Experiments have shown the ability to store ten-times the capacity of water, and for months on end. It is hoped the technology will help overcome any weather-related fluctuations in renewable generation from wind or solar.

Yuba College, a community college part of the Yuba Community College District, this week completed a 1-MW solar carport installation that it says could result in $10 million of avoided utility costs over the life of the system. The District purchased the solar outright, which resulted in optimal savings.

Utilities and other energy experts convene each year at DISTRIBUTECH International (DTECH) to discuss the future of energy and this week Clarion Energy, organizer of the event, announced that the call for abstracts for the 2020 event is open.

AES Gener is moving forward with the Virtual Dam project, which is being built next to the 178-MW Alfalfal I hydropower plant in the San Jose de Maipo district of the Metropolitan Region in Chile.

British people need to fly less, drive electric cars, eat little meat and turn their home thermostats down to 19 degrees Celsius (66 Fahrenheit) in order to rein in greenhouse gases damaging the planet.

Global energy powerhouse Siemens is to undergo a fundamental transformation by spinning off its gas and power divisions into a new entity which will also comprise its stake in windpower firm Siemens Gamesa.

Ameren is preparing to test a Canadian company’s software that could someday help usher in a radically different business model for the utility.

Tesla announced the successful completion of its previously announced offer to exchange all outstanding shares of common stock of Maxwell Technologies for 0.0193 of a share of Tesla common stock, together with cash in lieu of any fractional shares of Tesla common stock, without interest and less any applicable withholding taxes.

Two companies have come up with a potential solution to help mitigate power outages in California. Recent state utility proposals have called for new measures that would allow California utilities to increase the quantity and duration of Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS) as part of their wildfire mitigation plans. These PSPS, while important, can have severe impacts on businesses, hospitals and others who need reliable power.

Stakeholders including clean energy and community groups are watching closely as ComEd begins the second phase of a microgrid pilot project in Chicago.

Among my circle of friends and colleagues, everyone is aware of the impact of human activities on climate change - the melting of arctic ice, the destruction of species - and the major causes of it, namely, coal burning for electricity and fossil fuels burning for transport. What nearly everyone is unclear about is what specifically to do about it and how fast.

For Elon Musk and Tesla Inc., the blows from Wall Street came one after another this week -- a relentless barrage that left the stock so beat up that some now wonder if it can ever regain its status as the ultimate 21st century disrupter.

The nation’s largest electric grid operator is grappling with how to prevent state climate policies from merely pushing emissions — and costs — across state lines.

Duke Energy Florida (DEF) announced three battery storage projects, totaling 22 megawatts, that will improve overall reliability and support critical services during power outages, according to the company.

Iowa economic development officials are tentatively endorsing a tax credit for battery storage to complement the state’s wind and solar generation.

Hydrogen, which has been touted as the fuel of the future much of the past five decades, may finally be on the verge of converting its potential to reality.

New York is poised to pass its own version of the Green New Deal with a climate bill that would more than triple the state’s solar capacity and aggressively promote development of wind farms off the state’s coast.

Homeowners and businesses may now have an easier time getting solar panels on rooftops thanks to software developed at Sandia.

On July 1, Public Service of New Mexico filed a plan with regulators in the state for how it plans to get to a 100 percent emission-free power by 2040. The utility reviewed four scenarios, all of which involved the early retirement of the San Juan Coal Plant, to arrive at its recommended path forward.

According to data recently released by the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Association, the number of public charging stations for electric vehicles (EVs) owned and operated by its members totaled 401,000 units as of May 2019, of which 229,000 were AC charging stations, 171,000 were DC and 500 AC/DC were integrated, representing a year on year increase of 50.5 percent and 9,658 units from the previous month. Between June 2018 and May 2019, the number of public charging stations for EVs showed an average monthly increase of some 11,205 units.

According to a review by the SUN DAY Campaign of data just released by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), within the past month, the agency has dramatically revised its three-year forecast for changes in the U.S. electrical generating capacity mix. Sharp declines are foreseen for fossil fuels and nuclear power while accompanied by even stronger growth in renewable energy (i.e., biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar, wind) than earlier projected.

This week artificial intelligence (AI)-driven energy storage services provider Stem said that it had formed a partnership with New York-based private equity company Syncarpha Capital to build 28.2 megawatt-hours (MWh) of large-scale storage projects co-sited with solar in Massachusetts.

Energy generation and consumption is rapidly transforming into a decentralized, decarbonized, and digitized model due to a number of market forces. The declining costs of solar energy systems, as well as the increasing price of energy from the grid has led to grid parity. This has caused PV proliferation to accelerate to such an extent that in the past five years alone, PV installed capacity has increased by 300%. Simultaneously, the EV market is also on the rise and is expected to reach the electrification tipping point by 2030. This is due to support from governments trying to limit the effects of climate change, thus leading to automotive manufactures transitioning their fleets from standard petrol- and diesel-powered cars to EVs. As a result of the acceleration of both of these markets, EV charging has created demand patterns causing an even steeper and faster ramp-up in the evenings than the PV duck curve. , This is causing the grid’s balancing act to be increasingly complex. In order to support this new energy dynamic, advanced management software is required to ensure grid stabilization and to unlock the value of these energy resources.

The HydroVision International event is now under way in the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, with more than 3,000 hydropower professionals from around the world coming together for four days of learning and networking.

