Exxon Mobil Corp. will use renewable energy to produce oil in West Texas.

Fantasy sports and the energy industry might not have much in common on the surface, but I’ve always personally approached these two passions of mine in similar ways: obsessively reading the breaking news, following my favorite experts in the community on social media, and diving deep into the available statistics to create graphs and try to come up with hot takes. I think the fantasy sports model can be used to encourage an academic and educational exercise in the energy industry, so it struck me—I should establish the first fantasy league for the energy sector!

The Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) inaugurated the Mercury Solar Project late last month and moved it further down the path of sustainability, giving NNSA its first net-zero-energy building.

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.”

The Public Utility Commission of Nevada has approved NV’s long-term IRP to double its renewable energy capacity by 2023. The utility will bring 1,001 MW of solar capacity online via six new power purchase agreements (PPAs).

Arizona State University researchers have set a new record for solar efficiency, 25.4 percent. Working with tandem photovoltaics, or stacking different materials in a solar cell, the ASU team has continued to improve solar efficiency and lower costs.

As part of its acquisition of Maximum Solar, Ameresco said, it will further develop in-house services to operate and maintain solar facilities. Maximum Solar currently manages about 150 MW of solar throughout the northeastern U.S.

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.

On January 31, 2019, Georgia Power, the largest utility in the state submitted its newest integrated resource plan (IRP) to the state utility commission for approval.

While solar roads have been criticized as impractical and inefficient, a Georgia foundation says they will continue to be part of its research lab for greener highways.

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.

Annual solar energy production in North Carolina jumped 36 percent in 2018, according to the latest government data – firmly placing North Carolina as the No. 2 solar-producing state in the nation.

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

LONGi Solar this week said that it has invented a new “seamless soldering” technique that could help it produce a more efficient solar module. As a reminder, the more solar cells you can pack into a module, the more efficient it is. And the more efficient your modules, the fewer you need to achieve the wattage you seek in an array. By using less modules, you reduce the overall installed cost of solar.

Wind or solar now represent the least expensive option for adding new power generation capacity in approximately two-thirds of the world.

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.

Global demand for air-conditioning is projected to triple over the next 30 years, as the planet warms and urban populations grow, particularly in emerging markets. Meeting that demand will call for significant investments in new cooling infrastructure and the electrical generating capacity necessary to power it. Although traditional cooling technologies are expected to become more efficient in coming years, countries will need to plan for these additional loads, which will be expensive. Emerging markets can also make use of district cooling, an approach that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which consists of six Middle Eastern countries — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman — have successfully adopted.

Solar company Hanergy announced that its thin-film solar modules will cover the 150,000 square meter roof of the ‘Rafael Gallery’ located at a Tech City in Shanghai.

Missouri’s smallest investor-owned utility is charting a dramatically different course two years after being acquired by new owners.

Last week, Corvias announced that it had entered the final phase of its geothermal installation and energy upgrades effort at the U.S. Army’s Fort Polk in West-Central Louisiana, a milestone that once complete will not only modernize the aging infrastructure but save the Army significant money and benefit military families.

Last week, California’s Glendale Water & Power (GWP) received approval from the Glendale City Council to move forward with a plan to repower the aging Grayson Power Plant with a combination of renewable energy resources, energy storage and a limited amount of thermal generation.

New textile-based solar cells developed by Fraunhofer researchers, semitrailers could soon be producing the electricity needed to power cooling systems or other onboard equipment. In short, textile-based solar cells could soon be adding a whole new dimension to photovoltaics, complementing the use of conventional silicon-based solar cells.

Toronto-based Hydrostor Inc., a leader in advanced compressed-air energy storage (A-CAES), has announced a A$30 million technology demonstration project at the former Angas Zinc mine in Strathalbyn, Adelaide.

Japanese chemical giant Sumitomo Chemical group has spent approximately ¥15 billion (A$177 million) on Botanical Resources Australia, a Tasmanian pyrethrum business.

A Chinese fund has invested A$45 million to accelerate the development and commercialisation of translational health and medical research outcomes from South Australia. The investment will enable researchers from the University of Adelaide, University of South Australia, the state’s hospitals and other institutions to develop proof of concept, undertake clinical trials, and bring new drugs and technologies to the global market.

In many countries, needs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have led to increased installation of intermittent renewables such as wind and solar.

Uruguay hopes to generate as much as 38 percent of its power from wind by the end of 2017, up from about 13 percent now, cementing Uruguay’s position as South America’s top wind-energy user, according to Gonzalo Casaravilla, chairman of the state- owned electric utility UTE.

Renewable energy will draw almost two-thirds of the spending on new power plants over the next 25 years, dwarfing spending on fossil fuels, as plunging costs make solar the first choice for consumers and the poorest nations.

