Energy Exchange

Central Texas Poised To Become Regional Clean Energy Leader

By Marita Mirzatuny / Published: May 16, 2014
Source: http://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/hill-country

Source: http://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/hill-country

With the recent release of the National Climate Assessment, the threat of climate change has never been clearer. Addressing this will require a fundamental transition away from fossil-fuel sources of energy in favor of renewable energy technologies like wind and solar power. Electric utilities vary in their progress towards delivering a future powered by clean energy. Notably, Central Texas, with its combination of energy know-how, creative thinking, and technology entrepreneurship, is home to many utilities leading the way in clean energy resources and smart grid technology.

Austin & San Antonio are leading the pack

Although Texas has a deregulated, competitive electricity market where most energy companies compete for customers, the San Antonio-Austin-Hill Country corridor is mainly comprised of public electric utilities, like municipals and cooperatives that are community-owned. For years, Austin and San Antonio’s municipal utilities have benefited from an engaged customer base that cares about the transition to a clean energy economy. Read More »

Posted in Clean Energy, Demand Response, Grid Modernization, Renewable Energy, Texas / Comments are closed

The Energy-Water Nexus Faces an Up-Hill Battle…But at Least it’s on ‘The Hill’

By Kate Zerrenner / Published: May 15, 2014
Source: Argonne National Library

Source: Argonne National Library

The energy-water nexus has been gaining traction around the globe, including serving as the theme to this year’s World Water Day, and now we are finally seeing some movement on Capitol Hill.

In January, Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) introduced S. 1971, the Nexus of Energy and Water for Sustainability Act of 2014, or NEWS Act of 2014. Foremost, the bill would establish an interagency coordination committee focused on the nexus between energy and water production, use, and efficiency. The NEWS Act of 2014 also proposes a cross-cutting budget mechanism to allow policymakers to see where funding is needed across various energy-water initiatives.

While the bill faces a particularly steep slope to passage (7% compared to an average overall 11% passage rate, according to GovTrack, a government transparency tracker), that it has been introduced at all is the first sign of a more comprehensive approach to the energy-water nexus at the highest levels. Read More »

Posted in Clean Energy, Climate, Energy-Water Nexus, Renewable Energy, Utility Business Models / Read 1 Response

The Many Benefits of Reducing Carbon Pollution from Existing Power Plants

By EDF Blogs / Published: May 15, 2014

By: Megan Ceronsky, EDF attorney, and Peter Heisler, legal fellow 

The newly-released Third National Climate Assessment has some eye-opening news about climate change.

The report confirms that if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced it is likely that American communities will experience:

  • increased severity of dangerous smog and particulate pollution in many regions[1]
  • intensified precipitation events, hurricanes, and storm surges[2]
  • reduced precipitation and runoff in the arid West[3]
  • reduced crop yields and livestock productivity[4]
  • increases in fires, insect pests, and the prevalence of diseases transmitted by food, water, and insects[5]
  • increased risk of illness and death due to extreme heat[6]

Source: Flickr/Eric Schmuttenmaer

Extreme weather imposes a high cost on our communities, our livelihoods, and our lives. The National Climatic Data Center reports that the United States experienced seven climate disasters that each caused more than a billion dollars of damage in 2013, including the devastating floods in Colorado and extreme droughts in western states.[7]

These are precisely the type of impacts projected to affect American communities with increasing frequency and severity as climate-destabilizing emissions continue to accumulate in the atmosphere.

Fossil fuel-fired power plants are far and away the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, emitting more than two billion metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2012 — equivalent to 40 percent of U.S. carbon pollution and nearly one-third of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.[8] Read More »

Posted in Air Quality, Climate, Colorado, Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy / Comments are closed

Nest’s Promising Results for Reducing Peak Electricity Demand

By Jamie Fine / Published: May 15, 2014

Nest_front_officialBack in January when Google announced it would spend $3.2 billion to purchase Nest, EDF knew this was a company to watch. The results of three new reports, released today, confirm that controllable thermostats like the Nest Learning Thermostat are both customer-friendly and useful for energy system planners. Moreover, the reports signal that smart devices, such as those Nest manufactures, have potential for generating marked savings for utility customers.

The reports analyze 2012-2013 energy use data gathered from four major utilities across the U.S. that offer Nest energy services programs: Austin Energy, Reliant Energy, Green Mountain Energy, and Southern California Edison.

The first report evaluates the results of Rush Hour Rewards, a demand response service that changes the temperature of the homes of Nest users during energy “rush hours”, or times when demand on the grid is highest. The second examines Seasonal Savings, a program that runs for three weeks and slowly modifies the temperature according to the customer’s behavior (which this smart thermostat is able to ‘learn’ via its built-in motion sensor and understanding of its owner’s temperature preferences). Both operate during times of heavy usage, namely winter and summer. The third report analyzes home energy data of Nest customers more broadly, comparing energy use before and after the installation of a Nest Thermostat. Read More »

Posted in Clean Energy, Demand Response, Energy Efficiency, Grid Modernization, Utility Business Models / Tagged | Read 1 Response

Germany is Revolutionizing how we Use Energy…and the U.S. could Learn a Thing or Two

By Peter Sopher / Published: May 14, 2014
"Green Power, not nuclear energy." Germany will fully transition off nuclear by 2022.

“Green Power, not nuclear energy.” Germany will fully transition off nuclear by 2022.

As the academic breeding ground of Einstein, Freud, and many other internationally-known scholars, it should come as no surprise that Germany is at the forefront of modernizing an industry as complex as energy. Over the last two decades, Germany has been revamping its electricity sector with the ambitious goal of powering its economy almost entirely on renewable energy by 2050. And last Sunday, the country broke a new record by acquiring nearly 75 percent of its total energy demand from renewable sources (mostly wind and solar). Even the European Union’s recent announcement that it will begin divesting in renewable energy by 2017 hasn’t shaken Germany’s ambition to forge ahead  in its quest to phase out fossil fuels.

Energiewende (the German term for ‘energy transition’) is by far the most aggressive clean energy effort among the G20 and could be as beneficial for other countries as it is for Germany. The German Institute for International and Security Affairs argues, “If the [German] energy transition succeeds, it will serve as an international model… The allure of the German energy transition represents an important foreign policy resource, of which full use should be made.”

At the moment, Energiewende is the closest thing the world has to a renewables-integration pilot on a national scale. If successful, this blueprint will expedite the broad scale integration of technologies that will be necessary to wean the world off fossil fuels and combat climate change. Read More »

Posted in Clean Energy, Climate, Grid Modernization, Renewable Energy, Utility Business Models / Tagged | Comments are closed

The Spread of Green Banking Paves the Way for Clean Energy Investments

By Brad Copithorne / Published: May 13, 2014
Source: 401kcalculator.org

Source: 401kcalculator.org

While no two “green banks” are exactly the same, the idea behind these government-created financial institutions is to dramatically expand the clean energy market. Rather than providing grants to stimulate clean energy investment, green banks use attractive interest rates and other incentives to leverage money from the private sector.

In addition to offering attractive interest rates, loan-loss reserves, and other market supports, these innovative banks draw on deep expertise from the public and private sectors to help demonstrate the profitability of clean energy investments.

By the end of the year, green banks should be up and running in Connecticut, New York, and Hawaii. We hope that California will follow soon. These states form a vanguard that has recognized the value of using a small amount of public capital to generate significant private investment in clean energy. Read More »

Posted in Clean Energy, Energy Financing, Renewable Energy / Tagged | Comments are closed