Todd Olinsky-Paul
Recently, solar advocates and industry celebrated the renewal of the federal ITC, which will continue to provide significant economic support for solar. On a state and local level, however, the outlook seems less rosy.
Clean energy innovations tend to follow a familiar arc. The newest best thing, whether that is rooftop solar, a Tesla PowerWall, or a Prius in the garage, is bought at a premium by first adopters.
For a while there, PJM was looking like the promised land for behind-the-meter solar+storage vendors.
In a long-awaited decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that with its Order 745, FERC was doing exactly what it is supposed to do: enhancing grid reliability and keeping ratepayer costs down by encouraging competition.
The New Jersey BPU is back with an improved program and a larger budget, ready to try again.
This week, Oregon became the latest state to fund an energy storage demonstration project that will use batteries and PV to power a resilient microgrid.
In the face of increasingly severe weather and power outages, more and more states are recognizing the importance of resilient power for communities and critical services.
Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of attending the commissioning of a solar+storage powered microgrid in Rutland, Vermont.
For the past year or two, there have been many stories in the press about how utilities view distributed generation and storage as a threat, rather than an opportunity. Now, there is evidence that this is starting to change.
After an embarrassingly long time, it seems the US has finally stopped dithering at the starting line and entered a race that Europe and China have been running for years.