The federal IRA has made it possible for governments and tax-exempt entities like houses of worship to get tax credits for renewable projects.

Across the country, houses of worship are going solar

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On a Sunday morning in Charlevoix, a small town surrounded by lakes in northern Michigan, people gathered in the Greensky Hill Indian United Methodist Church. The small, one-room log building is almost 200 years old and the hymns are sung in English and Anishinaabemowin.

It was December, so Pastor Johnathan Mays was leading an Advent service, one of his last, since he would soon retire. In between reflections on scripture, Mays touched on an important venture: The church was planning to install solar panels on its larger meeting hall, working with Michigan-based nonprofit Solar Faithful to do so.

Greensky Hill has a long history of environmental care and stewardship, grounded in Anishinaabe culture, with a majority Native congregation.

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Source: Grist

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Around the world, people are watching California try to decarbonize electricity completely by 2045 while growing its $4-trillion economy.

All eyes on California to figure out energy decarbonization, economic growth, and fairness

Around the world, people are watching California try to decarbonize electricity completely by 2045 while growing its $4-trillion economy and making sure low-income communities share in the benefits of clean energy and avoid any unfair burdens. Some people are looking to learn what to do where they live. Others want to see California fall on its face.

“Many folks are actually really rooting for our California clean energy experiment to fail, but in fact it’s succeeding,” David Hochschild, chair of the California Energy Commission, said Jan. 29 in opening a two-day conference at Stanford University. The CEC is responsible for the planning the state’s energy system. It co-sponsored the first day of the conference, which was hosted by Stanford’s Precourt Institute for Energy and the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. The day focused on how researchers can help California achieve its climate goals.

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Source: Stanford University

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Three groups challenge an appeals court ruling that upheld the California Public Utilities Commission’s NEM 3 decision.

Critics of California’s recent change in solar rules take their case to state Supreme Court

Despite being turned back by the California Public Utilities Commission and an appeals court in San Francisco, three groups have taken their fight to overturn recently passed rules regarding rooftop solar to the California Supreme Court.

The San Diego-based Protect Our Communities Foundation joined the Environmental Working Group and the Center for Biological Diversity in filing a petition for review Monday afternoon with the high court.

The groups argue that a decision issued last month by the First Appellate District wrongly upheld the utilities commission’s vote that overhauled net energy metering guidelines, which determine the compensation that solar customers receive when their systems generate more energy than they consume.

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Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune

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According to forecasts from Wood Mackenzie, California’s residential solar market will see a 40% decline in 2024.

A new reality: The path forward for California’s solar and storage industry

California’s rooftop solar and storage market is changing, and the industry is learning to operate in this new reality.

California has been America’s top solar market for over a decade, installing more solar capacity than any state every year until Texas took over in 2021. While California reclaimed the number one ranking in 2022 and installations look strong in 2023, the shift in 2021 may be a preview of what is to come.

In late 2022, after years of debate, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) unanimously approved a new way to compensate rooftop solar customers for the excess energy they generate. This decision moves the state from retail rate “net metering” to a new “net billing” structure that cuts the value of rooftop solar credits by about 75%.

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Source: SEIA

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The North Carolina Utilities Commission has given Duke Energy the green light to move ahead with its PowerPair residential solar-plus-storage incentive program

Duke Energy pilot could open door to VPPs at vertically integrated utilities

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Dive Brief:

  • The North Carolina Utilities Commission has given Duke Energy the green light to move ahead with its PowerPair residential solar-plus-storage incentive program, which will begin enrolling customers in May.
  • The program — capped at 30 MW each for Duke Energy Progress and Duke Energy Carolinas — will award incentives of up to $9,000 for 6,000 customers who agree to install rooftop solar and home batteries and to participate in one of two cohorts. One cohort will test Duke Energy’s time-of-use rates, while another cohort will receive a monthly incentive in exchange for allowing utility control of the installed batteries.

