Advanced Energy Perspectives

Remember a few months ago when Eric Wesoff of Greentech Media the story, “I Almost Bought Hawaii’s Utility,” in which a reported coalition of investors came incredibly close to purchasing Hawaii’s largest utility and implementing an aggressive transition to advanced energy? Well, it wasn’t Wesoff’s investment group, but this week NextEra announced that it had acquired Hawaiian Electric Industries (HEI) for $4.3 billion.

Wind power had a particularly good week, with announcements of three major advanced energy deals – investments from Google and IKEA, and a big acquisition by SunEdison.

Ever since California’s Public Utilities Commission announced a new energy storage mandate last year, the storage market in California has exploded. Last week, Southern California Edison (SCE) announced that it would acquire 250 MW of energy storage system as part of a larger plan to acquire 2,221 MW of new generation assets. This week we learned more details of SCE’s overall plans for the future of its energy storage.

This week we saw news of a new “electric power superhighway” in Kansas, a bumper crop of energy storage in California, and the small matter of the 2014 Midterm Elections. Kansas cut the ribbon on a 100-mile-long transmission line, SoCal Edison procured more storage than expected, and Republicans took control of the U.S. Senate. Think of it this way: Power Lines, Power Storage, and Power Shift.

This week, the falling price of oil (and consequently gasoline) took over energy news in many outlets. But there was also news of a certain other energy price coming down. “Solar electricity is on track to be as cheap or cheaper than average electricity-bill prices in 47 U.S. states” by 2016 and all 50 by 2020, wrote Tom Randall in Bloomberg. His article, “While You Were Getting Worked Up Over Oil Prices, This Just Happened to Solar,” cites an analyst report from Deutsche Bank. The report assumes that the U.S. maintains the current investment tax credit, which is set to expire in 2016. Even if the ITC drops from 30 percent to 10 percent, however, 36 states would reach parity. The report also points out that solar is already there in the nation’s top 10 states for solar generation.