Smart Grid

The Department of Energy (DOE) plans to make an additional $4 billion in loan guarantees available to help commercialize U.S. renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies that avoid, reduce, or sequester greenhouse gases. The DOE on Wednesday issued a draft loan guarantee solicitation under Title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (through Section […]

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) should have classified and protected a sensitive grid-related document created by its staff, the Department of Energy’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) said in a memorandum on Wednesday.  Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) requested that the inspector general investigate sensitive information leaks suspected to have originated […]

One of the world’s first power storage systems employing used electric vehicle (EV) batteries began operating on Japan’s Yumeshima Island in Osaka this February. The 600 kW/400 kWh system developed by Tokyo-based Sumitomo Corp. consists of 16 EV batteries that were recovered and inspected by the Sumitomo and Nissan Motor Co. joint venture 4R Energy […]

The energy industry, already familiar with the latest iteration of the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) reliability standards, should take note: Meeting

A massive coronal mass ejection (CME)—commonly known as a solar storm—in July 2012 could have rivaled the worst recorded event from 1859 had it hit the Earth, according to a study published Mar. 18 in Nature Communications. Research at the University of California, Berkeley, and by Chinese scientists into a magnetic storm on July 23, […]

The future is looking bright for AES Huntington Beach Power Generating Station. Renderings of a proposed new look for the power plant—located steps from the beach on the Pacific Coast Highway—include

You’ve no doubt heard that U.S. power plant emissions have been dropping overall and that one of the reasons has been decreased thermal generation resulting from essentially flat demand. As of Jan. 1 this

Approximately 150,000 plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) are already on the road in the United States, according to various reports. These vehicles include relatively wallet-friendly PEV options like the

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)—which notes that geomagnetic disturbances (GMD) can have potentially severe, widespread impact on the bulk electric power system—has issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) to approve its first reliability standard concerning GMD operations. The NOPR issued on Jan. 16 concerning Reliability Standard EOP-010-1 is designed to mitigate the effects […]

A tidal wave of pent-up federal regulations could surge across much of the electricity industry in 2014. In recent years, Congress has been unable to enact new laws in energy, which has led a frustrated