Caribbean Women Are Making Waves in Clean Energy. Meet three women who are leading the clean energy transition through education, mentorship, and community. March 18, 2024  By  Laura Diez Women have long been underrepresented in the energy sector. In the Caribbean, it often starts at a young age, with girls being discouraged from pursuing science, technology, and engineering. However, a group of passionate dedicated women are set on changing that. The Caribbean-based Women in Renewable Energy (WIRE) Network advocates for increased gender equality across the clean energy sector in government agencies, utilities, regulatory bodies, and the private sector to eventually increase women’s representation in C-suites and boards, through ensuring a pipeline of motivated and experienced women.One way it does this is through its two-year mentorship program. Twelve women are selected each year and are paired with women in senior leadership positions for guidance in the clean energy sector and advisement on how to make the most of their professional opportunities. The current WIRE Mentorship Program currently hosts 24 women across 14 nations in the Caribbean. Meet some of these amazing women.......Indra Haraksingh is a visionary educator and a driving force behind the development of the Master of Science in Renewable Energy Technology (MScRET), a groundbreaking program at the University of West Indies in the Caribbean. Based in Trinidad and Tobago, Haraksingh supports the WIRE Network as a senior mentor to the current WIRE Mentorship cohort. She also serves as president of the Caribbean Solar Energy Society and lecturer in the Department of Physics at the university. The MScRET initiative was born out of the pressing need to address high electricity rates and the environmental impact of fossil fuel dependency in the region. Haraksingh saw the immense potential of harnessing solar and other renewable resources prevalent in the Caribbean and recognized the critical role of education in driving this transition. In collaboration with universities in Flensburg, Germany, Haraksingh spearheaded the creation of the MScRET to equip Caribbean nations with the knowledge and expertise necessary to embrace renewable energy solutions fully. "For countries to move in this direction, it is important that they are well informed and trained in the technology and use of renewable energy," she explains. The program has been instrumental in training a new generation of experts, with approximately 20 graduates annually over its ten-year history.By training individuals across various sectors in renewable energy, the MScRET has helped to build a more self-reliant region, reducing the reliance on external experts. Haraksingh emphasizes the importance of mentorship and networks in shaping the future of these students.......and meetmore of these amazing women              https://rmi.org/caribbean-women-are-making-waves-in-clean-energy/ 

Uruguay’s green power revolution: rapid shift to wind shows the world how it’s done. Stung by 2008’s oil price spike, Uruguay now produces up to 98% of its electricity from renewables. Can other countries follow suit?Guardian Sam Meadows in Montevideo  28 Dec 2023 It was the 2000s, and fossil fuel prices were rising worldwide. After a period of volatility in the 1980s, the crude oil price per barrel had reached one of its lowest points – $20 – at the end of 2001 but then, over the course of six years, it tripled before a new oil shock saw prices surpass those of the 1970s, reaching a record $145 a barrel on 3 July 2008. Uruguay imports its oil, so it had a problem. Demand for energy in the country had grown by 8.4% the previous year and household energy bills were increasing at a similar rate. The 3.4 million-strong population was becoming restless. Lacking alternatives, President Tabaré Vázquez was forced to buy energy from neighbouring states at higher prices, even though Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay had a mutual aid agreement in case of emergency conditions. To escape the trap, Vázquez needed rapid solutions. He turned to an unlikely source: Ramón Méndez Galain, a physicist who would transform the country’s energy grid into one of the cleanest in the world. Today, the country has almost phased out fossil fuels in electricity production. Depending on the weather, anything between 90% and 95% of its power comes from renewables. In some years, that number has crept as high as 98%. 

