Plus: Chinese redox flow battery starts; VW signs $2.9B battery JV; NY wants another 2GW of renewables; Hertz teams with BP for 1000’s of EV chargers
Hi Everyone,
Next weekend is already Thanksgiving here in Canada and I admit that snuck up on me. Since I piled up enough stories this past week, I am getting this out before our long weekend.
Jump to my comments below and skim the rest of the headlines below. And as always, continue to encourage others to subscribe.
Thanks,
Peter
Comments (and an education) on Public Transit
I’ve taken public transit practically my entire career. In fact, you can thank my nearly one-hour commute for this newsletter – because I use that time to catch up on all my news feeds. With the backdrop of a mega trend to increased urbanization, I imagine most of you live in a city. So most of you have likely encountered debates about what to do for getting us all around to where we need to be – in cars, or on more buses, bikes and trains.
I have been spending a fair bit of time lately aiming to understand how to reduce end use emissions or in industry terms “Scope 3” emissions. When I began learning about the barriers to reducing end use emissions in cities, it wasn’t entirely a surprise to learn that we really should be making transit better in cities across Canada and the US. That is where Jarrett Walker comes in. His approach to “drain the emotion” and explain how pubic transit solves the geometry problem of traffic is really worth the 45 min master class video below. Really! It is worth it.
[Excerpt] Jarrett Walker is a guru in the world of transit system design. Named one of Planetizen’s Top 100 Most Influential Urbanists, his human-centered approach to this basic need has helped him to plant a flag in the ever-changing landscape of public transit.
Something on the lighter side…
Scientists discover renewable energy source in mediocre white men’s confidence | The Beaverton
Hundreds of years of privilege has transformed white male confidence into a pure, clean burning source of fuel, according to a study published by the University of British Columbia.
Finance & Sentiment
Brookfield Announces $1.5 Billion in Renewable Energy Acquisitions | ESG Today
Brookfield Asset Management’s flagship listed renewable power company Brookfield Renewable announced today an agreement, alongside institutional partners, to acquire renewable energy developer Scout Clean Energy for $1 billion in cash, as well as the closing of its $540 million acquisition of commercial and distributed solar company Standard Solar.
Princeton’s $38 Billion Endowment to Exit Holdings in Fossil Fuel Companies | ESG Today
Princeton University’s $38 billion endowment will eliminate all holdings in publicly traded fossil fuel companies as part of the university’s fossil fuel dissociation policy, and as part of its commitment to achieving a net zero portfolio, according to a statement from the university.
Technology
Hydrogen
Equinor and Tallgrass team up to explore hydrogen in the US | Upstream
Norwegian energy giant Equinor is working with US company Tallgrass Energy to develop large-scale hydrogen and ammonia projects in North America.
Vattenfall commissions pilot facility in 100GWh green hydrogen underground cavern in Sweden | Energy Storage News
Swedish state-owned energy company Vattenfall has commissioned a green hydrogen storage pilot facility within a 100GWh capacity cavern.
NYPA burns up to 44% green hydrogen in GE turbine in first such retrofit of a US natural gas plant | Utility Dive
The New York Power Authority on Friday announced it successfully mixed green hydrogen with natural gas and used the fuel to generate electricity with reduced emissions from a retrofitted General Electric combustion turbine. The demonstration project also involved the Electric Power Research Institute and Airgas, a subsidiary of French-based Air Liquide.
Joint venture created for 1-gigawatt green hydrogen plant in Finland | IEEFA
Prime Capital is establishing a joint venture to build and operate a green hydrogen and methane plant in Finland, with a total capacity of over 1GW.
Geothermal
Chevron to Collaborate on Advanced Geothermal Technology Project in Japan | Hart Energy
[Excerpt] Through the agreement, the two companies will explore the technical and commercial feasibility of Japan’s advanced geothermal power capabilities through studying resource potential and evaluating advanced closed loop (ACL) technology’s effectiveness for a future pilot program.
