Energy Shift: the “iPhone of energy” for the home

Plus: Volvo’s Polestar aims for carbon neutral car; lots of hydrogen news

Hi everyone,

Take a look at the three feature stories this week. I’m really impressed with the product that dcbel, a Montreal-based company has come up with. It’s being called the “iPhone of energy” for the home. Dcbel’s r16 really pulls off an impressive number of features: it can charge two EVs at the same time, offers fast charging (level 3), giving you 100 km of range in an hour and its bidirectional, enabling you to power your home using your car battery – and a powerful app to control and keep tabs on it all.

Meanwhile Volvo’s Polestar aims to create the world’s first climate neutral car by 2030 – the latest gauntlet thrown down by a car-maker – so I’m now watching for others to do likewise. And we have another record low solar contract price from the middle east. Scan the rest of the headlines at your leisure – lots of interesting stories in the hydrogen arena.

I really value your feedback. Please tell me what you’d rather see more of or less of.

As always, continue to forward this on to others and encourage them to subscribe!
Thanks and have a great couple weeks!
Peter

Feature Stories

The iPhone for energy: Montreal’s dcbel Raises $40M To Bring Smart Home Energy Appliances To Market | crunchbase news

Smart home energy tech startup dcbel, announced Wednesday that it has raised $40 million in funding from investors including Coatue Management, Real Ventures, WTI and Narrative Fund as it rolls out its flagship product. The Montreal-based company’s product, the r16, allows people to charge their electric vehicles quickly at home, harness solar energy, and get through a utility grid blackout by using energy stored in an electric vehicle battery to power their home.


Polestar aims to create “world’s first climate-neutral car” by 2030, without offsets | dezeen
Electric car brand Polestar has revealed its plan to eradicate all carbon emissions from its production process to create a climate-neutral car by 2030. Named Polestar 0, the project will focus on eliminating carbon emissions from its production process by 2030 rather than offsetting emissions by tree planting.


Saudi Arabia back for record low solar prices
I came across a list of record low solar prices and created this graph to see the trend. For reference, closer to home here in my home province of Alberta, the provincial government signed a PPA for CAD$48/MWh. Saudi Arabia is again the record holder, with a contract recently signed at USD$10.40/MWh. Impressive, though not likely repeatable elsewhere owing to the availability there for ultra cheap financing .


Consumers & Finance

BlackRock Raises $4.8 Billion to Invest in Renewable Power | BNN Bloomberg
BlackRock Inc. has raised $4.8 billion for a new fund to invest in renewable power assets around the world – almost double its initial target. The company’s real assets division closed on its third global renewable power fund, drawing money from over 100 institutional investors.

Bank of America boosts its ESG financing goal to $1 trillion by 2030 | Utility Dive
Combined with the bank’s $500 billion pledge toward socially inclusive finance, the figure effectively doubles Goldman Sachs’s landmark $750 billion ESG pledge from 2019. Bank of America last week more than tripled its environmental financing goal, saying it wants to deploy more than $1 trillion by 2030 to accelerate the transition toward a low-carbon, sustainable future.

Temasek and BlackRock commit $600 million to invest in firms working to reduce carbon emissions | CNBC
Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings and asset manager BlackRock will team up to invest in private companies that use technology to reduce carbon emissions, the companies said Tuesday.

Danone-owned dairy giant unveils lifetime carbon emissions for its products | edie
Horizon Organic, the largest USDA certified organic dairy brand in the world, has publicly disclosed the summary of life cycle assessments (LCA) for its whole milk half gallons, in a bid to outline areas of improvement as it strives to become “carbon positive” by 2025. ….If a person was to drink one glass of Horizon Organic whole milk each day for a year, the emissions would be equivalent to driving 632 miles.

Canadian fertilizer producer Nutrien to cut greenhouse gas emissions 30% by 2030 | Financial Post
Canada’s Nutrien Ltd, the world’s largest fertilizer producer by capacity, said on Thursday it aimed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 30% by 2030, in a plan costing the company up to $700 million.

