Energy Exchange

One Year After Superstorm Sandy, Slow But Steady Progress Toward A Common Goal

By EDF Blogs / Published: October 29, 2013

Source: Iwan Baan

By: Rory Christian, Director of New York Smart Power, and Mary Barber, Director of Smart Power Initiatives

It was only a year ago that the most devastating storm the Northeast has ever seen slammed into the region. Hurricane Sandy pummeled the states of New York and New Jersey, destroying homes and businesses and knocking out electricity for millions of families for days, weeks and – in some cases – months.

The unprecedented situation shined a much-needed spotlight on the vulnerability of our century-old energy infrastructure, placing the issue front and center for the region’s state and local leaders, electric utility companies and regulators, particularly as climate change increases the frequency of extreme weather events. Utilities in the region have since begun to fortify flood-prone substations among other reinforcements to the power grid, but improvements that are ‘status quo’ are only part of the solution to future challenges.

Ensuring the adoption of technologies and policies that move the U.S. power grid into the 21^st century, making it more resilient, flexible and smarter, can simultaneously accomplish today’s goals while preparing for future challenges – some of which may not yet be apparent. EDF is working closely with stakeholders to find innovative and pragmatic solutions to help modernize our aging energy infrastructure, an improvement that is crucial to resiliency, safety and storm recovery. Read More »

Posted in Climate, General, New York / Tagged Climate, Superstorm Sandy | Read 1 Response

Historic Agreement Demonstrates Broad Commitment To Build Clean Energy Economy

By Derek Walker / Published: October 29, 2013

This commentary originally appeared on EDF’s California Dream 2.0 blog.

With the stroke of a pen, North American efforts to combat climate change and promote clean energy reached a new level today.

I was lucky enough to witness the historic event, as Governor Jerry Brown joined the leaders of Oregon, Washington State and the Canadian province of British Columbia, to sign an agreement that formally aligns climate and clean energy policies in the four jurisdictions.

This signing by these “Fab Four” of the Pacific Coast Collaborative makes sense given all they have in common: they’re geographically connected, share infrastructure, and their combined regional economy accounts for a $2.8 trillion GDP, making it the world’s fifth largest economy.

Posted in California, General / Tagged California, Climate, energy | Comments are closed

The U.S. Power Grid’s Cyber War Games

By John Finnigan / Published: October 28, 2013

In the 1983 thriller WarGames, Matthew Broderick plays a teen-age computer geek who unknowingly signs onto a Pentagon computer while hacking into a toy company’s new computer game. Thinking that he’s simply playing a game called Global Thermonuclear Warfare, Broderick launches the game and nearly starts a nuclear war. The North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) will hold its own war game next month with a simulated attack on the U.S. power grid.

The drill, called GridEx II, will take place on November 13-14 of this year. The participants will include 65 utilities and eight regional transmission organizations, representing most of the nation’s electricity customers. The drill will test how well the electric utility industry and the grid itself respond to physical and cyber attacks.

A NERC Critical Infrastructure Protection Committee (CIPC) working group will begin the drill by sending participants a series of simulated physical and cyber attacks, climaxing in a national security emergency. Participants will then respond and interact with each other, just as they would in a real emergency. The simulation will last 36 hours, and the CIPC working group will evaluate the participants’ responses and provide feedback on how their actions impact the ongoing scenario. After the drill, the working group will analyze the results and prepare a report on lessons learned.

Posted in Grid Modernization, Utility Business Models / Tagged Cybersecurity, FERC, NERC, Power Grid | Read 3 Responses

New Study Launches In Series Evaluating Methane Across The Natural Gas System

By Mark Brownstein / Published: October 16, 2013

Source: San Antonio Business Journal

This year is proving to be a big year for methane research. We’ve seen a handful of new studies published, some funded by EDF and some not, as well as new projects announced.

The attention methane is getting by the scientific community is justified and overdue. Methane emissions are a central issue in the debate over the role that natural gas may play in our national energy future. From a climate perspective, methane is 72 times more powerful than carbon dioxide (CO2) on a per ounce basis when released into the atmosphere over the first 20 years. And according to new projections by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), methane is far more potent than we realized (as much as 84 to 87 times more potent than CO2 on a 20-year basis).

The oil and natural gas industry is the single largest source of manmade methane emissions in the United States. Despite this, little is known about how much methane is released from where across the natural gas supply chain. But, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s latest estimates, we know enough to say that methane poses a serious problem to the climate. Read More »

Posted in Natural Gas / Comments are closed

Americans For Tax Reform: Another Group That Offers Spin Over Science

By Mark Brownstein / Published: October 4, 2013

This commentary originally appeared on Forbes.

Here we go again. In recent weeks, we have seen both Senator David Vitter and American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Jack Gerard attempt to mischaracterize the results of the groundbreaking University of Texas at Austin (UT) methane emissions study, preferring self-serving sound bites over an honest read of the data. And now we are seeing another misinformation campaign coming from Americans for Tax Reform.

In his October 2nd Forbes op-ed, Christopher Prandoni, Federal Affairs Manager for Americans for Tax Reform, uses the UT study to disparage new efforts by the State Department to address methane leakage from the natural gas system. Prandoni wrongfully claims that the UT study “calculated that average emissions were almost 50 times lower than Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates,” and that nothing further needs to be done about methane emissions.

Prandoni’s read of the UT study results couldn’t be further from the truth. Total emissions from the production sector were found to be in line with the current EPA estimates, not 50 times lower. Yes, the UT study did report some good news. Methane emissions from the stage of extraction known as well completions were lower than EPA estimates. Unfortunately for Prandoni’s argument, these lower-than-expected results were because of new green completion technologies (an emissions control method that routes excess gas to sales), soon to be required by the EPA for all new hydraulically-fractured natural gas wells. Read More »

Posted in Natural Gas / Read 2 Responses

More Companies Turning to Distributed Generation – What Does it Mean for Utilities?

By Paul Stinson / Published: October 3, 2013

Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported on an initiative at an increasing number of companies nationwide: on-site, or distributed, power generation. There are many reasons for this growing trend in corporate sustainability, along with many ramifications for the prevailing utility model in the United States – all of which highlight the importance of employing market-based solutions to create a cleaner, smarter, more resilient electric system.

Why Do Companies Unplug?

For companies such as Walmart, increasing the use of distributed, renewable generation is a vital part of larger sustainability goals, including increased use of clean energy and a call for safer ingredients used in the products the company sells. To be sure, however, even the most altruistic companies would be hard pressed to shift off the power grid without sound economic reasons.

A confluence of market factors, including tax incentives that spur attractive returns on investment, advances in solar and wind technologies and policies that encourage greater use of and investments in clean energy (like net metering and time-of-use pricing), has created an economic environment that makes distributed generation not just a viable option, but often a very attractive one. Further, off-grid power can be an effective way for companies to hedge against outages due to storms or unforeseeable catastrophes, a key idea included in the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Strategy.

Posted in Grid Modernization, On-bill repayment, Renewable Energy, Utility Business Models / Tagged Edison Electric Institute | Read 1 Response