Electric vehicles and solar tend to get lumped together as partners in the climate-friendly push to phase out fossil fuels. Now they’re competing head-to-head for high-tech components that have been in short supply.

Today, IREC proudly joins the collective voice of advocates and industry celebrating a milestone we have worked for 37 years to witness: two million solar installations now in the U.S. What better timing than in a year when children and governors, presidential candidates and corporate CEOs are all making headlines about the urgency of climate change action.

Incredibly, 1.1 billion people – 14% of the world’s population – still live without access to electricity. In rural, remote communities, many people simply have no light after sunset. That makes being productive at night—such as working and learning--extremely difficult. Limiting useful hours of the day by access to daylight holds back personal and economic development and wastes human potential.

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

ABB is working with Italian utility Evolvere on how to use blockchain technology to deliver transparent and secure peer-to-peer energy transactions.

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.

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.

Brazil is the second-largest producer of hydroelectric power in the world, after only China, and hydropower accounted for more than 70% of the country’s electricity generation in 2018. Brazil’s latest 10-year energy plan seeks to maintain this level of hydro generation while increasing the share of nonhydro renewables, particularly solar.

Jeff Carpoff had a lot to celebrate as friends and business associates gathered at his company’s Christmas party last year.

Homeowners and businesses may now have an easier time getting solar panels on rooftops thanks to software developed at Sandia.

The Energy Web Foundation (EWF) this week announced that it has launched the world’s first public, open-source, enterprise-grade blockchain tailored to the energy sector: the Energy Web Chain (EW Chain). As a refresher, blockchain allows for peer-to-peer energy market transactions.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Gas peaker plants may be among the first casualties of a new Minnesota law requiring utilities to include energy storage as part of their long-range plans.

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.

Finnish energy technology group Wärtsilä has signed an EPC contract for a 100 MW/100 MWh total capacity energy storage project in southeast Asia.

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.

The Skeleton Creek project will be located in three Oklahoma counties

This week, San José’s Community Choice Aggregator (CCA) which is called San José Clean Energy (SJCE) and EDP Renewables SA (EDPR), through its fully owned subsidiary EDP Renewables North America LLC (EDPR NA), signed a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) for 100 MW of new solar energy capacity and 10 MW of battery storage at the Sonrisa Solar Park in Fresno County, California. The project is anticipated to be operational in 2022.

According to Vattenfall, the project will help provide less pronounced energy peaks and an overall more efficient use of energy infrastructure

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), on behalf of the Australian government, has announced up to $40 million in funding towards the deployment of a pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) project in South Australia.

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.

Ameren Missouri, a unit of Ameren Corp., filed plans with the Missouri Public Service Commission to build three solar + storage facilities across Missouri

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Presentation by David Vaughan of Taiyo America

Presentation by Jasbir Bath of Christopher Associates.

Two firms advancing renewable energy applications are in the spotlight this week at the CES consumer tech show in Las Vegas, one of the tech world's biggest venues, receiving grants from U.S. telecommunications company Verizon to further bring their ideas and strategies to the masses.

The U.K. plans to force onshore wind developers to compete head-to-head for the first time with solar generators when they bid for green power subsidies as the nation seeks to reduce the cost of renewable energy for consumers.

Last week India finally held its national solar auction, the first in two years, seen as the least risky of several national and state-level solar auctions held over the past few years.

The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has voted — unanimously — to move ahead in its investigation of Taiwanese imports of solar PV products, continuing the latest storyline in the broad U.S.-vs.-China solar trade war.

Solar photovoltaic (PV) installations in the U.S. topped 4.78 GW in 2013, an increase of 41 percent over 2012, according to the annual market review and outlook published today by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and GTM Research. The industry won't quite maintain that torrid pace in 2014, but watch for progress on a number of important fronts, from long-anticipated investment innovation to a rebound in the midsize project sector to addressing changes to federal investment tax credits.

When the sun sets on a remote desert outpost and solar panels shut down, what energy source will provide power through the night? A battery, perhaps, or an old diesel generator? Perhaps something strange and new.

In December, I asked my panel of professional green money managers for their top three stock picks for 2014. You can find the full list and descriptions of the companies here.

Solar Wind Energy Tower Inc. won approval from an Arizona city to develop a $1.5 billion project that would use ambient desert heat to create a draft to generate electricity, in a concrete colossus that would be the tallest structure in North America.

The combination of rooftop solar and electric vehicles (EVs) is the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup of the renewable industry. Although EVs started off slowly the second time around (the first time was in the early 1900s), in some areas EVs are becoming ubiquitous. Whether it's a combination of tax credits, car pool lane preferences, expensive gas or concern about the environment, the trend seems unstoppable.

The Obama administration has taken a lot of heat for creating climate change rules that bypass Congress. But recent court decisions are bolstering the president’s clean air agenda – and they come at a crucial time.

On what effect the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Power Plan will have on transmission development in the country, including potentially a need for more transmission to transport added renewable energy, Frank Poirot, senior media specialist of transmission with Northeast Utilities (NYSE:NU) told TransmissionHub that increasing the grid's capacity to transmit power is one way to meet the growing need and enable renewable generation.

The European Union needs an ambitious emissions-reduction goal, targets for energy- efficiency and renewables as well as tools to foster investment under its planned 2030 policies, an advisory panel to 14 ministers said.

An observer of Sir Richard Branson over say 20 years might have remarked how much older he looked as the keynote speaker at the BIO convention this week in San Diego. He struggled for words at times and was visibly tired by the end of his hour on stage; but he had lost nothing of his charm, nor had he varied in his iconoclastic approach to building great enterprises or his views on technology in the face of climate change.

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.

Buyers of Volkswagen or Audi hybrids will find themselves getting yet another sales pitch as they leave a U.S. dealership next year -- to buy a home power network that allows them to charge their new cars using only solar power.

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.

Hybrid car sales have taken off in recent years, with a fuel-sipping combination of electric- and gas-powered technologies that simultaneously deliver energy efficiency, low emissions, and strong performance. The Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) — which played a pivotal role in putting hybrids on the road — has applied a similar strategy to its talent base and partnerships, bringing together the best minds from the worlds of research and industry.

Oil prices have fallen by more than half since July. Just five years ago, such a plunge in fossil fuels would have put the renewable-energy industry on bankruptcy watch. Today: Meh.

The first round of the Contracts for Difference (CfD) programme — the UK scheme that is designed to support low-carbon generation and a capacity margin in the energy sector — has concluded. Contracts were offered to 27 renewable electricity projects with a total value of some £315 million (US$500 million), which include two offshore wind farms with a total planned capacity of more than 1.1 GW, 15 onshore wind projects and five solar projects. In total, more 2 GW of new low-carbon capacity (including renewables, nuclear and carbon capture and storage) could be built under the CfD scheme.

China’s efforts to combat pollution are gaining momentum after President Xi Jinping pledged in March at the annual session of the National People’s Congress to punish violators of the nation’s environmental laws with an “iron hand.” Here’s what’s happening and what to expect.

A "dark horse" is defined as a little-known entity that emerges to prominence in the face of competition — a contestant that seems unlikely to succeed. I borrow the term from a conversation last week, wherein India was referred to as the dark horse in the global race to go solar.