Road to NanoGrid: Week 13 - Utility Death Spiral, The perfect challenger...
The need is for something different from what is out there:
People don’t want a demand response technology that periodically reduces their power or locks them in with obsolete technology. People want freedom of choice. Here a portrait of what's going on the planet energy:
• About 55 GW of PV systems were installed globally in 2015, up from 40 GW in 2014 and 37 GW in 2013 setting a new record for the solar PV sector
• 540 GW of solar generation at a global level could be reached in five years’ time
• While China, Japan and USA were the three top markets in 2015, solar power could grow in Europe by 80% by 2019 and India is investing heavily in solar & formulating a program to install 10,000 microgrids
• The expansion of the availability of renewable power in Africa is a high priority of the African Development Bank Group
• Australia has announced approximately 6000 MW of new renewable energy capacity to be built by 2020. This will required Aus$ 40.4 billion worth of investment, create more than 15,200 jobs and power the equivalent of 5 million homes.
• and so on… the vast majority of countries have ambitious plans for clean, available, affordable energy.
What we are seeing is large scale global change and every utility will feel it’s effects
‘REV’ stands for ‘Reforming the Energy Vision,’ a re-invention of New York’s electricity market and one of the more promising models for the grid of the future.
"REV moves the electric industry away from a monopoly, top-down and incentive driven system to one that is governed by the market and emphasizes distributed energy. One of the most interesting changes is a new job created for utilities. They will run a distributed system platform, a kind of market exchange, where microgrids, solar, energy efficiency and other distributed energy resources will compete to serve the grid.
Richard Kauffman, the NY Energy czar says “The polices being undertaken are pro-consumer, pro-innovation, markets-based. And they have as an effect, a system which over time will become more affordable and resilient and more valuable to customers. And it will also be cleaner,” Kauffman says.
Will of the people, freedom and technology are creating the utilities perfect challenger. What do you think?