Juiced Bikes Mother’s Day sale takes $100 off e-bikes
Juiced Bikes has launched a Mother’s Day sale that is taking $100 off all purchases of $500 or more – including most of the brand’s e-bike models, with all discounts being automatically applied at checkout. The most affordable amongst the bunch is the RipRacer Fun-Sized Fat-Tire e-bike for $1,049 shipped. Already down from its usual $1,499 price tag, this e-bike was featured in many holiday and flash sales throughout 2023, often landing between $1,099 and $999. Since the new year began we’ve seen a few discounts, with February seeing the biggest drops, first to the $899 low and then later to $949. Today’s deal comes in as a combined 27% markdown off the going rate, giving you a solid $400 in savings and landing at the third-lowest price we have tracked. Currently the blue and black models are sold out, with only the green colorway available.
Juiced’s RipRacer e-bike comes equipped with a 750W motor and an upgraded G2 52V lithium-ion battery allowing it to reach top speeds of 20 to 28 MPH depending on your throttle and pedal assist usage, while also offering a range of 35 to 55+ miles. It features five levels of pedal assistance alongside a standard cadence sensor. You’ll also receive a more humble collection of accessories than some of the brand’s other models like hydaulic disc brakes, a 1,050-lumen headlight paired with a 2-mode taillight, knobby fat-tires for smoother off-road joyrides, and a back-lit LCD display that keeps you informed of real-time metrics as well as allowing you to adjust riding settings.
Jackery flash sale takes up to 42% off power stations, bundles, and accessories
Jackery has a short-term flash sale currently going through tomorrow, May 8, that is taking up to 42% off a selection of power stations and bundles. One of the notable standouts among the offers is the Explorer 2000 Pro with two 200W Solar Panels for $1,899 shipped, after using the on-page coupon/promo code MAY1400 at checkout for $1,400 off. Down from $3,299, this particular combo usually only sees discounts on occasion during big sales and holiday events, with 2023 never seeing it fall below $2,000. In the new year we’ve seen prices fall lower, first to $1,999 in January and February and then to $1,899 since March. Today’s deal comes in as a repeat 42% markdown off the going rate and lands as a return to the all-time lowest price we have tracked.
The Explorer 2000 Pro offers a 2,160Wh capacity that can provide a 2,200W max power output. It is able to fully charge from 0 to 100% in just two hours via a wall outlet or in less than three hours via six Jackery SolarSaga 200W solar panels. It offers eight ports to cover all your device’s charging needs: three ACs, two USB-As, two USB-Cs, and one car port. You’ll also be able to sync your smartphone with the power station in order to monitor and adjust settings in real-time via the app, allowing you to see remaining battery levels, customize settings and manage power consumption wherever you roam.
Explorer 2000 Plus with two extra batteries and two 200W solar panels: $4,369 (Reg. $6,499)
Jackery accessory discounts:
Greenworks 3,000 PSI Electric Pressure Washer Combo Kit returns to $429 for today only
For today only, Best Buy is offering the Greenworks 3,000 PSI Electric Pressure Washer Combo Kit for $429 shipped. Normally fetching $679, this particular combo kit has spent most of this year regularly bouncing between its all-time low of $310 and its MSRP – at less frequent rates than you’ll find on the other more simplified kits for the same model. It only matched its lowest markdown twice, during July’s Prime Deal days and September’s Labor Day sales. Today’s deal comes in as a repeat 37% markdown off the going rate and lands among some of the lowest prices we’ve seen. While it’s not necessarily at some of the lowest rates that is has been in the past, this is still a solid $250 discount that gives you excellent equipment for your tool arsenal at an affordable price.
