Electricity
What’s Driving the Cost of Residential Solar-Plus-Storage Systems?
Guest author Kristen Ardani is a solar program lead for Solar Soft Costs and Tech to Market at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The residential solar-plus-storage market has certainly received a lot of attention in recent months. With the release of new, lower-cost products and implementation of utility time-of-use…
Letting Customers Lead Us to a 21st-Century Electricity Grid
From Hawaiian homeowners to large customers in the Nevada desert to government fleet managers in cities across the U.S., customers are beginning to take control of their energy by using innovative distributed energy resources (DERs). DERs such as rooftop solar, energy storage, electric vehicles, and grid-interactive appliances can save customers…
The BRC and Second Nature: Bringing Renewable Energy to Campuses Nationwide
Guest author Timothy Carter, Ph.D., is the President of Second Nature. Renewable energy is truly having its moment in the sun. One doesn’t have to look hard to find solar panels on the neighbors’ roofs, majestic wind turbines popping up across the Great Plains, or that new Tesla you’ve seen…
Rate-Design Best Practices for Public Electric-Vehicle Chargers
Public direct current fast chargers (DCFC) are anticipated to play an important role in accelerating the adoption of electric vehicles (EV) and in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. However, utility demand charges—special charges based on the peak rate of electricity consumption in a month, which are applied in addition to the…
Shifting Currents
The regional power-grid operator Southwest Power Pool (SPP) has quietly become a leader in renewable energy, and recent improvements to its marketplace signal an opportunity for corporate buyers. With an estimated 19 gigawatts (GW) of planned wind capacity additions (more than three times the current total of corporate off-take deals),…
