Jake Richardson Hello, I have been writing online for some time, and enjoy the outdoors. If you like, you can follow me on Google Plus.
April 10th, 2018 | by Jake Richardson
A behind-the-meter energy storage system made by Sharp Electronics with a capacity of 240 kW/324 kWh will be installed at Paradise Village Retirement Community in the San Diego area by NW Photon Energy. It will be integrated with 516 kW of solar PV and installed in 6 buildings
April 3rd, 2018 | by Jake Richardson
Sunrun has announced that it is expanding its partnership with GRID Alternatives. Sunrun will support solar power installations for low-income families, job training, volunteerism, and provide a philanthropic donation
March 31st, 2018 | by Jake Richardson
Technology might be used to send excess solar power from an office building to be stored in an EV battery which is connected to it. When electricity is needed by the building, it can be discharged from the EV battery, which acts as temporary energy storage. The pilot is being tried out at ENGIE's Zaandam, Netherlands, office building
March 25th, 2018 | by Jake Richardson
Some solar power critics seem to enjoy trying to point out that the energy payback time for solar power is too long, and therefore this form of renewable energy is not valid. Those critics have not kept up with the times or are simply lying to you
March 23rd, 2018 | by Jake Richardson
Solar power is often seen as a form of electricity that only works in sunny, hot areas, but this view is not accurate at all. While it’s easy to understand why some of us hold such a belief, some solar critics rely on this bit of misinformation to try to dismiss solar power as something marginal
March 14th, 2018 | by Jake Richardson
The energy storage provider Blue Planet Energy recently deployed its Blue Ion energy storage systems to support the electrification efforts in Puerto Rico. These deployments took place in areas where there has not been reliable electricity since September of 2017, when Hurricane Maria struck
March 11th, 2018 | by Jake Richardson
The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has estimated that by 2050, 70–90% of all EV driver fueling will be done either at home or work. There are many pieces to the electric vehicle and charging infrastructure puzzle in the US and Dan Bowermaster, the program manager for Electric Transportation at EPRI, answered some questions for CleanTechnica recently about what the EV future for America might look like
March 10th, 2018 | by Jake Richardson
Renewable energy is already cheaper than other energy options in most of the world, but it comes with other economic and societal benefits as well. Because of the number of countries investing in renewable energy, the complexity of their national economies and their energy infrastructure details, it isn’t possible to cover everything in one online article. The subject would be better addressed in a book. So, this article is intended only to be a snapshot of some key high-level points
March 8th, 2018 | by Jake Richardson
Sunrun is expanding its home solar battery service to Massachusetts. Called Brightbox, Sunrun's lithium-ion battery system is designed to work well with a home solar power system.
March 4th, 2018 | by Jake Richardson
In the last couple of years, there has been a growing a number of news articles and blog posts published about energy storage, particularly in the form of battery systems. This interest is very reasonable and the news is exciting because these systems can fill in wind power and solar power electricity production gaps. In many places, they could replace gas-powered peaker plants
March 4th, 2018 | by Jake Richardson
Wind power might seem like a fringe source of electricity to some, and critics certainly have gone after it aggressively at times, but it's now a large source of electricity in the United States and many other countries. One of the main points of misinformation about wind power is the idea that it couldn’t ever produce enough electricity to be an important source for everyone. This notion is totally untrue — there are plenty of wind resources that can be developed in order to eventually make wind power a primary source of electricity
February 25th, 2018 | by Jake Richardson
In our modern era, we may assume that electric cars are new technology. The Chevy Bolt, Nissan LEAF, and all Tesla vehicles are certainly cutting-edge automobiles, right? But there was a period in America a long time ago when about 30% of all cars were electric. (Today, only about 1% of the fleet runs on electricity.)
