Distribution


Energy storage technologies – notorious for falling into the infamous financing “valley of death” – are set to get a stronger bridge across the abyss from lab to market in California.

CalCharge, a consortium based in San Francisco’s Bay Area, launched May 29. Keep reading →


Global demand for water is growing at an astonishing rate – possibly 40% higher than current demand – in the next 20 years. That means utilities will need to find the best ways to manage the finite resource they possibly can.

That need translates into a huge jump in smart water meter deployments, according to a report from Pike Research. The report, Smart Water Meters, says we can expect to see a global base of smart water meters using AMI technologies to hit almost 30 million by 2017, an astonishing increase over the 10.3 million in use in 2011. By the end of the forecast period, annual shipments are expected to be 3.3 million, with an annual market value of $476 million. Keep reading →


Additional wind power in the US Midwest could cut wholesale electricity prices by more than 25%, saving a typical household as much as $200 a year, proponents of new renewable energy capacity in the region said.

The analysis for the advocacy group Americans for a Clean Energy Grid found that if 20 GW was added to the existing 10 GW of wind capacity in the MISO region, consumers’ power costs would decline by $3 billion to $6.9 billion a year after the costs of new transmission is factored in. Keep reading →


As advanced information technology continues to permeate the power sector and the two-way data flow between utility and customer deepens, countless opportunities to streamline the delivery and consumption of electricity arise. Across the US, utilities are taking innovative approaches to fostering energy efficient behavior by working with customers to build sustainable practices, programs and business models.

The key is to use all available channels – including social networking – to engage customers with a simple message, you need to “keep [customers] informed and show [them] results,” Bill Andrew, President and CEO of the Delaware Electric Cooperative told audience members at last week’s DNV Kema Utility of the Future Leadership Forum in Washington DC. Keep reading →


The future of sustainable clean technology is not in huge, one-size-fits-all technologies but in distributed technologies that people embrace on the local level, said experts at the 4th Annual IFC Cleantech Workshop of the International Finance Corporation, part of The World Bank.

Moreover, the technology advances that will enable more sustainable living are already here or on the way, they said. Now it’s the financial and management systems that need innovation. Keep reading →


Generating power for your residence is no longer for the paranoid or the peculiar; more than 2,000 of California’s heavy domestic energy users have signed up with Gen110 to meet most of their own power needs, and investors are sinking more money into the business as its burgeoning potential becomes apparent.

Gen110 CEO and co-founder Jason Brown isn’t your usual “energy guy.” He is a relatively recent graduate of business school with a background in sales, not power engineering, and his membership as part of Silicon Valley’s technorati has been confirmed this week with the announcement of funding by the tech startup’s venture capitalist of choice: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Keep reading →


It is easy to enumerate the challenges facing the utility sector over the coming decade, but participants in DNV KEMA’s fifth “Utility of the Future” Summit in Washington, DC today were optimistic about the opportunities to build on what many pointed out was a relationship of deep trust with consumers and regulators.

Southern Company Services CEO Susan Story grabbed the conference’s attention with an easy command of extensive facts about the largest vertically integrated US utility’s efforts to adjust to changing operating and technology environments. She balanced the deep dives with illustrative examples and a strategic view of her industry’s changing place in the world. Keep reading →


What do gadget-laden outdoor enthusiasts in the developed world have in common with rural villagers that have no access to electricity in developing nations? They could soon be using the same clean hydrogen generation technology being developed by a small, private US chemical company.

“It’s been a long road and providing hydrogen has been hard to do, we are lucky that we can provide a reliable on/off system,” SiGNa Chemistry’s CEO Michael Lefenfeld recently told Breaking Energy. Keep reading →

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