July 26
Over 1,300 Customers Enrolled in Duke’s Solar+Storage Program
Top consumer smart energy news hand-selected and brought to you by the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative.
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Duke Energy has enrolled more than 1,300 customers in North Carolina in its new PowerPair pilot, a one-time incentive-based program that offers up to $9,000 in incentives for residential customers who install a new solar-plus-battery system. The pilot program was approved by the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) in January 2024 and launched in May 2024. The total incentive is based on the approved capacity of the solar array and battery installed.
California public power utility SMUD’s long-duration battery storage project in partnership with ESS Tech, Inc. has been awarded a $10 million grant from the California Energy Commission to demonstrate a 3.6-megawatt, 8-hour iron flow battery project. SMUD said it continues to make great strides toward its goal to eliminate carbon emissions from its power supply by 2030 through investments in renewable energy projects, customer programs and cutting-edge technologies.
States that took policy action on distributed solar in the second quarter of 2024 most commonly focused on net metering rules, which accounted for 35 percent of those actions, according to a report released last Wednesday by the NC Clean Energy Technology Center. Last quarter, 44 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico took 182 policy actions regarding distributed solar, the NCCETC found.
Met-Ed, a FirstEnergy Corp. subsidiary in Eastern Pennsylvania, announced it was installing smart, automated equipment on power lines service more than 24,000 in that part of the state. Officials said the smart grid project will help prevent or minimize outages, particularly in severe weather. The project includes installing 53 automated switching devices outfitted with supervisory control and data acquisition technology on overhead power lines.
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Industry News
Renewable energy still supplies less of the world’s electricity than fossil fuels do, but it’s being built at a rate that far outpaces the construction of non-renewable forms of energy. Last year, renewables accounted for nearly 86 percent of new electricity capacity worldwide, according to new data from the International Renewable Energy Agency.
Sunrun and Baltimore Gas & Electric have launched a small vehicle-to-home grid support program in Maryland utilizing Ford F-150 Lightning trucks to demonstrate how bidirectional electric vehicle charging can ease grid stress and add value for customers. The program will deliver power to owners’ homes during peak summer demand to support Maryland’s power grid, the companies said Wednesday.
Electric utilities are pushing customers to digital channels to handle easy transactions, paying bills and checking outage status. And that trend is making call center interactions more complex. Utibe Bassey, Vice President of Customer Experience at Dominion Energy, said in an interview on the With Great Power podcast that call centers have evolved in recent years, both in response to macro-economic factors like inflation and energy costs, as well as digitalization.
Through Orange and Rockland Utilities (O&R) PowerReady incentive program, the Harbors at Haverstraw condo complex has energized hundreds of Level 2 electric vehicle chargers across a dozen buildings in Rockland County. The $2 million project, done in partnership with INF Associates, is the largest EV charging project in O&R’s service territory. Overall, the program will help make the transition to EVs more affordable for both station operators and drivers.
