Advancements in batteries, along with an improved regulatory environment and more investment, could make this decade the Roaring ’20s for energy storage.
Many areas have been considered a focus for the electric power industry in recent years. The grid continues to face several challenges, as technology advancements transform the way electricity is produced and delivered.
Industry analysts have told POWER that energy storage, be it from batteries, thermal systems, mechanical storage, hydrogen production, or pumped hydropower, is critical to the advancement of the power sector. The need for storage is considered paramount to the electrification of transportation and other businesses, and to continued growth in renewable energy.
“For energy storage, the best is definitely yet to come,” said Ryan Brown, co-founder and CEO of Salient Energy, a Canada-based zinc-ion battery manufacturer. Brown told POWER, “We know that the industry is still in its infancy in almost all respects. While adoption is already meaningful and rapidly accelerating, a clean energy world will require trillions of dollars’ worth of additional capacity to be installed.
first published week of: 03/08/2021
In a series of Feb. 12 filings, a large group of utilities led by the Southern Co. asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to approve a new energy exchange market spanning parts of 10 Southeast US states.
Unlike more sophisticated, centralized energy markets run by regional transmission organizations and independent system operators, the proposed Southeast energy exchange market is aimed at enhancing the existing bilateral market in the Southeast by making it more efficient. At the core of the new energy-only market — it will not be used to sell capacity — is an automated trading platform designed to facilitate sub-hourly, bilateral transactions by matching trading partners that will utilize unused transmission capacity to achieve cost savings throughout the region.
The 14 founding members include most of the major utilities in the region, such as subsidiaries of Southern and Duke Energy, as well as the Tennessee Valley Authority. Several municipal utilities and electric cooperatives have also signed up, while five additional entities are actively pursuing membership, according to the filings (ER21-1111, et al.).
The founding entities collectively own approximately 160 GW of generating capacity and serve about 640 TWh of energy for load across 10 Balancing Authority Areas and two time zones.
Read full story at S&P Global Platts…
first published week of: 02/22/2021
The utility will install approximately 500K smart meters, a blended IP Landis+Gyr Gridstream network solution and cloud-based software.
Landis+Gyr Technology Inc., a subsidiary of Landis+Gyr Group AG said that it has reached an agreement with AES Ohio on a comprehensive grid modernization initiative.
The utility will install approximately 500,000 smart meters and a Gridstream Connect IoT platform using RF Mesh IP and cellular networks. In addition, AES Ohio will use Landis+Gyr cloud services for system operating software, along with network management services and installation support. Cellular-enabled network devices and meters will be offered under turnkey contracts utilizing Landis+Gyr’s agreement with Vodafone Business IoT services to provide best fit coverage across the utility service area.
”This project is a crucial component in the investments we continue to make in our distribution system and customer service to enhance resiliency and smart energy applications,” said Vice President, US Smart Grid and Ohio T&D Operations Kathy Storm at AES Ohio.
Read full story at PowerGrid International…
first published week of: 07/05/2021
Successes during the pandemic helped company earn the recognition.
Site Selection magazine has named Alabama Power one of the nation’s Top 20 Utilities in Economic Development , citing the company’s work to help recruit industry and create jobs throughout the state.
Alabama Power earned the recognition for work done in 2020, a year that included the challenges of the pandemic and the economic slowdown it caused. Despite those challenges, the Alabama Power Economic and Community Development (ECD) team had a hand in announcements totaling $2 billion in new and expanded capital investment and nearly 3,000 jobs. This includes ArcelorMittal’s $500 million investment and 300-job expansion at its joint venture with Nippon Steel Corp. near Mobile
Read full story at Alabama News Center…
first published week of: 09/20/2021
Lineworker training program graduates 39 students
Bishop State , Lawson State and Jefferson State community colleges recently held graduation ceremonies for the spring lineworker training programs’ 39 successful students.
Alabama Power partners with the Birmingham and Mobile community colleges on workforce development initiatives to prepare students for careers in the skilled trades.
“We are excited to partner with these outstanding colleges and provide opportunities for Alabamians to train for great, safe careers as lineworkers,” said Jeff Peoples, Alabama Power executive vice president of Customer and Employee Services. “Helping ensure our state’s workforce is well-represented and prepared to succeed today and in the economy of the future is an important way we seek to elevate Alabama.”
Read full story at Alabama Power…
first published week of: 04/26/2021
Utility operators are asking people not to throw flushable wipes in the toilet.
Alabama utility operators are trying to discourage the state’s residents from believing the claims of “flushable wipes,” asking people not to throw them away in the toilet.
