Millennials (Generation Y) are becoming the largest consumer demographic on the market, overtaking baby boomers. This shift is also helping to redefine customer relationships between clients and utilities, according to a recent report. The report, from SGCC, confirms this shift we are starting to see.

APS has proposed a slate of new energy programs and rates that will help customers conserve energy and control their usage, including energy storage, demand response and load management programs. The proposals include incentives for smart thermostats, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, electric school buses and charging infrastructure, energy storage and water heater timers.

Ameren has taken a critical step closer toward a distributed, decentralized power grid. In partnership with S&C Electric, they successfully completed a 24-hour “islanding” test earlier this month at the utility’s newly built microgrid in Champaign, Illinois, using wind, solar and battery storage.

In the prevailing narrative of the rooftop solar industry, the dominant theme is combat. The good guys are the innovative, climate-positive, customer-pleasing solar companies, which must be nimble to avoid being crushed by the plodding, influence-buying, fossil fuel-spewing dinosaurs of the electricity industry, the utilities.

From behavioral demand response to dynamic pricing, there are a lot of rate structures and programs utilities can adopt to send signals to customers to reduce their power usage. The key to success is in finding the right one. Many utilities are experimenting with time-of-use rates, and some have gone further.

In the second quarter of 2017, 443 residential and commercial energy systems were deployed across the United States, representing 32 megawatt-hours of capacity. According to GTM Research and the Energy Storage Association’s U.S. Energy Storage Monitor, this is the most grid-interactive behind-the-meter energy storage ever deployed in a single quarter.