renewables integration

Brazil’s energy agency EPE has signed a technical cooperation agreement with Mexico’s National Energy Control Center (Cenace) to gain knowledge in renewable energy integration and other power sector challenges.

Eskom is conditionally committing to follow through with South African president Jacob Zuma’s announcement that the utility will indeed sign the remaining PPAs under the government’s renewable procurement programme (REIPPPP).

The battle between South Africa’s utility Eskom and renewable independent power producers (IPPs) continues with legal confirmation that IPPs can force Eskom’s hand to force it to sign the power purchase agreements (PPAs) under the government’s procurement programme.

Hawaiian Electric Companies (HECO) utilities Maui Electric and Hawaii Electric Light have asked the Hawaiian Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to issue new requests for proposals (RfP) of renewable energy, in line with the islands’ new Power Supply Improvement Plan.

A database of projects involving integration of renewable energy into the grid has been launched by Energy Networks Australia (ENA) and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) to help collaboration between the renewables industry and grid operators in Australia.

The tenet of president Obama’s climate change initiative, the UN-backed Clean Power Plan, was under fire in the US Court of Appeals yesterday, where a panel of 10 judges deliberated over whether the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has overstepped the mark.

RES (Renewable Energy Systems) claims the company’s experience with structuring solar, wind and transmission finance deals has made successful financing of large-scale battery projects possible.

The output of a 16MW solar farm in Puerto Rico will be tied to an Aquion ‘saltwater’ battery, in one of the few current trials of moving solar power produced in the daytime to be used at night.

A key theme of the Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue conference last week was how Germany’s Energiewende (‘energy transition’) has not only proven how to foster an explosion of renewable generation capacity through support schemes, but also how to integrate those renewables. Grid operators from Germany and Denmark discussed questions of feasibility, past, present and future.