The grid serves a basic purpose—moving electrons—but needs an upgrade to keep pace with modern clean energy technologies.
January 22, 2020 11:23 AM EDT
The power grid has been designed, operated, and financially oriented around fossil fuels for decades. The legacy runs deep. Which makes a key topic in the energy transition “renewables integration,” or the technology, policy, and market changes needed to bring, and keep, ever higher levels of renewables online. One such switch? Fully valuing and mobilizing flexibility in electricity demand, the subject of a new issue brief from the Union of Concerned Scientists. Read more >
November 2, 2018 2:25 PM EDT
The debate about modernizing our energy system has been marred by shifting claims that we need old power plants. We are replacing fossil fuels with steady and rapid adoption of clean renewable energy, and more efficient buildings and appliances and we need to keep the basic reliability principles front and center. The latest analysis from the electricity grid operator in the Mid-Atlantic US, leaves out a crucial piece.
March 23, 2017 3:55 PM EDT
Shopping for a discount makes sense, right? Let’s see what we can save if we try this with electricity. Read more >
February 8, 2017 3:50 PM EDT
Last month, to great and enthusiastic email fanfare, my utility presented me with a redesigned electricity bill. One meant to help me better understand the various costs and components that make up the final amount due. In an entirely relatable manner, my household met such news with chortles of joy. What a day!
But the utility’s trick? Colors and a stacked bar chart. They were nice colors, and yet…it proved a letdown. If our electricity bills contained just a bit more of the right information, we could collectively be saving billions of dollars a year, reducing air pollution all around us, and helping to bring ever more renewables online—a true step forward toward our vision of the modern grid. Now tell me that’s not a neat trick. Read more >
January 20, 2017 12:14 PM EDT
My daughter is almost a year old, so lately I’ve been reading a lot of books about farm animals. It’s been fun to practice animal noises, but it has also felt a little strange to teach my daughter about a lifestyle that fewer and fewer Americans experience. It’s gotten me thinking about what else in our daily lives might look different by the time my daughter is a teenager. Read more >