New York state pension fund says it’s selling off a $7M stake in oilsands | CBC
The third-largest U.S. public pension fund says it’s transitioning to net-zero investments. New York’s multi-billion-dollar government-run pension fund announced today that it’s pulling investments worth more than $7 million out of some of Canada’s major players in the oilsands.

Heineken targets carbon-neutral value chain by 2040 | edie
Global brewer Heineken has unveiled a new corporate strategy to become carbon-neutral across its operations by 2030 and then across its entire value chain by 2040.

Technology

Hydrogen

Plans for European Hydrogen Backbone expanded to 40,000 km | H2 View
Originally unveiled in July 2020 by 11 European gas infrastructure companies from nine EU members states, the European Hydrogen Backbone (EHB) report has now expanded to nearly 40,000km covering 11 new countries, with 12 European gas TSOs joining the EHB initiative.

Hydrogen storage pilot project in underground salt dome reaches milestone | RenewEconomy
German energy provider EWE has completed the first stage of a test project to see whether the safe storage of green hydrogen in underground caverns is possible. The company has laid the foundations at a salt dome site in Rüdersdorf near Berlin with the installation of 160 steel pipes at a depth of up to 1,000 meters, the utility said.

World’s Biggest Solar Company Joins the Hydrogen Game | BNN Bloomberg
China’s Longi Green Energy Technology Co., the world’s biggest solar company, is entering the hydrogen market, industry publication Solarzoom reported. Xi’an Longi Hydrogen Technology Co. was registered March 31 in China, according to Solarzoom.

SSE, Equinor Plan World’s First Hydrogen Power Plant in U.K. | BNN Bloomberg
Norwegian energy major Equinor ASA will work with SSE Plc to develop two new low-carbon power plants in the most polluting part of the U.K, including the first in the world running on hydrogen.

Chart, Plug Power, Baker Hughes invest $300 million to advance hydrogen | H2 View
Chart Industries, Plug Power and Baker Hughes want to become cornerstone investors in Pierre-Etienne Franc’s FiveT Hydrogen Fund, a new unique clean-hydrogen-only private infrastructure fund dedicated to delivering clean hydrogen infrastructure projects at scale.

Michelin Reinforces Bet on Hydrogen to Move Beyond Tires | Financial Post
Michelin is intensifying efforts to make fuel cells as the French company bets that growing demand for hydrogen vehicles will help reduce its dependence on tires.

ScottishPower’s green hydrogen project looks to build UK’s largest electrolyser | Current±
ScottishPower has submitted a planning application for the UK’s largest electrolyser as part of the Green Hydrogen for Scotland project.

German energy giant RWE in key green hydrogen trading deal in South Australia | RenewEconomy
Australian hydrogen project developer The Hydrogen Utility (H2U) and German energy giant RWE plan to develop a green hydrogen trading scheme between Australia and Germany which would transport green hydrogen produced in South Australia into Europe.

Netherlands unveils €338m (USD$400MM) plan for scaling up hydrogen | pv magazine
The Netherlands has announced 1.35 billion of investment through its National Growth Fund, almost a fourth of which (around 338 million) will be used to scale up hydrogen projects.

Carbon Capture

U.S. startup plans to build first zero-emission gas power plants | BNN Bloomberg
A new kind of power plant that doesn’t add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere is being built in the U.S., potentially providing a way for utilities to keep burning natural gas without contributing to global warming. Net Power intends to build two natural-gas power plants in the U.S. that will have all its emissions captured and buried deep underground.

Energy Storage

California to install 1.7GW of battery storage in 2021 to boost grid supply | RenewEconomy
In an effort to stave off a repeat of 2020s summer blackouts, California is planning to install 1.7GW worth of new battery storage by August, according to new figures published this week by BloombergNEF, more capacity than China is expected to install.

Wärtsilä’s DC-coupled solar-plus-storage hybrid enables Georgia Power to make full use of resource | Energy Storage News
Hickory Park Solar project, a 200MW PV power plant in the US state of Georgia, will be equipped with a battery energy storage system that allows the local utility company to maximise the benefit of the renewable resource.

Li-Cycle picks strategic US location for third NA commercial lithium battery recycling plant | Energy Storage News
Canada-headquartered lithium-ion battery recycling specialist Li-Cycle will build its third facility in Arizona, joining plants the company already operates in Ontario and New York State.

