Corporate clean energy procurement levels skyrocketed in 2018 according to a raft of new reports which highlight the continued dominance of the technology and data industry in driving clean energy purchasing and the increasing importance of the wind energy industry in supplying the necessary clean energy.
A broad coalition of energy trade and advocacy organizations filed a letter to the US Senate and House leaderships this week, urging them to modify the tax code to include energy storage as an eligible technology for the country’s Investment Tax Credit, or ITC.
Wind and solar electricity generation in 2017 provided at least 20% of total generation in 10 states, according to new figures published by the US Government’s Energy Information Administration.
The United States’ Wind Energy Foundation announced this week that it is rebranding to better represent an increased focus on wind and solar energy and will now be known as the Wind Solar Alliance, having also expanded its board of directors to include solar energy experts including two executives from NEXTracker and First Solar.
The US distributed wind energy market crept over the 1 gigawatt (GW) mark in 2017 according to a US Department of Energy report published late last month, after nearly 100 megawatts (MW) was added last year, bringing the cumulative capacity up to 1,076 MW.
Murray Energy, the largest private-owned coal company in the United States, has been quietly bankrolling opposition to the 20.7 megawatt (MW) Icebreaker Wind project set to be built on Lake Erie in a move that, while not illegal, can easily be described as deceptive.
The US wind energy industry currently has a record amount of wind energy capacity under construction, coming out of a second-quarter which installed 626 megawatts of new capacity, serving to push the country’s cumulative wind energy capacity total over the 90 gigawatts (GW) mark.
MidAmerican Energy announced a new large-scale wind energy project towards the end of May, dubbed “Wind XII,” which consists of 591 megawatts (MW) worth of new wind capacity in Iowa, and which would propel the company to be the first investor-owned electric utility in the US to generate renewable energy equal to 100% of its customers usage each year.
An unlikely coalition of renewable energy, natural gas, energy efficiency, and oil industry associations have collectively submitted their concerns to the US Department of Energy regarding the possibility of effectively bailing out and subsidizing uneconomic and aging power plants that would otherwise be forced to retire, such as FirstEnergy Solutions’ recent request for the same.
The demand for US wind energy surged through the first quarter of 2018, pushing the country’s wind development pipeline to over 33 gigawatts (GW), according to the American Wind Energy Association, which tracked new announcements of over 5,500 megawatts (MW).