This pressure washer comes equipped with a 14A TruBrushless motor that generates 3,000 PSI at a 2.0 GPM flow rate. It sports an onboard one-gallon detergent tank and features a wide array of accessories: 25 feet of non-marring, high-pressure hose, a surface cleaner attachment, one turbo nozzle, one soap nozzle, one 15-degree nozzle, one 25-degree nozzle, and one 45-degree nozzle – it even has on-board space for all these attachments for easy storage, convenient transportation, and quicker applications. You’ll also be getting the additional accessories of a short gun kit, microfiber mitts, and a 15-inch surface cleaner. Like most Greenworks pressure washers, it also features a Total Stop System, which automatically shuts off the pump when the trigger is not engaged, saving you energy, money, and extending your pump’s life.
The savings this week are also continuing to a collection of other markdowns. To the same tune as the offers above, these all help you take a more energy-conscious approach to your routine. Winter means you can lock in even better off-season price cuts on electric tools for the lawn while saving on EVs and tons of other gear.
Cummins has its eye on hybrid powertrains to help decarbonize the transport, construction, and mining spaces the operates in. To that end, the company has acquired the hybrid equipment experts First Mode, and plans to make the first commercially available retrofit hybrid system for mining equipment a reality not just soon – but now.
The Cummins brand is almost synonymous with diesel in the US, but they’re making big moves in the ZEV space, too, with their Accelera brand and, now, with their purchase of First Mode.
The acquisition includes the rights to all of First Mode’s tech in the mining and rail space, where the company has developed a full IP portfolio of “energy agnostic” (my words) electric drive powertrains that can draw power from internal combustion engines, hydrogen fuel cells, or batteries. And, because the First Mode Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) retrofit is designed as a modular platform, it allows equipment fleets to either back out of the electric drive conversion or take them a step further, going to fully battery electric operation with same (relative) ease.
“This acquisition is an important step forward in our goal to lead our Power Systems customers through the energy transition,” explains Jenny Bush, President of Power Systems at Cummins. “With First Mode’s hybrid retrofit technology, we are accelerating our ability to provide decarbonization solutions that meet miners’ need to drive down operating costs today.”
We’ve seen this before
Massive excavator converted to BEV by Liebherr; via Fortescue.
If the notion of converting heavy equipment from diesel to electric sounds familiar, that means you’ve been paying attention. The heavy mining equipment experts at Liebherr recently converted a pair of their massive R 9400 excavators from diesel to battery electric power for use at a Fortescue mine.
“The modular design of Liebherr equipment makes it possible to repower existing diesel excavators to new zero emission configurations, such as electric powertrains,” explains Oliver Weiss, Executive Vice President of R&D, Engineering, and Manufacturing for Liebherr Mining. “This means that the diesel equipment customers buy today is also future-proofed for many years to come. The fact that we can ease the transition from traditional to decarbonized mining fleets for our customers is one of the key strategies of the Liebherr Zero Emission Mining Program.”
For their part, Cummins’ executives seem just as excited by the promise of offering electrified mining equipment that can utilize existing assets, dramatically extending their life while reducing the up-front costs usually associated with electrification.
“Cummins’ dedication to partnering with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and miners ensures that these technologies are developed and tested in real-world environments,” Jenny Bush adds. “With hybrid retrofit kits, modular component upgrades and scalable solutions, we are bringing miners the flexibility and confidence they need to decarbonize operations while adapting to evolving technologies and infrastructure.”
Grapes are sensitive – and when you’re depending on them to have a certain flavor, a certain acidity, and even a certain smell, the last thing you want is diesel particulate matter settling on them. That’s just one of the reasons electric equipment options like Volvo’s electric wheel loader offer unique advantages to companies like Ästad Vingård.
Located in Sweden’s beautiful Åkulla beech forest nature reserve, Ästad Vingård is one of Sweden’s largest commercial vineyards, growing organic Solaris grapes and producing its own award-winning wines. The vineyard also hosts tours ending at their own, onsite, Michelin-star Restaurang ÄNG.
As you can imagine, they’re very particular about the way everything feels, smells, and tastes – but the sound, too, is part of the experience Ästad wants to create. That was the sort of thinking that went into Ästad’s decision to deploy one of the new Volvo L25 Electric compact wheel loaders late last summer.
