Advanced Energy Perspectives

This week, on the former set of “Desperate Housewives,” Elon Musk revealed a new Tesla product. This time around he announced the Tesla version of solar installations that look just like roofs. And, as they often do when Musk makes an announcement, both mainstream and industry news media paid attention and tried to contain their enthusiasm. In this week’s news roundup we’ll try to make sense of the Musk hype and the media’s extensive, if cool, reaction.

Image of courtesy of NASA. 

Every week we see more stories of the progress of advanced energy, and this week is certainly no exception. From the biggest purchase of advanced energy ever by the federal government to the first American offshore wind farm, advanced energy is marching on. Some of this week’s advanced energy headline writers seem to know Halloween is coming, but here’s the thing: It will take a little more than zombie power generation, energy storage bloodbath, or eldritch wind projects from the watery deep to scare us.

It’s no secret that energy storage is on the rise. This week, though, we saw several stories on innovative thermal storage solutions, everything from hot rocks to cool ice. Plus, member updates from SunPower (solar + storage!), Bloom Energy (whose secret IPO is not-so-secret anymore), and General Electric, which, at 124 years old, is looking pretty spry when it comes to advanced energy investment.

This is a guest post by AEE Gold Affiliate member Mintz Levin.

Image of Block Island construction courtesy of Jeff Grybowski, originally posted to Twitter.

The United States will join Europe later this year when the nation’s first offshore wind farm becomes operational off Block Island, R.I. Deepwater Wind is bringing online the first offshore wind farm in domestic waters, a breakthrough for an industry that has worked for more than a decade to generate clean, reliable, cost effective energy, create good jobs, and strengthen local economies. Deepwater’s milestone project comes after the industry failed to move forward with the proposed 468 MW Cape Wind project off the coast of Cape Cod, after facing opposition from the fishing industry, American Indian groups, and property owners in the area for more than a decade. It also appears to be just the beginning of offshore wind development in the U.S.

Advanced energy is big business, representing $200 billion in revenues in the U.S. alone—on par with the pharmaceutical industry – and growing. This week the news is all about the green, and we don’t mean eco-friendly. We’re talking greenbacks. We have stories of financing models for energy storage and big-bucks deals for AEE member companies. Plus, the energy challenges of growing a different kind of green—marijuana.