Utilities across the country are increasingly taking a proactive role on initiatives to advance clean energy and grid modernization. But to hear a utility CEO like Kipp focus unequivocally on one of the most critical drivers for the growth of solar and storage was striking — and yet another sign of the sector’s ongoing transformation.

For most of their history, in North America, electrical utilities have been centralized distribution networks. Utility operated generation resources are the hub of the network and electricity flows one-way via distribution networks largely controlled by the same utilities. In this model, there has been little reason for utilities to share anything but a small slice of data about their operations with anyone else other than themselves.

Experts from Rocky Mountain Institute, the Advanced Energy Economy Institute and America’s Power Plan have released a new report that shows why new utility business models are key to the energy transition.

As utility customers invest more in advanced energy technologies, buildings are becoming dynamic energy hubs. Anywhere, anytime, a building could be a consumer, storage point, or generator of energy. And a building’s energy profile could change instantaneously as it responds to signals from internal controls, the grid operator, or third parties to deploy assets like controllable water heaters, smart equipment, solar, and storage.

This week, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that rather than investing in the Haynes, Harbor and Scattergood natural gas power plants to meet the requirements of a 2010 law related to a practice known as once through cooling, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) will phase them out in favor of renewable energy.

This week, ConEdison subsidiary, Orange & Rockland Utilities (O&R) and Key Capture Energy (KCE) announced that O&R has selected KCE, an Albany-based, independent developer of utility-scale battery storage projects, will plan, design, install and operate O&R’s new battery storage project in Pomona.

Last week, the Energy Web Foundation (EWF) announced it had officially signed more than 100 affiliates in an effort to become the world’s largest blockchain ecosystem.

Last week in San Antonio, Texas, about 150 DISTRIBUTECH stakeholders convened to discuss industry trends, best practices for marketing and sales in the utility industry and set the educational agenda for the 2020 event.

Community stakeholders and climate experts from the University of Arizona are helping Tucson Electric Power to build an energy portfolio that supports reliable, affordable and increasingly sustainable service over the next 15 years.

Missouri’s smallest investor-owned utility is charting a dramatically different course two years after being acquired by new owners.

A new report from Navigant Research released this week says that revenue from device and data management technologies could grow from approximately $14.8 billion in 2018 to more than $22.1 billion in 2027 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.6%.

The latest crop of utility participants includes NRG Energy, Cleco Corp., Entergy, Louisville Gas & Electric/Kentucky Utilities, AEP’s distributed energy ventures group AEP OnSite Partners and Hindustan Power from India.

Statkraft AS, Norway’s state-owned power company, said it plans to plow as much as 60 billion kroner ($8.1 billion) into renewable energy around the world in the coming years after the government boosted its funding.

GDF Suez SA plans to double renewable power production capacity in Europe over the next decade as the utility shifts its focus away from developing more historic natural gas and nuclear energy sources in the region.

RWE AG, the German utility whose coal-fired plants make it Europe’s largest carbon emitter, officially started the company’s largest renewables project on Thursday: a wind farm in Liverpool Bay off Britain’s coast.

What happens when a famously left-leaning city dives into the buttoned-down business of electric utilities? San Francisco may soon find out.

This week, ConEdison subsidiary, Orange & Rockland Utilities (O&R) and Key Capture Energy (KCE) announced that O&R has selected KCE, an Albany-based, independent developer of utility-scale battery storage projects, will plan, design, install and operate O&R’s new battery storage project in Pomona.

Last week, the Energy Web Foundation (EWF) announced it had officially signed more than 100 affiliates in an effort to become the world’s largest blockchain ecosystem.

Cities and renewable electricity have, respectively, become the habitat and energy of choice globally. The two are increasingly inseparable. Urbanization and electrification trends have turned cities and the grid into leading platforms for human activity, presenting unique opportunities for today’s utilities to partner with municipalities to achieve their smart city goals.

This weekend at its “Earth Day Every Day Fair,” Green Mountain Power announced an energy vision to have a 100 percent carbon free energy supply by 2025 and 100 percent renewable energy by 2030. The utility said the move is among the most aggressive carbon targets for a utility of GMP’s size in the country.

