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Dennis Wamsted
Technology gains pose a major threat to baseload power providers
The utility industry, broadly speaking, has a checkered history on renewable energy development, often having fought state renewable energy portfolio standards, curtailed residential net energy metering for solar and brought into question the reliability of wind and solar. But a new dynamic is at play now, especially around solar-plus-storage projects. Here, sharp and continued price […]
IEEFA
S&P Global Market Intelligence ($): A sharp decrease in Texas lignite coal output handed North Dakota the title of top U.S. lignite producer in 2018 for the first time in at least a decade, as mine closures and alternative energy sources continue to reduce coal’s share of the energy mix in Texas. Year over year, […]
IEEFA
Bloomberg: For Mike Wirth, the future of Big Oil lies at home, under the dusty fields of West Texas. As he celebrates his first year as chief executive of Chevron Corp., Wirth sees the Permian Basin as a plentiful source of high-quality crude for years to come, but that’s not all. The low break-even costs […]
IEEFA
S&P Global Market Intelligence: More than 80% of the new power generation capacity expected to come into service in 2019 in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas region will be either wind- or solar-driven, according to an S&P Global Market Intelligence analysis. Overall, the region, which encompasses most of the state of Texas including major […]
IEEFA
The Guardian: The solar energy sector lost 8,000 jobs in the US last year, the second consecutive year of declines, hit by uncertainty over the Trump administration’s energy and trade policies and a 30% tariff on imported solar panels, according to a report released on Tuesday. But according to the Solar Foundation the future is […]
IEEFA
Houston Chronicle: Wind turbine service technicians will be in high demand from now until at least 2026, according to the government-funded Projections Managing Partnership that uses data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Between 2017 and 2019, the number of jobs to service wind turbines will increase 20.1 percent, the data shows. And by […]
IEEFA
Renewables Now: German utility E.on SE has initiated construction at its 100-MW West of the Pecos solar project in Texas, planning to bring it online at end-2019. The photovoltaic (PV) park will be located in Reeves County, western Texas, and will be powered by over 350,000 solar panels. E.on expects its commissioning to take place […]
Seth Feaster and Karl Cates
Sleeping giant of a market is waking up
Announcing last week that it would create the largest regulated utility-scale solar footprint in the world, Florida Power & Light signaled its intentions to nudge the Sunshine State away from its ironically dubious reputation as a renewable-energy laggard. The initiative will add 30 million solar panels, five times the state’s current solar capacity, easing its […]
IEEFA
Greentech Media: Texas may be the center of the U.S. oil and gas industry, but the latest data shows that the state’s competitive energy market is increasingly favoring clean energy over fossil fuel alternatives. New information from state grid operator ERCOT shows that carbon-free resources made up more than 30 percent of its 2018 energy […]
IEEFA
S&P Global Market Intelligence ($): As renewable energy sources increasingly displace coal-fired power generation in Texas, the state’s lignite producers and Powder River Basin thermal coal miners could see a key market dry up. Wind and solar are entering the grid “at very low price points,” and if natural gas remains cheap, more coal-fired generation […]
IEEFA report: ‘Holy Grail’ of carbon capture continues to elude coal industry; ‘cautionary tale’ applies to domestic and foreign projects alike
Study details lack of economic feasibility around North American initiatives; costly and/or failed efforts at Duke’s Edwardsport, NRG’s Petra Nova, SaskPower’s Boundary Dam, and Southern Co.’s Kemper plant; technology seen as unworkable and too expensive for fast-changing electricity-generation marketsNov. 19, 2018 (IEEFA) — A study published today by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis concludes that costly efforts undertaken in North America to develop workable, economic technology to capture carbon from coal-fired generation have come up short. Further, the study concludes that technology developments in the renewable energy and natural gas sectors […]