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The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission said January 20 that it would require Xcel Energy to implement new ways to review solar projects applying to connect to the grid while continuing to maintain reliability and safety standards. As part of the Commission’s decision, Xcel will pilot group application reviews, roll out a customer cost sharing proposal…

Consulting firm Wood Mackenzie released analysis saying California’s newly proposed net metering tariffs would cut the state’s residential solar market in half by 2024. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) proposal, known as NEM 3.0, would reduce payments granted to rooftop solar customers for the excess power they generate, which is known as net metering. The…

California’s Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) is proposing to add nearly 1,600 MW/6,400 MWh of battery energy storage across nine projects in the state. The energy storage projects would come online between 2023 and 2026, coinciding with the expected retirements of gas plants in southern California and PG&E’s Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. Like other…

A malfunctioning heat suppression system caused the incident that damaged Vistra Corp.’s Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility in California, according to investigative findings released by the company. Moss Landing Phase I (300 MW/1,200 MWh) has been offline since the September 4, 2021 incident. Responding emergency crews that day found scorched battery racks and melted wires.…

Renewable energy developer Amp Energy said that it will develop two 400 MW grid-connected battery storage facilities with 800 MWh of capacity in central Scotland. The Scottish Green Battery Complex could enter service in April 2024 and would be one of the largest such facilities in Europe. Plans call for the batteries to store and dispatch renewable energy…

Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) will launch an international, multi-institutional wind energy field campaign called the American WAKE experimeNt (AWAKEN). Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Wind Energy Technologies Office, the study is intended to amass a dataset on wind energy atmospheric phenomenon, including wakes, that can cost the average wind…

The Public Utilities Commission of Nevada approved the sale of the Iron Point and Hot Pot Solar PV and battery storage projects in Humboldt County, Nevada, northeast of Reno. Primergy Solar owns and is developing the projects, which include 600 MW of solar paired with 480 MW of battery storage capacity. Battery chemistries were not…

Energy storage services provider Stem Inc. said it will provide smart energy storage services to NineDot Energy, a cleantech developer that designs and deploys community distributed energy generation and storage projects. The projects include six front-of-the-meter (FTM) standalone energy storage sites in Staten Island, New York, that represent more than 110 MWh. The portfolio is…

EDP Renewables North America said it finished a repowering project at the Blue Canyon II Wind Farm in Carnegie, Oklahoma. The company said 73 of Blue Canyon II’s 84 turbines were repowered, along with each turbine’s nacelle, blades and top tower section. The turbines were upgraded from V80 1.8 MW machines to V110 2 MW…

At the January 11 policy meeting, SPP staff explained their rationale to skip an economic planning cycle in favor of reliability planning studies due to the potential for misalignment of planning assessments in 2025. MISO had seen this before and did the same thing, skipping the 2020 “futures” assessment cycle in favor of 2021 futures.…