Advanced Energy Perspectives

This week, the news is all about the complicated nature of industry. Neither good news nor bad in the advanced vehicles industry as electric vehicles continue to grow and the Dieselgate controversy continues to be, well, controversial. We’ll also check in with several states as they grapple with how to exactly to regulate (i.e., credit and/or charge customers for) distributed resources like rooftop solar.

This week we saw energy storage in the headlines as the market continues its meteoric growth. From news of another record-breaking quarter for storage, to utility partnerships, to updated battery technology, this week’s news round up is the opposite of Storage Wars.

Readers of Advanced Energy Perspectives know the market for energy storage is growing, and fast. As noted in last year’s Market Report, energy storage is transitioning from a large infrastructure market of pumped hydro and underground compressed air projects – which it still is, in much of the world – to a technology-driven market, with rising scale and falling prices. And it is taking off: global revenue from Energy Storage multiplied five-fold, from $462 million in 2014 to $2.1 billion in 2015, and in the U.S. more than ten-fold, from $58 million to $734 million. (See graph below.)

Working in the advanced energy field, we all know about the law of conservation of energy, which states that total energy remains constant but can be converted into new forms. Advanced energy takes advantage of that in a big way: turning sunlight, wind, tides, waste, and more into energy that is secure, clean, and affordable. There is a small but growing trend suggesting a new corollary. Call it “the law of conservation of energy sites.” Aging or outmoded power plants are being turned into advanced energy outposts, from energy storage taking over old coal and gas plants to a solar farm proposed for one of the most notorious abandoned power plants in the world. This week Advanced Energy Perspectives gets metaphorical as we apply the first law of thermodynamics to old power plants sites.

Image courtesy of Jeff Grybowski, originally posted to Twitter.

It’s officially late August, and, if there’s any justice in this world, you’re reading this on your smartphone or tablet while lounging on a beach somewhere, feeling the sea breeze stir your hair. Even if you’re sitting in a stuffy office or cubicle farm, take a second to imagine the whiff of salt air, the cries of seagulls, and – and I can’t emphasize this enough – the sea breeze. That pleasant breeze is about to change the way some Americans get their electricity. It’s an offshore wind news update here on Advanced Energy Perspectives! (Bonus, if you read to the end: robot cars.)

Image courtesy of Tennessee Valley Authority.

Nuclear power generates about one-fifth of all electricity in the United States, but it’s had a rough 40 years or so. Between high upfront costs for installation, complicated permitting, rare but dramatic accidents, and general NIMBY, development of new U.S. nuclear facilities all but halted in the last part of the twentieth century. But that might be changing. In the news this week: new nuclear projects in the Southeast, new nuke-supporting policy in New York, and small modular reactors unveiling some of their secrets. It’s a physics-filled news update from Advanced Energy Perspectives.