Category: Distributed Energy Resources

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World carbon dioxide emissions drop 7% in pandemic-hit 2020

Climate-Change

Associated Press – A locked-down pandemic-struck world cut its carbon dioxide emissions this year by 7%, the biggest drop ever, new preliminary figures show.

The Global Carbon Project, an authoritative group of dozens of international scientists who track emissions, calculated that the world will have put 37 billion U.S. tons (34 billion metric tons) of carbon dioxide in the air in 2020. That’s down from 40.1 billion US tons (36.4 billion metric tons) in 2019, according a study published Thursday in the journal Earth System Science Data.

Scientists say this drop is chiefly because people are staying home, traveling less by car and plane, and that emissions are expected to jump back up after the pandemic ends. Ground transportation makes up about one-fifth of emissions of carbon dioxide, the chief man-made heat-trapping gas.

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The price of solar electricity has dropped 89% in 10 years

Solar-Power

Fast Company – To curb our climate crisis, we need to end our dependence on fossil fuels and power the world with renewables. That may have seemed far-fetched a decade ago given the cost of installing wind and solar at the time, but the price of renewables has been falling fast. In 10 years, the price of solar electricity dropped 89%, and the price of onshore wind dropped 70%.

Clean energy has already passed its economic tipping point. A 2019 report from the nonprofit Rocky Mountain Institute found that it was cheaper to build and use a combination of renewables like wind and solar than to build new natural gas plants. A 2020 report from Carbon Tracker found that in every single one of the world’s energy markets, it’s cheaper to invest in renewables than in coal.

And now, graphs recently published on Our World in Data, an online science publication, in partnership with Oxford University, starkly visualize that decline. Comparing the price of electricity from new power plants in 2009 and 2019, one graph shows how the price of solar photovoltaic power (from solar panels) plummets from $359 per megawatt hour to $40, the cheapest of any of the power options on the chart and an 89% decrease. If housing prices declined at that same rate, Our World in Data researcher Max Roser writes, a home that cost $3,590 to rent in 2009 would cost just $400 in 2019. Over the same time period, the price of coal barely budged, from $111 per megawatt hour in 2009 to $109 in 2019.

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Preparing for Continued Renewable Generation Growth

Renewable-Generation-Growth
T&D World, Hitachi & ABB – Renewable generation has matured rapidly from a technical novelty to a cornerstone in the evolving power industry.
Stakeholders including utility leaders, government/regulatory officials, and private sector developers are seeking solutions to allow the continued development of an extensive array of maturing renewable energy options. Hitachi ABB Power Grids’ energy experts believe that viable solutions will include effective long-term planning, strategic investment in key areas of the power industry and smart grid management on a broad scale.T&D World worked with Hitachi ABB Power Grids experts to create this interactive guide highlighting issues stakeholders must address to advance renewables. You’ll find an infographic laying out the complexities involved with advancing renewables to a Q&A with one of Hitachi ABB Power Grids’ industry experts, a new white paper addressing the challenges of modernizing the grid, a video gallery and links to valuable resources such as research and case studies that succinctly illustrate real-live examples and viable solutions.

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Companies Announce New Residential Virtual Power Plant for California

distributed-power

(PowerMag) – A distributed energy power plant, designed to help bring more reliability to California’s power grid, is being developed by a company whose investors include Alphabet, the parent company of Google. The project when fully developed would be the world’s largest residential virtual power plant (VPP).

Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners (SIP), a group that builds, owns, operates, and invests in advanced infrastructure projects and technology companies, on Dec. 7 released details of a $100 million deal as part of Resilia, the company’s new advanced power grid platform. The agreement includes an $80 million commitment to finance the 550-MW Resi-Station project, along with a $20 million investment in OhmConnect, a partner in the VPP.

Growth of VPP installations has accelerated, particularly in areas that have sustained rolling blackouts and power outages. A project in South Australia, with Tesla taking a lead role, was touted as the world’s largest VPP when development began in 2018.   

OhmConnect is a demand response and energy services technology company that works with residential electricity customers to predict, incentivize, and coordinate consumer energy savings. Resi-Station is expected to bring together thousands of electricity customers with in-home smart devices that can deliver targeted energy reductions supported by OhmConnect’s technology, according to SIP. The project’s investors also include the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, based in Toronto, Canada, which has long been a financial supporter of institutional infrastructure projects.

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