Distributed Energy

With COVID-19 filling the news throughout 2020, it’s very likely you missed some of the most important developments that occurred in the power sector this year. Here’s a look at some of the highlights and big stories covered by the POWER staff this year. MOX Nuclear Fuel Loaded In January, Russian engineers announced the loading […]

2021 Predictions for Energy, Utilities, and Resources Even if the climate crisis is currently having to share headline space with the global pandemic, it has by no means lost its traction. Nor have the perils of climate change lost any of their urgency. Taking a global stance, I would say that the charge to lower […]

The shift from energy consumers to prosumers is fundamentally changing the relationship between utilities and their customers. Behind-the-meter distributed energy resources (DERs) transform the ways households consume, generate, and store power. In the U.S., there are now about 15 million smart thermostats, 2 million solar installations, and 1.5 million electric vehicles (EVs) on the road. And […]

The search for more efficient methods of power generation at a time when climate change is top of mind continues to foster innovation. A U.S. company is among the latest to release a new technology, with development of a self-contained generator that doesn’t run on fossil fuels and works on the premise that once created, […]

HOUSTON, Texas (Dec. 17, 2020) — Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners (“Quinbrook”), a specialist investor in lower carbon and renewable energy infrastructure, today announced the establishment of a joint venture with Birch Infrastructure PBLLC (“Birch”) to develop and construct renewables-powered hyperscale data center campuses in the US. The joint venture has identified and is actively developing multiple, strategically-located […]

Integrating electric vehicles (EVs) with the power grid has become a focus for utilities, particularly in areas with large concentrations of EVs. It also is another way for utilities to expand their business models, as they partner with companies involved with charging stations and residential energy storage applications. EnergyHub, a distributed energy resources (DERs) management […]

A distributed energy power plant, designed to help bring more reliability to California’s power grid, is being developed by a company whose investors include Alphabet, the parent company of Google. The project when fully developed would be the world’s largest residential virtual power plant (VPP). Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners (SIP), a group that builds, owns, operates, […]

BOULDER, Colo. (Dec. 1, 2020) – The City of Boulder is partnering with Fermata Energy to test the ability to reduce the city’s building energy costs with an innovative pilot at the North Boulder Recreation Center. Typically, electric vehicle (EV) chargers provide energy in one direction: from the energy grid or building to the car. […]

Culver City, California & Marlborough, Massachusetts- (November 24, 2020) –TerraScale, a clean infrastructure design and development firm committed to transforming and modernizing digital infrastructure, today announced that it has signed an agreement with Ambri, to deploy its proprietary Liquid Metal Battery technology. As part of the agreement, TerraScale and its data center development partners will […]

COSTA MESA, Calif. (November 19, 2020) — Veritone, Inc. (Nasdaq: VERI), the creator of the world’s first operating system for artificial intelligence, aiWARE™, today announced that it has received three new patents for its battery control technology, bringing the total number of issued patents covering its Veritone Energy Solutions to 13, with another 16 patent applications pending. “With […]

MIAMI BEACH, Fla., Nov. 19, 2020 — A&I Power, a company dedicated to developing sustainable innovations to help combat today’s climate issues in power generation, today announced the launch of their revolutionary technology which offers a highly efficient method of electrical production. A&I Power’s patented generator doesn’t require fossil fuels, is self-contained, and doesn’t have […]

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 19, 2020 — Sunrun (NASDAQ: RUN), the leading provider of residential solar, battery storage and energy services, today announced that it has contracted with one of the largest electric utilities in the United States, Southern California Edison (SCE), to increase grid resilience and lower power costs. SCE will send signals to Sunrun […]

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 19, 2020 — sonnen, a global market leader in smart residential energy storage and virtual power plants, today announced the launch of sonnenCore. The new compact, affordable, and fully sonnen-designed sonnenCore home battery solution is built using sonnen’s proven energy management expertise. This product evolution expands sonnen’s premium offerings to include a […]

By Aurelien Guichard Manager, Arthur D. Little As we near the close of 2020, companies are under greater pressure to source more energy flexibility to ensure security of supply as renewables and other “green” alternatives shift the energy mix. From board rooms to investors to social media, the decisions companies are making and the approaches […]

Houston, TX – November 4, 2020 – GridBeyond, a leader in intelligent energy technology, has released a free online tool for use within the commercial and industrial industry – the Energy Opportunity Calculator. The tool enables industrial and commercial businesses to calculate how much money they could earn and save through demand response and energy […]

Neil Wright Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology is not new, but it is extremely nascent. To many, it is the natural progression from “smart charging,” whereby electric vehicles (EVs) are only recharged at the best time for the network, to a more holistic grid scheme. But V2G trials are unfolding slowly, as finding the right business model […]

Joe Biden on Nov. 7 clinched the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency, barring Donald Trump’s prospects for a second-term. Almost immediately, reactions from various parts of the power sector streamed in, highlighting possibilities and pitfalls of Biden’s wide-ranging energy and environment agenda.  Energy, and its implications on the environment, figured prominently as […]

By Bud Earley and Mark Perlis, Covington & Burling LLP The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Sept. 17, 2020, approved a final rule that will enable distributed energy resource aggregators to compete in organized wholesale electricity markets.  Distributed energy resources (DERs) are located on the electric  distribution system or behind the customer meter and […]

Speakers at POWER’s recent Distributed Energy Experience were unanimous in their agreement that energy storage is a game-changing technology for the power generation sector. Storage provides for more reliability and resilience, and already is proving its importance to supporting the growth of solar and wind power. Utilities are incorporating storage into their generation portfolios. It […]

Black & Veatch is ending the company’s participation in coal-based power market design and construction, saying it will allow the company to focus on clean energy technologies. The engineering and construction giant’s announcement Oct. 29 comes just more than a month after another major energy company, General Electric, said it would exit the new-build coal […]

The growth of energy storage, along with deployment of new technologies, is at the heart of the future of distributed power generation. That’s according to industry executives participating in POWER’s Distributed Energy Experience. Woody Rubin, president of AES Distributed Energy, provided a keynote address on Oct. 20, talking about the rise of solar-plus-storage applications and […]

EnTech Solutions, a sister company of Faith Technologies, was created to provide renewable, resilient energy solutions that enable its partners to control energy costs and reliability and minimize their environmental impact. EnTech utilizes microgrids that leverage proprietary power control hardware, energy management software, energy storage and other distributed energy resources (DERs) to consistently deliver high-value, […]

Distributed energy systems are transforming the way power is produced and distributed. The decentralized model of power generation, where energy is produced closer to where it will be used, rather than at a large plant elsewhere and sent through the traditional grid, has several advantages, including reducing transmission losses and lowering carbon emissions. An Oct. […]

Most new utility-scale renewable energy projects, such as installations of solar and wind generation, are now including battery storage.  The growing trend of integrating storage is making such projects more financially attractive, as it enhances the generation profile of the installation. Storage helps smooth the power supply, enabling electricity to flow from a project even […]