Sustainability
Decarbonization and clean energy is just one component of sustainability. Large corporations and utilities are also increasingly focused on topics such as environmental justice and habitat protection.
Storm Protection
No other industry faces quite the same challenges and responsibilities in responding to increasingly fierce storms as the electric utility industry. Put simply, society depends on the safe and reliable delivery of electricity.
Electrified Transportation
All too often, conversations about electric vehicles (EVs) and the major role they will play in global transportation focus on technology and policy.
Understanding Transactive Energy
Last July, Arizona regulators opened the country’s first docket focused exclusively on transactive energy. In doing so, Arizona joined a host of other states and utilities in attempting to grapple with the opportunities and challenges associated with transactive energy.
Neural Grid and the Internet of Energy
As the energy system evolves to become cleaner and more distributed, there is an increased demand for better communication to ensure the grid remains as reliable as it has always been. It’s already happening, and the technologies and flows of information are referred to as the Neural Grid.
The Foundation of Our Distributed Energy Future
Clean, distributed energy resources, or DERs, are rapidly transforming our power system. But how all of those solar systems, batteries and other DERs will be integrated matters.
What Makes a City Smart?
The answers are as varied as the hundreds of cities around the globe pursuing smart city efforts. Jerome Davis and Nadia El Mallakh from Xcel Energy give us the view from Denver, while Guidehouse’s Rob Wilhite provides the broader perspective. One lesson: It helps when city stakeholders and utilities work together.
After renewable energy installations dipped in 2021, industry renews call for clean energy package
Energy storage deployments climbed, but 70 industry CEOs say tax reform is needed to keep the momentum going.
Utilities using new tactics to improve bill collection, customer experience
Two years since the coronavirus pandemic began, and energy utilities are still facing a revenue crunch. The main culprit? Customers continue to struggle paying their past due balances.
FERC expands criteria for reviewing gas infrastructure proposals, outlines GHG framework
The commission said the change provides more legal certainty, but critics called the decision "reckless" and "legally dubious," arguing it will hurt pipeline development.
To decarbonize buildings, think like an entrepreneur
The most innovative ideas to slash emissions won’t have impact if they never reach the market, writes Reshma Singh, who focuses on building technologies at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Load growth, retiring fossil fuels creating 'urgent need' for new electric resources in the Southwest: report
Southwestern utilities estimate that electric loads will increase approximately 2.4% per year between 2021 and 2025, a time period during which they plan to retire around 1,200 MW of coal and 1,300 MW of natural gas capacity.
How much lithium can be extracted from the Salton Sea? A new DOE project seeks to find out
Scientists will investigate how much of the crucial battery mineral can be obtained through geothermal energy brine in California's "Lithium Valley."
Revisiting California's natural gas hookup subsidies
California is one of the biggest consumers of natural gas in the U.S., and has been adding new gas customers faster than any other state. These trends are in direct conflict with its ambitious climate goals, the authors write.
Overhead Line Design Principles
In Ep 01 of “Ensuring Grid Resilience in a Time of Change” we are going to discuss how the demands of overhead line design are changing and what utilities can do to improve their approach to this still critically important task.
Strategic Undergrounding and High Voltage Installation
Utilities are increasingly interested in exploring the possibility of installing both high voltage transmission lines as well as medium voltage distribution lines underground.
Transmission, reliability and gas system decarbonization top of mind for state utility regulators in 2022
Energy Innovation analysts share their top takeaways from last week's NARUC policy summit, along with insights for unlocking access to low-cost renewables, bolstering system reliability, and cutting natural gas emissions.
To decarbonize buildings, think like an entrepreneur
The most innovative ideas to slash emissions won’t have impact if they never reach the market, writes Reshma Singh, who focuses on building technologies at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Revisiting California's natural gas hookup subsidies
California is one of the biggest consumers of natural gas in the U.S., and has been adding new gas customers faster than any other state. These trends are in direct conflict with its ambitious climate goals, the authors write.
Without mapping tools, environmental justice investments could be just a shot in the dark
With the passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, continued discussions around the Build Back Better Act, and state-level net-zero targets, trillions of dollars and a just transition are on the line, the author writes.
7 principles to help utility regulators untangle the wires of a clean, equitable EV transition
By adopting these guidelines, state policymakers and utilities will be able to drive more rapid, widespread and equitable deployment of EVs and their infrastructure, the authors write.
California's omission of community solar from distributed energy policies is shortsighted
Community solar can make moot the controversies surrounding behind-the-meter solar and enable new approaches that can maximize societal value for all Californians, the authors write.
Distributed energy is poised to take center stage in 2022, but policymakers and regulators must step up
DERs participate in wholesale and retail markets today almost exclusively as emergency capacity. If this trend continues, it will limit the earnings potential of customers and the reliability of the grid, the author writes.
