The Ridgewood Blog Brings a Free Market Laissez-faire Point of View to Local, New Jersey State and National Issues.
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, are you ready for an unusual cosmic event that could affect our everyday technologies? This week, the US government issued a severe geomagnetic storm watch, signaling potential disruptions due to heightened solar activity.
TOM JOHNSON | APRIL 24, 2017
Does the fall-off in solar installations and loss of jobs indicate a slowdown in the sector?
What’s going on: Mostly business as usual: The unanswered question is whether that portends well for New Jersey’s solar sector, which has been prone to boom-and-bust cycles. The state’s solar industry is continuing to install new systems at a fairly good pace, although last month the number of deployments fell off dramatically from the rate of a year ago. In March, 889 residential systems were put in, roughly half the number installed 12 months earlier, according to the Office of Clean Energy. The number of nonresidential systems put also fell. That is only one month’s tally, but there are other signs the sector may be slowing. An industry survey of the sector nationwide released early this year found New Jersey lost 1,000 solar jobs in 2016 — at the same time the industry was growing at 25 percent nationwide.
file photo Boyd Loving Could this Happen to PSEG
Sabotage at Nogales station puts focus on threats to grid
The FBI is investigating whether a makeshift bomb placed next to a 50,000-gallon diesel tank at an Arizona power station Wednesday has any connection to a suspicious incident this year at another substation owned by the same company.
New details are emerging from the Nogales, Ariz., attack, which caused minor damage and no injuries.
Contrary to initial accounts, the bomb did not explode. Nogales police Lt. Carlos Jimenez described it as a crude incendiary device that could fit in a person’s hand. It was placed under the valve of the diesel tank and ignited, charring the steel tank.
“They were able to gain access to the facility illegally,” Jimenez said. “They had some working knowledge of what that tank is or how it works.”
The attackers failed to understand that diesel has a high flash point and is difficult to ignite.
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/2014/06/12/sabotage-nogales-station-puts-focus-threats-grid/10408053/
State seeks to cut back ambitious energy reduction goals
Say adieu to the state’s aggressive goal of reducing energy use by 20 percent by 2020, a target once considered crucial to achieving equally ambitious goals in curbing greenhouse gas emissions.
The state expects to achieve far fewer reductions in energy use — at least in the short-term — from consumers and businesses as a result of changes it is proposing to its clean energy program.
In a straw proposal outlining its spending plans from 2014-2017, the state Office of Clean Energy estimates it will cut energy consumption by 17 percent by 2020, a 3 percent decline from an earlier goal in the Energy Master Plan adopted by the Corzine administration. (Johnson, NJ Spotlight)
Pilot Plan to deploy refueling stations for compressed natural gas
In a step that reflects a goal of the state Energy Master Plan, regulatory officials yesterday approved a pilot program to allow a utility to spend up to $10 million to build compressed natural gas (CNG) refueling stations in its service territory.
The state Board of Public Utilities approved the one-year pilot proposed by New Jersey Natural Gas to build between five and seven CNG refueling stations at companies that plan to convert a portion of their fleets to run on the fuel, as well as provide opportunities for the public to fill up their natural gas vehicles. (Johnson, NJ Spotlight)
https://www.njspotlight.com/
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>New Energy Master Plan explores ways to deploy infrastructure for alternative works
>Democrats close ranks to review administration’s proposed energy policy, kill jobs
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Revamped Energy Master Plan casts shadow on solar
