April 26
Con Edison Updates Clean Energy Progress
Top consumer smart energy news hand-selected and brought to you by the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative.
Member News
Con Edison released its annual sustainability report, in which it outlines its progress in developing the energy infrastructure to support a transition away from carbon-emitting fossil fuels. By the end of 2023, customers of the company’s utilities, Con Edison Co. of New York and Orange and Rockland Utilities (O&R), had installed 822 MW of renewable power capacity. Further, its energy efficiency programs provided customers with more than $304 million for making upgrades to their homes and businesses.
There is a reason they call them complex rates. Comprehending modern, i.e. complex, rate structures can take up to trillions of calculations. And the resulting rates must then be marketed to customers clearly and in a way that ensures a positive experience. Then there is the billing of those rates, which can’t be done in the utility’s existing CIS without millions of dollars in system customizations that can take a long time to implement. It’s no easy task.
As American consumers become more in tune with the household energy usage data that’s now widely available from smart home and smart grid technologies, the possibilities of what they can achieve with electricity become more top of mind, finds a new report from the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC), a nonprofit organization that works to learn the wants and needs of energy consumers in the United States and Canada.
The CPS Energy Board of Trustees voted to approve a contract selecting Oracle as the vendor for the utility’s new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platform. The announcement marks the next step in CPS Energy’s efforts to modernize its 20-year-old business operating system with Oracle’s integrated utility platform. The approved contract for the software is valued at $70 million.
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Industry News
The Biden administration is making a historic $7 billion investment in solar initiatives for low-income families. The funding will help nearly half of U.S. states to create such programs for the first time – and enable the other half to build on existing progress. To celebrate Earth Day on Monday, the White House and the Environmental Protection Agency announced 60 winners of the Solar for All grant competition.
The U.S. DOE has outlined a wide array of solutions to address increased electricity demand on the nation’s power grid while continuing to reduce emissions. The report affirms that investing in all technology solutions, including clean energy generation and storage, transmission expansion and enhancement, and efficiency and demand management tools, can provide ample, reliable and secure power in an age of rising electricity demand without having to rely on older, dirtier technologies.
General Motors’ first vehicle-to-home charging products are now available to residential customers through its new subsidiary GM Energy, the automaker announced last week in a press release. GM Energy’s V2H charging bundle includes the necessary hardware to enable the transfer of energy between a compatible Ultium-based GM electric vehicle and a properly equipped home.
David Stile knew his air conditioner wasn’t long for this world. It was already 24 years old — ancient for an AC – and he wanted to replace it before it broke. The project would come with hassle and expense, but in it, Stile also saw an opportunity. He could switch over to a heat pump. That way, he’d get a new AC and heater in one fell swoop – and slash his home’s carbon pollution too.