 Enabling Renewable Energy with Data-Driven Power Systems and Battery Energy Storage. RMI and NREL unveil new tools to simplify complex energy analysis and improve energy storage  February 19, 2024 – Basalt, CO Rocky Mountain Institute, and the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) announced today the launch of innovative, publicly available tools aimed at advancing renewable energy development. These tools were launched as part of RMI’s Energy Transition Academy (ETA), a global leadership and workforce development platform that is designed to empower and equip energy leaders with essential skills including modeling power systems using NREL’s System Advisor Model (SAM). Additionally, the organizations unveiled a comprehensive “how-to” guide on operating and maintaining battery energy storage systems (BESS). The ETA works to ensure leaders are well-informed and ready to act by providing access to curated information, tools, peer-to-peer problem-solving, skills training, and mentorship networks to advance energy transition priorities in their companies, countries, and communities. The ETA collaborates with regional partners such as the Caribbean Electric Utility Services Corporation (CARILEC) and the Lagos Energy Academy, as well as international partners such as NREL to design training opportunities and resources for energy professionals that respond to local training needs. Through courses like SAM and the BESS “how-to” guide, the ETA empowers clean energy professionals to strategically plan and execute initiatives that align with their clean power goals. The System Advisor Model (SAM) is a user-friendly techno-economic computer model designed to calculate the performance and financial metrics of renewable energy projects. This free tool aids decision makers in analyzing the cost, performance, and financing aspects of grid-connected solar, wind, or geothermal power projects of any scale. SAM’s versatility extends to manufacturers, engineering and consulting firms, research and development entities, utilities, developers, venture capital firms, and international organizations, enabling end-to-end analysis for informed decision-making.            https://rmi.org/press-release/enabling-renewable-energy-with-data-driven-power-systems-and-battery-energy-storage/

So Big It’s Boring: The Rise of Utility-Scale Solar. Hundreds of gigawatts of utility-scale solar will define the shape of the rest of America’s carbon-free economy COLIN SMITH MARCH 12, 2021In the second quarter of 2020, the U.S. hit 50 gigawatts of cumulative operating utility solar, without much pause to consider how momentous a milestone it was. In 2011, utility solar reached 1 gigawatt. It took roughly nine years for the country to hit 50 gigawatts, but now it’s on track to reach 100 gigawatts by the end of 2023. Under Wood Mackenzie’s current forecast, U.S. utility solar will surpass 250 gigawatts by 2029 and reach more than 1 terawatt of utility PV somewhere between 2042 and 2045. 

Onshore wind currently is the top technology for annual capacity additions in the U.S. It will hold the No. 1 spot until 2022 when the combination of the stepdown of the federal Production Tax Credit and the growth in solar causes wind to drop to second place. But the growth doesn’t stop there. Annual additions of solar will keep increasing. By 2029, utility solar will see more annual capacity additions than onshore wind, offshore wind, natural gas, battery storage, and all other capacity generation sources combined. In short, utility solar is the first wave in the revolution that will lead to a carbon-free economy. We will need other carbon-free technologies, of course. Onshore and offshore wind will continue to be built, distributed generation will flourish, and new infrastructure such as microgrids will allow the grid to be more resilient and reliable. Through this energy grid evolution, large-scale PV will be the vanguard. That much new solar will also spur its own set of problems. Transmission build-out might be the limiting factor for growth of solar or energy storage and dictating the pace of change. Permitting or NIMBY issues will continue to arise across the country for large-scale and small-scale developers alike. Financing the vast build-out will prove challenging and finding funding could prove to be challenging to some developers. Finally, there’s the looming question of energy-market redesign to handle high levels of solar and renewables penetration, and what that new design might look like. But these challenges to how fast utility solar grows take it for granted that it will, in fact, see such enormous growth. Despite these potential hurdles, more states, utilities and corporations are passing carbon-free energy or 100% renewables plans. This helps increase our certainty that utility-scale solar, as the country’s dominant energy technology, will play a defining role in how the U.S. energy infrastructure changes over the coming decades.....that's the full article, checkout....Solar Will Be Cheapest Form of Electricity Across US by 2030, Plus Other PV Trends. A look at the resource’s next decade, in charts.......https://www.greentechmedia.com/squared/the-lead/solar-to-be-cheapest-form-of-electricity-across-u.s-by-2030-and-other-trends

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