Advanced Energy Perspectives

Image: Atlantis Resources has deployed the first AR1500 tidal energy turbine with new Lockheed Martin technology off the coast of Scotland. The installation, part of the MeyGen project, is designed to to provide clean, sustainable power for up to 175,000 homes.

This week, the headlines were full of AEE members doing what they do best: being on the vanguard of advanced energy technology and figuring out new ways to build the 21^st century electricity system. Up this week: Street lights that get smart, aerospace technology put to work on ocean energy, and a new acronym for grid management in a distributed energy age.

Image: Wind turbines in Missouri.

Somebody call Guinness! This week’s advanced energy headlines were huge—record breaking, even. From wind-generated electricity supplying more than half the central U.S. grid to the near doubling of U.S. solar installations, advanced energy is on the rise everywhere—including Kansas, where one utility is diving into EV charging headfirst.

Since the U.S. Department of Energy released the 2017 U.S. Energy and Employment Report last month, several reports have come out from industry trade groups, and, though they focus on different things, there’s one overarching conclusion. As the Sustainable Energy in America Factbook says, there’s a new normal in America, and that normal is advanced energy. AEE members are making it so, from energy efficiency and big data to making solar + storage available to everyone.

Not too long ago, the media was heralding a possible end to the current era of utilities, calling them “dinosaurs” and debating the speed with which the “utility death spiral” would overtake them. Over the past few years, it’s become clear that utilities aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, but the utility business model is undergoing significant and permanent changes – driven by advanced energy. On that point, this week we saw a lot of thinking, and doing, in the news.

Image of Block Island Wind Farm, Rhode Island. 

This week, advanced energy brought winds of prosperity to all corners. New York’s Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) this week approved a plan to build the largest offshore wind farm in the U.S. to date, and with more to come. And AEE members show how solar power and storage can take on functions normally assigned to peaker plants. Just another week in advanced energy news.