SunPower Increasing Clean Energy Access To Historically Marginalized Communities
SunPower has launched a new program, SunPower 25X25, which is aimed at increasing clean, renewable energy access in historically marginalized communities. Notably, whether inspired by it or just coincidental (I’d guess the former), this lines up perfectly with a new initiative from the Biden administration — the Justice40 Initiative.
Aside from bringing cheap and clean electricity to communities that have typically been ignored and forgotten, and the jobs that come with this distributed energy solution, it’s worth noting that this also expands SunPower’s market, bringing in new buyers.
The company writes that “its new justice, diversity, equity and inclusion (JDE&I) commitments designed to ensure the resiliency and economic benefits of distributed solar and battery storage serve American families, job-seekers and businesses that have been historically marginalized. The commitments include ambitious targets with initiatives to achieve them by 2025 — spanning workforce diversity, solar access expansion and dealer diversity programs.”
So, getting past the fluffy, happy talk, what are those targets? This is what SunPower wants to achieve by 2025:
- 40% of its workforce represented by women; 25% of its workforce represented by Black and Hispanic/Latinx people
- Emphasis will be placed on workforce development programs for the company’s growing residential installation teams across the country.
- 25% of its U.S. residential customers made up by people who live in historically marginalized communities
- Includes the development of a new program to provide low-income customers with no interest loans.
- 25% of the dealers and subcontractors it works with owned by women and people of color
- Includes establishment of a new dealer diversity program and creation of new partnerships with minority-owned business organizations.
As noted above, this lines up with Biden’s Justice40 Initiative. The Justice40 Initiative came out of an executive order signed by Biden in January 2021. “The order creates a government-wide Justice40 Initiative with the goal of delivering 40 percent of the overall benefits of relevant federal investments to disadvantaged communities and tracks performance toward that goal through the establishment of an Environmental Justice Scorecard,” the White House wrote at the time.
“The order initiates the development of a Climate and Environmental Justice Screening Tool, building off EPA’s EJSCREEN, to identify disadvantaged communities, support the Justice40 Initiative, and inform equitable decision making across the federal government”
Later on, in July, the Biden administration’s Shalanda Young, Brenda Mallory, and Gina McCarthy wrote:
“Today, we are taking a key step toward achieving the President’s ambitious goal and issuing interim guidance that will help Federal agencies deliver on the Justice40 Initiative.
“The interim guidance issued today by the Office of Management and Budget, the Council on Environmental Quality, and the White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy introduces measures to guide agencies on their path to implementing Justice40, launches the Justice40 Pilot Program, and includes accountability and transparency tools to ensure agencies are working to reach the Justice40 goal.
“The pilot identifies 21 priority programs to immediately begin enhancing benefits for disadvantaged communities. These priority programs will provide a blueprint for other agencies to help inform their work to implement the Justice40 Initiative across government.”
Note that part of that July announcement — one of the 21 priority programs — was the Rural Energy for America Program, “which provides guaranteed loan financing and grant funding to agricultural producers and rural small businesses for renewable energy systems or to make energy efficiency improvements.” So, expect to see more solar in rural America when you’re there, in addition to growing clean energy access in marginalized urban communities.
SunPower notes that its new SunPower 25X25 program also helps the company to work toward its broader “diversity pledge.” SunPower “will report progress annually in its Environmental, Social and Governance report.”
“Black professionals working in solar services have roots, relationships and experience in all communities, particularly those disproportionately impacted by climate change. If the solar industry is going to provide renewable energy access and equitable job opportunities, actively engaging black owned businesses is vital,” said Walter McLeod, founding board member of Black Owners of Solar Services. “We commend SunPower for committing to creating an intentionally diverse dealer and subcontractor network and raising the bar for others in the industry to do the same.”
“Distributed solar and battery storage offer tremendous benefit to our environment, are vital in building a resilient energy infrastructure, can provide lower-cost electricity, and create good, well-paying jobs,” Peter Faricy, CEO of SunPower, added. “We must use this moment-in-time to ensure the rapid deployment of this critical technology benefits all Americans.”
If you’re used to seen Tom Werner make such statements and confused about where Peter Faricy came from, note that in March Werner stepped down from the CEO role after 18 years and passed on the duties to Faricy, who was formerly CEO of Global Direct-to-Consumer for Discovery, Inc., and spent 13 years at Amazon, including as VP of the Amazon Marketplace. “Under Faricy’s leadership, Amazon disrupted the digital sales channel, helping millions of small businesses sell their products directly to Amazon customers,” SunPower wrote in an announcement.
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Tesla appears to be doubling down on its new “Oasis” Supercharger station concept, which consists of larger stations powered by solar and a microgrid battery system.
Although, this new one is a bit less ambitious.
Last month, Tesla announced its “project Oasis” (pictured above), which should become one of Tesla’s largest Supercharger stations with several pull-through stalls for trucks and trailers, but the real differentiating factor is a large solar array and battery system that enables the charging station to operate off-grid mostly.
CEO Elon Musk has been saying that the goal of the Supercharger network is to be powered by solar and batteries and mostly off-grid since 2016, but Tesla has yet to make this common.
