Category Archives: American Solar Energy Society
What you need to do
Yes, I know, this is from Orsted, a public company which, primarily, builds offshore wind farms. And, as a result, you out there (which is, frankly, an infinitesimal fraction of the world, because, basically, no one follows me), will critique … Continue reading
A glimpse of Solar Domination
Hat tip to PV Magazine: B. Frew, W. Cole, P. Denholm, W. Frazier, N. Vincent, R. Margolis, “Sunny with a Chance of Curtailment: Operating the US Grid with very high levels of solar photovoltaics“, (open access) iScience, 21, 22 November … Continue reading
Alex Steffen on The Climate Strike
Excerpted from The Nearly Now at Medium, by Alex Steffen. “You’re right to strike; you’re right to march; you’re right to feel your fear and rage and longing for a better world. You are the victims of a terrible intergenerational … Continue reading
RevoluSun features us
How to achieve Carbon neutrality in Massachusetts Claire and I and our home are featured in the section on “Electrifying our energy supply” in the section “Local households making the switch to electricity”. 9 Misconceptions About Solar Energy Claire and … Continue reading
Solar plus storage is now cheaper than any non-solar electrical power
More details. And, from that Lefty Socialist rag, Forbes.
50 Terawatts of Solar Photovoltaics (“PV”) is now feasible by 2050
This is from an article in Science by Haegel, et al which just was released today. It means, documented in detail, that the projections of Professor Tony Seba are not only right on, but Professor Seba may have underestimated the … Continue reading
A proposal: Challenge for the Green New Deal
There is a climate emergency. There are many ways of looking at this, from the big investments perspective (see also a Fed view), to human harms perspective (see also), to what it might cost to reverse these changes if they … Continue reading
So, y’say you want a Green New Deal …
There isn’t a lot known about the Green New Deal or “GND”. Its proponents are certainly making the rounds, but it is light on specifics, heavy on urgency, heavily coupled with advancing jobs and justice, racial, climate, and environmental. As … Continue reading
Welcome to snowy New England … Bad place for solar PV, right?
And this is ISO-NE, who, as little as three years back were highly sceptical anything other than additional natural gas generation could supply the ever increasing electrical power needs of the region, particularly with the withdrawal of generation from oil, … Continue reading
“… [N]ew renewable energy capacity could quadruple that of fossil fuels over next three years”
This is utility-scale capacity only. See the footnote from the original post repeated at the bottom. Also, given uncertainties related to federal data availability at federal Web sites during the partial federal shutdown, I have copied the cited report and … Continue reading
Cold Massachusetts Thanksgiving powered by Massachusetts solar
Update, 2018-12-15 (Click on image to see larger figure, and use your browser Back Button to return to reading blog.) Thanksgiving in 2018 was cold, but it was also sunny. That means the 150,000 solar installations in Massachusetts could delivery … Continue reading
Alex Steffen on Climate Defeatism
On 31st July 2018, Alex Steffen wrote (on Twitter) that: Reminder that climate defeatism—arguing that we are already so screwed that there’s no real point in acting to limit climate emissions or ecological damage—is absolutely a form of denialism, and … Continue reading
What will happen to fossil fuel-fired electric bills everywhere, eventually, including those fired by natural gas
See Cost of Coal: Electric Bills Skyrocket in Appalachia as Region’s Economy Collapses, by James Bruggers at Inside Climate News. Excerpt: The common denominator is American Electric Power, one of the nation’s largest utilities. It owns Kentucky Power, along with … Continue reading
Love means nothing, without understanding, and action
Can’t get enough of this video. It may be a corporate, Ørsted promotion, but it is beautiful. And I continue to believe, that, as the original sense of the corporation, or benefit society suggested, contrary to (U.S.) popular progressive belief, … Continue reading
“The path to US$0.015/kWh solar power, and lower” (PV Magazine and GTM Research)
The headline and a page with lots of graphics and associated worksheets come from this PV Magazine article. The underpinning assessment is from GTM Research and their report Trends in Solar Technology and System Prices. Recall that Natural Gas Combined … Continue reading
LLNL Sankey diagram of U.S. national energy flows in 2017: What’s possible, what’s not, and who’s responsible
(Updated, 2018-05-02. See below.) I love Sankey diagrams, and have written about them with respect to influence of Big Oil on U.S. climate policy, and in connection with what it takes to power a light bulb, providing a Sankey-based explanation … Continue reading
(reblog) Bill Ritter, Jr, Colorado State University: “Market forces are driving a clean energy revolution in the U.S.”
