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.

For 2016, the global advanced energy market surpassed $1.4 trillion in 2016, a 7% increase compared to an updated 2015 total of $1.3 trillion. Advanced energy has grown by nearly a quarter (24%) since Navigant Research began tracking for AEE in 2011, adding $257 billion in revenue over six years, counting only data complete for the entire period. Advanced energy is almost twice the size of the global airline industry, and nearly equal to worldwide apparel revenue.

This is a guest post from AEE member Veolia North America. To learn more about Veolia, click here. To learn more about membership in AEE, click here. 

Not long ago, the wastewater treatment plant was the biggest power user in municipal operations for the city of Gresham, Ore. Then, 12 years ago, the city entered into a long-term sustainability partnership with Veolia and began the process of turning the city’s energy hog into an energy asset. First step was a cogeneration system that met about half of the power needs of the plant. Five years ago, the city brought in fats, oils, and greases (FOG) from food manufacturers as an additional organic source of biogas, co-digested with sewage sludge through anaerobic digestion. It was a natural fit: the heat from the cogeneration system kept the FOG from hardening as they were processed. Five years and 9,000 gallons of biogas per day later, Gresham’s wastewater treatment plant is now “net-zero,” generating at least as much power as it uses. 

Small batch, local electricity? Photo by Simon Syon.

This week, advanced energy goes mainstream! From an article in the New York Times about a solar microgrid in Brooklyn with a unique payment scheme, to cities across the country shopping for electrified fleet vehicles, to American offshore wind becoming more of the norm, this week’s news was full of commonplace advanced energy becoming more, well, commonplace. Read on for all that, plus a healthy dose of AEE member news.

In Nevada, disputes over net metering controlled much of the energy conversation in 2016. Now, lawmakers and Gov. Brian Sandoval are looking to go big on advanced energy. First, at the end of last year, the Public Utilities Committee of Nevada (PUCN) issued an order requiring a utility to consider “all attributes,” not just cost, in evaluating energy options – a boon for advanced energy technologies, which provide a range of benefits. Now, lawmakers are pressing forward on legislation that would boost the state’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS), establish annual energy efficiency goals, and consider requiring utilities to deploy energy storage by 2018. If they keep working together like this to enact policies that reduce costs for ratepayers and diversify the state’s energy portfolio, Nevada Republicans and Democrats could catapult the Silver State into the driver’s seat on advanced energy in 2017.

A Microsoft datacenter in Quincy, WA.

Advanced energy is a $200 billion industry in the United States that supports more than 3.3 million American jobs, as detailed in the new report Advanced Energy Now: 2017 Market Report. Earlier this week, Microsoft invited AEE, as well as other industry groups such as Edison Electric Institute, Northeast Clean Energy Council, and Michigan Energy Innovation Business Council, and executives from SunPower and Direct Energy, to discuss the power of the advanced energy industry to drive economic growth.