Pile On The Payoff = When Battery Energy Storage S...

Utility executives may be calling battery energy storage (BES) systems the holy grail of renewables integration and other industry challenges, but here’s an ironic reality: Most organizations keep that holy grail half full or even close to empty. That’s because most organizations target few value streams from battery systems, damaging the profitability of the investment. Learn how storage investments can provide value along...

How Much Does a Rooftop Solar System With Batterie...

Backup power or self-consumption? The cost of a solar-plus-storage system depends on how it’s used, say analysts from RMI and NREL. Back in April 2015, Rocky Mountain Institute and partners including Global X and HOMER Energy published a study, The Economics of Load Defection, that examined how grid-connected solar-plus-battery systems will compete with traditional electric service. The findings showed that declining costs...

Australian Electric Grid Operator Predicts Half It...

Could a combination of PV and storage cut Australian blackouts? The boss of Australia’s fifth-largest electricity distributor has hinted that residential solar-plus-storage could help prevent blackouts like the one that rocked South Australia last September. SA Power Networks CEO Rob Stobbe predicted that 50 percent of his company’s customers would have home battery storage by 2035, and 30 percent would have electric...

The Hidden Risks of Batteries: Child Labor, Modern...

With demand for cobalt and lithium surging, companies need to be aware of where they’re sourcing from.  The meteoric rise of lithium-ion batteries in the transport and IT sectors has been spurred by demand for technologies that reduce carbon emissions and decrease energy use. While this sounds like a win for everyone, there’s a darker side that could alter the perceptions of ethically minded consumers and create significant...

Tesvolt Pulls Millions of Euros to Scale the World...

“We are not low-cost engineering. Our systems are a little bit more expensive than Tesla’s, but our cycle life is quite higher.” A German state-backed venture capital fund this week invested “several million euros” in Tesvolt, a startup that is claiming the world’s longest-lasting lithium-ion battery. IBG Risikokapitalfonds III, a Sachsen-Anhalt state fund managed by Berlin-based venture capital investment house bmp...

New report shines light on installed costs and dep...

Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) are making available the most detailed component and system-level cost breakdowns to date for residential photovoltaic (PV) solar systems equipped with energy storage-and quantifying previously unknown soft costs for the first time. The report, titled “Installed Cost Benchmarks and Deployment Barriers for Residential Solar...

Tesla battery packs power the Hawaiian island of K...

Tesla battery packs power the Hawaiian island of Kauai after dark  Phil LeBeau  |  @Lebeaucarnews CNBC | 2017-03-08T17:06:08-0500 While investors on Wall Street debate whether Tesla‘s ambitious transformation from electric car maker to sustainable energy company will pay off, its industrial power packs are already having an impact on at least one state. In Hawaii, the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) is now...

Why home solar power should not be stored

For homes with solar power it might seem like a good idea to store the energy collected that isn’t needed for later use. However, a new report finds that storing solar energy for night-time use increases both energy consumption and emissions. Instead of a house fitted with solar panels collecting up the energy from the daytime for use during the night, this stored energy should be passed onto a national gird. This is the...

Rollout Of Chevy Bolt May Mark Turning Point For E...

General Motors has high hopes for the Chevrolet Bolt EV (shown here during its debut at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit last year). It can travel 238 miles on one charge. Currently, the only other all-electric cars with that kind of range are Teslas, which are far more expensive. Paul Sancya/AP hide captiontoggle caption Paul Sancya/AP Rollout Of Chevy Bolt May Mark Turning Point For Electric Car Market...

Electric cars are set to arrive far more speedily ...

Electric cars are set to arrive far more speedily than anticipated The Economist | Volts wagons Carmakers face short-term pain and long term gain THE high-pitched whirr of an electric car may not stir the soul like the bellow and growl of an internal combustion engine (ICE). But to compensate, electric motors give even the humblest cars explosive acceleration. Electric cars are similarly set for rapid forward thrust....

3 More Gigafactories Coming Soon to ‘Change ...

At the grand opening of Tesla’s enormous Gigafactory in July, CEO Elon Musk said he wants to build Gigafactories on several continents. He told BBC he wanted a factory “in Europe, in India, in China … ultimately, wherever there is a huge amount of demand for the end product.” Well, it looks like Musk’s factory-building plans are well underway. The company said in its fourth-quarter investor...

Energy Seminar: David Hochschild, How California C...

February 6, 2017 – 4:30pm to 5:20pm NVIDIA Auditorium, Jen-Hsun Huang Engineering Center Free and open to all. Event Sponsor: Precourt Institute for Energy Contact Email: energyseminar@stanford.edu David Hochschild, Commissioner, California Energy Commission Talk Abstract: David Hochschild is a commissioner at the California Energy Commission, the state’s primary energy policy and planning agency, where he is the...

Indiana energy bill would eliminate net metering, ...

Indiana legislators have introduced a bill that many fear could kill the state’s solar industry by ending net metering and also essentially preventing people from using the energy from their own solar panels. would ban net metering by 2027, and it would limit the options that the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission could replace it with for compensating customers with solar installations. Rather than the retail rate paid...

Trump May Not Like Alternative Energy, but Investo...

GIVEN what President-elect Donald J. Trump has said about his energy strategy — he favors coal and wants to end federal subsidies to the clean energy industry — does it still make sense to invest in wind, solar and other alternative sources of power? The answer is an emphatic yes, according to investment advisers, who say clean energy companies will continue to thrive during a Trump administration, regardless of what the...

Some analysts kid themselves about future of solar...

We’ve read and reported on some remarkably misinformed analysis in recent weeks, including from the country’s principal energy rule maker and the government’s favourite energy consultant. But this one just about takes the biscuit. It is an analysis by investment bank CLSA – partly informed by Frontier Economics, the consultancy behind the other notable analyses we reported on last week, here and here – and argues why rooftop...