Stalled spending on electrical grids slows rollout of renewable energy

Connected Home Energy Technologies integrate solar panels, smart meters, EV charging, battery storage, and IoT energy management to cut costs, optimize demand response, and monitor usage in real time for safer, lower-carbon homes.

Key Points

Devices and systems managing home energy: solar PV, smart meters, EV chargers, and storage to cut costs and emissions.

✅ Real-time visibility via apps, smart meters, and IoT sensors

✅ Integrates solar PV, batteries, and EV charging with the grid

✅ Enables demand response, lower bills, and lower carbon

Driven by advances in tech and the advent of high-speed internet connections, many of us now have easy access to a raft of information about the buildings we live in.

Thanks to the proliferation of hardware and software within the home, this trend shows no sign of letting up and comes in many different forms, from indoor air quality monitors to “smart” doorbells which provide us with visual, real-time notifications when someone is attempting to access our property.

Residential renewable electricity generation is also starting to gain traction, with a growing number of people installing solar panels in the hope of reducing bills and their environmental footprint.

In the U.S. alone, the residential solar market installed 738 megawatts of capacity in the third quarter of 2020, a 14% jump compared to the second quarter, according to a recent report from the Solar Energy Industries Association and Wood Mackenzie.

Earlier this month, California-headquartered SunPower — which specializes in the design, production and delivery of solar panels and systems — announced it was rolling out an app which will enable homeowners to assess and manage their energy generation, usage and battery storage settings with their mobile, as California looks to EVs for grid stability amid broader electrification.

The service will be available to customers using its SunPower Eqiunox system and represents yet another instance of how connected technologies can provide us with valuable information about how buildings operate.

Similar offerings in this increasingly crowded marketplace include so-called “smart” meters, which allow consumers to see how much energy they are using and money they are spending in real time.

Elsewhere products such as Hive, from Centrica, enable users to install a range of connected kit — from plugs and lighting to thermostats and indoor cameras — that can be controlled via an app on their cellphone and, in some cases, their voice. 

Connected car charging
Solar panels represent one way that sustainable tech can be integrated into homes. Other examples include the installation of charging points for electric vehicles, as EV growth challenges state grids in many markets.

With governments around the world looking to phase-out the sale of diesel and gasoline vehicles and encourage consumers to buy electric, and Model 3's utility impact underscoring likely shifts in demand, residential charging systems could become an integral part of the built environment in the years ahead.

Firms offering home-based, connected, charging include Pod Point and BP Pulse. Both of these services include apps which provide data such as how much energy has been used, the cost of charging and charge history.  

Another firm, Wallbox, recently announced it was launching its first electric vehicle charger for North American homes.

The company, which is based in Spain, said the system was compatible with all types of electric vehicles, would allow customers to schedule charges, and could be voice-controlled through Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, while mobile energy storage promises added flexibility for strained grids.

Away from the private sector, governments are also making efforts to encourage the development of home charging infrastructure.

Over the weekend, U.K. authorities said the Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme — which gives drivers as much as £350 (around $487) toward a charging system — would be extended and expanded, targeting those who live in leasehold and rented properties, even as UK grid capacity for EVs remains under scrutiny.

Mike Hawes, chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, described the government’s announcement as “welcome and a step in the right direction.”

“As we race towards the phase out of sales of new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030, we need to accelerate the expansion of the electric vehicle charging network, and proper grid management can ensure EVs are accommodated at scale,” he added.

“An electric vehicle revolution will need the home and workplace installations this announcement will encourage, but also a massive increase in on-street public charging and rapid charge points on our strategic road network.”

Change afoot, but challenges ahead
As attempts to decarbonize buildings and society ramp up, the way our homes look and function could be on the cusp of quite a big shift.

“Grid-connected home generation technologies such as solar electric panels will be important in the shift to a 100% renewable electricity grid, but decarbonising the electricity supply is only one part of the transition,” Peter Tyldesley, chief executive of the Centre for Alternative Technology, told CNBC via email.

With reference to Britain, Tyldesley went on to explain how his organization envisaged “just under 10% of electricity in a future zero carbon society coming from solar PV, utilising 15-20% of … U.K. roof area.” This, he said, compared to over 75% of electricity coming from wind power. 

Heating, Tyldesley went on to state, represented “the bigger challenge.”

“To decarbonise the U.K.’s housing stock at the scale and speed needed to get to zero carbon, we’ll need to refurbish possibly a million houses every year for the next few decades to improve their insulation and airtightness and to install heat pumps or other non-fossil fuel heating,” he said.

