March 1
NREL: Heat Pumps Would Cut Bills for Most Homes
Top consumer smart energy news hand-selected and brought to you by the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative.
Member News
Air-source heat pumps would lower energy bills for a majority of U.S. households, most significantly in colder climates, while cutting greenhouse gas emissions, according to researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). However, heat pump efficiency is a key factor in whether households can save on energy bills.
Meeting demand proves a little more difficult every year, as utilities have to balance electrification and decarbonization efforts, stress from climate change and weather events, and the increased adoption of DERs. As such, demand flexibility strategies like BYOD programs, EV managed charging or virtual power plants employ DERMS to aggregate these devices and have proven critical as load management tools.
SPAN and Landis+Gyr announced a strategic partnership meant to advance electrification, create grid flexibility and build resilience, with the intention to help utilities improve utilization of existing assets, enable distributed energy resource (DER) flexibility management and enhance customer engagement. The companies say the solution will deliver a whole-home, multi-asset virtual power plant (VPP).
The Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC) announced the recipients of the 2024 Best Practices Awards this week at the 2024 Consumer Symposium, a one-day event on the consumer-focused energy transition that is held each year as part of DISTRIBUTECH International, the premier annual event for transmission and distribution.
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Industry News
Solar additions will contribute 58 percent of new electricity generation capacity this year, while battery storage additions will make up 23 percent, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Solar will add a record 36.4 GW if additions proceed as scheduled this year, the EIA said Feb. 15. “This growth would almost double last year’s 18.4 GW increase, which was itself a record for annual utility-scale solar installation in the United States.”
Electric utilities find themselves between a rock and a hard place. Business customers are paying more than ever for their electricity and, not surprisingly, they’re not happy about it. But when it comes to setting those rates, utilities are at the mercy of many external factors, ranging from the commodities market to local regulations to the weather.
A new weatherization jobs resource hub in Wisconsin is part of advocates’ effort to avoid the boom-and-bust cycle that followed previous increases in federal energy efficiency funding. Green Workforce Connect is a program of the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC), which recently rolled out the platform in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Oklahoma with hopes to eventually expand it nationwide.
On a gray Saturday, I pull up to the curb of the Geos neighborhood during a snowstorm. Through the fat falling flakes, I can just make out the multicolored buildings that look modern, attractive – and, frankly, normal. But these homes are special in a crucial, planet-friendly way: They don’t burn fossil fuels.
