NDN Blog

Our panel last Friday, "The Critical Role of Consumers in Shaping The Future of Energy Use" was hugely successful.   This event, which we co-hosted with Opower, spotlighted the relationship of consumer's energy use to new technologies available to manage energy efficiency. 

Many energy advocates have focused on pushing new technologies to modernize the electricity grid and increase renewable energy production.  Although these policies are essential to forward looking energy policy, none of them can happen without customers paying for them.  This panel examined the role that customers can and should play in driving energy policy and proactively using home energy.

The panelists were well known leaders and innovators in this area.  John Ashford, CEO and President of The Hawthorn Group did a great job presenting the challenges that utilities, state and federal regulators, and policy makers face integrating new technologies into customer use.  Cliff Majersik, Executive Director of the Institute for Market Transformation, was equally brilliant in detailing the number of technological advances and opportunities which are currently available to the consumer to be proactive with their energy.  Michael Sachse, Vice President for Regulatory Affairs and General Counsel to Opower outlined new mechanisms by which the customer and utility can effectively communicate with each other to use energy more efficiently while saving money.  Opower is well known for the way they have reinvented the way utilities interact with customers from the quality of the information provided, to the way it is presented and delivered. 

A great group of folks showed up for this event in spite of the fact that Friday was not only Passover but Good Friday as well.  This is an important issue to our Clean Energy Initiative and we will continue to pay close attention to the relationship of the consumer to their energy use.

Good News for the President - the price of gasoline may have already hit a peak for 2012, according to a growing body of energy analysts.  High supplies of oil and gas, coupled with sluggish economic news coming from the U.S., Europe and China, suggest the price climb may be over, one analyst tells POLITICO. Another notes that the rate of the increase in prices (the second derivative, if you will) has been slowing for weeks.  And Richard Newell, former head of EIA under President Barack Obama and now a professor at Duke University, says current projections for wholesale gasoline show gas prices falling 40 cents a gallon by Election Day.

Former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm took on Speaker John Boehner in her latest Current newscast. Granholm chided Speaker Boehner for not supporting the 2% tax credit  legislation that helps large-scale wind-energy producers compete against heavily subsidized fossil fuel.  She pointed to the coalition of 369 organizations, representing thousands of American workerd who  recently sent the speaker a letter pleading with him to act. The National Governor’s Association sent Boehner another letter just in the past week, imploring him to move on this issue and even the US Chamber of Commerce has endorsed this legislation.   The bill provides 2.2 cents per kilowatt hour for utility-scale wind-power producers. Ironically, U.S. wind energy production is the sector where Boehner’s home state of Ohio has the distinction of being the fastest growing in the country.

The Department of Energy, in partnership with Pacific Gas& Electric, Itron, and Gridwise Alliance, kicked off its first-ever “Apps for Energy”  challenge on April 5, issuing an open invitation to innovative software developers to build new apps – for mobile phones, computers, tablets, software programs and more – that utilize data from major utility companies to help consumers and businesses use less energy and save money. Submissions must make use of Green Button electricity usage data, but can also include other data sets.

The Department of Energy has a recent report  which states that the  $9 billion Obama administration grant program for renewable energy projects has created tens of thousands of jobs.  The report comes one week after Speaker John Boehner challenged Secretary Steven Chu to provide proof of the jobs creation.  The report on this controversial program was conducted by the DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory and concludes that the program supported 52,000 to 75,000 construction and installation jobs on average over the three years it was in effect.  Between 43,000 to 66,000 of those were indirect jobs in the supply chain (for example, in parts manufacturing). The other roughly 9,400 of the jobs were in the design and development of renewable energy systems.  Those numbers apply only to large wind and photovoltaic projects, which made up more than 90 percent of the 1603 grants. Other types of renewable energy such as geothermal, biomass and landfill gas projects were not included in the analysis.

The Country of Chile is facing a serious energy crisis which could threaten their future as a economic leader of South America.  In 2011 a serious blackout in Chile paralyzed the country’s mining system and shut down the major city of Santiago.  Hydro provides over 40% of the country’s energy but President Pinera’s plans to develop four major hydro projects has met with strong resistance from the public on environmental grounds.  There are natural renewable sources which can solve the energy problems which have caused energy prices in Chile to rise at almost six times the level of inflation and drive up the price of other services. Chile has no oil, gas or coal, but they are a very rich country in renewable resources.

NDN/New Policy Institute' s Clean Energy Initiative along with Opower will be hosting an important panel on the pivotal role of consumers in the adoption of smart grid technologies to enable more efficient use of their energy.    

This lunchtime Panel discussion,  Consumers:  Their Critical Rule in Shaping The Future of Energy Use,  will be held at 12 NOON our NDN event space located at 729 15th Street NW in Washington, DC.

