

A distributed energy power plant, designed to help bring more reliability to California’s power grid, is being developed by a company whose investors include Alphabet, the parent company of Google. The project when fully developed would be the world’s largest residential virtual power plant (VPP). Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners (SIP), a group that builds, owns, operates, […]

Researchers continue to work on improvements in solar power, developing better cells, using new materials in panels, and focusing on improving efficiency while lowering cost. The solar power industry hit

A handful of well-known companies, along with three cities in Texas, have contracted to receive electricity from what would be the largest solar farm built to date in the U.S. Invenergy, a Chicago, Illinois-based energy company, said the Samson Solar Energy Center is scheduled to come online in 2023. The facility is under construction in […]

Natural gas-fired generation continues to provide much of the electricity in the UK, but renewable power in total at times has taken the lead spot in the country’s generation mix over the past several months. The country has moved almost entirely away from coal, which a decade ago teamed with natural gas to provide three-quarters […]

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 19, 2020 — Sunrun (NASDAQ: RUN), the leading provider of residential solar, battery storage and energy services, today announced that it has contracted with one of the largest electric utilities in the United States, Southern California Edison (SCE), to increase grid resilience and lower power costs. SCE will send signals to Sunrun […]

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 19, 2020 — sonnen, a global market leader in smart residential energy storage and virtual power plants, today announced the launch of sonnenCore. The new compact, affordable, and fully sonnen-designed sonnenCore home battery solution is built using sonnen’s proven energy management expertise. This product evolution expands sonnen’s premium offerings to include a […]

A Florida-based company that touts what it calls a scalable organic energy-based power technology has launched operations in North America, and said it is making its technology available across several markets including for transportation and commercial buildings. GO-OPV, LLC on Nov. 17 announced its ORENgE organic technology will be used in a 120,000-square-foot commercial property […]

A U.S. subsidiary of one of France’s largest providers of solar power has given New Mexico officials more detailed information about the company’s plans for developing a series of solar projects. The installations would help offset the loss of generation from retiring coal-fired power plants in the state, including the San Juan Generating Station (SJGS) […]

REDWOOD CITY, CA – Nov. 12, 2020 – Mustang Two Whirlaway, a 100-megawatt solar project in Kings County, officially started operating Wednesday and will generate clean and affordable power exclusively for Peninsula Clean Energy customers. Mustang Two Whirlaway will generate enough solar to power nearly 58,000 homes through 2035. “This is yet more new steel […]

The world’s power generation is about to become even more green, according to a new publication from the International Energy Agency (IEA). The group on Nov. 10 published its “Renewables 2020″ report, and highlighted how generation capacity from both wind and solar will double across the next five years and surpass global generation from both […]

Speakers at POWER’s recent Distributed Energy Experience were unanimous in their agreement that energy storage is a game-changing technology for the power generation sector. Storage provides for more reliability and resilience, and already is proving its importance to supporting the growth of solar and wind power. Utilities are incorporating storage into their generation portfolios. It […]

Black & Veatch is ending the company’s participation in coal-based power market design and construction, saying it will allow the company to focus on clean energy technologies. The engineering and construction giant’s announcement Oct. 29 comes just more than a month after another major energy company, General Electric, said it would exit the new-build coal […]

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (October 29, 2020) – Today, Alliant Energy (NASDAQ: LNT) introduces the Clean Energy Blueprint for Iowa, a path for accelerating their transition to cleaner energy for customers. The Blueprint outlines the company’s plans to increase the use of renewable resources, including solar power, add more battery storage and build out the connected […]

Burns & McDonnell Delivering Utility’s First Turnkey Solar Project Evansville, Indiana (Oct. 27, 2020) — After successfully completing the engineering phase earlier this year, Burns & McDonnell will begin the construction of a 50-megawatt (MW) universal solar array in Troy, Indiana, to service electric customers in CenterPoint Energy’s Indiana Electric territory. When combined with the […]

BOSTON, Mass., October 22, 2020 – Schneider Electric today announced a technological and commercial partnership with SolarEdge Technologies Inc. for North America that will accelerate the residential solar market and provide homeowners with seamless energy management for smart homes of the future. The partnership marries Schneider Electric’s expertise in energy distribution and automation solutions with […]

The Orlando Utilities Commission (OUC) said it plans to eliminate the group’s use of coal for power generation no later than 2027, including converting two coal-fired units at its Stanton Energy Center to run on natural gas. The Florida utility’s management on Oct. 14 made the recommendation as part of its Electric Integrated Resource Plan […]

Tax credits and incentives, also known as C&I, have long been important to support the growth of energy technologies, from oil and gas exploration to solar and wind power. Federal tax credits have lifted the U.S. renewable energy industry over the past decade, leading to rapid growth in the sector. Laurence Sotsky is the CEO […]

A Chinese company announced it has brought the world’s second-largest solar farm into commercial operation. Sungrow, which supplies inverters for renewable energy projects, and the state-owned utility Huanghe Hydropower Development on Oct. 9 said a 2.2-GW capacity solar park in the northwest province of Qinghai is now online. The Qinghai project trails only the 2.3-GW […]

Most new utility-scale renewable energy projects, such as installations of solar and wind generation, are now including battery storage.  The growing trend of integrating storage is making such projects more financially attractive, as it enhances the generation profile of the installation. Storage helps smooth the power supply, enabling electricity to flow from a project even […]

Though a lesser discussed power-to-x solution, power-to-heat technologies are already mature, commercially available, and market competitive. And they are already making an impact on the power sector. Much

Countries in Latin America did not feel the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic until several weeks after Europe and the U.S., but the impacts of the coronavirus when it arrived were swift on the region’s