Intrusion into power companies' operational networks is a dramatic escalation.

ARS TECHNICA — Nation-sponsored hackers have penetrated the operational networks multiple US and European energy companies use to control key parts of the power grid that supplies electricity to hundreds of millions of people, researchers warned Wednesday.


The incursions detected by security firm Symantec represent a dramatic escalation by a hacking group dubbed Dragonfly, which has been waging attacks against US and European energy companies since at least 2011. In 2014, Symantec reported that Dragonfly was aggressively establishing beachheads in a limited number of target networks, mainly by stealing the user names and passwords used to restrict access to legitimate personnel. Over the past year, the hacking group has managed to compromise dozens of energy firms and, in a handful of cases, install backdoors in the highly sensitive networks the firms use to supply power to the grid.


"What's most concerning is we now see them intruding on operational networks of energy companies," Eric Chien, technical director of Symantec's security response and technology division, told Ars. "Before, we were talking about them being one step away, and what we see now is that they are potentially in those networks and are zero steps away. There are no more technical hurdles for them to jump over."


The escalation is troubling because operational networks—sometimes called electronic security perimeters in the energy industry—can often wield significant influence over the stability of the electric grid they're responsible for. In the Northeast Blackout of 2003, a contributing cause was the failure of a system in an operational network that tracked the health of the grid in real time. When a separate fault occurred, the grid supplying electricity to 55 million people shut down.


At a minimum, attackers who have control of a company's operational network could use it to become de facto operators of the company's energy assets. That control includes the ability to turn on or off breakers inside the companies' infrastructure and hijack systems that monitor the health of the grid. That's an unsettling scenario, but there's a more troubling one still: the attackers might also be able to use their control of multiple grid-connected operational networks to create the kinds of failures that led to the Northeast Blackout of 2003. Chien said Symantec has recently issued private warnings to more than 100 energy companies and organizations, including the North American Electricity Reliability Corporation and the US Department of Homeland Security. On Wednesday, it was expected to publish a public warning here.


The Symantec report stressed that simply removing malware from infected networks wasn't enough to counter the threat because in many cases the attackers have the credentials and other data needed to regain control. Wednesday's report provides a variety indicators energy companies can use to tell if their networks have been compromised by Dragonfly. It also lists several best practices for avoiding future compromises, including the use of long, randomly generated passwords that can't be guessed when attackers get ahold of the corresponding cryptographic hash.


Wouldn't be the first time


If Symantec's worst fears were to materialize, it wouldn't be unprecedented. In December 2015, a hack attack on a power distribution center just outside Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, caused about 225,000 people to lose power for as long as six hours. It was the world's first known instance of someone using hacking to generate a real-world power outage. Almost to the day one year later, a hack attack on a Ukrainian power transmission facility caused a smaller number of Kiev residents to lose power for about an hour. Researchers have attributed the attacks to a hacking group dubbed Sandworm.​


In the 2015 attack, Sandworm used a revamped version of a tool known as BlackEnergy to break into the corporate network of the targeted power companies and from there to collect passwords and other data that would allow the hackers to penetrate the supervisory control and data acquisition systems the companies used to generate and transmit electricity. Sandworm then used the access to open circuit breakers that cut power. In 2016, Sandworm was back with a new piece of malware dubbed Crash Override by some researchers and Industroyer by others. The custom malware was designed specifically to attack electric grid systems by using the same arcane technical protocols that individual systems rely on to communicate with one another.


Dragonfly, by contrast, uses a completely different set of tools, leading Chien to believe the two groups are completely separate. Both the earlier Dragonfly campaigns in 2013 and 2014 and the group's more recent attacks relied solely on backdoors and remote access trojans. From there, the attackers might use their access to operational networks to manually control the breakers in much the way Sandworm did in the 2015 attack. It's also possible Dragonfly might deploy an as-yet unseen piece of malware that automates malicious functions similarly to how Crash Override did.


