federal

If the Supreme Court holds to the principles and logic of its ruling in EPSA, it will restore states’ traditional central role in resource planning.

Cost-conscious commercial and industrial customers may be oblivious to the legal issues surrounding their energy choices, but their demand response providers are not. The U.S. Supreme Court will now decide whether those services will be regulated by the federal government or state utility commissions.

Sonoma Clean Power will build the largest floating solar array in the U.S., scheduled to be completed in 2016 and will create enough energy to power 3,000 houses; GE announced the construction of two service centers focused on the operation and maintenance of wind turbines in Brazil; Open Systems International was awarded a contract by Seattle City Light to implement a new energy management system; FirstEnergy expects to invest about $225 million on distribution and transmission infrastructure projects in north-central West Virginia; APR Energy commissioned an expansion of its power plant in Myanmar; The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved Westinghouse Electric’s testing approach for the Westinghouse small modular reactor design; FuelCell Energy agreed to sell a 1.4-MW fuel cell power plant project to NRG Energy; ABB and Samsung SDI signed a memorandum of understanding to promote microgrid solutions globally; And others ...

Some will stray from ethical behavior. But markets must be regulated to maintain confidence.

The economic argument for investments in the smart grid is clear: the payback from those technologies in the U.S. is likely three to six times greater than the money invested, and grows with each sequence of grid improvement.

While the public comment period on EPA’s Clean Power Plan proposed rule has closed, there are still opportunities to engage in the federal policymaking process before the summer 2015 release of the final rule.

The proposal creates a new capacity product called the “Capacity Performance Resource.”

Changes envisioned by PJM call for ever more structured markets, further reducing the scope of the competitive landscape from which RTOs arose. They may produce a system that is actually more costly and less innovative than regulation.

NREL contradicts AWEA, finds wind power not competitive, and favors extending the production tax credit (PTC), but that won’t aid economic growth.