Last week, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities announced it selected Ocean Wind, an offshore wind energy project proposed by Ørsted with support from PSEG, to develop an 1,100 MW offshore wind farm. Ocean Wind will be located 15 miles off the coast of Atlantic City. Construction is expected to commence in the early 2020s, with the wind farm operational in 2024.

Alphabet Inc.’s Google said it would invest 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) to expand its data center infrastructure in the Netherlands.

Here’s the latest wrinkle in the battery boom: National Grid Plc is paying consumers to tap electricity from their power-storage systems.

8minute Solar Energy, NV Energy and the Moapa Band of Paiutes announced that NV Energy selected 8minute to develop the largest solar plus storage project ever built in Nevada and one of the largest in the world.

BlackRock Real Assets is aiming to boost its renewables power portfolio in Asia by as much as 10-fold as it seeks to keep pace with the world’s fastest-growing region for green energy.

Solar Foundation and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) are joining the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), several national residential solar companies, and other nonprofit organizations to develop new automated permit software for distributed solar and storage, reducing the cost of solar installations and saving resources for local governments and taxpayers.

Clearway Energy Group, one of the U.S.’s largest clean power developers, is launching a pilot electronic marketplace for renewable energy credits as more states push for solar and wind projects.

In April 2019, in the heart of coal country, Indiana regulators rejected a proposal by its electric and gas utility, Vectren, to replace baseload coal plants with a new $900 million, 850 megawatt (MW) natural gas-fired power plant. Regulators were concerned that with the dramatic decline in the cost of renewable energy, maturation of energy storage and rapidly changing customer demand, such a major gas plant investment could become a stranded, uneconomic asset in the future. Regulators are now pushing Vectren to consider more decentralized, lower-carbon resources such as wind, solar and storage that would offer greater resource diversity, flexibility and cost effectiveness.

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.

EON SE is now supplying all of its 3.3 million residential customers in Britain with 100% renewable electricity, the first of the U.K.’s “Big Six” utilities to do so.

Voith has received an order for the Ritom pumped storage power plant in Switzerland, which began operating in 1920 and will be replaced with a new facility.

A 138 MW windfarm in Turkey is to be powered by 27 turbines from GE Renewable Energy.

Community stakeholders and climate experts from the University of Arizona are helping Tucson Electric Power to build an energy portfolio that supports reliable, affordable and increasingly sustainable service over the next 15 years.

Clarion Energy’s Teresa Hansen, vice president of global content, for a webcast Wednesday  will be making some important announcements regarding this year’s event in New Orleans. Hansen also will offer key details on content, the exhibit floor and resources available to attendees.

Dozens of new solar and wind projects are sprouting up on tribal lands across the U.S. as Native Americans seek new ways to boost their economies beyond casinos and untaxed cigarettes.

India’s ambitious plan to take the leadership position among nations as one of largest producers of renewable energy may have run into some unfavorable weather.

Regulators in a number of states are ratcheting up investigations into competitive retailer behavior and proposing new consumer protection rules. Some states with aggressive carbon emission reduction goals implemented through regulated utility contracts are wondering whether retail competition has a place where a growing portion of energy supply is locked and loaded. 

GE Renewable Energy announced at HydroVision that it has signed two hydropower contracts in the U.S. one for FirstLight’s Northfield Mountain project and one for PG&E’s Caribou One hydropower station.

New York has signed the biggest-ever deals for offshore wind power in U.S. history, a key part of the state’s plan to get all of its power from emissions-free sources by 2040.

Namibia’s state-run utility will build four plants powered by renewable energy over the next five years as the southern African nation seeks to guarantee local supplies and cut its use of fossil fuels.

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.

Virginia’s energy office is exploring whether to align the state with a billion-dollar New York clean energy financing program.

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.

Ireland is set to add 5.8 GW of non-hydro renewable power capacity over the next decade to reach a total 9.6 GW by 2030.

Bernie Sanders wants renewable energy to power U.S. homes and vehicles by 2030 -- and he wants to do it by enlisting the federal government in building and running new solar, wind and geothermal electricity projects.

Brazil has included four hydropower plants among the projects that will receive support as part of the country's investment partnerships program, called Programa de Parcerias de Investimentos or PPI. 

Renewable energy, particularly solar, is poised for significant growth in the southeastern United States. The Southeast has also mostly retained a vertically integrated utility model, and most utilities in the region have not joined a Regional Transmission Organization or Independent System Operator (collectively known as, RTO). Recent developments have led stakeholders and policymakers in the Southeast to rethink whether it is beneficial for some utilities to join RTOs – something that is generally seen as a positive development for renewable energy.

