Tag Archives: Distributed generation

Distributed Generation and New Technologies Are Improving Energy Efficiency, Reducing Need to Replace Generation Capacity Black & Veatch‘s 8th annual Strategic Directions: U.S. Electric Industry report shows that many retiring nuclear and coal power plants may not need to be replaced on a megawatt-to-megawatt basis. New technologies and distributed generation (DG), coupled with soft energy demand growth, enable utilities to replace …

To the consumer, the microgrid market will simply appear one day. Like the IPhone or the Kindle or solar panels, it will be the latest cool wonder of our high tech society. But those behind the scenes know that most products are many years in the making. Electricity innovation is no different, except perhaps that industry gestation requires a lot of government …

Marc Lopata says his job is to uncover the dark side of microgrids. And that’s just what the president and principal engineer for Microgrid Solar is doing in a project that combines energy storage and solar energy at Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T). The project is located at the “Solar Village,” which consists of multiple houses built by …

Geothermal power potential in California still largely untapped, says industry group As the California Air Resources Board (CARB) is examining their new scoping plan for implementing the state’s ambitious climate law, the leading geothermal industry group has issued a status report on California’s geothermal resources that says they are still largely untapped. Geothermal power is “a viable, cost effective, and …

Microgrids, Money and the Utility ‘Death Plunge’   This is the second part of our coverage on microgrids from last week’s Northeast Sustainable Energy Association BuildingEnergy 14 conference in Boston. Read Part I here. If distributed generation is accelerating the utility death spiral – as some say – will microgrids cause a total utility plunge? That’s the question Galen Nelson, director …

Why Insiders are Bullish on Microgrid   Microgrids are coming to the US, but they face some significant roadblocks. What’s driving the sudden upswing in their development? And what’s getting in the way? A panel of microgrid experts tackled these questions last week at the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) BuildingEnergy 14 conference in Boston. Ed Krapels, founder of Anbaric …

Did I Just See Energy History Made in Atlanta? Every once in awhile, after  a lot of humdrum news, something really cool comes along, the kind of thing that can reshape the energy industry. That’s what might have happened last week in Atlanta at the 27thAnnual Campus Energy Conference of the International District Energy Association (IDEA). IDEA members formed a …