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University of Notre Dame breaks ground on 2.5-MW hydroelectric generation facility

The University of Notre Dame and South Bend’s Venues Parks & Arts have broken ground on a 2.5-MW hydroelectric generation facility at an existing city-owned dam on the St. Joseph River in downtown South Bend, Ind.





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Nine solar projects go live in Georgia

Duke Energy Renewables, a subsidiary of Duke Energy, announced that nine solar projects developed with SolAmerica Energy totaling 14.1 megawatts (MW) have begun commercial operations across central Georgia under Georgia Power’s Renewable Energy Development Initiative. These projects bring Duke Energy Renewables, operating through its REC Solar business unit, to 27.4 MW of solar projects in Georgia.




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ABB delivers solar plant at Antarctic research base

The Uruguayan government agency Instituto Antarctico Uruguayo (IAU) is collaborating with ABB, Uruguayan utility company UTE and the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mining (MIEM) to provide a second solar power installation at the IAU’s research base in the Antarctic.




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New Zealand to receive first ever floating solar

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




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California aims to fix low-income storage program and deliver new resilience incentives

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.




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Australia in planning for multiple massive battery projects

France’s Neoen SA has outlined plans to build a giant renewables complex in South Australia, including battery storage with up to nine times more capacity than the Tesla Inc. design at its nearby Hornsdale plant, which is billed as the world’s largest lithium-ion battery.




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4 creative ways cities are transitioning to a clean energy future

Mayors from cities across the U.S. are stepping up and committing to broad and inspirational action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and decarbonize local energy systems. This leadership is especially critical given lack of federal climate action, but translating a mayoral commitment to reality can be a challenge.




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Thailand planning massive floating solar power plants on hydropower dam reservoirs

Thailand plans to build the world’s largest floating solar farms to power Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy and to boost the country’s share of clean energy.




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Non-profit urges UK government to make workforce diversity a priority in clean energy

A new paper is being launched today at the House of Lords in London that challenges government, regulators and companies working on clean energy to make gender diversity a key priority. The paper has been produced by the EWiRE network, set up by Regen to provide a vibrant network for women working in clean energy.




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Shell makes aggressive move into U.K. retail power market

Royal Dutch Shell Plc took a step forward in its aim to become the world’s biggest power company with an aggressive move into the U.K. retail market by offering one of the cheapest tariffs available.




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Three ways utilities can partner with smart renewable cities to deliver on their objectives

Cities and renewable electricity have, respectively, become the habitat and energy of choice globally. The two are increasingly inseparable. Urbanization and electrification trends have turned cities and the grid into leading platforms for human activity, presenting unique opportunities for today’s utilities to partner with municipalities to achieve their smart city goals.




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DTECH asks experts to share what they know about the future of energy delivery

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.





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Ameren tests software that could unlock future ‘transactive energy marketplace’

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




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LevelTen receives series B funding; arranges 146-MW PPA for Starbucks

Seattle, WA-based LevelTen Energy helps corporate buyers of renewable energy find and purchase energy from solar and wind projects within North America through its procurement platform. The company says its solution reduces the cost, complexity, and risk of renewable energy power purchase agreements (PPAs), by incorporating analytics, aggregation, and process best practices.




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New York to pass 'one of the most aggressive clean energy mandates in the country'

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.




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November fest: POWERGEN University offerings now on tap

POWERGEN International Week truly begins Monday, Nov. 18 with POWERGEN University. This year’s set of three, four and eight-hour PGU classes include detail educations on crucial power generation topics such as effective project management, gas turbine long-term service agreements, safety processes, digitalization, business plans for emerging markets, microgrids, cogeneration, machine learning, boiler technologies, building the generation fleet of the future and the consideration of natural gas vs. diesel for on-site power gen-sets.




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India wins trade dispute with US over solar-panel incentives

A series of U.S. renewable energy incentives violated international trade rules, according to the World Trade Organization, threatening to stoke tensions between the two countries as President Donald Trump prepares to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday.




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PNM plans early retirement of coal plant with massive addition of solar + storage

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.




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Hanergy to deliver 400 MW of solar to Democratic Republic of Congo

Chinese solar company Hanergy Thin Film Power Group has won a deal to build the first solar PV plants in the Democratic Republic of Congo.







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Report: Traffic fatalities decreased, miles driven increased in 2019

Estimated traffic fatalities decreased in 2019 despite an increase in driving, according to a report from the NHTSA released on Wednesday. There were projected to be 36,120 traffic fatalities in 2019, which is a 1.2% decrease from 2018. It marks the third consecutive year of declines from a post-recession high point of 37,806 traffic fatalities in...




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IIHS reports that new Jeep Wrangler SUV rolled over on its side during driver-side crash

The IIHS reported Thursday that the new Jeep Wrangler, which was last comprehensively updated for the 2018 model year, tipped over onto its passenger side during its driver-side small overlap crash test. The insurance industry-funded safety watchdog said the Wrangler was tested three times, twice by the agency and once by the automaker. The...




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Sustainable Women Series: Green Innovation in Electrical Design & Perfecting Pizza Delivery

Care Technology provides technological solutions to the needs of customers through innovations like energy-efficient LED lighting and transportable heat sources that operate without power racks or induction heaters. We spoke to co-founder Belinda Wong about the production of their sustainable offerings and the benefits of green technology.




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The President’s Climate Change Executive Order: Wrong Pretense

The President announced on Tuesday, March 28th at the Environmental Protection Agency his new Executive Order based on protecting 75,000 US coal jobs by threatening over 3 million US clean energy jobs.

