Seth Mullendore
Southeastern utilities have made headlines recently with plans to incorporate battery storage at solar installations across their service territories. It turns out that the communities they serve could greatly benefit from installing solar+storage as well.
How storage will power a low carbon energy transformation has begun to emerge across the country – surprisingly led by utilities in the Midwest and West as they pursue an economic mix of renewables and battery storage to shut down and replace existing fossil-fuel plants.
Free access to energy data should be a basic right in today’s changing regulatory environment.
There’s a lot to like about the Maryland Energy Administration’s new $5 million program to support community resiliency hubs powered by solar and battery storage.
Batteries are beginning to complete head-to-head with natural gas peaker plants, and they’re starting to win.
A new release of NREL’s free online tool allows anyone to enter in a building’s information to estimate how much solar+storage capacity would be needed to keep critical loads powered during an emergency.
California’s recently adopted building standards require solar to be a part of all new residential construction. As the first state to enact such a standard, it’s been lauded as a historic and game-changing event for solar power in the U.S. But some have argued that the new standards don’t go far enough.
Three of California’s largest utilities recently proposed more than 100 megawatts of utility-owned energy storage to support resiliency in critical public facilities and $6 million in incentives for customer-owned storage at multifamily affordable housing properties.
Extreme weather and related power outages come with a price tag, but these costs are not typically accounted for when considering the potential benefits of a resilient power system. The result is that fewer solar+storage systems pencil-out to make economic sense than would be the case if the power resilience they provide was accurately valued.
When natural disasters strike, people suffer, and the worst hit are invariably the most vulnerable among us – the elderly, the disabled, and the economically and socially disadvantaged.