2/2 Two for Tuesday. Similarly EnergyStar also received full funding. "More than 1,200 organizations lobbied Congress last year to save EnergyStar" Those clever organizations claimed "its elimination would damage the real estate sector". 🔌💡 www.utilitydive.com/news/energy-...

1/2 Two for Tuesday. 2 programs that @mcresearch.bsky.social profiled last year LIHEAP and WAP have survived into 2026! I am 😲 and 😃 at this turn of events. 🔌💡 www.utilitydive.com/news/federal...

3/3 Farm Friday. And in Canada from a Western University study; growing lettuce in the shade from agrivoltaic systems showed “Lettuce yields increased by over 400% compared to unshaded control plants, and 200% relative to national average yields". 🔌💡 pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/01/30/a...

2/3 Farm Friday. @canarymedia.com Meanwhile in Missouri, farmers like Dane Reed fight for "our fundamental right to choose our most profitable crop. And right now, solar energy generates twice the revenue of any other crop we can produce.” 🔌💡 www.canarymedia.com/articles/foo...

1/3 Farm Friday. From @solaranne.bsky.social David Norbut's farm "pairs regenerative farming with solar energy generation, thus supporting working farmers, improving soil & biodiversity" Strengthening, rather than displacing, local food systems. 🔌💡 pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/01/29/t...

3/3 Balcony Power - UL steps up. "UL Solutions has released design standards for balcony solar, also known as plug-in pv, along with whitepaper highlighting three main risk categories of balcony solar in the US consumer market." 🔌💡 pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/01/28/h...

2/3 Balcony Power stalled in the US but help is on the way. "Bills have been introduced in at least 24 states to allow residents to install and use plug-in devices with outputs of up to 1,200 watts — without utility company permission." pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/01/30/w...

1/3 Balcony power! "Millions of balcony solar systems have been deployed in countries like Germany, which regulates the technology. But only about 5K have been installed in the US" "plug-in solar has remained in the shadows due to a lack of safety standards" 🔌💡 www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

2/2 Similarly in Texas, Base Power developed a network of distributed batteries that lets The Farmers Electric Cooperative "keep costs affordable for its members by using the batteries to shave system peak and perform energy arbitrage" Power to the people. 🔌💡 www.ess-news.com/2025/12/11/b...

1/2 As we talked about in The Duck Curve NEM 3 and YOU - pt 4, letting a 3rd party control your devices, batteries etc takes some faith. In MA "National Grid can strategically deploy this existing, scattered energy equipment during periods of high demand" 🔌💡 www.canarymedia.com/articles/vir...

3/3 Hump Day Hodge-Podge. "Reactivate, an Invenergy company, & WM have announced a plan to develop solar energy projects on up to 50+ former landfill sites." @mcresearch.bsky.social may need a field trip to the 25.4 MW facility in Pittsburg, CA. 🔌💡 pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/01/27/r...

2/3 Hump Day Hodge-Podge. Another PV Magazine article on Hyperscalers and their affinity with solar + storage. "Today, solar + storage is scaling rapidly while competing technologies face multi-year delivery timelines." 🔌💡 pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/01/26/t...

1/3 Hump Day Hodge-Podge. Hyperscalers look to provide their own power behind the meter. @mcresearch.bsky.social knows microgrids. "Microgrids no longer imply modest size, with new projects scaling up into the hundreds of megawatts & even gigawatt size." 🔌💡 pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/01/26/b...

4/4 Metal Monday. @mcresearch.bsky.social favorite Comstock Metals expands to Central CA. "The site serves as a satellite hub for the collection, preparation, and aggregation of decommissioned solar panels from across the Western United States." 🔌💡 pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/01/12/c...

3/4 Metal Monday. Emiliano Bellini explains "Solar manufacturers are facing rising cost pressure as silver paste now accounts for up to 30% of total cell production costs" “Silver has been on a near-continuous bull run since last April, rising more than 180%” 🔌💡 pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/01/14/s...

2/4 Metal Monday. Speaking of copper: "Chinese module manufacturer Longi has revealed that it will be...moving toward copper-based metallization as rising silver prices and cost pressures weigh on the solar manufacturing supply chain." 🔌💡 www.pv-magazine.com/2026/01/06/r...

