June 4
SCE Obtained 1,360 MW of Energy Storage in 2020
Top consumer smart energy news hand-selected and brought to you by the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative.
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According to the 2020 Sustainability Report released by Edison International this week, progress was made last year on its path to cleaner energy, with its subsidiary Southern California Edison (SCE) in particular pushing major new energy storage and vehicle charging port efforts. These efforts amounted to 1,360 MW of new energy storage for the California company, along with 1,442 vehicle charging ports.
Salt River Project, an electricity provider in the greater Phoenix area, said it has selected Emerson’s OSI digital grid solutions to manage its distribution power grid, optimize operations and incorporate a growing supply of DERs. Emerson’s technologies and smart grid platform will coordinate the utility’s distribution operations that provide power to more than one million customers in central Arizona.
New data shows Xcel Energy Colorado’s 2016-2017 all-source competitive solicitation (ASCS) secured even lower costs than power sector leaders previously thought, adding momentum to interest in this emerging approach to procurement. Xcel’s ASCS returned a $0.017/kWh bid for wind, a $0.023/kWh bid for solar, and a $0.03/kWh bid for solar-plus-storage, according to a February 2021 Xcel presentation.
Duke Energy began construction last week on its 22.6 MW Speedway Solar power plant in Cabarrus County, North Carolina. This work begins following a competitive bidding process, the results of which will see the design, construction and other details handled by Swinerton Renewable Energy. Solar power generated by Speedway Solar will be delivered through a 20-year power purchase agreement.
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An electric vehicle charging pilot Pacific Gas & Electric and BMW managed in Northern California helped drivers use an additional 1,200 kWh of renewable energy annually, provided other grid benefits and cut greenhouse gas emissions, according to data from the program. The utility and car manufacturer announced in March they are expanding the ChargeForward pilot to accept about 3,000 customers.
Here’s a tip for electrifying every home in America as quickly as possible – make sure that neither upfront cost nor electrical service constraints get in the way of a homeowner choosing an electric appliance to replace the fossil-fueled one that just broke down. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait a few decades for another chance for that household to make the electric-powered choice.
A coalition of now 31 electric cooperatives has created a regional EV charging network across four states – Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, and Iowa. The program encourages co-op consumer-members to drive EVs. The coalition invested more than $100,000 in more than 40 Level 2 and Level 3 chargers provided by ZEF Energy Inc. of Edina, Minnesota, to form the CHARGE EV network.
Century-old Ford Motor Co. did something in May that the clean energy industry hadn't yet accomplished: combine clean backup power and an electric vehicle. “Ford is the first in the U.S. to offer this capability on an electric truck,” the company asserted with the launch of its electric F-150 Lightning. But it also appears to be the first providing backup power from any mass-market electric vehicle.
