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With 3.5 million jobs, advanced energy industry employs more U.S. workers than retail stores, twice as many as hotels and motels, three times coal and oil industries

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 20, 2019 – Today national business group Advanced Energy Economy released a fact sheet showing that the advanced energy industry employed 3.5 million U.S. workers in 2018, an increase of 125,000 jobs over 2017. Advanced energy employment grew 4 percent year-over-year, more than twice as fast as the overall U.S. employment growth rate of 1.5 percent. Employers expect to add 6 percent more advanced energy jobs in the coming year.

This piece by the Washington Examiner discusses how the Green New Deal is all but impractical without addressing how critical transmission lines are to its implementation. The AEE perspective is given by Managing Director and General Counsel Jeff Dennis. See excerpts below and the entire Washington Examiner story here:

This Windpower Engineering & Development piece covers Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak’s decision to join a growing number of states in entering into the U.S. Climate Alliance, quoting AEE's Ray Fakhoury. See excerpts below and the entire Windpower Engineering story here: 

Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak announced that the state would join the U.S. Climate Alliance, a coalition of state governors pledging to reduce carbon emissions and support clean, renewable energy growth throughout the country.

Utility Dive published this commentary by AEE Director Caitlin Marquis and Electricity Consumers Resource Council President and CEO Devin Hartman on a consumer-focused approach to reliability and resilience in energy policy, based on the evolving characteristics of the power industry. See the entire Utility Dive article here. 

The past two years of federal energy policy debates have focused on two key related areas: reliability and resilience. For more years than that, public debate has centered on the potential challenges associated with the retirement of traditional grid resources like coal and nuclear plants. Throughout all of this, the consumer voice has largely been ignored, instead overruled by incumbent electricity generators and political interests.

This Yale Climate Connections post looks at how the grid can best prepare to integrate electric vehicles (EVs)), with perspective by AEE's Matt Stanberry, See excerpts below and read the entire Yale Climate Connection story here, which includes an excellent summary of Con Edison's EV pilot programs.

Some Americans appear increasingly ready to give up their gas cars for electric vehicles. But are the country’s electric grids prepared for them?

The question is a critical one in the quest to address climate change, because transportation is now the single largest sector contributing to U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. EVs are widely viewed as a key way to help change that.

Forbes featured AEE’s graphic of Performance-Based Regulation by state in this story about new research on how various governments are exploring the best policies to effectively deploy more distributed energy resources. See excerpts below and read the entire Forbes piece here:

This CleanTechnica post discusses how EV ownership can benefit electric ratepayers just as much, if not more, than their owners. The article references AEE’s webinar EVs 101: What Regulators Need to Know About Electric Vehicles, which featured a panel of experts including Proterra’s Eric McCarthy, Siemens' Chris King, and AEE's Matt Stanberry. See excerpts below and read the entire CleanTechnica story here:

Regular readers of this column are well aware of the wonderful benefits of EV ownership. However, electric vehicles can also have a positive impact on the electric grid, serving as the perfect complement to renewable energy sources. Jeff McMahon, writing in Forbes, notes that a growing body of evidence supports the idea that the spread of EVs is good news for electric ratepayers.

This story by Alan Suderman of the Associated Press and published by the Washington Post covers the aftermath of Virginia regulators’ decision to deny Walmart the option of buying electricity from a provider other than Virginia’s two utilities, Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power. The AEE perspective is given by Harry Godfrey, executive director of Virginia Advanced Energy Economy. See excerpts below and read the entire Washington Post (AP) story here:

Virginia regulators have denied Walmart’s request to buy electricity generated by someone other than the state’s two largest electric monopolies, setting up a potential legislative brawl between heavyweight business interests.