Advanced Energy Perspectives

Remember Fisker Automotive? We figured we had heard the last of them after the bankrupt electric vehicle company was purchased in February by Wanxiang Group, a Chinese vehicle component manufacturing company that also bought Fisker supplier A123 Systems’ battery business out of bankruptcy. Not so. In an article titled “Is This Man Going to Be China’s Elon Musk?” billionaire and Wanxiang Founder Lu Guanqiu told Bloomberg that he will “burn as much cash as it takes to succeed.”

 “I’ll put every cent that Wanxiang earns into making electric vehicles,” Lu said.

In the last couple of weeks, the U.S. Senate failed to advance two pieces of legislation the advanced energy industry has been waiting for: a bill to extend tax credits that expired at the close of last year (S.2260) and the energy efficiency bill (S. 2262) sponsored by Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Rob Portman (R-OH). While the extenders bill is expected to return to the Senate Floor, the prospects for the Shaheen-Portman bill have grown dim for 2014.

This guest post is provided by Navigant Research. The author, Mackinnon Lawrence, is a research director leading Navigant Research’s Smart Energy program.

The power sector is undergoing a fundamental transformation, from a centralized hub-and-spoke grid architecture, based on large centralized generation assets like coal-fired power plants, toward an increasingly decentralized electrical grid that makes use of renewable, distributed energy resources (DER). This shift away from traditional power plants encompasses a diverse suite of technologies that go beyond DER. Energy storage, energy efficiency, demand response, and the advanced software and enabling hardware that enable greater interoperability across heterogeneous grid elements are all key components of the emerging energy cloud. 

Our electricity system has served us well as an engine of economic growth for many years, but it is increasingly out of step with the needs of a 21st Century economy and society, both of which rely more and more on electricity – and the services it enables – around the clock, every day. Changes are under way to modernize the electric power system, but the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) upcoming rulemaking on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for existing power plants presents a unique opportunity to accelerate the transition to a high-performing grid.

What defines a high-performing grid? It is one that is efficient, reliable, resilient, clean, affordable, and consumer focused. Can it be all of these things? Yes. The same advanced energy technologies that make the grid more efficient and resilient can also keep it affordable and make it more responsive to customers. In this series of blog posts, we will address all of these. But for now, let’s focus on three aspects that are closely related: efficient, clean and affordable.

This week AEE Member and electric vehicle charging station company ChargePoint announced that it had raised $22.6 million in a round of late-stage funding. Venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins doubled its equity in the company, and other existing funders such as BMW and Rho Ventures also increased their investments. ChargePoint is the world’s largest and most open electric vehicle charging network. The company sells charging stations to retail centers, government facilities, apartment complexes, and other locations in the U.S. and Europe. ChargePoint currently boasts more than 17,000 charging locations worldwide.