Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways

In a bright move for the planet, Wisconsin just launched a solar-powered battery system that’s changing how the state stores and uses energy.

The system is part of the Paris Solar-Battery Park in Kenosha County, which is south of Milwaukee. As reported by Energy Storage News, the park includes a 200-megawatt solar farm that began operating in December 2024.

While that solar farm has been supplying clean energy during the day, the newly added 110-megawatt battery storage system (BESS) allows stored solar power to be used at night, during cloudy weather, or when energy demand spikes.

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The batteries can power about 130,000 homes for up to four hours, while the solar farm generates enough electricity to supply around 55,000 homes annually, per Energy Storage News.

Energy experts hope the project will help make Wisconsin’s power grid more stable and less reliant on dirty energy, and the system marks a major step forward for the state’s transition to renewable power.

“Bringing Wisconsin’s first large-scale battery storage project online is historic and continues our commitment to provide customers reliable and affordable energy,” said the president of project partner We Energies, Mike Hooper.

“Our ‘all of the above’ power generation approach means customers can count on the energy they need, no matter the weather or the time of day.”

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Recent data shows that 79% of the nation’s power still comes from dirty energy sources that pump carbon and other pollutants into the air. Switching to solar avoids dirty energy, which helps combat rising global temperatures, improves air quality, and safeguards essential ecosystems.

Wisconsin’s new BESS is a major step in making clean energy more reliable and accessible to state residents. By capturing and storing solar power during the day, it helps ensure renewable energy is available when people need it most — even after the sun goes down.

Battery storage also helps balance the grid and prevent blackouts during high demand, making renewable energy a more dependable part of the power system.

And residents are already seeing the benefits of this clean energy system on their electric bills.

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We Energies highlights that the Paris Solar-Battery Park is eligible for federal tax credits, which provide savings to customers. However, the Trump administration recently rolled back clean energy incentives that could impact these savings in upcoming years.

Aside from these in-jeopardy credits, no-cost solar energy generated by solar farms has been proven to reduce electric bills by 5 to 20% on average.

Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don’t miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways

NEW DELHI (AP) — A British F-35B fighter jet stranded at an Indian airport for nearly a month, sparking memes and cartoons on social media, is expected to fly back home as early as next week, Indian officials said.

The stealth fighter, one of the world’s most advanced and costing around $115 million, is stranded at Thiruvananthapuram International Airport in the southern state of Kerala due to a technical snag and is being repaired by U.K. engineers, officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they aren’t authorized to speak to media.

The jet was on a regular sortie in the Arabian Sea last month when it ran into bad weather and couldn’t return to the Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, officials said.

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The aircraft was then diverted to Thiruvananthapuram, where it landed safely on June 14. Officials said engineers hope to repair the plane in the next few days before it could fly back to U.K. sometime next week.

The stranded military aircraft, manufactured by Lockheed Martin, has triggered A.I.-generated memes in India. In a social media post, the tourism department of Kerala showed the aircraft on the tarmac surrounded by coconut trees and posting a fictitious five-star review. “Kerala is such an amazing place, I don’t want to leave. Definitely recommend,” it said.

The state’s top official at the tourism department, K. Biju, said the post was put out in “good humor.”

“It was our way to appreciate and thank the Brits who are the biggest inbound visitors to Kerala for tourism,” said Biju.

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Another cartoon posted on X showed the plane enjoying snacks with a group of locals against a scenic background.

The British High Commission confirmed to the The Associated Press that a U.K. engineering team has been deployed to “assess and repair” the aircraft.

There has been speculation in India that if the engineers fail to rectify the aircraft, it could be partially dismantled and transported in a cargo plane. The U.K.’s Ministry of Defense dismissed the speculation in an emailed statement.

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Sinn Féin Vice President Michelle O’Neill was nominated as first minister in the government that under the terms of the 1998 Good Friday peace accord shares power between Northern Ireland’s two main communities — British unionists who want to stay in the UK, and Irish nationalists who seek to unite with Ireland.

Northern Ireland was established as a unionist, Protestant-majority part of the UK in 1921, following independence for the Republic of Ireland.

“The days of second-class citizenship are long gone. Today confirms that they are never coming back,” O’Neill said. “As an Irish republican, I pledge cooperation and genuine honest effort with those colleagues who are British, of a unionist tradition, and who cherish the Union. This is an assembly for all – Catholic, Protestant and dissenter.”

Neither side can govern without agreement from the other. Government business ground to a half over the past two years after the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) walked out to protest trade issues related to Brexit.

O’Neill will share power with deputy first minister Emma Little-Pengelly from the DUP. The two will be equals, but O’Neill, whose party captured more seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly in the 2022 elections, will hold the more prestigious title.

Former DUP leader Edwin Poots was elected as speaker of the chamber.

O’Neill, 47, was elected to the Stormont Assembly in 2007 and comes from a family of Irish republicans. Her party, Sinn Féin, was affiliated with the militant Irish Republican Army during the Troubles, a period of about 30 years of violent conflict over the future of Northern Ireland which ended with the Good Friday Agreement.

Former Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams, who helped broker the historic peace agreement, was in the gallery at the assembly to see O’Neill’s nomination.

The return to government came exactly two years after a DUP boycott over a dispute about trade restrictions for goods coming into Northern Ireland from Great Britain. Northern Ireland’s 1.9 million people were left without a functioning administration as the cost of living soared and public services were strained.

An open border between the north and the republic was a key pillar of the peace process that ended the Troubles, so checks were imposed instead between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

An agreement a year ago between the UK and the EU, known as the Windsor Framework, eased customs checks and other hurdles but didn’t go far enough for the DUP, which continued its boycott.

The UK government this week agreed to new changes that would eliminate routine checks and paperwork for most goods entering Northern Ireland, although some checks will remain for illegal goods or disease prevention.

The new changes included legislation “affirming Northern Ireland’s constitutional status” as part of the UK and gives local politicians “democratic oversight” of any future EU laws that might apply to Northern Ireland.

The UK government also agreed to give Northern Ireland more than £3 billion (€3.5 billion) for its battered public services once the Belfast government is back up and running.

“I believe that my party has delivered what many said we couldn’t,” DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson said outside the assembly chamber in Stormont. “We have brought about change that many said was not possible, and I believe that today is a good day for Northern Ireland, a day when once again our place in the United Kingdom and its internal market is respected and protected in our law and restored for all our people to enjoy the benefits of our membership of the union.”