February 21st, 2018 | by Jake Richardson
Wind power critics sometimes try to say that this form of clean, renewable energy is bogus because a number of bird deaths result each year from collisions with wind turbines and towers. What they fail to mention is the context, so they leave out certain very key facts. The number of birds killed by wind turbines is relatively tiny
February 18th, 2018 | by Jake Richardson
Among current EV drivers, the vast majority of charging is done at home or work. In such places, it takes a few seconds to plug in the car and a few seconds to unplug it. In actuality, it is often easy to leave with a “full tank” (full battery) most of the time. Drivers no longer have to find gas stations on or near their travel routes, don’t have to spend time getting off the road and into the gas station, don’t have to get out and pump gas, don’t have to go inside or pull out their credit card and pay for gasoline, and don’t have to take their cars in for oil changes & smog checks. In the end, this saves them a lot of time, even if you take into account the times when they do have to charge in public (during which they can often eat, play, or engage in other useful activities)
February 13th, 2018 | by Jake Richardson
Critics of electric vehicles sometimes mistakenly or misleadingly try to dismiss electric vehicles by claiming that they don’t work in cold weather. This view is quite untrue and easily proven incorrect. All EVs operate in cold weather, but their driving ranges do decrease to varying degrees in cold weather
February 10th, 2018 | by Jake Richardson
Many of us who are interested in electric vehicles and solar power have probably wondered if this form of clean electricity could be integrated into an EV somehow. In fact, for some years now, there have been a number of solar-powered car races conducted. However, these vehicles, though impressive in their engineering and abilities, do not meet consumer expectations for speed, comfort, safety, passenger capacity, and storage space
February 8th, 2018 | by Jake Richardson
Solar panels do produce electricity in cloudy weather. They don't produce as much electricity as they do on sunny days, but they have been shown to produce 25% of what they produce on a sunny day, or 10% when it's very cloudy.
February 6th, 2018 | by Jake Richardson
Some critics of electric vehicles try to claim that the electricity all EVs use comes from coal power plants, so they aren’t any better than gas-powered vehicles because they are also tied to a source of dirty electricity.
February 3rd, 2018 | by Jake Richardson
The terms "energy payback" and "energy payback period" when used to discuss solar power might be kind of confusing at first glance, but when you dig a little deeper, you get much more clarity. Energy payback refers to the amount of energy a solar power system has to make in order to equal the energy which was used to produce it. Most solar panels are made up of solar cells which are manufactured from silicon. This non-metal element must be processed in order to be usable in solar cells. The processing consumes some energy, as does the assembly of solar cells into solar panels
February 1st, 2018 | by Jake Richardson
Renewable energy like solar and wind power can be made from free, abundant sources: sunlight and wind. We will never run out of either, and harnessing them to make clean electricity is not that difficult today because solar power and wind power have become highly efficient and cost-competitive at producing electricity. Furthermore, these efficiencies are set to increase over time because of the hard work of researchers and renewable energy business innovators. Energy storage is also growing and this technology can be used to fill in the gaps when there is no sunlight or wind, or during periods when there is less
January 28th, 2018 | by Jake Richardson
One major advantage renewable energy has over fossil fuels and nuclear power is that it can typically be installed much faster. Nuclear power plants can require 5–15 years to complete and some have taken 20 or more. Constructing a new coal power plant can takes 4 years or more. (Another point about coal plants — if renewable energy costs continue to decline, some new coal power plants may be shut down soon after opening or not opened at all, and almost certainly will not reach their full operational lifespans. So, some portion of the cost to build them would be wasted.) Building a new gas-powered plant generally takes several years as well
January 26th, 2018 | by Jake Richardson
A highly misleading anti-cleantech talking point is that renewable energy "relies on government subsidies," and that all of the renewable energy growth in recent years is attributable to them. In actuality, fossil fuels and nuclear power have been receiving government support for much longer than renewable energy has. They have received much more government subsidy historically speaking than renewables. And these dirty energy options continue to receive a tremendous amount of government support even though they are overripe industries in many regards
January 25th, 2018 | by Jake Richardson
Fast and society-threatening global warming is being caused by several large-scale human activities. Aside from burning fossil fuels for energy, for example, large-scale deforestation for livestock "production" is a major problem. It's true that renewable energy alone can't stop global warming, but anyone arguing that renewable energy is pointless because it can't stop the problem alone is missing the point. Renewable energy is one of the most important solutions to global warming and should be pursued as strongly and quickly as possible if we want to have any hope of stopping catastrophic climate change
January 24th, 2018 | by Jake Richardson
AES Energy Storage and Siemens have joined forces to create a new energy storage company called Fluence Energy, which we mentioned recently in a story about the breakthrough prices of renewable energy + storage projects. Fluence CEO John Zahurancik has since answered some questions for CleanTechnica about the new company and one of its major new energy storage projects
January 11th, 2018 | by Jake Richardson
Renewable energy has historically been seen as an alternative to burning fossil fuels like coal and petroleum products for consumable energy. However, we have come to learn that far more than the core reasons for pursuing renewable energy, there are plenty of other benefits of clean, renewable energy. It has become increasingly clear that renewable energy is just better than fossil fuels — for people and the environment
