Solar guy and coal miner walk into a Kentucky bar. No, this isn’t the start of a bad joke. A coal mine operator is working with EDF Renewable Energy to develop two 50-100MW solar farms on old coal mines. This isn’t a new concept, I personally know of projects in the UK and Canada that have worked on this but do it in the US, in Kentucky, and you have yourself an interesting concept. Question for the readers, have any of your received investment from or sold a project to a coal company?
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Policy for Storage. Ten years ago, IREC was leading the charge to explain net metering to regulators. Yesterday they released a guide for energy storage policy to do the same for the next iteration of our market. Storage needs to learn lessons from solar and short circuit (no pun intended) the learning curve. Too many of the mistakes made in solar appear to be done again but we can learn on the policy side because with storage, there are even more benefits for consumers that can be added to the benefits of net metering.
Make sure you listen to the latest episodes of EnergyWakeup. I speak with Tony Clifford about being acquired by Gaz Metro and his work at SEIA. Google is now at 100% renewables, how do they do it and what is next? Sam Arons talks to SolarWakeup.
An answer for Perry. A few months ago, I did some research on potential DOE Secretaries and came across the name of James Conaughton who was part of the Bush administration. At a conference Conaughton made the case to open up the energy markets in more geographies similar to the PJM RTO. While Perry is worried about grid supply, MISO ran an auction and the market supplied the needed energy and power and cleared the pricing in a competitive process. Give the markets a pricing signal and markets will answer. Perry should know better because ERCOT clears pricing for energy and capacity every single day.
- Engadget: Coal company plans Kentucky’s biggest solar farm for old mine site
- IREC: IREC Releases Energy Storage Guide for Policymakers
- Utility Dive: MISO planning auction clears 135 GW of resources
- Greentech Media: Washington State Spearheads a Novel Clean Energy Solution for Starbucks, REI and Target
- EnergyWakeup: The Podcast that Gets You Inside Clean Energy Markets
- Renewable Energy World: Solar Refinancing – When Asset Management Steals the Show
- PV-Tech: Vietnam introduces utility-scale solar FiT and rooftop net metering
- PV-Magazine: Report – Middle-income homeowners make up 70% of solar customers (with 3 critical charts)
Opinion
Have a great day!
Yann