Henry Harrell"s Blog: October 17 Green Energy News

Headline News:

Increasing amounts of renewable energy has sparked worries in the federal government over grid reliability and resilience. But some grid operators are successfully demonstrating that large amounts of intermittent resources can be integrated and sustain system reliability as successfully as, for example, a natural gas plant. [Utility Dive]

Large solar array in the Southwest (Credit: Array Technologies Inc)

Arizona had faced some of the nation’s steepest emissions cuts under the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. But Arizona utilities and regulators said they plan to continue working toward the lower carbon emission goals that had been set in the plan, even though EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said this week that the agency is scrapping the program. [Arizona Daily Sun]
Ireland and Northern Ireland’s integrated electricity system could save €19 million a year from 2019-20 by using battery-based energy storage to stabilize the grid, according to a report by Queen’s University Belfast. It showed that 360 MW of battery storage could provide the same fast frequency response as 3 GW of conventional power. [reNews]
After months of internal controversy, the clean energy target favored by Australian chief scientist Alan Finkel was dumped by the government in favor of a new “national energy guarantee,” which will impose both reliability guarantees and emissions reduction guarantees on retailers and some large energy users. Opposition is fierce. [The Guardian]
The solar power industry is booming across Trump country, fueled by falling development costs and the subsidies for solar and wind power, which many Republicans in Congress continue to support. With falling development costs, solar firms now see strong prospects in conservative states with no clean energy mandates. [Reuters]

Henry Harrell"s Blog