1/4 Metal Monday @andyhomemetals.bsky.social on metals in the global market. 👍 - NICKEL AND COBALT IN THE SLOW LANE - LITHIUM DOMINANT … FOR NOW "One thing is for sure though: Copper will still be essential to wiring both vehicle and charging infrastructure." 🔌💡 batteryindustry.net/ev-revolutio...

2/2 Similarly in MI: "Rather than competing with prime agricultural land, the project utilizes the treatment center’s existing buffer zones & irrigation fields, providing a stable revenue stream for the county, Moorland Township & the Ravenna School District." 🔌💡 pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/01/05/m...

1/2 Via @jeffstjohn.bsky.social & @canarymedia.com “Our growers have this issue: ​‘I have 100 acres of land but only enough water to irrigate 50 of those acres. What do I do with the remainder of those acres?’” Harvest solar! 🔌💡 www.canarymedia.com/articles/sol...

3/3 Cool ones. From @austinanaya.bsky.social - cool news in New Mexico where the state is ahead of its interim ETA goal of 50% renewables by 2030. Anaya adds:"my analysis finds that greater reliance on wind and hydropower is associated with lower prices"! 🔌💡 www.complexeffects.com/p/new-mexico...

2 of 3 Cool ones. I 100% am going to watch this. Via @solaranne.bsky.social Solar Roots the story of visionaries (and some hippies) "anticipated to debut in Oct. 2026 at the Solar Roots Party in Grass Valley, Ca." Check out the photos in the article! 🔌💡 pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/01/22/u...

1/3 Cool ones. "In a parking lot in Dearborn, Michigan, next to the Henry Ford Museum, 3 streetlights now double as EV chargers." "We don’t have to do costly utility upgrades to the grid in order to this” Jeff Prosserman, CEO Voltpost 👏 Voltpost+AT&T+Dearborn 🔌💡 www.fastcompany.com/91473312/det...

3/3 in a nerdy series. More sodium-ion news but this time the innovation is the manufacturing model. Unigrid’s cost-efficient foundry manufacturing model "allows it to scale rapidly without the capital burden of building its own factory" 🔌💡 www.ess-news.com/2026/01/16/s...

2/3 in a nerdy series. Brown scientists: "the descriptors developed in the research work, including pore size, specific volume, and carbon topology, could serve as practical design guidelines for optimizing carbon-based electrodes in sodium-ion batteries." 🔌💡 pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/01/21/n...

1/3 in a nerdy series today. Keeping an eye on perovskite news: “The key novelty of this work is the introduction of a co-crystal engineering strategy for 2-dimensional (2D) perovskites based on neutral molecules, rather than conventional ionic bulky cations” 🔌💡 pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/01/15/r...

4/3 (oops) Meanwhile Tesla counter attacks. "Tesla has introduced a new all-black solar module for residential use." 🔌💡 www.pv-magazine.com/2026/01/16/t...

3/3 Ford and GM figure what's good for Tesla should be good for them. Telsa's Powerwall and Powerpack margins "are about double those of Tesla’s automotive business, and its revenue is now about 20% of the EV maker’s total." 🔌💡 www.cnbc.com/2026/01/15/f...

2/3 And again with the Google: "CO2 batteries are intended to play a role similar to that of lithium-ion battery units to store excess renewable energy to help ensure data centers have clean, reliable power when needed." 🔌💡 www.utilitydive.com/news/google-...

1/3 More big American company news. First off Amazon acquiring Sunstone Solar Project follows an industry trend. "The direct ownership of the Sunstone project allows the company to control the generation schedule for its regional data center operations." 🔌💡 pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/01/16/a...

Normally this is the beat of @jdeely.bsky.social but as @danmccarthy.bsky.social says this is a "huge milestone." He also says "Texas faces the same reality as the rest of the country: Solar and storage are simply too cheap and easy to deny." 🔌💡 www.canarymedia.com/articles/sol...

Early last year @mcresearch.bsky.social pointed out that rate inflation needed to be included in any ROI calculation for Solar and Solar plus Storage projects be they commercial or home systems. Welcome to the party Wood Mackenzie (@woodmac.com)! 🔌💡 pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/01/14/e...

