Can’t Stand The Heat. I returned this weekend from a trip. This took me to a location that is not heavily air conditioned, sitting at 46 degrees latitude (similar to Toronto), and the water is about 10 degrees cooler than the South Florida ocean I’m used to. It was however close to 90 degrees, including at night, which made for interesting nights hoping for a breeze to come through. Cities that have never considered air conditioners have to reimagine their needs and even their building codes. Homes in my hometown of Hamburg, Germany, are valued lower if their electricity consumption is high so builders and owners don’t install ACs but is that really livable? Grids that are built for the weak link of cold/icy environments are having some of the biggest issues with strenuous, ongoing heat events like we’re having now. Winter peaks, summer peaks, EV peaks, power plant redundancies, rising cooling liquids for generators globally, are all impacts that a grid operator did not really imagine 10 years ago.
The Piecemeal Approach. We need more deployment for grid infrastructure and we need to take a more strategic approach to it. The massive backlogs are not creating investment certainty for developers, owners, service providers that enable the grids to gain the investments they need in order to keep the lights on. Is there a single point to look at to fix this? No, and that could be a major pain point that may make this hard to solve but I don’t know what the grid will look like in 10 years if we don’t deploy, deploy, deploy.
Support ORKA. I want to introduce you to a new supporter of this newsletter. ORKA Finance is solving a massive need in the commercial solar financing market and you should consider giving them a look if you’re working on helping the largest users of electricity go solar.
- Axios: Earth saw hottest day yet Thursday, the fourth straight global record
- Utility Dive: ISO New England called energy emergency, turned to operating reserves after transmission failure
- PV-Tech: US to triple solar manufacturing jobs to 120,000 by 2033
- Yahoo! Finance: First Solar Secures $1 Billion Revolving Credit Facility
- New York Times: Yellen Urges China to Step Up Climate Finance Investments
- Reuters: Spain’s PM promises law letting residents choose location of solar, wind farms
- Energy Storage News: Grid storage projects should be ‘immediate priority’ for South Africa to control load-shedding
- Canary Media: Chart – Which states have the most solar and wind power jobs?
- PV-Magazine: Five organizations turning community solar into savings for low-income Americans
Opinion
Best, Yann