Advanced Energy Perspectives

Advanced energy finance is an ever-expanding field with many players, including government agencies, private investors, and international financial institutions. Our periodic Finance updates will help you understand and navigate this complex infrastructure. 

AEE Member companies made news this week across the country and around the world. EnerNOC, a Massachusetts-based demand response and efficiency company, announced that it had acquired EnTech USB, a software firm that specializes in utility bill management. This follows EnerNOC’s acquisition of two other European firms in February (which Jeff St. John, writing for Greentech Media, characterized as a “European Spending Spree”).

“EnTech has impressive global reach. Its software product is the global UBM [utility bill management] solution of over 50 enterprises. Eight of the Fortune 50, including the largest companies in the world in telecommunications, consumer products, banking and auto manufacturing rely on EnTech’s UBM software,” Tim Healy, Chairman and CEO of EnerNOC (and AEE board member), said in a statement.

There’s a saying in the West: “The whiskey’s for drinking and the water’s for fighting.” As evidence has mounted that existing interstate compacts for water transfers from upstream states to downstream states were struck during historically wet years, concern has grown over water shortages due to changing climate conditions. As a result, states in the Southwest, especially, have begun to examine the nexus between water consumption and energy.

Water and energy interact in both consumption and generation. An enormous amount of energy is used for drinking water and wastewater treatment. And an enormous amount of water is used in most forms of electricity generation – but not all.

The California Energy Commission conducted a study that determined 20% of electricity consumption in California is related to pumping, treating and transporting water.  Therefore, the commission determined, it was appropriate for energy conservation money to be used for water demand reduction – less water used, less energy consumed. As utilities look for new ways to reach energy efficiency performance objectives, making water infrastructure more efficient is one promising pathway.

Last Friday, AEE member company Opower rang the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange, marking the end of its first day as a publicly traded company (NYSE: OPWR). See video of the NYSE celebration here and more photos here. While a big occasion for the behavioral efficiency company, Opower’s IPO is an important moment in the transition toward a 21^st century electricity system. Opower and other advanced energy companies like it are helping to change the long-held utility business model. The “energy-data nexus” is one of the big areas of opportunity for investment and innovation.

Last week, the Senate Finance Committee took a critical step toward modernizing America’s energy infrastructure by approving a tax extenders package that supports continued investment in advanced energy technologies. The full Senate could take up the bill to restore and extend tax credits that expired at the end of 2013 in the coming weeks. On Tuesday, House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) held the first of an expected series of hearings on expired tax provisions.