The Conversation (US)
중도 성향
기타
Building more renewable energy sources means rethinking land use for agriculture and conservation
Generating solar power requires a lot of land – but which land should it be? And what else can be done on that land?
🇺🇸 미국 · "SOLAR" · 총 51건
필터 보기현재 지수
50.0
0 = 부정 우세
50 = 중립
100 = 긍정 우세
최근 7일 기준 11,907건을 분석한 결과, 뉴스 심리지수는 50.0(균형)입니다. 긍정 1건(0.0%)·중립 11,905건(100.0%)·부정 1건(0.0%)이며, 중립 비중이 뚜렷하게 높습니다. 성향 지수는 종합 19.1(중도 균형)입니다.
Generating solar power requires a lot of land – but which land should it be? And what else can be done on that land?
This story was originally published by Canary Media and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Is Frito-Lay categorically refusing to buy potatoes grown on farmland that has hosted solar installations? No, the company says. That hasn’t stopped lawmakers in Michigan and Pennsylvania from spreading the false claim about one of the biggest purchasers of potatoes […]
Three solar flares burst from the sun this week, raising the chances of seeing the northern lights for people across the United States.
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This trio of eruptions caused radio blackouts across Europe, Africa, Australia and Asia.
Skydweller CEO Robert Miller describes exactly how the aircraft was lost—and why the future prospects for perpetual solar drones still look good.
A regulatory overhaul of India’s grid has sparked fears in the solar power industry that they may suffer a negative impact on profitability. The overhaul includes a stipulation regarding penalties for solar generators if they fail to deliver the electricity that they have committed to supply to the grid, Reuters reported. India's electricity grid is expanding at a slower pace than the boom in solar energy installations, leading to an increased share of solar curtailments and threatening to slow the solar and wind boom in the world's most…
The SETI Institute said Wednesday that extensive radio scans by its telescope in Northern California found no signs of otherworldly technology from our solar system's latest interstellar visitor.
High curtailment rates and the national grid operator frequently rejecting renewable power have prompted BlackRock-backed Atlas Renewable Energy, one of the biggest solar power producers in South America, to halt $1 billion in planned investment in Brazil, the company’s chief executive Carlos Barrera told Reuters on Wednesday. “There’s at least … 1.5 gigawatts that we put on hold in Brazil, where we had planned to already start construction,” the executive told Reuters on the sidelines of the SNEC photovoltaic conference…
This sponsored article is brought to you by Black & Veatch. The biggest challenge facing utilities today isn’t what it seems. It’s not demand, even as load growth accelerates. It’s not extreme weather, even as “major events” become routine. It’s not cybersecurity, even as connections expand across the grid. The real challenge is this: Distribution systems were designed for a different reality. Long gone are the days of predictable demand, one-way power flow and isolated disruptions. At Black & Veatch, we see that leading utilities are no longer debating whether to modernize. They’re deciding how quickly they can do it, and how to do it at scale. Across grid modernization programs globally, three truths consistently emerge. They define what it takes to prepare the distribution system for what’s next: 1. Outage response is not a resilience strategy Resilience is being redefined in real time. A strategy centered on mobilizing crews and restoring service as quickly as possible is reactive, and increasingly insufficient. Resilience has to shift upstream into integrated system design. That starts with hardening. Stronger poles, undergrounding and structural upgrades all have a role, particularly in high-risk corridors. We’re also seeing meaningful gains from how the network is configured and how quickly it can respond without waiting on manual intervention. This is where distribution automation programs can change outcomes. Strategically placed reclosers, automated switches and fault indicators help contain disruptions before they spread. When combined with feeder reconfiguration and updated protection strategies, distribution automation investments allow utilities to set more aggressive recovery targets and achieve measurable reductions in outage duration and customer impact. 