Rising natural gas prices boost coal production and summer coal-fired generation Energize Weekly, May 19, 2021 A steady rise in natural gas prices since the start of 2021 has given the U.S. coal industry a boost as electric utilities, the nation’s prime coal consumer, are set to switch to coal-fired generation this summer. The federal…
Pandemic leads to solar industry job losses, as installations set a record Energize Weekly, May 12, 2021 Solar industry employment dropped 6.7 percent last year to 231,474, despite a record-setting year for installations, according to the 2020 National Solar Jobs Census. The cross trends are explained by increases in labor productivity which ranged from 2 percent…
Biden administration to provide $8.25 billion in loans for grid overhaul Energize Weekly, May 5, 2021 In an effort to jumpstart the overhaul of the nation’s electric grid, the Biden administration has announced two new initiatives – including $8.25 billion in federal loans. “After the Texas transmission debacle this winter, no one can doubt the…
Global energy demand is forecast to rebound in 2021, IEA says Energize Weekly, April 28, 2021 Global energy production and demand is set to rebound from their pandemic doldrums in 2021with energy consumption up 4.6 percent, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The agency said in its annual Global Energy Review that government stimulus…
Cost of winterizing Texas electricity grid worth the expense, Dallas Federal Reserve says Energize Weekly, April 21, 2021 The cost of weatherizing the Texas electric power system – which faced a major collapse during a February freeze – could run into hundreds of millions of dollars, but the expense would be worth it, according to…
Global wind market sets records for new installations and orders in 2020 Energize Weekly, April 14, 2021 Wind turbine orders and installations soared to new records in 2020, despite the pandemic, according to new market reports from BloombergNEF and Wood Mackenzie. Orders for wind turbine capacity reached nearly 100 gigawatts (GW), a 59 percent year-on-year…
Energize Weekly, April 7, 2021 Cities and towns across the U.S. installed or purchased a record 3.7 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity in 2020, a 23 percent increase over 2019, according to the clean energy consultant, RMI. The RMI analysis was based on data from the Local Government Renewables Action Tracker, which showed nearly 100…
Energize Weekly, March 31, 2021 U.S. onshore oil and gas drilling showed signs of recovery in the fourth quarter of 2020 and the first few months of 2021 – sparked by a rebound in oil prices and strong activity among private companies, according to a Colorado School of Mines report. Among the signs of the…
Energize Weekly, March 24, 2021 Solar installations in the U.S., even in the face of the pandemic economy, set a record in 2020 with 19.2 gigawatts (GW) of capacity – a 43 percent increase over 2019, according to an industry market report. “The year 2020 was a record-setting year for the industry and it won’t…
Energize Weekly, March 17, 2021 Climate change – the heat waves, flooding, droughts, and hurricanes it may bring – poses a multibillion-dollar threat to the country’s aging electric grid, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). Without significant efforts to upgrade the grid and make it more resilient, the annual cost…
Energize Weekly, March 3, 2021 Xcel Energy – in one of the country’s most sweeping initiatives to reconfigure a gird – has announced an $8 billion plan to double its renewable energy generation and storage in Colorado, add transmission and close all its coal-fired power plants in the state by 2040. The plan, to be…
Energize Weekly, February 24, 2021 The near collapse of Texas’ electric grid was caused in the main by a failure of the natural gas system from the wellhead to pipeline to gas turbine, according to an analysis by the International Energy Agency (IEA). “Texas has a power shortage because it has a gas shortage,” the…
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