Leading this discussion will be a group of well known leaders and opinion makers: 

Michael Sachse:  Vice President of Regulatory Affiars and General Counsel, Opower

John Ashford: CEO, Hawthorn Group, LLC

Cliff Majersik: Executive Director, Institute for Market Transformation

This panel on the role of the customer in new grid technologies is the 7th in our “Clean Energy Solution Series" to showcase the leaders, companies, ideas and policies who are hastening our transition to a cleaner, safer and more distributed energy paradigm of the 21st Century.

Please join NDN/New Policy Institute on Friday, April 6, at noon on for a look at the increasingly important role of the consumer in the adoption of innovative technologies to monitor home electricity use:  Consumers:  Their Critical Rule in Shaping The Future of Energy Use In the US. The  event will be held at our NDN event space located at 729 15th Street NW in Washington, DC. 

This lunchtime discussion will explore the critical relationship of consumers to energy use go through changes energy efficiency. Leading this discussion will be a group of well known leaders and opinion makers in this arena: 

Michael Sachse:  Vice President of Regulatory Affairs and General Counsel, Opower

John Ashford: CEO, Hawthorn Group, LLC

Cliff Majersik: Executive Director, Institute for Market Transformation

This panel on the important role of the customer in new grid technologies is the 7th in our “Clean Energy Solution Series" to showcase the leaders, companies, ideas and policies who are hastening our transition to a cleaner, safer and more distributed energy paradigm of the 21st Century.

Please RSVP to me at cgiesen@ndn.org.  Lunch will be served at noon and the program will begin at 1215pm.  I look forward to seeing you there for another in our terrific series of events.

If you cannot make the event in person you can watch it here starting at 1215pm.

The lithium-ion batteries used to power electric vehicles are going to be a lot cheaper by 2017, says a new report from Pike Research. Better manufacturing efficiencies and the availability of more lithium means battery prices will drop by a third – a change car manufacturers and buyers alike will certainly be glad to see.  The current costof lithium iron batteries is thought to be one of the primary obstacles to widespread adoption of Electric Vehicles.  The market for Lithium -ion batteries will be driven primarily by plug-in hybrid electric vehicles which require a  larger battery pack than a hybrid.

A new Harris poll says almost half (48%) of the 2,056 people surveyed online would likely install and manage a computerized dashboard in their homes to control energy use and cut their power bills. While the 48% number sounds surprisingly high, particularly considering that many observers and industry analysts (including SGN) have repeatedly said consumers are not likely to adopt new energy saving technologies.  This percentage shows that they will take the time to monitor and manage it. 

NDN's Clean Energy Initiative will host a panel this Friday,16th titled Solar Tariffs:  Smart Policy or Protectionism? Joining us for this discussion will be three leading experts in international trade and solar technologies: 

William Morin who will address the disruption tariffs could have on the US solar industry and the overall value chain. Morin is Senior Director for Government Affairs at Applied Materials. 

Lewis Leibowitz –who will address the impact of these tariff cases on American manufacturers that depend on imports to be competitive in the marketplace. Leibowitz is an international trade attorney with Hogan Lovells, LLC. 

Elizabeth Drake –will address trade remedy laws as a legitimate tool for addressing trade distortions caused to domestic manufacturers by dumping and subsidies. Drake is an international trade attorney with Stewart & Stewart, LLC 

This panel is the seventh in our "Clean Energy Solution Series" to showcase the leaders, companies, ideas and policies hastening our transition to a cleaner, safer and more distributed energy paradigm. 

Our Clean Energy Program has a large body of work in the field of solar and solar technologies. 

In June of last year, we hosted a hugely successful panel on Rooftop Solar featuring Danny Kennedy, the founder of the innovative and successful Sungevity, the fastest growing solar company in the world, Andrea Ludke of the Solar Foundation and Rachel Tronstein of the Energy Efficiency Office of Department of Energy also participated in this panel.  

Michael Moynihan, Director and founder of Electricity 2.0, wrote a well receieved paper, Solar Energy:  The Case for Action which ourlined action items to taken in the road forward to full integration of solar into the 21st Century marketplace.  

In June of 2008, our Clean Energy Initiative hosted "Energy and the American Way of Life" which addressed solar energy in the next millenium and featured Roger Efrid, President of Suntech, Greg Kats of Good Energies, Jack Hidary of the Hidary Foundation, and Shyam Kannan, LEED® AP, Vice President Director of Research and Development, RCLCO, a real estate consulting company.

I look forward to seeing you Friday, March 16th at 12Noon at NDN event space located at 729 15th Street, Washington, DC.

