As of January 1, all new buildings of 10 stories or fewer in San Francisco must be built with solar panels included.

Since that local measure passed last spring, its author, Scott Wiener, moved from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to the state senate. Now, he’s bringing the conceptto Sacramento, first in summary form, with the full proposed legislation expected in four to six weeks.

If adopted, mandatory rooftop solar legislation would set a groundbreaking example of how a legislature can expand distributed solar through less conventional means, diverging from the default models of renewable portfolio standards and tax credits. That outcome is by no means guaranteed, though.

The process of passing the legislation through the state legislature will likely raise new questions about how the policy would impact the entirety of the massive Golden State. There are more legislators to convince than in San Francisco, and more interest groups and industry lobbyists who may try to stop it. 

“The state, of course, is much bigger and much more diverse geographically and in every other respect,” Wiener told GTM. “We are actively soliciting input to make sure we’re crafting legislation that will work for the whole state.”

For any other state, requiring solar photovoltaics or solar thermal on most new buildings would seem dramatic, if not unthinkable. For California, however, it’s the latest iteration of a legislative program years in the making.

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The San Diego County Water Authority and the City of San Diego announced Wednesday that they haven taken steps towards developing a new 500MW pumped energy storage project at the the San Vicente Reservoir.

If developed, the installation will offer electric grid stability to the region during both peak times and on days where demand is high and other renewable-energy outlets are scarce.

Both the City of San Diego and the Water Authority announced that a joint Request for Letters of Interest were released Wednesday, with the companies reaching out to electric utilities, developers, investors and energy off-takers in an effort to find groups willing to purchase power generated from the site.

The request will also help determine what possible next steps are in the best interests of regional ratepayers and stakeholders.

Mark Muir, chair of the Water Authority board of directors, “When we filled San Vicente Reservoir last summer, we filled it with more than just water – we filled it with huge potential for energy benefits. Given this new potential for energy from a recently expanded water resource, it’s only prudent to continue to research the potential benefits to our region’s ratepayers.”

The main piece of the project would comprise of an interconnection and pumping system located between the existing San Vicente Reservoir and a new, smaller reservoir located uphill. The pumping system would be used during off-peak energy-use periods to pump water from the existing San Vicente Reservoir to the new reservoir.

Proposals in response to the Request for Letters of Interest are due to the Water Authority by 2 p.m. on Feb. 15, and questions regarding the request must be emailed to the Water Authority no later than 2 p.m. on Jan. 31, 2017.

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When a very big international company buys a very small company in an emerging area like energy storage and microgrids, you’ve got to ask, ‘What’s up?’

This week Italian energy giant Enel swooped in to take 100 percent ownership of Demand Energy, an entrepreneurial U.S. energy storage company based in Washington state.

Pay attention U.S. utilities, says Rob Thornton, president & CEO of the International District Energy Association, which includes the Microgrid Resources Coalition. It appears European utilities get it.

The acquisition, Thornton said, “underscores how our European utility counterparts are ahead of the curve on utility transformation from central station generation to more distributed, cleaner generation closer to the customer.”

These European companies are “assigning greater value to effective tools like Demand Energy for decarbonizing and delivering enhanced customer control and resiliency,” he said.

An $80 billion energy company operating in 30 countries, Enel is striving to be carbon neutral by 2050.

“In my opinion, US utilities that embrace this paradigm shift towards cleaner, more efficient decentralized solutions will likely prosper in the years ahead while those clinging to status quo, rate base monopolistic models may find themselves gone the way of Wang or Digital Equipment Corp.,” Thornton warned.

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Energy storage provider Alevo has appointed Peter Heintzelman as group CFO.

Heintzelman brings a wealth of international management and board level experience, having conducted strategic planning and successful financial management for major energy businesses around the world.

Heintzelman joins from T5 Oil & Gas, a privately-funded exploration and production firm, where his responsibilities as CFO included leading corporate and organic upstream transactions across Africa and the Middle East and maintaining a strong following in the financial markets. He brings over 25 years’ experience in the energy and energy investment banking sectors globally, with a background that includes Head of Energy roles with Standard Bank, and senior management positions at Halliburton and Enron.

“The battery storage market is poised to expand rapidly in 2017 and I am keen to be part of that process,” explained Heintzelman. “Alevo’s GridBank advanced battery technology and the high performance computing and analytics capabilities provided by Alevo Analytics are key differentiators for the company. It is clearly a successful and expanding business and I look forward to the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.”

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TOKYO, Jan 13, 2017 – (JCN Newswire) – Mitsubishi Corporation reached a basic agreement with AES Corporation and Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited (TPDDL), which distributes electricity in Northern and Northwestern Delhi, to develop an energy storage demonstration project in India. The project will be concentrated in the grid sectors operated by TPDDL.

Under the partnership, MC and AES will establish a 10 MW energy storage system at TPDDL’s facilities. Administered jointly by the three companies, the energy storage system will contribute to stabilizing the grid network, which delivers power to over 7 million customers across the region. The project will be implemented using Advancion(1), the cutting-edge energy storage technology developed by AES Energy Storage, a subsidiary of AES.

The Indian government has been undertaking a number of initiatives aimed at curbing chronic electricity shortage while at the same time reducing green-house gas emissions and improving air quality. One approach has been the proactive use of renewable sources such as wind and solar energy. However, the energy secured from these natural sources is not yet sufficient to fill demand-supply gaps or provide the stability required for the grid network. In light of this, electricity storage systems have proven to be a valuable option as they provide a back-up of energy supply, which addresses these and other concerns, including the risk of power outages caused by overloading at peak periods. The outlook for electricity storage systems is therefore very positive.

