Energy Exchange

What do the New Apple Watch and Home Energy Monitors have in Common?

By John Finnigan / Published: April 15, 2015

The new Apple Watch, which went on sale last Friday, is attracting huge attention. Among many other features, the watch will monitor your health by tracking fitness and activity, like the Fitbit. In its first day on the market, nearly one million were sold.

The popularity of this wearable device speaks to a larger trend happening in technology that one might call “life tracking”: the ability to track, analyze, and hone your personal activities through the use of connected devices. From fitness to finance, technology like the Apple Watch is enabling more choice and efficiency than ever before. And, just as fitness wearables monitor our personal activity, other devices can monitor our home energy activity – leading to an array of cost-saving and environmental benefits.

Home energy monitors

The Nest thermostat is one of the most well-known home energy monitors. It learns how you like to set your home temperature, and then automatically programs itself to follow your patterns.

For example, if you work an office job and are away from home nine to ten hours a day, the Nest thermostat may cycle the air conditioner down to increase the home temperature a couple of degrees during the day while you’re gone, and then automatically reduce the temperature an hour or so before you return to re-establish your preferred home temperature. Read More »

Also posted in Clean Energy, Demand Response, Grid Modernization / Comments are closed

Stakeholders Gather to Discuss How Time-Variant Electricity Pricing Can Work in New York

By Beia Spiller / Published: April 8, 2015

Last week, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) co-hosted a successful forum on residential time-variant electricity pricing – which allows customers to pay different prices for electricity depending on when it is used – within the context of New York’s ‘Reforming the Energy Vision’ (REV) proceeding.’

Co-hosted with the New York Department of Public Service and New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity, the full-day forum, “On the REV Agenda: The Role of Time-Variant Pricing,” brought together more than 150 regulators, utility executives, academics, and other stakeholders to explore how residential time-variant pricing works, what it can accomplish, and how best to implement it. Below is a recap of some of the high-level takeaways from the forum.

How time-variant pricing (TVP) works

One of EDF’s objectives has been to improve the efficiency of the electricity industry by pursuing a market-based approach to electricity pricing. In most well-functioning markets, the cost of making a product and its relative scarcity is reflected in the price. For example, a door is more expensive than the wood with which it is made in order to reflect the labor costs involved. Similarly, strawberries are more expensive during the winter because they are less abundant during that time. Customers understand that prices vary with production costs and over time, yet neither of these elements gets reflected in how residential customers currently pay for electricity.

Also posted in Clean Energy, New York, Utility Business Models / Comments are closed

Who Could Benefit Most from Fair Electricity Pricing? Low-Income Customers

By Rory Christian / Published: March 26, 2015

These are exciting times. New York’s ‘Reforming the Energy Vision’ (REV) has paved the way for change of unprecedented proportions. New York regulators are preparing the state for a future in which rooftop solar installations are ubiquitous and the rumbling staccato of gasoline-fueled automobiles is replaced by the relative silence of electric vehicles.

While more rooftop solar energy and electric vehicles are certainly part of our energy future, some of the biggest changes are likely to come from less visible – and less obvious – sources, particularly for customers in densely populated metropolitan areas and low-income customers, who make up a significant portion of New York state’s customer base.

Urban dwellers, for whom mass transit is a central part of daily life and owning your own rooftop is less common, may view electric cars, rooftop solar, wind, battery storage, and on-site energy generation as appealing, but also abstractions more suitable for upstate homeowners than those living in crowded apartment buildings.

For these customers, the opportunity to contribute to a clean energy future will be guided largely by the domain of Adam Smith’s invisible hand: economic forces that enable greater control over how much energy is used and at what price. Read More »

Also posted in Clean Energy, Energy Equity, Grid Modernization, Renewable Energy, Utility Business Models / Comments are closed

Hitting Those Clean Energy Notes

By Larissa Koehler / Published: March 24, 2015

San Onofre Nuclear Generating Stations (SONGS) Photo source: Flickr/Jason Hickey

Editor’s note: This post was updated April 9, 2015.

When the door to one power plant closes, a window to more clean energy solutions opens.

It may seem logical that once a power plant closes, another one needs to be built to replace it – after all, we need to make up for its potential energy generation with more natural gas or nuclear-powered energy, right? San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) is certainly trying to convince Californians this is true. Trouble is, EDF and other environmental groups, along with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), aren’t buying it. And you shouldn’t either.

This story begins in 2013, when the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Stations (SONGS) permanently closed, shutting down a nuclear power plant with a capacity of 2,200 megawatts (MW) and sparking a debate about how to replace this lost power source. When first determining how to proceed in the wake of the SONGS closure, the CPUC decided SDG&E could buy between 500 to 800 megawatts (MW) of new energy resources by 2022. Further, at least 200 MW of this power had to – and all of it could – be met with preferred resources like energy efficiency, renewable energy, energy storage, and demand response (an energy conservation tool that pays people to save energy when the electric grid is stressed). Read More »

Also posted in California, Clean Energy, Energy Efficiency / Read 2 Responses

Emerging Technologies Can Pave the Way for Time-Variant Electricity Pricing

By Ronny Sandoval / Published: March 23, 2015

The amount of energy we use at any given time is constantly changing. Lights are switched on and off by time of day – other appliances, such as air conditioners, might operate based on the season. In order to meet our dynamic energy demands, our system has to have the infrastructure and resources in place to respond when needed.

What may not be clear to many of us is that the costs associated with supplying this electricity also change with time, and during certain hours of the day and year these costs can be much higher. This isn’t readily apparent because the electricity rates we pay throughout the year are essentially flat.

Many, including Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), have made the case for electricity pricing that helps signal these fluctuating costs to customers. There are a variety of ways to design pricing that varies with time, while communicating to individuals and businesses the value of cutting back on electricity, or shifting use to other times. These options can take the form of paying a different amount for energy at different times, or perhaps being compensated for reducing use at times when the electric system is most constrained. Read More »

Also posted in Clean Energy, Grid Modernization / Read 1 Response

New York’s REV Proceeding Envisions a New Clean Energy Marketplace – but How Clean is it?

By Elizabeth B. Stein / Published: March 19, 2015

Despite its enormous relevance to the struggle to build a cleaner, greener electric system, New York’s ‘Reforming the Energy Vision’ (REV) proceeding is not fundamentally an environmental one. It is concerned with building a new electric marketplace for a broad range of energy resources, some zero-carbon and some not, which are expected to reduce total costs paid by tomorrow’s customers over the long term compared to what would be expected under a ’business as usual’ scenario.

My last blog post described the new electric industry market structure envisioned by New York regulators in the recent Track 1 order of the REV proceeding. As promised, this week I’m providing a closer look at the environmental implications of the new order.

While reducing carbon emissions is one of the six stated goals of the proceeding, it is not the sole thrust. Interestingly, the order begins a deep dive on what decarbonization means for the electric system and discusses various environmental issues at length, potentially raising their profile in the proceeding. Highlighting the importance of environmental issues is a welcome change, but, to accomplish the goal of emissions reductions, the devil is in the details. Read More »

Also posted in Clean Energy, Energy Efficiency, Grid Modernization, New York, Renewable Energy, Utility Business Models / Read 2 Responses