Published

2 years ago

December 6, 2023

Alice Rush

OhmConnect has announced successful integration of their Market-Aware Behind-the-Meter Battery Storage Pilot Program with SunPower, recently introduced as part of the California Energy Commission’s Demand Side Grid Support Program.

As part of a suite of programs implemented to address the energy shortages caused by heat waves, wildfires and other impacts of climate change, the program offers incentives to electric customers providing backup generation to support the state’s electrical grid during extreme events.

Under the program, SunPower customers who are enrolled in the OhmConnect-powered SunPower virtual power plant are able to earn rewards from their stored solar power when demand for electricity is at its highest.

“By seamlessly integrating into the SunPower platform, we’ve enabled residents to participate in creating a more resilient grid, without lifting a finger,” says Cisco DeVries, OhmConnect CEO. “With OhmConnect’s years of proven success, these results not only showcase its effectiveness, but also anticipate an even more substantial impact as more SunPower customers come on board.”

Since the launch of the pilot program in August, SunPower VPP customers have provided an average of 400 kW of capacity and a total of 1.2 MWh of energy during market-triggered events, with an average participation rate of 94%, says OhmConnect.

The post OhmConnect Integrates Battery Storage Program for Sunpower Customers appeared first on Solar Industry.

OhmConnect Integrates Battery Storage Program for Sunpower Customers

Renewable Energy

Renewable Energy Concepts Can’t Violate the Laws of Physics

Published

12 hours ago

February 28, 2026

Alice Rush

In the early days of 2GreenEnergy, my people and I were vigorously engaged in finding solid ideas in cleantech that needed funding in order to move forward.

I vividly remember a conversation with a guy in Maryland who was trying to explain the (ostensible) breakthrough that he and his team had made in hydrokinetics. When I was having trouble visualizing what we was talking about, he asked me to “think of it as a river in a box.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed. “You mean you take a box full of standing water, add energy to it get it moving, then extract that energy, leaving you with more energy that you added to it.”

“Exactly.”

I politely explained that the laws of physics, specifically the first and second laws of thermodynamics, make this impossible.

He wasn’t through, however, and insisted that, in his office, his people had constructed a “working model.”

Here’s where my tone descended into something less than 100% polite. I told him that he may think he has a working model, but he’s wrong; if he believes this, he’s ignorant; if he doesn’t, but is conducting this conversation anyway, he’s a fraud.

“But don’t you want to come see it?” he implored.

“No. Not only would not fly across the country to see whatever it is you claim to have built, I wouldn’t walk across the street to a “working model” of something that is theoretically impossible.”

—

I tell this story because the claim made at the upper left is essentially identical. You’re pumping water up out of a stream, and then claiming to extract more energy when the water flows back into the stream.

Of course, social media today is rife with complete crap like this. We’ve devolved to a point where defrauding money out of idiots is rapidly replacing baseball as our national pastime.