Demand for solar power and energy storage is only going to increase. What’s the plan for meeting it?
Interchange Recharged
Wood Mackenzie
4.8 • 535 Ratings
🗓️ 14 June 2024
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Insight and analysis from the second day of the Solar & Energy Storage Summit 2024.
Day 2 of the 2024 Solar and Energy Storage Summit and the conversation was still in full swing. We were there once again to capture all the debate and discussion on the future of the solar energy sector.
Electrification is at the heart of the energy transition. There’s been a sharp rise in grid connection capabilities in the last couple of years, and it’s causing a headache for the industry. Permitting queues are long, and connection charges are high. What needs to change to ease these?
Kelly Snyder is Senior Director, Origination, at EDP Renewables. She joins us to discuss it, as well as the latest trends in solar PPAs.
What’s the future of US electricity demand? Data centres, EV infrastructure and widespread electrification are causing a surge in demand, so how much is going to be met by green energy? Leuwam Tesfai is Deputy Executive Director for Energy and Climate Policy at the California Public Utilities Commission. She spoke to us about California’s plans to secure solar and storage supply chains to ensure there’s enough clean energy to meet demand.
Plus, conversations with Oscar Araujo, General Manager for North America at Canadian Solar, and Shaun Laughlin of Solaris Energy, on mitigating climate risk and clean energy finance. Connection bottlenecks and possible solutions to the problem, PPAs, solar and storage technology and trends in funding and finance: it’s all here on our recap of day 2 of the summit.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Wood McKenzie's Solar Energy and Storage Summit is back in Denver on the 29th and 30th of April, |
| 0:06.2 | 2026. It's co-located with the brand new North American Power and Renewables Forum, |
| 0:11.9 | which features senior speakers from across the U.S. power sector. Come and join over 450 senior |
| 0:18.2 | leaders from U.S. power developers, utilities, and independent power producers |
| 0:23.3 | to tackle the industry's biggest challenges. From navigating life after tax credits to capturing |
| 0:29.7 | the load growth boom, discover how the energy mix is evolving and how the U.S. is going to meet |
| 0:34.9 | that power demand. Seats are limited, so register now at woodmack.com. |
| 0:40.4 | There's no energy transition without electrification. |
| 0:44.1 | But electrification creates its own problems, |
| 0:46.9 | namely how the system can manage the increase in demand. |
| 0:50.3 | This is the interchange recharged. |
| 0:52.6 | And we're back at the Solar and Energy Storage Summit for |
| 0:55.9 | day two of the discussion. I'm David Bammiller. Coming up on today's show, the best insights and |
| 1:04.1 | debates from day two of the conference. We'll talk about connection issues, PPAs, mitigating the |
| 1:10.4 | risks of extreme weather, and |
| 1:12.1 | the increased demand for energy. |
| 1:14.5 | There's been a sharp rise in grid connection capabilities in the last couple of years. |
| 1:18.6 | Becca Jones, Alberta, from the DOE, summed up the situation on our day one podcast when |
| 1:23.7 | she said this. |
| 1:24.8 | There's over a terawatt of solar and hundreds of gigawatts of storage |
| 1:28.7 | in interconnection cues around the country. |
| 1:31.4 | If all of that went through those cues |
... |
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