Articles

Solar

A firsthand look at a California solar farm with 'earth-mounted' panels

Erthos wants to reinvent solar farms with ground-mounted panels that it says can reduce utility solar costs by 20 percent. We went to see how it all works.

By Eric Wesoff . 18 April 2023
Transmission

A huge new clean energy transmission line gets the green light

Transmission is notoriously hard to build. Now, after 18 years, the TransWest Express line has approval to carry wind power from Wyoming to California.

By Gabriela Aoun Angueira . 18 April 2023
ENN

Can North Carolina code officials win builders over on energy conservation?

Efficiency advocates hope concessions and clarifications on what builders say are the biggest-ticket items in the proposed code will produce compromise.

By Elizabeth Ouzts . 17 April 2023
Batteries

This NASA tech might just spur a major grid battery breakthrough

EnerVenue’s still got plenty to prove, but it already has a pipeline of orders and more than $100M in funding. A factory in Kentucky is on the way.

By Julian Spector . 17 April 2023
Food and farms

Cattle are a huge climate threat. Smarter ranching can help

Ranchers in Brazil are testing new and improved techniques that can lower the climate impact of beef production by using less land and curbing cattle's burps and farts.

By Michael Grunwald . 17 April 2023
ENN

Chicago’s Blacks in Green gets a major boost from a $10 million EPA grant

The organization was one of 17 entities selected to help environmental justice communities tap into federal climate funds.

By Audrey Henderson . 16 April 2023
Clean energy

Chart: US clean energy backlog balloons to unprecedented 2 terawatts

The huge figure shows that developers are ready to build renewables, but it also underscores a key problem: The country doesn't have enough transmission capacity.

By Eric Wesoff, Maria Virginia Olano . 14 April 2023
Solar

Pioneering project helps renters cash in on solar savings

By cleverly stacking an array of incentives and credits, two nonprofits are helping Minneapolis apartment dwellers slash their power bills by up to one-third.

By Frank Jossi . 14 April 2023
ENN

New Hampshire bill would offer new path for utilities to procure electricity

Gov. Chris Sununu’s administration is supporting legislation that would let utilities buy power directly from generators instead of relying on regional wholesale markets, a change that advocates think could help renewables compete in the state.

By Lisa Prevost . 13 April 2023
Transmission

On trial now: The fate of a key clean energy transmission line in Maine

The twisting tale of a bid to bring hydropower from Canada to New England shows the challenge of building the transmission lines needed to electrify everything.

By Julian Spector . 13 April 2023