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California Just Had a Stunning Increase in Solar

California is now the first U.S. state to get 5 percent of its annual utility-scale electricity from the sun. But that’s really understating what just happened.  The chart above, released this week by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, shows that in just one year, big solar jumped from 1.9 percent to 5 percent of the state’s total power generation. California isn’t just producing the most utility-scale solar electricity of any state; it’s producing more than all the other states combined .  And that’s only what the major electricity producers are generating—it doesn’t include rooftop solar, in which California is also leading the nation. In small-scale solar, capacity for another 2.3 gigawatts has been installed, according to the California Public Utilities Commission.  Renewable energy, including hydro power and rooftop solar, now constitutes about a third of California’s electricity, a remarkable feat accomplished through renewable requirements for utilities and incentives for homeowners.  But even that understates California’s […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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California first state to generate more than 5% of electricity from utility-scale solar

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Monthly Note: Data include generation from plants greater than 1 megawatt. California has become the first state with more than 5% of its annual utility-scale electricity generation from utility-scale solar power, according to EIA’s Electric Power Monthly . California’s utility-scale (1 megawatt (MW) or larger) solar plants generated a record 9.9 million megawatthours (MWh) of electricity in 2014, an increase of 6.1 million MWh from 2013. California’s utility-scale solar production in 2014 was more than three times the output of the next-highest state, Arizona, and more than all other states combined. Several large plants were phased into operation in California during 2014, including two 550 MW solar photovoltaic plants, Topaz and Desert Sunlight (Phases 1 and 2 ), as well as the 377 MW Ivanpah (Phases 1 , 2 , and 3 ) and the 250 MW Genesis solar thermal plants. In […]

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Eclipse Tests European Power Grid Flooded by Solar Farms

Eclipse watching tourists ride dog sleds outside of Longyearbyen, Svalbard, an archipeligo administered by Norway on March 19, 2015 ahead of the March 20 solar eclipse. Photographer: Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images (Bloomberg) — The first major eclipse of the solar age is placing unprecedented strain on Europe’s electricity grids this morning as power panels switch off and then on again. The moon will block about 80 percent of the sun’s light across Europe from about 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. London time. In Germany, the eclipse will briefly halt output from thousands of panels, which provide about 40 percent of the nation’s power on the most sunny days. Grid operators are working to switch to usually idle natural gas and coal plants to make up for the lost solar power. Success will inform nations from the U.S. to China about how to integrate the variable supplies from renewables generators into […]

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Time ripe for Atlantic wind, advocates say

Ocean advocacy group says offshore wind could provide effective balance to U.S. energy economy with the right policies in place. (UPI/Shutterstock/Teun van den Dries) One of the main barriers to a diverse energy economy in the United States is an investment scenario that benefits oil and gas, an ocean advocacy group said. "It’s time for the U.S. to join many other parts of the world and invest in our clean energy future," Nancy Sopko, a campaigner with Oceana, told UPI in response to email questions. The European Commission this week announced some member states had already met their 2020 goals for renewable energy development . While solar power in the United States is gaining momentum, sectors like offshore wind have yet to reach commercial capacity. With high bids totaling $448,000, the Interior Department in January doubled the total acreage available for wind energy development off the coast of Massachusetts […]

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GOP Presidential Hopefuls Risk Iowans’ Ire on Ethanol

ENLARGE Corn is delivered to the Green Plains ethanol plant in Shenandoah, Iowa, earlier this year. Despite lower crude prices, ethanol plants across the nation continue to operate at a brisk pace. Photo: Associated Press For decades, presidential candidates have bowed to Iowa’s corn-based ethanol industry while campaigning in a state where corn is king. But several of the likely Republican candidates slated to address the state’s agricultural industry on Saturday backed the sunset of ethanol subsidies in 2011, and many oppose the industry’s new sacred cow: the renewable-fuel standard, which requires blending ethanol and other biofuels into the gasoline supply. How the likely White House contenders navigate the issue will signal how much Republican politics are now driven by the party’s conservative base, which balks at government interference in the marketplace. Two GOP contenders who want to phase out the renewable-fuel standard, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Louisiana […]

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Green energy auction sets stage for cheaper solar and wind power

Close to 30 UK green energy schemes have been awarded a subsidy pot worth nearly £4bn in a government auction that has set the stage for a big fall in solar electricity prices and much cheaper wind power. Two small winning solar panel projects have said they can produce electricity for nearly 60 per cent less than the maximum price the government had agreed to pay for that type of electricity and almost the same as current wholesale power prices. More On this topic IN UK Politics & Policy Prices for two large offshore wind farms off the coast of East Anglia and the Scottish Borders have come in as much as 18 per cent cheaper, though each scheme is still likely to receive nearly double the prevailing wholesale price. The auction, which is likely to set new ground rules for the way renewable energy is funded across Europe, […]

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Gasoline Plunge Wipes Out Profits for U.S. Ethanol Makers

An ethanol plant runs at the Port of Stockton in Stockton, California, Friday, March 7, 2014. A deep water port located 75 miles from San Francisco, over 1 billion dollars of cargo passes through the facility every year. (Bloomberg) — Ethanol producers are cutting output after getting squeezed by the biggest drop in gasoline prices since 2008. Valero Energy Corp. and Green Plains Renewable Energy Inc., representing about 15 percent of U.S. capacity, have reduced operations as margins narrowed. At a typical mill in Illinois that makes ethanol from corn, profit margins have almost totally disappeared, compared with $1.33 a gallon a year ago, according to AgTrader Talk, a Clive, Iowa-based consulting company. Gasoline and crude fell more than 50 percent from their peaks in June as the U.S. shale boom helped global oil production outpace demand. While that was good for consumers, saving each American household $750, it […]

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UK approves world’s biggest offshore wind farm

Scroby Sands offshore wind farm in the North Sea off Norfolk, south of the planned superfarm The world’s biggest offshore wind scheme has been given the go-ahead off the coast of Yorkshire, in a move the government said was likely to create hundreds of jobs. The Dogger Bank Creyke Beck project is expected to be one of the UK’s biggest power stations, second only to the Drax coal-fired plant in North Yorkshire and capable of supplying about 2.5 per cent of the country’s electricity. More On this topic IN UK Politics & Policy The scheme’s developers have yet to take a final investment decision and the project will almost certainly have to secure backing under the government’s renewable energy subsidy system. But the government’s planning consent for such a large development was welcomed by the industry. “This is an awesome project,” said Nick Medic, director of offshore renewables at […]

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Deep-water wind energy coming to Germany

German wind farm readies for mid-2015 service after installation of turbines at deep-water site. Photo courtesy: E.ON With 80 wind turbines in place, German utility company E.ON said Wednesday it was one step closer to activating a deep-water wind farm off the German coast. The company said turbines were installed during the weekend at the site of the Amrumbank West wind project, situated about 20 miles northwest of the German island of Helgoland. Infrastructure construction began in January 2014. "We are confident that we will soon be able to feed electricity generated by the first turbines into the public grid as planned," Dominik Schwegmann, lead project manager of Amrumbank West, said in a statement. The project is slated for mid-2015 completion . At its peak, Amrumbank West will supply 288 megawatts of wind energy to the German grid, enough to meet the annual electricity demands of 300,000 average households. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple