May 4
Duke Increases Renewable Energy Capacity
Top consumer smart grid news hand-selected and brought to you by the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative.
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Duke Energy grew its renewable energy capacity by about 20 percent in 2017. The company, which serves 7.5 million customers, grew its renewable energy capacity from 5,400 MW in 2016 to more than 6,400 MW. This amount can power more than 1 million homes at peak production. The Charlotte, N.C.-based firm has a goal of having 8,000 MW of wind, solar and biomass capacity by 2020.
SEPA has ranked SCE as number one in battery storage adoption and number two in providing solar energy to consumers in the U.S. SCE has appeared amongst the top ten in SEPA’s solar and energy storage rankings since the launch of the survey in 2007. This year’s survey was conducted on 400 utilities.
This offer adds to existing state and federal discounts available to customers in California to help support the state’s goal of having five million zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2030. “Electric vehicles are a critical part of creating cleaner air and meeting California’s climate goals. Making it easier for customers to adopt EVs helps drivers reduce their environmental impact while supporting our clean energy future – a win for both our customers and the state,” said Steve Malnight, PG&E’s SVP of Strategy and Policy.
AEP Ohio secured regulatory greenlight to implement its Energy Security Plan. The energy regulator, PUCO, approved AEP Ohio’s proposal to increase electric vehicle charging and renewable energy generation infrastructure. A $10 million EV charging infrastructure development initiative will be created under the Smart Columbus project.
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Industry News
U.S. DOE announced Monday $19 million in funding for twelve new cost-shared research projects involving batteries and vehicle electrification technologies to enable extreme fast charging for EVs. The research projects are focused on systems that can decrease typical charge times to 15 minutes or less using a connector or wireless fast charging system.
New York's efforts to revamp its electric utility industry are like a ravenous monster that only wants one thing: Data. Data plays a major role in many of state's REV proceedings, representing a key factor in creating a more distributed and responsive grid. To that end, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority has been working to develop a "Utility Energy Registry" to provide aggregated load data.
This month, Californian electric power utilities are moving forward to better understand how their low-income customers use energy, following a mandate from state regulators. By harnessing the data from nearly ubiquitous smart meters in California and partnering with data science companies, these utilities will actually be able to disaggregate their customers’ electricity consumption down to the level of individual appliances.
The very best, most awesome moment of any conference is on the first day. That’s when you have the highest energy levels, hit the most sessions, plan the most booth visits. It’s when you bring your conference A game. On the first day of CS Week in Tampa on May 1, the organizers took advantage of that out-of-the-gate, A-game feeling with an intimate meeting that discussed what’s going on in the overall utilities business.