2. Future-readiness depends on DERs at scale Forecasting is less and less reliable. Only 19 percent of utilities report strong confidence in their ability to predict future load growth, according to the Black & Veatch 2025 Electric Report. Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) like solar, storage, EVs and behind-the-meter generation are exciting solutions; but they fundamentally change how the system operates. Power is no longer just delivered. It’s injected, stored and redirected in ways the system was never designed to manage. At scale, these challenges show up quickly — particularly on feeders where distributed generation is approaching or exceeding hosting capacity. Protection coordination becomes more difficult when fault current comes from multiple directions. Voltage becomes less predictable as generation fluctuates throughout the day. And planning models must now account for highly variable, location-specific behavior. Distribution modernization is fundamentally changing how the system is designed and operated so it can absorb disruption, manage bi-directional flows and respond in real time. Adapting to bi-directional power flow requires more than incremental updates. Leading utilities are responding by building flexibility into the system, moving beyond static assumptions toward dynamic hosting capacity and interconnection studies, planning that incorporates DER, EV adoption and localized load growth, and infrastructure aligned with the communications and control needed to manage it. 3. The edge must be intelligent, visible and secure As system stress and complexity increase, utilities need far greater visibility and control over the network. Historically, utilities relied on customer calls, Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) at the substation level and field crews to understand what was happening on the system. That model doesn’t hold up. You can’t effectively manage a system you can’t see. Plus, the most critical events are increasingly happening beyond the substation — on feeders, laterals, and at the edge where DER and customer behavior are interacting with the grid. Grid-edge technologies have become essential. Sensors, Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) and automated switching provide the raw data and control needed to move from reactive to proactive operations. In more advanced deployments, utilities are creating centralized control environments that allow operators to see and manage the distribution system in near real time. That capability is enabled by: Advanced communications networks to form the backbone of real-time grid visibility Distribution Management System (DMS) and Outage Management System (OMS) to enable faster, more coordinated system response Analytics, AI and machine learning to improve situational awareness, anticipate system conditions, and support operational decision-making The same connectivity enabling this real-time visibility and control also introduces new vulnerabilities, blurring the line between physical and cyber risk, yet many utilities manage them separately. Only 22 percent have unified teams in place, even as threats continue to rise, including a 50 percent increase in substation attacks and growing exposure to malware and ransomware, according to the Black & Veatch 2025 Electric Report. Cybersecurity and resilient network design must be embedded into the architecture from the outset—not layered on after the fact. See what bolder vision looks like Distribution modernization is fundamentally changing how the system is designed and operated so it can absorb disruption, manage bi-directional flows and respond in real time. To learn about a successful program, check out Georgia Power’s recent grid modernization program. Black & Veatch partnered with the utility on large-scale infrastructure upgrades. The results? Outages are down 76 percent, restoration times have improved by more than 80 percent and communities across Georgia are powered by a grid built to meet the future head-on. When the state faced the most destructive storm in the company’s history, Hurricane Helene, Georgia Power deployed a rapid response team that utilized its “smart grid” and restored power to more than 1 million customers within days. A grid built to meet the future head-on—that’s the result of bolder vision.
Microsoft missed the boat on apps, so get ready for agents.
Over the last few months, these DIY hardware communities have exploded in popularity as people on social media show off their solar-powered game emulators, pocket-sized ereaders, and clamshell purse computers.