“To do this, we urgently need a co-ordinated national programme with a commitment to multi-year government investment,” he added.

On the subject of buildings becoming increasingly connected, providing us with a huge amount of data about how they function, Tyldesley sought to highlight some of the opportunities this could create. 

“Studies of the roll out of smart metering technology have shown that consumers use less energy when they are able to monitor their consumption in real time, so this kind of technology can be a useful part of behaviour change programmes when combined with other forms of support for home efficiency improvements,” he said.

“The roll out of smart appliances can go one step further — responding to signals from the grid and, through vehicle-to-grid power, helping to shift consumption away from peak times towards periods when more renewable energy is available,” he added.

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• EV Infrastructure News

California Gas Car Ban 2035 signals a shift to electric vehicles, raising grid reliability concerns, charging demand, and renewable energy challenges across solar, wind, and storage, amid rolling blackouts and carbon-free power mandates.

Key Points

An order ending new gasoline car sales by 2035 in California, accelerating EV adoption and pressuring the power grid.

✅ 25% EV fleet could add 232.5 GWh/day charging demand by 2040

✅ Solar and wind intermittency strains nighttime home charging

✅ Grid upgrades, storage, and load management become critical

On September 23, California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order that will ban the sale of gasoline-powered cars in the Golden State by 2035. Ignoring the hard lessons of this past summer, when California’s solar- and wind-reliant electric grid underwent rolling blackouts, Newsom now adds a huge new burden to the grid in the form of electric vehicle charging, underscoring the need for a much bigger grid to meet demand. If California officials follow through and enforce Newsom’s order, the result will be a green new car version of a train wreck.

In parallel, the state is moving on fleet transitions, allowing electric school buses only from 2035, which further adds to charging demand.

Let’s run some numbers. According to Statista, there are more than 15 million vehicles registered in California. Per the U.S. Department of Energy, there are only 256,000 electric vehicles registered in the state—just 1.7 percent of all vehicles, a share that will challenge state power grids as adoption grows.

Using the Tesla Model3 mid-range model as a baseline for an electric car, you’ll need to use about 62 kilowatt-hours (KWh) of power to charge a standard range Model 3 battery to full capacity. It will take about eight hours to fully charge it at home using the standard Tesla NEMA 14-50 charger, a routine that has prompted questions about whether EVs could crash the grid by households statewide.

Now, let’s assume that by 2040, five years after the mandate takes effect, also assuming no major increase in the number of total vehicles, California manages to increase the number of electric vehicles to 25 percent of the total vehicles in the state. If each vehicle needs an average of 62 kilowatt-hours for a full charge, then the total charging power required daily would be 3,750,000 x 62 KWh, which equals 232,500,000 KWh, or 232.5 gigawatt-hours (GWh) daily.

Utility-scale California solar electric generation according to the energy.ca.gov puts utility-scale solar generation at about 30,000 GWh per year currently. Divide that by 365 days and we get 80 GWh/day, predicted to double, to 160 GWh /day. Even if we add homeowner rooftop solar, and falling prices for solar and home batteries in the wake of blackouts, about half the utility-scale, at 40 GWh/day we come up to 200 GW/h per day, still 32 GWh short of the charging demand for a 25% electric car fleet in California. Even if rooftop solar doubles by 2040, we are at break-even, with 240GWh of production during the day.

Bottom-line, under the most optimistic best-case scenario, where solar operates at 100% of rated capacity (it seldom does), it would take every single bit of the 2040 utility-scale solar and rooftop capacity just to charge the cars during the day. That leaves nothing left for air conditioning, appliances, lighting, etc. It would all go to charging the cars, and that’s during the day when solar production peaks.

But there’s a much bigger problem. Even a grade-schooler can figure out that solar energy doesn’t work at night, when most electric vehicles will be charging at homes, even as some officials look to EVs for grid stability through vehicle-to-grid strategies. So, where does Newsom think all this extra electric power is going to come from?

The wind? Wind power lags even further behind solar power. According to energy.gov, as of 2019, California had installed just 5.9 gigawatts of wind power generating capacity. This is because you need large amounts of land for wind farms, and not every place is suitable for high-return wind power.

In 2040, to keep the lights on with 25 percent of all vehicles in California being electric, while maintaining the state mandate requiring all the state’s electricity to come from carbon-free resources by 2045, California would have to blanket the entire state with solar and wind farms. It’s an impossible scenario. And the problem of intermittent power and rolling blackouts would become much worse.

