Happy RE+ week for those who celebrate!
I’m scoping out the largest clean energy event in North America for the first time this year and posting daily musings disguised as a live blog each day. You can expect to find a smattering of sights and sounds from Anaheim in addition to quick quips from clean energy professionals I’m meeting with during the event. If you missed last week’s preview of RE+, you can find it here.
Los Angeles: It’s not usually this hot here
I landed at LAX just in time to watch my beloved Detroit Lions grind out the end of an overtime win over the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday Night Football. It was a bit of a (sweaty) hike to the rideshare pickup zone, or LAXIT, as somebody named it without thinking too much.
The first thing my driver said when I got in the car?
It has been HOT here.
No doubt, southern California is on the tail end of an unseasonably warm stretch of September, with temperatures topping out over 100 degrees Fahrenheit over the last few days.
The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) saw demand reach about 48,000 MW on September 5 in the late afternoon as air conditioners blasted; CAISO forecasts something similar today. It appears the CAISO is handling peak demand a little easier than in years past, similar to what we’ve seen in ERCOT territory this year, thanks to a lot of newly added battery energy storage. The CAISO added 1.388 GW of storage in the second quarter alone and now has about 10 GW of total storage capacity, more than 40% of the entire country’s capacity, per S&P Global Commodity Insights. The Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) which includes CAISO is projected to climb to 15.838 GW of battery storage capacity by the end of 2024 and surpass 20 GW in 2025, per the North American Electricity Long-Term Forecast Supplement.
It’s move-in day!
The heat is still cranking Monday morning. Fortunately, I’m not the only one entering the Anaheim Convention Center flustered and a bit sweaty- that seems to be the look for 2024 (at least until it cools down later in the week).
Exhibitors are braving the elements as they build out their setups. The sheer scale of some of these short-term construction projects is staggering. It feels like they’re putting together a mini-city… Which makes sense considering there should be more than 40,000 people here.
Everywhere you look, people are lugging boxes and bags and pushing palettes of stuff around. The exhibition halls are closed (especially for nosy reporters!) until Tuesday as construction efforts continue indoors, too.
We’ll do it LIVE!
This week I’ll be doing a couple of live editions of the This Week in Cleantech podcast alongside TigerComm’s Mike Casey. We’ve got a pretty cool setup too, check this out!
As you can see, we’ve got seating with places to plug in your stuff, so there’s no excuse not to check us out! This Week in Cleantech will be live from the hall of Lobby E at the convention center Tuesday and Wednesday noon til 12:30pm PT.
PV for the soul
I just stumbled upon an art project in progress! This father-son duo is making something beautiful from recyclable materials and old solar panels. Their work will be on display tonight when RE+ throws its “Cheers to 20 Years” Anniversary Party at the House of Blues, featuring musical acts Smash Mouth and Ashley Cooke.
Hey now, who’s the all-star now? That’s a Smash Mouth joke, sorry. If you want to see more cool art made by the Miner family, start here.
Drive fast, turn left
I went to a race and a clean energy event broke out. Strike that, reverse it.
I just popped into the first race of the H2 Grand Prix World Final, where 40 student-led teams from around the world are racing their own remote-controlled cars on the arena floor. I recorded a snippet of the action:
The H2GP Foundation’s goal is to accelerate our transition to a sustainable future by providing education and programs that promote the adoption of renewable energy and hydrogen technologies. You can check out a stream of the H2GP World Final here.
A bunch of batteries down under
I shared a lunchtime conversation with Michael Sarich of Rystad Energy, an independent research and energy intelligence company. Michael and about a dozen of his colleagues made the trip to RE+; Sarich came all the way from Australia. After exchanging some pleasantries and talking about U.S. market sentiment, he shared a little of his experience back home.
“It’s all batteries right now,” he said of the renewables market on his continent. “It’s pretty much all you can get done.”
He told me Aussies have a ton of rooftop solar, and it’s a “no-brainer” for most homeowners, as it pays for itself very quickly (in as soon as a year in some cases). Paired batteries can take up to ten years to pay for themselves, so they’ve been adopted more slowly- but Sarich says some Australian states are now incentivizing them to the point that it makes more financial sense.
In 2023, Australia deployed 2,468 MWh of energy storage, according to consultant Sunwiz, smashing records across the utility-scale, residential, and commercial and industrial (C&I) segments.
Nextracker expands its foundations
5,000 gigawatts.
That’s how much solar capacity we might be able to add through the Bureau of Land Management’s new “Western Solar Plan,” which proposes opening up 31 million acres of public lands in 11 Western states to solar development. However, a lot of that land isn’t great for building, and the BLM has pretty strict rules limiting how and how much those sites can be disturbed.
In the good old days, only about 20% of potential solar sites were composed of rock or hard soils, which required pre-drilling to drive an I-beam. Today it’s 40-50%, according to Dan Shugar, CEO of solar tracking solutions company Nextracker. Shugar says many locations in the United States have bedrock within a half meter of the surface, and he notices a high correlation between places where solar is and where bedrock isn’t.
“These sites are becoming more and more challenging,” he explained. “EPCs and developers are taking on more risk installing these systems.”
“Foundations are one of the riskiest elements,” agrees Stephen Jones, president of renewables at EPC Primoris Services Corporation.
Enter Nextracker, which recognizes an opportunity where others may perceive inconvenience.
Today at RE+, Nextracker announced plans to increase the total addressable solar market by introducing NX Foundation Solutions, expanding its foundations business to all soil types with the addition of some impressive technology.
The Ojjo Truss Driver™ is a patented all-in-one drilling and pile-driving machine equipped with GPS. It’s fully automated- once a part is loaded, the machine does the rest- promising to enable development in hard rock or mixed soils via a corkscrew-like bit that secures the beam into the ground.
The NX Anchor™ is an A-frame foundation design that requires 50% less steel and up to 70% shallower embedment depth than traditional pilings, developed to optimize ground-mount solar project development in frost-prone and soft soils.
Pre-drilling can cost up to $100 per hole now, which adds up to as much as $3.5 million in additional cost on a 100 megawatt project, Primoris’ Jones says. Saving that expense, plus using less steel and potentially avoiding remediation on jobs that don’t go smooth, make this a game-changer for EPC and developer clients, Nextracker believes.
Nextracker says its solutions enable quicker, safer, and more efficient solar project development while minimizing or eliminating grading and utilizing smart design to limit machine footprint. Nextracker is also offering a suite of services including geotechnical reviews, on-site testing, foundation design, product selection, proprietary equipment, and installation support.
Nextracker acquired foundation company Ojjo in June and Solar Pile International’s foundations business in July.
