Industry News

Tennessee university to receive federal funding for EV battery recycling project 12/03/2024 The DOE’s recent round of grants, funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, is part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s overarching goal for EVs to make up half of new light-duty vehicle sales by 2030. It’s unclear how that could change when President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January, especially as his nominee to lead the Department of Energy, Chris Wright, has been critical of electric vehicles in the past.

A surprise solar boom reveals a fatal flaw in our climate change projections 12/01/2024 When the satellites zoomed in, you could see the panels gleaming from space. Pairing images taken miles above the Earth with Chinese customs records, BloombergNEF solar analyst Jenny Chase and her team discovered this year that the rooftops of homes and factories across Pakistan are blanketed with solar panels. Catching their own government by surprise, Pakistanis have been installing a massive amount of solar power.

REPORT: Tech, Retail, and Manufacturing Giants Procure Record Levels of Solar and Storage 11/20/2024 Companies across the United States are investing in record-levels of solar and energy storage to power their operations. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association’s (SEIA’s) new Solar Means Business report, Meta retains its spot as the top corporate solar user with nearly 5.2 gigawatts (GW) of capacity, while Google is the leading energy storage user with 936 megawatt-hours of installed battery capacity.

Scientists use series active filter to improve power quality of grid-tied PV 11/12/2024 Scientists in the Middle East have developed a series active filter to improve power quality in grid-tied PV systems, consisting of an inductor, two capacitors, and four transistor-diode pairs. The filter reduces total harmonic distortion in voltage and current waves at the inverter output.

How solar microgrids could power the future 11/12/2024 The back-to-back arrival of hurricanes Helene and Milton wreaked unprecedented havoc on the power grid in the southeastern U.S., leaving over 2 million households without power and reminding us all how disruptive life without electricity can be. To me, the images of darkness and disconnection felt all too familiar. I grew up in rural India, where power outages were frequent, and reliable electricity was a luxury, not a given. This is true, even today, for roughly 1.1 billion people worldwide who lack access to reliable electricity.

Utility rate escalation is trending up according to new study
11/12/2024 The annualized utility rate escalation input is one of the most influential factors in a financial model when determining the lifetime economics of a solar project. Commercial real estate and solar professionals have traditionally used a 2% utility rate escalation in their proformas, assuming a steady increase in energy costs over time.

2024 PV Trends: Global growth and challenges 11/12/2024 Amid a backdrop of massive installations and evolving metrics, IEA-PVPS 2024 “Trends Report” encapsulates significant shifts in photovoltaic deployment across the globe, reflecting PV’s evolving role in energy systems and underscoring its capacity to meet global demands. The association explores the trends identified in the report, noting the milestones, regional dynamics, and the implications of increased PV penetration in energy grids worldwide.

Retrofitting batteries increases solar plant revenue 29% to 81%10/31/2024 Power grid queues are increasingly dominated by solar power projects, with a significant portion involving solar-plus-storage (hybrid) facilities. In recent years, Texas’s ancillary markets and California’s evening peak demand have been the primary targets for battery investments. As these markets grow more competitive and battery costs continue to drop, developers are exploring new opportunities to maximize value, such as retrofitting existing solar power plants.

US power line approvals unlock giant solar, storage 10/31/2024 Last month, the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) approved construction of the Greenlink West transmission line project that will run 350 miles northwest to southeast, close to the California border, between Yerington and Las Vegas. The 525 kV line is being developed by NV Energy and the utility plans to build three lower capacity lines from Yerington to Reno further north.

SolarCycle’s new Georgia facility can recycle 10 million solar panels annually 10/31/2024 SolarCycle today announced details of the solar panel recycling facility that will be built adjacent to its glass manufacturing plant in Cedartown, Georgia. The 255,000-ft² recycling facility will have the capacity to recycle 10 million solar panels each year — nearly 5 GW total. It will initially recycle 2 million solar panels per year and scale as the company meets growing market demand for end-of-life solar services and domestic solar supply.

