July 18
The Always-On Grid Asset Hiding in the Attic
Top consumer smart energy news hand-selected and brought to you by the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative.
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Summer is officially here, and utility operators across the country are watching power systems strain under extreme heat and air conditioning demand. While much of the industry is focused on the latest digital solutions and demand response programs to keep the lights on, Seth Little has a different take: your attic insulation might be just as important as any new tech. Little, who directs market development and partnerships at CLEAResult, makes a compelling case for recognizing traditional efficiency measures as legitimate grid assets.
CPS Energy continues expanding its customer payment options with the launch of Pay-by-Text, a convenient new way for customers to pay their energy bills directly through a text message, it said this month. “This secure and mobile-friendly service is designed to make bill payment faster and more convenient, allowing customers to manage their accounts on the go,” the utility said.
The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports that the recent heat waves plaguing the northern hemisphere this summer have caused a massive surge in demand, surpassing seasonal peak load forecasts. For electric utilities, heat waves challenge grid resiliency and drive up operational costs, as grid operators scramble to meet spiking demand. In response, FERC Chair Mark Christie called for more dispatchable resources to meet demand.
Ameren Illinois this month celebrated the launch of 25 new electric school buses in St. Louis, calling it one of the largest such deployments in its service territory. The utility said the launch was in partnership with the East St. Louis School District 189, Highland Electric Fleets, North American Central School Bus and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean School Bus Program.
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Industry News
A home electrification and solar pilot program for lower-income Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard residents is cutting participants’ energy bills nearly 60 percent and is expected to inform Massachusetts’ ongoing efforts to bring renewable energy and energy efficiency to all households. The program gave solar panels to all 55 participating households and heat pumps to 45 of those, most at no cost and some with a low co-payment, depending on income levels.
Despite open hostility from the Trump administration toward renewable sources of power, solar in particular is expected to be a larger part of the energy mix this summer and going forward, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said in a report last week. The electric power sector will generate 124 billion kWh from solar this summer, 34 percent more than it did during the June-September 2024 period.
AI isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution – without proper guardrails, datasets and models, it’s a bit like throwing data spaghetti at the wall and hoping something sticks. And while today’s AI chatbots, image generators and advanced analytics applications aren’t quite refined enough to take everyone’s job yet, internal reluctance to adopt something that appears to threaten one’s own employment status has proven to be quite the obstacle.
As the eastern half of the United States baked under record heat late last month and electricity demand reached multi-year peaks, it looked like the grid might succumb. Grid operators and public officials scrambled to avoid a disaster, ordering generators to defer maintenance and customers to conserve energy. The PJM Interconnection served about 161 GW of load on June 24, its highest demand since 2011 and not far off its all-time high of 165.6 GW.