Solar and Wind

India tenders 1.2 GW of hybrid wind-solar projects | pv magazine
Projects selected in the procurement exercise will sell power to the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) under a 25-year PPA.

Goldman-Backed ReNew to Invest $9 Billion in India’s Green Push | Financial Post
ReNew Power Pvt., one of India’s biggest renewable power producers, plans to invest $9 billion in wind and solar projects through 2025 amid a government-backed effort to reduce emissions.

Ireland to replace last coal plant with huge green hub and floating wind farm | RenewEconomy
The Republic of Ireland is set to say goodbye to coal, after the state-owned Electricity Supply Board announced it would transform its last remaining coal generation, the 915MW Moneypoint facility, into a green energy hub, including a 1.4GW floating offshore wind farm.

In a World of Big Wind, There’s Still a Place for Tiny Turbines | BNN Bloomberg
High above the treeline on a hillside west of Australia’s Coffs Harbour, a small, white turbine — about the size of a large standing fan — is attached to the top of a telecommunications tower.

Masdar to triple Uzbekistan wind farm to 1.5GW | NS Energy
Masdar, also known as the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, has reached an agreement with the Government of the Republic of Uzbekistan to extend the capacity of its utility-scale wind farm project to up to 1.5GW.

Saudis Plan Major Solar Development in Bid to Cut Emissions; signs agreements for 3.67 GW | BNN Bloomberg
Saudi Arabia announced a major development plan for solar energy as it looks to slash emissions and cut how much oil it burns for power.

Wind Power Group, Tokyo Gas and Vena to accelerate offshore wind project | Power Technology
Three energy companies are set to fast-track the development of the Kashima offshore wind project in Japan.

J-POWER USA converting retired Virginia coal plant into solar + storage project | Solar Power World
Power plant developer J-POWER USA and funds managed by affiliates of Fortress Investment Group have agreed to jointly develop Birchwood Solar, a 50-MWac solar plant and Birchwood Storage, a 190-MWac energy storage facility. These projects would convert Birchwood Power Facility, a coal plant that has been in operation since November 1996 in King George Virginia, into facilities that will generate and store clean renewable energy.

Phanes Group to develop 200MWac solar project in Uzbekistan | PV Tech
Dubai-based Phanes Group has signed a deal with the government of Uzbekistan to develop a 200MWac PV project in the country.

Jinko shipped 18.7 GW of modules in 2020; 31% higher than 2019; expects to ship 30GW in 2021 | PV Magazine
The Chinese module manufacturer saw its net profit rise only slightly last year, despite a larger increase in turnover and shipments. It expects to almost double its shipments to up to 30 GW of PV modules in the current fiscal year.

South Korea wants to build large-scale PV along highways | PV Magazine
The new plan comes on top of a scheme launched in late March to deploy solar using railway infrastructure. The Korean government expects private developers will build solar plants on the highways’ idle sites for a combined capacity of 243 MW by 2025.

Chevron Invests in Offshore Wind Energy for First Time | Financial Post
Chevron Corp.’s venture capital arm and Moreld Ocean Wind agreed to invest in Ocergy Inc.’s development and commercialization of floating offshore wind turbines.

Facebook meets 100% renewable energy goal with over 6 GW of wind, solar | Utility Dive
Facebook said Thursday it had procured enough new renewable projects to meet 100% of energy needs for its global operations through clean resources, as of last year. The company has contracts in place for more than 6.1 GW of wind and solar across 18 states and five countries, within the same electric grids that power its data centers and operations.

Iberdrola begins construction at 210MW hybrid wind, 107MW solar project in South Australia | IFEEFA
Spanish utility Iberdrola SA said today it has installed the first turbine at its 317-MW hybrid wind and solar power project in South Australia.

Transportation

GM and LG to spend $2.3 billion on second EV battery plant in U.S. | CNBC
GM and LG Chem will invest $2.3 billion in a second U.S. battery cell plant for electric vehicles in Tennessee, the companies announced. The plant will support production of GM’s upcoming Cadillac Lyriq crossover and other future EVs at a nearby assembly plant.

