Jim Pierobon is Founder and principal writer of The Energy Fix. He is a policy, marketing and social media strategist who has reported on, testified and consulted about smarter grids, cyber-security as it affects the power grid, fossil fuel shortages, price spikes, energy efficiency and the rise and fall -- and the rise again of nuclear and renewable energy sources.Can Maryland create Utility of the Future that is more reliable & customer responsive?
That question has been posed by the now newly re-elected Governor of Maryland, Martin O’Malley. He is seeking a “viable method to explore the contours of the utility of the future” with a pilot program to be proposed by March 15, 2013. Utility of the future, in Maryland, you ask? That was my reaction because [...]
Culture, talent, focus and customer service propelled Maryland’s Astrum Solar to #2 on Inc. list
Inc. magazine is out with the 2012 version of its fastest growing private U.S. companies. Astrum Solar of Annapolis Junction, Maryland landed the #2 spot by creating a culture, recruiting the talent, establishing a customer focus and securing utility capital to sell and lease solar electric systems to homeowners as good, or better, than any [...]
Petty politics defeats wind offshore Maryland. Can a third bid succeed? Will Gov. O’Malley even try?
“Petty political grudges” in Maryland’s Senate Finance Committee are to blame for the failure of the General Assembly to establish the mechanism to incent and pay for one of the first networks of offshore wind turbines anywhere off a U.S. coastline. That’s the way Chesapeake Climate Action Network Executive Director Mike Tidwell put it in [...]
Can Maryland spin any wind turbines off its coast after setbacks in New Jersey and Delaware?
Offshore wind has two strikes against it in New Jersey and Delaware. Cape Wind off Massachusetts’ Nantucket Sound is fighting to stay alive in extra innings. Now Maryland is trying to get ‘on base’ with a second bid by Governor Martin O’Malley which is halfway toward approval (at this writing) by the state’s General Assembly. [...]
After Bluewater offshore wind retreat by NRG Energy, what is next shoe to drop in the U.S.?
“Financially untenable” is how NRG Energy updates its outlook for what was a planned array of wind turbines offshore Delaware. And with that prognosis, the future of wind energy off the U.S. East Coast is very much in doubt. While the project’s fate may have been cast when the U.S. Department of Energy rejected its [...]
Offshore Renewable Energy Credits – ORECs – the key to wind power along U.S. East Coast?
Following a path carved by the solar industry, developers of offshore wind energy projects along the Mid-Atlantic U.S. coast are closing in on one model to finance the multi-billion dollar systems they aspire to build. The developers envision a process that will earn one renewable energy credit for every 1,000 kilowatt hours (or 1 megawatt [...]
U.S. real estate listings are spotlighting renewable energy systems and high-performing homes
Homeowners choosing to generate some of their own electricity with renewable energy systems are benefiting from how the Multiple Regional Information Service (MRIS) spotlights these features in homes it lists for sale in the Mid-Atlantic U.S. region. While home searchers have been kept in the dark about such features by the initial form online that [...]
Taxing carbon: Congress and Maryland won’t so Montgomery County is trying
The 4th District Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia holds the key to a first-of-its-kind attempt by Montgomery County, Maryland to place a $5-per-ton tax on emissions from the predominantly coal-fired Mirant Corp. power plant in the county. Because it is the only large source of carbon emissions in the county that would be liable [...]
Communities finding ways to go solar – together
Groups of solar-savvy Americans are finding ways to buy into a solar electric system by using power-purchase agreements, remote metering and other tools to supply power to a community organization. In a growing number of cases where these systems produce more power than the facility needs, they can earn a credit the net additional amount [...]
It’s time for all utilities to buy electricity under power purchase agreements
Power purchase agreements – aka “PPAs” – are an established tool for spreading the cost of energy over 20 years or longer as a means of ensuring a revenue stream for renewable energy project developers, stabilizing and predicting energy costs and displacing dirty coal with cleaner sources of electricity. The time has come in just [...]