With wind energy rising to the fifth-largest electricity source in the U.S., the desire for more information and help deploying it won’t be dying down any time soon. Recognizing this, the the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have announced the development of six Wind Energy Regional Resource Centers around the country. The […]
President Barack Obama’s $3.9 trillion budget proposal for the 2015 fiscal year contains billions in potential renewable energy investments. The funding would vary from research to deployment efforts on federal lands and waters. In all, the president is requesting about $27.9 billion for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). President Barack Obama signs copies of the […]
By J. Matthew Roney In China, wind power is leaving nuclear behind. Electricity output from China’s wind farms exceeded that from its nuclear plants for the first time in 2012, by a narrow margin. Then in 2013, wind pulled away—outdoing nuclear by 22 percent. The 135 terawatt-hours of Chinese wind-generated electricity in 2013 would be nearly enough to […]
By Michael Goggin Photo courtesy of Shutterstock In the fall, PJM, the largest grid operator in the world, serving 60 million customers across 13 Mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes states, issued the preliminary results of a major wind integration study. The final results of the study were released Monday and they are even better than the preliminary results. Among the highlights: Wind energy’s economic savings […]
Photo courtesy of Shutterstock While projects in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Maine are all vying to make the New England the home of the nation’s first offshore wind farm, one of those states recently amped up its on-land renewable energy in a major way. Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said the state’s Department of Public Utilities (DPU) approved […]
By Mike Jacobs Press reports of Texas completing new transmission lines for wind describe an energy boom with a difference—this is carbon-free wind energy. The grid operator in Texas, Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), says agreements are already done for 7,500 megawatts (MW) of new wind power, most of which will be using the new […]
Photo courtesy of Shutterstock If the latest proposal for the wind Production Tax Credit (PTC) is approved, it would dramatically decrease the incentive’s amount and eventually phase it out altogether. Introduced on Thursday by U.S. House of Representative Committee on Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp, (R-MI), the new proposal would retroactively reduce the credit from […]
By Tim Radford U.S. engineers have thought of a new way to take the heat out of a hurricane. Fortuitously-placed offshore wind farms could make dramatic reductions in wind speeds and storm surge wave heights. Hurricanes are capricious consequences of peculiar sea temperature and wind conditions, while wind farms are the outcome of years of […]
For the first time, a report has gauged the contributions of veterans in the U.S. solar industry. According to Veterans in Solar: Securing America’s Energy Future, released today by Operation Free and The Solar Foundation, 9.3 percent of the workers in the nation’s solar sector are veterans. That’s good for 13,192 employees who happen to be veterans of […]