What We’re Reading This Week: Friday, February 24

February 24, 2017

Emily Jiles

Communications

ENERGY STORAGE 

Greentech Media: C&I Storage Expected to Grow Threefold in Germany and the UK by 2021

Germany and the U.K. could see a combined 210 megawatt-hours of commercial and industrial (C&I) storage installed per year by 2021, new research shows. The volume of installations would represent an almost tenfold increase on the roughly 22 megawatt-hours of C&I storage deployed across Germany and the U.K. in 2016…

Energy Storage News: Australia’s household solar-plus-storage market grew more than 1000% in 2016

Solar storage batteries for households in Australia enjoyed a more than 1000% percent rise in the number of annual installations from 2015 to 2016, according to a new industry report. Consultancy SunWiz found that in 2016, around 6,750 batteries were installed in Australian households, compared to just 500 in the previous year. Assuming the average battery storage system to be around 7.7kWh to allow for meaningful self-consumption of solar, this equates to more than 50GWh of installed energy storage systems…

POLICY

Utility Dive: Senate confirms Scott Pruitt to lead EPA

The U.S. Senate confirmed Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, a controversial pick that opponents failed to block despite mounting a last-minute campaign to delay the vote. The new EPA administrator was approved on a vote of 52-46 after a contentious confirmation fight that focused on Pruitt’s ties with the fossil fuel industry and past opposition to federal environmental regulations. Pruitt sued the agency he will now lead more than a dozen times as Oklahoma’s top lawyer…

Los Angeles Times: California Senate leader puts 100% renewable energy on the table in new legislation

… The measure, SB 584, was introduced without fanfare before last week’s deadline for new proposals in the Capitol. If approved, 100% of the state’s electricity would need to come from clean sources such as solar and wind by 2045. De León first suggested the idea in a conversation with The Times last month. The measure would also accelerate the state’s goal of reaching 50% renewable energy. Legislation approved two years ago set a deadline of 2030 , but the new proposal would move that up to 2025…

PV Magazine: Nevada bill would raise RPS to 80% by 2040

…Assemblyman Chris Brooks, long a solar champion, used his first day in the chair to propose AB 206, a bill that would increase Nevada’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS) from its current 2017 level of 20% to 80% by 2040. The increases would come in two-year intervals starting in 2018-2019, when the RPS would jump 4% from the current goal of 22% to 26%. It would then rise 4% in each subsequent year until 2030, when utilities would be required to produce 50% of their electricity from renewable energy…

Utility Dive: War, peace and innovation: Solar policy in 2016

The fierce debates between solar interests and utilities over solar policies show no signs of slowing down this year. The latest report from North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center (CETC) found a total of 212 policy debates over solar compensation and rates took place last year, a jump from 175 in 2015. The debates ranged from fixed charges and net metering policies to community solar programs and third party ownership regulations…

UTILITIES

Greentech Media: With Net Metering Secure, California Solar Now Faces Uncertainty From Time-of-Use Changes

…Over the coming months, California’s big three utilities will be filing general rate cases that shift the hourly schedule of on-peak and off-peak hours — and the widely varying retail prices per kilowatt-hour that go with them — into much later in the day. The resulting drop in the value of net-metered, on-site solar for future solar projects will be considerable, according to solar industry analyses. It could amount to 15 percent to 20 percent for San Diego residential systems, or 20 percent to 40 percent for schools or public agencies looking to go solar in Pacific Gas & Electric territory…

RENEWABLE ENERGY

Reuters: Solar-powered Africa “never more possible and less expensive:” energy chief

A “solar revolution” is coming to Africa, comparable in scale and importance to the rapid surge in mobile phone use on the continent two decades ago, predicts the head of the International Renewable Energy Agency. Fast-dropping costs for solar power, combined with plenty of sun and a huge need for electricity on a continent where many are still without it, means solar has huge potential in Africa, said Adnan Amin, the director general of IRENA…

CNBC: New York sees almost 800 percent growth in solar power over five years

New York state-supported solar power increased by almost 800 percent from December 2011 to December 2016, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Tuesday, with almost $1.5 billion leveraged in private investment. The state saw 83.06 megawatts of solar installed through 2011, with the total installed through 2016 hitting 743.65 megawatts, an increase of 795 percent.

AllAfrica: East Africa: Women Bring Solar Power to Rural Tanzania

For six years now, Esupat Loseku has known the joy of an income outside of livestock sales. The 29-year-old mother of six installs solar power systems and builds cookstoves in Enguiki village and its environs in northern Tanzania. In a week, Ms Esupat can serve four homes or even more, charging Tsh25,000 ($11) in her village and Tsh95,000 ($42) elsewhere…

Clean Technica: 7,000 Railways Stations In India To Go Solar

…The Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced that the 7,000 railway stations across the country will be fed with solar power as per the Indian Railways mission to implement 1,000 megawatts of solar power capacity. The minister made the announcement during the union budget speech on 1 February 2017…

Greentech Media: Lancaster, Calif. Requires Newly Built Houses to Fully Power Themselves with Solar

…The city started requiring solar on new homes back in 2014, pioneering a policy that has since been adopted by Sebastopol, Santa Monica and San Francisco, and which was introduced into the California State Senate in January. Lancaster’s “Zero Net Energy” policy, passed last week, mandates that those rooftop arrays contain 2 watts per square foot of real estate…