J1. Green Tech Industry & Utilities

“By 2035 alone we're going to need to add about 75,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines,” said Jesse Jenkins, head of the ZERO Lab at Princeton University.

If we build gas infrastructure blindly, one thing is certain: Rates we pay for energy will be neither just nor reasonable.

“These are modest investments, they're going to save customers money … and if we don't tell the transmission owners to do it, they're not going to do it,” Allison Clements said at NARUC’s annual meeting.

The company’s interest in green hydrogen comes from a fuel diversity perspective, but it also sees promise in the fuel's ability serve as seasonal energy storage.

Headline News:

• “AEP To Spend $9.4 Billion On Regulated Renewables” • The American Electric Power Company plans to invest $9.4 billion in regulated renewables over the next five years as part of its plan to add 21.5 GW of diverse generation in the period 2024-2033. This is according to AEP chair, president, and CEO Julie Sloat, as she discussed AEP’s five-year plan. [Renewables Now]

Traverse Wind Energy Center (American Electric Power image)

• “Global Wind Power Market To Record Robust Growth At 13.67% CAGR, Accounting For $278.43 Billion By 2030” • A recent report published by Kings Research shows that the global Wind Power Market size reached $112.23 billion in 2022 and projects it to register $278.43 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 13.67% from 2023 to 2030. [Yahoo Finance]
• “Electric Vehicle Sales Continue to Grow, Despite What Some Automakers Are Saying” • The future of cars is electric, a fact that many of the world’s automakers have publicly stated. But over the last month several automakers have said the transition from gasoline to EVs needs to slow down, partly due to low demand. That is a tactic. [CleanTechnica]
• “UK Wind Power Still A Better Deal Than Gas” • Analysis by independent think tank New Green Alliance has revealed even if the UK government sets prices for offshore wind power at double the level paid in the last successful Contracts for Difference auction, it will still be cheaper than gas power, and prices will be less volatile. [reNews]
• “Drenching Rain On Its Way To Quench Louisiana’s Worst Drought On Record” • The Gulf Coast’s most significant rainfall in months will bring much-needed relief this week to portions of the Gulf Coast, helping to alleviate Louisiana’s worst drought on record, which fueled unprecedented wildfires and helped trigger a saltwater intrusion into the Mississippi River. [CNN]

For more news, please visit geoharvey – Daily News about Energy and Climate Change.

The Plymouth Area Renewable Energy Initiative (PAREI) has completed the interior renovation of the west end of the former Brimstone Building, and they invite you to join in their celebration of their new office location! On Saturday, November 18th from 2:00pm – 4:30pm, there will be a ribbon cutting (2:30pm), free cider and popcorn, tours of the office and farmers market pavilion, gifts for new and renewing members, solar lantern raffle, music by Kingfisher (3pm on) and food by the Full Circle Food Truck. Have a musical talent you’d like to share? Open Mic will begin at 3:45pm. Bring a lawn chair and hang out by the warm fire as we savor the success of a year-long project to create a new community resource in North Plymouth.
The PAREI office is located at 300 Main Street, near the corner of Rte 3 and Fairgrounds Road in Plymouth, NH. This event is sponsored by Rockywold Deephaven Camps and is free and open to the public. The Plymouth Area Renewable Energy Initiative is a non-profit membership organization providing programs (such as NHSaves Button Up Workshops, NH Solar Shares and Local Foods Plymouth On-Line Farmers Market) that inform, inspire and assist community members with living more sustainably. To learn more about this event or donation and membership opportunities visit PAREI at plymouthenergy.org or call (603) 536-5030.

Read G.E.T.’s recent spotlight on PAREI at Plymouth Area Renewable Energy Initiative in Plymouth, NH « Green Energy Times

AutoGrid has expanded its partnership with Puget Sound Energy (PSE), Washington state’s largest utility, on a virtual power plant (VPP) solution built on the AutoGrid Flex platform.

