ENERGY STORAGE
Greentech Media: Lessons From 40 Years of Electricity Market Transformation: Storage Is Coming Faster Than You Think
What do Gerald Ford, a fossil-fuel plant on the Houston Ship Channel, the second-largest utility in Vermont, and the California legislature have in common? They each ushered in a major national market transformation in the U.S. power sector over the last 40 years, at a rate of one per decade. And in 2016, right on schedule, that once-per-decade cycle repeated. This year, it was batteries that made a transformative advance into both the competitive and vertically integrated power markets…
Utility Dive: 2016: A ‘transitional year for storage,’ industry set to break records
…2016 has been a “transition year” for U.S. energy storage, said Brett Simon, energy storage analyst with GTM Research. And Alex Eller, energy storage analyst with Navigant Research, said “2016 has seen a much more diverse energy storage market, both in terms of the types of systems (market segments) being deployed and the business models.” While utility scale installations dominated the market in previous years, Eller said 2016 has seen more progress at all market levels. He pointed to contracts for demand response capacity and utility ownership programs as key drivers in that transition…
Renewable Energy World: Residential Energy Storage: Another Chance for Utilities
…In the residential markets, U.S. utilities were slow to embrace the opportunity presented by rooftop solar. They now have a chance to shape the unfolding DER evolution with energy storage. Instead of ignoring or fighting the transition, utilities need to proactively find ways to lead the deployment of these new grid resources for their most vocal and visible customer base: residential customers…
The Motley Fool: It’s Energy Storage’s Time to Shine
…What’s changed recently is that utilities are starting to put rate structures in place that will make energy storage more economically viable. Ironically, their moves — designed to reduce the appeal of solar — are providing the impetus for innovation in the energy storage industry…
UTILITIES
Utility Dive: How regulations and technology brought us closer to Utility 2.0 in 2016
…While coal and natural gas may continue their commodities war for some time, new battle lines are being drawn. The next resource tensions will be between the value of storage and demand flexibility, and between the brute force of clean resources and developers’ ability to isolate their locational value…
POLICY
Utility Dive: Two dozen states ask Trump to scrap Clean Power Plan on Day 1
Two dozen states have sent a letter to Vice President-elect Mike Pence and other Republican leaders, calling for the incoming administration to roll back the Clean Power Plan on its first day in office. Led by West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, the states asked President-elect Donald Trump to issue an executive order instructing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to not enforce the rule…
Greentech Media: Arizona Vote Puts an End to Net Metering for Solar Customers
The Arizona Corporation Commission approved significant changes to the state’s distributed solar policies late Tuesday evening, which include lowering the credit residential solar customers receive for excess energy sent back to the grid and limiting how long customers can keep their rates. The decision replaces Arizona’s current retail-rate net metering policy with export credits based on short-term valuation methods…
Utility Dive: Washington Gov. Inslee proposes new $25 carbon tax in budget
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee last week released his 2017–19 budget proposals, which included a $25/metric ton carbon tax beginning in 2018 to help pay for the state’s education system…Under Inslee’s proposal, the carbon tax rate would increase annually by 3.5%, plus inflation, and is estimated to generate $1.9 billion in its first year and $2 billion in its second…
Utility Dive: How the Illinois energy reform ‘fixed’ the state’s RPS, promising a renewables boom
Among the provisions of the sweeping energy legislation just passed in Illinois are reforms that aim to fix the state’s renewable portfolio standard and that could revive renewable energy development, which has been dormant in the state for several years. The changes could bring $12 billion to $15 billion in private renewable energy investment into Illinois and could “jump start the solar industry” there, says Andrew Barbeau, senior clean energy consultant for the Environmental Defense Fund…
RENEWABLE ENERGY
Triple Pundit: America’s Top 5 Renewable Energy Companies
…The GPP produces a National Top 100 list of the largest renewable energy users within its participants. And the combined renewable energy use of the top 100 partners is almost 30 billion kilowatt-hours a year, representing over 83 percent of the renewable energy commitments made by all GPP partners…
The Guardian: India predicts it will exceed Paris renewable energy target by half
The Indian government has forecast that it will exceed the renewable energy targets set in Paris last year by nearly half and three years ahead of schedule. A draft 10-year energy blueprint published this week predicts India will be generating 57% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2027. The Paris climate accord target was 40% by 2030…
The Guardian: World’s first solar panel road opens in Normandy village
France has opened what it claims to be the world’s first solar panel road, in a Normandy village…It cost €5m (£4.2m) to construct and will be used by about 2,000 motorists a day during a two-year test period to establish if it can generate enough energy to power street lighting in the village of 3,400 residents…
IoT
Chicago Tribune: ‘IOT’ continues impact on small businesses
…Today a quick search of the phrase “Internet of Things” yields more than 34 million results. The IOT is changing how businesses market, how people buy and how customers interact with solutions…The IOT along with AI will continue to evolve and become more integrated into the overall B2B buying process. Being aware of this continued evolution is now part of the business acumen for forward thinking business leaders and salespeople…
