Energy Update
Today’s topics include the news that Sunpower is going to buy SolarWorld and how that will affect Sunpower’s influence in the global solar industry. Hint: it has to do with the solar tariffs. We’ll also delve into the “utility of the future” and discuss some interesting news about a new law in Hawaii that will force utilities to completely change their business models going forward.
EQM Indexes today launched a Battery Metals and Mining Index — Bloomberg: BATTIDX — to track the combined performance of global companies in the metal and material supply chain for advanced battery technologies used in portable devices, electric vehicles, and grid storage for renewable energy.
While most surveys suggest that the public generally supports wind and solar power, opposition from local communities and residents sometimes blocks or delays specific new projects.
Dubai took another step toward completing what it says will be the largest solar park of its kind, inaugurating a 200-MW facility with partners Electricite de France SA and Abu Dhabi-based renewables company Masdar.
Dairy farmers in Australia may have the chance to begin buying and selling renewable energy on a peer-to-peer energy trading platform for the first time ever next year.
(Wed, 02 May 2018) Growth in Canadian crude oil production has outpaced expansions in pipeline takeaway capacity and, along with past pipeline outages, has driven Canadian crude oil prices lower and increased Canadian crude oil exports by rail to the United States. However, the outlook for increased volumes of Canadian crude oil shipped by rail to the United States is highly uncertain despite significant U.S. demand for Canadian crude oil, specifically on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Last year nearly 44,000 wind turbine technicians around the world completed or refreshed their standardized basic safety and technical training and early indications suggest at least 20 percent more will do so in 2018. Why does this matter? Put simply, we need standardization.
Utilities know their larger corporate customers want clean energy to fulfill their sustainability goals and help their bottom line. Rather than contracting directly with developers, many corporations are finding a new way forward through so-called “Green Tariffs” designed by the utilities themselves.
Non-destructive testing is a broad category of inspection methods that technicians use to highlight cracks, corrosion, and irregularities that are too small to see with the naked eye but nonetheless can compromise the integrity of gears, bearings, blades, and other structural pieces that make up wind turbines.
Distribution grid operators are concerned that high penetration of connected distributed energy resources (DERs) could lead to grid instability and create outages at end-user sites, such as commercial buildings or industrial plants. “Today, we don’t fully understand grid behavior under varying DER conditions, and are not sure how to address this properly,” said Fred Oshiro, Engineer from Maui Electric in Hawaii, during a DistrbuTECH panel discussion in January 2018.
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