... And We're Back!

Sorry for the long pause, folks. My last post was The day before I became gainfully re-employed and immediately caught up in a whirlwind of activity. I am now a project manager for Astrum Solar, a residential PV solar installer with offices in Maryland and Valley Forge, PA. My daily posting was mostly a product of having time on my hands and an interest in staying involved in the industry while I was looking for a new job. Now that I have one and things are settled down, this blog will resume a regular, if adjusted schedule. Expect weekly posts on Friday afternoons!


Two Greentech Media featured articles this week caught my attention that I wanted to share. The first touches on a subject that will gain more attention in the next year- utility deregulation as a demand-response driver of efficiency gains. Usually one would not think that regulatory restrictions being lifted from an essential service like an energy utility would result in the utility reaping windfall profits at the expense of the consumer. That would be the eventual fate of the upcoming deregulation of Pennsylvania's energy utilities, except that a new law recently passed requires utility companies to decrease their peak-demand energy use. Act 129 will require reductions in overall energy usage as well as peak energy usage reductions by 2011 and additional targets for 2013. The full text of the bill can be found here.

This is particularly good news for residential solar system owners in Pennsylvania, who produce power during peak hours when rates will become extremely high. It is also good news for smart grid companies whose technology will be essential to implementing these reductions, which brings me to the second Greentech article. The DOE recently announced a package of grants totalling $100 million for smart grid training programs. The cleantech industry will thrive if smartgrid technologies can be implemented across the country. Our archaic, analog grid designed like a string of christmas lights that shuts down completely when one bulb burns out is incredibly vulnerable to failure, disruption, and the severe security threats presented by such incapacitation. A distributed generation system capable of sensing and fulfilling energy requirements in realtime will save billions in lost or wasted energy.