March 21st, 2024
Via Wired, a look at how idle electric vehicles could act as massive batteries for homes and the energy grid. But the technology to pull this off is tricky: WITH MOST ELECTRIC vehicles parked at work or home all day, you may wonder whether you’ll save that much by having one. But what if someone told you […]
Read more »Will Renewables Break the Power Grid or Save It?
March 6th, 2024
Courtesy of Anthropocene, a look at how the carbon-free promise of solar and wind teeters on high voltage wires: Adjusting for inflation, a barrel of oil today costs around the same as it did in the 1970s Oil Crisis. Solar photovoltaic modules over the same period now cost 500 times less—and prices are still falling, about […]
Read more »February 21st, 2024
Via MIT Technology Review, a look at how VPP technology can let millions of electric vehicles feed electricity back to the grid when necessary, helping China deal with extreme weathers and power shortages: The first time I heard the term “virtual power plants,” I was reporting on how extreme heat waves in 2022 had overwhelmed the […]
Read more »Reconductoring
February 21st, 2024
Via Heat Map, a report on reconductoring – an incredibly exciting solution that could solve one of our most urgent obstacles to getting more renewables on the grid: permitting new power lines: Ask any climate wonk what’s holding back clean energy in the U.S. and you’re likely to get the same answer — not enough power lines. But what […]
Read more »February 14th, 2024
Via Latitude Media, a report on one utility’s VPP pilot: During some of the hottest months of 2023, 8,500 residential batteries in California discharged back to the grid for two hours every evening. This routine helped their utility to manage the challenge of after work peaks, combined with unusually high temperatures. Those homes were part […]
Read more »Making Energy Programmable
February 12th, 2024
Via Matt Mandel, commentary on the potential to make energy programmable: We’ve previously written about the storage gap. The proliferation of solar has led to an abundance of energy when the sun is out and a dearth when it’s not. Batteries help address this gap by storing excess energy in times of plenty and discharging stored […]
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