News

GTM2 covered the challenges of incorporating DERs into the grid in the context of FERC Order 841 under consideration by U.S. Appeals Court, quoting AEE's Jeff Dennis. Read excerpts below and the entire GTM2 piece here (sub. req.). 

Back in 2018, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued Order 841, a groundbreaking effort to open interstate transmission grid markets to energy storage systems. Part of FERC’s mandate to the country’s regional transmission organizations (RTOs) and independent system operators (ISOs) included finding ways to allow aggregated, distribution-grid-connected storage — and eventually, a whole panoply of DERs — to be included in their new market structures...

Greentech Media covered how PG&E could recover from bankruptcy, quoting AEE's Amisha Rai. Read excerpts below and the entire GTM piece here.

PG&E faces a long and difficult road ahead. The San Francisco-based utility is emerging from bankruptcy with a massive debt load that could make it harder to raise the tens of billions of dollars of investment needed to prevent its power grid from causing more devastating wildfires. It’s struggling to find cost-effective ways to protect millions of customers from fire-prevention blackouts that may need to continue for years...

GTM Squared covered the state of demand-side management during the covid-19 pandemic, quoting AEE's Lisa Frantzis. Read excerpts below and the entire GTM2 piece here (sub. req.). 

Of all the U.S. clean energy industries, demand-side management — the utility term of art for energy efficiency and other programs that manage energy use behind the customer's meter — has been hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic. More than two-thirds of the nearly 600,000 U.S. clean energy jobs lost in March and April were in the energy efficiency sector, according to BW Research. Most of those job losses came at the small businesses that do about 80 percent of the country’s efficiency work, but they’ve also struck nationwide efficiency contractors and utility program administrators...

Greentech Media covered how the Utility industry, often thought to be immune to economic declines, is facing challenges due to the COVID-19 crisis, quoting AEE's Lisa Frantzis. Read excerpts below and the entire Greentech Media piece here. 

The coronavirus pandemic is wreaking havoc on the U.S. economy, and while electric utilities may be relatively sheltered from the storm that’s overtaking other economic sectors, they are not immune. In the past month, crashing oil prices have roiled international energy markets and pushed some U.S. oil and natural-gas producers to file for bankruptcy. Meanwhile, electricity demand has taken a dive as businesses and factories have closed down under state orders or economic duress, leading the U.S. Energy Information Administration to predict a 3 percent drop in electricity generation over the course of 2020...

Greentech Media reported details about the just-passed Virginia Clean Economy Act quoting Virginia AEE's Harry Godfrey. Read excerpts below and the entire GTM piece here. North American Windpower, Solar Power World, CleanTechnica, SmartGrid Today (sub. req.), and E&E News also covered the news, quoting Godfrey.

The Clean Economy Act passed Virginia’s House of Delegates by a 51-45 vote on Thursday and the state Senate by a 22-17 vote on Friday, clearing the way for the bill to be signed by Governor Ralph Northam, who issued an executive order calling for it last year. Both votes were carried by Democrats who won majorities in both houses from Republicans in last year’s election, although one House Democrat voted against it and one Republican Senator voted in favor of it. 

Greentech Media covered FERC's new rule on capacity market pricing for the PJM region, quoting AEE's Jeff Dennis. Read excerpts below and the entire GTM piece here. 

After more than a year of delay, the two-Republican majority at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has told mid-Atlantic grid operator PJM how it must revamp its $10-billion-per-year capacity market. And at first glance, it could be even more harmful to state-subsidized renewable energy than previously imagined. Thursday’s order would force almost all future state-subsidized resources in PJM's 11-state territory to use a “minimum offer price rule,” or MOPR, that would limit how low they can bid.

Greentech Media highlighted Texas Advanced Energy Business Alliance's (TAEBA) new report showing that allowing more distributed energy resources (DERs) to participate in the competitive energy market would save Texans $5.47 billion, quoting TAEBA's Managing Director Suzanne Bertin. Read excerpts below and the entire GTM2 (sub. req.) piece here. 

Texas, the country’s most competitive and freewheeling energy market, is also a major player in renewable energy, from its already mighty wind sector to its rapidly growing utility-scale solar sector. But for distributed energy resources like rooftop solar, behind-the-meter batteries, grid-responsive electric vehicles or advanced energy management controls for homes and buildings, it’s a far less friendly market...

Greentech Media covered MI Power Grid, Michigan's new grid mod approach to prepare for a distributed energy future, quoting AEE's Ryan Katofsky and AEE state partner MiEIBC's Laura Sherman. Read excerpts below and the entire GTM piece here (sub req.).

Michigan is not the most aggressive state in terms of clean energy mandates, grid modernization initiatives, or distributed energy resource integration. But over the past few years, the Wolverine state’s energy future has begun to shift dramatically — and now, state leaders have launched a comprehensive effort to tie it all together. It’s called MI Power Grid, and according to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the Michigan Public Service Commission, it’s going to be the central source for Michigan residents and businesses seeking to take part in the state’s broader energy transformation.

GreentechMedia  covers CPUC's unanimous vote to address issues that surround utility investments in electric vehicle charging infrastructure that support the state’s goals for transportation electrification. AEE’s Matt Stranberry comments on the market impact., and AEE members' letter of concern is cited. See excerpts below and the full GreentechMedia story here.

A new CPUC docket on EV charging doesn’t freeze funding for years, as industry groups feared. But it will introduce questions about utilities’ role in the state’s electric transportation future.

Last week, the California Public Utilities Commission voted unanimously to open a new proceeding aimed at addressing the many questions about how billions of utility dollars should be spent on building out an electric vehicle charging infrastructure to meet the state’s lofty transportation electrification goals.

And fortunately for the EV industry, it doesn’t contain a poison pill that could freeze the needed funding to solve all these challenges

Greentech Media covered implications of the California Public Utilities Commission’s newly approved proposal to increase the Power Charge Indifference Adjustment paid to utilities when customers leave to source renewable energy under the state’s Direct Access Program. AEE’s insight is included. Link to the full article here.