Focus
BLOOMBERG - May 11 Republican senators from five states with big solar farms are asking the Trump administration to exempt the workhorse of industrial solar panels from tariffs imposed earlier this year. The group of eight senators led by North Carolina’s Thom Tillis urged the administration to waive duties on 72-cell, 1,500-volt panels that are ideal for large ground-mounted “utility-scale” projects, according to a letter tweeted last Friday by the Solar Energy Industries Association. The panels are too big for household rooftops and are only used on giant solar farms or vast, flat-topped warehouses. Much of the solar power produced by developers in states like North Carolina, South Carolina, and Colorado comes from the large modules the senators are seeking to exempt. The letter was signed by Senators Tillis and Richard Burr of North Carolina, Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott of South Carolina, Jerry Moran and Pat Roberts of Kansas, Cory Gardner of Colorado, and Dean Heller of Nevada.
LOS ANGELES TIMES - May 8 Fans of renewable energy anticipate a bonanza blowing off the coast of California. But a map released by the U.S. Navy puts large swaths of the state off-limits to future offshore wind farms — including all of San Diego and Los Angeles counties, extending up to the Central Coast. The military does not have the final say in the matter, as federal and state officials — as well as wind energy companies and at least one member of Congress — are working with the Department of Defense to develop a more flexible plan. But the back-and-forth adds an extra layer of complexity to the nascent industry on the West Coast, where geographic features make it harder to construct wind farms in the Pacific Ocean than on the East Coast.
GREENTECH MEDIA - May 16 In a world where wind and solar resources make up 40 to 50 percent of generation, wholesale energy prices will drop by as much as $16 per megawatt-hour, according to a study released this Wednesday from a group of researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Modeling 2030 scenarios in which the California Independent System Operator, New York Independent System Operator, Southwest Power Pool, and Electric Reliability Council of Texas reach combined wind and solar penetration at or above 40 percent, the researchers found that electricity prices will fall — but that price fluctuations may increase and the number of peak net-load hours will spread to a greater number of days. Researchers hope the results, part of a three-part study stretching into the next several years, will offer policymakers, utilities, and grid authorities a long-range view of how current choices could impact their future ability to cope with changes in the electric sector.
THE NEVADA INDEPENDENT - May 11 State regulators last Thursday approved rules that allow NV Energy to play a central role in building electric vehicle charging stations. The decision, intended to kick-start the industry, was applauded by clean energy advocates but criticized by the state’s consumer advocate, who argued the rules expanded the utility’s mandate at a potentially high cost to ratepayers. As states grapple with how to build the gas stations of the future, there has been a contentious debate over whether utilities, as regulated monopolies, should enter the business or whether the task would be better left to private companies. In its ruling, Nevada aligned itself with states such as California and Utah that allow utilities to help build electric vehicle charging stations.
SOLAR INDUSTRY MAGAZINE - May 16 The Pinal Central Solar Energy Center, a solar PV facility paired with a battery storage system, has been installed in Arizona through a partnership with NextEra Energy Resources and Salt River Project (SRP), a community-based, nonprofit public power utility in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area. The 20-megawatt solar photovoltaic generation facility is Arizona’s largest utility-scale solar energy center paired with a battery storage system, the partners claim. It will generate enough solar energy to power 5,000 homes and will store excess energy in a 10-megawatt lithium-ion battery storage system. Solar generation starts to ramp down in the late afternoon, when SRP customers are typically using energy at the highest level. With this battery system, the stored energy will be available to customers during that critical time, the partners explain.
RENEWABLE ENERGY MAGAZINE - May 15 Solar PV and energy storage systems have been installed at six sites within the Santa Rita Union School District in Salinas, California. The systems will provide up to seven hours of power at each school during a grid outage and are expected to offset the school’s energy and demand usage resulting in savings on its utility bills. These multi-campus systems will enable the schools to support the local Salinas community as Powered Emergency Response Centers in the event of disasters that cause prolonged outages.
