Transforming Crisis into Opportunity

Deck: 

Reinventing the Grid, Part 2

Fortnightly Magazine - January 2021
This full article is only accessible by current license holders. Please login to view the full content.
Don't have a license yet? Click here to sign up for Public Utilities Fortnightly, and gain access to the entire Fortnightly article database online.

Federal and state energy efficiency programs initiated in the late 1970s and continuing through today have transformed energy use in buildings through technological innovations. The energy efficiency and demand response industry, while mature, still requires government and utility funding to reach customers and markets currently underserved by energy service providers and vendors.

Government-supported research, development, and demonstration replenishes the innovation pipeline, ensuring a stream of new ideas. Given the serendipitous nature of innovation, not all ideas will make it to the mass market.

Still, it's important to ensure that the innovation pipeline doesn't dry up. The International Energy Agency reports that nine countries doubled their clean energy RD&D spending between 2009 and 2011, compared with 2006 to 2008, adding over six billion dollars per year to their aggregate spending over the three-year period from 2009.

Perhaps the best example of how RD&D leads to greater economic activity is the approach taken during the 2008-09 financial crisis, when the 2009 U.S. American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was enacted, allocating seven and a half billion dollars to energy RD&D.

This full article is only accessible by current license holders. Please login to view the full content.
Don't have a license yet? Click here to sign up for Public Utilities Fortnightly, and gain access to the entire Fortnightly article database online.