Blog

The utility industry has undergone a remarkable shift over the past 10 years. What was traditionally a one-way commodity electron-flow to customers has now become bidirectional traffic of both electrons and bytes. With the rise of distributed energy resources (DERs) and customer demands for improved energy efficiency, utilities are handling an increasing amount of useful […]

The severe winter storm that knocked out Texas’ electricity grid in February, plunging millions of people into a cold, dark ordeal, has led to a number of takes about what went wrong. The state’s deregulated energy market has been frequently singled out as the root cause. But, while a contributing factor, it wasn’t the only […]

As society contends with the impacts of climate change, we need to aggressively pursue strategies for reducing carbon emissions. Although states in the U.S. are taking a variety of approaches to greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction, and following an equally diverse set of timelines, most state-level GHG emission goals announced so far are fairly consistent—to reduce […]

Although Mexican economic history shows moments of tension between the private sector and the federal government—for example, during the administration of President Luis Echeverría (1970-1976)—never in the modern era has such tension reached the levels experienced at this time. The attacks on the private sector, including foreign investment, that the current federal administration has carried […]

In 2009, only three in 10 American adults said dealing with global climate change should be a top priority. Over the past 10 years, this number has more than doubled: Nearly seven in 10 American adults say the federal government is doing too little to reduce the effects of global climate change, with six in […]

COMMENTARY Throughout my career—and also POWER magazine’s long history—thermal power generation has been the greatest source of dispatchable electricity generation. In my view, policymakers have run a very good and smooth evolution of power generation diversity off the rails. The Biden Administration and Democrat Congress policies constitute an anti-American war on carbon. These policies, if […]

2020 was a lot of things, most of them sombre. However, there is one positive way I believe we in the distribution grid sector can describe the year, as an inflection point. In years to come, we may well look back on 2020 as the year when terms like “energy transition” and “digitalization” finally began […]

During lockdown, Delhi, one of the world’s most polluted cities, enjoyed some of the freshest air that the capital has seen in decades. Having witnessed the benefits of eliminating pollution from their cities, politicians the world over are talking about “building back better” in the wake of Covid-19. For many countries that means accelerating investment […]

The 46th president of the United States has officially been sworn in. During his inauguration address President Joe Biden spoke of unity, empathy, and the challenges Americans must face together. Challenges indeed abound for Biden’s incoming environmental and energy team, including New Mexico congresswoman Deb Haaland as Interior Secretary, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm as […]

Growing the amount of renewable power that’s available on the grid is equally as crucial for the energy transition as the ability to generate power from renewable sources. Fossil fuels continue to have the advantage because of market-bidding protocols that place their power on wholesale energy markets across the country, making it widely available to […]