Electricity
Fourteen Alleged Magical Properties That Coal and Nuclear Plants Don’t Have and Shouldn’t Be Paid Extra for Providing
As the U.S. electricity sector awaits the release of a Department of Energy study assessing the impact of current market design on baseload generation and grid reliability, Rocky Mountain Institute’s Cofounder and Chief Scientist, Amory B. Lovins, has outlined and debunked in a soon-to-be-published Electricity Journal article 14 claimed…
Does “Fuel On Hand” Make Coal and Nuclear Power Plants More Valuable?
On April 14, Energy Secretary Rick Perry sent a memo ordering a 60-day departmental study of whether federal policies favoring an unnamed competitor—evidently renewable electricity like solar and windpower—are constraining supposedly vital “baseload” plants (impliedly coal and nuclear), to the assumed detriment of grid reliability and resilience. Existing studies by grid …
Distributed Solar Provides Real Savings to Customers
On March 22, 2017, Rocky Mountain Institute’s Shine Program released a request for proposals (RFP) for community-scale solar on behalf of a group of rural electric cooperatives in eastern and northern Colorado. The RFP was part of RMI’s ongoing work to develop the community-scale market nationwide. Nearly…
Banking on Renewables: Inside a Milestone Renewable Energy Deal
Last week, Goldman Sachs (GS) became the first U.S. bank to sign a large-scale, off-site renewable energy power purchase agreement (PPA) to enable the development of a new 68 megawatt (MW) Pennsylvania wind farm. At a time when many large companies are looking to renewables to help fulfill ambitious sustainability…
Beyond Energy Efficiency—Using the Power of Data to Find the Cleanest Hours of the Day
This blog, which details Microsoft’s exciting partnership with RMI’s new subsidiary, WattTime, originally appeared on Microsoft Green Blog. The author, Microsoft Chief Environmental Strategist Rob Bernard, says, “Microsoft has partnered with WattTime to give power users the freedom to choose when and…