After this Ars post went live, several security professionals with expertise in electric grids downplayed the likelihood of the operational network compromises being used to cause blackouts or take down parts of the grid. Robert Lee, the founder and CEO of Dragos Security, said the hackers would need more than the mere ability to control human machine interfaces that flip switches and open and close breakers. While he said an attack that mimicked the techniques that disrupted Ukrainian power in 2015 was possible, he said differences in the US grid would make those tactics much less effective. Lee's Twitter thread below is well worth reading all the way through:


In an e-mail, Chien told Ars:

Manual attacks are more difficult in the U.S. than in Ukraine based on sheer size. In order to cause an effect, something or someone would need to 'flip the switch', deploy a 'crash' devices, etc., but we don't believe there are any technical hurdles in doing so. Crashoverride, which we saw used in the Ukraine, set the precedence of that. In this case, the actors have the needed access. The day we discover another 'crashoverride v2', it will be too late. That means it was already deployed. We don't expect to see a blackout tomorrow. That will likely require some political event. But it is technically possible.


Asked specifically what was different in the latest attacks, Chien told Ars: "We have seen them perform purposeful activity on operational systems in this case. In the first case, we saw them have what we described as a 'beachhead'. Now, we have seen them penetrate into operational systems and perform activity on those systems. Related, the scale of attempted and successful compromises for the US including the types of organizations affected is much more concerning."

Dragonfly uses a combination of tactics to infect targets. One tactic involved using the publicly available Phishery toolkit to send targets a Microsoft Word document that was programmed to download a template from a predetermined server controlled by the attackers. The server would then query the downloading computer for SMB credentials that many corporate networks use to restrict access to verified users. In many cases, the downloading computers would respond and in the process provide the attackers with the user name and a cryptographic hash to the targeted network. Researchers with Cisco Systems described the so-called template injection attack in July. Once Dragonfly used the password to breach the company's corporate network, the hackers would then traverse to the operational network.

Another Dragonfly infection technique relied on so-called watering hole attacks, in which attackers infected websites known to be frequented by energy company personnel. Dragonfly members would then infect targets when they visited the booby-trapped sites. Yet another tactic was the use of fake Adobe Flash updates that installed backdoors.

Little is known for sure about the people who make up Dragonfly. Text strings embedded into some of their code contains both Russian and French words, an indicator that one or both of those may be false flags intended to deceive investigators. Timestamps found in the malware used in the earlier Dragonfly campaigns suggested the group mostly worked Monday through Friday between what would be the hours of 9 am to 6 pm in Eastern Europe. Timestamps in the malware used in the latest campaign suggested roughly the same hours and region, but the data is far too limited to draw any conclusions. The use of publicly available malware and administrative tools such as PowerShell, PsExec, and Bitsadmin also make attribution difficult.

"What is clear is that Dragonfly is a highly experienced threat actor, capable of compromising numerous organizations, stealing information, and gaining access to key systems," Symantec researchers wrote in Wednesday's report. "What it plans to do with all this intelligence has yet to become clear, but its capabilities do extend to materially disrupting targeted organizations should it choose to do so."
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​BMW will add a low-slung electric sedan to its stalled “i” sub-brand, part of plans to accelerate the rollout of battery-powered cars to counter Tesla.

BLOOMBERG — The four-door model, kept under wraps as BMW showed journalists around its Munich design headquarters on Thursday, is set to go on sale by 2021 and will slot in between the squat i3 city car and the sleek i8 plug-in sports car. BMW declined to specify its name.
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Overall, BMW plans to offer at least 12 fully electric vehicles by 2025, including battery-powered variants of mainstream models like the X3 SUV as well as the futuristic self-driving iNext. New technology is facilitating the revival of the “i” sub-brand, which hasn’t been assigned a new car since the i8 in 2014. BMW is predicting that next-generation batteries will allow driving ranges as far as 700 kilometers (435 miles). 

