Sunnova Energy has rolled out its new national residential solar insurance offering in Southern California, with plans to continue across the country early next year. Sunnova Protect provides solar owners the opportunity to purchase multi-decade coverage, inclusive of monitoring, maintenance and repair services for their solar systems.
DNV has begun installing what it calls the largest bifacial solar panel test facility in the world, at Davis, California, with the goal of benchmarking brand variations in the market to facilitate widespread adoption. The $250,000 project recently won a $200,000 grant from the US Department of Energy.
On July 2, the LA City Council approved a proposal for a 11.6 MW floating solar pilot plant on the Van Norman water reservoir within the LA Department of Water & Power system, in a unanimous vote of present council members. The proposal included instructions for LADWP to report back to the council on the feasibility of the floating solar system program, the next steps of implementation, the optimal system size, how much energy can be created, the environmental offsets, and the economic impact it would have on the city.
Yet another state commission, this time Maryland, has concluded that solar provides substantial value to the state overall, and specifically to the operation of the grid. While most of the value of new solar added to the state economy is during the year of installation, the cumulative value of solar to the state utilities as cost avoidance for new local infrastructure investment was also found to be remarkably high.
Salt River Project plans to add 200 megawatts of solar generation every year for the next five years, adding to its existing 800 MW renewable portfolio. By the end of its fiscal year 2025, SRP will have a total of more than 1,200 MW of solar energy capacity. The utility goal is to have 20% green generation by 2025, by adding renewable generation and battery storage.
The bid that won a 50 megawatt solar plant award in Jordan for RAI Energy International was as low as it was only because the design was based on bifacial panels and on single axis trackers, says Mohammed S. Alrai, CEO of the San Jose-based company. At $0.0250 per kilowatt-hour, RAI secured second place among 30 bidders, edged out of first place by panel manufacturer Jinko, which bid $0.02488/kWh.
California is leading the nation with several pilot projects to reward more rooftop solar energy generators and other distributed energy resources in specific locations as an alternative to utilities’ needs to invest in upgrading their electricity generation networks.
A trifecta of solar advocates is targeting Nevada’s closed mines for new solar projects or other renewables to help the state meet its new 50% renewable energy portfolio standard by 2030.
As more households and businesses install rooftop solar and begin tracking their energy production, an increasing number of solar hosts are diving into a variety demand response opportunities —some at the behest of the utilities — to reduce their electricity bills.
Enel Green Power is adding another 220 megawatts of solar generation to its clean energy portfolio in Mexico, with the Magdalena II solar park near the municipalities of Tlaxco and Hueyotlipan, in the state of Tlaxcala. With 550,000 photovoltaic modules, the solar plant is expected to begin operating by the end of 2019, and at full capacity will generate 600 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year. Tlaxcala is a small state in central Mexico, east of Mexico City.
