High levels of renewable energy will be critical to meeting climate goals and creating a clean and sustainable economy, yet there are challenges to incorporating these energy sources on the electric grid. Fortunately, smart inverters have a variety of advanced functions which can help the grid reliably accommodate more andRead More

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission fined Xcel Energy $1 million for exceeding a maximum number of customer service complaints as a result of significant delays in its processing of interconnection requests for solar projects. This is a pretty big deal considering commissions historically do not hold utilities accountable for theirRead More

It was big news this summer when a federal appeals court upheld Order 841 of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. FERC Order 841 clarified that energy storage systems as small as 100 kW (which are interconnected on the distribution grid, under state rules), cannot be barred from participating in wholesaleRead More

The Solar Foundation and the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC) have signed an agreement to merge into a single, expanded nonprofit powerhouse dedicated to the rapid adoption of clean energy. The merger will combine the strengths of two renowned national clean energy organizations, effectively doubling the staff and quadrupling theRead More

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) just issued sweeping changes to Rule 21, the rules under which distributed energy resources, like solar power and energy storage, may interconnect to the grid. The revisions encompass many issues but three of the most noteworthy include: 1) the plan to incorporate data on theRead More

Two weeks ago, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission ordered Xcel to make several changes to its 2020 Hosting Capacity Analysis (HCA) report, which it will file in early November. Whereas previous HCA maps from Xcel aggregated all the results and blurred out a lot of detail, future HCAs will showRead More

Energy storage technologies have a crucial role to play in enabling the transition to a low-carbon economy. Despite significant growth of the energy storage market in recent years, the process of connecting this technology to the electricity grid remains complex and unclear in many states across the U.S. A newRead More

Solar and storage technology has come a long way, and now it’s time for the permitting process catch up. Clear and comprehensive procedures defining permitting, inspection and other requirements for solar and solar-plus-storage projects are essential to ensure the safety and quality of installed systems. A newly launched, three-year project,Read More

Grid modernization is a cool thing to say and support, but it is also a nebulous term, which makes it difficult to implement. What counts as “modern?” And how can we be sure the pursuit of new technology doesn’t actually just lead to fancier, expensive toys that aren’t utilized toRead More

The Maryland Public Service Commission adopted updated rules this week for connecting distributed energy resources (such as solar and energy storage systems) to the electric grid. The updated rules will improve the efficiency of the interconnection process for customers and utilities, increase grid transparency, and enable a clearer pathway forRead More