Microsoft just announced "Project Solara," a new OS designed for gadgets that run AI agents, at Build 2026. The company is calling it "a new platform built from the ground up to power agent-driven experiences." It's built on Android, not Windows. Microsoft demonstrated two concept Project Solara devices at Build today: Desk concept and badge […]
China’s solar manufacturing industry on Tuesday launched a so-called Space Energy Development Alliance as the Chinese solar sector looks to conquering new frontiers amid oversupply at home. At this year’s SNEC PV+ conference in Shanghai, one of the biggest solar industry gatherings in the world, Chinese manufacturers launched the platform, but were stingy on details about projects or missions in the race to harness solar power in space. GCL Technology Holdings Ltd, Trina Solar Co, and Shi Zhengrong, founder of Suntech Power Holdings…
This week’s Current Climate newsletter also looks at an emerging market for electric tugboats and boom times for a solar panel maker that doesn’t use Chinese components
“Not in my backyard” is the rallying cry of citizens everywhere resisting projects proposed for their locality. Whether it’s affordable housing, a waste treatment plant, or a new data center, they may recognize the benefit of the activity. They just don’t want it near them. And the roots of that resistance differ from place to place. When it comes to the ongoing transition from fossil fuels to renewables, companies and policymakers need to know where, exactly, people are coming from. The Italian island of Sardinia is a textbook example. As IEEE Spectrum’s power and energy editor Emily Waltz discovered when she traveled there last October, Sardinian opposition to wind and solar projects runs deep. It spurred a quarter of the voting population to queue up in public squares in 2024 to sign a petition banning all construction of renewable energy. Waltz was surprised. She went there to see a promising new grid-scale energy storage system that uses domes inflated with carbon dioxide. While reporting on that project, she interviewed residents, engineers, activists, and professors about their attitudes toward climate change and the Italian government’s grand plans for renewable energy on the island. And Waltz soon learned of Sardinians’ profound antipathy toward renewable energy and its deep ties to a history of invasion, occupation, and exploitation stretching back 2,700 years. It started with the Phoenicians and then extended through the Romans, the Byzantines, and the Iberians. Sardinia was absorbed into a newly unified Italy in 1861, and it became an autonomous region of Italy in 1948. The island’s population is justifiably suspicious of outsiders, including the Italian government. “When you’re in Sardinia, the weight of history—you can feel it like in the air,” Waltz told me. “And it gets passed down from one generation to the next.” Now, Italy needs Sardinia to produce even more power to meet the country’s climate goals—something that Sardinians see as Rome’s problem, not theirs. “Sardinia already exports about 30 percent of its electricity. It’s not like they need more,” Waltz says. “So it’s hard to make the case to build, build, build.” The result of Waltz’s old-fashioned shoe leather reporting is this month’s cover story. She notes that the Sardinians she talked to aren’t climate-change deniers, and they don’t object to renewables per se. They just don’t like the way corporations and Italian policymakers are trying to plug into Sardinia like it’s one giant battery rather than the home of an ancient and proud people. “I think Sardinians would be more receptive to renewable projects if it was more of a ground-up, grassroots approach,” Waltz says. Indeed, this homegrown approach is already working in some places in Sardinia. She knows of more than 50 projects, called energy communities, where the residents are deploying renewables themselves. The idea also holds promise for other places struggling to get locals to buy into the renewable-energy transition. The Sardinian experience is both a cautionary tale and a blueprint. Ignore the weight of history that communities carry and your project risks failure. Meet the people where they are and you might just get somewhere. The same lesson applies whether you’re in Sulawesi or sub-Saharan Africa. You just have to show up to learn it.
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Over the last two decades, solar panels have fallen in price while efficiency has increased. Greater uptake and high levels of investment in research and development have led to vast improvements in solar power technology. As panel prices fall and governments worldwide look to diversify their energy mix and cut emissions, several developers are now launching mega-projects to meet the growing demand. Most major solar projects developed in recent years provide hundreds of megawatts of clean power. However, as operators become more ambitious and governments…
Cuba has been experiencing a worsening energy crisis for several years, which previously led it to rely heavily on Venezuela for its fuel. Following the United States’ intervention in Venezuela in February, the energy crisis has grown even worse, as Cubans face regular blackouts and the economy suffers. Cuba requires about 100,000 barrels a day to power its grid and meet the regular transportation demands. It fulfils just 40 percent of this demand domestically. In January, the Trump administration imposed a fuel blockade on Cuba, which led…
A California climate change program has spent $49 million to hand out free solar panels to illegal migrant homeowners. The post California Program Gives Free Solar Panels to Illegal Aliens appeared first on Breitbart.