Energy News
California Senate committee clears bill for new energy storage rebate program
Utility Dive | Posted on April 27, 2017A bill authorizing rebates for the installation of energy storage systems passed out of the California Senate's energy and utilities committee this week by a vote of 7-2 with two abstentions. It now goes to the full Senate for consideration. The bill, SB 700, would require utilities to collect funds from ratepayers to establish an Energy Storage Initiative (ESI) that would work in tandem with the state’s existing Self Generation Incentive Program and the California Solar Initiative. The ESI would be funded through 2027. The bill also calls for 25% of the funds collected for the Energy Storage Initiative to be allotted for low income neighborhoods and job training programs
Thousands of businesses, groups lobby for defense of EPA Energy Star program
Utility Dive | Posted on April 27, 2017More than 1,000 businesses and organizations have signed a letter urging Congress to defend and strengthen the Energy Star labeling initiative for efficient appliances that is maintained through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.The group, organized by the Alliance to Save Energy, says the program saves consumers more than $34 billion per year in reduced energy costs. President Trump's proposed budget eliminates funding for Energy Star, a voluntary program with an annual budget of about $50 million.The EPA budget overall would be cut 31% under the proposal. Energy Star is a curious victim of the Trump administration's slash-and-burn approach to the EPA: It's a voluntary program with bipartisan support and a small budget, and pretty much everyone agrees it works.Why kill it? CNN has a possible answer: Trump properties score poorly in Energy Star ratings. The news organization said scores from 2015 show 11 of 15 Trump properties in major cities are less efficient than comparable buildings.The Trump condominiums at 610 Park Avenue in Manhattan rate a 1, the lowest possible Energy Star rating, CNN said.Now, more than 1,000 businesses and organizations, including national and regional chains, universities, and Habitat for Humanity, are urging lawmakers to fight for the program, calling it "a model for successful collaboration between the public and private sectors."
Commerce Department Investigating Argentina and Indonesia Biodiesel Imports
Hoosier Ag Today | Posted on April 25, 2017The U.S. Commerce Department has launched an antidumping and countervailing duty investigation aimed at biodiesel imports from Argentina and Indonesia. The investigation is in response to a complaint filed by the biodiesel industry in the United States.
Energy Dept. chief Perry says coal retirements threaten to destabilize the grid
Arstechnica | Posted on April 25, 2017Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Rick Perry ordered a review of electricity markets and reliability late last week, saying that "certain policies" have hindered the development and use of baseload energy sources like coal. Although Perry never mentions renewable energy explicitly in his letter, he references "significant changes within the electrical system." That seems to be a direct allusion to the record amount of renewable capacity that has been added to the grid in recent years. The Trump administration has been openly critical of climate change science, with the president even falsely claiming that climate change is a hoax made up by China. In March, the president killed the Clean Power Plan and ordered agencies to ignore climate change. Perry, too, spent most of his early career rejecting climate change science, but during his January Senate confirmation hearing the former Texas governor said he now accepts science showing that the Earth is warming. Still, Perry has remained coy about whether he believes that climate change is caused by humans. The erosion that Perry suggests doesn't seem quite so dire yet. Regional transmission organizations like the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas have been able to accept up to 50 percent wind energy penetration during low-demand times. A 2015 study from SPP said it could "'reliably handle’ wind representing up to 60 percent of internal SPP load.” PJM, a regional transmission organization that serves the East Coast, said in March that recent coal retirements don't threaten grid reliability, according to Utility Dive. PJM was also the subject of extensive research from Princeton and the University of Delaware on how much offshore wind the wholesaler could accept. A conservative estimate suggested that 11 to 20 percent of PJM's power demand could be met by offshore wind additions. In California, where a natural gas leak shut down one of the biggest storage facilities on the West Coast in 2015, the state ordered battery storage installations to help smooth out potential baseload disruptions.
Federal utility CEO: Coal plants not reopening under Trump
Trib Live | Posted on April 24, 2017The CEO of the nation's biggest public utility said Tuesday that the agency isn't going to reopen coal-fired power plants under President Trump, who has promised a comeback for the downtrodden coal industry. Tennessee Valley Authority CEO Bill Johnson said he thinks very little will actually change for the federal utility under Trump.TVA has said it's on track to cut its carbon emissions by 60 percent by 2020, compared with 2005 levels. By the end of 2018, the utility will have retired five of its original 11 coal-fired power plants.Trump, meanwhile, has begun repealing President Obama-era environmental regulations aimed at reducing pollution from mining and burning coal. He has promised to repeal and already ordered a review of the Clean Power Plan, Obama's centerpiece push to curb climate change by limiting carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants.Johnson said the retirement of many of TVA's coal plants was the cheapest way to serve customers, which include more than 9 million people in seven southeastern states. Natural gas prices, not regulation, caused the recent downturn for coal, Johnson said.“Our statutory duty is to produce electricity at the lowest feasible rate,” Johnson said. “And when we decided to close the coal plants, that was the math we were doing. We weren't trying to comply with the Clean Power Plan or anything else. What's the cheapest way to serve the customer? It turned out to be retiring those coal plants.”
