Distributed Energy Resources, Energy Storage, Regulation, Utilities, Distributed Generation, Solar, Wind  -  November 19, 2016

Weekend reads: Tesla, SolarCity approved; FERC on energy storage; COP22 kicks out climate denier & more

Every Saturday, we'll bring you five most interesting — or quirky; it is the weekend after all — energy stories from the prior week that you may have missed from around the web. This weekend's reads:

Is It Time to Deregulate All Electric Utilities? (The Wall Street Journal): About two decades ago, the electric industry started getting a makeover. A number of states launched initiatives to break apart monopoly utilities and allow retail companies to sell electricity to consumers. Today, in more than a dozen states and the District of Columbia, retail customers can shop around for the best deals on electricity, sometimes in the same way they shop around for a cellphone provider.

Tesla and SolarCity Shareholders Approve Merger (The New York Times): Elon Musk has succeeded in combining two parts of his business empire, as investors in Tesla Motors and in the solar panel maker SolarCity agreed on Thursday to a merger. Shareholders of each company voted at their respective meetings. But the question was always whether investors in Tesla would approve a takeover of the embattled solar company, which had been seen as a bailout of sorts.

Renewable energy is seeping into small-town America (Vox): Climate change is a highly polarized and contentious issue. It has taken on great symbolic significance for both sides of America’s deep partisan divide. And if Donald Trump and the GOP actually follow through on what they’ve promised, federal climate policy may all but disappear. Clean energy, however, is different. In public opinion polls, it is supported by virtually every demographic, region, and party.

Climate deniers linked with Trump's EPA pick booted from COP22 talks (RenewEconomy): Climate science denier Marc Morano just got himself kicked out of the UN climate talks in Marrakech. Of course, that was probably his aim all along. Morano stood in a Trump hat, next to a life-size cut-out of the president-elect, waving shredded copies of the Paris Agreement.

FERC Proposes to Open Up Wholesale Markets for Energy Storage and Aggregation (Greentech Media): The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission just took its strongest step yet to initiate markets for energy storage across the nation. The commission, which governs interstate power transmission and wholesale markets, proposed a rule Thursday that would require each regional transmission organization and independent system operator to create rules for energy storage to participate in wholesale markets.

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