Utility funding for community resilience against fire-prevention outages doesn’t go far enough, microgrid groups argue. California regulators have approved a microgrid plan directing $200 million to help communities build networks that can supply power through the state’s extended wildfire-prevention blackouts, a task expected to take years to move from planning to completing its first projects. […]
California’s looming wildfire threat requires a cleaner, more resilient electrical grid
As California communities confront the reality of emerging from coronavirus shelter-in-place orders, another inevitable crisis that also requires aggressive preventative action looms: wildfire season. In the face of this persistent threat, we need aggressive integration of clean energy technologies to power a reliable and resilient electricity grid for our homes, health care systems, transportation networks […]
California Finalizes Plan Shifting Key Energy Storage Incentive Toward Blackout Resilience
State to spend half a billion dollars by 2024 helping vulnerable customers install on-site batteries, a big change for the market. California regulators have finalized plans to direct more than half a billion dollars in behind-the-meter battery incentives over the next four years to customers most at risk of being impacted by the state’s increasingly […]
California Seeks to Shift Major Battery Incentive Toward Fire, Blackout Resiliency
CPUC proposes to spend $613 million of total $1.2 billion SGIP budget through 2024 on battery-solar systems for high-fire-risk customers. Over its 13-year history, California’s Self-Generation Incentive Program has been the state’s primary driver for distributed solar, biomass power systems, fuel cells. and, over the past half-decade or so, behind-the-meter batteries. Now California regulators are […]
Enphase: Demand for Solar-Battery Systems Could Soar After California Blackouts
Grid woes “will only increase the attach rates for storage” in country’s biggest rooftop solar market, Enphase CEO says. Enphase’s current growth is based around its core solar microinverter business. But in discussing the company’s Q3 earnings Tuesday, CEO Badri Kothandaraman focused on how Enphase’s soon-to-launch integrated energy storage system could aid Californians facing the […]
California Proposes $100M in Energy Storage Incentives to Boost Wildfire Resiliency
An incentive carve-out for high-fire-risk areas could boost uptake among customers most likely to want solar-storage systems. California regulators want to direct $100 million in state energy storage incentives to a new class of disadvantaged customers: those living in parts of the state at the highest risk of deadly wildfires. The California Public Utilities Commission […]
PG&E Pledges to Keep All Power Purchase Agreements Despite Bankruptcy
A few developers accepted a 10 percent pay cut to gain certainty that their projects can move forward. Utility Pacific Gas & Electric said it would honor all existing power purchase agreements in a forthcoming plan to reorganize and emerge from bankruptcy. Whether or not legacy power contracts would survive has been a hot topic […]
PG&E Creditors Propose $30B Bankruptcy Plan and New Name for Stricken Utility
The steps needed to pull PG&E out of bankruptcy and backstop California’s utilities from future wildfire liabilities are beginning to come into focus. A set of hard numbers has emerged from Pacific Gas & Electric’s biggest creditors on the costs to pull it out of a bankruptcy caused by massive liabilities from past wildfires — […]
Sunrun: Localized Solar and Batteries Reduce Grid Fire Risk
Distributed energy can decrease sag on distribution wires and provide local power if the broader grid goes down, the company argues. California is scrambling to prevent a repeat of deadly wildfires caused by the electrical grid, and Sunrun wants to help. The home solar and storage installer argues in a report out today that these […]
How Solar and Batteries Could Help California Manage Fire-Prevention Grid Shutdowns
Sunrun wants solar-battery microgrids to be part of PG&E’s plan to mitigate what could be widespread blackouts geared to prevent fires. As Pacific Gas & Electric and California regulators grapple with how to manage the potential for widespread fire-prevention grid shutdowns this summer, clean energy advocates are demanding a role for solar, energy storage and […]