In a recent post, we updated you on the status of the “Reforming the Energy Vision” (REV) proceeding in New York State, through which the Public Service Commission (PSC) is seeking to fundamentally reshape the electricity sector to meet a range of challenges, including the need to replace aging infrastructure, make the system more resilient, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Tackled separately, addressing each of these needs would impose new costs that would lead to higher rates for customers and put at risk a basic tenet of utility regulation: provision of safe and reliable electricity at just and reasonable rates. At the same time, electricity sales in New York are flat to declining (due in part to increasing levels of efficiency and wider deployment of customer-sited solar), which limits the revenue growth available to utilities with which to finance modernization of the grid, unless rates go up.
Recent Posts
The incandescent bulb has had a good run and compact fluorescents (CFLs) have improved dramatically in cost and performance since I bought my first one in 1993. But bulbs using light emitting diode technology (LEDs) are currently transforming the lighting market. It is a classic example of a technology that started out in niche, high-value markets, and over time has improved in cost and performance to the point that it is now poised to take over in much larger markets.
In “Economic Impacts of Advanced Energy,” energy-efficient lighting was shown to be one of the fastest growing segments of the advanced energy market, driven in part by the dramatic improvements in LEDs. In their latest forecast, Navigant Research projects that annual worldwide revenue from LED lamps will grow from just over $1.5 billion in 2013, to more than $8.5 billion in 2021. That squares with a recent LinkedIn survey of energy professionals by AEE, in which LEDs ranked first as the technology people most expect to “take off” in 2013, with 28% of the vote, almost twice that of the next highest vote-getter. (Click below to get the full results of the survey.)