“We wanted to have a sufficient range that’s coming with the next technology jump,” Chief Executive Officer Harald Krueger said at the event, an early showcase of the manufacturer’s plans for the Frankfurt motor show next week. For the green-car sub-brand, “there wasn’t a big gap. We planned it.”

Luxury-Car Leadership


BMW, which lost the global luxury-car sales crown to Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz last year, is looking to claw back its leadership role in the segment. That includes being more aggressive with new technology, especially electric systems as European environmental rules tighten in 2020. The extent of BMW’s plans are similar to what’s in store at Stuttgart, Germany-based Daimler, which has set up the EQ sub-brand and plans a lineup of 10 battery-powered vehicles through 2022.


Industry pioneer Tesla, which started initial deliveries of the mass-market Model 3 sedan in July, is pushing automakers to respond with more attractive lineups of electric cars. A host of new entrants is also readying plans for green vehicles, as the complex engineering involved in making combustion engines is replaced with a much simpler setup around battery power.


“There are a lot of technology companies that currently don’t have any car, like startups and also bigger consortia,” BMW development chief Klaus Froehlich said at the Munich event. “Of those, 95 percent are going to fail.”


BMW’s presentation also included an electric prototype of its Mini car with a range of about 250 kilometers that’s slated to go on sale next year. The company’s focus on battery-powered variants of existing models differs from Mercedes’s plan for standalone electric cars with their own distinctive designs and underpinnings. While this means losing out on the drawing card of an all-new vehicle, BMW contends its program will be more cost effective.

‘Any Powertrain’


“We’re preparing all of our plants at BMW Group for electric mobility,” Krueger said. “In future, we’ll be able to build any of our cars with any powertrain.”

Jaguar Land Rover, the sedan and sport utility vehicle maker owned by India’s Tata Motors Ltd., is mixing the two strategies. While it’s building the I-Pace SUV as a battery-powered model, the British luxury-auto producer will offer wholly electric and hybrid variants across its line-up by 2020, division chief Ralf Speth said Thursday in a Bloomberg Television interview from London.

Consumer demand for the i3, which BMW brought out in 2013, has been sluggish due to concerns about its limited driving range and high price. But with the new regulations coming into force, automakers have little option but to make electric cars more appealing, especially as consumers shy away from diesel in the aftermath of Volkswagen AG’s emissions-cheating scandal.

“The environment is changing; it’s much more tense,” Froehlich said. “Because of the actions of some, and I emphasize some, the credibility of our industry has been severely compromised.”

An “initial coin offering” on the Ethereum cryptocurrency network gives the startup virtual cash to push its peer-to-peer energy trading network.

GREENTECH MEDIA — Power Ledger, an Australian startup that’s seeking to use blockchain technology to create a peer-to-peer renewable energy network, is in the midst of raising tens of millions of dollars in what may be the first “cryptocurrency” fundraising effort in the energy space. 


On Sunday, the Perth-based startup launched its first sale, or "initial coin offering" (ICO), of Power Ledger POWR tokens -- units of ownership of the company traded on the Ethereum cryptocurrency network. Within 72 hours, the company sold out of the 100 million POWRs offered in a public presale, in which the price per token was set, for a total of about $17 million. 

Power Ledger will be offering another 150 million POWRs on Friday, Sept. 8 in an uncapped public offer, meaning that the tokens’ final price will be determined by the market. 

It’s “not unreasonable to expect” that this could bring the startup’s virtual funding to between $20 million and $30 million, co-founder and managing director David Martin told Smart Company. That's not as much as the $100 million the company had been predicting last month, but still a significant crowdfunding event. 

These POWRs, in turn, are tradable on the Ethereum blockchain, and can also be converted to Sparkz, the currency that Power Ledger has set up for its users to trade electricity. 

According to Power Ledger’s white paper (PDF), these trades can be set up in different ways, depending on the needs of those employing them -- in the case of its current projects, trading units of self-generated solar power or self-stored battery energy. In this sense, Power Ledger’s new raise has seeded the market for its solar trading concept, just now being rolled out in pilot projects in Australia and New Zealand. 

