Plus: Power from falling snow? Chicago pledges 100% clean energy; NYC bill requires buildings to reduce emissions
Hi Everyone,
Happy Easter!
I highlight here a few important stories from this week, but scan the others as well.
ThinkProgress reported that Bloomberg has again shortened its forecasted cross-over when electric car reaches cost parity with gas-powered cars. In 2017, they forecasted it to happen in nine years (2026). In 2018, they forecasted it to happen in six years (2024), and now they are forecasting it to happen in 2022 – just three years away. Meanwhile The Driven, reports that a Tesla Model 3 (at US$44,500) already costs less than a Toyota Camry to own, at least in the US (the Ark Invest blog provides a link to the Total Cost of Ownership model spreadsheet you can download to see their assumptions). For those that dig into this, let me know your thoughts.
Mark Carney, Bank of England Governor, (and former Governor of the Bank of Canada) helped pen an Op-Ed in The Guardian bringing attention to the ‘Network for Greening the Financial System’, a coalition of 34 central banks that issued its first report prescribing actions to address the game-changing risks posed by advancing climate change to the global financial ecosystem. “The four recommendations in the report provide all central banks, supervisors and the financial community with deliverable goals that will help to ensure a smooth transition to a low-carbon economy.”
Use of energy by Americans hit a new high in 2018, with a 4% increase attributed to the need for more heating and cooling during extreme weather events, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). “Fossil fuels in all accounted for 80 percent of Americans’ energy use,” the Associated Press said in its summary of the EIA data.
I will be taking a break, so watch for the next update on May 5th.
Thanks,
Peter
Proterra scales up battery leasing for electric bus adoption | Electrek
Excerpt: US electric bus manufacturer Proterra is scaling up its battery leasing program, removing one of the largest barriers to widespread e-bus adoption as it looks to put its buses on even footing with diesel counterparts when it comes to upfront costs.
Comment: This is a really interesting way of overcoming the high cost of electric buses and is just another example of ‘energy-as-a-service’ joining all the other forms of ‘-as-a-service’ emerging.
Winters Are Only Going to Get Worse, So Researchers Invented a Way to Generate Electricity from Snowfall | Gizmodo
Excerpt: The farther you get from the equator, the less effective solar panels become at reliably generating power all year round. And it’s not just the shorter spans of sunlight during the winter months that are a problem; even a light dusting of snow can render solar panels ineffective. As a result of global warming, winters are only going to get more severe, but there’s at least one silver lining as researchers from UCLA have come up with a way to harness electricity from all that snow.
Comment: Huh?
Tandem PV Secures a Rare Fund Raise for Perovskite Solar | Greentech Media
Excerpt: The window of opportunity for venture-grade returns on solar hardware had passed, the thinking went, and trying to use fancy tech to compete with low-cost Chinese manufacturing was sheer folly. Tandem PV found support instead at Cyclotron Road, the tech-focused incubator housed at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, and from there moved down to the heart of Silicon Valley to begin commercialization.
Comment: I’ve had perovskite on my watch list for a while. This is an interesting development on the path to true commercialization.
Daimler Leads $170M Investment in Sila Nano’s Next-Generation Battery Tech | Greentech Media
Excerpt: The startup suggests that its materials can increase the capacity of a lithium-ion battery by 20 percent to 40 percent.
Comment: While an investment of this size has some risk associated with it, a big company like Daimler needs to stay on the forefront of battery technology. We can question the claimed capacity increase, but if it is real – it’ll not only be a wise investment, but means a very material increase in EV range.
Some of the tallest wind turbines in the US are going up in southern Texas | Electrek
Excerpt: Duke Energy is installing 590-foot (180-meter) windmills from Vestas near Laredo, which would make them among the tallest onshore wind turbines in the country, if not the tallest. Each turbine has a 3.6 MW capacity, and the project will total 200 MW, generating enough electricity to power 60,000 homes.
Comment: For reference, that is just 10m shy of the Calgary tower, and a touch taller than the Seattle Space Needle.
Other key headlines from the past week:
- Chicago Pledges 100 Percent Renewable Energy by 2040 | World Economic Forum
- Illinois Awards 215 Megawatts of Community Solar, but Developers Are Left Hungry | Greentech Media
- China’s $447 Million Solar Subsidy Could Yield 30 Gigawatts In 2019 | CleanTechnica
- Nearly half of utilities globally exploring distributed energy management systems – pv magazine USA
- British Fishermen Offer A Glimpse Of The Future For U.S. Counterparts Worried About Offshore Wind Impacts | 27east.com
- Duke plans 6 utility-scale solar projects in North Carolina | E&E News
- Self-driving cars may need more fuel than previously thought | E&E News
- New York City bill requiring buildings to cut greenhouse gas emissions is world’s first | Electrek