This week in buildings, land and industry decarbonization news NetZero Insider’s John Cropley has a story from the Independent Power Producers of New York’s recent conference on the tricky issue of cutting emissions from the state’s large and often old building stock. The work will require owners to make investments on their own and many of the older buildings are difficult to clean up.
Our Jon Lamson tells us that story Massachusetts’ building decarbonization policies have led to a debate over “renewable natural gas,” which used waste methane from sources such as dairy and hog farms. Massachusetts’ framework for moving beyond natural gas would bar gas utilities from recovering costs of blending RNG or hydrogen into the gas supply from the general rate base. But the industry has argued it can be part of the solution.
Our curated content includes a story on Shell’s decision to pull back from its net zero commitments. The Dutch oil major lowered an emissions target for 2030 and eliminated a 2035 goal of cutting emissions by 45%. Shell is also changing its approach to electric power sales, focusing on supplying large commercial and industrial customers instead of retail.
Canary Media has a story on how thermal energy storage — using rocks deep in the ground — can help decarbonize some of the toughest industries, including steel, cement, and chemicals. Some 30 start-ups are working on technology that could use excess renewable energy to heat up rocks in the ground, which can store energy for longer than the relatively short-duration batteries dominating interconnection queues today. Rock bottom prices for renewable power have made the technology feasible.
PV Magazine interviewed an executive at FranklinWH, a firm with a fast-growing business offering distributed electricity storage to residential customers. FranklinWH (the WH stands for whole home) offers an AC-coupled battery system with a built-in inverter and a smart energy management system that can integrate distributed energy sources in the home. The company calls its product “a microgrid in a box.”
PV Magazine also has a story on how solar can clean up the production of indoor-grown marijuana. Growing one pound of cannabis takes 2,000-3,000 kWh of electricity, or two to three times what the average home uses in a month. With increased legalization around the country, that is a major carbon footprint that can be cut with clean, distributed solar. One massive growing operation in New Mexico is installing 102 MW of solar to power its operations.
Read these other stories in this week’s Intelligence Report:
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