PSE and AutoGrid began working together on a VPP in 2021 to provide a centralized application for enrolling, dispatching and assessing the performance of individual and combined programs across PSE’s portfolio. The partnership is now expanding to provide aggregation monitoring, reporting and customer management for all participating programs, empowering PSE to enhance grid reliability and achieve its goals of decarbonization.

The complexity of managing the energy grid through the clean energy transition involves balancing renewables with reliability and ensuring a stable energy supply even in the face of varying conditions.

The AutoGrid Flex platform manages over 8 GW of virtual power plants in nine countries. With the advanced demand response and DER management capabilities provided by AutoGrid Flex and its network of OEM partners and aggregators, PSE will be able to dispatch sufficient capacity to mitigate system peaks in both summer and winter seasons.

PSE’s VPP aims at reducing costs while maintaining reliable energy supply to its more than 1 million residential and business customers. Additionally, the VPP solution allows participating customers to receive monetary incentives for sharing assets with the grid and/or curtailing usage, helping the utility efficiently manage increasing electricity demand.

“This is an exciting partnership for PSE as we work toward our renewable energy goals while maintaining safe, reliable energy for our customers,” says PSE’s Aaron August. “With AutoGrid, we’ll be able to engage our customers like never before to use energy as efficiently as possible, because the cleanest form of energy is the energy you don’t use.”

“AutoGrid is honored to join forces with PSE to demonstrate the power of harnessing distributed energy resources to create a clean, more resilient, and cost-effective grid,” adds AutoGrid CEO Ruben Llanes. “Our partnership will not only help PSE achieve its goals but set a standard to collectively accelerate progress toward a sustainable energy future.”

The post AutoGrid, Puget Sound Energy Expand Virtual Power Plant Solution Partnership appeared first on Solar Industry.

The nine Atlanta commercial buildings in the Joulea pilot project combined can reduce their energy use by 19.7 million kilowatt hours and save $2.2 million per year, the company said.

Utility regulators are planning changes to the market monitor’s role, raising concerns about the position’s independence.

Slower sales growth, lower prices and growing inventories have spooked carmakers, leading some to reconsider their electric vehicle plans to bolster their finances.

In the United States, transportation emits more carbon dioxide than any other sector, with cars and trucks making up 81 percent of sector emissions in 2021.

The good news? Breakthroughs in electric vehicle (EV) technology and a rapidly growing EV market have already positioned the transportation sector on an economic and climate-aligned path of electrification. Incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) are accelerating EV adoption by removing cost barriers and economic bottlenecks. If the IRA clean vehicle credit is claimed in full, the total cost of ownership of an EV will be equal to or less than the cost of owning internal combustion engine vehicles by 2025 for passenger cars and by 2027 for medium- and heavy-duty trucks.

Beyond federal policies and programs, many states are signing on to the transportation electrification revolution. California is at the forefront with the Advanced Clean Cars II and the Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT) regulations, which set air quality standards and zero-emission vehicle sales requirements for manufacturers. Since California passed these regulations, 17 other states have taken steps to sign on to similar commitments, further bolstering the support for transportation electrification.

The momentum doesn’t stop with state and federal policies. Large corporations, such as FedEx, Amazon, AT&T, and others have made commitments to electrify their fleets. This alignment of market forces, corporate commitments, and government regulations establishes a clear path for transportation electrification in the United States.

The charging infrastructure required to power these forthcoming vehicles is expected to create unprecedented surges in electric load growth, and today’s grid is not equipped to meet this demand for power. To fully enable the EV revolution and abate emissions from this sector, we need faster and smarter grid planning.

Preparing the grid to accommodate load growth and charging infrastructure is easier said than done — and it presents emergent challenges for utilities and grid operators. Today, utilities build infrastructure in response to service requests, and some incorporate larger system growth planning using modest load growth projections. However, electric load from EVs is projected to reach as much as 1,500 terawatt-hours (TWh) annually by 2050 — roughly equivalent to the electricity consumption from the entire US residential sector in 2018. Most utility load forecasts and infrastructure plans do not currently account for this load growth.

