Europe’s biggest economy marches towards a greener future. Aug 18 was a Sunday like any other in Germany. At 2 pm, the country’s renewable generation capacity peaked at 41 GW while demand was around 53.5 GW – meaning that renewables accounted for roughly 75% of generation capacity, a new record for Europe’s biggest economy. At… Keep reading →
Customer grid defection through self-generation and storage not good from societal point of view Utilities in the US and elsewhere facing rapid rise of solar PVs are more or less unanimous on two remedies to address the revenue erosion challenge facing them: First, reducing the incentives to self-generation and Second, increasing the fixed charges customers… Keep reading →
Some are hopeful electrification of transport will improve the industry’s fortunes The power sector in developed parts of the world is confronting falling customer demand due to energy efficiency gains plus the rising penetration of distributed generation, notably from rooftop solar PVs. The net impact is that customers use less while generating more – becoming… Keep reading →
Cloudy future For some time, computing, data processing and storage have been migrating to the “cloud.” Now, people are talking about the energy cloud, where distributed energy resources (DERs) making use of intelligent devices, storage and a smart grid connect all manner of distributed loads and resources to meet customers’ energy service needs. Future is… Keep reading →
Records that would have been considered ambitious no longer are On 1 June 2014, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) recorded a midday hourly peak of 4,767 MW of utility-generated solar electricity delivered into the California grid, a new record. That, however, does not include small-scale PVs on customer’s roofs – which are growing at… Keep reading →
It seems to be a recurring trend After years where nobody was building any, 4 new reactors are under construction in the US, supported by all manner of support, subsidies, government loan guarantees and you name it. Much rests on how these 4 reactors will turn out in terms of getting built on schedule and… Keep reading →
War on Coal – Already Lost A convenient political sound bite, and not much more The coal lobby and its political supporters accuse President Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of waging war on coal. They claim that putting restrictions on burning coal will bring America’s economy to a screeching halt, untold number of… Keep reading →
A report on risk of inaction unlikely to change those still in denial The messenger of the news is sometimes as important as the message, if not more so. In that context, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, former US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and former hedge fund manager and environmental activist Thomas Steyer… Keep reading →
That may be an understatement There has been a flurry of reports coming from all directions leading to similar conclusions, namely the demise of the traditional utility business model. The latest is a March 2014 report from an unlikely source, Morgan Stanley, concluding that “improvements in batteries and distributed generation could partly or completely eliminate… Keep reading →
The answer is that the two are rapidly converging Google, along with its peers such as Apple, Facebook, eBay, Yahoo, Tesla and hordes of other start-up in and around Silicon Valley, have been the darlings of the Wall Street with their stratospheric market valuations, rising stocks, and growing dominance in the phenomenally fast growing information… Keep reading →
