You probably remember a time when the thought of widespread solar and wind energy seemed far from reality. Interesting or intriguing, maybe, but not practical, and certainly not inevitable. But in recent years, solar panels and wind turbines have sprouted across rooftops and hilltops. They’re not our primary sources of power, but they’re in the mix. They’ve joined the big leagues...

While Rhode Island and Massachusetts are the two states closest to building floating wind farms in the waters of their coastlines, other areas along the Atlantic coast are close behind. Now a large block of ocean off the coast of New York and New Jersey is becoming available for wind power development. The Department of the Interior announced yesterday that they will offer leases for over 344,000 acres of Atlantic Ocean, ranging from off Long Island to off northern New Jersey...

Rhode Island and Massachusetts are neck and neck in the race for the first offshore wind farm in America, according to the National Wildlife Federation. The Cape Wind project in Massachusetts and the Block Island Wind Farm in Rhode Island plan to begin construction next year. The NWF described both of them as “within sight of the finish line.”

The wind energy industry is still very young, and has just begun to see success in recent years. So it’s understandable that wind farm operators are hesitant to make radical changes to the fundamental technology and equipment that they have built their operations on. But as a young industry built on an emerging technology, they also know that their success depends on their ability to move forward and innovate...

Germany’s changes to its renewable energy law passed in the upper house of parliament and is expected to go into effect in August. The law will cut back on renewable energy subsidies, and will change the way the remaining subsidies are funded. Germany has had some of the strongest support for renewable energy of any country, but with this reform, they are rolling that back. The Wall Street Journal explains the rationale...

With a 3.2 million grant from the State of Washington, Avista Corp will be testing out utility scale batteries. They received the grant last week. It comes from a $14 million pool of grant money to integrate renewable energy into Washington’s energy grid...

The Texas Public Utilities Commission is considering raising the costs to wind generation companies for energy transmission. Right now, those costs are built into the rates paid by consumers. The PUC Chair Donna Nelson has asked for a study, questioning whether wind companies ought to be paying more than they are now...