Colorado Senate approves second storage bill, waits on House Written by Robert Walton, utilitydive.com, April 24, 2018 Dive Brief: The Colorado Senate on Monday voted 26-9 on third reading to approve HB18-1270, which directs the development of mechanisms to enable investor-owned utilities to acquire energy storage systems, while restricting their size to 15 MW. Because amendments … Read more
This College Wants To Be The First 100% Renewable Campus In The U.S. After a long process of implementing energy-efficiency measures and installing solar arrays and battery storage, Maui College is ready to cut ties with fossil fuels forever. Written by Elli Anzilotti, fastcompany.com, March 19, 2018. In 2015, the state of Hawaii committed to … Read more
U.S. energy storage market to nearly triple this year: report Written by Nichola Groom, Reuters, March 6, 2018 U.S. deployments of energy storage systems will nearly triple this year thanks to sharply lower costs and state policies that support the case for installing batteries in homes, businesses and along the power grid. That forecasted growth … Read more
Samantha Leroy, ERS, for Zondits When establishing Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) in 2014, Governor Andrew Cuomo set aggressive and exacting energy generation, usage, and efficiency targets for the Empire State. Targets set to be achieved by 2030 include a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from the 1990s, 50% of electricity generated from renewable … Read more
Mark D’Antonio, ERS, for Zondits As the demands on the electric grid continually evolve and as there is greater consideration of temporal and locational capacity needs, distributed energy resources (DER) and energy storage (ES) systems are increasingly being considered for a multitude of applications on either side of the meter. Capacity deferral, generation mix, demand … Read more
From Beer, A Better Battery? The plan came together — where else? — at the bar. Last April, over pints at Backcountry Pizza in Boulder, Tyler Huggins (PhDCivEngr’16) and Justin Whiteley (PhDMechEngr’16) were honing their idea for “growing” a battery from beer — specifically, from the wastewater discharged by breweries. If successful, their invention would … Read more
Is the Battery Rush Distracting Us From Better Energy Storage Options for the Grid? Batteries are helping the grid everywhere from Aliso Canyon to South Australia. But some are concerned that battery-based storage might not be the universal panacea that evangelists believe. Launching the Tesla Powerwall in 2015, for example, Elon Musk claimed: “The size … Read more
How Batteries Could Revolutionize Renewable Energy Time, May 1, 2017 All over California, there’s evidence of the state’s goal to lead the country in renewable energy. Enormous farms of shiny solar panels have popped up across southern California, and gigantic wind turbines dot the landscape outside nearly all the major cities. There are less flashy—and … Read more
Daniel Pidgeon, ERS, for Zondits As most of us may guess, Hawaii leads the nation in solar panels per capita. But there is still a substantial percentage of the market that cannot participate in solar programs. To increase participation, the legislature passed a law mandating utilities to create community renewables programs. However, the utilities had … Read more
Ameresco to build renewable-powered microgrid for US Marine Corps Energy Storage, January 13, 2017 Ameresco will build a renewable-powered microgrid at a Marine Corp facility in Parris Island, South Carolina. The project at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD) includes 6.7MW of PV generation, a 3.5MW combined heat and power facility and a 8MWh battery storage … Read more