In April 2019, in the heart of coal country, Indiana regulators rejected a proposal by its electric and gas utility, Vectren, to replace baseload coal plants with a new $900 million, 850 megawatt (MW) natural gas-fired power plant. Regulators were concerned that with the dramatic decline in the cost of renewable energy, maturation of energy storage and rapidly changing customer demand, such a major gas plant investment could become a stranded, uneconomic asset in the future.
Chinese solar company Hanergy Thin Film Power Group has won a deal to build the first solar PV plants in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Alabama is ranked 13th in the nation as having the greatest solar potential, yet only 0.26% of its energy comes from solar, leaving the state far behind others when it comes to total installed solar capacity. According to an annual report produced by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), Alabama ranked 29th in the United States for solar production in 2018.
The Clean Power Alliance (CPA) has signed three long-term power purchase agreements, including two new solar projects and one existing small hydro project.
Dominion Energy has begun construction on the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project, which will feature two 6-MW wind turbines and power about 3,000 homes.
Commercial property owners with existing energy storage systems, or owners considering implementing an energy storage system, may be able to benefit from a recent order by the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU) allowing utility companies to pay customers who agree to rely upon their energy storage systems and dispatch the energy during peak events.
Last week in San Antonio, Texas, about 150 DISTRIBUTECH stakeholders convened to discuss industry trends, best practices for marketing and sales in the utility industry and set the educational agenda for the 2020 event.
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 data recently released by the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Association, the number of public charging stations for electric vehicles (EVs) owned and operated by its members totaled 401,000 units as of May 2019, of which 229,000 were AC charging stations, 171,000 were DC and 500 AC/DC were integrated, representing a year on year increase of 50.5 percent and 9,658 units from the previous month.
The vast majority of Americans have air conditioning but in Germany almost nobody does. At least not yet.
Misha Gerhard & Lewis LLC is International Strategic Consulting Firm with an extensive presence in the most rapidly developing regions of the world.