Britain Hits New High In Clean Power Production.

Hey There! Welcome to Clean Tech News the newsletter that is your little ray of sunshine.

What’s up today:

• Clean Energy Takes Root In Rural America.

• Meme Of The Week.

• Britain Hits New High In Clean Power Production.

• Quick & Clean Weekly Bites.

Clean Energy Takes Root In Rural America.

Last year’s climate law could bring big changes to the small nonprofits that provide electricity to many rural Americans, helping accelerate the nation’s switch to clean energy.

The country’s 900 or so rural electric cooperatives serve remote rural customers and are member-driven, owned, and controlled. Their nonprofit status has made it hard to make investments in low-carbon energy; unlike investor-owned utilities, they can’t go into debt or sell shares to pay for a solar farm. But getting them off of fossil fuels is essential to meeting President Joe Biden’s climate goals.

Most rely on larger organizations, called generation and transmission cooperatives, or G&Ts, to generate their electricity — and plan for the clean energy transition. But some co-op CEOs are looking to exit G&Ts and go it alone as new clean energy and funds become accessible under last year’s Inflation Reduction Act.

Some co-ops have expanded their clean power offerings, but the going is slow. In 2020, 28 percent of co-ops’ electricity came from coal, compared with 19 percent nationally, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Many have legacy fossil fuel plants, and members may be unwilling to raise monthly bills to pay for renewables.

The Inflation Reduction Act is poised to supercharge the progress that’s been made. It both creates a $9.7 billion grant program for co-ops to slash greenhouse gas emissions and enables co-ops to take advantage of clean energy tax credits.

“It’s a remarkable, generational opportunity for co-ops,” said Jim Matheson, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.

Meme Of The Week.

Britain Hits New High In Clean Power Production.

New analysis from Imperial College London has found that Britain produced 100% clean electricity for 25 hours in December 2022, the longest period on record.

The report, for Drax Electric Insights, found renewable sources, such as hydro, wind, solar, and biomass, as well as nuclear, combined to break the record for the volume of clean surplus power produced, which was 2.9GW.

During 2022 there were nearly 100 hours where the grid delivered more clean power than it needed.

Iain Staffell of Imperial College London, and lead author of the quarterly Drax Electric Insights report, said: “Britain’s power grid has undergone a remarkable transformation over the last decade with surplus clean electricity having switched from being a pipe dream to becoming a reality.

“Electricity is the only form of energy where we produce more than we consume – in comparison to our coal and gas requirements where 60-75% are still imported from abroad.

“The UK has led the world in ‘greening its grid’ further and faster than any other major economy and we need to ensure we don’t lose the momentum to make net zero a reality.”

Quick & Clean Weekly Bites.

• Richard Hardiman first came up with the idea for a water-cleaning robot after seeing two men struggle to catch rubbish from their boat in his home city of Cape Town, South Africa. Inspired by a whale shark’s wide mouth - which scoops up whatever is in front of it - his company Ran Marine created the WasteShark. “I liken it to a Roomba for water. It's an autonomous machine that scoops up pollution out of the water on the surface level,” says Richard. Link.

• Solar panels are being rolled out “like a carpet” on railway tracks in Switzerland. Swiss start-up Sun-Ways is installing panels near Buttes train station in the west of the country in May, pending sign-off from the Federal Office of Transport. As the climate crisis demands that we speed up Europe’s energy transition, developers have been seeing new potential in unusual surfaces. Roadsides, reservoirs and farms are all finding space for solar systems. And Germany’s Deutsche Bahn is also experimenting with adding solar cells to railway sleepers. Link.

• Solar panels will soon be fitted on the roof of York Minster in northern England. Faced with rising bills and climate concerns, the historic cathedral is turning to renewable energy - and following in the footsteps of other historic sites across Europe including the Vatican and Pompeii. The 199 photovoltaic (PV) tiles, recently approved by the City of York Council, will generate 75,000 KwH of power annually - or enough electricity for around 25 average UK households. Link.