Massive Clean Energy Projects Announced - July 2024

What if one deal could revolutionize California's energy landscape? Join us this week as we explore Fervo's groundbreaking 320-megawatt geothermal agreement with Southern California Edison, a pivotal step towards meeting the state's ambitious clean energy targets. We'll also highlight other monumental strides in renewable energy, including the US Department of Interior's green light for massive offshore wind projects along the Atlantic coast and Iberdrola's bold ventures in New England. Luxcar's collaboration with Mingyang Smart Energy to harness the power of the world's largest wind turbines for the German North Sea is another milestone you won't want to miss.

From electric vehicles to cutting-edge energy storage solutions, we’ve got it all covered. Volkswagen's strategic joint venture with Rivian promises a much-needed boost for the beleaguered EV manufacturer, while Rhode Island's new Energy Storage Systems Act sets the stage for a transformative energy future. We'll also discuss China's record-breaking sodium-ion battery projects and an ambitious green hydrogen and ammonia initiative in Mongolia spearheaded by Zhejiang New Energy. Tune in to catch all these exciting developments and more, and see how they're shaping the future of clean energy.

Transcript

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After a holiday break. I've got these your energy stories for the second week of July 2024. And in the first one, in late June, enhanced geothermal company Fervo announced a 320 megawatt deal to supply energy to Southern California Edison from its 400 megawatt geothermal plant under development in Utah. The plant will deliver its first 90 megawatts in 2026, with the remainder two years later, in 2021,. The California Public Utilities Commission directed the state's utilities to buy 1,000 megawatts of clean firm resources like nuclear, hydro and geothermal by 2026, a deadline eventually extended to 2028. To 2028. This announcement comes on the heels of a 115-megawatt deal with NV Energy and Google and Furvote to supply two Google data centers in Nevada with a new geothermal plant located in that state.

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Well, the US Department of Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management approved the 2,800-megawatt Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind South project being developed by Shell and EDF Renewables in the federal waters off New Jersey. That makes the ninth project approved under the current administration, putting the total at over 13,000 megawatts. On the same day, the BUM will cave the construction operations plan of Iberdrola's 2,600megawatt New England 1 and 2 projects. That plan includes up to 129 turbine generators and five offshore export cables delivering electricity to onshore transmission systems in the town of Barnstable in Bristol County, massachusetts. German clean energy asset manager Luxcar assigned a preferred supplier deal with China's Mingyang Smart Energy for 16 wind turbines up to 18.5 megawatts in capacity each the largest to date in the world to support its Waterkant offshore wind project in the German North Sea. Vicinity Energy, a company running district energy systems across the US, announced a long-term renewal of its partnership with Boston's Emerson College, with Emerson becoming the first college to convert 100% of its heating operations to Vicinity's carbon-free thermal energy e-steam product.

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Rather than using fossil fuel to heat boilers and make steam, vicinity uses electric boilers powered by renewables and then ties in with the existing network of steam pipes, electric substations and transmission. Volkswagen said it will create a JV with struggling EV OEM Rivian, pouring $1 billion into the company, with up to an additional $4 billion through 2026 if certain targets are met. Bw Group intends to make $3 billion of the expected $5 billion investment as a direct investment into Rivian, with the remaining $2 billion tied to the joint venture and background intellectual property. Rhode Island just passed the Energy Storage Systems Act setting an energy storage procurement goal and requiring state utilities to develop a tariff valuing services provided by the storage resource valuing services provided by the storage resource 90 megawatts of storage is to be installed by the end of 2026, 195 megawatts through 2028, and the full 600 megawatts by 2033.

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Also in storage, china's state-owned power generation enterprise Datong Group commissioned a 50 megawatt, 100 megaw-hour sodium ion battery energy storage facility, making it the world's largest sodium ion battery to date. The previous record was last month's announcement from China Southern Power Grid's Fudan 10-megawatt-hour battery storage project, the first phase of a 100-megawatt-hour project to be built there. So sodium batteries are really getting on the map now, first in China, and also in China, construction has begun on a gigawatt scale green hydrogen and ammonia projects, with an estimated one gigawatt of alkaline electrolyzers to be fueled by 1.25 gigawatts of new wind power and 1.15 gigawatts of solar. Zhejiang New Energy, a unit of state-owned coal company Zhejiang Energy Group, will build the project in Mongolia at a cost of $2.6 billion US. The project is intended to yield 90,000 tons of green hydrogen annually, used to make 500,000 tons of green ammonia. Well, that's all for this week. Thanks for watching and we'll see you again next week.