Tag Archives: Smart Grid

ComEd Created 2400 Jobs through Grid Modernization Programs in 2012

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ComEd submitted this week to the Illinois Commerce Commission data showing that the 2011 Smart Grid law created more than 2400 full-time equivalent jobs in Illinois in 2012.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

“The grid modernization programs are putting many linemen, electricians and specialists who work on our electric grid back to work in well-paying, skilled jobs. This helps the Illinois economy and boosts other local industries, too,” said Michael Carrigan, president, Illinois AFL-CIO. “Getting the programs back on track will protect and increase jobs for Illinois workers.”

ComEd’s grid modernization investments have provided an important boost to Illinois manufacturers, suppliers and service providers with the expertise necessary to support the electrical system upgrade. Last year, ComEd awarded grid modernization contracts worth a total of $118 million, including 71 percent to Illinois companies providing services and products from engineering to cable to smart switches. Of the total, $54 million, or 46 percent, was spent with diverse suppliers.

See on tdworld.com

What Will Be the Next Technological Breakthrough in Energy?

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What technological breakthrough is most likely in the next 10 years that could completely change the energy equation as we now see it?

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

Jeffrey Ball: Information Technologies to Increase Efficiency, and Solar Power Seem Promising

Predicting new-energy technological breakthroughs tends to be a fool’s errand. A decade ago, few envisioned the breakthrough that has most rocked the U.S. energy world: the one-two punch of fracking and horizontal drilling that has unlocked huge stores of shale gas from California to New York.

Right now, two broad areas of new energy technology seem particularly promising: information technologies that could spur major energy-efficiency improvements; and cheaper and more-reliable solar power. […]

Study after study has pegged energy efficiency as the lowest-cost way to curb fossil-fuel consumption and the resulting greenhouse-gas emissions. The problem has been figuring out how to unlock those efficiency improvements in the real world. Today, creative minds are at work developing electronic systems to track and display the energy use of institutional and individual consumers in ways that could make those users much more conscious both about how much energy they consume and about precisely what they could do to cost-effectively consume less. More information, in short, could equal less power.

See on online.wsj.com

Revolutionary Green Energy Storage Technology Issued Australian Patent

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Texzon Utilities announces 4th patent for Invention that stores AC power as real AC power, making it the first and only AC battery.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

“This technology is a game-changer. The ability of the RPM to clean (get rid of all harmonics), magnify power, and store energy as a traveling electro-magnetic wave enables it to react instantaneously as a continuous “elastic reservoir,” which is an innovative and timely solution for Smart Grids,” said General Mike Miller, CEO of Texzon.

About James Corum, Inventor:
Dr. Corum was cited as a “National Treasure” by The Office of the US Secretary of Defense for his work on the DARPA National Panel of Radar Experts on Ultra-Wideband Radar and Phenomenology. His electromagnetic research has been recognized by prestigious scientific organizations and professional societies around the world.

See on www.prweb.com

GTM Research Names Top 150 Vendors in Smart Grid Across 12 Market Segments : Greentech Media

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The Networked Grid 150 report is the strategic compendium on the vendor and technology landscape for today’s smart grid utility.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

… the report ranks the top vendors within each of the following market segments: Advanced Metering Infrastructure, Building Area Networks, Consulting & Integration, Demand Response, Electric Vehicle Infrastructure, Energy Storage, Field Area Networks, Home Area Networks, Networking & Management, Soft Grid, Security, Transmission & Distribution, and Wide Area Network Communications.

See on www.greentechmedia.com

Boulder’s Smart Grid Leaves Citizens in the Dark : Greentech Media

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Utilities have to engage with consumers and businesses to make the smart grid work.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

“I had a smart meter, but I didn’t even know I had a smart meter,” said Dick.

Dick and a team of CU engineers are working on exactly this problem: how to inform people about their electricity use. The team is creating an online system called “EMPIRE” — EMpowering People In Reducing Energy consumption.  […]

Huston said that because Boulder’s smart grid was one of the first in the country, some of the technologies it used, such as fiber optic communication technology, turned out to be less ideal than hoped. The new two-way communication technology, installing smart meters for less than a quarter of the population and other features almost doubled the project’s cost within a year after it began. As of October 2012, the total costs were pushing $45 million.