And it isn’t just me saying this. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) agrees. In a letter sent by EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler to Gavin Newsom on September 28, Wheeler wrote:

“[It] begs the question of how you expect to run an electric car fleet that will come with significant increases in electricity demand, when you can’t even keep the lights on today.

“The truth is that if the state were driving 100 percent electric vehicles today, the state would be dealing with even worse power shortages than the ones that have already caused a series of otherwise preventable environmental and public health consequences.”

California’s green new car wreck looms large on the horizon. Worse, can you imagine electric car owners’ nightmares when California power companies shut off the power for safety reasons during fire season? Try evacuating in your electric car when it has a dead battery.

Gavin Newsom’s “no more gasoline cars sold by 2035” edict isn’t practical, sustainable, or sensible, much like the 2035 EV mandate in Canada has been criticized by some observers. But isn’t that what we’ve come to expect with any and all of these Green New Deal-lite schemes?

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• EV Infrastructure News

AP Renewables Inc. Climate Bond Award recognizes Asia-Pacific project finance, with ADB and CNBC citing the first Climate Bond, geothermal refinancing in local currency, and CGIF-backed credit enhancement for emerging markets.

Key Points

An award for APRI's certified Climate Bond, highlighting ADB-backed financing and geothermal assets across Asia-Pacific.

✅ First Climate Bond for a single project in an emerging market

✅ ADB credit enhancement and CGIF risk participation

✅ Refinanced Tiwi and MakBan geothermal assets via local currency

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and CNBC report having given the Best Project For Corporate Finance Transaction award to a the renewable energy arm of Aboitiz Power, AP Renewables Inc. (APRI), for its innovative and impactful solutions to key development challenges.

In March 2016, APRI issued a local currency bond equivalent to $225 million to refinance sponsor equity in Tiwi and MakBan. ADB said it provided a partial credit enhancement for the bond as well as a direct loan of $37.7 million, a model also seen in EIB long-term financing for Indian solar projects.

The bond issuance was the first Climate Bond—certified by the Climate Bond Initiative—in Asia and the Pacific and the first ever Climate Bond for a single project in an emerging market.

“The project reflects APRI’s commitment to renewable energy, as outlined in the IRENA report on decarbonising energy in the region,” ADB said in a statement posted on its website.

The project also received the 2016 Bond Deal of the Year by the Project Finance International magazine of Thomson Reuters, Asia Pacific Bond Deal of the Year from IJGlobal and the Best Renewable Deal of the Year by Alpha Southeast Asia, reflecting momentum alongside large-scale energy projects in New York reported elsewhere.

ADB’s credit enhancement was risk-participated by the Credit Guarantee Investment Facility (CGIF), a multilateral facility established by Asean + 3 governments and ADB to develop bond markets in the region.

APRI is a subsidiary of AboitizPower, one of Philippines’ biggest geothermal energy producers, and the IRENA study on the Philippines' electricity crisis provides broader context as it owns and operates the Tiwi and Makiling Banahaw (MakBan) geothermal facilities, the seventh and fourth largest geothermal power stations in the world, respectively.

“The awards exemplify the ever-growing importance of the private sector in implementing development work in the region,” ADB’s Private Sector Operations Department Director General Michael Barrow said.

“Our partners in the private sector provide unique solutions to development challenges — from financing to technical expertise — and today’s winners are perfect examples of that,” he added.

The awarding ceremony took place in Yokohama, Japan during an event co-hosted by CNBC and ADB at the 50th Annual Meeting of ADB’s Board of Governors.

The awards focus on highly developmental transactions and underline the important work ADB clients undertake in developing countries in Asia and the Pacific.

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Renewable Energy News

General Motors EV Hiring expands software development, engineering, and IT roles for electric vehicles, Ultium batteries, and autonomous tech, offering remote jobs, boosting diversity and inclusion, and accelerating zero-emission mobility and customer experience initiatives.

Key Points

GM plan to hire 3,000 software, engineering, and IT staff to speed EV programs, remote work, and customer experience.

✅ 3,000 hires in software, engineering, IT

✅ Focus on EVs, Ultium batteries, autonomous tech

✅ Remote roles, diversity, inclusion priorities

General electrical safety involves practices and procedures designed to prevent electric shock, arc flash, and other hazards associated with electrical systems. Whether at home, in the workplace, or industrial environments, following established safety guidelines helps protect people, property, and equipment from electrical accidents. General Motors plans to hire 3,000 new employees largely focused on software development as the company accelerates its plans for electric vehicles, the automaker announced Monday.