5 for Friday. 5/5 Those lovable scamps Sunrun and HASI have joined up to invest in America to the tune of $500,000,000 "The joint venture supports the development of home-based energy systems to address power demand and grid reliability." 🔌💡 pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/01/06/s...

5 for Friday. 4/5. Norwegian firm Otovo has entered the US market. "The acquisition of California-based solar maintenance firm, Solar Service Professionals (SSP), moves Otovo into the largest residential solar market in the U.S." 🔌💡 pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/01/09/a...

5 for Friday. 3/5. Google! "Under Google, Intersect Power is expected to focus on “energy parks” that co-locate hyperscale datacenters with generation and battery energy storage assets." This “behind-the-meter” approach will by pass interconnect bottlenecks. 🔌💡 pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/01/02/g...

5 for Friday. 2/5. Honda! That's who. With Ford and GM pulling back does Honda sense an opportunity? Who else? 🔌💡 www.utilitydive.com/news/honda-b...

5 for Friday. 1/5 Ah a new year time for reflection and prognostication. One of the 6: "Renewables remain a large and growing resource, despite federal policy U-turn". We think so too! You know who else does? 🔌💡 www.utilitydive.com/news/utility...

Not really my bailiwick but can someone tell me how this makes any sense at all? As we build more Data centers I worry about cyberattacks on our energy infrastructure..I can't help it, I used to be responsible for millions of healthcare data records. www.utilitydive.com/news/cisa-lo...

From Reuters: As battery capacity grows in the CAISO and ERCOT power markets, the impact of discharging storage systems can be detected in power-flow models

@danmccarthy.bsky.social brings us cautionary tale from Greece. "We owned the grid connections,” Elena Giannakopolou, the chief strategy officer of PPC. ​“That’s why Western Macedonia was such a special place for us. It was our vehicle to the new day.” 🔌💡 www.canarymedia.com/articles/jus...

Intriguing partnership of solar and ranching. Rute President Doug Krause,"Cooler ground produces more and better grass varieties and water retention, so more beef per acre. That cooler ground and 13-ft elevation in turn cools the panels, so more electricity.” 💡🔌 www.pv-magazine.com/2025/12/19/r...

3/3 Though Illinois is not our usual beat, the interview with Kavi Chintam, from Vote Solar, a policy-focused nonprofit - is a great explainer on how battery storage fits in and its importance. Dr. Chintam holds a doctorate in chemical engineering. 💡🔌 insideclimatenews.org/news/2312202...

2/3 Exciting new tech from Hydrostor:Advanced compressed-air energy storage - "When the system is ready to discharge, it...allows the air to flow back to the surface, where it recombines with the stored heat and drives a turbine to generate electricity." 💡🔌 www.utilitydive.com/news/hydrost...

1/3 @phoebeskok.bsky.social peeks into the future in this 2026 preview that covers one of @mcresearch.bsky.social's favorite topics: Battery technology! 💡🔌 pv-magazine-usa.com/2025/12/31/w...

3/3 Since we're talking about Central California & Tesla. “With its range of up to 500 miles, the Semi unlocks opportunities that were previously beyond the limits of heavy-duty EVs,” Jim Monkmeyer, transportation president at DHL Supply Chain, North America 💡🔌 www.utilitydive.com/news/dhl-add...

2/3 Then: Petr had a young daughter & saw the need for activities & food while charging. Now: Gas stations are not nice places to spend 20 or 30 minutes. ​“Hopefully in the future, we’ll see more of them turn into coffee shops, cafes” Scott Hardman UC Davis💡🔌 www.canarymedia.com/articles/ev-...

1/3 From the woulda-coulda-shoulda dept. Years ago when Tesla was a rising star my buddy Petr (das-film.com) and I talked about creating on charging hub on I-5 in CA. And now: "For almost every day of the year, it’s 100% sunshine powering cars” Max Zegher, Tesla 💡🔌 cleantechnica.com/2025/11/27/l...

3/3 @mcresearch.bsky.social fave Ryan Kennedy adds to the Ford and SK On pivot: "Ford will utilize BlueOval Battery Park Michigan in Marshall, Michigan, to produce smaller Amp-hour cells for use in residential energy storage solutions." Interesting💡🔌 pv-magazine-usa.com/2025/12/16/f...