Opinion:
¶ “French And Germany Economic Councils Endorse Electric Trucks Over Hydrogen” • Michael Barnard: The French and German economic councils have weighed in. They didn’t fall for hydrogen but did what economists do best: They looked at the numbers, ran the models, and declared that battery-electric trucks are smart bet. [CleanTechnica]
BYD truck (BYD image)
World:
¶ “Australia’s Residential Batteries Plan Will Lower Utility Costs For Its Citizens” • The latest plans of the government of Australia call for subsidizing residential batteries, which it says will greatly lower the amount citizens spend each month on utility bills. The $2.3 billion program is designed to lower the cost of residential batteries by about 30%. [CleanTechnica]
¶ “EVs Take 28.9% Share Of The UK – Tesla Top Battery EV Brand” • March saw plugin EVs take 28.9% share of the UK auto market, up from 22.9% year-on-year. BEVs grew volume by 43%, year over year, while plugin hybrids grew 38%. Overall auto volume was up some 12% year-on-year, at 357,103 units. Tesla was the UK’s leading BEV brand in March. [CleanTechnica]
BMW i8 coupe (Jeremy, CC-BY-SA 2.0)
¶ “Renewable Bosses Say Gas Power Will Require Its Own Underwriting Scheme” • One of Australia’s leading renewable energy chiefs – a former gas executive – has broken ranks within the industry and argued that government will have to support new gas peaking generators in the main grid, or else they will simply not be built. [RenewEconomy]
¶ “DNV Backs SENSEWind To Deliver Offshore Savings” • The SENSEWind self-installing turbine assembly technology could reduce the levelized cost of energy at a large-scale fixed-bottom offshore wind farm by 4.7%, a report from accreditation agency DNV says. The savings are said to be equivalent to £1 billion over the operational life of a project. [reNews]
Self-installing turbine at work (SENSEWind image)
¶ “Celtic Sea Leasing Round 5 Enters Final Phase” • The Crown Estate concluded the first phase of a two-stage tender to award three 1.5-GW seabed plots in the Celtic Sea to floating wind developers this summer. The Crown Estate indicated that there is space for 12 GW of new capacity, of which 4 GW to 10 GW could be leased by the end of the decade. [reNews]
¶ “Construction Starts On New Zealand’s 280-GWh Agrivoltaic Project” • First Renewables, a joint venture of Harmony Energy New Zealand and energy supplier Clarus, is building largest solar farm in the country, the 202-MW Tauhei Solar Park project. It will generate 280 GWh of electric energy per year, while it also serves as a sheep farm. [pv magazine India]
Agrivoltaics (Harmony Energy image)
¶ “China Reports No Abnormalities In Fukushima Wastewater Samples” • Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said there were no abnormalities in levels of tritium, cesium-134, cesium-137, or strontium-90, found in tests of samples collected by the Chinese research institutions in February in waters near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station. [China Daily]
US:
¶ “Trump’s Fraud And Efficiency Lies Bring Out Mass Protests” • Hands Off! demonstrations were organized for more than 1,300 locations in all 50 states by more than 150 groups, including civil rights organizations, labor unions, LBGTQ+ advocates, veterans, and elections activists, according to the Associated Press. Media small and large covered the events. [CleanTechnica]
Hands Off protest in Washington (SWinxy, CC-BY-SA 4.0)
¶ “Tesla Solar Sales Declined For Four Straight Quarters, Then It Stopped Publishing The Numbers” • Tesla’s solar business was in decline, with the last good quarter being the fourth of 2022, with 100 MW of solar power installed. Tesla’s installations of rooftop solar then declined for at least four quarters in a row. And then it stopped publishing the figures. [CleanTechnica]
¶ “$50 Million More For US Space Solar Startup Aetherflux ” • The idea of beaming solar energy down to Earth from space was just a dream writers until 2013, when a research team at CalTech scored $100 million in private funding to look into it. Now the space solar field is crowded. Investors put up $50 million for the California startup Aetherflux. [CleanTechnica]
Have a vastly fortunate day.
geoharvey 
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