High Stakes, Bold Moves

Good morning and happy Friday,

In this week’s headlines, the grid is preparing to weather summer storms and U.S. utility-scale solar saw record-breaking generation levels. Meanwhile, new legislation in Rhode Island would formalize its transition to 100% renewables by 2033 and new research shows that replacing coal with renewable energy essentially pays for itself. 

The biggest, boldest news? Biden’s action to spur domestic clean energy manufacturing. Dive into it with us now. 

High Stakes, Bold Moves

This week, the Department of Energy invoked the Defense Protection Act (DPA) to bulk up the country’s domestic manufacturing of solar panels and grid-infrastructure. Under the DPA, the White House can coordinate with the clean energy industry to get supplies deemed essential to national defense. What’s vital to national security in this scenario? Robust and sustainable domestic manufacturing to meet the needs of the clean energy economy. What the Act involves:

• The DPA will allow the federal government to invest in companies that build clean energy facilities, expand renewables manufacturing, and process and install clean energy components. In particular, they’re focusing on solar, transformers, and grid components–all technologies that are usually sourced from other countries. 
• There is pending legislation to provide $100 billion in DPA funding for the clean energy sector. With this, the DOE can buy American-made clean energy products, make direct investments in facilities, or support decarbonization of military sites and businesses. 
• The DPA will shorten lead times for supplies of electric transformers. This will boost grid resiliency and reliability, as well as recovery efforts from natural disasters.

⚡️ The Takeaway

A power move at last. Instead of waiting for Congress to do something about the country’s dependence on foreign energy and imported products, the Biden Administration took action–and made clean energy a national security issue. Additionally, their focus on not only solar, but also transformers and grid components shows their commitment to a holistic view of the clean energy transition. While it’s not a catch-all, long-term solution, it’s the kind of step that climate activists and industry leaders have been waiting for from the Administration.

Proof in the Pudding

Counties with wind farms are at the forefront of rural economic development, yet the benefits are not always persuasive–or believable–at the local level. A new study from Energy Policy took a county-wide approach to studying how wind projects impact local economies, and found promising results for rural communities. The key takeaways:

• On average, counties with wind energy saw a 5% increase in per-capita income and a 6.5% increase in per-capita gross domestic product. 
• Counties with wind power also saw a boost of 2.6% in home values. This finding is especially important for dispelling the popular myth that wind farms decrease property values for neighboring homes.
• The study found that the size of the effects depended heavily on the size of the wind project. Positive results skewed towards wind farms with larger capacity installations. 

⚡️ The Takeaway

Numbers don't lie. The research method allowed them to compare economic outcomes between counties with wind turbines and counties without, as well as checking to see if compared counties had similar economic trajectories prior to projects being built. It’s a thorough, comprehensive approach to distilling the major benefits of wind on project communities.

• Lessons Learned: DOE should address lessons learned from previous disasters to enhance resilience.
• Shrinking Margins: New York lawmakers abandon bill to grow renewables as the state’s grid operator warns of tightening margins.
• Two Sides: In the Biden solar tariff compromise, were solar installers the only winners?
• New Wave: Corporate renewable energy buying strategies are evolving.

• Rhode Island Eyes 600 MW Offshore Push
• BOEM To Review Maryland’s First Offshore Project
• New York Announces 22 Solar and Storage Projects
• 80 MW Solar Project in Monroe County Nears Approval

Winds of Change

We can predict the weather, so why not predict weather-dependent electricity generation? ENGIE and Google are joining forces to use AI-powered wind-prediction capabilities to optimize ENGIE’s wind assets. With this technology, ENGIE can plan for when wind is available and better schedule its other generators to meet demand when wind supply is low.

Additionally, by scheduling hourly wind-power commitments to the grid up to one day in advance, ENGIE can capture higher revenues. Predicting wind patterns could also let it take on more market risk, potentially enabling ENGIE to be more willing to make commitments about when wind projects will generate energy.