Pakistanis are increasingly ditching the national grid in favour of solar power, prompting a boom in rooftop panels and spooking a government weighed down by billions of dollars of power sector debt. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/environment/2025/07/17/energy/pakistan-solar-national-grid/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #environment #energy #pakistan #solar #renewables #energy
1GW baseload power from solar and batteries. Build should take about 2 years (solar + batteries have excellent project predictability). Cost is $6 billion but with that lead time and confidence, the loan costs will be quite low (even lower if tranches come on line sooner).
With the plummeting costs of BESS particularly I think this will be the first of many.
Michael Bacon
boosted
"- It took from the invention of the photovoltaic solar cell, in 1954, until 2022 for the world to install a terawatt of solar power; the second terawatt came just two years later, and the third will arrive either later this year or early next.
- That’s because people are now putting up a gigawatt’s worth of solar panels, the rough equivalent of the power generated by one coal-fired plant, every fifteen hours. Solar power is now growing faster than any power source in history, and it is closely followed by wind power—which is really another form of energy from the sun, since it is differential heating of the earth that produces the wind that turns the turbines.
- Last year, ninety-six per cent of the global demand for new electricity was met by renewables, and in the United States ninety-three per cent of new generating capacity came from solar, wind, and an ever-increasing variety of batteries to store that power.
- In March, for the first time, fossil fuels generated less than half the electricity in the U.S. In California, at one point on May 25th, renewables were producing a record hundred and fifty-eight per cent of the state’s power demand. Over the course of the entire day, they produced eighty-two per cent of the power in California, which, this spring, surpassed Japan to become the world’s fourth-largest economy.
- Meanwhile, battery-storage capability has increased seventy-six per cent, based on this year’s projected estimates; at night, those batteries are often the main supplier of California’s electricity. As the director of reliability analysis at the North American Electric Reliability Corporation put it (...), “batteries can smooth out some of that variability from those times when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining.” As a result, California is so far using forty per cent less natural gas to generate electricity than it did in 2023..."
https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/46-billion-years-on-the-sun-is-having-a-moment
Tim Chambers
boosted
Solarpower has won, not because it is alternative or woke, but because of economy. And it will keep winning with still improving panels, becoming thinner and easy to use everywhere, battery technology is also still improving.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/46-billion-years-on-the-sun-is-having-a-moment
#solarpower #renewables #energy #geopolitics @geopolitics
Angela Antunovic
boosted
Europe’s largest floating solar farm is now operational in France. #solar #renewables #France #ClimateAction #environment
https://www.ecowatch.com/largest-floating-solar-farm-europe.html
Eduardo Mercovich (él)
boosted
ENG: scroll down to The New Yorker article on renewable energies reshaping the world, whether autocrats like it or not.
ESP: "El año pasado, el noventa y seis por ciento de la demanda mundial de nueva electricidad se cubrió con energías renovables, y en Estados Unidos el noventa y tres por ciento de la nueva capacidad de generación procedió de la energía solar, eólica y de una variedad cada vez mayor de baterías para almacenar esa energía.
En marzo, por primera vez, los combustibles fósiles generaron menos de la mitad de la electricidad en Estados Unidos. En California, en un momento dado, el 25 de mayo, las energías renovables produjeron la cifra récord del ciento cincuenta y ocho por ciento de la demanda eléctrica del estado. A lo largo de todo el día, produjeron el ochenta y dos por ciento de la electricidad de California, que esta primavera superó a Japón y se convirtió en la cuarta economía del mundo. (... muchos más ejemplos en el artículo )
Esto sugiere que existe la posibilidad de una profunda reordenación de los sistemas de poder de la tierra, en todos los sentidos de la palabra "poder", ofreciendo un freno plausible no sólo a la crisis climática sino también a la autocracia. En lugar de depender de depósitos dispersos de combustibles fósiles -cuyo control ha definido en gran medida la geopolítica durante más de un siglo-, estamos avanzando rápidamente hacia una dependencia de fuentes de suministro difusas pero ubicuas."
Interesante, no solo lo dicho, sino que sea El New Yorker quien lo diga...
Aqui sin paywall : (NO PAYWALL LINK) https://archive.ph/lv3eU
#renewables #renewableenergy
#trump2#TrumpDictator #foreverwars
#corporategreed #solarpunk #regenerative #sustainability#Corruption #greed #solarpower
#windpower #renovables#Energy
China battery exports were 144GWh in the first 5 months of 2025 (of which only 3.4 GWh were destined for the USA). So we are probably looking at exports of 350GWh in 2025.
Year on year growth was 436%. It won't take many of those before they are exporting 1TWh / year.
A steady price of < USD 40/kWh by 2030 is looking pretty plausible right now.
I think it is clear now that no governments will prioritise combatting climate change over any other policy driver (except maybe DEI). The 2010's were an aberration.
All we can really hope for now is that China's quest for manufacturing dominance along with their, and the Global South's desire for fast electrification and energy independence will align to serendipitously do something usefull for the climate.
#Solar minigrid brings light and hope to a #Goma neighborhood, offering blueprint for rest of #Congohttps://apnews.com/article/congo-solar-energy-goma-drc-72700d7dd98824a8007b658ba39d281e
@jchyip
One of the great things about #solar and #bess in the global south is that they are cheap and scale from domestic right up to large grid scale installations. So they offer an practical ladder from households through mini grids, grids of grids, and on to national infrastructure in easy steps with power delivered to people at each step.
Good to see other BESS technologies being deployed at scale.
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/07/04/worlds-largest-vanadium-flow-battery-goes-online-in-china/
Matt Noyes
boosted
In Hokkaido, Indigenous land rights have added another layer to the division of opinions in Suttsu and Kamoenai over whether to host a permanent underground repository for Japan’s nuclear waste. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/environment/2025/07/06/energy/hokkaido-ainu-nuclear-waste-storage/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #environment #energy #nuclearenergy #energy #renewables #hokkaido #nuclearwaste #ainu #indigenouspeople
In a recent BESS auction the 4 hour systems segment the average bid was ~$60/kWh (https://www.mercomindia.com/china-record-low-tariff-battery-storage-auction)
In June 2023 NREL projected cost reductions of 4 hour BESS based on a 2022 benchmark. (https://www.energy-storage.news/li-ion-bess-costs-could-fall-47-by-2030-nrel-says-in-long-term-forecast-update/)
The red dot on the plot shows where the Chinese bids fall against NREL's projections.
Assuming I haven't bolloxed my like-with-like assumptions it looks like the industry analysts are making the same mistake with batteries that they did with solar.
Tim Chambers
boosted
The #OneBigBeautifulBill will make it harder to develop #wind & #solar #energy projects, despite the removal of some contentious provisions, industry advocates & lawmakers said.
The #Senate dropped a proposed excise tax on solar & wind energy projects that don't meet strict standards after last-minute negotiations with key #Republican senators seeking better terms for #renewables.
#Trump#OneBigUglyBill#MagicMinute
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-big-beautiful-bill-live-updates-2025-07-02/
China’s vast clean-energy industry has spearheaded a solar-power boom in the BRICS grouping of emerging economies, with the bloc accounting for more than half of global generation last year, according to a new report. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/environment/2025/07/03/energy/china-brics-solar-power/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #environment #energy #china #renewables #brics #solar