Advanced Energy Perspectives

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 United States installed its first offshore wind facility in 2016. The 30 MW Block Island project off Rhode Island, developed by Deepwater Wind, now raises the broader question to industry followers and the American public alike: Does Block Island herald the beginning of an offshore wind market in the United States?

If it does, there is a lot of catching up to do, compared to the rest of the world. At the end of 2015, total global offshore wind capacity reached nearly 12,000 MW. A remarkable 3,755 MW of that total came online in 2015, driven largely by Germany.

This week was chock full of advanced energy news. First up, from Fortune, the fastest-growing job in the United States is an advanced energy job! The magazine reported on a study published this week by personal finance company SmartAsset that names solar photovoltaic installer as the fastest-growing job in America between 2012 and 2016. The study used data from the Bureau of Labor statistics and did not take projections into account. SmartAsset found that residential solar panel installers make about $42,500 on average. Then there are the much-anticipated (and still awaited) Tesla solar roofs going on sale, and electric trucks on the move.  

California has longstanding vehicle electrification goals in place. The state is actively implementing its ambitious Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate and is hoping to reach Gov. Brown’s goal of 1.5 million ZEVs on the road by 2025. While more Californians are choosing cleaner, more fuel-efficient vehicles, challenges remain. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) estimates that by 2030, 5 million vehicles will need to be on the road to reach the state’s greenhouse gas emission (GHG) reduction goals. Although leading nationally with at least 225,000 electric vehicles (EVs) now on the road, California falls woefully short in trajectory to meet its target. To address this challenge, AEE is co-sponsoring AB 1184, a bill authored by Assemblymember Phil Ting, which would create the California Electric Vehicle Initiative (CEVI). Modeled on the successful California Solar Initiative, which brought the solar industry to cost-competitive scale in the Golden State, CEVI aims to simultaneously tackle three critical elements of the transportation electrification equation: customer adoption, stable long-term funding, and build-out of charging infrastructure.

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.

Energy markets are evolving toward a greater reliance upon distributed energy resources, or DERs, whether those resources generate, store, or manage the use of electricity. Strategies to harvest more value from smaller, cleaner, and smarter energy resources are being deployed today. One such strategy is a virtual power plant (VPP), which through intelligent aggregation and optimization of DER can provide the same essential services as a traditional 24/7 centralized power plant.

Customers ranging from big box stores to individual homeowners are investing in advanced energy across the country. Also in the news this week: A wind turbine was installed every two and a half hours during the first quarter of 2017, and an AEE member company broke ground on the largest solar plant in the Americas. With record-breaking projects and rapid deployment of advanced energy resources, the industry’s future remains bright.