March 29, 2010

With the economy on the mend, investors may be ready to step up and help finance the energy sector's growth. But to do so, they will need greater regulatory certainty both at the state and federal levels so as to encourage risk taking.

National policymakers are wrestling with the direction that environmental laws will take. Until it becomes more defined, utilities will be left in limbo. Likewise, as rates cases before state public utility commissions come forth, companies will argue that they need to earn reasonable returns or else see their cost of borrowing jump. That, in turn, would inhibit their ability to raise money and expand their infrastructure.

March 26, 2010

When asked if America is the 21st Century version of ancient Rome, author Cullen Murphy responds in the Atlantic Monthly that "maybe" it is. Whether the country is in permanent decline or whether it is in perpetual rejuvenation is an idea worth exploring.

With Washington stalemated, utilities have an uncommon chance to lead by fostering the growth of clean-energy technologies. Electricity, of course, is the building block to economic prosperity. The goal then is to ensure access, abundance and cleanliness. Toward that end, the United States must diversify its resources and train the next wave of workers to meet near-term challenges. Indeed, power companies are ground zero in the effort to bring the country into a new era of vitality. But they need their elected representatives to be more willing to search for common ground.

March 24, 2010

Some in the power sector have unclean hands. A nonpartisan environmental group has published a report detailing the industry's mercury emissions and noting that the biggest emitters of them have not yet installed some commercially-available technologies that would cut those pollutants.

While the criticism heaped on certain utilities is deserved, many others are taking action to curb their mercury emissions. Even the Environmental Integrity Project, which released its annual assessment of the industry's mercury emissions, says that overall those pollutants dropped by 4.7 percent between 2007 and 2008 -- the latest timeframe for which the group has collected data from the Environmental Protection Agency. But it hastens to add that those same emissions increased at 27 of the worst 50 coal plants.

March 17, 2010 - Groveland Twp.- Life will be just a little more green for some township residents thanks to a grant awarded earlier this year.

Governor Jennifer Granholm announced in late January that the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor, and Economic Growth (DELEG) has awarded $17.4 million in grants to 125 cities, villages, townships, and counties throughout Michigan to support local energy efficiency projects.

The state Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grants (EECBG) are funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act).

March 22, 2010 

With consumer demand for home energy monitoring devices anticipated to grow -- and regulators expected to require utilities to provide consumers with access to the devices and the data needed to make them useful -- the race is on to see which providers place their products in consumers' homes.

In that race, some providers are joining with utilities to obtain consumers' energy usage data.

Giants Microsoft and Google are clearly in the lead. Microsoft has formed partnerships with four utilities and Google has inked agreements with 10 utilities in four countries. Under the partnerships, the utilities offer Microsoft and Google products for free to their customers.