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California’s Grid System Operator Confronts the Prospect of 33 Percent Renewables by 2020

The ISO CEO’s five-year plan has four simple components—and they may require fossil fuels.

Building enough new solar and wind capacity to meet California’s 33 percent renewables by 2020 mandate will not be easy -- but reliably getting the electricity generated by those resources to the places where it will be consumed may be even tougher. That is the responsibility of the California Independent System Operator Corporation (ISO).

The ISO has just released a five-year strategic plan that lays out what needs to be done in four… Read More ›

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Multinationals Invade Scotland for Offshore Wind Wealth

Samsung follows Mitsubishi and Gamesa to a place where ocean winds will be big money.

Samsung Heavy Industries just made a 100-million-pound ($158 million) commitment to offshore wind in Scotland, where the harnessing of far-offshore, deeper-water wind was first proven. This investment in the future of offshore wind follows a 100-million-pound commitment from Mitsubishi Power Systems and a 40-million-pound ($63.3 million) commitment from Spanish wind turbine manufacturing giant Gamesa.

With Scotland’s 206-gigawatt offshore… Read More ›

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Who Are the Smart Grid Players to Watch in 2012?

GTM Research shares more intel from The Networked Grid 150 report.

Last week, GTM Research unveiled its latest smart grid research report, The Networked Grid 150: The End-to-End Smart Grid Vendor Ecosystem Profiles and Rankings. This article is the second in a series of perspectives from the report's author. To read the first perspective, click here.

While The Networked Grid 150 'Top 10 Vendors in Smart Grid', which we announced here last week, includes many of the well-known, established players in the… Read More ›

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Who Are the Smart Grid’s ‘Big Fish’?

GTM Research pinpoints the players with the biggest market caps—and their unprecedented appetite for software solutions.

Last month, GTM Research unveiled its new report, The Networked Grid 150: The End-to-End Smart Grid Vendor Ecosystem Profiles and Rankings. This article is the third in a series of perspectives on the topic from the report's author. To read the first perspective, click here; the second piece is here.

At the moment, the mantra in smart grid is 'Software, software, software.' Across the board, the biggest players are snapping up the most… Read More ›

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Silverado Power’s Different Approach to Building Solar

Will it make a difference in a region torn by contention over renewables?

Silverado Power believes its approach to development can avoid the controversies impeding the advance of renewables in Southern California.

In response to those controversies, major renewable energy projects got some not-so-great news from Los Angeles County’s Board of Supervisors in the last week of January. The Supervisors’ decisions threaten California Governor Jerry Brown’s ambition to obtain 33 percent of the state’s power from… Read More ›

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One Solar-Wind Hybrid Goes Down, Another Goes Up

Element Power and NextEra get delayed; enXco gets started.

Element Power’s proposed Wildflower Renewable Energy Farm, which would be composed of 150 megawatts of wind and 100 megawatts of solar, got dealt a significant setback on January 24 when the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously rejected the company’s application for new meteorological (met) towers.

Without met tower data, Element Power is unlikely to be able to obtain financing to proceed.

Across Antelope Valley on the… Read More ›

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Is Wind Power the Most Under-Exploited Energy Opportunity in the Southern US?

New technologies make the southern states’ wind resources a new frontier for developers.

The U.S. has nearly 45,000 megawatts of installed wind capacity.

There is a total installed capacity of 29 megawatts in the southern block of states of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia.

There is a reason the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) is holding its 2012 conference in Atlanta, Georgia this year, according to Southern Alliance for Clean… Read More ›

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Financing Greentech in the Post-ARRA Era

No money, no problems? 

Tonight, experts in finance and cleantech will be discussing the new era of renewable energy funding at the latest Clean Energy Connections panel in New York City.

Moderator Michael Molnar of Greentech Capital Advisors will guide the panelists as they offer a realistic assessment of where cleantech is headed now that the appetite for tax equity has diminished.

Need to brush up on renewable energy finance before you tune in to the… Read More ›

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Will DOE’s Water Energy Push Pay Off?

The Department says it’s getting better at growing renewables without picking winners and losers

New assessments of U.S. wave energy and tidal current energy potentials just released mark a milepost in the progress toward these resources’ development. The big takeaway from the authoritative assessments, noted U.S. Department of Energy Wind and Water Power Program Manager Jose Zayas, is the sheer richness of the resources.

Wave energy across the U.S., the assessment found, has a potential equivalent to approximately 400 gigawatts of… Read More ›

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A Look Inside the Solar Industry at Schiller Automation

Schiller makes fabs that make panels—and may know who will survive the current solar turmoil.