See on www.greentechmedia.com

Breakthrough in energy storage

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Engineers have developed a redox flow battery that reaches stack power up to 25 kW with a cell size of 0.5 square meters – eight times larger than the previous A4-sized systems.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

A new design has allowed them to produce stacks up to 0.5 square meters in size. This is eight times larger than the cells in previous systems, and results in power up to 25 kW. The prototype has an efficiency of up to 80 percent, and can take a load of up to 500 amps of current.

See on www.pacetoday.com.au

New Zero-Down, No-Risk Energy Efficiency Investment Fund Aims To Unlock $150 Billion In Savings

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Double your money, create more than 1 million jobs and make a big dent in US carbon and greenhouse gas emissions – that’s what could be realized if the US were to double energy productivity by 2030, according to the Alliance Commission on National…

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

Looking to spur energy-efficiency gains across the US, CalCEF and Metrus Energy on March 13 launched a new financial intermediary service that could unlock the doors to a projected $150 billion in energy-efficiency savings by providing “otherwise hard-to-get financing for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).”

Added CalCEF managing director Paul Frankel:  “The Efficiency Resource Fund is a trail-blazing investment vehicle that taps a massive, underserved market opportunity.  We’re enabling a whole class of projects that would otherwise not be completed, while at the same time delivering not just savings for customers but also attractive returns for impact investors and generating capacity for utilities.”

See on cleantechnica.com

Stanford researchers map out an alternative energy future for New York

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A study, co-authored by Stanford researcher Mark Z. Jacobson, outlines a path to statewide renewable energy conversion, and away from natural gas and imported fuel.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

The study is the first to develop a plan to fulfill all of a state’s transportation, electric power, industry, and heating and cooling energy needs with renewable energy, and to calculate the number of new devices and jobs created, amount of land and ocean areas required, and policies needed for such an infrastructure change. It also provides new calculations of air pollution mortality and morbidity impacts and costs based on multiple years of air quality data.

To ensure grid reliability, the plan outlines several methods to match renewable energy supply with demand and to smooth out the variability of WWS resources. These include a grid management system to shift times of demand to better match with timing of power supply, and “over-sizing” peak generation capacity to minimize times when available power is less than demand.

The study’s authors are developing similar plans for other states, including California and Washington. They took no funding from any interest group, company or government agency for this study.

See on news.stanford.edu

Wind power capacity grew 20% globally in 2012, figures show

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A relative slowdown in new wind turbine construction in China was offset by increases in the US, Germany, India and the UK

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

“While China paused for breath, both the US and European markets had exceptionally strong years,” said Steve Sawyer, secretary general of the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), which produced the statistics. “Asia still led global markets, but with North America a close second, and Europe not far behind.”

The UK now ranks sixth in the world for installed wind power, with 8.5GW. In Europe, only Germany (31GW) and Spain (23GW) have more. China leads the world with 77GW installed and the US is second with 60GW. […]

The record year for installation in the US was driven by a rush to beat an anticipated end to tax credits: 8GW of the total 13GW were installed in the last quarter of 2012. However, the tax credit has since been extended, meaning a dramatic slowdown in the US in 2013 is less likely. […]

See on www.guardian.co.uk

Renewable energy debt issuers abound | FP Street | News | Financial Post

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If the fixed income analysts at BMO Capital Markets have got it right, investors can expect another crop of issues by companies whose business is renewable energy, a move, they suggest will generate ‘a gust of income for your portfolio’…

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

In his view, the level of issuance in 2012 “will easily be surpassed this year,” he wrote in a 24-page report.

Laing makes that argument on the basis that across the land, there are more than 8,500 megawatts in projects at various stages of development “stemming from previous calls for green power.”

Most of those projects are based in B.C., Ontario and Quebec. According to his report, Canada’s wind energy capacity stood at 6,000MW at the end of 2012, up from 140MW in 2000.

See on business.financialpost.com