QUICK NEWS, May 4: WHAT TESLA BATTERIES NEED TO SUCCEED; WIND RUSH GOES INTO 2015, NON-UTILITY PPAS STILL TRENDING; FERC DENIES STUDY FOR SOUTHEAST POWER SHARING

WHAT TESLA BATTERIES NEED TO SUCCEED Tesla's New Home Energy Storage Solution Still Needs Help to Be a Breakthrough; For Tesla’s cheap Gigafactory-produced battery cells to truly disrupt stationary energy storage, it needs more partnerships and acquisitions in power electronics, software, and with utilities

May 1, 2015 (Lux Research)

“…[The] new offerings for stationary energy storage [from Tesla], including the Powerwall battery for residential energy storage…[and] massive capacity for lithium-ion batteries from its Gigafactory coming online soon…[mean] Tesla and its supplier Panasonic need new markets…[T]he burgeoning stationary energy storage market is a ripe target – but it will need more help to succeed, according to Lux Research…The distributed energy storage space already has many players offering standalone and solar-connected battery systems, so Tesla is certainly not the first to market. However, the EV maker does have key product scaling benefits afforded to few of its competitors, through its relationships with Panasonic for lithium-ion cells and SolarCity, the largest residential solar installer…[but it] must tackle three key areas…Cost reduction beyond [$350/kWh]…Offering financing and new residential business models…[and working] with utilities, not against them…” click here for more

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WIND RUSH GOES INTO 2015, NON-UTILITY PPAS STILL TRENDING Dow Chemical, Walmart, Kaiser Permanente, and Google Energy took over half of Q1 PPAs; Wind power industry touts strong growth

Devin Henry, April 30, 2015 The Hill

The U.S. wind energy industry is in the middle of a near record expansion, with over 13,600 MW of capacity in construction at 100 sites in 23 states, according to the U.S. Wind Industry First Quarter 2015 Market Report from the American Wind Energy Association. Several factors are driving the “wind rush” but the most important is probably the extensions of the 2013 and 2014 production tax credit which allowed projects to qualify by beginning construction or investment in the year and be completed in 2015 and 2016. Texas, the leading state for installed wind capacity, also leads the $23 billion expansion with 7,800 MW in construction and 110 MW of Q1’s 131 MW of completed installed capacity. The other top 5 states in the rush are Oklahoma with over 890 MW under construction, Kansas with more than 870 MW, New Mexico with 680 MW, and North Dakota with over 530 MW. There were 1,200 MW of U.S. wind energy capacity construction begun in Q1 including the U.S. wind industry’s first offshore wind project, Rhode Island’s 5 turbine, 30 MW Block Island installation. Building on a trend begun in 2014 when almost a quarter of all new PPAs came from the private sector, over half the Q1 750 MW of new power purchase agreements were from four companies: Dow Chemical (200 MW), Walmart (50 MW), Kaiser Permanente (43 MW), and Google Energy (43 MW). click here for more

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FERC DENIES STUDY FOR SOUTHEAST POWER SHARING Federal Regulators Deny Complaint over Glut in Southeastern Electric Supply – Without Denying the Excess Supply Exists; “Regulatory Contortion” allows Duke Energy, others to keep gouging customers by building power plants instead of sharing regional resources as the regulators have urged

Jim Warren, May 1, 2015 (NC WARN)

Despite huge amounts of excess power generation capacity on hand now and for decades to come – and dozens of large power plants sitting idle most of the year – protected monopoly utilities across the southeast keep building more plants instead of buying power from each other as federal regulators have urged…[but] those regulators denied a complaint by watchdog group NC WARN without contesting the federal data we used to show gross oversupply across the Southeast…In a classic Catch-22, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) denied our request for an independent study into how many billions could be saved annually if southeastern utilities begin sharing power supply through regional cooperation, as FERC has pressed for. FERC says we didn’t supply enough data…[but that] study is the only path to get all of the data on the table…NC WARN cited utility and federal data showing that southeastern utilities maintain power plant capacities ranging from 24 to 37 percent above the highest usage of the year. Those reserves are over twice as high as the industry standard of 14-15 percent, and for all but the very hottest and coldest months, excess capacity goes far higher in the Southeast…The regulators admit that they urge utilities to share resources and that they have jurisdiction to require them to do so…” click here for more

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