News

Forbes columnist Jeff McMahon summarizes take-away's from AEE's June 25 webinar, "What Happens When Wind and Solar Compete on Price." He focuses on the experience of panelist Mike Hooper, NIPSCO. See excerpts below and read the entire Forbes piece here. McMahon's second piece in this series is here.

Los Angeles just announced the largest and cheapest solar+storage project in the world, but that's the golden land of dreamers and subsidies. About 1,800 miles to the right, conservative Indiana—with no renewable-portfolio standard—is making similar choices.

Renewables are so cheap, said Mike Hooper, the senior vice president of the Northern Indiana Service Company (NIPSCO), that the utility can close its coal plants early and return $4 billion to its customers over the next 30 years.

Under state legislation passed in April, NV Energy and any power provider in the state that provides 1 million MWh or more of power has to generate 50% of its power from renewable resources by 2030 and 100% from carbon-free sources by 2050.

Virginia Town & City magazine ran Virginia AEE's Harry Godfrey's article summarizing the state of advanced energy and its promise of economic growth, jobs and cleaner energy sources for the Commonwealth. See excerpts below from the article and read the entire piece here (p. 16 - 18).

Advanced energy is taking hold across the Commonwealth, from rooftop solar in Richmond to electric buses in Hampton Roads; from electric vehicle (EV) chargers popping up on I-81 to efficiency upgrades to public buildings across the state. The advanced energy industry is helping to grow and sustain Virginia’s economy. Today, the industry employs almost 100,000 people in the Commonwealth. That is more jobs than you will find in all the supermarkets and grocery stores across the state, twice as many as exist in our hospitality industry, and seven times the number in Virginia’s fossil fuel industry...

North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association's podcast team covered AEE's recent Advanced Energy Now | East conference in Richmond, Va., capturing key themes and insights from experts speaking and attending the event. Listen to the Squeaky Clean Energy podcast episode here. Note that Advanced Energy Now | West is Oct. 16-17 in Scottsdale.

Windpower Engineering summarized the sweeping advanced energy bills passed and signed by Gov. Sisolak in this session, including comments from AEE's Ray Fakhoury. See exceprts below and the full Windpower Engineering story here.

Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak and the legislature have passed, and signed into law, an unparalleled number of clean-energy bills — and in most cases with strong bipartisan support.

The suite of legislation began with Senate Bill 358, strengthening Nevada’s clean-energy standards to require 50% clean energy by 2030 with a goal of 100% carbon-free energy by 2050. Gov. Sisolak signed the bill into law in May.

Energy Central republished this case study, originally published by Utility Dive, as the final installment in a six-part series on utility business model reform produced by Rocky Mountain Institute, America's Power Plan, and Advanced Energy Economy Institute. See excerpts below and read the entire EC post here.

In the United States... traditional cost-of-service regulation favors utility capital investment in long-lived assets rather than rewarding utilities for their performance against desired policy objectives and it discourages utilities from taking advantage of the general shift in the economy to service-based solutions provided by third parties. 

A decade ago, the United Kingdom's Office of Gas and Electricity Markets, known as Ofgem, set out on a mission to develop a new regulatory framework that would reward utilities for innovation and for meeting the changing expectations of consumers and society. The culmination of that process was the development of a framework referred to as RIIO.

Microgrid Knowledge highlights the energy storage docket before the PUCT with perspective from Suzanne Bertin who heads Texas Advanced Energy Business Alliance. This follows after no action from the legislature. See excerpts below and read the entire piece here.

The Texas Public Utility Commission is expected to address a lingering question this summer: Are utilities permitted to own battery storage to provide reliability solutions — if the competitive market there is unable to do so?

 As part of its series on key players in energy and the environment, E&E News takes a look at state regulators with important influence, quoting AEE's Hannah Polikov about Ted Thomas, Chair of the Ark.PSC. Besides Thomas, E&E News staff profiles Brandon Presley, PSC Chair for Miss. and incoming NARUC President, Samuel Randazzo, Chair of Ohio's PUC, Ellen Nowak of Wisc. PSC, Ga. PSC's Jason Shaw, S.C. PSC's Tom Ervin, Ariz. Corp. Commission's Sandra Kennedy, Stephen Fischmann of N.M.'s PRC,  and RI PUC's Abigail Anthony. See excerpts below and the entire story here.

The shuttering of coal plants, an aggressive push for renewables and the proliferation of electric vehicles are creating a new energy landscape in the United States. Meet the state regulators working on the front lines.

Among those in the trenches is Brandon Presley, selected by Southeastern utility regulators to head up the nation's most powerful group of state regulators. He's also a distant cousin of Elvis Presley and is now poised to lead the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) (Greenwire, June 5). Presley, chairman of the Mississippi Public Service Commission, helped quash development on an experimental coal project in the Magnolia State...

Richard Matsui, Founder & CEO of kWh Analytics, interviewed AEE CEO Nat Kreamer for his latest #Solar100 leaders profile published by PV Magazine here. See excerpts below:

Nat Kreamer served in the Afghan War with special forces in the U.S. Navy, helped found what is now the largest residential solar company in the United States, held the position of board chair at Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), and was recognized by President Obama as a “Champion of Change” for his work as a veteran in clean energy.