California sets solar peak production record, 1¢/kWh Solar in Saudi Arabia, & more! #40

Today from the Clean Power Hour, we discuss how California sets a solar peak production record, Canadian Solar has begun making enormous 665W panels, Saudi Arabia is heading towards 1¢/kWh solar electricity, and more! This excessive commentary is brought to you by Tim Montague and yours truly – the CommercialSolarGuy – John Fitzgerald Weaver.

First, a link to the podcast #40 – and now the news:

Tesla hikes solar roof price on contracts signed over a year ago

We totally get it that new technology will have complexities and price changes that aren’t yet known. However, you signed a contract with someone Elon.

For this customer, this represents a price increase of a staggering 54.3%. Beyond the loan agreement that was signed months ago, this customer already spent about $5,000 for home improvement preparations, including tree and stump removal to reduce shade on their roof.

Canadian Solar Begins Mass Production of 665 W Modules

Excellent value for commercial and utility scale PV plants, reducing balance of system costs by up to 5.7% and LCOE by up to 8.9% relative to mainstream 445 W modules. The nameplate production capacity of the HiKu7 and BiHiKu7 modules will reach 10 GW by the end of the year, of which a significant portion has already been booked.

California’s CAISO set a new utility scale solar power peak at 13 GW

First, this chart represents about 90% of the state’s utility electricity use – 10% has their own utility scale. Second, there also 10 GW of behind the meter solar, that peaks around 8 GW. That means the state was outputting ~21 GW of solar electricity in the CAISO region, plus more elsewhere in the state.

Project of the week: Saudi Arabia’s second PV tender draws world record low bid of $0.0104/kWh

First, congratulations to Saudi Arabia for a record low price. We can smell that penny per kWh. Second, these prices are absolutely unique to the market due to major support for the solar developers – free grid upgrades and land, no taxes, low to no interest rates, etc mean that the Saudis will always have cheaper solar electricity.

The output capacity of these projects, in addition to the projects of Sakaka and Dumat Al-Jandal, will amount to more than 3,600 MW. One of the projects – the 600 MW Al Shuaiba PV IP project – will sell power at a world record low price of $0.0104/kWh.

The CliffsNotes version of Biden’s infrastructure plan: What’s in it for solar + load flexibility?

$100B for the electric grid, solar, and clean energy; $100B for public school upgrades + $12B for community college upgrades; Federal procurement of 24/7 clean power for federal buildings; Clean Energy R&D: Creation of ARPA-C and other programs

SkySails Power – nice video of how kite power works

Driven by the wind, the automatically controlled power kite rises in figures of eight. As it gains altitude, it unwinds a tether from a winch on the ground. The tractive force drives a generator inside the winch that produces electricity. This is called the “work phase”. Once the tether has reached its maximum extension, the autopilot steers the kite into a neutral position with minimal drag and lift. While consuming only a fraction of the energy generated during the work phase, the generator now acts as a motor and reels-in the tether. The system continuously repeats this process, flying the kite at an altitude of 200 to 400 meters.

New Mexico gains a community solar program

Projects are capped at 5 MW capacity; First three years capped at 200 MW across the state’s three investor-owned utilities; “anchor tenant,” with no more than 40% of a project’s capacity; project needs at least 10 subscribers before construction may begin; 30% capacity carve-out per project, reserved for low-income people and related service organizations.

Solar power is like ants – one ant or a whole kingdom can get the job done. They can be giants – like the cheap electricity installations made of millions of panels in Saudi Arabia powering massive industrial facilities… or they can be quite small, like this installation that warms babies.

SK Innovation reaches W2tr settlement in battery row with LG Energy Solution

What’s also interesting about this story is the Freshman Senator from Georgia who helped make the deal happen – read that here.

‘SK will pay 1 trillion won in cash and 1 trillion in royalties to the rival as compensation for its theft of lithium-ion battery technologies. LG, in exchange, will drop all legal action against SK both in Korea and abroad.’

US solar and wind acceleration ‘not enough’ to meet Biden’s climate targets

If the US is to achieve a carbon free grid by 2035 then it would need to at the very least add around 70GW of wind and solar a year from 2025 onwards.

Sun Cable submits plans for gigawatt-scale solar manufacturing plant in Darwin

The $26 billion solar+wind+storage facility is big enough to build a factory to assemble hardware for itself.

The company said it had lodged an application with the Northern Territory’s Development Consent Authority for a facility that would pilot a semi-automated production line, manufacturing the Maverick solar array systems designed by Australian company 5B.

Plus a video of what hardware they’re using and how it installs:

Wyoming sets aside money to sue states, like Colorado, for their renewable energy policies

‘Wyoming sets aside $$$ to sue states for their renewable energy policies. The bill allocates $1.2 million for lawsuits against states with regulations that impede Wyoming’s ability to export coal or force early closures of coal-fired plants in the state’

 

And last, but definitely not least – the podcast: