Transmission

Natural Gas Pipeline Market Failure Looms

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One of the biggest ignored threats to the power sector – and to electricity delivery to homes and businesses across much of the country’s most populated regions – is from a lack of natural gas pipeline capacity. A former federal regulator is warning that this issue, arcane at first glance, could prompt market failure and a crisis of reliability for some generators.

The free market is a funny thing; it works only over time and often in socially unpopular ways. The energy market in the US has been regulated, de-regulated and re-regulated over its history, but all market participants are operating in the context of rules set up to balance policy priorities and operating realities. Keep reading →

 /  Published April 3, 2013 at 10:30 AM

Pace of Transmission Investment Soars at Private Utilities

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Shareholder owned utilities are set to invest more than $1 billion each month in transmission projects in the US in 2013, with a planned total of $15.1 billion this year up from already-impressive $11 billion in total in 2011.

Transmission infrastructure shortfalls have been widely forecast for the entire US power sector, which last saw comprehensive buildouts decades ago. Since then, successive attempts to reform power markets have often been blamed for failing to create sufficient incentives for companies to invest in new needed power line upgrades. Keep reading →

 /  Published March 5, 2013 at 8:30 AM

Google Spending Millions to Influence Smart Grid Regulations

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Like many firms before it, Google has come to realize that policy and regulation are the biggest obstacles to grid modernization. As Michael Terrell, one of the firm’s senior lobbyists explains on a company blog, “the challenge is that the rules governing electricity distribution were written for last century’s grid.”

Until recently, Google has often preferred to go its own way when seeking to influence policy. This time around, it has decided to fund the Energy Foundation with a $2.65 million grant to support policy reforms in three areas: Keep reading →

 /  Published January 25, 2013 at 3:00 PM

Engineers Highlight US Infrastructure Investment Gaps: The $3.1 Trillion Problem

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Without adequate investment on infrastructure the US could face a $2.4 trillion drop in consumer spending by 2020, a $1.1 trillion loss in total trade and experience the loss of 3.5 million jobs in 2020 alone.

This is just a sliver of the doom and gloom the American Society of Civil Engineers predicted this week with the release of their final report in the “Failure to Act” series that focuses on the impacts associated with continued infrastructure deterioration. The latest installment of the ASCE reports focuses on specifically on economic impacts. Keep reading →

 /  Published January 16, 2013 at 2:00 PM

National Grid Puts Together a Smart Grid Dream Team

By Greentech Media


Don’t get too excited; it’s just a pilot.

Sometime in 2014, National Grid is poised to deliver the “energy system of the future.” Keep reading →

 /  Published January 15, 2013 at 9:00 AM

Rebuild For the Next Sandy

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After Hurricane Sandy ravaged the Atlantic shoreline, my 88-year-old mother-in-law sat in her New Jersey home, unwilling to leave her things, for over a week with no electricity. Another friend of mine spent that same week waiting in gas lines to refill a generator and keep his brother’s small business going. These two examples don’t even include the truly unfortunate folks who completely lost their homes and businesses; they just lost their electric power.

There has been quite a bit of buzz about whether the “smart grid” and associated technologies and applications actually helped in the Sandy recovery efforts. They may have but I think we can do better. Keep reading →

 /  Published January 7, 2013 at 3:00 PM

Energy Theft: From Bad to Worse (And What Some Utilities are Doing About It)

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Mention energy theft and many will think Brazil or India where electricity losses are staggering. Yet no corner of the world seems immune from it – be it meter tampering, pilfering copper wire from substations, illegal hookups, siphoning or other unlawful schemes. Consider: Ireland’s main energy supplier has seen a 50% increase in meter box tampering in the last three years. In Virginia, Danville Utilities reports a growing problem with people tampering with smart meters

 /  Published January 4, 2013 at 1:30 PM

The Smart Grid in 2013: Charged for Growth

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In the past year, the grid has seen some remarkable highs, while also being tested to meet the basic needs of society.

On one hand, big advances have flourished, fundamentally changing the way we power our lives. Roof-mounted solar panels have gone from a costly oddity to a competitive selling point for many homes. Battery-powered vehicles have gained traction – once a car-show phenomenon, plug-in cars are now a fast growing segment. On the other hand, the idea of progress has been challenged by a slew of weather woes that have shaken consumer confidence in our energy infrastructure. A series of intense storms, heat waves, and drought combined to make 2012 one of the toughest years globally for the grid in many years. Keep reading →

 /  Published December 26, 2012 at 9:00 AM

Smart Grid Could have Aided Storm Sandy Recovery

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Some US utilities could have weathered Hurricane Sandy better than they did if they had invested in smart grid improvements such as smart-metering, outage management, and distribution management systems, a senior GE official said.

John McDonald, Director of Technical Strategy and Policy Development for GE Digital Energy, said utilities that have not yet installed the technology would have known about outages more quickly, been able to swiftly identify their locations, and been able to assign repair crews more efficiently if they had the enhancements in place. Keep reading →

 /  Published December 5, 2012 at 12:00 PM

Renewable Power Dispute Heats Up in Central Europe

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks during debates at the Bundestag over the 2013 federal budget on November 21, 2012 in Berlin, Germany.

As the temperatures begin to dip below freezing in Europe, an unsightly conflict is heating up between clean-energy champion Germany and its pro-nuclear neighbors in Poland and the Czech Republic. Keep reading →

 /  Published November 30, 2012 at 9:00 AM
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