Unlike most of the companies seeking to enable energy trading via blockchain, Power Ledger has the support of some real-world energy retailers. It started with a 15-home trial in Western Australia in fall 2016, and moved to a 500-site project with New Zealand utility Vector in late 2016. This summer, it started its first commercial deployment in a residential development in Fremantle, where it became the first company in Australia to “facilitate electricity trading across the meter and manage settlements without going through an electricity retailer.” 


Since then, Power Ledger has signed a technology integration agreement with Indra Australia, and has launched plans to extend its platform to electric-vehicle charging with Western Australian energy provider Synergy. As for its new cryptocurrency funding, “Token sales will be used to rapidly accelerate the company’s expansion, including entry into India and other emerging markets.” 

“I personally think Power Ledger has one of the better business models in the energy space since they are actively working with utilities and trying to figure out how they can play in the space under current regulations,” said Colleen Metelitsa, GTM Research analyst. While we’ve seen some accusations of fraud from the world of cryptocurrencies -- China just banned ICOs, and is rumored to be considering a ban on cryptocurrencies more broadly -- Power Ledger has its projects to prove out its concept. 

As for the ICO, “I think of it as an unregulated way of raising capital,” she wrote. “You can think of these coins/tokens sort of like stocks, but again without all the SEC rules and with a much lower barrier to entry for the layperson, in that you can easily create an account and buy from your computer.” 


Greentech Media CEO Scott Clavenna agreed that this move is more “a novel form of crowdfunding,” and “doesn’t reflect the same level of company maturity that an IPO implies. "This is still very much a startup entering a highly regulated landscape where very few understand the technology or the operational constraints around working in the energy space," he said. 

Clavenna also noted the difference between blockchains like Power Ledger’s and the broader world of Bitcoin, “which is really meant to be a global currency replacement. Most ICO coins are meant to be for internal company trades,” with POWR tokens tied to company valuation and Sparkz tied to the U.S. dollar to link to the price of energy. 

Blockchain -- essentially a peer-to-peer network for trading units of value in which every participant has a record of every transaction between all parties -- has grown from an obscure concept to a technology attracting real-world money over the past two years.  

Last month, Tokyo Electric Power Company invested €3 million ($3.5 million) into German peer-to-peer energy trading platform developer Conjoule, as part of a €4.5 million ($5.3 million) Series A funding round alongside German energy company Innogy SE. 

Other startups in the space include Drift, Grid Singularity and Electron. In California, smart EV charging startup eMotorWerks has launched an experimental blockchain platform that will allow EV owners to locate and share each other’s home chargers. 

An “initial coin offering” on the Ethereum cryptocurrency network gives the startup virtual cash to push its peer-to-peer energy trading network.

GREENTECH MEDIA — Power Ledger, an Australian startup that’s seeking to use blockchain technology to create a peer-to-peer renewable energy network, is in the midst of raising tens of millions of dollars in what may be the first “cryptocurrency” fundraising effort in the energy space. 

On Sunday, the Perth-based startup launched its first sale, or "initial coin offering" (ICO), of Power Ledger POWR tokens -- units of ownership of the company traded on the Ethereum cryptocurrency network. Within 72 hours, the company sold out of the 100 million POWRs offered in a public presale, in which the price per token was set, for a total of about $17 million. 

Power Ledger will be offering another 150 million POWRs on Friday, Sept. 8 in an uncapped public offer, meaning that the tokens’ final price will be determined by the market. 

It’s “not unreasonable to expect” that this could bring the startup’s virtual funding to between $20 million and $30 million, co-founder and managing director David Martin told Smart Company. That's not as much as the $100 million the company had been predicting last month, but still a significant crowdfunding event. 

These POWRs, in turn, are tradable on the Ethereum blockchain, and can also be converted to Sparkz, the currency that Power Ledger has set up for its users to trade electricity. 

