In Jersey We Grow. Policy certainty, policy guidance and willing market participants means a growing market. That’s what we have in New Jersey and why we picked it as the next SolarWakeup Live! event. Check out the growing agenda at solarwakeuplive.com and reach out if you want to be a sponsor.

EV You Missed It. It happened late last week and the coverage was weak. The final version of SB 1014, a California legislation by Senator Skinner, may not be as strong as the original version but it shows the path forward. The legislation pushes ridesharing companies to move towards electric vehicles. Ubers and Lyfts (and others) have a much higher utilization than personal cars so if we electrify those, you are electrifying more vehicle miles than you could imagine. This is the TPS (Transportation Portfolio Standard) where we measure the total vehicle miles driven by non-fossil powered motors. Merge a 100% RPS with a 100 TPS and you have an interesting future.

East Coast Storage Punch. Both of Frank’s stories yesterday are about energy storage, one story out of MA about big storage and another from New York about the continued push by Governor Cuomo. I think there is a reality in storage that people understand whereas solar seemed somewhat magical. I am keen to see real energy storage business models develop, this is one of many topics I will be discussing with Gabe Phillips of GP Renewables at our Jersey event.

Solar On Your Side. Sol Systems made a big portfolio purchase with their capital fund partnership with Nationwide. This is a transfer of assets from Cypress Creek and Sol Systems, two companies many in solar know well and have seen grow over the years.

Certainty In Pricing. What makes the community solar market in Minnesota bigger than other markets? I put the difference on the certainty in pricing from the regulator instead of the utility. While having a regulator in the process creates some risk, it makes the customer very clearly understand what their savings would be from a reliable source without having to read a complicated tariff schedule.

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Yann

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

The New York Public Service Commission (NYPSC) has taken the next step toward reaching its energy storage goals when it accepted the environmental review report connected to the state's Energy Storage Roadmap. The roadmap, announced with great fanfare by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, envisions 1.5 GW of storage installed in the state over the next seven years. The NYPSC has undertaken steps to make that goal a reality in the most effective, environmentally friendly way possible. According to a release announcing its acceptance of the environmental review, the NYPSC says the goal means that nearly one-fifth of New York households could have energy storage once the 1.5 GW is installed. “Energy storage is not only crucial to achieving our goal of 50 percent renewable energy by 2030, it will improve the resiliency of the grid as we face extreme weather events and other emergency situations,” said Commission Chair John B. Rhodes. “With this step, we continue to advance the deployment of energy storage, in line with the target of 1,500 MW deployed by 2025.” Under the state's Environmental Quality Review Act, the NYPSC had to conduct the review whose findings it accepted. It found a number of positive effects assocaited with the roadmap thanks to the reductions of peak-load demand, increased grid efficiency and the displacement of fossil-fuel based generation. These outcomes would result, the report said, in improved economic, health and environmental benefits. At the same time, the negative effects are negligible. According to the release, the benefits may include:

• Creation of approximately 30,000 jobs associated with energy storage research and development, development, manufacturing, installation and other support services;
• Mitigation of the impacts of climate change from approximately 2 million metric tons of avoided greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; and
• Improvement in public health from avoided emissions of criteria air pollutants, such as nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur oxides (SOx) and particulate matter (PM2.5). To the extent that these avoided air emissions occur from the displacement of peaker plants located in Potential Environmental Justice Areas (PEJAs), the associated benefits may accrue to these vulnerable communities.

New York's Governor Cuomo has made renewable energy one of the hallmarks of his time in office, and while New York still lags behind California (and doesn't even make the Solar Energy Industries Association's list of Top 10 Solar States), aggressive targets like this are what will get them back into the game and put their renewable energy future on par with its New England cohort. States like Massachusetts and New Jersey await its arrival.

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

After receiving a grant from Massachusetts of $875,000, National Grid has added its first battery - a vanadium redox-flow battery (VRB) - in connection with its 1 MW solar farm outside of Shirley, Massachusetts, according to reports in the RTO Insider newsletter. The battery setup is designed to demonstrate how utility-scale storage can work in this state, which is currently ranked No. 7 in the country in overall solar deployment. As RTO Insider reports, "Carlos Nouel, vice president of innovation and development at National Grid, told RTO Insider that 'the Shirley project will serve as a test bed for integrating storage and solar through the use of flow batteries, and support the development of new frameworks for dispatching stored solar power.'" Integrating storage into the grid is the biggest challenge facing, and the group that won the grant decided to go with VRB instead of traditional lithium because of the utility-scale size. As RTO Insider explains:

A VRB stores chemical energy in the form of vanadium-based electrolyte and generates electricity by inducing a reduction-oxidation (redox) reaction: that is, a transformation of matter by electron transfer across an ion exchange membrane, within a battery stack. The reaction is achieved by either applying an electrical load (discharge) or an electrical supply (charge) to the battery stack as the electrolyte is flowing or being pumped across the membrane.

“Lithium is dominating the storage market, but it is not always the best tool for the job,” said Jonathan Milley, director of business development at Vionx, is quoted by RTO Insider as saying. “Lithium batteries are really for power applications, best-suited for short duration purposes, while vanadium flow batteries are for energy applications, and are therefore a more serious tool for keeping the lights on overnight." There are two important things to remember with RTO's great story about Massachusetts: 1) There are actually markets outside of California where battery storage is being tested successfully. The hope is that this initial deployment will lead to more battery storage being installed in Massachusetts and, therefore, more solar along with it. 2) There are other battery technologies than lithium ion being deployed. While it's easy to focus on lithium-ion batteries because it's something with which we're all familiar, there are other technologies out there, some of which may be better suited for different applications. More: Massachusetts Deploys Utility-Scale Energy Storage

States Will Lead. As we saw last week with Governor Brown signing SB100, the States are continuing to move their policies into our direction. The reasons are clear, the policies create local jobs and improve local air quality as coal plants close across the Country. This trend should continue to drive into the distributed sector to remove diesel generators and replace them with renewable charged energy storage. As States make the decisions that determine the speed of growth in solar, I remind you of the importance of the Governor’s mansions especially in places where the Governor appoints the public service commissioners.
The EEI Playbook. Do you remember the leaked EEI memo from a few years ago that tried to rename utility owned solar, community solar? This similar rhetoric testing is ongoing and the memo was leaked to David Roberts of Vox. Interestingly, even when EEI poll takers tried to ‘push’ folks into their thought process, it didn’t work. Americans want more renewables even though EEI says it it is not technically feasible. Americans want more renewables until its 100% renewables and they want it basically without regard to cost. This is the problem with the overlap of EEI and the solar industry and EEI member companies with solar trade organizations. Just read the highlights of the EEI memo, EEI is shocked that their customers are so ready to move to renewables which utilities view as their competition.
Cities Take Action. If 57% of Cities are taking action on climate change, how are you getting involved in shaping that action? This is part of the year-long talk about the 10/10/10 plan from this platform. You should be taking 10 hours a year for yourself and each person in your company to advocate for the policies that will grow your market. Don’t think about policy as an obtuse concept, instead use the word market growth.
Big Solar, Big Market. Utility scale solar is cheap and available. Corporations are fighting with utilities to buy the output of solar farms across the Country as long as the regulatory framework allows the bilateral arrangement. We are entering the era of sub 2 cents per kWh solar energy and will soon enter sub 5 cents per kWh dispatchable solar with energy storage.
Live From Jersey City. November 6th, solarwakeuplive.com. Thanks to the sponsors that have signed up already, Aten Solar and Pfister Energy.

Have a great day!

News

 

Have a great day!
Yann