Frontlines & Op-Ed

Energy Efficiency Unknowns

Making efficiency programs work requires understanding real-world behavior.

Efficiency programs often fall short because they don’t account for human behavior. Systematic studies with randomized trials can bring better results.

Innovation Mandate

Meeting the just-and-reasonable standard in a time of change.

Who can say for sure if markets are working? The landscape keeps shifting.

What Solar Success Looks Like

Managing the transition to a solar-powered future.

Solar energy has a bright future as part of America’s electric power industry. An orderly and beneficial transition will depend on strategic action.

Productivity Plateau

A mature industry faces a worrying round of hype.

Are we languishing, or working off a 20th-century legacy? Gartner’s hype cycle suggests the latter, as new technologies start producing value.

Energiewende

Nuclear fear and Germany’s headlong plunge into renewable energy.

On a recent trip to Germany to study the country’s energy policy, the phrase “energy transition,” or “energiewende” as the Germans say, was on everyone’s mind.

Disruption on Wall Street

Financial executives contemplate the rise of distributed resources.

In a January 2013 report, EEI said fast-growing distributed energy could undermine the utility business model. Wall Street is paying attention.

For the People

Former Progress Energy CEO checks in from his new job at TVA.

Fortnightly speaks with William Johnson, CEO of the Tennessee Valley Authority, about managing the country’s biggest government-owned power supplier.

SGIP, New and Improved

Making the case for collaboration on interoperability standards

The mission of harmonizing industry standards moves forward in the work of the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel 2.0, Inc.

Rise of the Machines

Who’s afraid of the transactive grid?

Smart grids and nodal markets spark the emergence of a transactional grid. In fact it’s already happened, and we’re just becoming aware.