The Fourth Industrial Revolution in the Energy Industry
The Fourth Industrial Revolution means providing a personalised energy experience for the consumers, prosumers and utility companies. Consumers and prosumers want to see their impact on their bill, the grid and the environment - and they want to be accountable for their energy choices.
Distributed Energy Resources
The introduction of more DERs on utility systems and at customer sites provides support for increased reliability and resiliency, if appropriately located and properly configured.
MIT Tool Gives the Cost of Installing Solar Panels on Any Roof in Your City
Daniel Oberhaus for Motherboard: The world, it seems, is falling in love with solar energy. Recent years have seen the increasing adoption of solar power around the world as an alternative energy source for everything from individual homes to the entire energy grid, with the United States’solar capacity having grown to 24 GW, a more than a 17-fold increase since 2008. Part of this rapid growth for solar infrastructure is the result of markedly more efficient solar energy cells, but in spite of these recent technological advances, transitioning to solar power still doesn’t make sense (at least economically speaking) everywhere.
Installing photovoltaic systems can be pretty pricey, and home- and business-owners have to engage in a complex cost-benefit analysis to see if transitioning to solar power is an economically sound idea. The “pain-in-the-ass” factor of such calculations alone might be enough to turn people off of the idea of contemplating installing a photovoltaic system, so the folks at MIT came up with a solution: Mapdwell.
Mapdwell maps the solar potential of entire cities by doing a cost-benefit analysis for every rooftop to determine if installing solar panels on that rooftop is worth the investment. All you do is enter your address into the program, and it will tell you the expected installation costs, the number of years it will take to earn back this investment from your photovoltaic system, the amount of carbon offset by the installation, as well as incredibly detailed installment specs such as the optimal panel tilt and the number of panels that could fit on the roof. Cont'd...
This year will be a solar-powered Super Bowl
By Jeff Clabaugh for WTOP: Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, will set the stage for Sunday’s Super Bowl, and it will be a solar-powered event.
Levi’s Stadium, which opened in July 2014, is the first professional football stadium in the NFL to open with LEED Gold certification, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association in Washington.
Princeton, New Jersey-based NGR Solar LLC installed more than 1,150 solar panels at the stadium during its construction — enough to produce 375 kilowatts of peak power. The system can generate enough power in a year to meet electricity demand during every San Francisco 49ers home game.
The solar panels cover three bridges that connect the stadium to the main parking lot and the “NRG Solar Terrace” that overlooks the field.
There are 544 solar panels on the stadium roof and another 642 on the bridges, which also serve as canopies covering the bridges. Cont'd...
Winds of Change for Alternative Energy Tax Incentives in 2016
While tax credits for wind and solar power received long-term extensions in the year-end omnibus legislation enacted at the end of 2015, other types of alternative energy were left out - reports have suggested unintentionally - spurring some in Congress to seek a remedy in 2016
Renewable Energy Demand in Europe Reaches Record Levels
The European demand for renewable electricity documented by Guarantees of Origin now constitutes more than 13% of all electricity consumption in Europe (ca. 3,200 TWh) and approximately 40% of all electricity generated from renewable sources in Europe (ca. 1,100 TWh).
Low Oil Prices Not Killing Algae Biofuel - Yet
Tina Casey for CleanTechnica: The algae biofuel market is still in play even though the global petroleum market shows no real signs of lifting itself out of the doldrums, as two examples from different ends of the Earth illustrate. Over in Australia, researchers have come up with a new, low cost way to raise algae for biofuel, and here in the US the Department of Energy is moving forward with a new grant program to fund commercially viable algae production. Cont'd...
NREL Launches Sustainable Mobility Initiative, Joins CDOT Partnership
NREL's Sustainable Mobility Initiative approaches transportation as an integrated system, where travelers and transportation resources are viewed as a dynamic network that can be used to optimize mobility and significantly reduce related energy consumption and emissions.
Net Metering - Doing it Right
Companies selling PV systems are concerned that if utilities add a set fee for solar customers to remain connected to the grid to take in electricity at times when the sun isnt shining, or if utilities decrease the retail credit for the times when customers send their excess generation back to the grid, people will be less likely to put panels on their roofs.
The IREC Solar Career Map
The map shows 40 jobs from entry, mid and advanced levels across four industry sectors: manufacturing, system design, project development and installation/operations, and it identifies more than 60 routes to advancement among them.
France to pave 1000km of roads with solar panels
Derek Markham for TreeHugger : Over the next five years, France will install some 621 miles (1,000km) of solar roadway using Colas' Wattway solar pavement.
Solar freakin' roadways! No, this is not the crowdfunded solar road project that blew up the internet a few years ago, but is a collaboration between Colas, a transport infrastructure company, and INES (France's National Institute for Solar Energy), and sanctioned by France's Agency of Environment and Energy Management, which promises to bring solar power to hundreds of miles of roads in the country over the next five years.
One major difference between this solar freakin' roadway and that other solar freakin' roadway is that the new Wattway system doesn't replace the road itself or require removal of road surfaces, but instead is designed to be glued onto the top of existing pavement. The Wattway system is also built in layers of materials "that ensure resistance and tire grip," and is just 7 mm thick, which is radically different from that other design that uses thick glass panels (and which is also claimed to include LED lights and 'smart' technology, which increases the complexity and cost of the moose-friendly solar tiles). Cont'd...
California narrowly upholds critical solar policy
NICHOLA GROOM for Reuters: California, which boasts more than half of the households with solar panels in the United States, on Thursday extended a policy that has underpinned the rooftop solar industry's dramatic growth over the last decade.
The 3-to-2 decision by California's Public Utilities Commission at a meeting in San Francisco to extend net metering was a major victory for the solar industry, including companies like SolarCity Corp, Sunrun and SunPower Corp.
Net metering allows homeowners with solar panels to sell the power they generate but don't use back to their utility at the full retail rate, sometimes giving them a credit on their bill at the end of the month. The 20-year policy has been critical to making solar cost competitive.
But the narrow victory underscored palpable frustrations with the policy, which has been criticized for rewarding solar users while leaving other ratepayers to shoulder the cost of maintaining the electricity grid.
"I will be the first to say that I think we really have a ways to go before we have a really enduring rooftop strategy," said PUC President Michael Picker, who voted in favor of extending the policy.
The PUC will reconsider net metering again in 2019. Cont'd...
Solar in 2016 & Beyond: Sunrun CEO Weighs In
Were no longer a niche industry and there are many companies competing for customers. Growth like this is what happens when new technology intersects with drivers of change like the need to shift to clean energy, to modernize our infrastructure and give choice to consumers.
AltEnergyMag.com - Special Tradeshow Coverage of Solar Power PV Conference & Expo
Solar Power PV Conference & Expo 2016 will be held from February 24th - 25th in Boston. This AltEnergyMag
How One Energy Producer Uses IT Workload Automation to Solve Energy Pricing Challenges
Because weather conditions-precipitation, wind and sun in particular-can have a major impact on both production and demand for any renewable energy producer, Statkraft pays unusually close attention to historical and predictive weather data.
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