Energy Storage
China connects world’s largest redox flow battery system to grid | pv magazine
Image: Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics
Dalian Rongke Power has connected a 100 MW redox flow battery storage system to the grid in Dalian, China. It will start operating in mid-October and will eventually be scaled up to 200 MW. The vanadium redox flow battery technology was developed by a division of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Victoria targets 6.3GW energy storage by 2035, announces two new big batteries | RenewEconomy
Victoria’s Labor government will help fund two new big batteries and grid forming inverters to kick off its Australia-first plan to target 2.6GW of new energy storage capacity for the state by 2030, and a huge 6.3GW of energy storage by 2035.
Volkswagen Builds Out Battery Supply Chain With $2.9 Billion Cathode JV | BNN Bloomberg
Volkswagen AG is deepening its European battery supply chain with a 3 billion-euro ($2.9 billion) joint venture to make battery materials that feed growing electric-car demand amid tightening legislation on local production.
CATL and FlexGen sign 10GWh battery storage contract at California trade event | Energy Storage News
FlexGen has signed a multi-year supply deal with CATL that the energy storage company’s CEO said puts it ahead of the queue in a crunch time for battery supply.
Solar and Wind
Tiny Oregon town hosts 1st wind-solar-battery ‘hybrid’ plant | AP
A renewable energy plant in Oregon that combines solar power, wind power and massive batteries to store the energy generated there officially opened Wednesday as the first utility-scale plant of its kind in North America.
Scottish Power secured record-breaking 19 renewable energy projects in first half of 2022 | Current
Scottish Power has confirmed it secured 19 renewable energy projects in the first six months of 2022 totalling more than 9GW – a record for the firm.
Saudi Arabia launches 3.3 GW renewables tender | pv magazine
Saudi Arabia’s latest procurement exercise will facilitate the construction of 1.8 GW of wind power at three sites and two solar parks with a combined capacity of 1.5 GW.
New York launches solicitation for 2GW of large-scale renewables | PV Tech
[Excerpt] The solicitation, launched by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), calls for approximately 4.5 million MWh of renewable electricity per year, similar to the state’s fifth solicitation in 2021.
Nova Scotia sets five-gigawatt target for offshore wind power by 2030 | Halifax City News
Nova Scotia announced y its intent to make offshore wind power a key driver of its future energy supply, setting a target of awarding leases for five gigawatts generated from offshore turbines by 2030.
Transportation
New York announces new zero-emission vehicle mandate by 2035 | Electrek
New York’s Governor Kathy Hochul announced Thursday there will be “no more excuses” not to buy an electric vehicle after directing the State Department of Environmental Conservation to take significant action to accelerate the state’s transition to clean transportation to protect the environment.
Hertz is teaming up with oil giant BP to install thousands of EV chargers in the U.S. | CNBC
[Excerpt] Under the deal, BP Pulse, the oil company’s EV-charging arm, will install the chargers and provide software and services to help Hertz manage its fast-growing fleet of EVs.
US, Netherlands and France have Largest Networks of Public EV Charging Connectors | BNEF
BloombergNEF published an updated ‘dashboard’ tracking the latest progress on zero-emission vehicles adoption, covering key statistics such as vehicle sales, charging infrastructure deployment and oil demand impacts. Access the key findings and a full dashboard.
[Comment] Note that the full dashboard can be found here.
Uber to Exclusively Offer Electric Vehicles by 2030 | Tree Hugger
Ride-sharing platform Uber set a major goal of only offering electric vehicles in its fleet by 2030. According to Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, this means drivers without electric cars will not be allowed to use the platform.
SAIC and Pony.ai to co-develop ground-up level 4 autonomous robotaxis | Electrek
SAIC AI Lab, a division of SAIC Motor in China, has announced a collaboration with advanced driverless AI developer Pony.ai to design and implement a new fleet of driverless level 4 autonomous robotaxis. The companies kicked off their new project by unveiling a fully autonomous EV concept from which the fleet will be built.