Finnish startup Polar Night Energy and local Finnish utility Vatajankoski have together built the world’s first commercial sand-based, high-temperature heat storage system that can be powered by solar and wind. Sand-filled energy storage in Finland Polar Night Energy’s heat storage system is a 23-foot-tall steel container filled with 100 tons of sand. (Polar Night…

Eleven US East Coast states have already committed to procuring nearly 40 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind power. But increasingly powerful Atlantic hurricanes will be a threat to those future offshore wind farms. A team of scientists investigated how to make offshore wind turbines more resilient – they found that when they turned an offshore…

Plans in Europe to place a small number of coal plants on temporary standby would only add 1.3% to EU emissions annually, even in the worst-case scenario where they run at the highest levels, according to London-based energy think tank Ember.  Germany, Austria, France, and the Netherlands have recently announced plans to enable increased coal…

In 2020, 26% of US households – that’s 32.25 million out of 123.53 million homes – used electricity as their only source of energy, according to the US Energy Information Administration. But what the EIA doesn’t note is what fuels that “electricity as the only source of energy.” Electricity as the ‘only’ source of…

In 2021, 163 gigawatts (GW) – nearly two-thirds – of new renewable power added was cheaper than the cheapest coal-fired power plants in G20 countries, according to a new report released by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). The G20, or Group of Twenty, is an intergovernmental forum comprising 19 countries and the…

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has announced $56 million in funding to boost US solar manufacturing and recycling. Of those funds, $10 million will come from President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.  That money should provide a much-needed boost to the US solar manufacturing industry as around 90% of US solar panels…

GAF Energy, the sister company of GAF, the largest roofing and waterproofing company in North America, will build a 450,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Georgetown, Texas, to meet growing demand for its “world’s first” nailable solar shingle, the Timberline Solar Energy Shingle, which launched in January. The new factory, which will be GAF Energy’s second,…

New Jersey recently surpassed 4 gigawatts (GW) of installed solar power, enough to provide electricity to over 500,000 households annually, according to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities. New Jersey, which has 3.27 million households and is in the top 10 states for solar, now has more than 157,000 solar installations statewide, and…

US President Joe Biden today announced that his administration will pursue the development of offshore wind energy in the Gulf of Mexico, which is already a hub for oil and gas production. Offshore wind in the Gulf of Mexico Biden made the announcement at a former coal-fired power plant in Brayton Point, Massachusetts, that…

Solar energy jobs were up in 47 states and increased 9% percent across the United States from 2020 to 2021, reaching a total of 255,037 solar workers, reports the independent nonprofit Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC). According to IREC’s annual National Solar Jobs Census released today, this job growth took place in a year of record…