Further, the unique characteristics of EV charging, such as the large and instantaneous power demand, especially for fast chargers, differentiate the load growth associated with transportation electrification from other load growth that utilities know how to accommodate. Utilities are used to building reactively, rather than proactively. For example, when providing service to a new apartment building, utilities have ample time to plan while the building is being built, and the subsequent load can easily be predicted and managed. But a rapidly growing EV market creates an entirely new need to deliver large supplies of power where they have not historically been necessary — and on much shorter lead times.

The EVs with the highest power demands, medium- and heavy-duty electric trucks (or class 3-6 and class 7-8 vehicles, respectively) have especially unique geographic and time-bound load characteristics. These vehicles will need to charge either in rural areas along highways, which are often not equipped to provide power at this scale, or in dense areas such as ports or cities, where infrastructure capacities are already strained, and costs are much higher. Moreover, charging depots for a fleet of trucks or a fast-charging hub can be commissioned for a logistics company in a few months, but connecting such a depot to utility service currently takes around five years.

To keep pace with accelerating EV adoption, utilities need to act quickly to prepare the grid for this new type of load. But traditional utility business models and regulations, which are well suited to reactive planning for new loads such as new apartment buildings, don’t currently allow for the proactive grid investments that EVs demand. The lack of certainty regarding the specific charging needs EVs will have — when, where, how much — contrasts sharply with regulatory requirements for the prudency of investments, which are intended to keep ratepayer costs down.

In the near future, RMI’s GridUp tool will inform proactive grid infrastructure planning. The tool helps utilities and other stakeholders determine when, where, and in what quantities energy and power demands will materialize from vehicle electrification. To that end, GridUp will provide publicly-available data and insights on power and energy demand projections from transportation electrification. Decisionmakers can use GridUp to understand how oncoming EV load will fit into the existing demands on the grid and how to prepare accordingly while ensuring that grid planning accurately reflects the needs of all transportation customers. Utilities, fleet owners, policymakers, regulators, and others will be able to use this publicly available tool to proactively plan out the electricity grid that will power both today’s and tomorrow’s EVs.

GridUp will be complemented by a suite of additional solutions to prepare grid infrastructure for oncoming vehicle electrification. In this article series, we will explore an electrified future where grid planners can leverage vehicle-to-grid charging and demand response to allow EVs to support the grid even as load continues to grow. Regulatory incentives can further ensure that utilities leverage available tools like GridUp to expand their load forecasting and streamline service connection processes with the goal of ensuring that the transportation sector can electrify at the pace needed to meet climate goals.

As the EV revolution kicks into gear, it’s critical that utilities, regulators, policymakers, and fleet operators work together to ensure that grid infrastructure constraints don’t leave EVs unchargeable.

The GridUp tool and Electrification 101 article series are supported by a generous grant from FedEx.

The post Electrification 101: Getting the Grid Ready for an EV Revolution appeared first on RMI.

Advances in battery technologies offer utilities substantial operations and maintenance (O&M) benefits.

Headline News:

• “Tourists Are Rethinking Their Relationship With Earth” • Ecobnb, based in Italy, lists over 3,000 properties worldwide, from a vegan and organic farmhouse in Tuscany, to an eco mountain lodge in Costa Rica. Travellers can filter their search to find specific interests such as plant-based food, and EV charging stations powered by renewable energy. [BBC]

Accommodation listed on Ecobnb’s website (Ecobnb image – No, the doorstop isn’t a propane tank.)