The utilities are blaming the wipes for clogging pipes and causing backups of raw sewage overflow.
“There is no such thing as a flushable wipe. There never has been such thing as a flushable wipe,” Jessica Walker, spokesperson for the city of Fairhope, which operates its own municipal sewer system, told AL.com.
The products’ use around the country have surged over the past decade and become even more popular during the coronavirus pandemic. But utilities say the wipes congeal with grease and other cooking fats that are also sent improperly through sewer systems, creating a waste combination that blocks pumps and pipes and become a major cause of sewer backups and overflows into waterways.
A National Association of Clean Water Agencies report from last year estimates that wipes are causing $441 million in additional operational costs each year for wastewater utilities nationwide, according to AL.com.
Read full story at WAAY 31 ABC…
first published week of: 08/09/2021
Alliant Energy on Tuesday announced it would retire its 1,100 MW Columbia Energy Center, making the company's subsidiary Wisconsin Power & Light coal-free by 2025.
Alliant and Duke's announcements are the latest in a spate of utility decisions to end operations of their coal plants, largely due to economic factors. More and more companies are turning toward cheaper, cleaner generation such as wind and solar, particularly as they pursue lower carbon emissions.
"The closure of Columbia is truly a historic moment as we stop burning coal in our Wisconsin Operations and fully turn our attention to generating cleaner energy using renewable resources, such as solar, battery storage and high efficiency gas," said David de Leon, president of Alliant Energy's Wisconsin energy company in a statement. The utility co-owns the plant with Wisconsin Public Service Corporation, a subsidiary of WEC Energy Group, and Madison Gas and Electric Company. Unit 1 will retire by the end of 2023, and unit 2 by the end of 2024.
Read full story at UtilityDive…
first published week of: 02/08/2021
Amazon’s renewable energy investments equivalent to energy use of 3 million U.S. homes and will eliminate 13.7 million metric tons of carbon emissions each year as Amazon works to reach net-zero carbon by 2040
Amazon ... announced 18 new utility-scale wind and solar energy projects across the U.S., Finland, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the U.K., totaling 5.6 gigawatts (GW) of procured capacity to date in 2021. Amazon now has 274 renewable energy projects globally and is on a path to power 100% of its business operations with renewable energy by 2025—five years earlier than its original 2030 commitment. These new utility-scale wind and solar projects bring Amazon’s total committed renewable electricity production capacity to more than 12 GW and 33,700 gigawatt hours (GWh) when the projects become fully operational, or electricity output equivalent to powering more than 3 million U.S. homes for a year. The projects will supply renewable energy for Amazon’s corporate offices, fulfillment centers, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centers that support millions of customers globally. …
Read full story at Yahoo!…
first published week of: 12/06/2021
Since the onset of the pandemic, millions of Americans have been struggling with paying rent and utility bills, putting a strain on power utilities' revenues and raising the question about who and when will foot the bill for the billions of U.S. dollars in energy bills arrearages. More than half of U.S. states introduced moratoriums on electricity and gas utility shutoffs in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 emergency as millions of Americans lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic impact on businesses and the economy. Those moratoriums eased households' fears that they would be left without lighting or heating while also struggling to pay rent or put food on their tables. Winter and COVID-19 utility shut-off moratoriums are set to end in 28 states between February and March 2021, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA).
At the same time, home energy use data provider Sense found that during the lockdowns and stay-at-home orders in the spring of 2020, the average home electrical usage increased by 22 percent compared to 2019, and most consumers would have to pay 22 percent more on their April electricity bill compared to April 2019.
For utilities, the higher household bills would have offset lower industrial use of electricity if many customers had not fallen behind in their energy bills payments
Read full story at OilPrice.com…
first published week of: 02/15/2021
From Google Maps to geotagging on Facebook, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have become an everyday part of life.
Like other computationally intensive fields, GIS has its roots in the 1960s, an era of rapid technological development in computer science. The evolution of quantitative geography paved the way for the GIS platform we know today, and it is now used across all major industrial sectors. In the energy and electric utility arenas, GIS has been applied to infrastructure siting/capacity planning, resiliency analyses, disaster response and more.
What is GIS?
Simply put, GIS translates data about places and locations into a visual format — either interactive maps or static customized maps — allowing us to answer questions and analyze results.
Creating GIS maps requires handling large datasets and performing numerous complex calculations, which can be achieved through GIS software packages. The ArcMap package by Esri is one of the more popular licensed GIS applications that require a fee to access. However, there are also open-source and free software applications, including QGIS and GRASS
Read full story at Advanced Energy…
first published week of: 08/23/2021