Advanced Energy Perspectives

In news that will come as no surprise to regular readers of Advanced Energy Perspectives, major U.S. companies from coast to coast are committing to advanced energy. Household names like Amazon, IKEA, Walmart, and financial giants like Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan are choosing advanced energy for the same reason they do anything else: good economic sense. This week, Amazon flips the switch on New Jersey’s largest rooftop solar array, and the RE100 list, the list of companies that have committed to “go 100% renewable,” tops 100 companies, capping a summer that began with Goldman Sachs signing a wind power purchase agreement (PPA). It’s the big business of advanced energy in this week’s post.

Earlier this year a group of national, regional, and local energy efficiency pros met to decide what we should ask people to do to make the greatest impact on energy efficiency across the United States. What is the big, bold action we are looking for to show people how to save energy and save money? What is the cutting-edge technology that we should urge people to adopt to slash their energy usage? It turns out that the best ask today is the old ask: Change a light bulb. So that’s what the Energy Efficiency Communicators Network, of which AEE is a member, is going to do for this year’s national Energy Efficiency Day, which is planned for October 5. Because it turns out that there are a lot of old light bulbs still burning, and wasting energy, out there.

In the United States and around the world, transportation is advancing, from major technological innovations to major changes in infrastructure, but news coverage of the electrification of America’s automobiles has largely been limited to luxury electric cars. In this week’s news, some changes: VW proves electric microbuses aren’t just a public relations ploy, Audi goes solar, and DHL and Ford provide electric delivery vehicles. We’ll discuss all that, plus an after-action report on the solar eclipse, in this week’s post. Read on!

This is Part Two of a two-part blog series on design of utility renewable energy tariffs. Part One (last week) addressed the needs of participating corporate customers, and Part Two considers the needs of nonparticipating customers.

Last week, we dug into the topic of renewable energy tariffs from the lens of prospective participants, listing out some of the considerations that make the difference between success and failure when it comes to customer uptake. In this post, we turn the tables and look at the same programs from a different perspective—that of nonparticipating customers. This post draws from the lessons offered by AEE Institute’s recent paper, Making Corporate Renewable Energy Purchasing Work for All Utility Customers, which looked at case studies of eight programs across seven states.