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The language of short-lived sales and low-cost financing is more usually heard around used-car lots and department stores, but there isn’t any reason the same factors can’t apply to the utility business.
The short-term, act-now opportunity open to the power sector in the US is clear in an environment that will dictate significant capital investment, the authors of a new report from consulting firm Booz & Company argue. Keep reading →
While supply of energy commodities can often seem arcane, only noticeable to end consumers when prices rise or there is a supply disruption, demand is much more tactile and visible.
“Everyone wants to use as much plastic as we do,” notes Williams Energy senior executive David Darcey on this video shot at a recent summit of the US Association of Energy Economics, detailing rising US production of plastics, innovations in making steel using natural gas and heating oil conversions as parts of the puzzle in creating a rising market for natural gas production currently weighing on prices. Keep reading →
It is difficult to exaggerate the scale of the changes that the burgeoning natural gas and oil production in the US are setting in motion, so some numbers help set the tone. Numbers like $50 million a mile, and $70 billion a year.
Those are two of the figures cited by Manhattan Institute senior fellow Robert Bryce, who writes about and studies the energy sector for the think tank. Breaking Energy spoke with him at the US Association for Energy Economics conference in Austin, Texas in November, and he detailed some of the opportunities and the challenges for the natural gas sector. Keep reading →
GE’s Grid IQ Solutions as a Service (SaaS) helps utilities deliver grid modernization technologies, while enabling consumers to use energy more efficiently
Grid modernization projects typically come with a sizable capital-investment requirement and a certain amount of risk when making a long-term technology decision. In addition, there are deployment risks with integrating the disparate software applications associated with delivering the desired level of grid automation. Many small- and mid-market utilities that deliver electric utility services or additional water and gas utility services can benefit from GE’s SaaS offering. Keep reading →
It was stunning to see just how fast Sandy shut down the northeast’s electrical systems, leaving people powerless in more ways than one. The storm’s flip of a switch effect was because our electrical generating systems are so centralized.
Not one to mince words, Governor Cuomo called New York’s electrical system “archaic and obsolete.” “The utility system we have was designed for a different time and for a different place,” he said, it “is a 1950s system. We’re going to have to look at a ground up redesign.” Keep reading →
Solar’s economics are increasingly attractive yet often poorly understood. Does solar have an image problem?
Businesses small and large – but particularly those with high electricity costs – can achieve considerable savings and create long-term price certainty by installing a solar electric system instead of purchasing electricity from their utility. In fact, every business with a minimum of space (for the solar system) and high electricity costs should examine solar’s potential to reduce overhead in the short- and long-term. Keep reading →
Hurricane Sandy presents state and federal officials nationwide with a superb opportunity to think through how to better utilize all their resources in an even worse disaster, says Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Stockton.
And a worse disaster is coming – either from human enemies or from Mother Nature, he warned the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), meeting recently held in Baltimore. Keep reading →
Hurricane Sandy left over eight million people along the East Coast without power. More than a week later, nearly two million are still in the dark. With a warming planet, it’s likely there will be more Sandy-strength storms in the years to come. At a press conference last week, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the city needs to “not only rebuild, but rebuild stronger and smarter.”
So how should the nation prepare? Weather isn’t the only reason to update the grid. Power outages cost the nation between $80 billion and $180 billion each year, according to research by Massoud Amin, a senior member of Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers. And they’re getting worse. The number of major outages has doubled in the last 10 years.
To all of the superlatives attached to Superstorm Sandy, add power outages.
Ten million customers in 21 states lost power in the wake of the storm, by far the most in the history of the U.S. utility industry, and well in excess of the 7 million whose electricity got knocked out in Hurricane Irene in 2011, the storm with the second-biggest impact. Keep reading →
