How Much Battery Storage Does a Solar PV System Need?
Blowout Week 70 featured Tesla’s new 7 kWh and 10 kWh lithium-ion battery storage units. Will they allow households with rooftop solar PV systems to store enough surplus solar power to fill domestic...
View ArticleBlowout week 86
CO2 emissions are in the news in advance of the forthcoming Paris Climate Conference, and now we learn that CO2 emissions from China, the world’s number one emitter, may have been significantly...
View ArticleBlowout Week 99
Read on to learn about backfiring OPEC strategy, the plight of Canada's oil producers, the US rig count (down again), hope for the North Sea, Luxembourg joining Austria in the Hinkley suit, the...
View ArticleBlowout week 106
We kick off with "Climate Change" and the recent UK floods? Below the fold: Saudi Arabia considers privatizing Aramco, earthquakes in Oklahoma, a natural gas leak in California, TransCanada sues Obama...
View ArticleThe Holy Grail of Battery Storage
A recent Telegraph article claims that storage battery technology is now advancing so fast that “we may never again need to build 20th Century power plants in this country, let alone a nuclear white...
View ArticleBlowout Week 146
Blowout this week begins with the EU embracing electric vehicles (EVs) and directing citizens to install charging points at home; EU and California target zero emissions; in Germany and China...
View ArticleSolar power on the island of Ta’u, a preliminary appraisal
A 1,400kW(p) solar PV array backed up by 6,000kWh of battery storage and a smart grid has been installed on the island of Ta’u in American Samoa. It’s widely reported that this system already allows...
View ArticleCan Hawaii go 100% Renewable?
Hawaii’s Renewables Portfolio Standard commits it to obtaining 100% of its energy from renewables by 2045, and Hawaii proposes to do this by wholesale replacement of fossil fuel generation with solar....
View ArticleBlowout Week 159
This week’s lead story features Germany’ faltering Energiewende. We continue with OPEC, Iran, Venezuela, more US oil & gas jobs, Rex Tillerson on Paris and subsidies, Norway to increase oil...
View ArticleBlowout Week 169
We kick off with President Trump's approval of the Keystone XL pipeline and follow up with stories on the soaring US rig count and OPEC; China’s oil production continues to fall; North Sea oil &...
View ArticleBlowout Week 173
In this week’s Blowout we feature Carbon Capture and Storage. The 240MW Petra Nova CCS project in Texas (inset) is now completed, and the 5,000 tons of CO2/day it’s expected to capture will be used for...
View ArticleBlowout Week 174
This week's blowout kicks off with Australian plans to use Tasmanian hydro to balance mainland supply. And follows with the alarming recent drop in oil discoveries (h/t Hugh Sharman), OPEC’s output...
View ArticleBlowout Week 175
This week we kick of with news that the oil price has returned to the level it was at when OPEC announced the production cuts that were initiated in January 2017 and the quandary that OPEC and Russia...
View ArticleBlowout Week 176
This week we feature Tesla’s new line of solar roof tiles and what they mean for the world’s sustainable energy future, following up with more bad news for OPEC, Trump puts off Paris decision again,...
View ArticleBlowout Week 181
We kick off with a giant battery capable of powering 170 homes for a day and follow with our usual mix of stories from around the world, including OPEC production up in May, natural gas stockpiles...
View ArticleA highly misleading article on solar power
Articles that predict a great future for solar energy are two a penny these days, but every so often one comes along that’s worth a post to itself. Such an article, recently aired by the Motley Fool,...
View ArticleBlowout Week 184
Elon Musk, making good on his promise to solve South Australia’s energy woes, has signed a contract with the South Australia government to install the world’s largest (100MW/129MWh) battery bank next...
View ArticleThe real strike price of offshore wind
The headline "Offshore wind now cheaper than nuclear power" is very much in the news following the latest offshore wind auction in the UK where the lowest bids came in at £57.50 / MWh, well below the...
View ArticleBlowout Week 200
We celebrate our 200th Blowout with a visit to the storm-ravaged island of Puerto Rico, where Elon Musk is about to show the world how to build a grid from scratch using Solarcity panels and Tesla...
View ArticleWill solar panels and Tesla Powerwalls meet your home’s energy needs?
Tesla is now marketing its Powerwall2 storage battery for domestic applications, claiming among other things that it can make your home self-powered and blackout-proof. Here I review Tesla’s claims...
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