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The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission has required that Xcel Energy, the largest electricity provider in Minnesota, conduct annual hosting capacity analysis reports since 2016. These reports identify where the grid can accommodate additional distributed generation capacity (including rooftop and community solar) and the results are displayed on the company’s Hosting Capacity Map. Minnesota is one of seven states that…

by Allen Austin, ABB Inc. The energy storage market is booming. Wood Mackenzie estimates that the segment will grow from $1.2 billion in 2020 to $4.3 billion in 2025. That’s a 258% increase over just five years. Much of that growth is expected to come from utility-scale solar plants that incorporate storage, typically battery energy…

Axpo plans to produce green hydrogen by building a production facility at its 43.4-MW Eglisau-Glattfelden hydropower plant on the Rhine River in Switzerland, the first of several hydrogen facilities Axpo will commission in the coming years. Scheduled to go onstream in autumn 2022, the 2.5-MW hydrogen production facility will produce about 350 tonnes of green…

State utility regulators have approved plans by Mississippi Power to develop and build its first-ever stand-alone solar energy and battery storage system. The Mississippi Public Service Commission signed off on the utility’s project to construct and operate the new solar-storage site in Walnut Grove. The 1.5 MW-solar array will be paired with a 5-MWh battery…

This week FERC issued a policy statement clarifying how it will consider market rules proposed by regional grid operators that seek to incorporate a state-determined carbon price in organized wholesale electricity markets. The policy statement explains that wholesale market rules incorporating a state-determined carbon price can fall within the Commission’s jurisdiction under section 205 of…

Technology and commercial advancements are expected to continue to drive down the cost of wind energy, according to a survey led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) of the world’s foremost wind power experts. Experts anticipate cost reductions of 17%-35% by 2035 and 37%-49% by 2050, driven by bigger and more efficient turbines, lower…

U.S.-based Ocergy announced it has secured investments from Moreld Ocean Wind (MOW) and Chevron Technology Ventures (CTV) to fund offshore floating wind solutions. The Series A round will fund Ocergy’s commercialization of its offshore floating wind solutions, the OCG-Wind Floating Offshore Wind Turbine (FOWT) technology and OCG-Data environmental monitoring buoy. Successful close of this round…

Engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) firm Black & Veatch has joined the Low Carbon Resources Initiative led by top energy research firms in the nation. Mario Azar, president of Black & Veatch’s global power business, said the active involvement with the LCRI aligns with the company’s own decarbonization efforts. The LCRI is a collaborative research…

A little sunshine will soon be in your next glass of whiskey as Jack Daniel’s partners with the Tennessee Valley Authority, Duck River Electric Membership Corporation, and Nashville-based solar power producer Silicon Ranch to provide the iconic Tennessee whiskey maker’s Lynchburg distillery with 20 megawatts of solar energy. TVA signed a long-term power purchase agreement…

There’s a movement underway whereby companies that want to power their operations with clean energy would like to go further than simply purchasing the output of a renewable energy power plant via a power purchase agreement (PPA). They are instead interested in ensuring that all the energy they actually use is matched with the renewable…