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In 2000, the Seattle City Council set a net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions goal for the city’s municipal utility. Five years later, Seattle City Light became the first electric utility in the country to achieve a 100% carbon-reduction target. Now, more than 500 U.S. electric utilities have established carbon-reduction targets, either voluntarily or following binding […]

Transmission investment is needed now. The United States will not be able to reach its carbon-reduction goals without building new, long-distance interstate, intraregional and interregional transmission across utility service territories. This is necessary to connect both remote renewable and clean energy resources to customers and to take advantage of the diversity of resources and customer […]

More than 100 utilities of all types, sizes and locations participated in the first SEPA Utility Transformation Survey in 2020. The survey is a key component of the SEPA Utility Transformation Challenge, a comprehensive and objective assessment of U.S. electric utilities’ progress towards a carbon-free energy system. Based on analysis of those survey responses, SEPA […]

I recently had the opportunity to moderate a session at IEEE’s Innovative Smart Grid Technologies (ISGT) conference in Washington, DC. I engaged with Dr. Robert Broadwater of Electrical Distribution Design (EDD) and project partners from Virginia Tech and Pepco at the conference to learn more about the team’s approach to an increasingly complex electric grid. […]

For U.S. electric customers, awareness of resilience and reliability has heightened in recent years. Among other factors, this is prompted by outages arising from more-frequent and more-ferocious hurricanes, rampant wildfires, winter storms, and preventative power shut-offs by utilities. Many areas also face ongoing threats of outages. In response, customers are increasingly turning to back-up power […]

The industry shift from PPA contracts towards more utility-owned and operated solar generation heightens the need to safeguard solar assets through robust disaster response plans. Hence, asset owners are turning to plant repowering experts to inform strategies and guide recovery efforts. From storm surges to wildfires, natural disasters can wreak havoc on solar infrastructure by […]

With the potential to save up to $18 billion in power system costs and 80 million tons of carbon emissions annually, grid-interactive efficient buildings (GEBs) are critical to achieving a modern, carbon-free energy system. What are GEBs? Grid-interactive efficient buildings are energy-efficient buildings that use smart technologies and on-site distributed energy resources (DERs) to provide […]

Flashback three years to the most recently held in-person SEPA Utility Conference on April 8, 2019. Consider all that’s changed since that event. 81% of customers accounts in the U.S. are now served by an individual utility or utility parent company with a carbon-reduction target Passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act Evolving decarbonization […]

Residential EV charging is the most mature and common form of electric vehicle fueling supported by a myriad of utility EV programs. However, a deeper look into home ownership and EV purchase intent data uncovers serious challenges to making EV charging infrastructure equitably available to people living in single-family and multi-family dwellings (MFDs). Home ownership […]

At the dawn of the U.S. railroad in the early 1800s, track gauges ranged from four and a half to seven feet. This lack of standardization complicated inter-regional travel, leading to track gauge standardization by the late 1800s. Today’s electric grid is undergoing a similar transformation. Consumers are rapidly interconnecting smart devices that lack communications […]

It’s no secret that sleek new makes and models of electric vehicles (EVs) dominate the media coverage around transportation electrification. Just as important, however, is the grid impact and dynamic planning required to efficiently interconnect EV charging infrastructure to utility power grids. Part one of this two-part blog series highlights the scale of commercial fleet […]

Over the past three years, a growing chorus of U.S. utilities and utility parent companies have announced, expanded or accelerated long-term targets for reducing carbon emissions. These targets span from commitments to achieve a carbon-free power supply by 2030, to plans to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Given the range of industry terminology and nuanced […]

In February 2020, Southern California Edison (SCE) launched a rooftop solar and home battery marketplace offering a $500 rebate to help customers explore options for their homes. Customers who install rooftop solar and home batteries help bring California one step closer to meeting its ambitious carbon-neutral goals for 2045. By then, SCE expects that up […]

The intersection of growing electric load from electric vehicles (EVs) and rapidly advancing charging technology creates opportunities for utilities to optimize the grid and accelerate carbon-reduction progress. One of these opportunities is managed charging, a strategy carried out by utilities and/or third-parties to influence or directly control EV charging patterns. Managed EV charging can be […]

Recently, we’ve written about PNNL’s innovative work to demonstrate how a utility power system can safely operate using a control system integrated with the Open Field Message Bus (OpenFMB) framework to increase system flexibility and resiliency. PNNL has successfully tested these concepts in a laboratory setting, and have analyzed how OpenFMB concepts can support innovative […]

Throughout this year, SEPA has delivered compelling content and new opportunities to engage with the carbon-free energy transformation topics that matter to you. Explore some popular topics that captivated the SEPA community this year, and catch up on the SEPAPower blogs and SEPA TV episodes you may have missed. 1. Energy Storage You loved seeing […]

In September 2017, category five Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico, ripping away electricity infrastructure and leaving residents in a months-long blackout. In response to this devastation, SEPA joined an initiative alongside EPRI, ConEd and other stakeholders to explore ways to rebuild the Puerto Rican electrical system to be better and more resilient. SEPA […]

Days ago, you predicted a relatively minor storm. Now, forecasts predict a much stronger one. Fortunately, your utility has implemented technologies and controls to enable a self-healing grid. Nevertheless, you activate your storm response team and your distribution operators are poised to employ additional switching operations to minimize potential outages. What more can you do? […]

As owners and operators of vehicle fleets, as well as providers of electricity, utilities have a unique opportunity in fleet electrification. By electrifying their fleets, utilities can gain experience and insights they can use to better support their customers on their own fleet electrification journeys. However, recent research from the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) […]

Advancing a modern, flexible and integrated grid underpins utilities’ transformation to a clean energy future. Utilities’ ability to achieve 100% carbon-reduction targets, adapt to climate risk, and respond to evolving customer needs will depend on the grid’s capabilities, design, planning and operations. For 14 years, the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) has surveyed U.S. electric […]

Just as the energy industry is rapidly changing, so are the methods for acquiring low-cost funding. Utilities can leverage the unique capabilities of green bonds as an economic and transparent accelerant for carbon reduction. Green bonds are a debt instrument where organizations specifically earmark capital for the deployment of sustainable projects. These bonds share a […]

Despite the glut of EV-related media coverage, a recent study from Plug In America shows that a lack of consumer education and engagement tools are hindering EV adoption. Switching to an electric vehicle requires a behavioral shift, and many consumers understandably have questions and harbor misconceptions around total cost of ownership, vehicle range, and charging […]

A Distributed Energy Resource Management System (DERMS) represents an intriguing and complex opportunity for utilities. These advanced systems promise to simplify the management of growing utility distributed energy resource (DER) portfolios; however, the broad spectrum of possible capabilities makes evaluation, selection, and justification of a DERMS a challenge. Today, we have language to describe the […]

How does a utility prove that its operational power system can safely increase system flexibility and resilience by incorporating distributed energy resources (DERs)? Are changes required to the operational behavior of control systems? Will controls and applications function properly if DERs are added to the network alongside traditional utility assets? Is it necessary to build […]