News

As clean energy stakeholders urge Arizona regulators to adopt stronger renewable energy standards, Arizona Public Service Co. (APS) has announced plans to add new solar and wind resources, helping expand the company’s renewable energy portfolio to about 2.5 GW by 2021, which would be enough to power more than half a million Arizona homes.

ENGIE Storage 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 be active in ISO-New England wholesale markets.

First Solar announced that its Sun Streams 2 PV solar plant will power new energy-efficient data centers being built by Microsoft in Goodyear and El Mirage, Arizona. The 150-MWac facility, is being developed and constructed by First Solar in Maricopa County and will power the data centers under a 20-year agreement and will be operational in 2021.

Don’t get too excited. What follows is a report about theoretical research in the lab which is a long way from commercial viability, but the implications of that research are simply staggering. Heat is the enemy of today’s solar panels. If they get too hot, their efficiency plummets. Researchers are working on ways to siphon some of that heat off and use it for other purposes, like making hot water. Others are exploring elaborate cooling systems that would add cost and complexity to solar systems.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has confirmed on Twitter that the company is working to ramp up the production of its solar roof tiles to a rate of 1000 per week by the end of the year. Rollout of the solar roof tiles has been slower than the company expected back when they were first revealed in a 2016 event at the Universal Studios backlot in Southern California.

As renewable energy development is ramped up to address the climate crisis, negative side-effects should be avoided, especially when technology and resources could maximize the benefits. ‘Techno-ecological’ crossovers could ensure win-win outcomes for solar development and ecosystem and biodiversity conservation.

Portugal’s latest solar auction has concluded with record-smashing low prices, a top government official revealed to PV Tech today.

Australia’s state-run renewable energy financier, Clean Energy Finance Corp (CEFC) will shift gears over the next 12 months to prioritise investments in grid stability and large-scale energy storage, according to its latest funding update.

“Everybody’s been talking about this, but this is it,” Engie Storage CEO Christopher Tilley tells GTM.

Apex Clean Energy has selected Power Factors to provide the technical asset management platform for its solar and wind projects totaling more than 1,250 MW across 13 facilities in North America. Miller Bros. Solar also recently chose Power Factors to manage its solar projects.

A report by Greenpeace has found in the five years since China announced the continent spanning ‘One Belt, One Road’ infrastructure plan, investment in Belt & Road countries has supported 12.6 GW of wind and solar power generation capacity. That is almost three times the 450 MW that came online in the territories before 2014. The initiative has also supported 68 GW of new coal capacity.

The Palo Alto company says it has improved its large scale battery offering with the new product in the wake of the success of its Powerpack-driven big battery in Australia. The Megapack can be deployed at a 250 MW/1 GWh clean energy plant four times faster than a fossil fuel alternative, claimed the business in a blogpost.

When the minister of environment and energy announced a ceiling tariff of €45/MWh, analysts speculated the price would be too low as it undercut average bidding prices in the region. Preliminary, unconfirmed results of the exercise show, however, companies are happy to bid for two-cent solar in Europe.

New York City-based solar partner Safari Energy has launched a new solar financial solution.

IPP Sonnedix has completed a non-recourse financing of a portfolio of PV projects in Italy, at a value of US$224 million.