In this video, Ken DeFontes, President and CEO of Baltimore Gas & Electric, discusses his company’s approach to implementing smart grid technology into BG&E’s territory.
It is a unique look at smart grid technology from a utility perspective. Keep reading →
More than 750 professionals from across the renewables sector met this week for the Renewable Energy Finance Forum at NYC’s Waldorf Astoria.
On stage in the hotel’s main ballroom and over drinks at the neighboring St. Barts restaurant, professionals in finance, generation, transmission, law and politics traded industry gossip, best practices and lessons learned. Keep reading →
Growth was on a group of top bankers’ minds as they discussed the prospects for renewable energy financing today, many of them shrugging off the impact of still-uncertain regulatory and political direction.
Bankers took center stage today at the Renewable Energy Finance Forum in New York City, replacing the project managers and developers were featured in the first day’s proceedings, and despite recent roiling in stock markets they painted a rosy picture for the future of companies financing renewable energy projects. Keep reading →
As renewables generation becomes an increasingly significant portion of the American power grid, solar companies are flocking to the United States for business.
Service and analytics firms are following manufacturers from Europe and elsewhere to the burgeoning American market. Ben Compton, COO and VP of Commercial Operations of one of the world’s largest third-party monitoring systems, meteocontrol, told Breaking Energy that he attended the REFF Wall Street conference in order to meet with the American influencers in the solar solar photovoltaic (PV) industry. Keep reading →
Last week’s release of the White House’s Policy Framework For The 21st Century Grid signals that the national policy focus will shift back to energy in the coming months. This development is welcome news to a transmission industry that has weathered the ambiguity created by the absence of a national energy policy for years. It is smart for the Obama Administration to focus on our energy grid – a vital piece of infrastructure that is long past due for an upgrade, but a focus on “smart grid” technologies may be putting the cart before the horse.
Americans now rely on an antiquated grid that is used in ways it was never intended to be used. The majority of the existing transmission system was built more than 30 years ago and has received incremental investment since. Consider these facts: Keep reading →
The decline in costs in the solar industry over the past three years is “nothing short of astounding,” Recurrent Energy CEO Arno Harris said today at the REFF Wall Street Summit in New York.
At back-to-back events today at the REFF Wall Street Summit, featured panelists discussed the distributed generation (DG) solar photovoltaic (PV) investment market and its scalability for the America utility grid. Keep reading →
On June 21 the northern hemisphere will celebrate a read letter day for me – the summer solstice. This is the longest day of the year, when the sun’s position in the sky reaches its northernmost extreme. I’ve been an advocate for solar power for more than 35 years, so I’m also an advocate for a day dedicated to celebrating the sun. Simply stated: look up in the sky and see the solution to our energy needs. Most of our time is spent looking down at the ground for oil, gas or coal.
It’s been a common rule in the solar power industry that for each cumulative doubling of installed photovoltaic (PV) solar power (the type of panel commonly seen on the roofs of homes and businesses) the price of solar modules decreases by 18%. Keep reading →
This morning the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the federal government’s Environment Protection Agency (EPA), and only the EPA, can legally limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
The court struck down a US Appeals ruling that upheld the lawsuit brought by six states against power companies which, the states said, were contributing to global climate change by polluting the environment. Keep reading →
Money can come from the strangest places.
With Google’s investment of $280 million in rooftop solar panels on Tuesday, bringing its total investments in renewable power to $680 million, experts are beginning to see the internet search-engine giant as the newest green tech finance firm. Keep reading →
It’s official.
New “Lighting Facts” labels are coming to US light bulb packaging in mid-2011. Watt’s up with that? (Sorry, couldn’t resist). Well, the new labels mandated by the Federal Trade Commission mean many consumers may finally start to put “Watts” in the right context. Keep reading →
