Google pre-qualified bidders and used reverse auctions to obtain the lowest price for renewable energy. Reverse auctions for corporate purchases could potentially benefit solar developers, if their transparency and simplicity can influence more corporations to procure green power.

This has been a breakthrough year for non-battery storage, with key advances in pumped hydro, power-to-gas, and thermal storage technologies. Many industry players are moving beyond pilot projects to contracted projects, which could lead to increased scale and lower costs.

The energy services firm will use software from California’s AutoGrid to develop a VPP which will draw on PV generation, energy storage and demand response technology. ENERES wants businesses to come on board and burnish their renewables credentials.

Pumped hydro storage is highly cost competitive for large-scale energy storage, according to a report published by the San Diego County Water Authority. The report models a pumped hydro project as securing better financing terms than battery storage.

Former NREL employee pens paper to rebut claims conventional energy can supply the essential grid services needed to return to normality after network disruption. The author says claims renewable energy cannot provide such services are erroneous.

Japan’s JGC Corporation reports an efficient method of converting hydrogen to ammonia, which can later be combusted to generate carbon-free electricity. Ammonia, according to JGC, has various advantages over hydrogen in terms of safety and cost effectiveness.

The Puerto Rico utility’s favored generation plan, in a report prepared by Siemens, involves an LNG terminal at San Juan and would achieve only 55% renewables by 2038. A scenario without LNG would reach 79% renewables by 2038 at comparable cost, based on undisclosed cost assumptions.

Governors-elect in Colorado and Connecticut want a 100% renewables mandate. Approaching 100% is the goal for governors-elect in Illinois, Nevada and Maine.

Jamaica is currently targeting a 30% share of renewables in its energy mix by 2030. However, the nation’s prime minister says, “We can do better.”

As a further sign that solar is going mainstream across the United States, a new report by Lawrence Berkeley National Labs finds that southeastern states hosted 40% of the utility-scale solar installed nationally in 2017. Interconnection queues have swelled to 188.5 GW of utility solar capacity, eight times more than installed capacity