Advanced Energy Perspectives

The news this week saw major developments in the energy storage industry, starring AEE member company Invenergy. But when it comes to news to know, it’s hard to beat the latest dispatches on Pot Power and the unanticipated problem it presents to utilities in states where marijuana has been legalized: how to keep the lights on when those lights are growing weed.

While states ponder their role in compliance with the now-final Clean Power Plan, the ultimate action will be in the electric power sector itself. Utilities and other generators are making early moves to prepare for, if not get ahead of, EPA requirements. Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) and Independent System Operators (ISOs) are also starting to weigh in on solutions. For RTOs and ISOs, that means advocating for regional compliance rather than state-by-state plans. For utilities – well, it means continuing to move away from the power sources of the past and toward advanced energy.

High winds over ocean waves off the U.S. coast are a literal perfect storm of untapped potential for energy generation. Europe has taken advantage of this since 1991… before the fall of the Soviet Union. Here in the U.S., offshore wind has not yet become a reality. But that’s about to change. Hold onto your hats!

A little over a year ago, in an update on New York’s groundbreaking Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) proceeding, we wrote that the “devil is in the details.” Today, we have a lot more details. In late July, the Public Service Commission issued its “Staff White Paper on Ratemaking and Utility Business Models.” As the title suggests, this document makes initial proposals to change how utilities make money (the business models) and how they would charge customers to reward certain behaviors and discourage others (ratemaking). As with other participants in the proceeding, we have spent the past three months poring over this White Paper and thinking through the benefits and risks to advanced energy companies of its various provisions. Although the details are still devilish, the REV vision of a dynamic electric power system built around energy efficiency, onsite solar and wind, energy storage, cogeneration and microgrids, and other distributed resources, rather than a static, one-way system of central power plants, poles, and wires, continues to look bright for advanced energy.

The energy market is ever changing and beholden to any number of forces, be they economic, political, practical, or personal. There are a few things we can count on, however. Among them: In advanced energy, prices are falling, and Hawaii is still sending us “postcards from the future.”

This week, Bloomberg reported that wind energy is cheaper than natural gas for Xcel Energy. Xcel, a Minneapolis-based utility that operates in eight states, including Colorado and Minnesota, is already the nation’s leading provider of wind power. On some of the windiest days, wind power supplies up to 60% of the utility’s power generation. But now it’s planning to do more, entirely on the basis of price.