Q2 of 2015 saw a large increase in the generation of electricity from solar PV in the UK, with the growth having a significant impact on electricity market prices and other supply factors.

On Aug. 27, Rwanda’s Ministry of Infrastructure government announced it has leased 22 small hydropower projects located in the northern and western provinces to private investors to spur the country’s hydroelectric energy program. According to energy experts at the ministry, the plants would add about 24.6 MW of hydroelectric energy to the national grid. 

Tidal energy developer Atlantis Resources remains on track to deliver power to the Scottish power grid from the MeyGen site in the coming year, according to an end-of-year statement issued by the company earlier this week.

The New Development Bank (NDB), which has an authorized capital of US$100 billion, could provide additional opportunities to fund development of new hydroelectric projects.
 

According to a presidential order issued Aug. 12 by the Myanmar government, a commission will form to examine the 6,000-MW Myitsone hydropower project proposed for Kachin, Mynamar. Locally published reports indicate when complete, Yunnan China would receive much of the energy from the facility under the project’s original agreement.
 

An energy storage system has been installed at the largest single-site solar park in the world.

A trailblazing wind-solar hybrid project in western Minnesota could be a preview of what’s to come as renewable developers look for new ways to bolster projects.

Idaho Power unveiled a goal Tuesday to provide 100-percent clean energy by 2045 on the heels of an announcement that it will purchase 120-MW of solar energy through a PPA with Jackpot Holdings at a price of less than US $0.022 cents per kWh.

Illinois microgrid to test transactive energy markets as a part of the company's commitment to innovation and clean energy

The unit of NextEra Energy announced plans to build a 409-MW energy storage facility in Manatee County. FPL says the Manatee Energy Storage Center will be the world’s largest solar-power battery system by four-fold.

BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest money manager, is boosting its bet on clean energy.

Solar energy companies could fill the void created by the lack of secure energy transfer between UK and EU, the group says.

After announcing nearly a gigawatt of new clean-energy projects in February, APS is now seeking proposals to build two of them in different parts of the state. The first request for proposals (RFP) seeks partners to add batteries to existing APS solar plants in rural Arizona, storing their power for use after the panels stop producing each day. A second partner is being sought to develop a large (100-MW) solar plant paired with an equal amount of storage, to bring more clean energy to customers after dark. Both of these projects will provide APS customers with more solar after sunset, serving their evening energy needs with an even cleaner resource mix.

Infrastructure and private equity investment manager Foresight Group has agreed a 10-year corporate power purchase agreement with the energy arm of global steel and mining giant ArcelorMittal for two solar farms in Spain.

The viability of electric vehicles depends in part on a manufacturing plant in eastern Australia, where gleaming white cabinets the size of large refrigerators are loaded onto shipping crates. They’re among the most advanced car chargers available, promising to deliver a full tank of juice in minutes.

The Redford Center, a California-based non-profit co-founded in 2005 by Robert Redford and his son, James, announced that every morning, from April 15-22, 2019, the organization will post an episode a day of "Renewable Therapy for Climate Anxiety," a conversational mini-series featuring Filmmaker, James Redford, and Matthew Nordan, clean energy investor and managing partner at MNL Partners. In each two-minute installment, the pair explores questions that nag environmentalists when it comes to renewable energy. Watch the first episode below.

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.

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

The insurance industry has lots of exposure to climate change. But as Warren Buffet has explained, not so much for companies that do annual policy adjustments, like Berkshire Hathaway. Their exposure is limited because the trends are baked into the premiums. But there is an opportunity for reducing insurance risk due to climate change, and it comes from the insurance industry itself. The business model is to have car insurance salespeople provide leads to virtual electric car charging services. This has perfect demographics because electric vehicle owners are very receptive to solar electricity. Who wouldn’t want a clean transportation solution with local job creation that can’t be offshore?

In 2018, more than 300,000 residential solar systems were installed and that number is expected to grow in 2019. To make it easier for these green-minded consumers to go solar, last week, two companies, EnerBank USA and Mosaic, each announced offerings that will help solar installers and homeowners gain access to the capital needed to pay for solar PV systems.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. sees an end to the gloom for solar manufacturers as demand in China stabilizes and free-falling panel prices bottom out.

Yesterday during an earnings call, Danish offshore wind giant Ørsted announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire a subsidiary of US-based Coronal Energy a developer of large-scale solar and storage projects. Ørsted’s CEO and President Henrik Poulson said that Coronal is “a nationwide solar and storage developer with a significant pipeline of solar and storage projects” and that the acquisition will expand “our capability platform and exposure to new attractive regional markets.”