Last week at the HydroVision International plenary session, a panel of three CEOs — Darrel T. Anderson, President and CEO IDACORP and Idaho Power, Mitch Davidson, CEO and Managing Partner, Brookfield Renewable Power, and Paul Jacob, President and CEO, Rye Development — along with moderator Elizabeth Ingram, Content Director, Clarion Energy, discussed both the merits and the challenges of hydropower development in the United States and Canada.

A pale orange-and-gold sunset bathes the macadamia plantations and avocado orchards that sweep down to Australia’s Byron Bay. The coming dusk is a cue for two sleek Tesla battery packs in the garage at Amileka, a secluded holiday villa nearby. They stir silently into action—powering the appliances in the five-bedroom home’s twin kitchens, recharging a $100,000-plus Model X SUV, driving a filter pump for an 18-meter swimming pool sparkling in the shade of a century-old native black bean tree.

A report recently released by the U.S. Department of Energy defines and evaluates cost and performance parameters of six battery energy storage technologies (BESS) and four non-BESS storage technologies.

This week, San José’s Community Choice Aggregator (CCA) which is called San José Clean Energy (SJCE) and EDP Renewables SA (EDPR), through its fully owned subsidiary EDP Renewables North America LLC (EDPR NA), signed a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) for 100 MW of new solar energy capacity and 10 MW of battery storage at the Sonrisa Solar Park in Fresno County, California. The project is anticipated to be operational in 2022.

A new battery made from affordable and durable materials generates energy from places where salt and fresh waters mingle. The technology could make coastal wastewater treatment plants energy-independent and carbon neutral.

Energy Vault, the creator of a new way to perform utility-scale energy storage, announced that SoftBank Vision Fund (Vision Fund) invested $110 million in its Series B funding round. Energy Vault will use the funds to accelerate global deployment of its technology, which enables renewables to deliver baseload power for less than the cost of fossil fuels 24 hours a day, said the company. As part of the investment, Andreas Hansson, Partner for SoftBank Investment Advisers, will join the Energy Vault board of directors.

The financial benefits of buying and selling locally produced energy from rooftop solar, wind turbines and batteries within communities have been revealed in a test case run by energy tech firm LO3 Energy.

The Chinese government recently issued a whitepaper on the status and prospects of the hydrogen fuel and fuel cell sectors, indicating that energy derived from hydrogen will become an important part of the Chinese energy network.

In recognition of the widely acknowledged studies that show that organizations with gender equality perform better financially, this year POWERGEN International, along with partner UL, is launching a new awards program that seeks out women of good character.

Presentation by Don Ball of Chemcut Corporation

Presentation by George Milad of Uyemura International Corporation

Presentation by Chrys Shea of Christopher Associates.

Presentation by Reza Ghaffarian, Ph.D. of NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

Presentation by Glenn Oliver of DuPont Electronic Technologies.

Presentation by Joe Fjelstad of Silicon Pipe, Inc.

Presentation by Sree Bhagwat, IPC market research manager.

Curbing global warming emissions and building the clean energy economy are critical to New York State’s future and the health and well-being of all New Yorkers. In this week’s State of the State event, Governor Cuomo announced some significant new clean energy and climate initiatives.

The transmission industry enters 2014 with a lot of work ahead as it continues to recreate the grid and make it more renewable energy-ready.

Broader domestic social issues and an international policy that moves away from "a permanent war footing" took center stage in President Obama's State of the Union address (SOTUS) last night. Domestic energy policies, including renewable energy, largely took a back seat to the President's bigger talking points: hiking the minimum wage for federal contractors, urging final immigration reforms, strong pushes in employment and job-training, education, retirement savings, and healthcare.

Several smart money managers I know are excited by the heads-I-win, tails-I-win big opportunity offered by Power REIT’s (NYSE:PW) attempt to foreclose on its railroad lease with Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE:NSC) and Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway (WLE). I know this because I’m one of them, and I’ve talked to others about it. Others aren’t quite so sure.

The idea of a “smart grid” has taken center stage — an evolution of advanced technologies that make the availability of a smarter, more efficient electrical power grid possible. These technologies aim to address the complex challenges facing grid systems today, which stem largely from its aging infrastructure and a use case model that has evolved over the years. With power systems over a century old, the field instrumentation on the grid is quickly reaching its life cycle limit, which adversely affects overall grid reliability and efficiency.

Offshore wind development is being pushed further out into deeper waters, emphasizing longer, higher-capacity transmission systems. Most newer offshore wind farms from Europe to the U.S. are looking at hundreds of kilometers of transmission lines: the U.K. Crown Estate's Round 3 allocations, interconnection systems from Germany's North Sea to the U.K.'s National Grid Western Link, and the proposed Atlantic Wind Connector in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic.

Today, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its renewable electricity generation projections as part of its "Annual Energy Outlook — 2014" (AEO2014).

On what effect the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Power Plan will have on transmission development in the country, including potentially a need for more transmission to transport added renewable energy, Frank Poirot, senior media specialist of transmission with Northeast Utilities (NYSE:NU) told TransmissionHub that increasing the grid's capacity to transmit power is one way to meet the growing need and enable renewable generation.

China is mandating that electric cars make up at least 30 percent of government vehicle purchases by 2016, the latest measure to fight pollution and cut energy use after exempting the autos from a purchase tax.

Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, the world’s biggest maker of luxury vehicles, is offering drivers of the i3 city car speedier and smaller auto-battery chargers in an effort to make driving electric vehicles more practical.