Huawei to invest US$1B on car tech it says surpasses Tesla | BNN Bloomberg
Huawei Technologies Co. will invest US$1 billion on researching self-driving and electric-car technologies, accelerating plans to compete with Tesla Inc. and Xiaomi Corp. in the world’s biggest vehicle arena.

Volkswagen wants to stabilise grid by adding V2G in all its electric cars | The Driven
The VW Group wants to become the first major car-maker to start rolling out “vehicle-to-grid” (V2G) technology in all its electric cars to sell services back to the electricity grid and help stabilise fluctuating energy supply from renewables.

BYD to start selling in-vehicle batteries to other companies | Nikkei Asia
Major Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer BYD will start selling in-vehicle batteries to other companies as early as the second half of this year, Nikkei has learned.

GM announces electric Chevy Silverado pickup that can go 400 miles on a single charge | CNN
General Motors announced Tuesday that it will produce an all-electric Chevrolet Silverado truck, with an estimated driving range of more than 400 miles on a single charge. The truck will join an increasingly crowded field of competitors from established automakers like Ford (F), which has already said it will make electric version of its F-Series pickup, as well as startups, such as Tesla (TSLA), with the Cybertruck, and Rivian, with the R1T.

Daimler to hit the gas on electric shift after strong start to 2021 | Reuters
Mercedes-Benz maker Daimler said on Wednesday it will accelerate its shift to electric cars as it builds on a strong start to 2021 despite a global semiconductor chip shortage, but gave no details of how fast its car line-up will go electric.

BYD putting lithium iron phosphate battery in all its own EVs, enabling 600km range | Kr-Asia
Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer BYD said on Wednesday it will equip all of its vehicles with a newly developed battery in a move aimed at expanding its battery business.

XL Fleet will install up to 1,000 EV charging stations at UBS Arena | Electrek
EV charging solutions company XL Fleet announced a partnership with UBS Arena and the New York Islanders that could create one of the largest EV charging sites in the US. The partnership will allow XL Fleet to install up to 1,000 charging stations at UBS Arena’s 43-acre site, which is the future home of the National Hockey League’s New York Islanders.

LG Energy and SK Innovation settle EV battery dispute; Biden sees ‘win’ for US auto industry | AP News
Two big South Korean electric vehicle battery makers said Sunday they have settled a long-running trade dispute that will allow one company to move ahead with plans to manufacture batteries in Georgia.

Audi unveils production version of e-tron Q4 electric SUV with over 300 miles of range | Electrek
Audi is unveiling today the production version of the e-tron Q4 and e-tron Q4 Sportsback, the German brand’s latest electric SUV. It is expected to expand Audi’s electric vehicle lineup to a new and less expensive segment.

Volkswagen’s ID.4 to cost $44,995 in Canada, qualifying for federal rebate | Electric Autonomy
The relatively affordable 400-kilometre range crossover SUV will be rolled out first in Quebec and British Columbia this summer before becoming more widely available in 2022.

Circular Economy

The Body Shop takes refill stations global, saves 25 tonnes of plastic waste | Cosmetics Business
In an effort to make beauty refills mainstream, The Body Shop has kick-started a roll out of its refill stations to more than 400 stores globally.

Policy

Washington state passes bill with goal to phase out gasoline cars by 2030, earliest in US | Yahoo/Reuters
Washington state lawmakers passed a bill on Thursday setting a target to stop sales of gasoline-fueled vehicles there beginning in 2030, five years sooner than California.

These Dutch cities will allow only zero-emission deliveries by 2025 | World Economic Forum
Cities in the Netherlands want to make their air cleaner by banning fossil fuel delivery vehicles from urban areas from 2025. To encourage transport organizations to go carbon-free, the government is offering grants of more than US$5,900 to help businesses buy or lease electric vehicles.

Canada launches Hydrogen Strategy Steering Committee | JWN
The federal government has announced a Hydrogen Strategy Implementation Strategic Steering Committee. The committee will advance and measure the progress outlined in the Hydrogen Strategy for Canada launched in December 2020.