February 11
Itron Launches EV Charging Management Solution
Top consumer smart energy news hand-selected and brought to you by the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative.
Member News
Itron launched its Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Optimizer solution, which enables EV charging assets to work in harmony with the grid. Available globally, the solution is charger and vehicle agnostic, cloud-based and integrates EV charging management and grid management systems to provide comprehensive EV charging and energy management for utilities and EV charging operators.
Back in 2016, Chicago-area utility ComEd unveiled its plan for a “community of the future” in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood, the city’s center of Black history and culture. The idea was to install backup generators and grid controls that could provide local residents and critical services such as hospitals and nursing homes with always-on power when the grid fails, as well as support the growth of rooftop solar, batteries and EVs.
Snohomish County Public Utility District’s (PUD) recently adopted 2021 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) focuses on conservation and energy storage to meet electrical demand through 2045. The “unusual” 24-year long planning horizon of the IRP is designed to enable Snohomish PUD to study how it will transition to 100-percent clean energy by 2045 as called for by Washington State’s Clean Energy Transformation Act (CETA).
Duke Energy plans to reduce its energy generated from coal to less than five percent by 2030 and exit coal generation entirely by 2035 as part of the largest planned coal fleet retirement in the industry. The company is also expanding its 2050 net-zero goals to now include Scope 2 and certain Scope 3 emissions.
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Industry News
A Vermont natural gas utility is expanding into a new and unexpected line of business: helping customers switch to electric appliances. Vermont Gas Systems (VGS) announced in December that it would begin selling, leasing, installing and servicing electric heat pump water heaters for customers in and around its service territory in the northwest part of the state.
Massachusetts awarded $13.1 million in grants to 54 government and private entities to install 306 Direct Current Fast Charging (DCFC) electric vehicle charging ports at 150 locations. The program provides grants covering all of the eligible cost to acquire and install publicly accessible DCFC stations at government-owned properties and 80 percent at all other locations, up to $50,000 per charging port.
The U.S. Departments of Energy and Transportation announced that nearly $5 billion would be made available to build out a national EV charging network under the new National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program. As part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the NEVI program will provide states with funding over the next five years to create a network of EV charging stations along designated Alternative Fuel Corridors.
The U.S. market for community solar power will add 4.5 GW over the next five years, a nine-percent increase over previous projections, according to a new report from Wood Mackenzie. The report, US community solar market outlook: H2 2021, done in collaboration with the Coalition for Community Solar Access (CCSA), attributed the growth to expanded programs and new initiatives.