There is more than one way to skin a cat.  The U.S. Military has been stealth in their efforts to use renewable technologies and employ energy efficiency.   The Republican Leadership in the House does their best to denigrade  clean energy investments by DOE and the EPA but the U.S. military has taken up the slack.  The military has been involved in smart grid technology in what seems like every possible way, from its buildings to field operations:  renewable energy,  batteries and storage, microgrids and more. DoD's recently released Operational Energy Strategy Implementation Plan strengthens that commitment considerably with ambitious targets for increased efficiency and increased use of renewables, notably in the form of biofuels.  

The military has been using energy efficiency, microgrid, tactical solar and other smart grid technologies overseas in Afghanistan to reduce our vulnerability of fuel convoys to attacks.  A  sampling of what the DoD plans to do in the years to come are:

·         Obtain 25% of its energy from renewable sources by 2025

·         Use 50% biofuels for Air Force domestic aviation by 2016

·         Cut fuel use 15% in Navy ships by 2020, and reduce dependence on fossil fuel 50% in the next 10 years

Tom Gray has an excellent response to arguments in opposition to a Production Tax Credit.  He points out that the wind industry is growing rapidly and providing an increasing number of new manufacturing jobs which require  a stable, predictable tax policy to flourish. This point was made more generally in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed (see WSJ op-ed: 'Want Growth? Try Stable Tax Policy', January 5, 2012). Stability has been sorely lacking ...since this PTC has never been renewed for more than three years at a time.  U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) stated in a recent Politico op-ed, "Low, stable tax rates generate jobs and economic growth. This idea has been the bedrock of conservative economic ideology for decades. One industry that represents this essential conservative principle is U.S. wind energy. Low taxes in the form of the federal Production Tax Credit for wind have driven as much as $20 billion of private investment a year into the U.S. economy. Wind power is now one of America’s biggest sources of new electricity and fastest growing manufacturing sectors. It has accounted for more than a third of all new U.S. electric generation in recent years."    It should be noted that  current and past subsidies for fossil fuels and nuclear power have played a major role in helping the United States develop its enormous domestic energy resources, but they have also helped the recipient industries gain a dominant position in the marketplace. 

Democratic lawmakers are concerned that President Obama has not done enough to push back speculative trading which they say threatens to drive gas prices up and wreck  our fledgling economy.    Last week 71 Democratis signed a letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission last week complaining that it hasn’t done enough to check speculation in the energy markets — a responsibility that’s part of the Dodd-Frank regulations limiting how many crude oil contracts can be held by individual banks and investment funds.   Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) said he believes Obama could avoid the political beating he’s taking from gas prices averaging $3.80 per gallon by clamping down on the financial sector.

Photovoltaic installations totaled 1,855 megawatts last year, a 109 percent jump from the amount installed in 2010, according to a Solar Energy Industries Association report released Wednesday. Cumulative U.S. PV capacity now stands at 3,954 MW, eight states installed over 50 MW each and the average PV system price fell 20 percent, module prices fell 50 percent.

A new Harris poll says almost half (48%) of the 2,056 people surveyed online would likely install and manage a computerized dashboard in their homes to control energy use and cut their power bills. The 48% number sounds surprisingly high, particularly considering that many observers and industry analysts have repeatedly said consumers are not likely to adopt new energy saving technologies if they need to take the time to monitor and manage it. Harris says 31% of survey participants said they are neither likely or unlikely to install the device and 21% are definitely unlikely to do so.

Please join NDN/NPI today for an event taking a look at “Solar Tariffs: Smart Policy or Protectionism?”  This lunchtime discussion will spotlight the issues surrounding the impending March 19th preliminary decision by the U.S. Department of Commerce on whether to issue countervailing duties on Chinese-made crystalline silicon cells and modules.

Joining us for a spirited discussion of this issue will be three leading experts in international trade and solar technologies:

William Morin –will address the disruption tariffs could have on the US solar industry and the overall manufacturing value chain.  Morin is Senior Director for Government Affairs at Applied Materials. 
Lewis Leibowitz –will address the impact of these tariff cases on American manufacturers that depend on imports to be competitive in the marketplace.   Leibowitz is an international trade attorney with Hogan Lovells, LLC.
Elizabeth Drake –will address trade remedy laws as a legitimate tool for addressing trade distortions caused to domestic manufacturers by dumping and subsidies.  Drake is an international trade attorney with Stewart & Stewart, LLC

This panel is the seventh in our "Clean Energy Solution Series" to showcase the leaders, companies, ideas and policies hastening our transition to a cleaner, safer and more distributed energy paradigm.

This event will take place today, Friday, March 16th, noon, at the NDN event space, 729 15th Street, NW in Washington, DC.  Please RSVP.