A little-known $15 billion deal between PG&E and the Department of Energy is raising concerns for California residents. The agreement, which will expand hydropower, also includes shutting down the Ivanpah solar plant, which has been providing energy to 140,000 homes. Without this reliable source of clean energy, California's already overburdened power grid will struggle, leading to higher energy costs and more frequent blackouts. Critics argue that while PG&E benefits financially, everyday Californians will be left paying the price with increased bills and an even less reliable power system.
Questions are also being raised about possible conflicts of interest with key players in the deal, making it even more controversial. We spoke with one of the main investors of the Ivanpah plant to learn more.
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The latest phase of construction brought the farm’s total capacity up to 2.8GW, comparable to the capacity of the Golmud Solar Park in China, the largest solar farm by capacity.
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Unlike PV systems, CSP output doesn't dip when skies are momentarily overcast, and they do not need battery back-up to store energy for nighttime use.
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Investments in solar energy innovations are not dead! Remember those weird and wonderful solar energy harvesting tulips planted in Israel and Spain? Seen miles away the sky-high tulips have found a new commercial home – in Ethiopia, the company announced last week in a press statement. We’ve covered Aora over the years and thought possibly […]
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To date the most efficient way of making solar cells is using silicon. Now a team of scientists at the University of Sheffield in the UK is the first to fabricate perovskite solar cells using a spray-painting process – a discovery that could help cut the cost of solar electricity.
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While solar power plant installations jump to a new annual record this year, according to the Worldwatch Institute, global trends show that despite all the batabata bing bing (announcements, agreements, tea ceremonies, hand-shaking), the Middle East is doing miserably in taking advantage of the sun –– one country is the exception there and it is Israel.
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The switch was flipped this week as California’s Ivanpah solar thermal power plant went live. The 392 megawatt concentrating solar plant (CSP) is now delivering renewables to power the equivalent of 140,000 homes in California. After a long journey lasting decades of development, fighting regulations, manoeuvring around turtle conservationists, burning birds may be the latest problem.
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Key investors in renewable energy for the Middle East and North Africa regions will be on hand to discuss the criteria for securing project financing. They will present the case studies of the Shams 1, a 100MW plant in Abu Dhabi and the Noor 1, a 160MW (being constructed in Morocco).
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With Dubai’s government close to finalizing legislation, property owners in the Emirate may soon have the option to feed solar power into the grid so they can make money from feed-in tariffs.
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About half of Abu Dhabi’s trash will ‘burn’ into green electricity in new $850 million power plant. Maybe you saw the wonderful movie, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. Or maybe you’d read stories on Green Prophet about Masdar, or Shams, the world’s largest CSP plant in Abu Dhabi. Arab nations and their economies are certainly […]
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California-based GlassPoint Solar has installed an unconventional concentrating solar power (CSP) plant in Oman. Comprised of rows of six meter tall steel mirrors encased in glass boxes that look and in some ways act like greenhouses, this 7MW pilot project uses clean technology to extract dirty fossil fuels. Commissioned by Petroleum Development Oman, GlassPoint has […]
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Even as some solar projects are just taking flight in Israel, underlining a new wave of optimism about the technology’s ability to succeed in the country, other solar giants are taking their leave of Israel. International energy and infrastructure giant, Siemens, announced last Monday that it was closing down its Siemens-Solel plant in Beit Shemesh, Israel. In […]
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The United Arab Emirates (UAE) economic capital, Dubai, has reaffirmed its committment to sustainable energy and the environment as it pushes forward on massive growth projects. Dubai’s ruler and UAE’s Vice-President and Prime Minister Mohamed bin Rashid al-Maktoum said that as the city continues to develop, the environment and clean energy prospects remain at the top […]
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Shams 1 will displace 175,000 tons of CO2 per year and its power output will be enough to power 20,000 homes. Abu Dhabi’s push into clean energy is to get a massive boost by the end of the year with the Shams 1 Concentrated Solar Power plant going live in the emirate and will begin supplying solar power […]
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A Saudi solar project with gigantic storage could deliver solar at night in South Africa. Saudi Arabia might not spring to mind as a nation creating the top CSP companies globally, but South Africa just selected as a “preferred bidder” to develop solar, a consortium led by the Kingdom’s own power and water group ACWA […]
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