ABB is working with Italian utility Evolvere on how to use blockchain technology to deliver transparent and secure peer-to-peer energy transactions.

Homeowners and businesses may now have an easier time getting solar panels on rooftops thanks to software developed at Sandia.

Last week in San Antonio, Texas, about 150 DISTRIBUTECH stakeholders convened to discuss industry trends, best practices for marketing and sales in the utility industry and set the educational agenda for the 2020 event.

Gas peaker plants may be among the first casualties of a new Minnesota law requiring utilities to include energy storage as part of their long-range plans.

A new report from Navigant Research released this week says that revenue from device and data management technologies could grow from approximately $14.8 billion in 2018 to more than $22.1 billion in 2027 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.6%.

The latest crop of utility participants includes NRG Energy, Cleco Corp., Entergy, Louisville Gas & Electric/Kentucky Utilities, AEP’s distributed energy ventures group AEP OnSite Partners and Hindustan Power from India.

New York State is pushing its utility industry to shift away from a century-old business model into a system that can accommodate more power from solar and wind.

Bracing for greenhouse-gas rules from the Obama administration, two industries are staking out different positions. Coal companies are pledging to sue. Electric utilities are ready to talk.

On what effect the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Power Plan will have on transmission development in the country, including potentially a need for more transmission to transport added renewable energy, Frank Poirot, senior media specialist of transmission with Northeast Utilities (NYSE:NU) told TransmissionHub that increasing the grid's capacity to transmit power is one way to meet the growing need and enable renewable generation.

U.S. electricity markets face years of higher prices as clean-air regulations shut more coal-fired power plants than earlier forecast, cutting supply and forcing producers to rely more on natural gas.

A new report by utility and finance experts contains positive news for the environment, our air and our (and our utilities’) pocketbooks — the economics of electric power resources have made zero-emissions energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies the most financially attractive options to meet the nation’s future energy demands.

Although the U.S. made it through a quiet 2014 Atlantic hurricane season this year, it doesn’t mean we’re out of the waters. Natural disasters are an ongoing threat to our infrastructure, and utilities need to be conscious of the present state and future of our power grid. Fortunately, in recent years many utilities across the country have recognized the importance of being prepared for major storms, and have been actively researching and implementing solutions to prepare for the next big one.

Many businesses can now perform the traditional functions of an electric utility — provide affordable, reliable, resilient power to homes and businesses. The barriers to entry in the business have fallen. For instance, a home with rooftop solar panels, batteries, and gas-based generators may choose to be grid-independent. Even when homes decide to remain grid-tied, utilities face falling demand and revenue, and the possibility of future grid-defection. Further, competing electricity solutions can emerge quickly, and not one-home-at-a-time — microgrids can offer community, village, or campus-level solutions.

Europe’s utilities are re-evaluating their business models due to the energy transition. Members of POWER-GEN Europe’s Advisory Board consider how a reliance on fossil fuels is no longer politically desirable, forcing utilities to transform their portfolios to adapt to radical change.

In 1984, when this year’s POWER-GEN 2015 Woman of the Year Kim Greene started engineering school, about 16 percent of her class was made up of women. Today, more than 30 years later, that number has jumped to just 18 percent.

Greene, the Chief Operating Office of Southern Company was one of three finalists for the 2015 Woman of the Year award during Power Generation Week and on Tuesday December 8, she took part in a panel discussion with her co-finalists: Terry Jester, CEO and Chairman of Silicor Materials and Roxann Laird, Director of the National Carbon Capture Center, during the Women in Power luncheon.

The fact that women only make up 18 percent of engineering students is an alarming statistic and was the topic of discussion for much of the panel. To combat it, Greene believes that everyone should be encouraging young women to study engineering. “Fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts, school teachers,” she said, explaining that it should be important to all of us to encourage girls to pursue education in technical fields that will (hopefully) ultimately lead to careers in the energy industry. Laird explained that she does simple things in her household, such as conducting science experiments at birthday parties for her daughter.

