Las Vegas Sun: SolarCity Cutting Ties With Rooftop Solar Advocacy Group
The Alliance for Solar Choice, an advocacy group representing rooftop solar companies, is losing one of its anchor members: SolarCity.
SolarCity will leave the alliance in December, after a pivotal battle with NV Energy over a policy called net metering, which pays rooftop solar customers for providing energy to the grid.
Since 2013, the alliance has advocated and lobbied for rooftop solar in Nevada and is working with regulators to devise a long-term price structure for net metering in the state.
New York Times: Gov. Cuomo to Order Large Increase in Renewable Energy in New York by 2030
Frustrated by the pending shutdown of two nuclear power plants on Lake Ontario, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo plans to order state regulators to mandate that, by 2030, half of all power consumed by New Yorkers be generated from renewable sources that emit much less carbon dioxide, people briefed on the matter said.
Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, has already declared a goal of having 50 percent of the state’s power come from solar, wind, hydroelectric or other renewable sources in 15 years, but the state has had no means of enforcing that directive. The governor intends to have the Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities in the state, codify the requirement, these people said. Some of them, including a Cuomo administration official, spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not have permission to discuss the proposed mandate.
FuelFix: GE Launches New Renewable Energy Business
General Electric said Tuesday it launched a new GE Renewable Energy business in the wake of acquiring France-based Alstom’s power and grid businesses for $10.6 billion.
The new business unit is heavily focused on wind power and turbine manufacturing and will be led by Jérôme Pécresse, who previously served as president of Alstom’s renewable power sector. The Alstom deal was just finalized in the beginning of November.
GE said the division expands GE’s wind footprint to more than 30,000 individual turbines worldwide and boosts GE’s presence in Europe and Latin America.
Bloomberg: Coal's Biggest Market Is Also the Windiest
Here’s how bad U.S. coal has it these days: The region that has for years burned the most coal also happens to be the windiest.
The Great Plains states that run south from Canada to Texas, tucked between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River, are increasingly turning to cheap wind power to generate electricity. It’s a shift that’s eating into coal’s dwindling share of America’s power plant pie.
“It’s a three-way cage fight,” said Michael Webber, deputy director of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin.
Guardian: How Fastest Solar Power Project Is Lighting Up Rwanda
“Arise, shine for your light has come,” reads a sign at the entrance to the first major solar power farm in east Africa.
The 8.5 megawatt (MW) power plant in Rwanda is designed so that, from a bird’s-eye view, it resembles the shape of the African continent. “Right now we’re in Somalia,” jokes Twaha Twagirimana, the plant supervisor, during a walkabout of the 17-hectare site.
The plant is also evidence, not only of renewable energy’s increasing affordability, but how nimble it can be. The $23.7M (£15.6M) solar field went from contract signing to construction to connection in just a year, defying skeptics of Africa’s ability to realize projects fast.