Digest (August 2014)
Florida Power & Light Company partners with PetroQuest Energy to develop natural gas production wells in southeastern Oklahoma; First Solar receives financing approval to build a 141-MW solar power plant in Chile; DTE Energy will deploy Tollgrade’s LightHouse MV smart grid sensors and predictive grid analytics platform within its distribution network in Detroit; US DOE chooses Abengoa, together with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the Colorado School of Mines, to develop a new solar storage technology for thermoelectric plants.
Coal After MATS
A strategy for completely removing mercury from environmental emissions.
Coal-fired power plants subject to EPA’s MATS rule can try a biological treatment option to remove mercury emissions from the environment.
Threat Level Red
Integrating weather and GIS data for more accurate threat assessments.
Weather and GIS are being combined in new ways to provide better storm threat assessments - helping utilities create increasingly effective battle plans to defend against approaching storms.
Reliable But Costly
Recent trends in distribution line undergrounding.
Utility distribution lines increasingly are going underground, but costs are still prohibitive for replacing existing overhead lines.
Utility System Hardening
Taking Resiliency One Step Further
An independent system operator for the distribution network could allow utilities to invest in rooftop solar behind the meter and within territory.
Smart by Default
Time-varying rates from the get-go – not just by opt-in.
Default enrollment for time-varying rates, with an opt-out, will reduce peak demand and far more than a default flat rate with a TVR opt-in.
Rooftop Parity
Solar for Everyone, including Utilities
An independent system operator for the distribution network could open more opportunities for distributed energy resources, including rooftop solar.
Curing the Death Spiral
Seeking a rate design that recovers costs fairly from customers with rooftop solar.
Load research data shows how utilities can levy a demand charge to recover costs fairly from residential customers with rooftop solar.
Utility Capital in the Twenty-First Century
What FERC might learn from Thomas Piketty and his best-selling book on wealth and income.
Thomas Piketty’s best-selling book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” shows why utility transmission owners should not enjoy excessive returns.