EGEB: Renewable Energy in the United States has doubled since 2008, standalone street lights and more



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CGEE today:

  • Renewable electricity generation in the United States has doubled since 2008.
  • Self-powered street lamps in Chicago.
  • The largest bifacial solar park in the United States begins.
  • A Spanish football team joined the UN's Climate Neutral Now initiative.

Electrek Green Energy Brief: Review / analysis of technical, financial and daily politics of important news in the field of green energy.

In the United States, renewables produce almost double the electricity they produced in 2008, says the US Energy Information Administration. In 2018, 742 million MWh of electricity came from renewables, compared to 382 million MWh in 2008. In total, renewable energies provided 17.6% of the electricity production in the United States in 2018.

As could be expected, the increase is mainly due to wind and solar production. Wind generated 275 million MWh last year, exceeded only by hydroelectric power. But while the overall share of hydropower production remains essentially the same, wind generation is increasing steadily every year.

Solar energy generated 96 million MWh in 2018, with 69% of solar energy produced on an industrial scale. Jobs in clean energy now outnumber fossil fuel jobs in the United States.

Self-powered floor lamps

Illinois Utilities, ComEd, have recently installed five standalone street lights in two Chicago schools, reports Energy News Network. At 30 feet high, the streetlights are quite beautiful, equipped with solar panels and a small wind turbine at the top. The included batteries can store up to five nights of energy.

ComEd has partnered with Aris Wind to install the street lights, which have also been installed at a few other sites in Chicago and New York. At $ 11,000 each, the lights are not designed to replace traditional streetlights. But we can see the utility of installing some of these lamps in otherwise unlit places, and they can work during outages.

The lamps also have USB plugs and are connected to the internet. ComEd hopes to get an idea of ​​how they work in the long run.

Oregon Oil Offshore No More

On both sides now

Renewable Energy Systems began construction of the Southern Oak Solar Project in Georgia. The 160 MWac-powered Invenergy project will be America's largest bifacial solar project – generating energy from both sides of its solar panels – once completed.

All of the solar power generated by Southern Oak will be sold to Georgia Power as part of its renewable energy initiative program. Tim Jordan, vice president of construction at RES, said:

"This project offers a real opportunity to become the future of solar technology in the United States. Bifacial modules allow project owners to address land-use constraints and make the most of resources without installing more plant infrastructure. "

RES expects the project to be operational by the end of this year.

Climate Kicks

The United Nations Climate Neutral Initiative calls on "businesses, organizations, governments and citizens to work towards climate neutrality by reducing their climate footprint" in a three-step process:

  • Measure their greenhouse gas emissions;
  • Reduce them as much as possible. and
  • Compensate for those that can not be avoided by using CER certified emission reductions.

According to Environment News Service, Real Betis, a La Liga football club, Spain's top league, has joined the initiative. It seems like a first for a high-level football team to measure, reduce and offset its emissions.

Club director Ramón Alarcón noted that Spain was experiencing extreme heat and growing water shortages. He said,

"Our plan is to develop a detailed inventory of our emissions and to define more actions to be taken to reduce them. But we will not wait. We are already implementing easy-to-implement opportunities and we will become an emergency communication channel and opportunity for taking climate action, starting with actors and staff. "

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