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EGEB: Iowa ‘green’ pricing; Electricity storage above 565MW in USA; more

Electrek Green Energy Brief: A daily technical, financial and political review/analysis of important green energy news.

Iowa utility offers high ‘green’ pricing without adding renewables – Three Beyond Solar options are available: 100 percent solar, a 50/50 split of solar and wind, and 25 percent solar with 75 percent wind. In each scenario, generation capacity is sold in increments of 1 kilowatt and is added to a customer’s existing bill. The cost per kilowatt is $13.61 for 100 percent solar, $6.70 for 50 percent solar and $3.24 for 25 percent solar. The green energy comes from two existing contracts – nothing new will get built…and that isn’t necessarily an issue – someone did build these two clean plants (one wind, the other solar) – but the pricing seems a bit out of whack. Stay conscious of the pricing and structure of green programs.

US electricity storage facilities’ power rating tops 565 MW at end of Q2 – The data show 22 companies own and operate 45 grid-connected energy storage facilities in 12 states. All of the installations are battery storage systems bar two flywheel units. Of the installed power rating, 276.8 MW is used for frequency regulation. A lot of what I read says growth rates of energy storage via batteries will grow faster than solar did. I’ve not seen charts – so I cannot back that statement up yet, however, but we are seeing aggressive installation volumes. There will be a limiting factor in that we simply don’t have the manufacturing capacity for a while (Gigafactories can only be built so fast), but maybe electric cars will be connected to the grid in high enough amounts to factor into things…and of course be able to feed back into the grid.

States Are Using Social Cost of Carbon in Energy Decisions, Despite Trump’s Views – Policymakers and regulators in several states, including New York, Minnesota, Illinois and Colorado, are using the social cost of carbon to measure and reduce CO2 impacts from their power grid. It’s important that we account for these costs because they represent the reality of what you and I have to pay for on a daily basis – plenty of money is spent on healthcare as a direct result of air pollution. Millions of deaths per year.

Companies that make solar panel manufacturing machines in the news showing very strong financials over the last several weeks (and really for the whole year) – Manz guides full-year revenue to exceed €350 millionCentrotherm’s solar equipment order backlog exceeds €140 millionIntevac Announces Record Order for ENERGi™ Solar Implant Systems and Amtech who we reported on Friday. I like to read about these companies because their hardware orders predate the solar panels we see on the market – and their growth is representative of confidence levels from solar panel manufacturers. Rock on machine makers.

Solar panels inactive for five years, after crucial form failed to reach retailer – No savings had been realised in five years, because a crucial Certificate of Electrical Safety, required to finalise the connection, was never received by Mr Holdsworth, the retailer or the distributor. The back office of a solar developer is more a paperwork mill than anything else. Volumes of documents for multiple groups – engineering for permits, forms for state programs, and lots of documents delivered to the power company. Any one of those would stop a project in its tracks.

Profit and revenue swell for Canadian Solar in Q2 – Lots of interesting financial/manufacturing volume information, one funny line stood out to me: benefits of a $42.6 million and $15 million anti-dumping/countervailing duty reversal helping to push gross margin to 24.2%. Somewhere in the world – laws shifting back in the favor of Canadian Solar mean tens of millions of dollars.

16 Senators and 53 Representatives delivered a letter to U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) Chairman Rhonda Schmidtle urging them to reject the Suniva Petition.’ See Senator signatures and letter below – maybe pat them on the back.

Header image of wind farm owned by Dong Energy

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