Image: TerraPower Bill Gates’ TerraPower broke ground yesterday on its Natrium nuclear reactor plant, making it the first advanced reactor project ever to start construction. Once it comes online, the Natrium demonstration plant in Kemmerer, Wyoming, will be a fully functioning commercial power plant. According to Gates, founder and chairman of TerraPower, Natrium will “be the most advanced…

Photo: Mercedes-Benz Germany’s automakers manufactured around 1.27 million BEVs and PHEVs in 2023, putting it at No. 2 behind China, but 2024 will be bumpy. The German automotive industry association VDA says that 995,000 purely electric vehicles rolled off German assembly lines in 2023. China dominates global EV production, but most of its cars are sold…

Photo courtesy of Tom Brewster/BLM California Governments are rolling out renewables at a record pace, and tripling capacity by 2030 is within reach – it’s time to make Paris Agreement targets official. Global renewable capacity additions reached almost 560 gigawatts (GW) in 2023, an unprecedented 64% year-over-year increase from 2022, and China was by far…

Photo: CGTN The world’s largest solar farm, in the desert in northwestern Xinjiang, is now connected to China’s grid. The 3.5-gigawatt (GW), 33,000-acre solar farm is outside Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital. The state asset regulator’s website cited the Power Construction Corp of China and said it came online on Monday. The solar farm will generate…

US Customs and Border Protection (US CBP) has selected Verdek’s EV Oasis Off-Grid DC Fast Charging Solutions to charge its Ford F150 Lightnings that monitor the southern borders of New Mexico and Arizona. This mobile, fully off-grid charging station is complete with dual ports, Verdek said, and is powered by renewable energy. The company said…

Photo: SolarEdge Thomas Edison’s birthplace and museum in Milan, Ohio, is now officially powered by a donated rooftop solar system. SolarEdge donated the inverter and Power Optimizer solution, Meyer Burger provided the rooftop solar panels, and Unirac donated the racking system. National Renewable Energy Partners provided their expertise and labor to install the rooftop solar…

Photo: US Department of Energy The US Department of Energy (DOE) is going to repurpose sites previously used in the nuclear weapons program into solar farms. DOE is negotiating leases with two developers for solar farms within the 890-square-mile Idaho National Laboratory (INL) site, in Idaho Falls. The plan is to produce 400 megawatts (MW)…

Photo: Cypress Creek Renewables In Q1 2024, the US saw the largest quarter of solar manufacturing growth in its history, bringing its total installed capacity to 200 GW. A record-setting 11.8 gigawatts (GW) of new solar panel manufacturing capacity came online in the US during Q1 2024, making up 75% of all new electricity-generating capacity…

Hitachi Energy will invest an additional $4.5 billion by 2027 to strengthen the electricity grid and accelerate the clean energy transition. Global tech company Hitachi Energy’s order backlog has more than tripled to over $30 billion since 2020. In just the last month, Hitachi Energy says it signed key HVDC framework agreements with RTE in France, RWE in…

Photo: DongFang Electric Corporation China has installed an 18-megawatt (MW) offshore wind turbine – the world’s largest by power rating – in Guangdong province. State-owned power generator manufacturer Dongfang Electric Corporation completed the installation of the massive wind turbine at a coastal test base in Shantou on June 5. China’s 18-MW offshore wind turbine…