utilities

The use of distributed energy resources (DERs) will continue to grow as utilities, businesses, and residential neighborhoods look for ways to balance the power grid and support more reliable and resilient

Home heating is approaching an impasse—there is great opportunity to decarbonize through heat pumps for both heating and cooling, but rising electricity rates might discourage consumers from getting on

Utility companies are going headfirst into a whirlwind of challenges from increasing electricity demands and new sustainability initiatives, to meeting evolving customer expectations. Power demand in the U.S. is on a sharp upward trajectory, with the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) having forecast a new peak of 4.099 trillion kWh in 2024, climbing further to […]

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 […]

The Supreme Court’s landmark decision this past summer in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo marks a significant shift in administrative law by overturning the long-standing principle of Chevron deference, which was established in Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council Inc. in 1984. The Loper ruling from earlier this year is poised to have […]

Rapid growth in the U.S. data center market is ushering in a new era of power demand and testing the ability of electric utilities to keep pace with this surging growth. Data center energy use has doubled over the past three years and is expected to continue climbing as more hyperscale data centers leveraging power-hungry […]

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced a plan to implement a new label program that it expects will help federal purchasers and buyers find and choose more climate-friendly construction materials. Under the label program, which stems from “extensive public input,” the EPA will initially focus on asphalt, concrete, glass, and steel products with “lower […]

As climate change accelerates, rising humidity is causing an increase in the number and severity of storms occurring in the northern hemisphere. An academic study found that the frequency of unstable atmospheric conditions increased by 8% to 32% over most land areas from 1979 to 2020. “Storm intensity is increasing much faster than the average […]

The U.S. is assembling a new power grid infrastructure—and not a moment too soon. The need for dynamic new approaches in the power and utility sector has never been more urgent. New kinds of distributed

Virtual power plants (VPPs), as aggregations of dispatchable distributed energy resources (DERs), can deliver grid services ranging from resource adequacy to reliability at scale—all while making energy more affordable. Yet, despite their merits, the U.S. utility industry is yet to leverage the full potential of these readily available, affordable, customer-sited resources to add flexibility to the grid. Of course, the decision to incorporate […]