Dramatic reductions in the cost of wind and solar have led to optimism that they can be primary contributors to low-carbon electricity grids. But there's an important obstacle to their profitability: revenue decline.

Adding wind and solar to the grid tends to reduce electricity prices during the times that they generate. On a sunny afternoon in California, solar generation can become so large that it brings the price of electricity down to zero. 

This wasn’t a problem when the first few solar plants were built, but it means that the value of new solar is lower than it used to be because it will generate during periods when

Two long-delayed energy bills in Illinois that could make or break the state’s nuclear and solar industries have been left in limbo by the coronavirus pandemic. 

Now, following the Wednesday recall of lawmakers to a special session next week after a two-month absence, backers of the two bills will have a brief opportunity to see them passed. Otherwise, they’ll need to wait for another special session that may or may not come later this summer or for a two-week “veto session” in the fall. 

In any scenario, the timing will be tight.

Since last year, environmental groups, clean energy advocates and Exelon, parent company of Chicago-area utility ComEd,

U.S. greenhouse gas emissions could fall by a record 11 percent in 2020 due to the COVID-19 crisis, according to new analysis, following last year's decline of about 2.8 percent. But as economic activity resumes, emissions are likely to rebound to pre-pandemic levels.

Analyzing estimates of gross domestic product from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), Goldman Sachs and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), energy and climate research organization Energy Innovation found that unprecedented economic contraction in the U.S. may translate to emissions reductions between 7 and 11 percent this year.

Because Goldman Sachs, which presented the most conservative estimate of “GDP shocks” among

Hawaiian Electric this week selected 16 winning solar-storage and standalone battery projects totaling 460 megawatts of solar capacity and nearly 3 gigawatt-hours of storage, as the utility moves to close fossil fuel plants in the state.

Among the chosen developers are Canada's Innergex Renewable Energy and Hawaiian Electric (HECO) itself. It's the largest renewables procurement in Hawaii's aggressive history with clean energy, as the state moves toward a 100 percent clean energy by 2045 goal. HECO is now in contract negotiations with the winning third-party developers.

HECO is the second utility to announce a multi-gigawatt-hour battery procurement this month alone, noted Daniel Finn-Foley, head of energy storage for

Late last year, the European Union introduced a $1 trillion plan to reach carbon neutrality by 2050 and achieve a just transition away from polluting technologies.

Europe’s Green Deal enjoys strong backing from many of the EU’s top political figures. But it faces pushback from coal-heavy member states. Implementation of the Green Deal has now been further complicated by the urgent need for governments to respond to the coronavirus pandemic.

On this episode of Political Climate, we bring you a conversation with EU Ambassador to the U.S. Stavros Lambrinidis about the implications of COVID-19 for Europe’s energy and climate agenda.

Not only that

Tesla restarted work at its Fremont, California-based car factory this week, in defiance of a local shutdown order. The electric carmaker is also reportedly beginning to ramp production back up at its Gigafactory in Nevada as that state reopens, according to reporting from the Verge.

That leaves just one of the company’s U.S.-based plants closed: the Buffalo, New York plant, known as Gigafactory 2, where Tesla produces its solar roof and some energy storage and charging products. The Buffalo plant has been mysteriously absent from Musk’s Twitter feed, where the CEO has called local shutdown orders “fascist” and concerns around the coronavirus pandemic “dumb.”

Musk’s silence on the Buffalo plant comes

Whether you’ve ordered a Dosa Masala burger in India, a Date and Custard pie in the United Arab Emirates, or a Filet-O-Fish, well anywhere, there’s a good chance you've used a McDonald’s self-service kiosk.

The ubiquitous terminals are simple to use. That ubiquity and intuitiveness is very much absent from the electric vehicle charging landscape.

Having spent five years at McDonald’s fine-tuning those kiosks as a global product director, James Wehner now wants to do the same for EV charging in his new role as chief technology officer at Engenie, the U.K.-based charging specialist.

Today, the U.K.'s charging station operators range from oil majors to startups, with everything from car