The OurEnergyLibrary aggregates and indexes publicly available fact sheets, journal articles, reports, studies, and other publications on U.S. energy topics. It is updated every week to include the most recent energy resources from academia, government, industry, non-profits, think tanks, and trade associations. Suggest a resource by emailing us at info@ourenergypolicy.org.
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BATTERY STORAGE IS EMERGING AS AN effective new strategy for reducing electricity costs for affordable multifamily rental housing in California. Battery storage systems not only provide economic returns today, they can also preserve the value of solar in an evolving policy and regulatory environment. Because batteries empower owners of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems to take control of the energy they produce and when they consume it, storage can deliver deeper cost reductions that can be shared among affordable housing owners, developers, and tenants.
California has installed numerous integrated solar and battery storage projects; however, few have served low-income tenants or …
View Full ResourceThe U.S. Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative (SunShot) seeks to motivate swift reductions in the cost of solar energy in order to strengthen the role of solar as a low-cost energy source. The SunShot Vision Study (DOE 2012) evaluated the profound implications of such cost reductions for the solar industry, the electricity sector as a whole, and end-use electricity consumers, finding that achieving the SunShot cost targets could result in overall solar electricity penetrations of 14% of annual U.S. electricity demand by 2030 and 27% by 2050. Analyzed solar technologies included photovoltaics (PV) and concentrating solar power (CSP). That study, …
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• 2015 Weather Normal Energy, 2015 Weather Normal Summer Peak, and the 2015/2016 Winter “Peak”
• Draft 2016 CELT Energy Efficiency Forecast
• Draft 2016 CELT Solar PV Forecast
• Draft 2016 Annual Energy and Summer Peak Forecast
• Next Steps…
Distributed energy resources allow electricity to be generated closer to where it is used, protecting businesses and institutions from unexpected outages caused by natural disasters and other disruptions. The U.S. national laboratories as well as public-private partnerships provide financial resources and access to research facilities to foster innovations to modernize the power sector from a 100-year-old centralized system to one that incorporates disparate clean technologies such as microgrids, batteries, and energy smart tools. These investments and the resulting new products and capabilities decrease costs, improve grid reliability, reduce emissions, and offer consumers more options.
Microgrids are small groupings of interconnected …
View Full ResourceDistributed energy resources allow electricity to be generated closer to where it is used, protecting businesses and institutions from unexpected outages caused by natural disasters and other disruptions. The U.S. national laboratories as well as public-private partnerships provide financial resources and access to research facilities to foster innovations to modernize the power sector from a 100-year-old centralized system to one that incorporates disparate clean technologies such as microgrids, batteries, and energy smart tools. These investments and the resulting new products and capabilities decrease costs, improve grid reliability, reduce emissions, and offer consumers more options.
Energy storage technologies encourage adoption of …
View Full ResourceWind energy technology is evolving towards larger machines (longer blades, taller towers and more powerful generators). Scaling up wind turbines is a challenging task, which requires innovative solutions as well as new configurations and designs. The size of wind turbines (in terms of rotor diameter, hub height and rated power) has increased extraordinary from 30 m rotor diameter, 30 m of hub height and 300 kW rated power, usual in the late 1980s, to 92.7 m rotor diameter, 87.7 m of height and 2.1 MW on average at the end of 2014. However, technological evolution has not only been focused …
View Full ResourceWind energy technology is evolving towards larger machines (longer blades, taller towers and more powerful generators). Scaling up wind turbines is a challenging task, which requires innovative solutions as well as new configurations and designs. The size of wind turbines (in terms of rotor diameter, hub height and rated power) has increased extraordinary from 30 m rotor diameter, 30 m of hub height and 300 kW rated power, usual in the late 1980s, to 92.7 m rotor diameter, 87.7 m of height and 2.1 MW on average at the end of 2014. However, technological evolution has not only been focused …
View Full ResourceAs the cold months of winter settle in, consumers are bracing themselves for lower temps and higher bills. With chilly air the norm for so many across the country, keeping warm is not a question, and going without the power to do so is not an option.
Not having the proper energy supply to stay warm in the cold months— and cool in the warm months—however, is becoming increasingly more common. The reliability of the electrical grid is decreasing; each year, the total number of minutes without power is increasing by 5% to 10% for customers.
Back-up power in general, …
View Full ResourcePower and utilities organisations face a raft of challenges as a result of evolving business models, distributed generation and increasing demands of connected customers. At the same time, they should safeguard their operational systems from escalating attacks by highly skilled nation-states. To address these challenges, power and utilities companies are implementing cloud-based cybersecurity, Big Data analytics and advanced authentication. Additionally, more organisations share cybersecurity threat intelligence than ever before.…
View Full ResourceIn recent years, there has been much discussion of alternative energy moving into the mainstream. While it hasn’t yet shed the “alternative” label, alternative energy’s shift to the mainstream is largely complete and likely irreversible. Despite continuing uncertainty over policy incentives and competition from historically low natural gas prices, alternative energy’s momentum continues to accelerate. In the case of wind and solar power, growth is regularly outpacing projections. Alternative energy sources still face the aforementioned roadblocks and perhaps a few emerging ones, but the industry continues to move forward and the overall outlook for growth is strong due to both …
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