“We’re super satisfied (with the Volvo),” explaines Henrik Carlsson, Head of Projects and Operations at Ästad Vingård. “It’s exactly what we hoped for – versatile and able to work a full day!”
The Volvo L25 Electric packs a pair of electric motors. One to drive the loader and the other to power the hydraulic systems. Together, they give the L25 wheel loader a lifting capacity more than 12,300 lb. Volvo says the 40 kWh battery and 48V electrical system are good for up to eight hours of continuous operation.
As the electric agricultural equipment market evolves, the winners will be the manufacturers who deliver bulletproof, seamless operation from a dealer and support network that’s just as bulletproof and seamless. The organic and hobby farm market (which I’d include vineyards in) is ready for electrification – it’s just a matter of which brand will deliver the most capable, flexible machines to market first.
A view of the turbines at Orsted’s offshore wind farm near Nysted, Denmark, September 4, 2023.
Tom Little | Reuters
President Donald Trump promised to unleash U.S. energy dominance, but his sweeping executive order targeting wind power puts a pipeline of projects at risk that would generate enough electricity for millions of American homes.
The order Trump issued on his first day in office indefinitely paused new offshore wind leases in U.S. coastal waters and halted new permits pending the completion of a review. The order jeopardizes proposed projects on the East Coast that have not yet secured permits totaling 32 gigawatts of power, according to data from the consulting firm Aurora Energy Research.
“At the moment, it’s really hard to see how any of these projects will be able to move forward,” said Artem Abramov, head of new energies research at the consultancy Rystad. Like Aurora, Rystad estimates that around 30 gigawatts of projects on the U.S. East Coast are at risk.
Those projects, if realized, would provide enough combined power for more than 12 million homes in the U.S., according a CNBC analysis of data from the Energy Information Administration. The order is not expected to impact projects under construction totaling about 5 gigawatts, according to Aurora.
Trump has abandoned commitments made during the Biden administration to fight climate change, withdrawing the U.S. for a second time from the Paris agreement. He has focused on boosting fossil fuel production, opening U.S. coastal waters to oil and gas leasing on the same day he withdrew those waters for wind.
Trump’s order will jeopardize the efforts of states in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast to transition away from fossil fuels and decarbonize their electric grid, Abramov said. New York, New Jersey and Virginia, for example, have ambitious clean energy goals adopted at the state level. But they are too far north to rely on solar with battery for power, Abramov said.
“If you want to achieve the future where the power generation in New York or New Jersey or Virginia is completely fossil free, if that’s the ultimate goal, there are not so many alternatives to offshore wind,” Abramov said.
The order could ultimately force states to rely more on carbon-emitting natural gas, according to Rystad and Aurora. But it is virtually impossible for a state like New York to meet its climate goals and ensure an adequate energy supply, particularly downstate in the New York City metro area, without offshore wind, said Julia Hoos, who heads Aurora’s U.S. East division.
Power projects waiting in line to connect to the electric grid in downstate New York through 2027 are almost entirely wind and transmission, Hoos said.
“There is virtually no possibility to bring online new gas in the next 18 to 24 months, unless there’s a significant reform or there’s some sort of fast track to bring online that gas, so you really can run into reliability issues,” Hoos said.
But more natural gas generation will likely be built later in the decade on the back of Trump’s policies, Hoos said. Investor sentiment was already shifting toward gas before the election results due in part to the need for reliable power to meet demand from artificial intelligence data centers, Abramov said.
Immediate impact
Two weeks after Trump’s order, New Jersey decided against moving forward for now with the Atlantic Shores project, which stood to become the first offshore wind development in the state. The state utilities board cited “uncertainty driven by federal actions and permitting” and European oil major Shell pulling out of the project.
“The offshore wind industry is currently facing significant challenges, and now is the time for patience and prudence,” Gov. Phil Murphy said in a statement backing the board’s decision.
Murphy, who has set a goal to achieve 100% clean energy in New Jersey by 2035, said he hoped “the Trump Administration will partner with New Jersey to lower costs for consumers, promote energy security, and create good-paying construction and manufacturing jobs.”
