August 22
Consumers Energy Commits $2 Million to Help Customers with Past-Due Bills
Top consumer smart energy news hand-selected and brought to you by the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative.
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Consumers Energy said it will commit $2 million to helping thousands of electric and natural gas customers who have fallen behind on their summer energy bills. The company, Michigan’s largest energy provider, said the funding is available for eligible customers and will be distributed as one-time assistance payments through two of its community agency partners: The Heat and Warmth Fund (THAW) and The Salvation Army.
Virtual Peaker has partnered with Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative (SMECO) and ICF launch the FlexHome Pilot, a demand response program for residential members in southern Maryland. This voluntary program is the first in the state to go beyond traditional thermostat-based demand response by leveraging WiFi-connected water heaters to optimize energy usage.
Utilities are transforming one of their most fundamental tools – rate design – to tackle the challenges of America’s electricity boom. What was once primarily a mechanism for collecting revenue has transformed into an ecosystem of sophisticated solutions. New rate structures are enabling new programs for distributed energy resources and demand flexibility, helping customers get engaged by offering compensation for participating in grid management.
Duke Energy is looking to merge its two electric utilities in the Carolinas – Duke Energy Carolinas and Duke Energy Progress. Since the 2012 merger of Duke Energy and Progress Energy, Duke Energy Carolinas and Duke Energy Progress have operated as separate utilities. The merger, or strategic reorganization, has been planned for years. The combination will create a single utility that will result in more streamlined operations and reduced costs for customers.
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Industry News
Growing up in Georgia, Montana Busch says he had two passions: technology and the environment. In 2007, when he was still a teenager, he founded Alternative Energy Southeast, a solar installer that today employs some 30 people between its offices in Athens and Savannah. Business is booming, but Busch fears it will be short-lived.
According to PPL Electric Utilities, its smart grid technology has now prevented more than three million power outages since 2015. The company said its technology equates to more than 650 million minutes of keeping the lights on by avoiding power outages. The smart grid technology reroutes power around trouble spots when they occur, officials said.
Mounting evidence shows that gas stoves – used in nearly 40 percent of U.S. homes – pose serious health risks. Now, Coloradans have a new tool to learn about the dangers of cooking with little blue flames. Gas stoves sold in the state will need a yellow health-warning label under a first-in-the-nation law that went into effect earlier this month. Like other gas-burning appliances, gas ranges spew noxious compounds such as carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides.
California has launched its largest electric vehicle charging infrastructure program to date. The $55 million “Fast Charge California Project” will cover as much as the entire cost of installing fast EV chargers at businesses and other public sites statewide. The new program is part of the California Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Project, which has helped build nearly 10,000 public EV chargers throughout California since 2017 and is the nation’s largest project of its type.
