Starting Over
What if we didn’t have to work around the grid we have today, with all of its inertia and incumbents and inflexibility?
electricity grid
Grid Evolution
Utilities face a host of rapid changes in a what used to be a staid business: new business models, changing supply and demand forecasts, new distributed architectures, new types of resources, new participants in the power grid that they don’t control…yet they still must maintain a highly reliable power grid that operates within fairly narrow parameters.
Are small-scale renewable energy grids already starting to replace mega-utility corporations?
Increasing efficiencies in energy storage and transmission combined with falling prices for renewable energy technologies are creating a profound transformation of energy systems around the world.
Innovations in Energy Storage Provide Boost for Renewables
Intermittency has long been considered the Achilles heel of renewable power generation.
Energy transitions – headlines
•The Energy Transition is Here •IEA Report: Wind and Solar Can Carry Bulk of Energy TransformationT•he Economics of Grid Defection •Industry-funded report calls for changes to German energy policy •Coal Crunch Gives Impetus to India’s Solar Switch •Food and wastewater biogas to heat 5,200 New York homes •Report: Solar Paired With Storage Is a ‘Real, Near and Present’ Threat to UtilitiesA•nother Banner, Record-Breaking Year for U.S. Solar
The Perils of Electricity Capacity Markets
The high capital cost and zero fuel cost of renewable projects forces the risk of ownership onto investors, while the near-zero capital cost and high fuel cost of older fossil fuel plants pushes risk onto consumers.
Why Our Energy Choices Matter in a Warming, Water-Constrained World
In a future of growing climate change impacts and water strains, the water implications of our electricity choices are way worth paying attention to.