Republicans and the fossil fuel industry are speaking out against legislation that would have FERC create reliability and cybersecurity standards for natural gas and similar pipelines, calling it costly and unneeded. FERC cites concerns about threats to the bulk power system. The opposers want to focus on fixing capacity constraints that come from federal and state permitting obstacles unstead.
Given the continued demise of coal in the US, actual decommissioned coal sites and brownfields are proving to be an opportunity for solar development. One of the heaviest hit regions is the Appalachian area, and it is where many of these new solar projects are being sited.
Solar Builder talked with Preston Booker, Head of Key Accounts for BayWa r.e. to talk about how struggling solar installers can keep growing and mitigate risk in the face of a whole lot of market uncertainty these days. They discuss particuarly effective platforms and tools to use, the trouble with an endemic lack of communication and transparency in the industry, and more.
Thousands of CA solar workers and consumers, housing advocates, faith leaders, and others have been holding rallies and marches to the CPUC buildings in LA and San Francisco to protest the proposed net metering decision up for a vote Jan 27. Governor Gavin Newsom expressed concerns with it, saying he reviewed it and feels it needs work before a vote can happen.
Research from NREL shows if we hit carbon zero by 2050 about 930 GW of energy storage power and 6.5 hours of capacity would cover all US electricity needs. Energy storage decreases the number of times fossil fuel generators would need to start up, increases powerline utilization rates and charges up with the overgeneration of wind and solar in the Zero Carbon scenarios analyzed.
Battery Resourcers will be creating North America’s largest Li-ion battery recycling giga-facility to take on as much of the energy storage sector as possible. The facility will be a 154,000 square foot Georgia based commercial-scale recycling facility. It will process 30,000 metric tons of discarded lithium batteries and scrap and create new battery grade lithium, cobalt and nickel from old devices.
This article does a cost/benefit analysis of ground screws and driven pile foundations for solar systems. It looks at risk management and cost (higher up-front with screws) as well as advantages (pile foundations are less reliable than screws, particuarly with rough terrain). Read more to find out why they concluded that piles are the way to go for soft 10-MW site while screws are better for a 10-MW project with a 50% refusal rate.
LevelTen Energy’s Q4 2021 report states that PPA prices are continuing to rise – solar and wind combined went up by 5.9% to $36.30 per MWh compared to Q3 because of supply chain constraints, backed up interconnection and regulatory uncertainty. Also, PPA offer volumes went down in almost all markets and non-standard PPA contract structures are more predominant given growing development risk from the current PPA landscape.
An article on an Aurora webinar has experts addressing how to deal with top 5 objections from res solar prospects. They look at in depth at how to tackle “we need another quote” by discussing empathy, honesty, tired phrases to avoid, a two-touch closer and more. The article also gives gated access to the other 4 objections.
CED Greentech has a solar sales training video about the SolarEdge Energy Bank Battery and Energy Hub Inverter installation unit. Topics include walking through specs on the product and how to sell it, the staying power of higher wattage panels, closing more deals by offering solar battery + EV charging as one Integrated Solution.