April 5
Duke Energy Proposes EV Charging Program
Top consumer smart grid news hand-selected and brought to you by the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative.
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Duke Energy filed a plan recently with North Carolina regulators for a $76 million electric transportation program to develop charging infrastructure for electric vehicles and buses. The utility said the proposed buildout for nearly 2,500 EV charging stations is the largest such filing in the Southeast. The program aims to develop a statewide fast-charging station network, following a similar $10.4 million EV program Duke proposed in South Carolina in October.
Landis+Gyr announced Monday it reached an agreement to support Ameren Missouri’s Smart Meter Project with the deployment of 1.4 million advanced meters and a utility IoT network. Ameren Missouri will deploy Landis+Gyr’s Gridstream Connect solution. The deployment will include 1.27 million advanced electricity meters and 130,000 gas meters. The contract also includes an extension of Landis+Gyr’s meter data management system and Command Center head-end system.
Illinois CUB has published the results of a study conducted to understand consumer benefits owing to sustainable and intelligent charging of electric vehicles. According to the study, Charging Ahead: Deriving Value from Electric Vehicles for All Electricity Customers, intelligent charging of EVs could result in up to $2.6 billion in consumer benefits over the next decade.
Illinois utility Ameren recently unveiled the latest utility project to explore how DERs can be coordinated to serve as grid and energy market players, using the blockchain and distributed ledger technology. Like many pilots of its kind, it will run via software simulation at first ― but it also has Ameren’s state-of-the-art microgrid to eventually test it out under real-world conditions.
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Industry News
Energy efficiency programs are becoming ever more efficient, according to EIA’s latest Annual Electric Power Industry Report, which revealed millions of megawatt hours are being saved by utilities. From 2014 to 2017, the amount of incremental energy saved through such programs rose from 26.5 million megawatt hours to 29.9 million megawatt hours. This is in spite of the fact that the funds being invested in these programs are not increasing by much. Over the same period, spending has only increased by $300 million.
Idaho Power unveiled a goal recently to provide 100-percent clean energy by 2045 on the heels of an announcement that it will purchase 120-MW of solar energy through a PPA with Jackpot Holdings at a price of less than US $0.022 cents per kWh. Idaho Power’s 100 percent clean energy by 2045 goal makes it one of the first publicly owned energy companies to set a goal for reaching 100-percent clean energy.
FPL unveiled plans to build what it says will be the largest solar-powered battery system in the world. The 409 MW/900 MWh Manatee Energy Storage Center is slated to begin operation in 2021, powered by an existing FPL solar plant built to help phase out two units of its gas-fired Manatee Clean Energy Center. The current largest solar-powered battery system is 100 MW/129 MWh, located in Australia.
DTE Energy announced recently its plan to reduce carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2040. The company submitted its Integrated Resource Plan to the MPSC, outlining the steps it will take over time to transform to a cleaner generation mix. The plan calls for adding more renewables, increasing energy efficiency for its customers above state requirements, and retiring coal plants sooner than previously announced. DTE said it will reduce carbon emissions at least 50 percent by 2030 and 80 percent by 2040.
