The Paradox of Inclining Block Rates
What goes up doesn’t always come down.
Two California-based utilities are studied to determined if inclining block rates can be used to promote energy efficiency.
EPRI
Commenting on Carbon
State PUCs take on EPA and its Clean Power Plan.
Everything about the Clean Power Plan seems surreal. States complain of unfair treatment. Regulators read the proposed rule and sound warnings of a coming apocalypse.
Eos Energy Storage Awarded $2.1 Million from California Energy Commission for Battery Demonstration
Submitted by aburr on Thu, 2014-12-18 12:54Eos Energy Storage demonstrated its grid-scale battery system at Pacific Gas & Electric’s (PG&E) smart grid lab in San Ramon, Calif., with the support of a $2.1 million award from the California Energy Commission.
Digest (December 2014)
NRG Energy and MGM Resorts International completed installation of the world's largest rooftop solar array on a convention center;
Southern California Edison on November 5 announced the largest purchase of grid-connected energy storage in U.S. history. NRG Energy acquired Pure Energies Group; Duke Energy Progress filed with FERC for approval to purchase $1.2 billion in generating assets;
The U.S. Department of Energy authorized Bechtel to resume engineering work at a facility that will treat some of the nation's liquid radioactive waste; Burns & McDonnell plans to develop a grid stability awareness system;
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced the launch of New York's first energy management network operations center. And others...
Integrated Energy
Distributed energy + distributed controls = distributed benefits.
Utility business models are at risk in a world of distributed energy resources and local intelligent controls, such as microgrids. But the real revolution may lie in customer expectations, where third parties threaten to take ownership.
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.
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.
Southern Research Institute Builds Solar Research Center
Submitted by aburr on Thu, 2014-06-19 17:39Southern Research Institute completed a facility to study solar PV systems. The facility, the Southeastern Solar Research Center (SSRC), will house numerous research efforts beginning with an EPRI project focused on solar PV system orientation, tracking and aging.
In the Crosshairs
Protecting substations and transformers after the PG&E Metcalf attack.
The latest fallout from the April 2013 Metcalf incident: the unprecedented assault with high-powered rifles on PG&E’s Metcalf substation, in Silicon Valley, which disabled 17 of 20 large transformers.
Correlation Processing
Big data at work – from plant performance to customer interaction.
Analytics technology isn’t just for customer service and distribution systems. Pattern recognition techniques are allowing utilities to wade through large reams of data and identify incipient equipment problems at power plants, avoiding costly failures and safety compromises.