As clean energy advocates across the nation push power providers to increase investments in renewables and cut greenhouse gas emissions, they’ve increasingly employed an age-old tactic — ballot initiatives.
Earlier this year, the threat of a proposal on renewables and coal use pushed Oregon utilities to ultimately support a new law that codifies a 50% renewable energy standard and bans coal-fired electricity in the state by 2035.
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read moreYou can do a lot of things with advanced meters. Even catch a college kid trying to game the system.
In and around Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University is king. It’s the largest employer in the area, drives sustainable research and agricultural breakthroughs, and – with a $65 million annual energy bill – has a keen interest in keeping down costs.
In 2010, the university launched its “Think Big, Live Green” initiative, an umbrella branding for a series of sustainability projects, outreach campaigns and investments. And among the campus’ many assets, all of its buildings have smart meters. The project has a long-term goal to reduce campus electric use by 1% each year, equivalent to 7.2 MWh and $650,000 per year.
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Smart Electric Meters are a necessary component of distributed energy systems, smart grids, and microgrids to communicate and manage power in both directions.
Regulated utilities Con Edison and Orange & Rockland (O&R) Utilities have chosen Silicon Valley-based Silver Springs Networks´ smart grid networking, data and control platform as they embark on the next phase of ambitious Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) projects. The expected benefits range from boosting energy efficiency and reducing carbon emissions to delivering more reliable, resilient, convenient and lower cost energy, products and services to customers.
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A $2.5-billion transmission line carrying wind power to the U.S. Southeast is coming — whether state regulators there like it or not.
On Friday, the U.S. Energy Department used a decade-old statute to clear Clean Line Energy Partners LLC’s 705-mile (1,134-kilometer) power line for construction over any objections from the states involved.
The Energy Department’s approval of the line, proposed to carry 4,000 megawatts of power from the wind-rich Oklahoma panhandle through Arkansas and into Tennessee, marks the first time the 2005 statute has been used to bypass state approval and push through an interstate transmission project.
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There’s a new battery startup on the scene angling to take a piece of the home energy storage market.
Palo Alto-based ElectrIQ Power offers a 10-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery, a hybrid DC-to-AC inverter, a DC-to-DC converter, an intelligent battery management system, and a high frequency energy meter all wrapped up in a single package.
The IQ System is paired with a cloud-based dashboard that allows customers to monitor energy use and make informed decisions about their consumption. The embedded software system can also learn usage habits and automate home energy savings.
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Where does the lithium-ion battery industry — and most notably, Tesla/Panasonic — stand today on battery costs?
Solar veterans will recall a time not so long ago when the industry’s biggest dream was a PV module with a cost of 99 cents per watt. Obviously, the solar industry has long left that figure in the dust — module costs of 40 cents per watt are a reality in today’s market.
In fact, the 99-cent figure was more a VC-funding, press-ready construct than a real economic calculation.
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