The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) is confident its existing rules and processes will allow planned microgrids and resiliency projects to be built before the next wildfire season. CAISO’s rules and procedures can handle the microgrids recently proposed by the state’s investor-owned utilities to help prevent planned power … [Read more...]
CAISO Confident Microgrids Can Move through Review Process before California’s Fire Season
February 3, 2020 By Leave a Comment
Making Way for Wholesale Distributed Generation: Not for the Faint of Heart
July 27, 2018 By Leave a Comment
Craig Lewis, founder and executive director, the Clean Coalition, is taking on the formidable task of galvanizing policy support in California for wholesale distributed generation, or WDG. This means nothing short of changing the way transmission costs are considered. In addition, the Clean Coalition is advocating for the use of feed-in … [Read more...]
“Stale” Time-of-Use Rates May Undercut Benefits of Energy Storage in California
February 2, 2018 By Leave a Comment
California's grid operator is considering a load shift product that could beat "stale" time-of-use rates in its ability to avoid greenhouse gases and generate income for energy storage system owners and operators. The problem, for storage system owners, is time-of-use rates are getting “stale,” and don’t represent what mix of fuels are producing … [Read more...]
California’s Grid Operator Looks at How to Absorb Excess Solar Energy with Storage
October 6, 2017 By 4 Comments
A first-of-a-kind load shedding proposal from California's grid operator aims to absorb excess solar energy with storage to help solve some challenging economic and environmental problems. The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) is now developing the idea, which would allow more solar energy to make it to the grid in the middle of a … [Read more...]
Aggregated Energy Storage Has Arrived: Rocky Mountain Institute
October 5, 2015 By Leave a Comment
The Rocky Mountain Institute's Garrett Fitzgerald analyzes the results of Stem's history-making aggregated energy storage bid into the California real-time energy market. Earlier this month, energy storage developer Stem aggregated a fleet of behind-the-meter (BTM) energy storage systems and successfully bid into the California Independent … [Read more...]
Quick Microgrid News…How about Wave Energy Microgrids?…Stem’s Big Game Changer
September 4, 2015 By Leave a Comment
We hear a lot about solar and wind microgrids. So now how about wave energy microgrids? Australian company Carnegie Wave Energy today signed an agreement with the Republic of Seychelles to investigate commercial wave and microgrid opportunities in the 115-island country off the coast of South Africa. Under the memorandum of understanding, … [Read more...]
Latest on the Electric Grid Revolution in California and New York
July 27, 2015 By 3 Comments
Revolutions seem to take forever, and then happen overnight. The electric grid revolution is still in the forever stage. But California and New York covered some big ground over the last couple of weeks. The two states are moving toward a decentralized, more democratic, less monopolized electric grid, one where energy markets are open to the … [Read more...]
Turning Distributed Energy Resources into Grid Market Players in California
July 1, 2015 By 1 Comment
California is looking at a plan (DERP) to turn distributed energy resources into grid market players. What will this mean to microgrid developers? Is this a better approach to creating a distributed grid than New York state's REV? Alex Morris, director, policy and regulatory affairs for the California Energy Storage Alliance (CESA) answers these … [Read more...]
