News on Solar Energy

The California Public Utilities Commission’s (CPUC) Public Advocates Office (PAO) issued in August 2024 an analysis that purported to show current rooftop solar customers are causing a “cost shift” onto non-solar customers amounting to $8.5 billion in 2024. Unfortunately, this rather simplistic analysis started from an incorrect base and left out significant contributions, many of which are unique to rooftop solar, made to the utilities’ systems and benefitting all ratepayers. After incorporating this more accurate accounting of benefits, the data (presented in the chart above) shows that rooftop solar customers will in fact save other ratepayers approximately $2.3 billion in 2024.

The utilities’ “cost shift” claim is promoted by a small group of seemingly independent utility allies in coordination with the major investor-owned utilities. These include organizations who should know better, but for one reason or another have chosen to align with the utilities: the Haas School of Business at Berkeley, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and The Utility Reform Network (TURN)

But these groups simply repeat the fraudulent accounting methods used by the Public Advocates Office and other utility-captured groups, in many cases referring to each other in a circular pattern.

The world will keep a weather eye on the thrashing giant. Those like me who once admired many things about the country will mourn the loss of more and more checks and balances, the erosion of good governance, the continued increase of grievances of the working and middle class which Trump, his successors, and other Republicans will continue to exploit. The neighboring countries of Mexico and Canada will catch colds as the elephant sneezes.

But Europe, China, India, and the rest of the world will continue to move forward without the United States.

Even in not-always-sunny UK solar pv could provide up to 40 per-cent of annual electricity production. That is without a significant amount of curtailment of production or even the need to convert the electricity into stored energy such as hydrogen. Of course this is dependent on there being enough provision of batteries. Solar plus batteries will be the dominant energy system in the world in future decades, but they will also be centrally important in UK.

On July 21, 2024, Will Jones, Kyle Samluk, Brett Cesar, and Danny Ezzo—four engineering students from Michigan with an EV built out of eight solar panels and three bicycle wheels—set a new record for making the run from Red Ball Garage in New York City to the Portofino Hotel in Redondo Beach—the famed start and finish of the Cannonball Run.

The amount of wind and solar power under construction in China is now nearly twice as much as the rest of the world combined, a report has found.

Research published on Thursday by Global Energy Monitor (GEM), an NGO, found that China has 180 gigawatts (GW) of utility-scale solar power under construction and 159GW of wind power. That brings the total of wind and solar power under construction to 339GW, well ahead of the 40GW under construction in the US.

The developer plans to generate electricity for five to 10 years after doing so for the first 20 years under the feed-in tariff system, which requires electric power companies to purchase renewable energy at prices set by the central government.

After the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident, the prefectural government has pushed an ambitious goal to meet all the electricity demands in the prefecture through renewable energy by around 2040.

The Pew Research Center survey explores how Americans would feel about a wind or solar power development in their own community.

On balance, more think wind or solar development would help rather than hurt their local economy. But large shares think it would make no difference or are not sure. Respondents were asked to consider the prospect of wind and solar developments separately, but views on these two types of renewable energy development are very similar.

A new electricity pricing program introduced by the Ontario government will be a boon for rooftop solar, even though it was originally designed for electric vehicle owners.

The new electricity rate, known as Ultra Low Overnight (ULO) pricing, is meant to shift electricity demand from peak to off-peak hours.

So, for power generation and the wider energy transition, unexpectedly maybe, small is and will be beautiful, even as the overall volumes are gigantic. For renewables, no headlines is probably a good thing (as most stories seem to be scary ones). And for offshore wind, a lack of “animal spirits” may be a pity, but the sector will remain a niche (very useful in some places) and a relative minnow compared to solar, onshore wind and, increasingly, storage.