Some context:

According to MorningConsult

The order directs officials to review the Environmental Protection Agency regulations on new and existing power plants, withdraw the Obama administration’s “social cost of carbon,” which puts a price on greenhouse gas emissions, end a moratorium on new coal leases on federal land, review regulations on methane emissions from natural gas systems, end a guidance for agencies to consider climate change, and end Bureau of Land Management restrictions on hydraulic fracturing.

The Trump administration has not yet released the text of the order  which is based solely on saving coal and other fossil jobs, but a senior White House official shared details with reporters in a call on March 27th.




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Midwest Utility Turning to Cows, Landfills for a Gas Alternative

CenterPoint Energy Inc. wants to introduce a pilot program in Minnesota offering customers access to a renewable form of natural gas recovered from dairy farms and landfills.




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University Spin-off’s Small Packets Are a Big Deal for Energy Industry

It’s been a whirlwind year for Packetized Energy, the Vermont-based clean energy sector start-up spun off from a U.S. Department of Energy project in 2016 by three University of Vermont electrical engineering faculty, Paul Hines, Mads Almassalkhi and Jeff Frolik.




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POWER-GEN International Explores the Competitive Advantages of Power Generation Technologies

When California voted to get 100 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2045, it sent a signal to the market about which types of power generation technologies will remain competitive into the future. And according to Mike Ferguson, Director, North America Energy Infrastructure and Sustainable Finance with S&P Global Ratings, what California does, other states may soon follow.




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South Africa's Eskom Facing `Death Spiral' Driven by Distributed Solar Energy

Bloated by debt, bled by corruption and battered by structurally declining sales, South African power utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. is facing what’s known in the industry as a “death spiral.”




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Scientists Say Blockchain ‘Delivering on Energy Promises’

One of the first unbiased, major comprehensive reviews of blockchain has concluded that the technology is “actually delivering on its promises in a number of areas directly related to energy”.




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New York Sets Sights on Energy Efficiency and Storage with New Targets, Incentives

Last week, New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced that the New York State Public Service Commission approved two initiatives to increase New York's energy efficiency and energy storage targets.




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Crowdfunding Sites That Allow True Investment in Renewable Energy and Sustainability: Alternatives to Kickstarter & Indiegogo

Crowdfunding has become a popular tool for people and organizations to use to test out their new ideas for green products while securing funds to begin operations. The most well-known crowdfunding websites, Kickstarter and Indiegogo, have helped a significant amount of projects in renewable energy and sustainability get off the ground, projects that have been the focus of previous installments in my ongoing articles series about crowdfunding in energy.




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A Study in Emissionality: Why Boston University Looked Beyond New England for Its First Wind Power Purchase

While it’s well known that corporations were some of the earliest trailblazers of large-scale renewable energy purchasing — they’ve closed over 14 gigawatts of deals in the past six years, according to tracking by Rocky Mountain Institute’s Business Renewables Center — higher education has also made impressive strides. In fact, a report released last fall showed that the top 30 renewable energy-buying universities are using around 3 billion kilowatt-hours of green power annually. That’s enough to power 276,000 homes.




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Five Companies You’ve Definitely Heard of Join Up to Buy Solar Energy in Aggregation Deal

It’s hard to find a common thread between the business models of Gap, Bloomberg, Cox, Salesforce and Workday but today they are announcing that they all have one big thing in common: their desire to clean up their organizations’ energy supply by using renewable energy.




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Tuscany mayor plans hunger strike on geothermal incentive delay

Italy’s government is dragging its feet on incentives for geothermal power and one local politician has decided to take his protest to the extreme.




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Thailand planning massive floating solar power plants on hydropower dam reservoirs

Thailand plans to build the world’s largest floating solar farms to power Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy and to boost the country’s share of clean energy.




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New York utility installing battery to reduce peaks in non-wires alternative plan

This week, ConEdison subsidiary, Orange & Rockland Utilities (O&R) and Key Capture Energy (KCE) announced that O&R has selected KCE, an Albany-based, independent developer of utility-scale battery storage projects, will plan, design, install and operate O&R’s new battery storage project in Pomona.




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Innovative arrangement produces renewable natural gas and helps Monarch Butterflies

Today, Smithfield Foods and Roeslein Alternative Energy (RAE) announced that they have formed a joint venture called Monarch Bioenergy to produce renewable natural gas (RNG) across Smithfield’s hog farms in Missouri.




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Ameren tests software that could unlock future ‘transactive energy marketplace’

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




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LevelTen receives series B funding; arranges 146-MW PPA for Starbucks

Seattle, WA-based LevelTen Energy helps corporate buyers of renewable energy find and purchase energy from solar and wind projects within North America through its procurement platform. The company says its solution reduces the cost, complexity, and risk of renewable energy power purchase agreements (PPAs), by incorporating analytics, aggregation, and process best practices.






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California aims to fix low-income storage program and deliver new resilience incentives

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.




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Making healthy, innovative food and beverages for the world

There are few countries better placed than Australia to meet the growing global demand for foods that enhance health and wellness.




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How Australia’s top-five digital health innovation sectors attract global investment

Austrade has launched a digital health website showcasing Australia as an ideal location for developing, testing and launching the next generation of digital medical technologies.




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Japan Toughens Rules for Renewable Energy Incentive Payments

Japan’s trade ministry is setting stricter rules for production and sales of renewable energy in what it says is a drive to speed up development of projects and ensure stable power supply.




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Perspectives: Answering Your FAQs

I like websites that have sections called "Frequently Asked Questions" – FAQ, for short. Typically, the questions I have aren't new ones … others looking at that site have asked the same thing. It's an efficient, quick way to get answers to my questions.