Energy Exchange

How this up-and-coming leader is improving energy equity in Illinois

By EDF Blogs / Published: April 10, 2018

By Illinois Environmental Council

IEC: Please tell us a little bit about yourself and your background. How did you come to work on policy issues related to clean energy access?
Lavannya Pulluveetil - EDF
Lavannya: I’m a recent grad with a degree in in Environmental and Sustainability Sciences as well as International Agriculture and Rural Development. I had the opportunity to work on a variety of community-driven initiatives in New York and internationally as an undergrad, and they all showed me the value of connecting people to resources available through local and federal governments. I became involved in policy issues related to energy access because I am hopeful about the work the Environmental Defense Fund is undertaking in Illinois. I was motivated largely by the focus on equity in relation to energy access, and I hoped that my previous work would lend itself to moving the needle forward on some of these initiatives.

Future Energy Jobs Act: Jobs and Development
IEC: The Future Energy Jobs Act includes provisions to grow renewable energy. Specifically, where will solar panels be installed? What was this land used for before the panels were planned there?

Lavannya: Ideally, solar development in Illinois will fit into a larger vision of a just transition for the communities that are most impacted by the aging coal industry. For instance, some communities in Chicago are calling for using old coal plant sites for solar projects, and developers are getting behind this idea locally. Additionally when considering open spaces across the state and brownfield site redevelopment, there is a lot of potential when it comes to transforming the landscape and local economies of communities. Read More »

Also posted in Illinois / Comments are closed

Illinois blazes new trail in anticipation of private microgrids using utility wires

By Christie Hicks / Published: April 10, 2018

On May 9, Andrew Barbeau, senior clean energy consultant for Environmental Defense Fund, will speak at the Microgrid 2018 conference. This year’s theme is Markets and Models for the Greater Good, and Andrew will discuss the effort to create a new microgrid tariff for third-party-managed microgrids as described in this post. You can register for the conference here.

Imagine you and your neighbors have solar panels on your roofs. You want to create a mini-power grid so that your neighborhood can operate solely on your panels’ electricity, even sending excess power from one home to another. And if there’s a storm that affects the main power grid, your homes can disconnect and stay powered.

This is the vision that microgrid proponents have promised for the past decade: small sections of the broader grid that incorporate rooftop solar and batteries, and can isolate from the grid as a whole when needed. Yet, this promise faces a major hurdle: The utility owns the wires that connect your homes and has an exclusive monopoly on that electrical infrastructure. This has driven most microgrid projects in the U.S. to either be completely “behind the meter” of a single customer, or owned and managed by the utility itself.

A new agreement with Illinois’ largest utility, ComEd, is poised to jump that hurdle. Working with Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and the Citizens Utility Board (CUB), ComEd will begin a process this year to allow customers or third parties to develop and manage their own microgrid projects – working with the utility’s existing infrastructure rather than having to avoid it.

We have received lots of questions on how this will work. Here are your questions answered. Read More »

Also posted in Grid Modernization, Illinois / Tagged microgrid | Comments are closed

How location-based prices and utility rewards could help California’s electric grid

By EDF Blogs / Published: April 10, 2018

By Larissa Koehler, Jamie Fine

Distributed energy resources, from rooftop solar panels to smart well-weatherized homes and timed electric vehicle charging, are vital pieces of the clean energy puzzle. Coordinating how and where to encourage them in a way that benefits the electric grid, the environment, and Californians can be complicated. In its’ Integrated Distributed Energy Resource proceeding, the California Public Utilities Commission (Commission) recently asked stakeholders [PDF] to “consider how existing programs, incentives, and tariffs can be coordinated to maximize the locational benefits and minimize the costs of distributed energy resources.”

This key step forward in the proceeding is potentially a big deal. Why? Rocky Mountain Institute’s report puts it this way [PDF]:

“More granular pricing, capable of reflecting marginal costs and benefits more accurately than today’s rates do, will provide better incentives to direct distributed resource investments, regardless of whether investments in and management of [distributed energy resources] are undertaken by customers, by utilities, or by third-party service providers.”

