Welcome to your weekly solar news brief. This week, Vermont really grabbed our attention with its Energy Marketplace – Vermont Green: a real-time, blockchain-verified energy marketplace. The peer-to-peer platform was launched by Green Mountain Power and allows businesses to purchase renewable energy credits from other customers who are generating within the region. The platform is called Pando, and utilizes blockchain technology to protect customer privacy while also allowing Green Mountain Power to monitor the transactions closely.
What this means
Green Mountain Power is paving the way for a shared energy marketplace. Pando empowers homeowners to sell surplus energy directly to businesses and encourages businesses to go 100% renewable, all while keeping the transactions local. This allows a grassroots transition to renewable energy where everybody wins. Well done, Vermont. Let’s hope that other utilities will follow GMP’s lead. Want more details on Energy Marketplace – Vermont Green? Read the full article >
A report from US research labs shows natural gas as the leading reason wholesale electricity pricing has fallen over the last decade across the country, however, looking at key markets it is clear there are larger downward effects where wind and solar have been most heavily deployed. Read the full article >
Since we got a lot of energy storage links this week, we decided to throw a whole bunch in at once! As well, we see that polysilicon modules are still edging downward in price, Green Rhino has a portable solar+storage system, the EIA showing that most energy storage installed in the USA is lithium ion, and a bit more! Read the full article >
National Renewable Energy Lab researchers hourly modeled the whole of the United States, and when more than half of all electricity is coming from solar power, there would be no technical deal killers, but many spring days with free electricity that we would have to learn to use, and a need to financially recognize the predictability and grid stabilizing attributes of solar and storage. Read the full article >
Regulators voted to cut the avoided cost rate paid to PURPA solar power projects in the state by ~33% to 2.134¢/kWh, while also shortening the length of the contracts to 10 years – which represents the lowest rates and contract lengths in the nation. Read the full article >
Panasonic recently launched their EverVolt home energy storage system, with an AC and DC coupled unit that easily can scale up to 34 kWh and, when coupled with their HIT solar modules, can power your home indefinitely if the grid goes down. Read the full article >
Have any questions about what you read here? Reach out to the Commercial Solar Guy himself– I promise he won’t bite. See you next week, and happy Thanksgiving!
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