May 24
Fermata, Xcel Energy Announce V2X Charging Pilot
Top consumer smart energy news hand-selected and brought to you by the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative.
Member News
Fermata Energy, Xcel Energy, City of Boulder, Colorado CarShare and Boulder Housing Partners announced a collaborative vehicle-to-everything (V2X) bidirectional charging pilot project at Boulder Housing Partners’ 30 Pearl development and the Molly’s Spirits Lakeside facility. Fermata Energy’s bidirectional charging platform will be paired with four FE-20 chargers and two of Colorado CarShare’s Nissan LEAFs.
The Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation’s largest public power utility, has yet to fully jump on the solar trend that’s sweeping the nation. But it has allowed communities within its seven-state service territory to buy some solar power for themselves. Now, Tennessee-based developer Silicon Ranch has signed a contract to build the largest community-driven solar plant the region has ever seen.
In its latest annual sustainability report, Ameren Corporation discussed a new 20-year plan meant to help it meet Missouri customers’ energy needs, while also expanding energy assistance and further developing its workforce. For its 2.4 million electric customers and more than 900,000 natural gas customers, 2023 kept in sight a plan to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2045.
Voltus and Resideo Grid Services are expanding their residential smart thermostat demand response partnership to serve Commonwealth Edison and PSEG Long Island customers, the companies said last week. The move marks another step into the residential demand response market for Voltus, a virtual power plant aggregator that manages about 6 GW of distributed energy resources across nine North American wholesale electricity markets.
Get Your Weekly Edition
Industry News
Since 2016, solar installations have quintupled in the United States, reaching more than five million as of this year, according to new data from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie. These installations include everything from home-based panels to large ground-mounted arrays spread across acres of land. More than half of all U.S. solar installations came online since 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic and more than a quarter since the Inflation Reduction Act.
Jacksonville, Florida-based public power utility JEA is working collaboratively with a number of local organizations on a project involving energy efficiency home repairs in a Jacksonville neighborhood. To reduce energy consumption and make critical repairs to homes in Jacksonville’s Historic Eastside, a federal Department of Energy grant will allow more than 70 homeowners to participate in the new Restore, Repair and Resilience Program, JEA noted.
Many utilities lack the tools at the grid edge required to handle EV growth, according to a newly released report. The University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) has released the results of a research project that studied the relationship between electric vehicle (EV) driving and charging behaviors to understand how those behaviors impact the electric grid. The study was conducted with Utilidata, an AI-powered technology company.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has created a new certification program – the Energy Star NextGen Certification for New Homes and Apartments – for homes that meet specific requirements for increased energy efficiency and reduced emissions. The voluntary program, developed with funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, builds on the foundation set by the existing Energy Star program with stronger efficiency requirements.
