September 4
SCE Will Deploy 38,000 EV Chargers
Top consumer smart energy news hand-selected and brought to you by the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative.
Member News
California regulators recently approved the largest utility-led electric vehicle charging deployment in the country. The new program allows Southern California Edison to spend $436 million of ratepayer funds to install 38,000 light-duty electric car chargers. The utility pays for supporting equipment to get power from the grid to the charger, while the customer typically owns and manages the charger itself, with optional rebates from the utility. The program supports multifamily housing and “away from home” sites like workplaces and shopping centers.
Once you purchase an EV you’ll need to charge it. And knowing when to charge it can be complicated. When can you get the best rate? And how can you use the least amount of fossil fuels while charging it? Partnering with Enel X, Uplight worked with utilities to help New York customers answer these questions and charge their EVs during the times of cleanest power generation. Customers of Central Hudson Gas & Electric and Orange & Rockland can purchase a JuiceBox EV charging station on their utilities’ respective Marketplaces and get a $450 rebate when they enroll in the EV charging program.
Paul Lau has been named to succeed Arlen Orchard as the CEO and general manager of California public power utility SMUD. Lau currently serves as chief grid strategy and operations officer at SMUD and has been a member of the SMUD executive team for more than 12 years. Lau’s appointment will be finalized at the SMUD Board of Directors’ Sept. 10 meeting. Lau would assume his new position October 3, and Orchard’s last day as CEO is October 2.
SECC recently announced the opening of the nominations window for the 2021 Best Practices Awards, a unique awards program that highlights leadership from electricity providers in developing customer-centric programs, services and strategies. Previous recipients of SECC’s Best Practices Awards include Austin Energy, National Grid, CPS Energy, Ameren Illinois, NB Power, ComEd and Puget Sound Energy.
Get Your Weekly Edition
Industry News
Transportation electrification, once considered an uphill struggle against the convenience and affordability of gasoline-fueled vehicles, now appears ready to roll. Forecasted growth of today's approximately 1.5 million U.S. electric vehicles to 20 million in 2030 requires at least $75 billion in investment, according to recent Brattle Group data. To achieve this, once-competing stakeholders must expand their still-tenuous collaboration.
Ørsted, a developer synonymous with offshore wind, will have a novel experience in 2021: All of the new power plants it completes will be onshore, and most will involve solar panels. Since building the world’s first offshore wind project 30 years ago off the coast of Denmark, no other company has played a bigger role in transforming that technology into a competitive form of power generation. Yet, as Ørsted cements its position in emerging offshore wind markets such as the U.S. and Taiwan, the Danish company is also focusing on a new opportunity: North America’s sunny skies.
NextEra Energy Resources recently highlighted a suite of clean energy storage developments in California that could nearly double the total installed capacity of battery storage available in the United States today. The company plans to build nearly 700 MW of fully-contracted battery storage projects in the state before the end of 2022.
From Australia to India, Italy, Namibia, Uruguay and the U.S., 2019 saw a record 118 GW of new generation capacity constructed. Photovoltaics topped all other technologies in new-build terms and was the most popular technology deployed in a third of nations, according to data compiled by BloombergNEF. In all, 81 countries built at least 1 MW of solar during the last calendar year, and solar accounted for nearly half of all new power generation capacity worldwide.
