Advanced Energy Perspectives

Advanced energy is a global market worth more than $1.4 trillion. This week we’re reading stories of global expansion, from increasing access and capacity in wind and solar to millions of EVs on the roads, to an AEE member with a solar deal in India. Come with us on a trip around the world this week. If you stick around to the end, you’ll get a great soundtrack to take with you.

A version of this guest post first appeared on the ACE NY blog.

It can be a long road from the announcement of any new policy — like New York’s 50% by 2030 Renewable Energy Standard — to on-the-ground results. In this case, the results will look like new wind turbines spinning and new grid-scale solar projects generating power. New York took a big step down that road last week when the state released its first call for projects under the new 50% goal, soliciting 2.5 million MWh of renewable energy generation. For the folks trying to develop and build wind and solar projects in our state, things just got real.

This post is one in a series of feature stories on trends shaping advanced energy markets in the U.S. and around the world, drawn from Advanced Energy Now 2017 Market Report, which was prepared for AEE by Navigant Research.

The LA Times reported last month that the release of the Chevy Bolt, a plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) with a baseline price under $30,000 after federal tax credits, has boosted EV sales in California by 91% over last year. This is part of a larger trend we identified in our Advanced Energy Now 2017 Market Report, which was prepared for AEE by Navigant Research.

The PEV market is now well-established in North America, Europe, and developed Asia Pacific markets. This has largely been a function of strong government support for PEV technologies through fuel efficiency regulations, which stimulate the supply of PEVs, as well as incentives for PEV purchases, which stimulate demand. As a result of the two-pronged approach to PEV market development, the PEV market has grown from around 30,000 vehicles in 2011 to over 500,000 in 2015, and now an estimated 684,000 in 2016. This translates to a six-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in unit volume of 87%, and nearly $7.8 billion vehicle sales revenue in 2016.

One story dominated the news here in Washington this week, but we’re not here to talk about it. Beyond Paris and Washington, hidden in the rest of this week’s news an interesting trend emerges: Advanced energy is exceeding expectations, consistently and across the board. From smashed predictions from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) to wildly conservative estimates about efficiency, advanced energy is on the rise, and it’s faster than anyone expected.

This blog post is based on remarks delivered at “Securing Smart Grid Data,” a forum sponsored by the Lexington Institute. Video of Polikov’s talk is available here. 

The other day, I decided I really wanted to go see the Broadway Musical “Hamilton.” So I went online, and pretty quickly I realized two things: 1) Even though it’s been running for two years, the show is still completely sold out, and 2) You can get tickets, from resellers. I’m not talking about finding some guy standing on the corner an hour before curtain, scalping tickets. The aftermarket for Hamilton tickets is a very sophisticated, innovative marketplace. There are lots of different sites connecting sellers and buyers and there are sites that aggregate those different sites, very similar to what Priceline or Kayak does for airline tickets. Those of us who want to see consumer-focused innovation in energy could learn a lot from this.