MORE THAN 170 NEWS OUTLETS from around the world have now signed up for Covering Climate Now, a project co-founded by CJR and The Nation aimed at strengthening the media’s focus on the climate crisis.

This week, Scottish software company Smarter Grid Solutions (SGS) announced that it will be expanding into Europe after completing successful trials with a utility company in Germany.

In a region of the world where coal is still king, there is room for renewables. This was a takeaway from the Ministerial Address and Joint Opening Keynote at POWERGEN Asia and Asian Utility Week. The two annual events kicked off Tuesday, Sept. 3, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

It will be used to supplement electricity from the grid, as well as cogeneration from biogas, which is already generated on-site from wastewater treatment

New Mexico’s newest wind power facility is now up and running. Pattern Energy Group 2 LP (Pattern Development) announced it has completed construction and begun operations at its 220-MW Grady Wind facility located in Curry County, New Mexico. This is the third and final phase of a 544-MW suite of wind projects, which now represent the largest investment in clean power in the history of New Mexico, according to Pattern.

California’s energy storage incentive program has been a great success, with more than 11,000 battery storage systems installed to-date. The problem is, it’s not reaching the state’s most vulnerable communities. A new proposal from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) aims to fix some of the barriers preventing disadvantaged communities from participating in the program, and it allocates $100 million to a new program designed to offset the cost of battery storage systems for populations threatened by wildfires and related utility power shutoffs.

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.

The Clean Energy Regulator of Australia has approved enough capacity to guarantee that the large-scale Renewable Energy Target of 33,000 GWh of additional renewable energy will be met in 2020.

The 2019 Sustainable Energy in America factbook was released this week by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BloombergNEF) and the Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE). The factbook highlights a number of key trends in sustainable and renewable energy growth, emissions and jobs in the sector. Take a glance at the six charts below to learn more.

This week independent power producer Marubeni and LO3 Energy said they have started a pilot project in Japan where LO3 will administer an energy marketplace using blockchain to connect a number of Marubeni’s power production facilities, including renewables, with offices and factories around Japan in a virtual marketplace. The project will simulate energy transactions to test the viability of the concept with the ultimate goal of creating a full-scale commercially operational network in the future.

This week ComEd said that it’s furthering innovation in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood with the installation of renewable energy powered lights along the walkway to the Beethoven Elementary School. Bronzeville is home to the first “microgrid cluster” in the United States.

South Africa plans to expand use of renewable power as the coal-dependent nation expects traditional, centralized generation plants to “disappear,” Energy Minister Jeff Radebe said.

As renewable energy proliferates, major players like Hitachi, ABB and GE are seeing value in combining grid and generation business units.

Pennsylvania is promoting a new roadmap to electrify transportation by designing policies and setting targets to get more electric vehicles on the roads.

In late February, Hawaiian Electric Companies announced that they have achieved a consolidated 27 percent renewable portfolio standard in 2018, even with the loss of Hawaii Island’s geothermal resource for most of the year following the Kilauea volcanic eruption. Hawaii has a goal of reaching 100 percent renewable energy by 2045.

Florida Power & Light Company (FPL) this week announced plans to build four new solar power plants this year that are expected to begin powering customers in early 2020:

As of the end of 2018, China’s renewable energy installation capacity had reached 728 GW, an increase of 12 percent from a year earlier, according to statistics released by China’s National Energy Administration. This breaks down into 352 GW (up 2.5 percent) for hydro, 184 GW (up 12.4 percent) for wind, 174 GW (up 34 percent) for photovoltaic (PV) and 17.8 GW (up 20.7 percent) for biomass. Renewable energy accounted for 38.3 percent of the country’s total installed power capacity, a rise of 1.7 percentage points.

New Hampshire is preparing to follow the lead of other New England states and create a system for procuring renewable energy on behalf of residents.

Findings in a recently published European Union report showed that the Baltic States of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia make up over 30 percent of the EU countries that have already met their 2020 renewable energy targets.

China’s plans to loosen its solar subsidy policy will keep growth of the world’s largest market intact, according to the head of JinkoSolar Holding Co., which is increasing production capacity by as much as 20 percent this year.

The Trump administration is again seeking severe cuts to the U.S. Energy Department division charged with renewable energy and energy efficiency research, according to a department official familiar with the plan.

What happens when a famously left-leaning city dives into the buttoned-down business of electric utilities? San Francisco may soon find out.

America’s national parks are one of the nation’s greatest assets. They preserve and protect vital ecosystems and offer people from all over the world the chance to experience the beauty and majesty of these great spaces.