Advanced Energy Perspectives

In news that will come as no surprise to regular readers of Advanced Energy Perspectives, major U.S. companies from coast to coast are committing to advanced energy. Household names like Amazon, IKEA, Walmart, and financial giants like Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan are choosing advanced energy for the same reason they do anything else: good economic sense. This week, Amazon flips the switch on New Jersey’s largest rooftop solar array, and the RE100 list, the list of companies that have committed to “go 100% renewable,” tops 100 companies, capping a summer that began with Goldman Sachs signing a wind power purchase agreement (PPA). It’s the big business of advanced energy in this week’s post.

In the United States and around the world, transportation is advancing, from major technological innovations to major changes in infrastructure, but news coverage of the electrification of America’s automobiles has largely been limited to luxury electric cars. In this week’s news, some changes: VW proves electric microbuses aren’t just a public relations ploy, Audi goes solar, and DHL and Ford provide electric delivery vehicles. We’ll discuss all that, plus an after-action report on the solar eclipse, in this week’s post. Read on!

On Monday, North America will get to see something spectacular: a full solar eclipse! A huge portion of the U.S. will be within the path of totality, able to experience the sun being reduced to a glowing ring with sunset falling on every horizon. Eclipses have long been seen as ill portents and bad omens, tied to deaths of kings and emperors. In ancient times, the sun’s temporary disappearance in broad daylight was a calamity brought upon by the gods themselves. But as we now rely on the sun for power generation, will the moon get in the way of our megawatts? Could Monday’s solar eclipse today be just as calamitous as the ancients foretold, bringing with it rolling blackouts, power outages, and huge price surges for power across the country? 

Nah.

Think of it as a championship prizefight between contenders for meeting peak power needs: In the red corner, at a size somewhere between a shipping container and an office building, but with a brain that’s hard to beat, it’s the GE Digital Gas Peaker Plant! In the blue corner, it’s battery storage, which bulks up by saving excess generation until it’s needed, then delivering power to the grid at breakneck speeds! Either way, advanced energy is the winner.

The news this week was full of advanced vehicles, blockchain, and a little of both at the same time! Plus, America’s burgeoning offshore wind market could get a little back-up from some Tesla batteries. That’s right, it’s offshore wind + storage, all in this week’s advanced energy news round up.