The announcement of the Project Oasis gave us some hope that it might finally happen, and now it looks like Tesla is planning a mini Oasis.
Marco RP, who tracks Supercharger projects, reported on the new construction plans submitted for the Coalinga, California station:
https://twitter.com/MarcoRPi1/status/1852794833154535719
The project is about 50 miles north of Project Oasis – also on Interstate 5 between Los Angeles and the Bay Area.
We call it a “mini Oasis” not because it has fewer charging stations than Oasis; it actually has the same number of planned stalls, 168 stalls, but because it doesn’t have as much solar and batteries to enable off-grid use.
Oasis has 11 MW of planned solar power and 39 MWh of energy storage.
This new project in Coalinga has less than 1 MW of solar and 15.5 MWh of energy storage. In the case of Oasis, the grid complements Tesla’s microgrid, and in this new project, it’s Tesla’s microgrid that complements the grid connection.
But Tesla could eventually expand its solar array and battery storage system at the new station.
This new station also includes restrooms, which Tesla has sometimes deployed at bigger stations.
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Home to luxury automakers like Porsche and BWM, Lucid Motors (LCID) is making a name for itself in Germany. Lucid just had its second consecutive month of record EV registrations in Europe’s largest auto market.
Lucid is taking on Europe with its luxury EVs
According to new data released Tuesday from Germany’s Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA), Lucid had 129 new registrations in October.
Although it may not seem like much, it’s a considerable jump from the 41 registrations Lucid had in September. Lucid sold more cars in Germany last month than it did in the entire third quarter. The luxury EV maker has 256 registrations in Germany through the first ten months.
Lucid’s growth comes despite overall EV registrations in Germany slipping nearly 5% YOY to 35,491 units in October.
After opening its newest studio in Hamburg last month, Lucid declared its “expansion in Europe continues.” The new studio comes just a month after opening one in Frankfurt.
Lucid now has four showrooms in Germany and eight in Europe as it expands overseas. Last month, the EV maker also signed a deal with SIXT to add its luxury Air sedan to its fleet in Germany.
Following the deal, former CEO Peter Rawlinson said more customers will be able to “experience the only EV in the world which is equally at home on the Autobahn as on city streets.”
Lucid’s mobile service network covers 15 European markets, including Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Austria, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, and the Czech Republic.
The Lucid Air Pure starts at about $93,000 (€85,000) in Germany and has up to 464 miles (747 km) of WLTP range. Lucid’s Air Touring and Air Grand Touring models start at $108,200 (€99,000) and $141,000 (€129,000), respectively.
| Starting Price | WLTP Range | |
| Lucid Air Pure | $93,000 (€85,000) | 464 miles (747 km) |
| Lucid Air Touring | $108,200 (€99,000) | 451 miles (725 km) |
| Lucid Air Grand Touring | $141,000 (€129,000) | 521 miles (839 km) |
Lucid said it plans to continue expanding in Europe with its newly opened service and delivery centers in Munich and Zurich.
In the US, the company is gearing up to launch its first electric SUV, the Gravity. Lucid will begin taking Gravity SUV orders for US buyers on November 7, 2024.
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Renewables developer Exus Renewables North America is giving a $200 million upgrade to Somerset County, Pennsylvania’s 139 megawatt (MW) Twin Ridges Wind Farm – here’s why repowering projects like this are the future of the wind industry.
Wind energy repowering is all about breathing new life into older turbines or entire wind farms. By swapping out aging parts like turbines, blades, and nacelles for the latest tech, wind farms can see significant boosts in efficiency, power capacity, and overall lifespan. Other infrastructure and control systems can also get a second life, too.
Adding new components to existing infrastructure and grid connections mean it’s less expensive to extend the life of the wind farm with fewer resources. New components make the turbines less prone to breakdowns which means less maintenance, so there are fewer operational costs. Plus, a wind farm’s debt is usually paid off at around 10 years, and it qualifies for new tax credits and new financing at around that time. Existing wind farms often have power purchase agreements in place, and data companies are increasingly chasing power sources as demand grows.
Repowering Twin Ridges meant keeping all 68 towers and foundations while swapping out the nacelles and blades. Vestas, which has identified the repower market as a huge opportunity and engineered a solution that’s compatible with most turbines, supplied US-made nacelles, hubs, blades, and tower adaptors for the project. (Twin Ridges’ original supplier, RES, is no longer in business.)
Jim Spencer, CEO of Exus Renewables North America, said of Twin Ridges, “This upgrade will increase the power generation by 30%, which is a lot more power going into the grid. Repowering will allow it to use more of its allotted grid capacity since wind farms don’t operate at maximum capacity 100% of the time.”
Unlike a new wind farm, which comes online all at once, a repowered wind farm sees refurbished turbines turned on one at a time since the infrastructure is already in place. Out of its 68 upgraded turbines, Twin Ridges has brought 40 repowered turbines online, and a 41st turbine will soon follow.
Industry estimates suggest that up to 50 GW of US onshore wind capacity will be assessed for repowering in the next few years.
Read more: Renewables now make up 30% of US utility-scale generating capacity
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