January 5, 2019

Weekend reads: Predicting the biggest energy trends of 2019

It's the first weekend of the new year! Kick back and relax with a little champagne and a look ahead at the trends we'll be talking about in 2019:

10 trends shaping the electric power sector in 2019 (Utility Dive)  The electricity sector at the start of 2019 is in the midst of fundamental change. Renewable energy is increasingly competitive with fossil fuels. Distributed energy is upending the economics of the grid. Climate change is presenting new threats to power systems and their regulatory models. As with any disruption, the reshaping of the electricity industry is multifaceted, with a litany of competing interests and narratives working to shape the direction of the transition. What will rise to the surface in the year to come? 

2019: Where can energy storage go this year? (Energy Storage News) After another record-breaking year, in which the US surpassed 1GW of deployed energy storage and China began its programme of building flow batteries several hundred megawatts in size each, we canvassed opinion on what 2018’s biggest challenges and successes were. In doing so we also look ahead to what this year, 2019, will hold, from the strategies our industry will utilise to meet those big challenges and what the expected direction of travel will be in some of the world’s leading markets. 

4 U.S. Electric Vehicle Trends To Watch In 2019 (Forbes)  Electric vehicle (EV) policies helped the U.S. pass 1 million total sales in 2018 and electrification is on the minds of most forward-looking utilities—but despite this momentum, four major trends will determine if EVs accelerate or slowdown in 2019. California will continue setting the national pace on EV policies and deployment, and consumers will have more EV choices in 2019, although federal EV incentives will be at risk.  Utilities will continue playing a key role in EV deployment by building charging infrastructure, providing incentives to increase consumer demand, and ensuring that charging is a grid benefit.  

Three Big Energy Ideas to Watch in 2019 (Microgrid Knowledge)  Energy is changing so fast it’s a little dangerous to make predictions. But three ideas are emerging in the US that warrant a close look given how profoundly they could reshape both microgrids and the macrogrid in 2019. The first and potentially biggest is the Green New Deal, a political concept being pushed by some Democrats in Congress. Still very much a work in progress, the proposal draws from President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s, a government program designed to boost the country out of the Great Depression. 

19 New Year's resolutions for sustainability professionals in 2019 (edie.net)  Love them or hate them, New Year's resolutions are a tool to motivate and inspire individuals to start a new calendar year with renewed focus. Here, edie has listed 19 resolutions for sustainability professionals in 2019 that will help businesses ignite a new era of leadership. “New Year, new me”, as the saying goes, is a way for individuals everywhere to set goals aimed at improving personal health and wellbeing that inevitably last until February. 

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