Farmers, Rural Businesses Eligible for Energy Grants

December 8th, 2011

Farmers and companies in rural communities interested in installing renewable electricity techniques are qualified for grants of up to $ 50,000 by means of The Rural Power for The united states Program.

U.S. Department of Agriculture officials count on to approve 110 awards totaling $ three million. The filing deadline is Oct. 5.

“This grant is an exceptional chance for rural corporations and farmers to get gain of federal funding to lessen fees and upgrade their energy infrastructure. The California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley is extremely help of such measures of sustainability and progress for our rural partners,” stated Mike Dozier, director of the Office of Group and Economic Development at Fresno State University.

Eligible applicants are agriculture producers and rural small organizations. The farm businesses have to make at least 50% of their cash flow from agriculture functions. The grants are to be utilized for feasibility studies for renewable-energy programs.

The Rural Energy for America Software is developed to help farm firms and rural tiny corporations minimize electricity usage and expenses, and to help meet the nation’s crucial vitality demands.

For more info, here is the website link to the Federal Sign-up.

Renewables win 2, lose 1

December 2nd, 2011

Renewable energy in California took some punches to the gut and scored some victories some this week and last.

On the upside, the California Public Utilities Commission appears poised to launch an incentive system meant to enhance renewable electricity assignments and San Luis Obispo County moved the 250 megawatt California Valley Photo voltaic Ranch a huge stage ahead by issuing a draft environmental affect report.

On the downside, the California Legislature failed to move a renewable energy invoice and the business even now faces the prospective passage of Prop. 23, which would roll again 2006 weather adjust laws.

The proposed CPUC selection issued this week would call for California utilities to obtain electrical power from solar and other renewables that generate from a single megawatt to 20 megawatts. A megawatt is about the quantity consumed by 1,000 properties.

The measure would set up what is acknowledged in the sector as a feed-in tariff, which essentially provides renewable vitality generators about what it expenses to create electrical power.

Read more »

Storing Energy Is Key to Renewable Power

November 29th, 2011

Electricity storage, as visitor columnist Rick Phelps of Substantial Sierra Energy Groundwork, mentioned in this modern website, is crucial to the complete renewables work. Following all, wind and solar are intermittent, and we want to find ways to economically help save the electrical power for later use.

That’s where two assignments come in. In the initial, Colorado-centered Ice Electricity has obtained $ 24 million in investment financing to help its deployment of utility-scale power-storage assignments, such as a 53-megawatt venture underneath way with the Southern California Public Energy Authority, which contains 12 entities, like Los Angeles Department of H2o and Electricity and municipal utilities in Anaheim, Riverside, Burbank and Glendale.

The joint powers authority delivers electricity to two million clients about an place of seven,000 square miles.

In the other, Southern California Edison introduced an arrangement with the U.S. Department of Energy for a $ twenty five million stimulus grant to build and carry out a comprehensive demonstration of lithium-ion battery storage for electricity created by wind projects.

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Biggest Solar Plant Approved in California

November 23rd, 2011

The approval of a solar thermal plant by the California Energy Commission is the most up-to-date in a string of comparable proposals that, if produced, could provide a lot more than 1,five hundred megawatts of electrical energy – adequate to electricity 1.5 million properties.

Electricity commissioners just licensed the Blythe Solar Electricity Project a concentrated solar thermal electric-making facility with 4 adjacent and identical photo voltaic plants of 250 megawatt each and every that could generate up to 1,000 megawatts.

Todd Woody, in this New York Occasions website, calls it the world’s greatest solar thermal plant.

The task, which even now waits major funding, would use arrays of parabolic mirrors, similar to people in the picture, collect warmth power from the sun to develop steam and then energy. The site is about two miles north of U.S. Interstate-10 and eight miles west of the Metropolis of Blythe in an unincorporated region of Riverside County.

The whole location that will be disturbed by task building and operation will be about 7,030 acres. The area inside the project’s protection fence, in which all task facilities will be located, will occupy approximately 5,950 acres.

This is massive. And Woody mentioned that an added 2,829 megawatts of solar power is on the drawing boards and going through at Dec. 31 approval deadlines. We have written about some of that right here.

Southern California Edison Turns On Solar In Porterville

November 16th, 2011

A ground-mounted Southern California Edison photo voltaic undertaking in the San Joaquin Valley – and 1 of the biggest utility-owned websites in the state – is to be activated these days. The amazing show of 29,400 panels is on 32 acres of city land adjacent to the Porterville Municipal Airport.
The panels will produce ample electricity for four,300 houses, according to this Fresno Organization Journal story from October. Talks of the venture very first arose as an inquiry a lot more than a year back and a lease was signed previous summer season. Here’s an earlier tale from the Porterville Recorder.

The installation is a single of numerous owned by Edison in California. The panels are mounted and placed at a 25 diploma tilt, optimum for this distinct area. The utility compensated the $ 18 million cost of the undertaking, which is tied into a close by distribution circuit.

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