ALBERT CHAN

As California faces its first summer heatwave (and it’s not even officially summer 😥) the state’s fast-rising power prices and grid reliability concerns are once again top of mind. But innovation is *always* top of mind in California, and two energy innovations - microgrids and VPPs - offer a path to giving businesses (and the state's economy) the power to grow, while also supporting the utility grid we all depend on. Here’s why: https://lnkd.in/ezfPBEyG

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Community solar offers a unique opportunity to lower energy bills and boost clean energy access in California. Despite the support from diverse stakeholders, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is considering a proposal that would limit these benefits for renters and low-income communities. The Utility Reform Network urges CPUC to reconsider. Community solar enables customers to benefit from centralized solar farms, receiving economic credits on their utility bills without installing panels themselves. This is crucial for renters and low-income households often excluded from solar benefits. California’s Assembly Bill 2316 supports a fair approach, ensuring at least 51% of benefits go to low-income customers. Unlike expensive rooftop solar incentives, community solar provides cost-effective bill reductions and enhances grid reliability, especially when paired with battery storage. CPUC must reject the flawed proposal and embrace community solar to achieve energy affordability and sustainability for all Californians. #communitysolar #cleanenergy #affordableenergy #california #renewables #sustainability #solarpowered #solarintallation #solarenergy

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Worth the read 👉 How can EVs and the grid work together? From Canary Media Inc. With EV adoption accelerating, utilities, tech providers, and researchers are teaming up to prevent grid overloads. Here are the highlights: 1) Pacific Gas and Electric Company & WeaveGrid: PG&E’s EV Charge Manager, supported by Weave Grid’s technology, is incentivizing customers to allow the utility to optimize charging schedules, avoiding local system peaks. Plus they've released a terrific recent report with Smart Electric Power Alliance. 2) AES Indiana and Camus Energy: A bottoms-up analysis on AES Indiana's distribution network found that grid-optimized EV charging can reduce EV-driven stress and provide savings to the tune of $75 million per year or $1,275 per year for every new EV. 3) Consumers Energy and Utilidata: The two won a $20 million Department of Energy grant to deploy 20,000 next-generation smart meters, which will provide real-time visibility into where EVs are charging. 💡 Why it matters: Active EV managed charging can save utilities millions, keep rates stable, and accelerate sustainable electrification. 📢 The takeaway: EVs won't break the grid. With the right tools and collaboration, they will strengthen it. What’s your take on these innovations? Let’s chat! 👇 Full article linked in comments.

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Great overview by Gridmatic on the differences in battery #energystorage bidding behavior between California ISO and ERCOT https://bit.ly/40TRBEv "A significant portion of CAISO’s revenue comes from Day-Ahead Energy, whereas it remains relatively small in ERCOT. Several factors contribute to this difference, including obligations for storage resources with resource adequacy contracts, Default Energy Bid (DEB) complexities, and CAISO’s methods of awarding ancillary services based on State of Charge (SOC) expectations. Comparing individual systems in ERCOT and CAISO, we see that ERCOT batteries primarily rely on ancillary services throughout the day, while CAISO batteries need Day-Ahead Energy to ensure they are cleared for higher-value RegUp and RegDn awards."

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Extreme heat + extended drought = trouble for the power grid. On August 22nd, energy managers, policy experts, and Stanford scientists will discuss #GridReliability and expanding cooperation in western electricity markets to contend with climate change. Register ➡️ https://bit.ly/C3PPxyz Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability Stanford Law School

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Calling all #energy #policy people: Next week, California ISO, Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, and energy experts will discuss how improved coordination of electricity operations in the West could enhance grid reliability during extreme #heatwaves. Register here ➡ https://bit.ly/C3PPxyz Details below.

