Advanced Energy Perspectives

Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) was confirmed as the new U.S. ambassador to China on February 6 by a vote of 96-0. With the confirmation, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-WA) has taken over chairmanship of the Finance Committee and Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) has taken the gavel for the Environment and Natural Resources Committee. Sen. Wyden has been outspoken on the need to extend the advanced energy tax credits that expired at the end of 2013.

Last year we saw battles over net metering play out in Idaho and Arizona  (it was even one of our Top 10 Stories of 2013). This week a familiar story surfaced in Kansas: utilities are lobbying for lower net metering reimbursement for solar customers. Kansas utility Westar Energy’s executive director of government affairs argued that the utility is paying solar customers “a retail price for a wholesale commodity.”

Maine took a step forward in the race to install the first U.S. offshore wind turbines with the state’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) voting last month to approve a power-purchase contract for a pilot project. The Maine Aqua Ventus project would include two 6 megawatt (MW) floating turbines.

Maine Aqua Ventus is proposed by Maine Prime Technologies, a consortium consisting of the University of Maine, Cianbro Corp. (an AEE member company), and Emera, Inc. The group launched the nation’s first prototype offshore wind floating turbine, a one-eighth-scale model, along Maine’s shore last spring.

This is a pivotal year for the U.S. economy. After five years of contraction followed by a fragile recovery, we are now returning to stability and growth.  During the period of slowdown, no part of the economy changed more than energy.

When America went into the Great Recession, it was dependent on foreign oil to make the economy run. Now in 2014 we are poised to be energy independent to an extent the United States has not been in over half a century.  

We write a lot here about the potential of advanced vehicles to transform the transportation sector and the electrical grid as a whole. One Honda dealership in Vineland, NJ, managed to one-up us when it became the first dealership in America to be “electric grid neutral.”

The dealership has instituted policies that both produce and save energy. It installed 900 solar panels attached to canopies in the dealer’s parking lot – simultaneously giving the vehicles shelter – and changed all the lights in the parking lot to LED lamps. As a result, the dealership’s monthly energy bills have diminished to “almost zero.”