Also important is persistence, said Greene. Girls may need a bit of extra encouragement when they do poorly on a test or fail a class. If a mentor can offer words of encouragement like “keep your chin up” and “you can do this,” that may be all that is needed to keep a girl motivated who may otherwise have become discouraged.

As far as rising through the ranks of an organization, Jester believes it isn’t about being the smartest person in the room or always making the right decisions. Women just need to believe that they are capable of being charge. If you make a mistake, own it and move on, said Greene. It’s ok to admit you are wrong, don’t dig in your heels.

Panelists were also asked for tips on how to re-enter the workplace after a hiatus or after switching careers and all agreed on one thing: “don’t apologize for the gap.” Jester believes that someone who has re-dedicated herself to the workplace makes for an excellent employee.

At the end of the day “engineers solve problems,” said Laird adding, “it’s a fun industry.” Jester said that there are misperceptions in the industry that engineers are stuck in a cube or an office doing very boring jobs but it is not like that. Those of us in the industry know its fun.

Robynn Andracsek, an engineer with Burns & McDonnell and member of the Women in Power committee led the panel discussion during the luncheon.

The purpose of the Women in Power committee is to provide role models to inspire young women to pursue careers in energy. Anyone in the energy industry can nominate a woman for the Woman of the year award. Nominations are open from April to August each year.

According to an analysis by the SUN DAY Campaign of data just released by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), natural gas dominated new electrical generating capacity in 2018. However, renewable energy sources (i.e., biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar, wind) seem poised to swamp fossil fuels as new generating capacity is added over the next three years.

This week, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that rather than investing in the Haynes, Harbor and Scattergood natural gas power plants to meet the requirements of a 2010 law related to a practice known as once through cooling, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) will phase them out in favor of renewable energy.

What happens when a famously left-leaning city dives into the buttoned-down business of electric utilities? San Francisco may soon find out.

Cities and renewable electricity have, respectively, become the habitat and energy of choice globally. The two are increasingly inseparable. Urbanization and electrification trends have turned cities and the grid into leading platforms for human activity, presenting unique opportunities for today’s utilities to partner with municipalities to achieve their smart city goals.

This weekend at its “Earth Day Every Day Fair,” Green Mountain Power announced an energy vision to have a 100 percent carbon free energy supply by 2025 and 100 percent renewable energy by 2030. The utility said the move is among the most aggressive carbon targets for a utility of GMP’s size in the country.

EIA data forecasts that U.S. wind capacity added this year should total 12.7 GW, by far the best since 2012’s record of 13.3 GW. That was the year the production tax credit (PTC) was originally supposed to phase out, although it was extended.

The Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission unanimously approved the PPA with utility National Grid for 400 MW in wind power capacity from the Revolution Wind project. Project developer DWW Rev 1 LLC is a joint venture of New England utility Eversource and Ørsted U.S. Offshore Wind.

Community stakeholders and climate experts from the University of Arizona are helping Tucson Electric Power to build an energy portfolio that supports reliable, affordable and increasingly sustainable service over the next 15 years.

Missouri’s smallest investor-owned utility is charting a dramatically different course two years after being acquired by new owners.

Of all the efforts to break up utility monopolies in the U.S., the one unfolding in Arizona may be the most important to watch.

In a region of the world where coal is still king, there is room for renewables. This was a takeaway from the Ministerial Address and Joint Opening Keynote at POWERGEN Asia and Asian Utility Week. The two annual events kicked off Tuesday, Sept. 3, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The use of innovative technology in agriculture – agtech – has fundamentally disrupted conventional production techniques and market linkages in the Indian agricultural sector.

When Ballarat-based Gekko Systems heard the local medical community was worried about access to ventilators needed to respond to the COVID-19 crisis, the company sprang into action.

Tesla Motors Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said shifting to greater use of solar and wind power will challenge utility companies.

Technology is catching up with Thomas Edison’s electricity industry, eating away at the utility business model that hasn’t changed much in a century.