Distribution

Smart Metering Market Trends: Sensus Adds to the Ranks of “Small Power” Solutions

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Big deals with big investor-owned utilities (IOUs) get most of the attention from press and analysts. But in the last 18 months, most of the major vendors have created special packages aimed at the “small power market” – small to mid-size IOUs, municipals and coops. SAIC has its smart grid as a service. General Electric offers hosted GridIQ applications. Silver Spring Networks has a robust platform with several dozen partners. Meanwhile, companies such as Aclara and Tantalus have been targeting “small power” for years.

Many recent offerings are cloud-based services, where the vendor owns and operates all of the software. But Sensus has taken a slightly different tack in its just-released bundle aimed at the small power market. Sensus has pre-integrated its metering and distribution automation solutions with software from Harris Utilities. Company spokespeople claim the result is a “completely integrated suite… for meter data management, asset management and consumer engagement” that substantially reduces integration and deployment time. Keep reading →

 /  Published March 21, 2012 at 1:30 PM

Portable Wind Turbine Makes Roughing it Easier

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It’s 20 below and the sides of your Arctic Oven tent are snapping in the wind, but you have a hot cup of coffee and your laptop is juiced, thanks to the Revolver.

Revolver, a favorite in frog‘s first internal design competition, Future or Fiction, comes across solidly future, delivering 35 watts of wind power even in the most temperate of breezes. In addition to being very lightweight, and thus portable, the prototype for this mobile energy-on-the-go is also very easy to set up. Simply attach (or unfold) the die-cast magnesium legs, push the collar on the central column (where the flexible blades are attached) up and hold it in place with (presumably) a cotter pin assembly, and you have a working wind turbine. Keep reading →

 /  Published March 15, 2012 at 3:30 PM

Overturning The Eight Biggest Myths In Renewable Energy Today

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Misconception and myth hang over the entirety of the US energy sector, but with renewable energy equally likely to get bogged down in political wrangling over subsidy levels and climate change, getting to the truth remains a particular challenge.

Accounting firm Ernst & Young is accustomed to crunching data from a wide range of sources and sorting it into manageable categories. The company has taken an increasing thought-leadership profile in energy, and recently released an update to its substantial renewable energy attractiveness indices as part of that practice. Keep reading →

 /  Published March 15, 2012 at 3:00 PM

Highlighting The Spread Of Sustainable Investing On Wall Street

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Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on February 17, 2012 in New York City. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 46 points to close at its highest level since May 2008.

Growing awareness of the ways data, technology and the power of investors can transform industries has lent new purpose to the Wall Street green movement and broadened the sector’s appeal to areas the original environmental investors might never have recognized. Keep reading →

 /  Published March 8, 2012 at 11:00 AM

Time To Give Electric Storage Proper Credit?

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View of the Torresol Energy Gemasolar thermasolar plant in Fuentes de Andalucia near Sevilla, southern Spain, taken on October 4, 2011. Gemasolar is the first commercial-scale plant to apply central tower receiver and molten salt heat storage technology.

Electricity is a hoarder’s worst nightmare. It is difficult to capture and store on a large scale and within seconds of being created it disappears. Keep reading →

 /  Published March 5, 2012 at 2:30 PM

Solar Energy Flower Power Tower

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Like your typical garden flower, this tulip captures heat from the sun for energy. But unlike most flowers, this one is 115 feet tall and uses a combination of gas and mirrored heliostats to spin a gas turbine that creates electricity.

AORA‘s concentrated solar power (CSP) systems – designed in southern Israel where sunlight is abundant and water is scarce – uses pressurized air, rather than water, to spin a conventional gas turbine. If the air momentarily cools, from cloud cover for example, the tower automatically reroutes the air through a combustion chamber that can use anything from biogas and methane to natural gas and diesel to heat the air and spin the turbine. Keep reading →

 /  Published March 5, 2012 at 11:00 AM

Smart Grid Vision Alert! DOE Wants To Make Course Corrections

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Former Commerce Secretary Gary Locke (L) and Energy Secretary Steven Chu (R) held a media availability following a White House meeting to advance Smart Grid development at the White House.

Like the utility industry itself, the Department of Energy has long operated in siloed departments. Some months ago, several of them developed a shared vision of the US electricity system in 2035. Although the DOE originally developed the vision for internal use, it has decided to take the show on the road and pitch it to external stakeholders. The first stop on the tour was to state utility regulators at their 2012 National Electricity Forum. Keep reading →

 /  Published March 2, 2012 at 9:00 AM

Fuel Cells Poised To Grow Role In Energy

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A technology that can provide reliable power with low emissions in congested areas without the need for costly transmission sounds like the wave of the future, and it will be if FuelCell Energy gets its way.

For now, neither the company nor the technology are profitable or widespread enough to be a major part of the US energy mix. Keep reading →

 /  Published February 29, 2012 at 1:30 PM

Power Costs Could Rise In 29 States As Energy Sources Shift

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Power prices have been dipping around the country because of low natural gas prices, but some states could face the potential of higher prices for electricity as more renewable energy comes online and seeking to replace threatened baseload power could drive prices higher regardless.

The Manhattan Institute released a study on February 28 by Senior Fellow Robert Bryce concluding US renewable portfolio standards (RPS) for power generation appear to pose risks to a fragile economy — increasing electricity costs in many states at a time when consumers are struggling with high unemployment and discretionary spending constraints. Keep reading →

 /  Published February 28, 2012 at 4:00 PM

Renewable Energy’s ‘Dirty Little Secret’

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The power industry can use information technology to handle the volatility of renewable energy resources rather than having to back up renewable generation with duplicative fossil fuel power.

“Don’t spend twice by building renewables and then building spinning natural gas reserves on top of that,” Honeywell Vice President of Global Energy Services Jeremy Eaton told Breaking Energy. “It’s a little more complicated than saying ‘just add renewables.'” Keep reading →

 /  Published February 28, 2012 at 9:00 AM
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