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Managed EV charging: a win-win for utilities & ratepayers? Will rapid adoption of electric vehicles stress the electric grid? That is what Berkeley Lab is working to better understand through their Financial Impacts of Distributed Energy Resources (FINDER) model. This utility model projects that well-managed EV charging can reduce electricity rates and increase utility shareholder earnings. Read the full article by Peter Cappers, Andy Satchwell, Juan Pablo Carvallo and James Milford . #DecisionAnalysis #Analytica #Data #Energy #ElectrificVehicles #EV #Risk #RiskManagement

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Want to learn how microgrids can accelerate (and lower the costs of) EV charging? Click through to this case study about our project with Quality Custom Distribution, a food service logistics provider with a fleet of 30 electric delivery trucks in Southern California. Scale’s microgrid will: 1. Help QCD get its trucks on the road sooner than if it had waited for a utility service upgrade. 2. Provide charging with cost savings, lower emissions, and 100% reliability.    3. Enable QCD to get ahead of the curve on complying with California’s ACF and WAIRE regulations. This model can be replicated to accelerate the electrification of fleets across the state and across the country - read on to see why (and how): https://lnkd.in/dmuUZ_P2

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This week, Scale Microgrids published a QCD case study about our first-of-its-kind #cleanenergy #microgrid that our last-mile foodservice #distributioncenter will build and activate this year to accelerate our #fleetelectrification initiative in Southern California. 🚛 🔋 Read more at the link below. ⬇ #QualityCustomDistribution #foodservicelogistics #sustainability

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In 2023, disclosure policy seemed to be making significant strides with California's groundbreaking Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act (SB 253), mandating companies to disclose their Scope 3 emissions related to value chains. This landmark bill held the promise of pushing corporate sustainability efforts forward. The question remains: will disclosure policy overcome these hurdles and become the critical driver for corporate sustainability? Read more about the current state of climate disclosure policy and its potential impact on the future of sustainable business practices: #corporatesustainability #climatepolicies

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If you want VPP - ‘virtual power plants,’ first define them ... Clarity around terminology and end goals can break through years of policy inertia. After a period of relatively slow growth, virtual power plants are having a moment. A recent Brattle Group study finds VPPs could save California consumers over a half-billion dollars per year. PJM mostly finalized its VPP rules in late 2023, shortly after the Department of Energy’s “Pathways to Commercial Liftoff” report offered a U.S. roadmap for VPP deployment. Every other week, it seems, there’s news about a successful VPP pilot or financing for a new large VPP project. The discourse around VPPs is broken Virtual power plants are aggregations of distributed energy resources that can function as a single resource to provide certain services associated with traditional power plants. And while it’s a virtue that VPPs can include diverse resources and offer a variety of services, their complexity has often hindered policymaking efforts. Level 1 VPP: Utility program where individual DERs respond to utility signals to provide grid services. (Examples: Massachusetts’ Connected Solutions program and California’s Demand Side Grid Support program.) Level 2 VPP: DERs are aggregated into a “fleet” that responds as one resource to a utility’s call for grid services. (Example: SunRun VPPs in contracts with PG&E and California Community Choice Aggregators.) Level 3 VPP: DERs are aggregated into a “fleet” that operates as one resource in a wholesale market while staying coordinated with the local distribution utility. The fleet and individual DERs may also provide retail market services. (Example: FERC Order 2222 aggregations, when they appear.) Again, the purpose of defining terms like “virtual power plant” — or “energy storage,” “resilience,” etc. — isn’t to uncover some sort of existential truth about these resources. Nor is it to constrain anyone’s marketing efforts — go ahead and call your VPP offering whatever you want. Patented TNi Energy-BESS, we've innovated a groundbreaking method that repurposes recycled lead-acid batteries, extending their life span to 20 years for energy storage purposes. Previously, the industry lacked a safe and environmentally conscious alternative to lithium-ion batteries. However, our patented proprietary technique reveals that lead-acid batteries are not only safer but also 50-60% more cost-effective than their hazardous counterparts. #TNiEnergy, #nebulositycloud, #BESS, #C3Energy, #Energy, #ZEROemmissions, #ZEROcarbonfootprint, #energytransistion, #LeadAcid Battery, #windpower, #solarpower, #VPP, #MicroGrid, #DERM

