Recent ArticlesAccurate descriptions of the U.S. clean energy market have always required a bit of nuance. Installations of solar panels, wind turbines and energy storage have routinely vaulted the U.S. to the top of global rankings of market size. According to Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables’ most recent forecast, for example, the U.S. was set to install over 19 gigawatts of solar capacity in 2020, an increase of 43 percent over 2019, despite the negative impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. Manufact...
Duke Energy’s plan to build gigawatts' worth of new natural-gas generators to supply its grid over the next 15 years has already drawn fire from clean-energy advocates who say it violates the utility’s long-range decarbonization goals and could leave customers paying for power plants that can’t economically compete with cleaner alternatives. This week, environmental groups, consumer advocates and business organizations raised more opposition in filings with the North Carolina Utilities Commis...
FlexGen supplied large-scale grid batteries to ERCOT before the energy storage market took off there. Now, the founder has exited and the company has brought on new leaders from the solar startup world to grow business nationwide. Kelcy Pegler took over as CEO, FlexGen announced Wednesday. Pelger previously served as executive chairman at solar software company Sofdesk, which sold to Enphase Energy earlier this year, and before that he ran NRG Home Solar after the independent power producer ac...
The business of demand response — cutting energy use to reduce peak grid demands — has evolved with the growing capability of technologies to enable it over the decades, from the manual emergency load-shedding of the past to the modern incarnation of virtual power plants, which coordinate digitally connected devices to shift loads across thousands of sites in close to real time. But the structures for valuing the “negawatts” that demand response delivers have largely remained the same. One i...
In September 2020, China’s President Xi Jinping told the U.N. General Assembly that the country is aiming to be carbon-neutral by 2060. In December he set a 2030 wind and solar capacity goal of 1,200 gigawatts, up from around 450 GW today. The publication of China’s 14th five-year plan, covering 2021-2025, is expected this month. It will likely include more details on the first stages of this path to net-zero carbon. On Monday the nation’s grid company released its plan to make this happen....
