Energy Exchange: Grid modernization

Fleets across the country are going electric and utilities and regulators must be prepared for this essential transition.  New York is currently taking on an ambitious medium- and heavy-duty electric vehicle proceeding to address barriers to charging infrastructure and has just conducted a series of technical workshops that brought together fleets, utilities and experts, including […]

Texans know better than to believe the lies. But, whenever severe weather strikes the state and the isolated electric grid is imperiled, they’re always fed them: “Green energy” is offered up as the ultimate scapegoat, facts be damned. Why doesn’t the Wall Street Journal editorial board know better? Last week, they ran a piece blaming […]

The transition to electric heavy-duty trucks is upon us, sparked by a steady decline in battery costs, continuous improvements in electric truck and charging technology, and growing recognition of the climate and local air quality impact of diesel trucks. But even as household names like FedEx, PepsiCo and Amazon have made public pledges to electrify […]

By Fred Krupp and Ramón Cruz, Sierra Club President En Español Puerto Rico sits in the eye of what’s been the busiest hurricane season on record with an old and historically unreliable power system. The all too common occurrence of blackouts left more than 400,000 people in San Juan in the dark hours before Tropical […]

Por Fred Krupp  y Ramón Cruz, presidente de Sierra Club Puerto Rico se encuentra en el medio de lo que ha sido la temporada de huracanes más activa de la que se tiene registro y la enfrenta con un sistema de energía eléctrica antiguo y poco fiable. Los apagones, cada vez más frecuentes, dejaron a […]

By Agustín Carbó and Amalia Saladrigas En español The Atlantic hurricane season is under way and scientists predict it will be one of the strongest in recent memory, as climate change makes more frequent and severe storms the new normal. For communities across Puerto Rico, already battered by an array of crises, the need to […]

A duo of recent announcements underscore the clear direction the Texas grid is headed: toward more renewable energy, storage, energy efficiency and sophisticated demand-side management resources and away from coal. That means less climate and local air pollution, of course. But it also means more local jobs, less volatile energy costs, a more stable and […]

A dire, almost defeatist thread has been running through social media and other commentary around the California wildfires and the widespread, preemptive electricity outages across the state. The sense of urgency about catastrophic side effects of climate change is right on. And it is true that fixing our electric grid will be a long and […]

The business and environmental case for electrifying large electric vehicles – such as buses, delivery trucks, garbage trucks and regional “day cab” tractors used at ports – is gaining traction, and there’s good reason to be excited about this momentum. FedEx recently announced that it’s adding 1,000 EV delivery vans to its fleet. Amazon announced […]

Over the past few years, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) has actively opposed FirstEnergy in several cases where it sought bailouts for its uneconomic coal plants. We will continue to do so. But if the utility giant wants to build a cleaner, more modern grid, we are eager to work together. Case in point: We are […]

As the hot summer approached, Texas leaders expressed concern about potential blackouts and brownouts. Yet, thoughtful planning, a functional electricity market and clean energy helped ensure the lights stayed on. Power outage concerns Hotter temperatures and continued population and commercial growth drove record electricity demand this past summer. Additionally, in early 2018, Luminant (now Vistra) […]

Blockchain – a really high-tech “spreadsheet” or ledger used to record transactions securely – offers exciting potential for clean energy. With the rapid rise of distributed energy technologies — such as rooftop solar, batteries, smart energy devices, and electric vehicles — some analysts believe the market for blockchain applications in the energy sector is many times larger than […]

Why should Ohio ramp up its investment in energy innovation? More than 20,000 jobs and $25 billion in capital are on the line. That’s according to a new report that outlines a vision for Ohio’s energy future and economic development. The report draws from the insights and experiences of a diverse group of advisors from […]

Last September, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) started a conversation on resilience, asking the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to provide new revenues and guaranteed profits to the owners of old, inefficient coal and nuclear power plants to compensate these resources for certain reliability and (undefined) resilience attributes. FERC swiftly disposed of that proposal […]

By Rama Zakaria, Michael Panfil Whether or not our electric grid is “resilient,” and what if anything should be done to make the grid more resilient, has been a topic of intense scrutiny in the past year. The stakes in this debate reached new dimensions last fall with a highly controversial proposal by Sec. Rick […]

By Ronny Sandoval, Kate Zerrenner Eight months after Hurricane Harvey, affected communities are still rebuilding their lives and businesses. One area that hasn’t required as much attention to rebuild: Texas’ electricity grid. Shortly after the storm, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the state’s main grid operator, said, “The ERCOT grid has remained stable, […]

California and New York often steal the spotlight on cleantech innovation, but those in the know are keeping their eye on Illinois. The energy sector has been undergoing rapid change in the Land of Lincoln, thanks to a slew of innovative initiatives. More than ever before, Illinois’ buildings are more efficient, its electric grid is […]

On May 9, Andrew Barbeau, senior clean energy consultant for Environmental Defense Fund, will speak at the Microgrid 2018 conference. This year’s theme is Markets and Models for the Greater Good, and Andrew will discuss the effort to create a new microgrid tariff for third-party-managed microgrids as described in this post. You can register for […]

Despite attempts by the Trump administration and the coal industry to limit clean energy in favor of fossil fuels – including a tariff on solar energy, a thinly-disguised bailout for coal and nuclear power plants (that was rightly rejected), and a dramatic proposed cut to energy research – we are accelerating the transition to a […]

By Xixi Chen, manager, EDF+Business  This week, President Trump's administration announced plans to cut the Department of Energy’s (DOE) renewable energy and energy efficiency program budgets by 72 percent, according to a leaked draft of the DOE budget for fiscal year 2019. This is the second major blow to the renewable energy industry, coming only days after Trump […]