Why Tesla’s new solar roof tiles and home battery are such a big deal TechCrunch, October 31, 2016 On October 28, Tesla unveiled its new solar roof tiles. Few of us in attendance, if any, realized the solar roofing tiles were actual functional solar panels until Elon Musk said so. Sure, it’s a neat trick, but … Read more
Ryan Pollin, ERS, for Zondits The Connecticut Department of Energy & Environmental Protection has canceled its procurement of natural gas pipeline resources. As a result, Spectra Energy’s Access Northeast project, spanning parts of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, is now virtually guaranteed not to proceed. Earlier this year, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court … Read more
Hundreds Of Cities Have Cost-Effective Opportunities To Boost Renewable Energy Use Clean Technica, October 20, 2016 A new report estimating energy usage in 3,649 cities has found that, while there is no one-size-fits-all solution, every city nevertheless has massive potential to cost-effectively increase the use of renewable energy at a local level. Published on the … Read more
Ryan Pollin, ERS, for Zondits The Summit Farms solar facility is a landmark collaboration of three Boston-area institutions to collectively purchase 60 MW of power from a solar farm in North Carolina. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston Medical Center, and Post Office Square Redevelopment Corporation came together to buy the power from Dominion, which … Read more
Nano-spike catalysts convert carbon dioxide directly into ethanol ORNL, October 12, 2016 In a new twist to waste-to-fuel technology, scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed an electrochemical process that uses tiny spikes of carbon and copper to turn carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into ethanol. Their finding, which involves … Read more
Kelly O’Connell, ERS, for Zondits Zondits recently had the opportunity to speak with Matt Kromer, the Director of the Grid Integration Group and Co-Principal Investigator of the SHINES and SunDial project at Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy Systems CSE. Fraunhofer CSE is an applied research and development laboratory dedicated to building tomorrow’s energy future today. … Read more
Key Considerations for Installing Solar Mark D’Antonio, ERS, for Zondits Last month we embarked on a multi-part series about solar photovoltaics (PV) and started with a discussion of five residential systems installed by ERS engineers in their homes. Several different selections were made related to system specifics as well as with economic approaches. The systems … Read more
Manuel A. Fontan, ERS, for Zondits Solar photovoltaic (PV) power is understandably a hot topic in Massachusetts. This kind of energy has a favorable market outlook, along with other renewable sources and efficiency measures, as cities look toward smarter and cleaner power and in many cases compliance with optimistic greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards such … Read more
California accelerates energy storage deployment with new legislation Energy Storage News, September 28, 2016 California state legislature and governor Jerry Brown have signed into law four key new energy bills that are set to accelerate energy storage deployment in the Golden State. Bill AB 1637 follows up on the previous victory that storage experienced with recent Self … Read more
Jim Paull for Zondits More money has been pumped into copper indium galium di-selenide (CIGS) solar cells than any other photovoltaic (PV) technology. Less than a decade ago, CIGS was thought to be the heir to the future of PV: inexpensive materials only nanometers thick, deposited on glass or stainless steel foil. The “roll-to-roll” notion … Read more