Advanced Energy Perspectives

This week, the falling price of oil (and consequently gasoline) took over energy news in many outlets. But there was also news of a certain other energy price coming down. “Solar electricity is on track to be as cheap or cheaper than average electricity-bill prices in 47 U.S. states” by 2016 and all 50 by 2020, wrote Tom Randall in Bloomberg. His article, “While You Were Getting Worked Up Over Oil Prices, This Just Happened to Solar,” cites an analyst report from Deutsche Bank. The report assumes that the U.S. maintains the current investment tax credit, which is set to expire in 2016. Even if the ITC drops from 30 percent to 10 percent, however, 36 states would reach parity. The report also points out that solar is already there in the nation’s top 10 states for solar generation.

Americans head to the polls next Tuesday for a midterm election that will determine the makeup of the House and Senate. The Washington Post and others are forecasting that Republicans will strengthen their control of the House and gain a majority of seats in the Senate. The White House has already begun contemplating areas of agreement with a future GOP majority. Though Senate movement on passing tax extenders came to a standstill in May, both parties have since shown interest in pushing the issue forward during the lame duck session. There are different theories on how such a deal would come about, but there is no question that extending advanced energy tax credits is both vital to industry and supported by members on each side of the aisle.

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.

Waste Energy Recovery (WER) describes any process in which energy that would typically be “thrown away” is captured and put to use (for this reason, WER is sometimes also called recycled energy). In broad terms, there are three types of waste energy sources suitable for recovery and conversion to electricity: waste heat, excess pressure in steam and other industrial process streams that is normally dissipated, and residual fuel value in industrial process streams (purge gases, off-gases, etc.). WER can be used to generate electricity or to produce useful thermal energy for industrial processes. The amount and type of useful energy produced depends on the nature of the process.

Energy storage was in the news this week, with new market entrants reported and storage’s value touted – but also questioned. AEE Member company Enphase announced this week that it had not only created a solar microinverter that is so technologically advanced that it “was not even possible to do when we started the company,” according to Paul Nahi, Enphase’s CEO, but is also moving into the realm of energy storage. Enphase is taking years of research and development to create an energy management system that will accompany a modular plug-and-play battery. According to Greentech Media, the system will combine grid smarts, analytics, communications, and energy storage, in addition to load management and consumer control capabilities.

Last month, EPA announced it would extend the public comment period for its proposed Clean Power Plan to December 1. This will give stakeholders and the states, many of which are engaged in public stakeholder processes themselves, an extra 45 days to draft their own comments. AEE is tracking the comment process in our 23 partner states, plus Texas and Florida. We have already submitted state comments with our partners in several states, and we submitted our own set of comments in Florida.

The public comment process is taking place in some states despite political opposition to the EPA plan from their respective governors. Fifteen governors have sent a letter to EPA arguing that the Agency has overstepped its legal authority. While the letter echoes ongoing lawsuits against EPA’s authority to regulate “beyond the fenceline” of power plants and against using 111(d) to regulate sources of pollution already regulated under section 112, some of the signatories - such as Arizona Governor Jan Brewer - are not yet parties to any of the lawsuits against EPA.