The Clean Power Hour is a weekly clean energy headline review and commentary podcast run by Tim Montague, and yours truly – the CommercialSolarGuy – John Fitzgerald Weaver. Here’s a summary of the topics covered and a link to the podcast below.
The topics covered in Episode #13 are:
Tesla’s battery day. Here’s the slide deck of the Battery Day Presentation:
In case you're looking for Battery Day slides, here you go:https://t.co/l1mvuqOn9n
— Martin Viecha (@MartinViecha) October 2, 2020
Will Driscoll made a guest publican on CommercialSolarGuy talking about three technologies that we could add to the power grid that would release up to 500 GW of renewables to be installed:
U.S. utilities could use three technologies to increase the utilization of transmission lines, enabling 500 GW of renewables projects to win interconnection approval, say industry experts Jigar Shah and Rob Gramlich, in an op-ed published by Utility Dive. Source
Array going public? A single axis tracker manufacturer is exploring going public.
Array Technologies has been profitable in 2020: The company logged a net income of $76 million on revenue of $552 million in the first six months of this year — a revenue growth of 145% compared to the same period in 2019. The company had positive EBITDA in 2019, although it posted a net loss of $5.2 million. Source
Maine gets into the solar game – who expected such low PPA rates in sunny(?) New England:
“The first-year prices for energy from the new projects receiving an award are very competitive, ranging between 2.9 (cents) and 4.2 cents per KWh” Source
Giant wind company, that was once a giant gas company – now building solar in Texas:
Ørsted is currently building two huge solar arrays in Texas and Alabama, totaling nearly 700 megawatts. Particularly striking is the 460-megawatt Permian Energy Center in West Texas, which will sell its solar power to ExxonMobil and includes a 40-megawatt battery system. Source
China peaking emissions prior to 2030 means an average of ~250 GW of solar per year by 2060 – that’s a big place going clean:
Power generation would nearly double from 2025 to about 16.4 terrawatt-hours in 2060, with electricity making up 80% of total energy consumption by 2060. Wind, solar and nuclear power will have to be boosted to offset the decline of dirty power as total electricity demand keeps increasing. Source
Floating wind+hydrogen:
The 2MW prototype, followed by the up-scaled 10MW version, will essentially use wind power to produce hydrogen from seawater. A pump will take up the seawater, using the power of the turbine to desalinate it, which is then fed into an electrolyser – splitting it into hydrogen and oxygen. Source
Walmart Canada orders 130 Tesla Semis:
“The ability to travel 500 miles per charge is in line with Walmart Canada’s general fleet system, which consists mainly of single day round trips – allowing for the ability to convert from diesel at a faster pace. The enhanced driver safety features also offer a significant opportunity for the company to continue to address this critical issue.” Source
Hornsdale delivers record profit:
Earnings from storage reflected as (EBITDA earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization – were up 24 per cent to €17.4 million Previously disclosed revenue from the storage segment rose 15 per cent to €20.5 million. Source
And of course – listen to the podcast here: