DER – Solar

Chinese aluminum or American-made steel? Origami Solar challenges the solar frame standard

Can 100% American-made steel frames replace the Asian aluminum industry standard? Origami Solar makes a compelling case for change.

Virtual power plants still working out the kinks — This Week in Cleantech

02.16.2024

The new “This Week in Cleantech” podcast breaks down the biggest stories in cleantech and climate in 15 minutes or less.

Snow can’t slow renewable energy progress at RE+ Northeast

02.13.2024

Thousands of renewable energy professionals are in Boston for RE+ NE, discussing the future of solar and storage in the Northeast.

How NineDot is fitting big battery storage into the Big Apple

02.08.2024

NineDot Energy is finding innovative ways to cram community energy storage into New York City as BESS economics improve.

How Canada “constructed” its largest virtual power plant in just six months

02.02.2024

With 100,000 homes enrolled, EnergyHub and the IESO say the VPP is capable of delivering peak demand reduction of up to 90 MW, the equivalent of taking a city the size of Kingston, ON off the grid during peak times

‘Energy freedom’ and selling solar in the Southeast

01.30.2024

Selling solar in the Southeast United States is a unique challenge, but “energy freedom” appeals to Americans everywhere.

PG&E and Sunrun’s distributed power plant outputs 32 MW

01.29.2024

The program peaked at 32 MW from 8,500 solar-plus-storage residential systems and helped power the grid during the summer and fall of 2023.

Mastodon skulls, homemade beer, and the largest solar project in America: A Mammoth update

Mammoth Solar, the largest solar project in America, expects to generate sellable power from the Indiana site by mid-year….

Speed and scale: Thinking big with small-scale DERs

A common knock on distributed energy resources, or DERs, is that they don’t scale. Software is changing that. …

Texas grid survives, thwarting NIMBYs, and companies turn to ‘greenhushing’ — This Week in Cleantech

The new “This Week in Cleantech” podcast breaks down the biggest stories in cleantech and climate in 15 minutes or less….

What do we really think about interconnection? Anonymous speakers preview GridTECH Connect Forum Southeast

Clean energy professionals anonymously share their thoughts on interconnection and preview GridTECH Connect Southeast….

Blame it on the rain! NREL says precipitation can’t completely clean pollen from solar panels

NREL research found solar panels affected by pollen will not return to their “cleaned” production levels on their own, even after rainfall….

Group studies can solve some, not all, interconnection headaches, study finds

IREC concludes that distribution group studies can be a useful tool, but are not a silver bullet for all interconnection challenges….

PNNL warns wind & solar ‘energy droughts’ may last a week, but storage can help

PNNL researchers warn wind and solar energy droughts could last a week, but battery storage may help mitigate losses when demand is high….

California grants over $4M to thermal storage startup

Antora’s thermal battery stores renewable energy as heat in blocks of solid carbon, which the company says enables cost-effective energy storage and outputtin…

The four pillars of effective clean energy messaging

The failures of traditional messaging around the climate crisis have contributed to hyper-polarization of the issue in the U.S., resulting in an inability t…