By reflecting both costs and benefits in retail prices that electricity customers pay, California can modernize the grid while spurring the efficient and fair build out of distributed clean energy resources. This can help the state substitute traditional and inflexible polluting resources [PDF] with a variety of more nimble distributed energy resources where the grid can handle them. What’s more, distributed energy resources can lead to cleaner air in areas traditionally burdened by higher levels of harmful air pollution. They can achieve all this while bolstering the electric grid and protecting the health of the environment and of Californians. Read More »

Also posted in California, Energy Innovation / Comments are closed

Clean energy boom played key role in recent U.S. carbon emissions drop, study shows

By Kristina Mohlin / Published: April 2, 2018

After rising for nearly two decades, carbon dioxide emissions from United States energy use began to fall sharply and unexpectedly in 2007.

For years now, experts attributed this decrease to the drop in energy demand during the economic recession that began late that year, and to the huge surge in cheap natural gas that displaced coal in our energy mix during this period. But they overlooked another key change that drove the drop in emissions just as much: the rapid rise in renewable energy production.

By 2013, our country’s annual carbon dioxide emissions had decreased by 11 percent – a decline not witnessed since the 1979 oil crisis. Our research shows that the growth of renewable energy sources accounted for 31 percent of that 640-million metric ton carbon drop.

The impact from renewables is just below the 34-percent contribution the switch from petroleum and coal to natural gas made to the emissions decline – a fact that, until now, has previously gone largely unrecognized.

Also posted in Renewable Energy, Solar Energy, Wind Energy / Comments are closed

Meet the women of the clean energy and sustainability workforce

By EDF Blogs / Published: March 27, 2018

By Ellen Shenette, Manager, EDF Climate Corps

I remember some of the first interactions I had with companies working in the clean energy industry. I was an analyst at the time, which meant the conversations were more often than not, very technical, wonky, and with men. At first, this was overwhelming. But my all-women MBA program prepared me for the male-dominated business world. I turned these initial concerns into motivation, and I built my technical expertise so that I could hold my own in conversations. If my knowledge was questioned, I was ready with an answer.

I’m not alone in this experience. Like many other STEM industries, women are underrepresented in the energy workforce, counting for only roughly 20-35 percent. The good news is that this trend is changing, and clean energy is leading the way. The clean energy sector is the farthest along in closing this gender gap compared to other energy sectors, opening up numerous opportunities for women looking to start their careers in this field, and I’m proud to be helping to make this possible.

EDF Climate Co rps is working to build the next generation of sustainability leaders, and we’re making sure that includes women. Why? Research has found that more gender equity leads to higher performing companies, and female leaders rank the highest in their ability to take initiative and drive results.

Since EDF Climate Corps started in 2008, women have represented 41 percent of our fellows. I decided to reach out to these women from our alumni network, a group of nearly 850 sustainability experts, and learn more about their jobs and gather any advice they have for women looking to join the industry. Read More »

Also posted in EDF Climate Corps / Comments are closed

Still cheaper than coal – a report on the economics of solar power in Colorado

By EDF Blogs / Published: March 27, 2018

By Rama Zakaria, Graham McCahan

A newly-updated report is shedding light on what President Trump’s solar trade tariffs may mean for one state – and underscoring a tremendous opportunity to move forward toward clean energy, with all the benefits it can bring.

Xcel Energy filed its 30-day bid report update with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission on March 1. The update follows Xcel’s filing at the end of last year, in response to an “all-source solicitation,” as part of its Electric Resource Plan and its proposed Colorado Energy Plan.

Xcel’s plan would shut down two units at the Comanche coal plant in Pueblo, Colorado, and replace the capacity with a mix of lower-carbon resources. Earlier results were unprecedented, with more than 80 percent of the bids coming from renewable energy and storage at incredibly cheap prices.

Xcel then provided bidders an opportunity to refresh their bids following President Trump’s final decision in the Suniva/SolarWorld trade case in January, which imposed tariffs on imported solar equipment.

The refreshed bids in Xcel’s updated report show minimal change relative to last year’s results and confirm that new wind and solar power in Colorado continues to be cheaper than existing coal plants – despite the trade tariffs. Read More »

Also posted in Colorado, Energy Equity, Solar Energy / Comments are closed