Is a negawatt worth the same amount of money as a megawatt? The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has said yes, at least tentatively, and this could spell big new opportunities in the demand response industry. At the same time, it could give technologies that enable turning… Read More »
Cleantech
Military bases have been some of the pioneers for so-called microgrids — systems of self-generated electricity and intelligent controls that can be disconnected from the grid at large to keep the lights on when the utility can’t provide power. The idea is that a tree falling… Read More »
Microgrids — office parks, college campuses or communities that can generate their own power and disconnect and reconnect from the grid at large at a moment’s notice — could be integral building blocks of the smart grid. That’s why Dave Pacyna, senior vice president of… Read More »
The term “microgrid” may conjure up images of self-sufficient military bases and remote outposts, generating and consuming power without any connections to the larger electricity grid. After all, backup generators that support multiple buildings — the bare-bones definition of a microgrid — are already a… Read More »
The current momentum behind the smart grid industry, which includes billions of dollars from the smart grid stimulus funds, is convincing utilities to partner up with new startups. Here’s the latest: Two year-old startup EnergyHub, which makes a sort of ultra-mobile PC (UMPC) for… Read More »
