Advanced Energy Perspectives

Unless you have been getting your energy trade news from the undersides of rocks recently, you know energy storage is a hot topic. The U.S. alone deployed 5.8 MW of energy storage in Q1, and GTM Research sees U.S. energy storage on track to break records in 2015. This week Navigant Research released its Leaderboard Report on Energy Storage Systems Integrators, which included RES Americas and Stem, both AEE member companies. Predictions of 250 percent growth in the storage market this year aside, does storage really deserve all the hype? Some critics are telling everybody, Elon Musk included, to cool their jets.

In 2014, the Ohio legislature passed SB 310, which instituted a two-year freeze on the state’s advanced energy programs. In addition to hitting the pause button on energy efficiency and renewable energy investment in the state, the legislation also formed an Energy Mandates Study Committee that is tasked with examining the state’s energy policy and making recommendations on the fate of these requirements. But the real question for Ohio is not about mandates established in the past, or the lack of them now. Rather, the question is about Ohio’s energy future.

A new report, prepared for our state partner Ohio Advanced Energy Economy by the Analysis Group, looks at different scenarios the state could consider to meet its energy needs and provides a way to evaluate those strategies. Ohio has a choice between several options that utilize advanced energy technologies, all of which have positive characteristics, and one – propping up old, inefficient power plants with contracts that put ratepayers on the hook for above-market prices – that has the fewest pluses and the most minuses.

All links to bills lead to AEE’s PowerSuite. Click to sign up for a free 14-day trial. This blog post is excerpted from a newsletter that went out to members in late May. For the most up-to-date information on what's passing through legislatures, check them out in PowerSuite!

As legislative sessions start to wrap up in some states, AEE continues to track legislation that may impact compliance strategies. ALEC bills — legislation that requires approval of state implementation plans by the legislature — were introduced in 27 states so far. Ten bills were passed, but most of them with  language weaker than when they were initially introduced. Even in states hostile to the Clean Power Plan, stakeholders and regulators are quietly exploring compliance options. And some states are making moves toward greater use of advanced energy, which would make CPP compliance easy.

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 2015 Market Report, which was prepared for AEE by Navigant Research. 

Governments globally are keen to see wide-scale adoption of alternative fuel vehicle technologies as a solution to both environmental and energy security issues.  As such, national, state, and local governing bodies have provided a range of incentives to early adopters in efforts to jump-start the market. In the past year or two, market dynamics have taken a favorable turn, with rapid reductions in battery and natural gas prices. Electricity and natural gas have now taken center stage as near-term alternative fuel solutions, though for different reasons and for different vehicle applications. 

Solar cells power Apple's data center in Catawba County, North Carolina.

This week, we saw updates in energy storage and behavioral energy efficiency, while some of the biggest names in business weighed in on North Carolina’s Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standard (REPS). Memo from Apple, Google, and Facebook to Tar Heel State lawmakers: leave REPS alone.