GM said the jobs will be focused on engineering, design and information technology “to increase diversity and inclusion and contribute to GM’s EV and customer experience priorities.” The hiring is expected through the first quarter of 2021, as the company addresses EV adoption challenges in key markets. Many of the positions will be remote as GM begins to offer “more remote opportunities than ever before,” the company said.

“As we evolve and grow our software expertise and services, it’s important that we continue to recruit and add diverse talent,” GM President Mark Reuss said in a release. “This will clearly show that we’re committed to further developing the software we need to lead in EVs, enhance the customer experience and become a software expertise-driven workforce.”

General Motors CEO on third-quarter earnings, rise in demand for trucks and more
The hiring blitz comes as the automaker expects to increase focus on electric vehicles, including offering at least 20 new electric vehicles globally by 2023, while competitors like Ford accelerate EV investment as well. GM earlier this year said it planned to invest $20 billion in electric and autonomous vehicles by 2025, including a tentative Ontario EV plant commitment.

Ken Morris, GM vice president of autonomous and electric vehicles programs, told reporters on a call Monday that the automaker has pulled forward at least two upcoming electric vehicles following the GMC Hummer EV, which is the first vehicle on GM’s next-generation electric vehicle platform with its proprietary Ultium battery cells.

“We’re moving as fast as we can in terms of developing vehicles virtually, more so than we ever have by far,” Morris said. “We are doing things virtually, more effective than we ever have.”

Shares of the automaker reached a new 52-week high of $39.72 ahead of the Monday announcement. The stock was up 5% during midday trading Monday following market optimism about a Covid-19 vaccine and President-elect Joe Biden outlining priorities that would support electric vehicles nationwide.

The race between Tesla, GM, Rivian and others to dominate electric pickup trucks
“We’re looking forward to working with the Biden administration and support policies that will foster greater adoption of EVs across all 50 states and encourage investments in R&D and manufacturing,” Morris said. “At the end of the day, climate change is a global concern and the best way to remove automobile emissions from the environmental equation is all-electric, zero-emissions future.”

At the same time, gas-electric hybrids continue to gain momentum in the U.S., shaping consumer transition paths.

The additional jobs are separate from a previous announcement by GM to hire 1,100 new employees as part of a $2.3 billion joint venture with LG Chem to produce Ultium cells in northeast Ohio.

GM employed about 164,000 people globally in 2019, down from 215,000 in 2015 as the company has restructured and cut operations in recent years.

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• EV Infrastructure News

US Wind and Solar Outlook 2026 projects cheap renewables displacing coal and gas, with utility-scale additions, rooftop solar growth, improved grid reliability, and EV V2G integration accelerating decarbonization across the electricity market.

Key Points

An analysis forecasting wind and solar growth, displacing coal and gas as utility-scale and rooftop solar expand.

✅ Utility-scale solar installs avg 21 GW/yr through 2026.

✅ 37.7 GW wind in pipeline; 127.8 GW already online.

✅ Small-scale solar could near 100 TWh in 2026.

A recent report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) predicts that cheap renewables in the form of wind and solar will push coal and gas out of the energy market space. Already at 9% of US generation, the report predicts that wind and solar will supply almost 30% of US electricity demand by 2026, consistent with renewables nearing one-fourth of U.S. generation projections for the near term.

“The Solar Energy Industries Association now expects utility-scale installations to average more than 21,000MW a year through 2026, following a year when U.S. solar generation rose 25% and with a peak of 25,000MW in 2023,” IEEFA writes. “Continued growth is also expected in U.S. wind generation, mirroring global trends where China's solar PV expansion outpaced all other fuels in 2016, with 37.7GW of new capacity already under construction or in advanced development, which would be added to 127.8GW in existing installed capacity.”

Meanwhile, with wind and solar growth booming, fossil fuels are declining, as renewables surpassed coal in 2022 nationwide. “Coal and natural gas are now locked into an essentially zero-sum game where increases in one fuel’s generation comes at the expense of the other. Together, they are not gaining market share, rather they are trading it back and forth, and the rapid growth in renewable generation will cut even deeper into the market share of both.”

