Solar

As mindfulness grows in scope, reach and depth throughout America and entrenches itself in the corporate culture of businesses large and small, an increasing number of people are looking to deepen their practice during their vacations.

The long-term goal of The Ray is to build the world’s first sustainable road, a highway that could create its own clean, renewable energy and generate income by selling power to utility companies, while producing no stormwater runoff or other pollution and eliminating traffic deaths.

It turns out that we already have some remarkably innovative renewable energy storage solutions. Tip of the cap to Drawdown for clueing me in on a cool one: gravitational potential energy.

Consumers could outspend utilities in the adoption of solar, storage, electric vehicles and other distributed energy resources (DERs), making it essential for utilities to track and integrate these DERs into their planning processes to benefit their customers and the grid. That is one of the key findings of a new case study from Black & Veatch and SEPA, which details the efforts of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) to create such an integrated DER planning process.

Consumers Energy announced that it has started a new solar energy pilot program, giving Michigan residents another option to help build a clean future for our state. Consumers Energy’s new Solar Distributed Generation (DG) Pilot program allows customers to put solar panels on the rooftops of their homes, working with industry-leading solar provider SunPower to offer Michigan customers a full-service home solar solution.

Off Grid Electric is the world’s first distributed clean energy utility, providing affordable, solar energy to households that struggle with spotty or nonexistent grid access. They sell solar energy systems on a pay-as-you-go, lease-to-own model – costing some homes as little as $7 a month. That way, customers don’t have to worry about making a daunting financial investment upfront.

The Ray is featured in the Atlas Blog

The quarterly online newsletter from the Ray C. Anderson Foundation has been published.

The San Diego County Water Authority has received a $1 million incentive from the California Public Utilities Commission to build and deploy intelligent energy storage that will save ratepayers money and stretch the energy output potential of solar panels already installed at the Water Authority’s Twin Oaks Valley Water Treatment Plant.

As an industry, we can no longer merely ponder renewable energy’s march on the power grid. It's here, and customers are increasingly demanding it.