Cooling bifacial PV thermal solar panels with jet impingement 10/31/2024 Scientists created a model to study bifacial PV thermal (BPVT) solar panels using jet impingement and built an experimental setup to validate it. They achieved a thermal efficiency of 62.28%, while electrical efficiency peaked at 11.22%.

Battery cell prices fall to record low in September, says report 10/30/2024 Global battery cell prices slid to record lows last month due to persistent declines in raw materials prices such as lithium and cobalt, consultancy Benchmark Mineral Intelligence said. The weaker battery prices were led by lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cells, which dropped to $59 per per kilowatt hour (kWh) in September, based on weighted average prices.

Arkansas could be a lithium treasure trove 10/28/2024 Arkansas’ additional lithium reserves could be a game changer for the U.S.’ ability to domestically supply the critical mineral needed for electric vehicle batteries and other energy storage devices. Researchers used brine lithium concentration data to train a machine learning model to create a map of predicted reserves in the area, according to the published report in Science Advances.

US finalises 45X advanced manufacturing tax credit for batteries, solar 10/25/2024 The US Treasury and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) have finalised the rules and process for the 45X advanced manufacturing tax credit, which effectively provides a subsidy to domestic clean energy technology manufacturing, including batteries.

Solar-powered desalination system requires no extra batteries 10/08/2024 MIT engineers have built a new desalination system that runs with the rhythms of the sun. The solar-powered system removes salt from water at a pace that closely follows changes in solar energy. As sunlight increases through the day, the system ramps up its desalting process and automatically adjusts to any sudden variation in sunlight, for example by dialing down in response to a passing cloud or revving up as the skies clear.

A Massachusetts town uses batteries to help its grid — and its schools 10/07/2024 Some batteries serve to bolster utility power grids. Other batteries provide backup power to buildings in case the grid goes down. And sometimes, with effort and coordination, batteries can do both jobs at once. That’s what’s happening in Wakefield, Massachusetts, a town of about 27,000 just north of Boston.

US grid adds batteries at 10x the rate of natural gas in first half of 2024 08/24/2024 While solar power is growing at an extremely rapid clip, in absolute terms, the use of natural gas for electricity production has continued to outpace renewables. But that looks set to change in 2024, as the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) has run the numbers on the first half of the year and found that wind, solar, and batteries were each installed at a pace that dwarfs new natural gas generators. And the gap is expected to get dramatically larger before the year is over.

Study suggests a big role for grid battery storage as Illinois shutters its coal power plants 08/22/2024 A major expansion of battery storage may be the most economical and environmentally beneficial way for Illinois to maintain grid reliability as it phases out fossil fuel generation, a new study finds.

U.S. Department of Energy Launches Advanced Energy Storage Research and Testing Facility 08/13/2024 The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Electricity (OE) is advancing electric grid resilience, reliability, and security with a new high-tech facility at the Pacific Northwest National Lab (PNNL) in Richland, Wash., where pioneering researchers can test energy storage capabilities in a realistic environment.

Energy storage on the rise as world bets on wind and solar 08/07/2024 Energy storage is set to become one of the fastest growing markets in the global power industry over the next decade to support the continued steep rise of wind and solar, according to an by consultancy Wood Mackenzie.

Why Californians Have Some of the Highest Power Bills in the U.S.08/05/2024 Utilities are investing billions to upgrade infrastructure and build out green energy, passing budget-breaking costs to households; trying to keep the chocolate from melting.

Why are Virtual Power Plant Models so Different Around the US?08/05/2024 VPP Program Design is connected to several electricity ratemaking fundamentals which all energy practitioners and policymakers should know: starting with cost of service allocation and rate design. Without this knowledge, it can prove impossible to figure out what the value of distributed energy is in any given electric market design, of which there are dozens of variations around the U.S. alone.

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