solar energy

Renewables and Republicans in the Rustbelt

Republican Governors in Ohio and Michigan have given support to renewables. Indiana, not so much.

When people think of the rustbelt, they think of places like Cleveland, Gary, and Detroit.  Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan form a cluster of states under solid Republican control, Republicans controlling the governor’s mansion and both houses of the legislature. All three states went for Trump, with varying margins. The three states also have commonalities in …

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Solar Plus Storage May Be a Good Deal for Some

One company says that photovoltaics with battery storage are cost-competitive for some businesses now.

A battery company called Coda Energy says that a combination of solar photovoltaics and onsite storage can be cost-competitive with utility electric service for some larger customers. That is according to an online article on greentechgrid. Solar is still a more expensive option for power production than fuels such as natural gas, and various energy …

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Getting Permission to Go Solar

Last summer, Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE) issued a report, at the request of Governor Jerry Brown, identifying barriers to the accelerated deployment of “distributed” renewable energy projects. This document was the result of a stakeholder conference hosted by the Governor, located on campus at UCLA, and substantively managed by Berkeley …

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Guest Blogger Ken Alex: California’s Road to 2020 and Beyond

Ken Alex is a Senior Advisor to Governor Jerry Brown and the Director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research.  The views expressed in this blog post are his own. Four years ago, when I was the head of the Attorney General’s environment section,  I wrote a series of guest blogs for Legal Planet …

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If It Quacks Like a Duck: Intermittent Renewables and the Grid

At an energy policy conference that I attended on campus recently, one of the speakers asked how many people in the audience were familiar with the Duck Chart. As someone who tries to stay on top of things in the energy world, I was surprised by how many people raised a hand to express familiarity …

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Christie Goes Solar

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed legislation a few days ago to strengthen the state’s solar industry. Utilities will be required to 2.05% of their power from solar in 2014, rising to 4.1% in 2028. The law also sets a price cap of $339 for each megawatt-hour short of the goal in 2014. According to …

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A New Report on the Governor’s Local Renewable Energy Initiative

Last July, I reported on a conference convened at UCLA by California Governor Jerry Brown to further his efforts to increase the amount of local renewable electric generation in California to 12,000 megawatts of installed capacity by the year 2020. Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment provided the substantive support for that event, …

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Exploring Policies to Promote Local Renewables

Last July, California Governor Jerry Brown held a conference, hosted by the Luskin Center at UCLA, to launch his initiative to achieve 12,000 megawatts of local renewable energy projects in California by 2020.  Local renewables, often called distributed generation, are projects no larger than 20 megawatts located close to customer demand. Berkeley Law’s Center for …

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Cheap Solar Provides Some Reason for Climate Optimism

Solar energy is getting really cheap.  And that fact could alter the landscape of energy production and the course of climate change in ways we can only begin to imagine today. One of the conundrums of climate change  is trying to predict the future.  This difficulty in prediction may be especially true with respect to …

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Post-Tsunami Japan Teaches the World About Energy Within Limits

Earlier this summer, I accompanied a class of renewable energy law students to a home in Vermont that is “off the grid”.  The family lives quite comfortably – television, microwave oven, electric washing machine, sizable refrigerator.  With the exception of a small diesel generator, which they use once or twice a year, they derive all …

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