Advanced Energy Perspectives

In 2014, state public utility commissions grappled with issues ranging from grid modernization to energy efficiency rollbacks, with some of the proceedings continuing into next year. In this year-end post, we look back at the top 10 issues on commission dockets this year - and get ready for a busy 2015. Note: some links in this post reference documents in DocketDash, BillBoard or PowerPortal, applications in AEE's new energy policy software platform, PowerSuite. Click here and sign up for a free 14-day trial of PowerSuite.

1. New York Boldly Undertakes Comprehensive Utility Reform

The New York Public Service Commission opened a groundbreaking proceeding, Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) in April 2014, which aims to address key barriers to the deployment of distributed energy resources through a significant redesign of utility planning processes, electricity market structures, and rate design. The rest of the country is watching closely, as the outcome of REV could help define the future of utility business models in many states.

AEE and its state and regional partners, Alliance for Clean Energy New York and the New England Clean Energy Council, have filed formal comments in the REV proceeding and, via the AEE Institute, published a report outlining a comprehensive approach to benefit-cost analysis for distributed energy resources needed to make REV successful.

This week we saw a couple of big deals announced for solar involving AEE member companies. First Solar, the world’s largest solar company, has entered into a strategic partnership with the Clean Energy Collective (subscription required) to get into the largest potential market for residential solar in the United States – residents who can’t put solar installations on their own roofs. And for those who can, SolarCity has teamed up with Bank of America Merrill Lynch on a $400 million fund to help them do it.

Workers lower an HVAC unit onto the roof of a school. Photo courtesy of McKinstry.

This week and last, the AEE Institute published first-ever surveys of advanced energy employment in California and Iowa. Both states are known as advanced energy standouts, each in its own way. California is an across-the-board leader in climate and energy policy, with a strong greenhouse gas law and a 33 percent renewable energy standard. Iowa gets more than a quarter of its electricity generated by wind and its farms contribute greatly to the nation’s renewable fuels capacity. But now we can state with certainty that those noteworthy characteristics translate into thousands of businesses and tens of thousands of advanced energy jobs – in California, hundreds of thousands.

Here are the top-line findings from the two reports.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) plan to regulate carbon emissions is just the latest challenge facing the U.S. electric power system. Technological innovation is disrupting old ways of doing business and accelerating grid modernization. Earlier this year, AEE released Advanced Energy Technologies for Greenhouse Gas Reduction, a report detailing the use, application, and benefits of 40 specific advanced energy technologies and services. This post is one in a series drawn from the technology profiles within that report.

Remember a few months ago when Eric Wesoff of Greentech Media the story, “I Almost Bought Hawaii’s Utility,” in which a reported coalition of investors came incredibly close to purchasing Hawaii’s largest utility and implementing an aggressive transition to advanced energy? Well, it wasn’t Wesoff’s investment group, but this week NextEra announced that it had acquired Hawaiian Electric Industries (HEI) for $4.3 billion.