- Microsoft and Qcells team up in major U.S. solar push
Microsoft has a new business partnership with solar heavyweight Qcells as the tech giant boosts renewables procurement and Qcells expands U.S. manufacturing.
Driving the news: Qcells, which makes panels and other equipment, will work with Microsoft to develop utility-scale solar projects in the U.S.
- They'll also provide equipment, engineering and construction services to projects Microsoft is backing with other developers via power purchase agreements, which are contracts that help finance new generation.
Why it matters: It's a lot of business. It envisions Qcells — an arm of Korean industrial giant Hanwha — initially providing 2.5 gigawatts worth of panels and related services, with room to grow.
- That's "equivalent to powering over 400,000 homes," they said.
The big picture: It's the "first time a company that procures energy is working directly with a solar supplier to adopt clean energy on such an important scale," the announcement states.
- Brian Janous, Microsoft's GM of energy and renewables, tells Axios the company's cumulative renewables procurement to date is around 13.5 GW.
- The initial Qcells agreement is equivalent to around half the renewable gigawatts Microsoft procured from all sources worldwide last year, he said.
The intrigue: The deal is part of a tactical evolution.
- "We started to think it really makes sense for us to go further upstream, and work more closely and collaboratively with suppliers of solar panels... because it helps give us some control and certainty and it does the same thing for our suppliers as well," Janous said.
Catch up fast: Two weeks ago, Qcells announced a $2.5 billion investment in Georgia, along with further plans to domestically source silicone materials.
- After growth announced this year and in 2022, it will have over 8GW of production capacity in Georgia in 2024, up from 1.7GW in 2018.
- Microsoft, already a top corporate renewables buyer, has a goal of matching 100% of its aggregate energy usage with renewables by 2025 and becoming carbon-negative by 2030.
What they're saying: Qcells VP Jihyun Kim called the deal part of helping the U.S. become "energy independent."
- As they develop an integrated U.S. supply chain, "we definitely want to have partners, strategic and long term, for us to be able to continue growing our presence here," he said.
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- Hertz to help cities go electric, starting in Denver
Hertz aims to speed the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) one city at a time, starting with Denver, where the car rental giant is launching a public-private partnership to add more neighborhood chargers and prepare workers for future jobs.
Why it matters: Renting an electric car gives potential EV buyers a no-risk way to try before they buy. But it can be a daunting choice — especially for first-time EV renters in unfamiliar areas who don't know where to charge.
Driving the news: Under the initiative announced Thursday, Hertz will work with cities to tackle such worries and try to spread the benefits of electrification, like cleaner air and lower long-term costs, to disadvantaged communities.
Details: Hertz will bring up to 5,200 electric cars to its Denver rental fleet, which currently includes around 8,100 vehicles.
- The cars will be available for rent by Hertz customers as well as by Uber drivers under a previously announced partnership.
- To support those customers, Hertz and its partner BP Pulse, an EV-charging network owned by oil giant BP, will install "dozens" of public EV chargers at Denver International Airport and elsewhere around the city.
- Hertz will also provide curriculum and training to the city’s technical high school and will offer summer job opportunities through Denver’s Youth Employment Program.
The big picture: A key part of the initiative is to make sure EVs and chargers are accessible to everyone.
- EVs are prohibitively expensive for many, and as Axios has reported, chargers are easier to find nationwide in wealthier neighborhoods.
- The Uber partnership will make the expansion of charging infrastructure more equitable in places like Denver, Hertz CEO Stephen Scherr tells Axios.
How it works: Hertz will share with city planners anonymized data about its cars to ensure new chargers are installed in the places they're needed most, Scherr said.
- "We know where those EVs are going, and where they dwell overnight. That matters because if a city is going to build out its charging infrastructure, that capital needs to be spent in the right way."
- Uber drivers often rent their car for weeks at a time, and take it home at night to neighborhoods that might not ordinarily attract investments in public charging, he explained.
- "A byproduct of our rental of EVs to Uber drivers is a more equitable distribution of charging infrastructure that's in the city's interest."
What they're saying: "Our goal is to reduce Denver’s carbon emissions 80% by 2050, and expanding the use and availability of electric vehicles will play a major role in helping us achieve that goal," Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock said in a statement.
- "This partnership with Hertz will provide invaluable data about where we need charging infrastructure the most, as well as provide new opportunities with this new technology to create good-paying jobs for our current and future workforce.”
The bottom line: Scherr says the partnership is also good for Hertz, which aims to make 25% of its 500,000-vehicle U.S. fleet electric by 2024.
- "The greater the proliferation of charging stations, the better it is for our business."
- Hertz has committed to buy 100,000 electric cars from Tesla, 175,000 from GM, and 65,000 from Polestar.
https://www.axios.com/2023/01/20/her...es-cars-denver
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unlikely to ever again return to pre-Covid levels
- Gasoline demand in the U.S. has peaked. Drivers will benefit in the long run—but experience some short-term pain first
Gasoline demand in the US has peaked, with a surprise slowdown last year signaling that consumption is unlikely to ever again return to pre-Covid levels.
This long-awaited milestone shows that climate-friendly initiatives put into place more than a decade ago are finally taking the US across the threshold. American drivers are traveling more miles on less fuel than ever thanks to a generation of cars with more efficient engines as well as new electric vehicles. The government forecasts further declines for gasoline demand this year and next.
What comes next is a two-track future: short-term pain, followed by decades of economic and environmental benefits.
In the next several years, the fuel industry is poised to cut supply faster than the drop in demand, with more plants due to shut or convert to smaller biofuels facilities. The result could be production crunches for gasoline, price spikes or even limited outages because of the mismatch. Paradoxically for drivers, it’s gasoline’s slow death that will make it painful.
In the longer term, falling gasoline demand will eventually mean tamer prices and lower emissions, which is obviously good news for the environment since transportation is the biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the US.
Peak gasoline will “have significant implications for consumers, inflation, politics,” said Mark Finley, an energy fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. “All in all, a big deal — over time.”
One of the strange things about being at peak gasoline is that there’s still quite a lot of demand. Consumption started plateauing in the years before the pandemic. Even as it drops now, it’s not falling off a cliff and is still at what historically would be considered high levels.
At the same time, oil refiners, who turn crude into useable fuels, are already cutting back to stay profitable. The supply losses were exacerbated because of pandemic-induced shutdowns. Since gasoline plants are destined to become uneconomical stranded assets as demand fades, there’s little incentive to increase output from them now.
In simple terms, the refining industry risks moving on from gasoline more quickly than consumers.
https://fortune.com/2023/01/21/gasol...t-in-long-run/