Entrepreneurs are the rock stars of contemporary business. Thanks largely to the way information technology has wrought creative destruction on many of the highest-profile enterprises in the world, the mythical figure of the lone tech genius fighting for a vision against all odds has become the new heroic figure for the old American story of… Keep reading →
Everywhere I go, utilities and the vendors who serve them are talking about the advent of distributed generation. They all agree that DG will be a disruptive force, even if they disagree how quickly it will hit critical mass. Your future is a distributed one, so it’s not too soon to start thinking through the… Keep reading →
East Coast utilities are making big grid investments to prep for a hot and stormy 2013. Fresh on the heels of Hurricane Sandy’s destruction last year, East Coast utilities are girding their grids for future storms, including a 2013 hurricane season that’s shaping up to be a tough one, according to the latest forecasts. That spending… Keep reading →
The internet is all around us. Chances are as you read this article you are either plugged in or tapping into some kind of wireless device (hopefully over a secured network) from your charged laptop, tablet or smartphone. So it can be a large understatement to say that consumer access to the World Wide Web… Keep reading →
For many years, Hawaii has been home to one of the strongest solar PV markets in the US. The state has offered renewable energy tax credits since 1976 and at 35% today, the credit is one of the largest in the country. Additionally, the market has been bolstered by the high cost of electricity, which… Keep reading →
Physicist and MIT Researcher Ernest Moniz was officially confirmed as the next US Energy Secretary, replacing Stephen Chu, yesterday. The Senate voted 97-0 in favor. Moniz served as energy undersecretary under the Clinton Administration. Various groups and organizations from private business to the environmental community made statements supporting Moniz’s confirmation. They highlighted his work and… Keep reading →
Meeting an RPS is costing less than previously thought in many states. Late last year, a study found that California’s 33 percent renewable portfolio standard (RPS) could result in a “rate impact bomb” in coming years. A new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists, however, found that for fourteen of the 29 states with an RPS… Keep reading →
The appeal of distributed generation is growing as the economics improve sharply, and a perfect storm of delayed infrastructure investment, falling prices for distributed renewable energy sources and a series of high profile centralized transmission grid failures mean the business is approaching a “tipping point.”
“We’re looking at a mass exodus away from the centralized utilities,” Gen110 Co-founder and CEO Jason Brown told Breaking Energy in a recent follow-up to an interview following a successful round of fund-raising by heavy-hitter venture capital firms earlier this year. Since the beginning of the year Gen110 has gone from being able to meet utility prices for electricity provision for one in ten homes to forecasting it will be able to match utility rates for three in ten by the end of this year. Keep reading →
California energy regulators believe energy storage capacity could reach up to 8,000 MW by 2020, and could be further accelerated by renewables targets and the ongoing closure of one of two of the state’s nuclear power plants.
Michael Gravely, deputy chief of R&D at the California Energy Commission said he anticipated “fairly substantial amount of increase in services” in energy storage to balance the grid and integrate renewables over the next decade. 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 →
