May 26, 2010

The United States has talked about the potential benefits of solar energy since the days of Jimmy Carter's presidency. To date, the technology has had a minimal effect on the nation's energy supply, but that may soon change, thanks to the work of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Known for its top-notch engineering program, the university has recently taken the lead in energy research. In the fall of 2006, the academic institution forged the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), a program designed to bring all of the university's top minds together to work on solving energy problems. "MITEI represents the largest cross-campus initiative that MIT has ever undertaken," noted Ernest Moniz, director of the MITEI and a member of President Obama's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Approximately 20 percent of the faculty is working on various energy projects, and half of them have never focused on energy issues before.

May 24, 2010

Long before carbon cap-and-trade or renewable energy mandates became part of the utility lexicon, California was out in front developing green energy. California is still way out in front in one important way, but there are plenty of followers, with utilities everywhere building and buying renewable energy assets from coast-to-coast.

With mandates for renewable energy in 29 states, California is the leader with a target of 20 percent by the end of this year and 33 percent by 2020. The state is at a pace that's way ahead of everybody else's, but the significance is diminished when so many others are doing the same thing, though at lower levels. There's an expectation in the industry, even today after climate legislation became bogged down in Congress over the past year, that some form of carbon regulation is inevitable. And with big-ticket nuclear still a few years away and new coal construction at a virtual standstill, utilities are in the renewables game, whether they like it or not.

May 21, 2010 
 
Europe's utility regulatory model is now unfolding. But the process hasn't been an easy one as commissioners there have wrestled with how to dislodge national interests.

For more than a year now, the European Commission has forced utilities to legally separate their generation assets from their transmission lines. The goals have been to increase the opportunities for alternative and greener energy suppliers while also enabling the flow of technology, reducing inefficiencies and, perhaps cutting costs.

Below are a few letters received at EnergyBiz Insider on topics that appeared in the past few weeks. They capture the essence of how many readers say they feel.
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May 19, 2010

The Wichita lineman may still have a job in the utility of the future, but he won't be driving alone down the main road searching for an overload. He, or she, will be part of a mobile unit dispatched by a computer that identified a problem as soon as it occurred and may be called something like a "field technologist."

More to the point, that lineman won't be the iconic symbol for the power industry. More likely it will be a young man or woman with a handheld computer ringing the doorbell of a suburban home to perform an energy audit and design a customized energy use plan for the household.