Why are solar PPA prices creeping upward? It’s complicated, experts say. Prices for solar PPAs in North America rose 2.6% during the first quarter of 2021 compared to the prior quarter, according to data from LevelTen Energy’s PPA marketplace. But the rise wasn’t part of any sudden shift — according to LevelTen, solar PPA prices have been creeping upward now
UC Berkeley economics and energy researchers studied the growing “electrify everything” movement, which aims to transition utility customers from natural gas toward electricity. As regulated monopolies, natural gas utility distribution companies recover fixed costs by spreading fees across their customer base. Researchers found that utilities that lose customers historically maintain pipeline infrastructure even as the customer base financing operations shrinks.
According to panelists at the US Department of Energy’s Better Buildings summit, energy service providers offering off-balance sheet efficiency products have seen rapid growth in the number of deals signed each year. A 2017 market report by Navigant estimated Energy Efficiency as a Service could become a $221 billion market by 2026, up from about $50 billion in 2017. Panelists
New ideas include income-based rates, publicly-funded infrastructure, utility entrepreneurship, and customer-funded wildfire insurance. California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) President Marybel Batjer says the state will not let skyrocketing electricity rates threaten reliability or the state’s policy goals. But affordability is a growing concern as California works toward a “future grid” and a dynamic new power system to meet the
Schools are evaluating new protocols to keep their indoor environment, students, and staff safe from pathogens. UV-C disinfection is an alternative to other disinfection regimes, such as spraying that have their own costs and dangers. R-Zero’s Arc has been shown in studies to kill 99.99% of pathogens and can disinfect a 1,000 square foot room in seven minutes. Low touch
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) will host a public workshop on the operations and performance of Pacific Gas & Electric, San Diego Gas & Electric and another utility company during 2020 preventive power shutoffs, also known as Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS). At this workshop, each utility will provide information on their 2020 PSPS performance, including lessons learned and
The City of Fresno has signed agreements with ForeFront Power, a California-based solar and energy storage developer, to implement renewable energy projects across the city. The city selected ForeFront Power for the projects based on the selection of ForeFront as the winning vendor in SPURR’s Renewable Energy Aggregated Procurement (REAP) Program. The City used the REAP Program to save time and money
Due to COVID-19, our March 30th workshop at the CASBO conference for K-12 public school district business officials was cancelled. ForeFront Power, SPURR’s winning solar and energy storage vendor, and the SPURR team decided to convert the workshop into a webinar. SPURR Managing Director, Michael Rochman, was a speaker on this webinar. Whether you’re just starting the procurement journey or are
We recently read an interesting article about the proposed legislation Senate Bill 884, the Disaster Relief Instructional Recovery Program, and we wanted to share some information with you about how it may affect you and your school or district. What The Disaster Relief Instructional Recovery Program would help schools recover both funding and school days that were lost in the
When a public agency negotiates a solar power purchase agreement (PPA) they have a somewhat counterintuitive choice to make: do we want to receive renewable energy from the solar project or non-renewable energy from the solar project? In other words, does the public agency want to retain or relinquish the project’s environmental attributes, or what are commonly referred to as renewable energy certificates (RECs)?
