Clean Energy Finance Forum

Debate continues to simmer in California as to what role community solar projects will play as part of the state's new building codes that require solar installations on all new homes, which went into effect at the start of this year.

Louisville Gas and Electric's solar share program allows ratepayers to purchase a share of a large solar field and get a credit on their utility bills for the solar energy the share generates, WKYU-FM reports.

Early this month, three community-choice aggregators and one municipal utility serving much of California’s San Francisco Bay Area launched a 30-megawatt distributed energy storage-plus-solar solicitation. It breaks ground on multiple fronts.

Los Angeles has been sitting on a contract for record-cheap solar power for more than a month — and city officials declined to approve it because of concerns raised by the city-run utility’s labor union, which is still fuming over Mayor Eric Garcetti’s decision to shut down three gas-fired power plants.

Peaker replacement by battery storage has begun in California. Substituting bulk gas power is another matter entirely.

Los Angeles Power and Water officials have struck a deal on the largest and cheapest solar + battery-storage project in the world, at prices that leave fossil fuels in the dust and may relegate nuclear power to the dustbin.

The push by California and other states to revive a century-old technology — called “pumped-hydro storage” — underscores the limitations of modern batteries.