Commentary

Energy and utilities companies are grappling with unprecedented challenges. With the cost of electricity surging by 28.5% in just five years, the average American now spends nearly $300 a month on utilities, leading to a rise in customer defaults and mounting bad debt. Global energy demand is only set to grow in the coming years […]

With the 2024 U.S. presidential election rapidly approaching, energy mergers and acquisitions (M&A) professionals are considering how a new presidency could impact the transaction planning, structuring and execution of deals, including how the candidates are likely to approach regulation, especially around M&A. Both candidates are prioritizing different energy subsectors as part of their economic vision […]

I’m no Thomas Edison, but he sure was on to something with direct current (DC). Edison was a prolific inventor and extraordinary entrepreneur with many of his innovations still in operation today. How exactly did he do that? Well, he wasn’t just someone who invented stuff. He had another aspect of his character that’s underappreciated—his […]

Dennis Wamsted and Seth Feaster at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis recently wrote a commentary looking at Energy Capital Partners’ (ECP) deal to take over ownership of the General James M. Gavin coal-fired power plant in Ohio. The 2,709-MW Gavin plant is ranked as the fifth-largest carbon dioxide-emitting power plant in the […]

President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) into law in 2022. The IRA is the largest public investments in renewable energy in American history and created more than 20 different tax incentives for renewable energy and related manufacturing. Certain Republic politicians have directed vitriol at the IRA. However, even if Republicans win the White […]

The artificial intelligence (AI) revolution is transforming our world, but it comes with an insatiable surge in data centers that are powered by an ever-growing appetite for energy. As AI and high-performance computing (HPC) applications proliferate, the tech industry faces a growing challenge: building the next generation of data centers and finding suitable locations with […]

The rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI)-powered workloads and high-performance computing driving a surge in electricity consumption by the data center industry. Worldwide, data centers account for 1-2% of global electricity use, and in the U.S. data centers are responsible for about 2% of total electricity consumption. The demand will continue to grow. Today’s generative […]

Singapore stands at a pivotal juncture in its journey toward sustainability, with renewable energy (RE) emerging as a beacon of hope in the fight against climate change. Post-COP 28, many countries, including

The growth of distributed energy resources (DERs) has significantly increased over the past decade as the U.S. moves to decarbonize the electric grid. Growth has been possible by incentivizing the transition to clean energy; states and federal legislation, such as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), have used tax credits and other programs to accelerate deployment. […]

Every year, I look forward to attending several power industry events. Among my favorites is the big event POWER hosts, known as Experience POWER Week. The conference will be held this year at the Renaissance

Energy services businesses are poised to benefit from an unprecedented amount of government support for energy infrastructure. However, choppy waters lie ahead as business models and market conditions evolve

To secure federal funding, developers must navigate various financing and investment options related to grid resiliency and modernization, transmission deployment, and critical electric generation facilities. Responding to funding demands, however, can pose significant challenges. Balancing early-stage project commitments with application requirements blurs the line between speculating about long-term project details, being non-responsive, and making costly […]

A new U.S. president will be inaugurated in less than five months. Polls show the race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris to be very close, with potentially only a few swing states deciding the election. While energy policy may not be a deciding factor for many Americans in choosing who they will vote for, […]

This week marks the second anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a critical milestone for the section 45Q tax credit, the foundational policy for the deployment of carbon management technologies, which was further enhanced in the IRA. The 45Q tax credit provides a credit on a per-ton basis for carbon that is captured from […]

Over the last few years, the energy industry has moved down a path of massive change, disruption, and uncertainty. In the U.S., growth projections over the next 15 years include 2,000 GW of PV solar and wind, 1,100 GW of storage, all seemingly coming from nowhere, driving grid interconnection requests at the end of 2023 […]

I thought the title from R.E.M.’s 1987 song was a fitting headline for this article. I contemplated using Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” but I thought R.E.M.’s “stream of

Transitioning the world towards cleaner and greener energy is proving to be more challenging than we once all hoped. There are real concerns about what impact the slower speed of uptake is having on our

Connected infrastructure offers a holistic approach to creating a smarter, greener, and more livable world. More people are moving to urban areas than ever before, even as the impacts of climate change are

As governments adapt to ongoing clean energy goals, such as the Paris Agreement, green technologies have become more important than ever. The U.S. government has confirmed such goals, striving to implement 100% carbon pollution-free electricity by 2035 and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. We are further seeing demand for critical minerals for these green technologies grow, as copper, zinc, […]

In an era defined by rapid technological evolution and global labor shortages, industries face unprecedented challenges when it comes to service and maintenance. The energy landscape, in particular, has seen dramatic shifts, with distribution networks more complex than ever, plus uptime performance and system reliability an increasing priority across many different industry sectors. COMMENTARY It’s […]

This month, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and the Commonwealth’s largest utility, Dominion Energy, announced a request for proposal (RFP) for the development and construction of an advanced nuclear small modular reactor (SMR), and the governor signed Senate Bill 454 designed to facilitate the research, design, construction, and deployment of what will be America’s first commercial […]

After Hurricane Beryl laid a path of destruction through the greater Houston area, the storm’s impact on the local power grid is having an outsized effect on the ongoing debate about the future of Texas’ energy and electrical infrastructure. The lessons we take from this incident, which left 2.5 million people without power at the height […]

The urgency for an energy transition has never been more critical. Climate change, air pollution, resilience, and national security concerns make it clear that minor adjustments to our energy system are no longer sufficient. We must revolutionize the 150-year-old electrical grid, transforming it into a robust energy ecosystem capable of meeting today’s demands and the […]

We serve as elected utility regulators in Georgia and Arizona. Our states are thriving. Economic opportunities abound. And we need more energy. Both of our states have nuclear reactors, and there is public support to build more of them—if the right deal can be made. But it is not just Georgia and Arizona. Many states […]

In approving the development of a 2,800-acre wind farm across prime agricultural land in the east of England, the UK Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Miliband, has confirmed what those who understand renewable market dynamics have known all along: That the UK’s energy transition policymaking has been flawed and riven […]

The Governing Body of the iMasons Climate Accord, a program of Infrastructure Masons, is calling on all suppliers serving data centers to support greater transparency in Scope 3 emissions as part of broader efforts to reduce the industry’s carbon footprint. Consisting of AWS, Digital Realty, Google, Meta, Microsoft and Schneider Electric, the Governing Body released […]

The Solar Energy Manufacturers for America (SEMA) Coalition on July 15 submitted comments for consideration to update the domestic content bonus established in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). “The Biden Administration and Congress made a commitment to reshore the entire solar supply chain with the Inflation Reduction Act, but that will not be possible without […]

On Friday, May 31, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Jennifer Granholm flew to Georgia to attend a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Plant Vogtle, the first set of nuclear reactors built in the U.S. in nearly 30 years, where she called for another 198 large-scale reactors to follow. There is a lot I don’t understand in […]

After a decades-long slowdown marked by fits and starts, the U.S. is once again building and innovating in nuclear power. In April, the second of two new nuclear units went into service at Georgia Power’s

Subject matter experts run the risk of losing their audience to overly complex and scientific messaging, as is the case in many technical industries. After all, what’s exciting to an engineer may not be to the average utility customer. Therefore, to make an emotional connection with customers and stakeholders, brands in the electric utility and […]