Focus

AMS breaks 2 gigawatt-hours in grid services

■Greentech Media - March 19

The competition for the title of "world’s largest virtual power plant (VPP)" has largely been focused on residential solar-battery systems. But according to AMS, formerly known as Advanced Microgrid Solutions, the world’s biggest VPP is already up and running in the form of the 27-megawatt, 142-megawatt-hour fleet of batteries the company is managing today at commercial and industrial sites across the territory of utility Southern California Edison (SCE). This Tuesday, the San Francisco-based startup announced that its systems, installed as part of SCE’s groundbreaking distributed energy resources procurement in 2014, delivered more than 2 gigawatt-hours of grid services over their first year of operations.

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News

U.S. renewable electricity generation has doubled in 10 years

■North American Windpower - March 19

Renewable generation provided a new record of 742 million megawatt-hours of electricity in 2018, which is nearly double the 382 million megawatt-hours produced in 2008, according to a new report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Renewables provided 17.6 percent of electricity generation in the U.S. in 2018, according to the report. Nearly 90 percent of the increase in U.S. renewable electricity between 2008 and 2018 came from wind and solar generation.

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Nevada bill proposes 50% RPS

■Solar Industry Magazine - March 19

State Senator Chris Brooks, D-Nev., has introduced legislation that would increase Nevada’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS) to 50 percent by 2030. The bill, SB 358, would ensure that the state’s electricity providers meet at least 50 percent of customers’ energy needs with clean, renewable sources – including wind, solar, and geothermal – by 2030. It also sets a goal of producing electricity from zero-carbon emission resources, equal to 100 percent of the state utilities’ sales, by 2050.

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California ALJ proposes statewide renewable energy procurement for utilities

■Utility Dive - March 20

California Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) Julie Fitch on Monday proposed statewide procurement for renewable resources, finding that proposed resource plans from utilities and other power providers will not reduce greenhouse gases enough to meet state goals. The proposed decision would refuse to adopt the combined integrated resource plan from the state's utilities and community choice aggregators because it "does not meet the greenhouse gas emissions goals" and could challenge reliability. Instead, Fitch proposed a new statewide Preferred System Portfolio that would guide generation decisions out to 2030. If adopted by the California Public Utilities Commission, regulators would decide how power providers would comply with the new statewide portfolio. California regulators routinely adopt ALJ findings with minimal or no changes.

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BP explores buying solar energy to power U.S. operations

■Bloomberg - March 19

BP Plc may become the next oil giant to power operations with clean energy. The London-based company is in talks with a solar developer it partially owns, Lightsource BP, to buy power in the U.S., according to executives at the renewable company. A contract may be signed within six months, Lightsource BP Chief Commercial Officer Katherine Ryzhaya said. Oil companies are turning to wind and solar to run their operations as clean energy becomes cheap enough to compete with fossil fuels.

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Projects

CalCom Energy solar projects offset 75% of California utility’s power use

■Solar Power World - March 20

CalCom Energy and Bella Vista Water District announced the completion of a 693-kilowatt solar project to provide clean energy for the utility’s use in Redding. The system will advance the district’s sustainability efforts, improve resiliency, and reduce costs by offsetting electricity used to pump water throughout the district. The second of two projects, this array will help account for 75 percent of the utility’s electrical needs.

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Cannabis meets large-scale solar

■PV-Tech - March 19

A California cannabis farm has reportedly become the world’s first to be powered by commercial-scale solar. Over 730 solar modules have been rolled out at the production facility run by Canndescent at Desert Hot Springs, with an installed capacity of 282.6 kilowatts.

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