Solar energy is now providing the electricity for an entire village in Togo of 4000 people, powering streetlights, homes, schools and shops.

This week energy storage maker ESS Inc said that it had deployed an Energy Warehouse (EW) long-duration flow battery system at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego, California.

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.

Renewables firm Pangea Energy and vanadium battery producer CellCube have signed on to build a 50MW storage system alongside a solar farm in South Australia.

On Monday, Portland-Oregon-based flow battery manufacturer ESS announced that it has joined Power Africa, a U.S. government-led partnership coordinated by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), as a private sector partner. ESS is the program’s first flow battery partner.

This week, Duke Energy announced that regulators have approved two projects involving energy storage worth about $30 million.

The United States in 2019 will become the world’s largest market for grid-connected battery energy storage, as solar-plus-storage and peaking capacity requirements drive increased procurement, according to IHS Markit.

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.

The energy storage resource is expected to help lower energy costs for National Grid’s customers in upstate New York

Given the diverse benefits that microgrids provide – reductions in energy costs, business risk, and carbon emissions, and increases in resiliency and power reliability – one wonders why discussion of microgrids has only started to take off recently.

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.

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.

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.

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.

From David and Goliath to Luke Skywalker and the Death Star, the human race has been reminded again and again that big things have their vulnerable points. The U.S. power grid, sometimes called the world’s largest machine, is no exception.

Electric utilities seeking the renewal of their franchises, and politicians seeking municipalization, both ignore the transformative possibilities of the microgrid. Microgrids represent a promising new business opportunity for both existing utilities and new entrants in the electricity business. Microgrid deployment will also provide the same public benefits as municipal control, likely more.

Utilities, get ready: Massachusetts is in revolutionary mode again. No one is throwing tea into Boston Harbor, but the state is trying to sink outmoded ways of moving around electrons.

"Big data" is playing an increasingly big role in the renewable energy industry and the transformation of the nation's electrical grid, and no single entity provides a better tool for such data than the Energy Department's Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF) located on the campus of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Imagined by NREL leaders who foresaw the possibilities for high performance computing (HPC), the ESIF's HPC data center is fulfilling the goal of handling large and complex datasets that exceed traditional database processes.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government plans to spend 15 billion rupees ($250 million) on programs to boost solar power and reform electricity supply to farmers to end blackouts in India.

People speak reverentially about the electricity grid, and rightly so. The U.S.’ electricity grid is an awesome technical, operational, and public policy accomplishment. Who can deny the matchless service it delivers, occasional weather-related breakdowns notwithstanding? In fact, acts of Mother Nature — Hurricane Sandy, say — only highlight its otherwise stellar reliability. And rural electrification, like rural telephony, is a triumph of public policy with foresight.

In India, it is presumed that the grid is a better source of electricity; those locations least likely to get grid electricity are prioritized for solar deployment.

As a businessman exploring investments, I need simple answers, however complicated the problem. I wish to know: Are microgrids economical? How much investment is needed and for what? What are the factors that principally affect profitability, within the system and in the environment? If microgrids are not profitable at the present, when will they be? I recognize that understanding microgrids as a system requires complicated mathematics and modeling. I’m sympathetic to and respect those who do that.

The California Energy Commission (CEC) and U.S. Navy (USN) are teaming up to spur deployment of grid-integrated local renewable energy resources and advanced energy storage solutions. On December 1, Imergy Power Systems announced that its ESP30 series vanadium-flow batteries will be used in a CEC-sponsored Smart Microgrid project hosted by the Navy at its Mobile Utilities Support Equipment (MUSE) Facility in Port Hueneme, California.

Despite years of successful experience, dozens of studies, and increasing utility support for clean energy, urban myth holds that electricity from renewable energy is unreliable. Yet over 75,000 megawatts (MW) of wind and solar power have been integrated, reliably, into the nation’s electric grid to date. That’s enough electricity to supply 17.9 million homes.

Although the U.S. made it through a quiet 2014 Atlantic hurricane season this year, it doesn’t mean we’re out of the waters. Natural disasters are an ongoing threat to our infrastructure, and utilities need to be conscious of the present state and future of our power grid. Fortunately, in recent years many utilities across the country have recognized the importance of being prepared for major storms, and have been actively researching and implementing solutions to prepare for the next big one.

