Energy Changemakers

Economic conditions are now favorable for electricity customers to generate their power off grid in five US states: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, and New York, says a new study by researchers at Western University in Ontario, Canada. https://lnkd.in/e8ZtHCyU

Very cool idea approved by Ann Arbor, Michigan voters on Nov. 5. Will other cities follow?

I haven’t been able to get the refrain out of my mind from the Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young song, Déjà Vu: “We have all been here before, we have all been here before.” https://lnkd.in/et5itEWb

When I moved to Bodega Bay, California over two years ago, it seemed its main claim to notoriety was that it was the setting for Alfred Hitchcock’s film,?The Birds. I soon found out a little-known and surprising fact: Bodega Bay sired grassroots environmental activism in America, writes Peter Asmus. https://lnkd.in/exuGu-Bx

Imagine standing in line outside a restaurant only to find that when you reach the door, there are no more tables. “No worries!” says the restaurant owner. “We can accommodate you in our new wing. We just need to build it. And, oh, by the way, you’ll need to pay for its construction.” Odd as that sounds, it’s pretty much how the grid interconnection queue works in a big swath of the United States. https://lnkd.in/ehvaKaKb

Energy entrepreneur Alex Bazhinov took bigger steps than most to create his company. It wasn’t just a matter of finding the right business plan or financing. He had to move from mining to renewables and from Russia to the US before launching smart panel manufacturer Lumin. https://lnkd.in/ejTxK_RT

Building electric vehicle chargers in the US is a tough business.? “In the last year, several charging companies have either gone bankrupt, had a significant number of layoffs, or pulled out of the US market,” said Loren McDonald, Chief Evangelist of?Paren,?an EV data company. https://lnkd.in/eJpRYb8R

The US community solar market has tripled in size since 2020. But that growth could soon slow because only a few states have pro-community solar policies. “We’re constantly having to bang down doors in areas that are, you know, not necessarily open to competition and/or a change in policy. So it’s a long battle that we fight,” says Nate Owen, CEO of Ampion, who I interviewed in a recently released?Energy Changemakers Podcast. Nate describes community solar as “a little rowboat bumping up against an aircraft carrier...We’re trying to make the aircraft carrier take a bit of a perpendicular turn…or a 10 or 20-degree turn. We need a lot of rowboat,” he says. https://lnkd.in/ed8uPym3

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In a few short decades will those of us on the US coasts be packing up for the Midwest? And will sophisticated rural towns with distributed energy systems greet us? https://lnkd.in/eFnXJQU9