According to Power Ledger’s white paper (PDF), these trades can be set up in different ways, depending on the needs of those employing them -- in the case of its current projects, trading units of self-generated solar power or self-stored battery energy. In this sense, Power Ledger’s new raise has seeded the market for its solar trading concept, just now being rolled out in pilot projects in Australia and New Zealand. 

Unlike most of the companies seeking to enable energy trading via blockchain, Power Ledger has the support of some real-world energy retailers. It started with a 15-home trial in Western Australia in fall 2016, and moved to a 500-site project with New Zealand utility Vector in late 2016. This summer, it started its first commercial deployment in a residential development in Fremantle, where it became the first company in Australia to “facilitate electricity trading across the meter and manage settlements without going through an electricity retailer.” 


Since then, Power Ledger has signed a technology integration agreement with Indra Australia, and has launched plans to extend its platform to electric-vehicle charging with Western Australian energy provider Synergy. As for its new cryptocurrency funding, “Token sales will be used to rapidly accelerate the company’s expansion, including entry into India and other emerging markets.” 

“I personally think Power Ledger has one of the better business models in the energy space since they are actively working with utilities and trying to figure out how they can play in the space under current regulations,” said Colleen Metelitsa, GTM Research analyst. While we’ve seen some accusations of fraud from the world of cryptocurrencies -- China just banned ICOs, and is rumored to be considering a ban on cryptocurrencies more broadly -- Power Ledger has its projects to prove out its concept. 

As for the ICO, “I think of it as an unregulated way of raising capital,” she wrote. “You can think of these coins/tokens sort of like stocks, but again without all the SEC rules and with a much lower barrier to entry for the layperson, in that you can easily create an account and buy from your computer.” 

Greentech Media CEO Scott Clavenna agreed that this move is more “a novel form of crowdfunding,” and “doesn’t reflect the same level of company maturity that an IPO implies. "This is still very much a startup entering a highly regulated landscape where very few understand the technology or the operational constraints around working in the energy space," he said. 

Clavenna also noted the difference between blockchains like Power Ledger’s and the broader world of Bitcoin, “which is really meant to be a global currency replacement. Most ICO coins are meant to be for internal company trades,” with POWR tokens tied to company valuation and Sparkz tied to the U.S. dollar to link to the price of energy. 

Blockchain -- essentially a peer-to-peer network for trading units of value in which every participant has a record of every transaction between all parties -- has grown from an obscure concept to a technology attracting real-world money over the past two years.  

Last month, Tokyo Electric Power Company invested €3 million ($3.5 million) into German peer-to-peer energy trading platform developer Conjoule, as part of a €4.5 million ($5.3 million) Series A funding round alongside German energy company Innogy SE. 

Other startups in the space include Drift, Grid Singularity and Electron. In California, smart EV charging startup eMotorWerks has launched an experimental blockchain platform that will allow EV owners to locate and share each other’s home chargers. 

More than a decade into their friendship, Christoph Gebald and Jan Wurzbacher can’t decide which of them is the thinker and which is the doer. They met in 2003 during their first week as undergraduates at ETH Zurich, a Swiss technical university, where they studied engineering and quickly bonded over their shared loves for mountain climbing and beer.

BLOOMBERG — Also, “we were kind of would-be entrepreneurs from the beginning,” Gebald says. They’ve been egging each other on ever since, swapping big-idea and get-things-done roles.​

Climeworks, the company they started in Zurich in 2009, was inspired by Gebald’s master’s thesis, which applied an engineering perspective to the removal of carbon dioxide from Earth’s atmosphere. In June, when the first of the duo’s carbon-collecting machines went online, they became the first people to make money by de-warming the planet, collecting CO₂ directly from the air and selling it for use in greenhouses.

