Insights from our Editorial Team

  • May 20, 2013 | Kathleen Wolf Davis

    Brad Roberts, executive director of the Electricity Storage Association, gives his opinion on the growing importance of storage in the grid equation as the Association meets in California this week for its annual conference.

  • May 19, 2013 | Kathleen Wolf Davis

    In part one of this two-part article series, we discussed just what the heck the Green Button Initiative is: where it came from, where it’s going, what it’s made of (besides figurative green buttons). In this second part, we take an in-depth look at one particular utility’s use of Green Button, namely San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E). 

  • May 16, 2013 | Kathleen Wolf Davis

     

    “Usually security grid guys stand up and tell you a whole bunch of scary things,” began Michael Phillips, director of information security, IT with CenterPoint Energy at a cybersecurity education session at the UTC Telecom conference in Houston this week. And then he proceeded to tell us a whole bunch of scary things.

     

  • May 14, 2013 | Tim Probert

    Npower is among the least popular organizations in Britain. For the fifth year in a row, the British utility has been voted the country’s worst energy supplier in terms of customer satisfaction by price comparison website uSwitch and for the second successive year by the Consumers’ Association.

  • May 13, 2013 | Kathleen Wolf Davis

    In all honesty, utilities have wanted transactive energy for years. As the market becomes more open, utilities have lagged behind because their product isn’t priced by ability to supply or quantity of demand. Transactive energy could change all of that (for good or bad, depending on where you’re at geographically and in consumption and, also, how much you’re willing to pay attention to fluctuations).

  • May 12, 2013 | Paul De Martini

    Transactive energy markets hold the promise to achieve economic efficiency and reliability across the bulk power system and distribution networks. This research area was identified in the Caltech Resnick Sustainability Institute’s Grid2020 report released last fall, and was the topic of the third discussion of the series in April 2013 (reviewed in this article).

  • May 09, 2013 | Kathleen Wolf Davis

    Monica Whiting, formerly with Colorado Springs Utilities (currently with JEA) shares her top five challenges for utilities. Whiting was general manager, customer revenue and services with Colorado Springs Utilities, a community-owned utility in Colorado Springs, Colorado when she won her KITE award in 2012.

    Comments: 1
  • May 08, 2013 | Kathleen Wolf Davis

    David Mohler, vice president of emerging technology with Duke Energy, discusses his trips to China and what he's discovered there. Mohler relates his top five travel lessons that apply to the utility industry.

  • May 07, 2013 | Kathleen Wolf Davis

    Let’s play a little game. Don’t worry. It won’t be nearly as difficult as winning on your “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader” app. Well, it might be. I could be lying. But, let’s play anyway: How many blackouts were there in the U.S. last year (2012)? Tens? Hundreds? We’ll give you a hint: You’ll have to multiply the number of laps driven in Indy by at least 5. 

  • May 06, 2013 | John R. Johnson

    In part two of this two-part series on the evolving importance of demand response and energy efficiency, feature writer John R. Johnson delves into a case study with Austin Energy.