Focus
San Bernardino County slams the brakes on big solar projects
■Los Angeles Times - February 28
California's largest county has banned the construction of large solar and wind farms on more than 1 million acres of private land. Thursday’s 4-1 vote by San Bernardino County’s Board of Supervisors highlighted a challenge California could face as it seeks to eliminate the burning of planet-warming fossil fuels. State lawmakers passed a bill in 2018 requiring utility companies to get 60 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2030, and 100 percent from climate-friendly sources by 2045. But achieving those goals will require cooperation from local governments — and big solar and wind farms, like many infrastructure projects, are sometimes unpopular at the local level. The policy approved in San Bernardino County prohibits utility-oriented renewable energy projects — defined as projects that would mostly serve out-of-town utility customers, rather than local power needs — within the boundaries of Community Plans that have been adopted by more than a dozen unincorporated towns. Construction of utility-oriented solar and wind farms would also be banned in so-called Rural Living zones. Solar projects that are already going through the permitting process would still be allowed to proceed.
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News
Senators push for Huawei solar inverter ban
■Solar Industry Magazine - February 26
On Monday, citing national security threats, a bipartisan group of senators, including California Senator Dianne Feinstein, sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Energy and Department of Homeland Security to urge the federal government to ban the use of solar inverters from China-based Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. The senators, arguing that Huawei “is attempting to access our domestic residential and commercial markets,” explained that “Congress recently acted to block Huawei from our telecommunications equipment market due to concerns with the company’s links to China’s intelligence services. We urge similar action to protect critical U.S. electrical systems and infrastructure.”
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California regulators tee up changes to utility distributed storage programs
■Utility Dive - February 28
A proposed decision issued this week by an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) in California rejects the utility-owned front-of-the-meter storage proposals filed in response to a 500-megawatt storage mandate in AB 2868. Instead, utilities would issue requests for offers for the facilities "without any bias towards any ownership model." The ALJ’s decision is not a final order, but California regulators routinely adopt ALJ findings with minimal or no changes. Utilities say they are still reviewing the proposed order, which could be considered by the California Public Utilities Commission at its March 28 meeting.
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Solar and wind met nearly 9% of U.S. power demand in 2018
■PV Magazine - February 28
Each year in February, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) puts out final numbers for year-to-date generation as of the end of December. In 2018, wind and solar met 8.9 percent of all electric demand in the United States, according to PV Magazine’s analysis of the EIA data. Solar generation – both rooftop and utility-scale – grew 25 percent. California remained the state that both converted the largest amount of sunlight to electricity and met the highest portion of its demand with solar. California’s raw solar generation increased 15 percent over 2017 levels in 2018.
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San Diego County and cities looking to team up on public alternative to SDG&E
■Del Mar Times - February 27
Elected officials throughout the San Diego region are ramping up efforts to form a public alternative to San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E). California’s three large investor-owned utilities have since 2010 seen more than 8 million customers defect to so-called community choice aggregation programs, from Humboldt to Los Angeles to Solana Beach. However, SDG&E is now facing the largest displacement of a utility’s customer base in the state — raising questions about everything from grid reliability to whether the public alternative can deliver more renewable energy as promised. The movement got its latest boost this Tuesday when the San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to draft a blueprint for joining the regional community choice effort.
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Greenbacker Renewable Energy purchased 6 solar projects in coastal states
■Solar Power World - February 25
Greenbacker Renewable Energy has purchased the rights to a 21.2-megawatt solar portfolio of six distributed solar projects from a Clearway Energy Group subsidiary. The projects, located in California, New Jersey, and Maryland, are expected to reach commercial operation between June 2019 and March 2020.
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Projects
APS plans to add nearly 1GW of new battery storage and solar resources by 2025
■Greentech Media - February 21
Arizona Public Service (APS), the state’s largest investor-owned utility, announced last Thursday that it will add 850 megawatts of battery storage and at least 100 megawatts of solar generation by 2025. That amounts to nearly 1 gigawatt of new clean energy technology, to be obtained through a combination of newly completed and upcoming procurements. The plan includes outfitting existing utility-owned solar projects with 200 megawatts of batteries, deploying 500 megawatts of new battery resources, and contracting for 150 megawatts of third-party-owned storage. This work builds on the dispatchable solar project APS is building with First Solar, which is scheduled for completion in 2021.
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