Distribution

New Focus For Ocean Power Following Eco Wave Kiev Tests

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Trying to find the silver bullet in energy is not an easy task. Developing a power source that is clean and widely available, yet also cheaper and more reliable than fossil fuels or intermittent wind and solar has led to a great deal of expensive research but few commercially successful technologies.

Proponents of ocean power, in which converters capture the power of the constant energy provided by high and low waves and tide flows, believe they have the answer – but pricing, infrastructure prejudiced to existing generation types and lack of data all form robust challenges for the still-small sector. Keep reading →

 /  Published January 10, 2012 at 10:30 AM

GE Smart Grid Solutions Underline Move To Cloud Computing

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Two recent wins for General Electric’s Grid IQ offering signal not just where GE is headed. They also suggest two important trends for 2012. First, the move to “cloud-based” hosted services is under way in earnest. Second, many of the sector’s biggest players are targeting coops and municipals for their next round of deals.

Hosted services are here (and to stay). Keep reading →

 /  Published January 9, 2012 at 10:30 AM

Stop Wasting Precious Renewable Energy! The Smart Grid Can Help

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Earlier this month the journal Electricity Policy reported a regulatory victory for wind power owners: the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has decided that the Bonneville Power Administration cannot force wind producers to curtail production in favor of hydroelectric plants.

The new FERC order emphasizes that BPA, which operates in the Pacific Northwest, cannot discriminate against wind energy. Keep reading →

 /  Published December 28, 2011 at 7:00 AM

CSP Solar Energy Storage In Motion

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While solar critics decry the intermittent nature of photovoltaic technology that can capture the sun’s light and turn it into electricity only when its sunny, developers have been busy finding ways to store the sun’s power even overnight.

By using molten salts in its water tower, California-based solar company, BrightSource Energy, has developed a method to store overnight energy collected during the day by its concentrated solar power (CSP) plants. In late November, the company announced that it will be including its SolarPLUS thermal energy storage technology to several of its CSP plants. Keep reading →

 /  Published December 27, 2011 at 6:00 AM

Power Prices Could Soar On Four Trillion Dollar ‘Perfect Storm’

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Utility customers face a “perfect storm” of sharply higher bills for electricity and natural gas because trillions of dollars in capital expenditure will be needed to upgrade aging US infrastructure and comply with environmental rules, according to the new head of America’s utility regulators’ association.

David Wright, incoming president of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, predicted ratepayers will bear the brunt of huge expenditure needs for such improvements as installing smart grid technology, controlling power station emissions, and replacing old pipelines over coming decades. Keep reading →

 /  Published December 22, 2011 at 8:00 AM

Pennsylvania Wind Farm Will Rise Thanks To Unlikely Partnership

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A private-equity firm, a wind energy developer, a state funding program, an agricultural community leader and a group of university administrators have all been part of the story behind a 30 MW utility-scale wind farm going up in three townships in rural Pennsylvania.

Patton Wind Farm plans to sell power into the merchant market, Brooklyn-based developer OwnEnergy said in announcing today the sale of the project to European private equity firm Terra Firma’s EverPower Wind Holding subsidiary. The project already has an interconnection with local electricity market operator PJM Interconnection. Keep reading →

 /  Published December 20, 2011 at 9:45 AM

ConEd: Access The Funds For Energy Efficiency Projects

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Ultimately, you want an energy efficiency plan for your business – understanding it makes good business sense to lower your energy consumption, to save money, improve your bottom line and protect the environment in the process. You followed the preliminary steps of benchmarking to see how your building compares with similar buildings in your area. You’ve also had an energy audit to get a handle on what upgrades your building needs.

After looking at the laundry list of inefficient equipment and building systems that need improvements and the associated costs, you start to conceptualize the various ways to shuffle the budget to find capital for these improvements and make it work! Keep reading →

 /  Published December 20, 2011 at 6:00 AM

ComEd Smart Grid Deal: Profits Tied To Performance

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The trend to set performance benchmarks for utilities got another boost with an announcement Thursday by ComEd. The Illinois utility laid out the steps it will take to meet the performance metrics built into the state’s recent smart grid bill. (Which was passed only by overriding the governor’s veto.)

The 10-year $2.6 billion modernization plan requires the state’s utilities to prove they are making progress toward 10-year goals that include improving outages by 20 percent and the duration of those outages by 15 percent. As part of its plan, ComEd will install 10 “smart” electric substations over the next five to 10 years to better predict, find and resolve power outages. Keep reading →

 /  Published December 16, 2011 at 6:00 AM

Tax Credit For Energy Storage Proposed In Senate

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Innovations in electricity storage are needed if the US is to take advantage of clean energy resources, and two Senators have proposed an investment tax credit to accelerate storage solutions.

Senators Jeff Bingaman (Democrat for New Mexico) and Ron Wyden (Democrat for Oregon), the two ranking Democrats on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, told an Energy Storage Association forum they are sponsoring a bill, S.1845, with Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins, for a storage investment tax credit (ITC). It would be similar to credits now available for solar installations. Keep reading →

 /  Published December 14, 2011 at 11:30 AM

Local Communities: AOL Energy Year In Review

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As the energy paradigm shifts from centralized utility scale power plants to more distributed solar panels, wind turbines and fracking sites, small communities around the country are experiencing the boom and the pain of power production.

The natural gas boom that continued this year, unlocked by the relatively new technology of hydraulic fracturing, (“fracking”) has brought millions of dollars into rural communities across the country. According to Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett the state’s gas bonanza has created more than 100,000 direct and indirect jobs, contributed millions of dollars in state and local tax revenues, and made some landowners rich with lease and royalty payments. Keep reading →

 /  Published December 14, 2011 at 6:00 AM
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