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Source: Utility Dive

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Instead of collecting the sun’s energy on the ground, it may be possible to harvest it in space using satellites.

NASA lays out the path to space-based solar power

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A new NASA report found that space-based solar power — a futuristic concept pulled from the pages of science fiction — is likely too expensive to work, but it also lays out exactly what would need to change to make it a viable source of clean energy in the future.

The challenge: Solar power is a revolutionary weapon in the battle against climate change. Every hour, enough solar energy hits Earth to power the entire world for a year, and the cost of harnessing this energy with solar panels has fallen exponentially in recent years.

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Source: Freethink

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San Diego Community Power recently added a pair of renewable energy projects to its energy portfolio, including one in South County.

San Diego Community Power OKs contract for battery storage project in Chula Vista

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San Diego Community Power recently added a pair of renewable energy projects to its energy portfolio, including one in South County.

At its monthly meeting earlier this month, the community choice energy program serving customers in seven jurisdictions across San Diego County approved signing contracts for a solar and battery storage project in Kern County and a battery facility that will be built in Chula Vista.

SDCP agreed to a 15-year deal with Wellhead Electric Company, which is building the Chula Vista Energy Center 2 that will provide 50 megawatts of capacity and nearly 200 megawatt-hours of power from a 4-hour lithium-ion battery system.

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Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune

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A new 1.5-megawatt solar array will be installed atop a warehouse in Panorama City that will generate renewable energy to power 200 homes.

Large-scale rooftop solar project unveiled in Northeast San Fernando Valley

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With a flip of a ceremonial switch, Los Angeles elected officials, business leaders, and community partners celebrated one of the largest rooftop solar panel systems to be installed in the Northeast San Fernando Valley – a new 1.5-megawatt solar array atop a warehouse in Panorama City that will generate enough renewable energy to power 200 homes.

The Valley project is the latest to take advantage of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s (LADWP) Feed-in Tariff (FiT) solar program, which enables building owners to create solar power plants on their rooftops and sell the power they generate to the Department for distribution on the city’s power grid.

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Source: yahoo!finance

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BLM issued a Notice to Proceed authorizing Avangrid to begin construction of the Camino Solar Project, a 44MW solar photovoltaic facility.

BLM approves Camino Solar Project in Kern County

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Today, the Bureau of Land Management issued a Notice to Proceed authorizing Avangrid to begin construction of the Camino Solar Project, a 44-megawatt solar photovoltaic facility that will be located on 233 acres of public lands and 150 acres of adjoining private land in Kern County.

“The Camino Solar Project will expand access to clean energy for Californians and increase reliability for the state’s power grid,” said BLM California Desert District Manager Shelly Lynch. “Projects like this one support the nation’s transition to a clean energy economy by adding more carbon-free electricity to the grid, creating jobs, and boosting local economies.”

The project is expected to employ 150 people during peak construction, include a 34.5-kV underground electrical collector line, and connect to the existing Southern California Edison Whirlwind Substation through the Manzana Wind Substation and associated 220 kV generation-tie line.

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Source: BLM.gov

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CVS Health is going solar at nearly 1,000 locations through a new agreement with Constellation Energy Corporation.

CVS continues sustainable energy efforts at East Coast, California stores

CVS Health is going solar at nearly 1,000 locations through a new agreement with Constellation Energy Corporation.

The pharmacy chain has announced two agreements that total 264,000-megawatt hours with Constellation to purchase zero-emission, renewable energy equivalent to the annual electricity use of nearly 1,000 CVS Health locations in California, Washington D.C., Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey.

CVS Health’s deals are made possible by Constellation’s long-term agreements with solar projects located in California and Maryland. CVS will receive approximately 264,000 megawatt hours of energy per year through its retail agreement with Constellation, with that energy matched by Green-e Energy Certified RECs sourced from other renewable facilities throughout the U.S.

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Source: CSA

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