This project will not only serve to demonstrate the contribution that advanced Advancion technology can make to stabilizing electricity grids, but it will also lay the groundwork for MC to develop projects of this nature successfully in India and in other parts of the Asia and Oceania region. More broadly, the introduction of Advancion in the region is likely to have a positive impact in terms of increasing the use of renewable energy, reducing costs related to power transmission and distribution, and lowering the volume of green-house gas emissions.

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AES Distributed Energy, a unit of AES Corp., and Kauaʻi Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) announced Jan. 10 the execution of a power purchase agreement for a plant that will provide solar energy together with the benefits of battery-based energy storage for optimal balancing of generation with peak demand.

The project consists of 28 MW solar photovoltaic (PV) and a 20 MW five-hour duration energy storage system. The system will be located on former sugar cane land between Lāwaʻi and Kōloa on Kauaʻi’s south shore. It will be the largest solar-plus-utility-scale-battery system in the state of Hawaii.

“We are honored that KIUC has selected AES to help meet their peak demand with a flexible and reliable renewable energy solution,” said Woody Rubin, president of AES Distributed Energy. “We are excited to be able to leverage AES’ energy storage platform, and 20 plus-year history in Hawai’i to help KIUC modernize the grid and provide additional value to its customers.”

“Energy from the project will be priced at 11 cents per kWh and will provide 11 percent of Kauaʻi’s electric generation, increasing KIUC’s renewable sourced generation to well over 50 percent,” said KIUC president and CEO David Bissell. “The project delivers power to the island’s electrical grid at significantly less than the current cost of oil-fired power and should help stabilize and even reduce electric rates to KIUC’s members. It is remarkable that we are able to obtain fixed pricing for dispatchable solar-based renewable energy, backed by a significant battery system, at about half the cost of what a basic direct to grid solar project cost a few years ago.”

Bissell estimates that the project will reduce KIUC’s fossil fuel usage by over 3.7 million gallons yearly. AES DE will be the long-term owner and operator of the project. The project is pending state and local regulatory approvals. If approved, it is expected to come on-line by late 2018.

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The pumped storage project being considered by San Diego could power more than 300,000 homes, while also helping add renewable energy to the grid in times of high demand. The project would also enhance the city’s efforts to run on 100% renewable energy by 2035. The Water Authority and the City of San Diego have a preliminary permit from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, allowing the agencies to pursue the development near the San Vicente Reservoir.

“When we filled San Vicente Reservoir last summer, we filled it with more than just water – we filled it with huge potential for energy benefits,” Mark Muir, chair of the Water Authority Board of Directors, said in a statement last week. “Given this new potential for energy from a recently expanded water resource, it’s only prudent to continue to research the potential benefits to our region’s ratepayers.”

The project calls for creating a small reservoir above the existing San Vicente Reservoir, and a tunnel system and underground powerhouse to connect the two reservoirs. According to the city, the powerhouse would contain four 125 MW reversible pump-turbines to move water to the upper reservoir or generating power as it flows down during peak demand. In off-peak hours, water will be pumped into the upper reservoir, the city said in a description. 

Letters of interest are due Feb. 15. An estimated value on the project is not available yet, but further details on the solicitation can be found on the Water Authority’s contracting opportunities page here. 

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Energy storage is having an identity crisis in wholesale markets, and federal regulators are trying to fix it.

The question is simple: how do you define energy storage? For system operators, the answer is varied since storage can be categorized as generation, load or both.

To solve the conundrum, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission opened a rulemaking for the nation’s six grid operators in order to make a place for energy storage in the markets.

As storage becomes cost-effective it can provide a litany of grid services and help alleviate concerns over the intermittency of renewable energy.

With that in mind, FERC opened a proceeding with a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that will amend its regulations to “to remove barriers to the participation of electric storage resources and distributed energy resource (DER) aggregations in the capacity, energy, and ancillary service markets.”

Wholesale electric markets were not designed to consider energy storage, but the FERC proceeding “might solve that problem,” Shayle Kann, senior vice president at GTM Research said at at a recent storage summit.

“The rules may not create the economic case,” he said. “But the potential is there to open the markets.”

The new tariffs must accomplish two things, according to the NOPR.

First, they must establish market rules that recognize “the physical and operational characteristics of electric storage resources” and allow them to participate in the wholesale electricity markets.

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Energy storage provider Alevo has appointed Peter Heintzelman as group CFO.

Heintzelman brings a wealth of international management and board level experience, having conducted strategic planning and successful financial management for major energy businesses around the world.

Heintzelman joins from T5 Oil & Gas, a privately-funded exploration and production firm, where his responsibilities as CFO included leading corporate and organic upstream transactions across Africa and the Middle East and maintaining a strong following in the financial markets. He brings over 25 years’ experience in the energy and energy investment banking sectors globally, with a background that includes Head of Energy roles with Standard Bank, and senior management positions at Halliburton and Enron.

“The battery storage market is poised to expand rapidly in 2017 and I am keen to be part of that process,” explained Heintzelman. “Alevo’s GridBank advanced battery technology and the high performance computing and analytics capabilities provided by Alevo Analytics are key differentiators for the company. It is clearly a successful and expanding business and I look forward to the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.”

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