We kick off this week's Statcast with something old and something new in world of energy.
"Selling 3.5-cent power into a 2-cent market"
Cheap wind is elbowing coal out of markets in the U.S., according to a new report from Moody’s Investors Service. Up to 56 gigawatts of coal generation are at risk of losing out to wind as the go-to dispatchable resource for U.S. utilities. (story)
Coal is on the mind of The Energy Gang this week as well. Stephen Lacey and Katherine Hamilton speak with Mary Anne Hitt, director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign, about plant closures, clean coal's struggles, and what the fuel's role will be internationally. (story)
The Wizard of Virtual Power
The South Australia electricity market became global news after Tesla CEO Elon Musk phoned Australia's Prime Minister to let the PM know Tesla is prepared to install between 100 and 300 megawatt-hours of batteries in just 100 days' time to help alleviate the region's ongoing electricity crisis. (story)
Musk's offer notwithstanding, South Australia is already testing ambitious behind-the-meter battery resources. AGL Energy will manage 1,000 behind-the-meter systems in South Australia by 2018 as part of a planned virtual power plant (VPP) that is projected to be the largest of its kind in the world. This week, AGL partnered with U.S.-based Sunverge to test the company's software control platform for the project. (story)
Meanwhile, we also profiled the VPP business models of Tesla competitor Sonnen this week and assessed how the company is addressing VPP opportunities from Australia to Europe and the U.S. (story)
Below are the best stats from the week in grid edge, solar, politics and other energy news.
Grid Edge News
DES
The acronym for Distributed Electricity and Storage, a new business unit that EDF Renewable Energy launched last week to focus on deploying solar and energy storage projects up to 30 megawatts in the U.S. C&I market. (story)
6 to 8 Gigawatts of Curtailment
The renewable energy capacity that CAISO plans to curtail in California as the state continues to see more and more renewables generation occurring at times of the day when the grid doesn't need it. (story)
$160,000,000
Faraday Future's capital investment to date in the company's planned EV factory in Nevada. That has been enough to flatten the dirt at the planned construction site, but not much else. This week, Julia Pyper took a look at Faraday's progress and likely next steps. (story)
6 km2
The area of a proposed island that Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands want to build in the North Sea to act as an operations & maintenance and interconnection hub for 100 gigawatts of offshore wind. (story)
1.12 Gigawatt-Hours
The flexible capacity that Germany's largest aluminum producer, Trimet, believes its smelters can inject into the grid using 120 electrolysis cells that can be dialed up or down by 25 percent in either direction, for up to several hours at a time. (story)
Solar News
60 Million Rooftops
Google is now collecting solar resource data for more than 60 million rooftops in the U.S. The company found that 79 percent of these rooftops can technically get enough sun to be able to accommodate solar panels. (story)
210 to 230 Megawatts
Vivint Solar's 2017 installation guidance. The solar installer was on life support after a failed merger with SunEdison in 2015 but is now starting to show signs of recovery. (story)
Energy & Politics News
$2.6 Billion
The Trump administration's proposed cut to the EPA budget. Julia Pyper sat down with two Washington insiders on Facebook Live this week to talk about how the administration's budget would affect the EPA and DOE. (story)
Other Energy News
$1.3 Billion
The private investment in 50 advanced nuclear reactors in the U.S. and Canada, according to the think tank Third Way. Many of these projects, however, are behind schedule and wildly over budget. This week, Jeff St. John looks at what nuclear can learn from other advanced manufacturing industries to speed up development and lower costs. (story)