And what of rooftop solar? Some states in Australia now have periods where the entire state grid is powered just by solar on the roofs of private citizens. As this revolution progresses in the USA, especially if a tenfold national solar push moves forward, what impact will it make on fossil fuel generators — which are expensive to build, expensive to maintain, expensive to fuel, and rely on an expensive distribution network.

“EIA estimates that this ‘small-scale solar’ produced 41.7 million MWh of power in 2020, when solar accounted for about 3% of U.S. electricity, a 19 percent increase from 2019. This growth will likely continue in the years ahead as costs continue to fall and concerns about grid reliability rise. Assuming a conservative 15 percent annual increase in small-scale solar going forward would push the sector’s generation to almost 100 million MWh in 2026.”

The Joker in the story might be the impact from electric vehicle adoption. Sales are set to surge and there’s more and more interest in V2G technology, even as wind and solar could provide 50% by 2050 in broader forecasts.

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Renewable Energy News

Green Hydrogen for Steelmaking enables decarbonization in Germany by powering electrolyzers with wind turbines at Salzgitter. Partners Vestas, Avacon, and Linde support renewable hydrogen for iron ore reduction, cutting CO2 in heavy industry.

Key Points

Hydrogen from renewable-powered electrolysis replacing coal in iron ore reduction, cutting CO2 emissions from steelmaking

✅ 30 MW Vestas wind farm powers 2x1.25 MW electrolyzers.

✅ Salzgitter, Avacon, Linde link sectors to replace fossil fuels.

✅ Targets CO2 cuts in iron ore reduction and steel smelting.

A major green hydrogen facility in Germany has started operations, with those behind the project hoping it will help to decarbonize the energy-intensive steel industry in the years ahead. 

The "WindH2" project involves German steel giant Salzgitter, E.ON subsidiary Avacon and Linde, a firm specializing in engineering and industrial gases, and aligns with calls for hydrogen-ready power plants in Germany today.

Hydrogen can be produced in a number of ways. One method includes using electrolysis, with an electric current splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen, and advances in PEM hydrogen technology continue to improve efficiency worldwide.

If the electricity used in the process comes from a renewable source such as wind or solar, as underscored by recent German renewables gains, then it's termed "green" or "renewable" hydrogen.

The development in Germany is centered around seven new wind turbines operated by Avacon and two 1.25 megawatt (MW) electrolyzer units installed by Salzgitter Flachstahl, which is part of the wider Salzgitter Group. The facilities were presented to the public this week. 

The turbines, from Vestas, have a hub height of 169 meters and a combined capacity of 30 MW. All are located on premises of the Salzgitter Group, with three situated on the site of a steel mill in the city of Salzgitter, Lower Saxony, northwest Germany, where grid expansion woes can affect project timelines.

The hydrogen produced using renewables will be utilized in processes connected to the smelting of iron ore. Total costs for the project come to roughly 50 million euros (around $59.67 million), with the building of the electrolyzers subsidized by state-owned KfW, while a national net-zero roadmap could reduce electricity costs over time.

"Green gases have the wherewithal to become 'staple foodstuff' for the transition to alternative energies and make a considerable contribution to decarbonizing industry, mobility and heat," E.ON's CEO, Johannes Teyssen, said in a statement issued Thursday.

"The jointly realized project symbolizes a milestone on the path to virtually CO2 free production and demonstrates that fossil fuels can be replaced by intelligent cross-sector linking," he added.

According to the International Energy Agency, the iron and steel sector is responsible for 2.6 gigatonnes of direct carbon dioxide emissions each year, a figure that, in 2019, was greater than the direct emissions from sectors such as cement and chemicals. 

It adds that the steel sector is "the largest industrial consumer of coal, which provides around 75% of its energy demand."

The project in Germany is not unique in focusing on the role green hydrogen could play in steel manufacturing.

Across Europe, projects are also exploring natural gas pipe storage to balance intermittent renewables and enable sector coupling.

H2 Green Steel, a Swedish firm backed by investors including Spotify founder Daniel Ek, plans to build a steel production facility in the north of the country that will be powered by what it describes as "the world's largest green hydrogen plant."

In an announcement last month the company said steel production would start in 2024 and be based in Sweden's Norrbotten region.

Other energy-intensive industries are also looking into the potential of green hydrogen, and examples such as Schott's green power shift show parallel decarbonization. A subsidiary of multinational building materials firm HeidelbergCement has, for example, worked with researchers from Swansea University to install and operate a green hydrogen demonstration unit at a site in the U.K.

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Power Generation News