T&D Grid

There is impressive growth in the types of devices that could play a part in utility and aggregator programs to provide grid support. But there are stranded investment risks if utilities, manufacturers, and consumers make communications interface choices that are not open, standard, and supportive of direct access.

U.S. cannabis industry is experiencing explosive growth. The industry is extremely energy-intensive and is already placing strains on some individual utilities and local grids. Here we discuss the implications for utilities and PUCs and explore potential solutions.

In 1991, Eastern European countries and the former Soviet republics responded to a completely different set of incentives and policy drivers for the development of their utilities. USEA, together with other implementing partners of the agency, was tasked to help change the mentality of folks that worked in these utilities.

The ability of new entrants to interconnect new generation on a timely and fair basis is essential during the transition from coal to natural gas and renewables. But how cooperative will incumbents be about it? FERC has always understood that incumbents are incented to frustrate new entry.

Financial traders believe PJM’s proposal discriminates since they are more likely to hold counter-flow FTRs.

To manage the new instability, inherent in many renewable resources, it becomes necessary to introduce more intelligence and automation. That’s what makes the smart grid so compelling.

In the emerging era of distributed energy resources, we will find the distribution utility increasingly in the role of an integrator and enabler – more than their longstanding role as energy provider. Accordingly, the regulatory approach must go through its own structural shift to keep pace and restore the system to regulatory equilibrium.

The next frontier, and the logical extension of integrated resource planning. Self-generation, the connected home, the celebrated internet of things – they all suggest it’s time to focus on the local grid.

Florida Power & Light Company partners with PetroQuest Energy to develop natural gas production wells in southeastern Oklahoma; First Solar receives financing approval to build a 141-MW solar power plant in Chile; DTE Energy will deploy Tollgrade’s LightHouse MV smart grid sensors and predictive grid analytics platform within its distribution network in Detroit; US DOE chooses Abengoa, together with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the Colorado School of Mines, to develop a new solar storage technology for thermoelectric plants.