Coal company plans huge solar farm on strip mine
Courier Journal | Posted on April 19, 2017An Eastern Kentucky coal mining company plans to build what could become the state's largest solar farm on a reclaimed mountaintop strip mine, promising jobs for displaced coal miners. The Berkeley Energy Group and EDF Renewable Energy are exploring what they're billing as the first large-scale solar project in Appalachia. They're focused on two mountaintop-removal mining sites outside Pikeville, where engineering and feasibility studies are underway for a 50- to 100-megawatt project.By comparison, that could be five to 10 times are big as LG&E and KU Energy's 10-megawatt solar farm at its Brown station in Mercer County. That Central Kentucky array has 45,000 solar panels on 50 acres that company officials have said can provide energy for about 1,500 homes. The Kentucky Public Service Commission last year also approved an 8.5-megawatt solar farm for East Kentucky Power in Winchester.
California utility launches first hybrid power systems
Napa Valley Register | Posted on April 19, 2017A California utility has launched unique systems combining a hybrid battery and gas turbine to produce and store electricity for use during hot summer months and other times when power demand soars.The new Hybrid Electric Gas Turbines are the first of their kind in the world, officials with Southern California Edison and manufacturer General Electric said during an event Monday near Los Angeles.The new systems will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution by 60 percent and save millions of gallons of cooling water annually, Edison said.There were no numbers on how much consumers might save. But officials said increased reliability and the reduced environmental impact will lead to significant cost reductions for the utility, which will be passed on to customers in the form of lower bills.
How Wall Street Once Killed the U.S. Solar Industry
The Atlantic | Posted on April 19, 2017Why is the American solar-power industry so small? It’s less obvious than it may seem. The global industry is a $65-billion business, and the United States has been involved in it from the beginning. NASA first improved and perfected panels for early satellite and Apollo missions. American firms have been manufacturing and selling solar panels for 40 years.Yet North American firms produce only about 3 percent of the world’s solar panels. China and Taiwan, meanwhile, make more than 60 percent of them.Labor in East Asia is often cheaper than it is in the United States, but that’s not the only factor. Consider the global semiconductor industry. Both computer chips and solar panels emerged from the Cold War research-and-development boom. Both were commercialized before 1980, as American-invented products sold by American-owned firms. And both markets were essentially controlled by the United States before the rise of Asian firms in the mid-1980s and ’90s. But chips, which first went to market a decade earlier than solar panels, did not suffer the same catastrophe that solar panels did. Today, the United States still leads the computer-chip industry, holding more than half of global market share for 20 years. Why hasn’t solar followed suit? A new paper in Science Advances argues that enormous changes transformed the structure of the U.S. economy in the 1970s and 1980s, making it impossible for American firms to develop new industries and markets. They specifically gutted the solar industry, depriving the technology of funding at a critical moment in its development.
South Dakota farmers fear uncertain ethanol future
Rapid City Journal | Posted on April 19, 2017Ethanol came to the rescue of growers like Swayze, injecting a new value into crops, driving prices higher and boosting the state's economy. Much of the industry's expansion since the 1990s depended on federal policies, including new rules to ensure clean air, fuel economy and a marketplace for renewable fuels.But like many of his peers in corn and ethanol, the next four years leave Swayze with questions.A Donald Trump White House means a new, uncertain political landscape. Some of the Trump administration's leaders have deep ties to the oil industry. The seismic political transition raises questions and concerns for the benefactors of a multi-billion-dollar industry that also happens to drive South Dakota's economy. Ethanol was far from a major talking point for Trump on the campaign trail. Even after touring a Poet biorefining plant in Iowa, he uttered just a few sentences about renewable fuel and its impact on Midwestern jobs.
Cultivating the coexistence of agriculture and solar farms
Green Biz | Posted on April 14, 2017By now, most Americans have heard of solar farms. But how about solar farmers? A quarter of California farms, nearly 2,000 altogether, are generating onsite solar energy, making it far and away the national leader, according to a 2011 report (PDF) by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) outlining the use of solar on farms. Hawaii, Colorado and Texas count over 500 farms producing solar power, while Washington, Oregon, New Mexico, Arizona and Montana have over 200 each. But how farmers are solarizing that land has become a point of contention. While some have chosen to install solar panels, pumps, coolers, heaters and more to decarbonize their farm operations and downsize costs, others — sometimes controversially — have stopped planting crops altogether in favor of solar farms. "The prevailing reasons farmers decide to replace crops with solar are because the farmers are getting older or because it’s easier and more lucrative," said Weinmann. "They’re principally motivated by risk aversion, and less inclined to want exposure to the volatility that might come with a more traditional crop. Risk is a significant part of the calculus in their decisions, at least in the cases I am aware of."