CO₂ collector, called a capture plant, looks like a 7-foot-tall box fan with a tiny jet engine inside. As its turbine sucks in air, chemical filters isolate the greenhouse gas. It can then be pumped for use as is, but Wurzbacher and Gebald are hoping customers will pay them to sequester it in the ground, permanently. 
The founders like to cite the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which says CO₂ storage will be an essential part of meeting global targets to limit the Earth’s warming. “Climeworks is on the leading edge of this,” says Steve Bohlen, an energy technology program manager at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a federal research facility near San Francisco. In July, Bohlen cited Climeworks as a company to watch in testimony on carbon capture technology before the U.S. Senate subcommittee on the environment.

Earlier this year the company secured its first commercial partner, contracting with a local farmer of tomatoes and cucumbers to supply 900 tons of CO₂ per year to his greenhouses, where it works as a sort of gaseous fertilizer, speeding up photosynthesis. Climeworks’ founders say their near-term goal is to capture 1 percent of global carbon emissions by 2025, but the grand plan is to help humans remove more CO₂ from the atmosphere than they’re pumping into it. 

“We’re insurance as the going gets tough,” Wurzbacher says. “The world will need affordable machines that can recork the CO₂ genie on a massive scale, render it usable or harmless in storage.” Working around the clock, each capture plant can vacuum about 50 tons of CO₂ from the atmosphere a year, Wurzbacher says. He and Gebald declined to share pricing details but said costs will fall rapidly once production ramps up.

Some costs, however, are tough to predict. “Our biggest headache planning ahead is second-guessing politicians. Political support for climate protection is prone to wobble,” Gebald says. “Even so, we’re witnessing an independent private-sector drive to curb CO₂ that’s resilient to politics. We’re counting on a big role for Climeworks in the emerging carbon economy.”

The United States now has an impressive 44.7 gigawatts of operating solar systems, solar became the No. 1 source of new electricity in 2016, and in April 2017, for the first time ever, solar energy generation out-produced nuclear. 

GREENTECH MEDIA — It’s good to stop and celebrate the progress we’ve made to date. We’ve come a long way.

But, of course, we have a long way to go in the United States before the dream of 100 percent clean energy becomes a reality. 

Some countries have already reached this goal, not just modern industrial countries like Norway, but even Costa Rica, which until recently was a largely agricultural economy. And in the United States, many institutions, companies and cities are 100 percent renewable or will be within five years, including Georgetown, Texas; Ithaca, New York; Stanford; American University; Google; and Whole Foods.

While I expect this trend to continue, with solar as a large component of the mix, it is not happening fast enough.  

As a 25+ year veteran of the solar industry, I often get asked for my thoughts on what can be done to establish solar as a more thriving, mainstream industry. First and foremost, we need to keep a laser-like focus on installing new solar (and now solar and storage) projects. At the same time, we need to view ourselves as visionaries, people who don’t just wait for the system to adjust but who take active steps to push solar to the tipping point.

Here are five ways that companies, or you as individuals, can take the concept of a 100 percent renewable-energy-powered system -- with solar as a core component -- from a dream into the mainstream.


1. Recruit motivated young people to join the solar industry. My alma mater sends more than half of its graduates either to Wall Street or into consulting jobs. (It is unclear to me what sort of expertise a twentysomething consultant or banker has to offer.) Let’s build channels to shift all that untapped talent into solar. You can speak directly with curious students by volunteering in your alma mater’s career services office, opening their eyes to the extraordinary opportunities in our industry. Or you might reach out and mentor students from your athletic team, glee club, theater group, fraternity or sorority, or volunteer to speak at a local elementary or high school. You’d be surprised at the level of interest young people show in sustainable energy.


2. Actively work to attract more women to solar. Considering they make up half the workforce, this gender imbalance is unacceptable. We need to get the word out that solar is not the old boys’ club that the oil and coal industries once were -- that “booth babes” and women in cages do not belong at solar conferences. According to the Solar Jobs Census, in 2016 there were 260,077 employees in our industry, but women made up only 28 percent of that workforce. The industry needs to do better or it will miss out on a huge pool of exceptional talent.