Offshore wind in the U.S. “has come to a stop, more or less with immediate effect” in the wake of Trump’s order, Vestas Wind Energy Systems CEO Henrik Andersen told investors on the company’s Feb. 5 earnings call. Denmark’s Vestas is one of the world’s leaders in manufacturing and servicing wind turbines.
Industry headwinds
Trump’s order deepens the challenges of an industry that was already facing an uncertain outlook after years growth.
Wind has surged as power source in the U.S. over the past 25 years from 2.4 gigawatts of installed generating capacity to 150 gigawatts by April 2024, according to data from the Energy Information Administration. Generation from wind hit a record that month, surpassing coal-fired power. Wind currently represents about 11% of total U.S. power generation.
But the industry has struggled against supply chain bottlenecks and high interest rates. Offshore wind was already the the most expensive form of renewable energy, Abramov said. Developers in the U.S. have faced a lot of cost certainty due to the challenges of building on water as opposed to land, Hoos said.
“The industry was hoping that the cost would come down,” Abramov said. “We haven’t seen any projects in the United States which was able to achieve lower levelized cost of energy.”
The world’s largest offshore wind developer, Denmark’s Orsted, decided on Feb. 5 to ditch its goal to install up to 38 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity by 2030. Orsted also slashed its investment program through the end of the decade by about 25% to range of 210 to 230 billion Danish crowns (about $29 billion to $32 billion), down from 270 billion crowns previously.
Orsted’s Sunrise Wind and Revolution wind projects that are under construction offshore New York and New England respectively should not be impacted by Trump’s order, CEO Rasmus Errboe told investors the company’s company’s Feb. 6 earnings call. Future developments, however, may be at risk.
“We are fully committed to moving them forward and deliver on our commitments,” Errboe said. “We do not expect that the executive order will have any implications on assets under construction, but of course for assets under development, it’s potentially a different situation.”
The order also should not impact Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, the largest such project under construction in the U.S. at 2.6 gigawatts of power, Dominion Energy CEO Robert Blue told investors on the utility’s Feb. 12 earning call.
“Stopping it would be the most inflationary action that could be taken with respect to energy in Virginia,” Blue said. “It’s needed to power that growing data center market we’ve been talking about, critical to continuing U.S. superiority in AI and technology.”
Looking for clarity
The wind industry lobby group American Clean Power in a Jan. 20 statement described Trump’s order as a blanket measure that will jeopardize domestic energy development and harm American businesses and workers. The president’s order contradicts the administration’s goal to reduce bureaucracy and unleash energy production, ACP CEO Jason Grumet said in the statement.
The ACP is now trying to get clarity from the Trump administration on how the executive order will be implemented, said Frank Macchiarola, the group’s chief advocacy officer. It’s unclear, for example, when the review of permit and lease practices will be complete, Macchiarola said.
A spokesperson for the Interior Department simply said the department is implementing Trump’s executive order when asked for comment on a detailed list of questions. When asked when the review of permit and lease practices will be complete, the spokesperson said any estimate would be hypothetical.
The wind industry is committed to working with the Trump administration, supports the president’s push for energy dominance agenda and is making the case that renewables have a key role to play in that agenda as the largest new source of electricity in the U.S., Macchiarola said.
“When past administrations have chosen to stifle American energy development that has been almost universally viewed as a mistake,” Macchiarola said.
Onshore wind permitting has also been halted pending the review, but the part of the industry is unlikely to face a substantial impact, Rystad’s Abramov said. Wind farms onshore are almost entirely built on private rather than federal land, he said. The market is also already saturated and adding capacity is largely dependent on building out more energy storage first, the analyst said.
Offshore wind, however, is a much less mature market in the U.S. and was viewed as major growth opportunity for the industry, Abramov said. But that appears to changing rapidly.
“They don’t see the U.S. as a market for continuous offshore wind expansion as long as this order is in place,” the analyst said.
— CNBC’s Gabriel Cortes contributed to this report.