When I was sports editor for the college newspaper, I wrote a column that was, I'm sure now a decade removed, far less clever than I thought it was at the time. But since I am 1) pressed for time and 2) devoid of original thought at the moment, I present to you, dear reader, a special reprisal of the Michael Harris Daily Weekly Monthly Occasional Grab Bag of Sports Hydropower Stuff.

Venezuela's government is taking measures to inspect the infrastructure of the country’s main hydroelectric-related civil structure as rising temperatures, reduced precipitation and increased energy demand affect water levels at the 4,000-square-mile Guri Reservoir.  

The European Commission's Climate Change Committee has approved a transfer of US$19.3 million in funding for tidal energy developer Atlantis Resources from the Kyle Rhea project to its 398-MW MeyGen project.

Schottel Hydro subsidiary, Black Rock Tidal Power (BRTP), has raised C$15 million (US$11.5 million) for investment in its 2.5-MW TRITON floating marine hydrokinetic energy platform.  

Murilo Ferreira, chairman of Brazil-based energy conglomerate Petrobras (Petroleo Brasileiro SA), has stepped down effective Nov. 30.

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.

Security researcher Brian Wallace was on the trail of hackers who had snatched a California university's housing files when he stumbled into a larger nightmare: Cyberattackers had opened a pathway into the networks running the United States power grid.
 

Tidal energy developer Atlantis Resources Ltd. has entered into a partnership agreement with infrastructure developer, investor and fund manager Equitix worth at least US$714 million.

More than a year after Prime Minister David Cameron publicly announced support for the Perpetuus Tidal Energy Center (PTEC), Great Britain’s Marine Management Organization (MMO) issued a license on April 20 to Royal HaskoningDHV to deploy and operate a proposed 30-MW tidal array at the center, located off the Isle of Wight.

A report released this month by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) indicates hydropower development in India can play a crucial role in the country’s sustainable energy security if sites for new installed capacity -- among other things -- are accessible, stable and affordable.
 

The U.S. Department of Energy released the long-awaited Hydropower Vision report -- alongside $9.8 million in funding for hydroelectric power -- earlier today at HydroVision International 2016 in Minneapolis.

The U.S. Department of Energy released the long-awaited Hydropower Vision report -- alongside $9.8 million in funding for hydroelectric power -- earlier today at HydroVision International 2016 in Minneapolis.

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.
 

British Columbia-based tidal developer, Yourbrook Energy Systems Ltd., is testing what it calls a prototype of a shallow water tidal-powered generator pump that could one day be used as part of a pumped storage hydroelectric project.
 

The first power has been produced at the MeyGen tidal power site in Scotland, according to project developer Atlantis Resources Ltd.

U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Patty Murray, D-Wash., today announced funding will be awarded to build the United States’ first open-ocean, power grid-connected wave energy test facility at a site off the Oregon coast, according to a U.S. Senate press release.
 

The North Carolina Attorney General's Office has filed a court injunction against the German ownership group that owns the damaged Woodlake Dam in an effort to make it pay for dam safety repairs.

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.

Grid technology firm Kaluza is investing in British blockchain company Electron.

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.

Oriden – a play on the English word “origin” and the Japanese word “denki” meaning ‘electricity’ – is the start of a new type of power generation organization. 

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.

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.

ABB and Rolls-Royce on Tuesday announced a global partnership on microgrid technology and advanced automation. Together the two companies will offer a microgrid solution for utilities, commercial and industrial entities.

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.

There are a total of about 530,000 potentially feasible pumped hydro energy storage sites worldwide, with a total storage potential of about 22 million GWh. These astonishing numbers come from a report recently released by Professor Andrew Blakers and other researchers with Australian National University’s RE100 Group.

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.

Genex Power Limited has secured all environmental approvals required to develop the 250-MW Kidston Pumped Storage Hydro Project (K2-Hydro).

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

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.

Climate-conscious Vermont utility, Green Mountain Power, is partnering with Tesla Inc. as it aspires to install battery systems in every home it serves.

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

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.

Genex Power Limited has signed a share subscription agreement (SSA) with Electric Power Development Co Ltd, trading as J-POWER, for a conditional investment of up to AUD$25 million (US$17.5 million).

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

Vermont joined the ranks of other New England states that provide incentives for electric vehicles with Gov. Phil Scott’s signature on June 14 on a yearly transportation bill.

Nigerian distributed utility company, Arnergy, announced it has raised $9 Million in a Series A round of funding led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures with participation from the Norwegian Investment Fund for Developing Countries (Norfund), EDFI ElectriFI and All On.

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

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.

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.

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.

ENGIE Storage has announced it will supply and operate a 19 MW/38 MWh portfolio of six energy storage sites that will contribute to the Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target Program and participate in ISO-New England wholesale markets.