Transforming U.S. energy systems away from coal and toward clean renewable energy was once a vision touted mainly by environmentalists. Now it is shared by market purists. Today, renewable energy resources like wind and solar power are so affordable that … Continue reading
storage
And, an aside on PV,
fossil fuels are done
There’s a discussion way off at Energy Institute at Haas about how unfair solar owners are, under current government policies, to electrical customers who do not have PV accessible. It’s irrelevant. Fossil fuels are done, stranded, the walking dead. Boss … Continue reading
Banner day for solar generation this early in the late Winter/early Spring season!
(Click on image to see a larger figure, and use browser Back Button to return to blog.) Our system, and its supporting cast. This is about energy democracy, as much as it is about other things.
wind+storage 2.1 ¢/kWh, solar+storage 3.6 ¢/kWh
Update, 2018-01-16 Vox has a widely acclaimed update to this story. (rubbing hands gleefully) Utility scale bids at Xcel Energy had median prices of 2.1 ¢/kWh for wind-with-storage, and 3.6 ¢/kWh for solar-with-storage. Hat tip to Utility Dive. In U.S. … Continue reading
FERC: No multi-billion dollar bailout for coal and nuclear generating facilities
Excerpts from statements by Richard Glick, FERC commissioner are given below. The Microgrid Knowledge (“MGK”) news article summarizes the context by writing: The commission rejected the energy secretary’s assertion that retirement of coal and nuclear plants threatens electric resilience. Instead … Continue reading
Forward thinking. How about that?
See, too, Minster, Ohio: http://www.minsteroh.com/town-crier-blog/solar-and-energy-storage-project-awarded-renewable-energy-world%E2%80%99s-renewable-energy-p http://www.minsteroh.com/town-crier-blog/solar-energy-storage-facility http://www.minsteroh.com/town-crier-blog/energy-storage-grand-opening http://www.utilitydive.com/news/inside-the-first-municipal-solar-plus-storage-project-in-the-us/421470/ Hat tip to Paul Lauenstein. Wonder why other towns aren’t that smart?
Energy efficiency of homes in real estate listings hits the big time
You want to sell that house, right? You want to buy a house? Why oughtn’t the recurring costs of operating a home be a factor? Especially it’s energy costs. U.S. homeowners spend an average of over $2000 a year on … Continue reading
POWER MOVE: Brought to you by Siemens and The Atlantic
HOW ON-SITE ENERGY SOLUTIONS CAN HELP SAVE THE GRID RE:THINK ORIGINAL SIEMENS The traditional power grid is under tremendous pressure. In many places, infrastructure needs to be upgraded. Extreme weather and cybersecurity are constant concerns. These challenges threaten entire communities … Continue reading
2.6 GW of green power
Google: “Renewable energy is boosting economies”.
On supporting farms with a second stream of income
Kevin Sullivan decided to access the second stream of income from a large solar PV array on his farmland property to help him keep the property profitable. This is popular enough that it’s gotten a name: dual-use. Having just returned … Continue reading
On Hoarding Electrons
I was once scolded by an energy wonk and political progressive at a semi-public forum for suggesting people “hoard electrons”. That is, instead of being grid connected, there seemed to me to be situations where becoming as independent of the … Continue reading
Solar Costs at `Jaw-Dropping Lows`; `No Evidence That Changing Power Mix Endangers Electric System Reliability`
From GTM: `Solar Moves in a Curious Direction Since Trump Quit Paris Deal: Up‘ There is “[n]o evidence that the changing power mix endangers electric system reliability”. Two reports: Advancing past baseload to a flexible grid Electricity Markets, Reliability and … Continue reading