In visualizing microgrids as smaller versions of the existing grid, we ignore a whole new dimension of the impending electricity revolution that I wish to call “microgrid as metaphor,” and distinguish it from “microgrid as fact.” Let me elaborate.

In a previous article, I had a conversation with former-CIA chief Jim Woolsey to discuss one of America’s greatest national security vulnerabilities, its power grid. The issues that Woolsey has been concerned with for over a decade has been the ease in which a terrorist group or other actor (think North Korea for example) could attack the grid and plunge the country into darkness for months, if not years. And if that seems far-fetched, just recall how a tree limb fell in Ohio in 2003 and blacked out the entire Northeast and part of Canada for several days.

We love electric vehicles (EVs) in California and we want that love to spread. Why? It isn’t because of the cool factor — though, believe me, EVs like the Tesla are undoubtedly cool. Instead, it’s because these cars can offer significant benefits to the environment, electric grid, and economy.

A $2 trillion push in the U.S. to blend renewable energy into the power supply and fortify transmission lines against extreme weather means that Americans must act more like Europeans to keep their power costs down.

GE announced today that it sees a future in housing its renewable generation businesses (onshore and offshore wind, hydropower) alongside its grid businesses which include substations and transformers plus solar, storage and distributed energy resource (DER) control software. GE Renewable Energy CEO Jerome Pecresse said in a press conference that the move will simplify the lives of GE’s customers by giving them one point of contact for all of their renewable energy power needs.

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.

Two years after Britain had its first coal-free day since the Industrial Revolution, the nation’s network operator is readying itself for life without any fossil fuels.

Renewables firm Pangea Energy and vanadium battery producer CellCube have signed on to build a 50MW storage system alongside a solar farm in South Australia.

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

India will begin construction this year on an $8 billion project backed by Germany’s development bank to upgrade its grid to handle a more than doubling of renewable power capacity by 2022.

Kyushu Electric Power Co. will suspend responding to applications from renewable-energy producers applying to access its grid while it reviews how much more clean energy it’s capable of handling.

Warren Buffett wants to tell you the best time to wash your clothes. Or at least his energy company in the U.K does. Buffett’s Northern Powergrid Holdings Co. is working with Siemens AG to test a so-called smart grid that has the ability to control when consumer appliances will be used in the home.

Africa’s first grid-connected biogas plant will begin supplying power by March 1, according to Johnnie McMillan, managing director of Tropical Power Kenya Ltd.

A $2 trillion push in the U.S. to blend renewable energy into the power supply and fortify transmission lines against extreme weather means that Americans must act more like Europeans to keep their power costs down.

The lockdown of public life in Germany and the disruption of global economy due to the Coronavirus also complicate and delay the development, construction and commissioning of renewable energy projects in Germany. This has dangerous consequences as ...

Kamui Kobayashi has been slapped with a five-place grid penalty after he ran a red light in the pits during qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix

Nico Rosberg said he extracted the maximum possible out of his Mercedes after qualifying an outstanding fifth for the Korean Grand Prix

Felipe Massa was far from happy with qualifying sixth on the grid for the Korean Grand Prix

Daniel Ricciardo thinks Red Bull can be happy with a spot on the second row on the grid in Malaysia after struggling at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix

Tonio Liuzzi has been slapped with a five-place grid penalty for impeding Nico Hulkenberg, meaning the Force India driver will start the British Grand Prix from 20th

Jenson Button says McLaren was braced for a spot on the back of the grid in Australia and does not think the race will be much easier

The more things change, the more they stay the same. For the nearly 860 million people living without electricity, the technologies and business options for delivering access have grown a lot. Yet a wide gap remains between the cost of providing last-mile electricity and what poorer folks are able to pay. It’s the same challenge that every…

The more things change, the more they stay the same. For the nearly 860 million people living without electricity, the technologies and business options for delivering access have grown a lot. Yet a wide gap remains between the cost of providing last-mile electricity and what poorer folks are able to pay. It’s the same challenge that every…