california

SolarCity announced yesterday that Jon Wellinghoff, former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), is joining the company as chief policy officer.

French renewable energy firm EDF Renewable Energy has signed a 15-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Southern California Edison (SCE) for 111.2MW AC PV power plant.

US power engineering firm Bechtel’s major Soda Mountain solar project has been approved by the US Department of Interior (DOI), but only after a 71MW capacity reduction, following an extensive three-year environmental analysis of the project area.

Pension fund, The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), has agreed to purchase a 25% stake in Desert Sunlight Investment Holdings, the owner of two major solar PV projects with a combined capacity of 550MW near Palm Springs, California.

US-based renewables firm SunPower is partnering Toronto-based smart thermostat provider ecobee to aid consumers in New York and California in controlling their energy costs.

The chief of California’s bulk transmission system operator has slammed net metering as a “subsidy” of wealthy households by poorer ones, claiming it represents an “economic justice issue”.

As another big US CSP project bites the dust having previously rejected the suggestion that it should re-apply as a PV project, John Parnell explores whether CSP, especially power towers, risk becoming the Betamax of solar energy.

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.

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.

In a narrow 3-to-2 vote, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) made the motion to extend net metering for rooftop solar in the Golden State.