Renewable Energy Focus
Bloomberg - Feb 18
Citigroup Inc. plans to lend, invest, and facilitate deals worth $100 billion by 2025 to support projects that will fight climate change and protect the environment. Citigroup expects the effort to lead to deals supporting renewable power, energy efficiency, and sustainable transportation opportunities, Chief Executive Officer Michael Corbat said in a speech in New York Wednesday. Citigroup’s new target puts it well ahead of other financial companies, including Bank of America Corp., which said in 2012 it would support $50 billion in deals for low-carbon initiatives, and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which announced a $40 billion program the same year.
Solar Industry Magazine - Feb 17
Kaiser Permanente announced plans to purchase enough renewable energy to provide half of the electricity it uses in California and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions nationwide by 30 percent. Through a 20-year contract with an affiliate of NextEra Energy Resources, Kaiser Permanente will purchase electricity from the 110-megawatt Blythe solar energy plant in Riverside County, California, as well as the output from 43 megawatts of wind power from new turbines at the Golden Hills wind farm on the Altamont Pass in Alameda County, California. In a separate agreement, Kaiser Permanente agreed to purchase as much as 70 megawatts of on-site solar production from NRG Energy Inc.
Solar Industry Magazine - Feb 12
Glendale, California-based Coronal Group LLC has acquired most of the assets of Charlottesville, Virginia-based HelioSage Energy and formed Coronal Development Services LLC. Together with Panasonic Eco Solutions, Coronal currently owns and operates a portfolio of nearly 100 megawatts of solar facilities in North America. The HelioSage acquisition will add in excess of 300 megawatts of projects with "notice to proceed" status and more than 1.5 gigawatts of projects in development.
San Francisco Business Times - Feb 13
Ever since the world's most famous solar panel startup, Solyndra, went bust in 2011, the company’s headquarters in Fremont have stood vacant. San Mateo-based SolarCity Corp. has now leased the roughly 200,000-square-foot, two-building facility. The lease facilitates a new R&D center and headquarters for Silevo, the Fremont-based startup that SolarCity acquired last year to gain its own panel-manufacturing muscle for the first time.
Notable Renewable Energy Projects and Deals
San Francisco Business Times - Feb 19
Accusations that the state of California failed to consider clean energy options in replacing power once supplied by the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station are falling on deaf ears, as utility regulators and the state’s top court reject appeals from local and national environmental groups and embrace two new gas-fired power plants as an early substitute. One of the successor plants, the Pio Pico Energy Center southeast of San Diego in Otay Mesa, is slated for construction starting March 9, and San Diego Gas & Electric is seeking approval for a second gas-fired power plant twice that size at Carlsbad, to replace nuclear power and prepare for the imminent retirement of the 60-year-old, gas-fired Encina Power Station.
KPBS - Feb 17
San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) announced Tuesday that a $5 million state grant will allow the utility to expand a solar-powered microgrid in the desert to provide for all of the electricity needs in Borrego Springs. The funding from the California Energy Commission will allow the utility to make the Borrego Springs microgrid one of the largest in the country that relies solely on renewable energy.
Washington Post - Feb 12
Tesla is working on a battery that can power your home and help large-scale utilities store energy more efficiently, according to company chief executive Elon Musk. On an investor call Wednesday, Musk said the designs for a home or business battery are already complete and will likely be unveiled to the public "in the next month or two." Production could be as little as six months away, he added. Storing renewables efficiently has been a big bottleneck for consumers and for utilities alike, but if Tesla's stationary battery takes off, it could change the way electricity is priced and traded on a market scale.
Central Valley Business Times - Feb 18
An 81.6-megawatt solar farm built on 737 acres of what was an abandoned oil field near Lamont in Kern County has gone online, according to its builder, SunEdison Inc. The Regulus solar facility is one of SunEdison's largest utility-scale solar power plants in California, and it is anticipated to provide almost $184 million in revenue to local businesses, governments, and households during the first 20 years of operation, the company says.
