Energy Exchange

Clean Energy Conferences Roundup: January 2015

By EDF Blogs / Published: January 5, 2015

Each month, the Energy Exchange rounds up a list of top clean energy conferences around the country. Our list includes conferences at which experts from the EDF Clean Energy Program will be speaking, plus additional events that we think our readers may benefit from marking on their calendars.

Top clean energy conferences featuring EDF experts in January:

Jan 26-27: Net Metering 2.0 and Utility Solar Rates, Anaheim, CA
Speaker: Jamie Fine, Senior Economist

Net metering was a simple and appropriate rate mechanism when the solar industry was in its infancy and consumer-installed PV panels were relatively uncommon. But as policies and incentives enticed increasing numbers of home owners and businesses to adopt solar, the growing penetration of these resources onto the grid has resulted in some uncomfortable balancing acts among utilities, customers, regulators, solar providers, and other stakeholders important to the process. The objective of this conference is to explore rate structures that facilitate meeting solar development goals for consumer adoption, while striking an optimum balance among all solar development stakeholders, including utilities, and their business models.

Posted in Clean Energy, Conference Roundup / Comments are closed

Why Falling Oil Prices Don’t Hurt Demand for Renewable Energy

By EDF Blogs / Published: January 5, 2015

By: Victor A. Rojas, Senior Manager, Financial Policy, and Paul Stinson, Program Coordinator

It’s understandable that many people would look at falling oil prices and wonder what it might mean for clean, renewable energy sources. Some recent headlines even suggest that cheaper crude might spell doom for the burgeoning clean energy economy.

Over the last six months, the price of crude oil has fallen by about 40 percent, currently trading below $60 a barrel, the lowest it’s been since 2009. Continuing global production and oversupply mean oil prices could remain low through the winter months and well into 2015.

While it’s true that stocks for some of the more trusted, clean energy investments are being dragged down by dipping oil prices, it doesn’t mean demand for clean energy is also suffering. In fact, as oil prices have tumbled, demand for energy efficiency and renewable energy only keeps growing.

Oil can mean energy, but energy doesn’t mean oil

The historic correlation between the price of oil and the demand for renewable energy has been increasingly weakened in today’s global markets. Like apples and oranges, we use oil and renewables to make completely different types of juice: oil primarily to produce transportation fuels, and renewables primarily to generate electricity. From an economics perspective, oil and renewables are not substitutes: when the price of one decreases, demand for the other does not decrease. Read More »

Posted in Clean Energy, Energy Financing, Investor Confidence Project, Natural Gas, Renewable Energy / Read 1 Response

Germany’s Energiewende Requires Sophisticated Governance, Political Stamina

By Peter Sopher / Published: December 29, 2014

Conceptualizing a policy as broad and ambitious as Energiewende – Germany’s goal to transition nearly 100 percent of its electricity supply to renewable energy by 2050 – is one thing. Implementing it is another thing entirely.

For this, ‘good governance’ is required – or as the Hertie School defines it: “an effective, efficient, and reliable set of legitimate institutions and actors engaged in a process of dealing with a matter of public concern.”

Energiewende’s implementation presents significant governance challenges. It is a public matter that requires cooperation and coordination from various public and private actors, as well as top-down decision-making. It also comprises diverse political levels and jurisdictions – global, European, federal, state, and municipal – as well as interest groups, cooperatives, alliances, banks, and individuals.

While Energiewende is very much a German policy designed for a German political context, there are still lessons the U.S. (and any country considering an energy transition for that matter) can learn from the challenges Germany has faced in developing a governance strategy to go where no one has gone before: overhauling the modern electricity system as we know it to make the German power grid more clean, efficient, resilient, and dynamic. Read More »

Posted in Clean Energy, Renewable Energy / Tagged Energiewende, Germany | Read 1 Response

Exploring U.S. Seniors’ Perspective Toward the Smart Grid

By Guest Author / Published: December 29, 2014

By: Patty Durand, Smart Grid Consumer Collaborative Executive Director

Understanding customers’ attitudes, viewpoints, and overall favorability around a modernized electric grid is integral to fully realizing all the benefits the smart grid has to offer.

Smart Grid Consumer Collaborative (SGCC) recently completed a new consumer analysis, Consumer Pulse: Focus on Seniors, which takes a deeper dive into the data collected from SGCC’s national flagship research series, Consumer Pulse Wave 1-4, which was collected during 2011–2013.

In the energy industry, there is no single study that explores seniors’ attitudes toward the smart grid and energy programs. Therefore, this new analysis provides insight for utilities and the smart grid stakeholder community on a demographic that is not well understood. Further, the Consumer Pulse: Focus on Seniors report answers the key question: What benefits do older Americans value most from a smarter grid? Read More »

Posted in Clean Energy, Demand Response, Grid Modernization, Utility Business Models / Read 3 Responses

Amid Global Efforts, New York Plants Seeds for Energy Reform in 2014 That Will Bloom in 2015

By Rory Christian / Published: December 29, 2014

In the future, when we look back on 2014, I believe it will be remembered as the tipping point for climate action. In the Northeast, we’ll remember the devastating early-season snowstorm that caused over a dozen deaths. In the Southwest, many will remember the third-straight year of a drought that seems without end. And, nationally, many will remember 2014 as one of the hottest years in recorded history – the hottest since 2010 and the 11^th time the record for hottest year has been set since 1998.

In a year punctuated by extreme weather across the country and the globe, 2014 will also be remembered as the year when seeds of coordinated global action to address climate change first took root. The federal Clean Power Plan, the Lima Climate Agreement, the United Nations Climate Summit, and the U.S.-China Climate Accord, among other major milestones, all highlight the growing awareness and importance of taking action to address climate change. Though many view these events as tentative first steps, they are nonetheless steps in the right direction.

Action at the national level has been long overdue and support for the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed Clean Power Plan, which would set the first-ever national limits on carbon pollution from existing power plants, is borne from decades of work at the local level. The historical absence of a broader national agenda has spurred cities and states to act on their own, and local authorities are continuing to make significant, innovative strides forward. Read More »

Posted in Clean Energy, Energy Efficiency, Grid Modernization, New York, Utility Business Models / Read 3 Responses

We need strong national methane rules. Here’s how we get there.

By EDF Blogs / Published: December 22, 2014

By Karin Rives, EDF’s editorial manager and editor of the EDF Voices blog

New York’s statewide ban on fracking is a vindication for communities around the country that have been hit hard by unconventional natural gas production, writes Fred Krupp, Environmental Defense Fund’s president, in a Dec. 22 op-ed piece in The Washington Post.

It demonstrates what can happen when oil and gas producers erode public trust by brushing aside legitimate questions – and reinforces the urgent need for strong, sensible regulation.

The growing controversy surrounding our natural gas industry has created a decisive moment for President Obama.

As the administration prepares a policy to reduce methane emissions from the oil and gas sector, the president has an opportunity to cut both energy waste and climate pollution – in addition to protecting the ecosystem and public health.

In a second op-ed piece published Dec. 17 in The Hill, Fred lays out five principles that should guide the national methane standards the Obama administration is expected to announce soon: Read More »

Posted in Climate, Methane, Natural Gas / Read 1 Response