The “extraordinary amount” of money Germany has spent transitioning away from fossil fuels and nuclear is looking increasingly like an investment in the country’s future competitiveness, according to the chief economist of the US Underwriters’ Laboratory.
The deregulated electricity market which Japan launches in April could be a long-term way for PV’s contribution to the country’s energy mix to exceed the industry and government target of 7% by 2030.
Turner Renewable Energy, owned by media moghul Ted Turner, will be one of the new owners of a 20MW thin-film PV plant in the US constructed by Solar Frontier Americas.
Holland’s national grid operator has said that batteries will be an “excellent alternative” to conventional power plants in providing balancing services, especially as a complement to increased solar and wind deployment.
Sandstone Solar, a 45MW PV plant in Arizona, has been officially opened by developer Spower and utility Salt River Project, which will buy power from the plant.
Schneider Electric will provide a 1MWh energy storage system to be paired with a PV system from Duke Energy-backed REC Solar in the latest project to show how renewables-integrated microgrids can work.
First Solar subsidiary Skytron, specialising in monitoring, control and supervision systems for utility-scale and commercial PV plants, will be deploying its technology at an 86.2MWp PV plant in South Africa.
Japan’s renewable energy laws are likely to result in the introduction of an auction process for large-scale solar, with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) confirming that it has put a plan for approval before the cabinet.
Hawaii’s electricity regulator and main utility have recognised that customer-sited distributed energy resources (DERs), including rooftop PV and energy storage, can provide essential grid services and better visibility for network operators, the VP of Stem Inc's Hawaii operations has told Energy Storage News.
The organisation responsible for overseeing California’s bulk electric power system has approved proposals to accommodate more distributed energy resources, including rooftop solar, energy storage, advanced inverters and demand response, onto the state’s grid.