• “Spinning Mega-Machines Will Safeguard The Baltic Power Grid As It Desynchronizes From Russia” • Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia recently accelerated a plan to cut the electrical chains that keep them tied to Russia. A technical lynchpin to their planned escape from the Moscow-controlled power zone is a set of synchronous condensers. [IEEE Spectrum]
• “Battling Desertification: Bringing Soil Back To Life In Semiarid Spain” • As the Sahara advances northward into Spain, farmers are deeply aware of the swift changes coming to their orchards, crops, and pastures. They see an average loss of fertile soil exceeding 21 metric tons per hectare per year – and the need for well-managed soil. [The Good Men Project]
• “Ramcharger Takes A Belt And Suspenders Approach To Electric Pickup Trucks” • Many prospective pickup truck buyers are skittish about buying a battery electric model. So Ram has come up with a brilliant solution: the Ramcharger 1500. It is built on exactly the same chassis as the REVolution 1500, but it has a shorter range of 145 miles. [CleanTechnica]
• “Kenyans Get Tree-Planting Holiday To Plant 100 Million Seedlings” • Kenyans have been given a special holiday to plant 100 million trees as part of the government’s goal to plant 15 billion trees in 10 years. The holiday allows “each and every Kenyan to own the initiative,” according to Environment Minister Soipan Tuya. [BBC]

For more news, please visit geoharvey – Daily News about Energy and Climate Change.

Oil and gas major tips more money into Adelaide energy storage minnow 1414 Degrees, increasing its bet on the company's molten silicon industrial heat solution.

The post Woodside boosts investment in molten silicon energy storage hopeful appeared first on RenewEconomy.

NSW - the state with the biggest capacity of coal fired generators - reaches more than 100 per cent "potential" renewables for first time as coal output hits record low.

The post Australia’s biggest coal state reaches 100 pct “potential” renewables for first time appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Should we panic about negative electricity prices, or – as one industry expert argues – embrace them as an indispensable part of a two-sided market?

The post Flattening the solar duck: Why households should also face negative export tariffs appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The second stage of what was one of South Australia's first large-scale solar farms has been completed, with the commissioning of an additional 87MW.

The post Tailem Bend solar farm doubles in size with completion of stage two – battery to come appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Origin says it is looking at partnering in an offshore wind project near Newcastle with Bluefloat as it confirms a special dividend if the Brookfield-led takeover bid is approved.

The post Origin dances an offshore wind jig with Bluefloat as it confirms special dividend appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Plug Power, one of the key partners to Andrew Forrest's green hydrogen ventures, crashed on Friday after it raised concerns about its ability to continue business.

The post “Just a bump in the road?” Hydrogen supply and cash crunch hits Fortescue partner appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Headline News:

• “Vineyard Wind 1 Installs First 853-Foot-Tall GE Haliade-X Wind Turbines” • We hear a lot about offshore wind installations that were halted as the economic calculus changed, rendering some of the projects unprofitable. Here we have some news about the forward progress with Vineyard Wind 1 off the coast of Massachusetts. [CleanTechnica]

GE Haliade-X turbine going to sea (Courtesy of Avangrid)

• “How A False Claim About Wind Turbines Killing Whales Is Spinning Out Of Control In Coastal Australia” • Quentin Hanich, editor-in-chief of Marine Policy, spent this week debunking a fake article on social media that claimed to be from his publication. It said offshore wind projects in regions of New South Wales would kill 400 whales a year. [The Guardian]
• “Brazil Installs 1.6 GW Of Wnd Energy” • In Brazil, the National Electric Energy Agency announced that in April, the country surpassed the 3-GW mark of growth in the electricity generation matrix in 2023. Of the total, approximately 1.6 GW are related to wind farms (49.15% of the total) and 1.2 GW of photovoltaic solar (37.19% of the total). [REVE]
• “World Temperatures Will Blow Past Paris Goals This Decade, Asserts New Study” • A paper by scientists of a dozen institutions says the world’s average temperature will surpass 1.5°C above preindustrial times much sooner than most forecasts. It says extreme action is needed, or they will reach 2°C above those levels before 2050. [Phys.org]
• “Renewables Hit Record High In Australia” • Renewable energy hit a record high of 72.9% of total generation of the National Electricity Market on Sunday, as a wave of wind and solar across Australia’s main grid sent coal output and operational demand to new lows. The new peak beat the previous peak of 72.5%, which was set on October 24. [Renew Economy]

For more news, please visit geoharvey – Daily News about Energy and Climate Change.