Advanced Energy Perspectives

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.

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.

The wind blew strong on the plains of Texas last week. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) announced that wind turbines in Texas broke an electricity generation record, on Wednesday, March 26. Wind turbines were producing 10,296 megawatts of electricity, or 29 percent of the total electricity generated in ERCOT, at 8:48 pm. This beat the previous instantaneous output record by more than 600 MW. In sum, ERCOT has 11,000 MW of installed commercial wind power – when the record was broken, 94 percent of the state’s total wind power capacity was being tapped.

Surprise, surprise: Tesla was all over the news this week, with several states taking action, for or against, direct vehicle sales. Tesla’s sales model of boutique store fronts and direct purchases from the company is unique among automotive sales and cuts out the dealer as a middleman. Tesla has insisted that the direct sales model is necessary to introduce consumers to this new technology.“We strongly believe it is vital to introduce our own vehicles to the market because electric cars are still a relatively new technology,” says Tesla on its blog.

Baby, it’s cold outside – still. We don’t hear much about “polar vortex” these days, but when Washington, DC, gets 11 inches of snow in March (so far – it could snow again next week) and the high temperature in Boston on St. Patrick’s Day is 27 degrees, you know it’s been a tough winter. The bone-chilling weather so far this year also brings a reminder that energy waste is money out the window – and out of the local economy.