Solar Plus Storage Company Seeks to Disrupt the Status Quo — Episode 105 of Local Energy Rules Podcast

Date: 4 Jun 2020 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

In this episode of the Local Energy Rules podcast, host John Farrell speaks with Anne Hoskins of Sunrun. They discuss how the world’s leading solar-plus-storage vendor is faring in a pandemic and how utility regulation can drive transformative energy policy.… Read More

Local Energy Production Builds Resiliency in the Bay Area — Episode 101 of Local Energy Rules Podcast

Date: 8 Apr 2020 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

In this episode of the Local Energy Rules podcast, host John Farrell speaks with Jessie Denver of East Bay Community Energy. Farrell and Denver discuss how distributed energy resources can prepare communities for disaster — and increase resilience after it hits.… Read More

Island Utility Aims for Two-Thirds Renewable Energy by 2020 — Episode 92 of Local Energy Rules Podcast

Date: 4 Dec 2019 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

For this episode of the Local Energy Rules Podcast, host John Farrell speaks with David Bissell, CEO of Kauai Island Utility Cooperative. The two talk about the utility’s renewable energy achievement, the challenges of operating a utility on an island, and how Kauai provides a “postcard from the future” for other U.S. utilities.… Read More

A Massachusetts Town Realizes a Community Vision to Transition from Coal to Sol — Episode 73 of Local Energy Rules Podcast

Date: 28 Mar 2019 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States, Podcast | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

In this episode of the Local Energy Rules podcast, John Farrell interviews Lena Entin about an inspiring and successful community-driven campaign in Holyoke, Mass., to shut down an aging coal plant operated by one of the world’s largest multinational electric utility companies. The two discuss the campaign’s efforts to replace the dirty plant with clean energy to improve health outcomes for the community and provide a just transition for the power plant’s workers.… Read More

In New Op-Ed, ILSR’s John Farrell Notes Major Shifts in Technology and Decision-making Power Are Transforming Energy Sector

Date: 19 Oct 2018 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States, Media Coverage | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

In an October 2018 op-ed featured in PV Magazine, John Farrell, ILSR Co-Director and Director of the Energy Democracy Initiative, argues how important shifts in both technology and decision-making are transforming the energy sector.… Read More

Reverse Power Flow: How Solar+Batteries Shift Electric Grid Decision Making from Utilities to Consumers

Date: 17 Jul 2018 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

For 100 years, most decisions about the U.S. electric grid have been made at the top by electric utilities, public regulators, and grid operators. That era has ended, and our report details how the collective impact of individual consumers installing solar-plus-storage reverses the flow of power on the electricity grid.… Read More

Small Ohio Town to Feature Large Distributed Solar and Storage

Date: 22 Feb 2016 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

Energy storage is the “next charge” for distributed renewable energy, and the small town of Minster, OH, provides a powerful illustration. Committed to building a 3-megawatt (AC) solar facility, the village’s energy department (municipal utility) was blindsided by the state legislature in mid-2014. The state’s energy policy had previously favored purchase of solar from in-state resources, … Read More

A Perfect Storm for Renewables – Episode 18 of Local Energy Rules Podcast

Date: 21 Mar 2014 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States, Podcast | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

The Hawaiian utility, made local when the investor-owned utility left the business a decade ago, is surging toward 40% renewable energy in the next year, with a third of that total from customer-generated solar. Half its daytime energy will come from solar arrays by the end of 2015.

Learn more about how a cooperative utility has blown past purported technical barriers to renewable energy and pioneered energy storage to make solar a prominent part of their energy mix in this interview with Jan, recorded via Skype on Feb 25, 2014.… Read More

Technological Complications of Energy Storage

Date: 21 May 2012 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States | 6 Facebooktwitterredditmail

In the long run, there’s no avoiding energy storage for a 100% renewable energy society.  The two major sources of renewable power are wind and sun, and they are either fickle or reliably not available at night. The problem is that the simplest energy storage option for electricity is batteries, and this image from Wikipedia (hat … Read More

1 2 3