3. Volunteer to speak at community gatherings, inspiring people with the promise of a clean energy future. There are many venues eager to engage speakers, including rotary clubs, libraries, community associations, and houses of worship. You’ll likely find a receptive audience and have fun.


4. Discuss policy with people in industry and your local, state and federal legislators. Policy is what enables solar technologies to reach their full potential and value to society. Don’t give in to the pessimistic attitude that you have no say in government; your voice, added to others, can move solar to the tipping point.


5. Support political leaders who use fact-based information to craft and advocate for sound energy policy.


A clean energy future is within our grasp, but it’s going to take vigorous, ongoing effort by all of us. I hope some of these ideas motivate you to step up your own game. For my part, I look forward to working with you for the continued success of our industry -- and the future of our planet.

​California's state Assembly will be considered a bill already passed by the Senate to shoot for a fossil fuel free grid by 2045. This is an ambitious goal that will require intense investment in infrastructure and interstate cooperation.

FUTURISM — Lawmakers in California will likely be voting on a revolutionary measure for the production of energy in the state. Senate Bill 100 boosts the 2030 goal from 50 percent to 60 percent clean energy generation and calls for a completely clean grid by 2045. The bill passed in California’s state Senate back in May and needs confirming votes from the lower legislative house before the bill will be sent to the desk of Gov. Jerry Brown for ratification.
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Experts are applauding the ambitious bill, but acknowledge the challenges the legislation will pose. “It’s doable,” said Mike O’Boyle, who studies the power sector at Energy Innovation, a think tank in San Francisco, in the LA Times. “But because we don’t really have a working example for a 100% renewable system, it’s going to be an ongoing experiment.”


(CLEAN) POWER TO THE PEOPLE

California has a history of being at the forefront of renewable energy. A joint effort with Tesla demonstrated an early commitment to weaning the grid off of fossil fuels. Early this year, Tesla launched a 80 MWh Powerpack station that was designed to ease the demand on fossil fuel “peaker stations” that activate to supply energy during periods of high demand. These Powerpacks stored energy while the grid was under low demand for use during these peak times, allowing for less utilization of fossil fuel burning stations.

California will require a much greater investment in similar battery infrastructure if they want to make their plan actionable. The batteries will be able to store energy when demand is low, and allow the grid to draw power on cloudy or less windy days.

This is an ambitious and admirable goal for a state, but could also start a wave of cooperation across the entire nation. California would likely need wind power from Wyoming on cloudy days, and Wyoming could very well benefit from the necessary infrastructure. This would ideally cause a chain reaction leading to a nation of green cooperation, from sea to shining sea.

It’s official! Tesla has started producing solar roof tiles at its factory in Buffalo, New York. Several hundred employees and machines have been installed in the 1.2 million-square-foot factory, and they are now creating tiles that can harness the sun’s energy without compromising the appearance of a roof.

INHABITAT — The company is already installing solar roofs but has been making them on a small scale near its vehicle factory in Fremont, California. Now that the factory in Buffalo is running, production is expected to increase substantially. Reportedly, traditional solar panels will also be produced in the factory.
AP News reports that Tesla’s partner, Panasonic Corp., will produce the photovoltaic cells while Tesla workers combine them into modules that fit into the solar tiles. Said JB Straubel, Tesla’s Chief Technical Officer, “By the end of this year we will have the ramp-up of solar roof modules started in a substantial way. This is an interim milestone that we’re pretty proud of.”

SolarCity was acquired by Tesla last year for around $2 billion. It was run by cousins of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who sat on the company’s board. Straubel said, “This factory, and the opportunity to build solar modules and cells in the U.S., was part of why this project made sense.”

According to Straubel, Tesla’s goal is to reach two gigawatts of cell production annually at the Buffalo plant — more than the initial target of one gigawatt by 2019. As The Washington Post reports, one gigawatt is equal to the annual output of a large nuclear or coal-fired power plant. “So it’s like we’re eliminating one of those every single year,” Straubel said.
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