Distributed Energy Resources, Energy Efficiency, Energy Storage, GHG Emissions, Power Prices, Regulation, Distributed Generation, Solar  -  October 28, 2017

Weekend reads: Cleantech VC funding spike; electric car emissions; molten salt storage & more

Every Saturday, we'll bring you five of the most interesting — or quirky; it is the weekend after all — energy stories from around the web that you may have missed this week. This weekend's reads:

Storage, smart grid and energy efficiency companies see jump in VC funding (Utility Dive): Battery storage, smart grid and efficiency companies are on track to beat the $1.3 billion in VC funding they secured in 2016, having already raised $1.23 billion through the first nine months of 2017. Mercom's Battery Storage, Smart Grid, and Efficiency Funding and M&A Report covered 119 companies and investors.

Electric cars emit 50% less greenhouse gas than diesel, study finds (The Guardian): Electric cars emit significantly less greenhouse gases over their lifetimes than diesel engines even when they are powered by the most carbon-intensive energy, a new report has found. In Poland, which uses high volumes of coal, electric vehicles produced a quarter less emissions than diesels when put through a full lifecycle modelling study by Belgium's VUB University.

Congressional Auditor Urges Action to Address Climate Change (The New York Times): Fires, floods and hurricanes are already costing the federal government tens of billions of dollars a year and climate change will drive those costs even higher in coming years, a new federal study warns.

Will Molten Salt Outdo Batteries for Grid-Tied Storage? (Greentech Media): Thermal storage hasn't garnered the level of industry attention lately as battery storage, which is experiencing quickly falling prices and rising deployments. But thermal storage, and molten salt in particular, actually exceeds the capacity of battery storage in operation so far, according to a new report from the International Renewable Energy Agency. A recent resurgence in concentrated solar power development promises to increase that advantage.

NREL Inks Technology Agreement for High Efficiency Multijunction Solar Cells (Power Magazine): The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has entered into a license agreement with MicroLink Devices, Inc. (Niles, IL) to commercialize NREL’s patented inverted metamorphic (IMM) multijunction solar cells. While high-efficiency multijunction solar cells are commonly used for space satellites, researchers have continued to look for ways to improve cost and performance to enable a broader range of applications.

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