Solar energy has grown “from a cottage industry to a mature industry in less than a decade,” said Schiller LLC Managing Director Mark Willingham. Schiller Automation, a 30-year-old, 260-employee manufacturing firm, based near Stuttgart, Germany, seized the opportunity early in solar’s focus on solar module and cell manufacturing.

The firm combined expertise in high-throughput manufacturing gained from the making of automotive and… Read More ›

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Guest Post: Fuel Cells on the LEEDing Edge

Fuel cells have been around since the invention of the first bicycle. Now, the training wheels are off—and businesses are saving money and applying to earn LEED credits with fuel cells.

Getting credit for an amazing innovation isn’t always an easy task -- just ask the Winklevoss twins. But for organizations that have gone the extra mile to help the environment, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Rating System is a great way to showcase their environmental credentials.
 
As a previous post pointed out, everything from low-flow faucets and bike racks to recycled carpeting and daylight harvesting can help… Read More ›

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Wind Finishes 2011 Big, Sort Of

Everybody is hustling to build before the December 2012 cliff edge.

The secret behind the latest numbers from the wind industry is that developers, their turbine suppliers and the entire supply chain are running on all cylinders and yet are desperately worried about the cliff out in front of them.

The new numbers from the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) are impressive. U.S. cumulative installed capacity is at 46,919 megawatts, second only to China (where government support is so good their turbine… Read More ›

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Buffett’s MidAmerican Energy Holding Forms Renewables Unit

“This is a vote for renewable energy, not a bet,” says MidAmerican VP.

MidAmerican Energy Holding Company, the Midwestern utility subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, announced today it will form a branch dedicated exclusively to the development of renewable energy.

The renewables platform will, unlike four of MidAmerican’s five other highly regulated platforms (two utilities and two gas pipelines), offer MidAmerican the opportunity it has only had in its CalEnergy geothermal and cogeneration… Read More ›

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Los Angeles Department of Water and Power Aims at 33 Percent Renewables by 2020

It’s “the most exciting time to be in electricity since Edison invented the light bulb,” according to the DWP boss.

California’s 46 publicly owned utilities manage about a quarter of the state’s power. Of them, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), the state’s (and the nation’s) largest public utility with about nine percent to 12 percent of California’s generation, has been thought the bad boy for making lots of promises about developing renewables and then going back to fossil fuels.

Ron Nichols was brought in as DWP’s manager a year… Read More ›

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Polysilicon Prices Hit Record Low in 2011; Will Head Even Lower, Enabling $0.70/W PV in 2012

GTM Research publishes new report on polysilicon market, examining the epic price declines of 2011, the effect on the larger PV supply chain and the future of the market.

GTM Research publishes the Polysilicon 2012-2016: Supply, Demand & Implications for the Global PV Industry report, a comprehensive analysis on global polysilicon markets, including the technologies, business strategies and economic roadmap for the industry. To learn more, click here.

In 2011, the solar industry saw global oversupply drive PV prices to record lows, with crystalline silicon (c-Si) module prices falling from $1.80 per watt at… Read More ›

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Autodesk: A Hollywood Happy Ending for Renewables and Greentech Innovation?

With Autodesk’s Academy Award-winning software, renewables innovators use movie magic to get across the Valley of Death.

The last 16 Academy Award winners in the Visual Effects category use Autodesk design tools, acccording to the company.

Autodesk describes its multiple visualizing tools as “digital prototyping software.” The software allows users to create three-dimensional virtual realities in which to challenge and perfect their designs.

“It lets people design, visualize and simulate their ideas,” explained Autodesk Cleantech Partners Program Manager… Read More ›

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Wind Tower Reliability Means Being Proactive in O&M

Whether it’s O&M, H&S, or getting the most from the wind, a wind industry leader says that shortcuts have costs.

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Ten Years of Texas Electric Utility Deregulation

Texans talk about electricity providers the way urban epicures discuss recipes.

Texas has the oldest and most successful deregulated electricity marketplace in the U.S.

A decade ago, deregulation was rolled out by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) in the wake of California’s $45 billion partial deregulation fiasco.

By 2008, 80 percent of Texas registered voters favored a competitive electricity market, and, by 2010, 55 percent of residential customers had selected a competitive retail electricity… Read More ›

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Distribution Automation Market: How the US Is Parlaying $120M From ARRA Into $3B by 2015

Leveraging pilot-scale benefits to support grid-scale deployments

This is the first piece in a three-part series offering insights and perspectives from GTM Research’s latest smart grid report, Distribution Automation 2012-2016, Technologies and Strategies for Grid Optimization. Click here to learn more.

Stimulus funding gave many utilities the money to get the first generation of distribution automation (DA) projects in the ground. To attract the next level of investment -- utilities will have to get… Read More ›