Green Energy

BARREN RIDGE, CA - APRIL 4: The new project will join the current large Barren Ridge solar panel array in Kern County, California. (Photo by George Rose/Getty Images)GETTY IMAGES

CLICK HERE - Kern County, CA - Eland 1 Solar Project

forbes.com - by Jeff McMahon - July 1, 2019

Los Angeles Power and Water officials have struck a deal on the largest and cheapest solar + battery-storage project in the world, at prices that leave fossil fuels in the dust and may relegate nuclear power to the dustbin.

Later this month the LA Board of Water and Power Commissioners is expected to approve a 25-year contract that will serve 7 percent of the city's electricity demand at 1.997¢/kwh for solar energy and 1.3¢ for power from batteries.

"This is the lowest solar-photovoltaic price in the United States," said James Barner, the agency's manager for strategic initiatives, "and it is the largest and lowest-cost solar and high-capacity battery-storage project in the U.S. and we believe in the world today. So this is, I believe, truly revolutionary in the industry."

nytimes.com - by Brad Plumer and Blacki Migliozzi - February 13, 2019

The United States is reducing its greenhouse gas emissions far too slowly to help avert the worst effects of global warming. But what would happen if the country adopted seven of the most ambitious climate policies already in place around the world?

1)  adopt an economy-wide carbon tax similar to British Columbia’s

2)  require utilities to produce all their electricity from zero-carbon sources

3)  encourage aggressive electric-vehicle incentives similar to Norway’s

4)  set efficiency targets for industries

5)  set energy efficiency standards for new homes and commercial buildings

6)  curb methane emissions from oil and gas operations

7)  adopt legislation to end the use of hydrofluorocarbons similar to the European Union’s

CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE AND METHODOLOGY

FILE PHOTO: Wind turbines are pictured in RWE Offshore-Windpark Nordsee Ost in the North sea, 30 km from Helgoland, Germany, May 11, 2015. REUTERS/Christian Charisius/Pool

reuters.com - Reporting by Vera Eckert, editing by Susan Fenton  - January 3, 2019

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Renewables overtook coal as Germany’s main source of energy for the first time last year, accounting for just over 40 percent of electricity production, research showed on Thursday.

The shift marks progress as Europe’s biggest economy aims for renewables to provide 65 percent of its energy by 2030 in a costly transition as it abandons nuclear power by 2022 and is devising plans for an orderly long-term exit from coal.

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

New solar flow battery with a 14.1 percent efficiency. Photo: David Tenenbaum, UW-Madison

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Chem - 14.1% Efficient Monolithically Integrated Solar Flow Battery

theverge.com - by Angela Chen - September 27, 2018

Solar energy is becoming more and more popular as prices drop, yet a home powered by the Sun isn’t free from the grid because solar panels don’t store energy for later. Now, researchers have refined a device that can both harvest and store solar energy, and they hope it will one day bring electricity to rural and underdeveloped areas.

The problem of energy storage has led to many creative solutions, like giant batteries. For a paper published today in the journal Chem, scientists trying to improve the solar cells themselves developed an integrated battery that works in three different ways.

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)