Yesterday, Enphase revealed the Enphase Energy Management System that they claim could revolutionize solar power and its integration into the grid. The new Gen 5 “S Series” micro-inverter is bi-directional, allowing for more energy to be stored, managed, and controlled. The system’s AC Battery is a modular, plug and play battery. This will allow you to simply add storage as you go (and as your funds allow) instead of ponying up for a massive battery storage system all at once. Thirdly there’s an app (gotta have an app!) that allows users to match loads to energy generation, store energy when it is most profitable to do so, and other controls. Read more about it here.
Experts Say Savage RET Cuts Will Line The Pockets Of Big Energy
Ian McFarlane and environmental minister Greg Hunt have proposed a huge reduction in the RET from the legislated (and previously bi-partisan) 41,000 gigawatt hours of renewable energy to 27,000 gigawatt hours by 2020. However, doing this will put billions of dollars worth of renewable energy investment at risk while boosting the profits of their mates in the fossil fuel business. For more information, click here.
They have taken a baseball bat to a policy that has been stable and bipartisan for 4 election cycles, and are blaming the opposition for the mess, because Labour refuse to join in the savage beating. It is very clear that the whole RET policy has been corrupted by the politics of fear and anger. Fear that renewable energy champions (in their eyes: all Greenie Hippies who are somehow “anti electricity”) might have been right all along and anger that anything might challenge the supremacy of the coal industry that has lined their biggest supporters’ pockets for so long.
(They have also promised that solar will be “untouched”. Which is rubbish. Although they are not proposing changes to the residential (small scale) solar scheme, they are still proposing a reduction from 100kW to 10kW in the maximum size of a commercial system that is eligible for rebates. This would really hurt the commercial solar market. Not to mention that meddling with the system could cause the price of STCs to plunge)
Knowing Where the Power Lies Helps All
Last week, ARENA declared that $425,000 will be used to fund a project creating online maps of electricity network constraints in order to increase the use of renewable energy and be able to inform network investments more efficiently. The lack of clear and consistent network information has been an ongoing issue but this project hopes to make that a thing of the past.
With the rise of rooftop solar and local generation in Australia, managing networks has been increasingly challenging over the years. The hope is to update these online maps annually to keep their findings accurate and lower costs in the long term. For more on this development, click here.
Commercial Solar Storage Developed By Stem/Kyocera Team-Up
Stem Inc. and Kyocera Inc. have collaborated to develop a more cost effective and efficient way to store solar electricity for commercial users. Using Stem’s behind-the-meter storage and analytics in conjunction with Kyocera’s solar panels, many commercial customers should be able to massively reduce their imports from the grid. This also includes the ability to inject additional power during peak demand, potentially reducing peak usage charges.
Stem believes it can predict power usages up to 30 days in advance in order to properly prepare. Pretty cool. For more on this story, click here.
David Einhorn Predicts Further Growth in SunEdison
The CEO of Greenlight Capital, David Einhorn, gave a presentation in a conference in Wall Street recently. At the Robin Hood Investors Conference, Einhorn gave offered two ideas:
1) His thesis regarding SunEdison (who bought Energy Matters just the other week), why he ranks it as the best performing solar company on the stock market and why he rates it a “Buy”.
2) Possible solutions to the current debt crisis in Greece and France (but we found the Sun Edison stuff much more interesting!)
For more information on his presentation, click here.
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