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This week, Quino CEO Eugene Beh is attending California Energy Storage Alliance's 15th Annual Market Development Forum. Safe, affordable, and scalable energy storage solutions are needed to help California achieve its decarbonization and grid reliability goals. This conference will convene regulators, utilities, and innovators - like Quino! - working across the energy storage ecosystem. Attending and interested in learning about how Quino is shaping the flow battery market in California and beyond? Message Eugene to set up a meeting. #CESA #marketdevelopment #LDES #flowbattery

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Why advocate for protecting DEBA? Ensuring a clean, reliable, and resilient grid is critical to sustain California as one of the world's largest economies. In the face of unpredictable climate challenges, the Distributed Electricity Backup Assets (DEBA) program represents an essential opportunity for California's critical loads to cost-effectively deploy new technologies, like Mainspring Linear Generators, that are significantly cleaner and more flexible than the legacy backup generators that have proliferated over the last several decades. DEBA is a key program to help protect critical loads and usher in a new era of clean backup generators. #zerocarbonfuture #cleanenergy #resilientpower #lineargenerators #smartenergypolicy https://lnkd.in/gY2SS3Aq

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A new study from Standford reveals there are overlooked economic benefits to distributed behind-the-meter solar energy. Especially relevant for the current rate design application before the BCUC.

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Yesterday, Politico posted another retelling of Stanford professor Mark Z. Jacobson's fantasy that U.S. electricity might, one day, be derived entirely from energy provided by wind, water, and sunlight (WWS). With his fellowship at Stanford's Precourt Institute of Energy, it would be easy to assume Jacobson's advocacy is motivated by financial interests - specifically, to promote sales of natural gas. Financing for the Institute, after all, came in the form of a $30 million gift from natural gas maven Jay Precourt - and the "renewable" sources of energy favored by Jacobson are dependent everywhere on backup generation from that fossil fuel. But for our purposes here, we'll assume less partial motives are driving his unwavering support for his hypothesis. Either that, or ignorance - because start to finish, his claims appear to have little basis in physics or electrical engineering. Politico's article begins by attributing the following claim to Jacobson: "On most days for the past month, renewable energy has powered 100 percent of California’s main grid for at least 15 minutes." A simple analysis of information publicly available from California's Independent System Operator (CAISO), however, reveals this claim to be 100 percent hoo-hah...nonsense. Why? Jacobson credits only the "renewable" ingredients of California's power mix with powering the state, but it isn't that simple. Those ingredients require natural gas plants to run constantly, smoothing their erratic generation. Without them, wind and solar would take California's grid down in a matter of minutes, or even seconds. Moreover, electricity demand must be met with supply, precisely and in real time. That the supply of wind, water, and solar, added together might equal demand at any moment is thoroughly a matter of chance - 100 percent uncontrollable. Between 9AM and 3PM, virtually every day of the year, home solar in the Golden State generates too much electricity, requiring CAISO to get rid of it. And forcing our unwanted electricity on our neighbors doesn't come cheap - we must buy it at "negative prices", i.e., pay them to take it off our hands. That California electricity customers are running out of patience with wind and solar is understandable. After Connecticut, our state now has the highest prices in the continental U.S., and it's all thanks to "renewable" energy. Enough is enough - it's 2024, and the time to reconsider California's 1960s-era plan to produce all of our power with clean, safe, and affordable nuclear energy is long overdue. There's no more time to waste.

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A recent report by The Brattle Group for GridLab highlights that VPPs could cover about 15% of California's peak power demand, leveraging resources like #EVs, smart thermostats, and behind-the-meter batteries. This new and innovative approach not only enhances grid reliability but also supports the state's climate goals. Explore how VPPs can transform energy management and deliver big consumer benefits. https://hubs.ly/Q02zb3XG0

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