Electrical grid News

One of the most extreme heat waves in generations is smothering California this week and pushing the region’s power grid to the brink of collapse.

The California Independent System Operator (ISO) declared a statewide Stage 3 power emergency Friday evening as excessive heat drove up electricity use, forcing rolling blackouts across the state until the power grid stabilized.

The way the world gets its electricity is undergoing a great transition today, driven by the need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and by the plummeting costs of wind and solar technologies. The next big advance will have to be in energy storage.

Last week, the U.S. Army's largest military base, Fort Bragg in North Carolina was purposely plunged into darkness for 12 hours. This was done to “determine the readiness and resiliency of the installation in a real-world scenario."

Oakville - The renewable energy boom is pushing the electrical grid to its limits, forcing electrical distribution businesses to look closer at generation technologies (DG) and storage services.

It takes an extreme weather event for us to find out how well our power grid really works. The Polar Vortex from Jan. 27 to Feb. 2, in the Midwest and the Northeastern U.S., provided some interesting data that will be very helpful in improving the grid.

Jamestown - Nearly a year ago, Elon Musk promised to build the world's biggest lithium-ion battery in South Australia within 100 days. He delivered, and now the battery has defied skeptics, making waves in the industry thanks to its performance.

The CEO of the largest nuclear generator in the U.S. says the retirement of coal and nuclear plants does not constitute a grid emergency that warrants urgent intervention from the federal government, as President Donald Trump directed last week.

San Juan - Puerto Rico's Governor, Ricardo Rosselló said on Saturday he and Elon Musk held a 25-minute telephone conversation on Friday night. They discussed relief efforts as well as Tesla playing a leading role in revamping the power grid using Tesla technology.

San Juan - On September 20, powerful Category 4 Hurricane Maria made a direct landfall on the U.S. island territory of Puerto Rico. Two weeks later, 90 percent of the island is without power and few have clean drinking water. But the world is responding with help.

There has been a lot of talk lately about the U.S. power sector's "base load" power generation capacity being outdated and becoming less important in maintaining the grid's reliability, yet the DOE looks at the problem differently.

Washington D.c. - DOE Sec. Rick Perry has proposed a huge bailout for coal and nuclear power plants. The radical unprecedented move is based on a false premise that power plants with fuel located on site are needed to guarantee the reliability of the electricity system.

Puerto Rico's power grid is destroyed, leaving the situation dire for the island's 3.5 million people. However, it's been learned that the solar industry has been quietly responding to the needs of the people in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Two Category 4 hurricanes, back-to-back, not only caused extensive damage, massive flooding, and loss of lives – they also laid bare the poor condition of the nation's electrical grid.

The energy choices we make today will have a huge impact on our health, our climate and our economy for decades to come. This is why major oil companies have joined Silicon Valley in backing clean energy technology startups.

Washington D.c. - Russia's meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election is small potatoes compared to what the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revealed Thursday night. Allegedly, Russian hackers have been targeting our nuclear power plants.

Technological innovations in electricity generation, energy storage, and the smart grid are changing the way we power our world. Great progress has been made in developing renewable energy resources, changing the face of the energy industry.

Solar power generation in California met nearly half of the state's electricity demand on March 11, making up over 44 percent of the electricity sent to the grid.

Are solar storms posing a threat to the modern world? If we are to believe the scientists at the 2009 space weather enterprise forum in Washington DC we should at least prepare for them. Presently we are not.