Advanced Energy Perspectives

Featured image courtesy of Madalyn Knebel.

Advanced energy is an industry full of innovative technologies. This week it’s time for energy storage to shine—and we mean that literally. At the top of the news this week is energy storage systems paired with small-scale solar installations, creating mini-microgrids that can power homes, offices, even a network of communities – creating islands of energy self-sufficiency.

“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” That’s a quote from Carl Sagan’s groundbreaking Cosmos. To build an electrical grid for an imaginary “51^st state” from scratch… well, the Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA) asked utilities and other stakeholders how they would go about it. Presumably they would also invent the universe first, but we’ll skip ahead a bit.

This week we saw two AEE member companies partnering in a bold new venture, an examination of combined heat and power technology for hospitals, plus salt-cooled nuclear reactors and 100 percent renewable energy for a Central American country and a small town in Texas.

Advanced energy is moving fast: AEE just released a report showing that the U.S. advanced energy economy grew five times as fast as the U.S. economy as a whole. Now, we see more big strides in solar and wind, as well as fast times for advanced vehicles. (Okay, maybe not quite as fast as a Ferrari.)

This week, AEE released Advanced Energy Now 2015 Market Report, our annual report on the size and scope of the advanced energy industry, both globally and in the United States. Advanced energy is a nearly $1.3 trillion global industry, and growing rapidly—in the U.S., the advanced energy industry grew five times as fast as the national economy overall. If more proof is needed that advanced energy is one of the world’s leading growth industries, we got it in the news this week, which features exciting developments in offshore wind and huge numbers from the world of solar. Also, thanks to AEE member Opower, we now know what happens to a solar-powered country during a solar eclipse.