Energy Efficiency, Energy Storage, Utilities, Sourcing Renewables  -  February 10, 2018

Weekend reads: The forgotten renewable; Olympics go green & more

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

Going for Green with Energy Efficiency at This Year’s Olympics (The Energy Collective)  Athletes proudly wearing their countries' colors will fill the winter sports arenas of PyeongChang, South Korea, as they compete in the 2018 Olympic Winter Games. But one color — green — will be present throughout the games, thanks to the PyeongChang Organizing Committee’s (POCOG) sustainability and energy efficiency efforts.

Markets matter: US wind belt expands as more utilities do the math (Utility Dive)  Markets love picking a winner. They also like to pick what works. In U.S. energy markets, more utilities and energy investors are doing the math and finding it adds up to more wind to power their generation fleets in the nation's "all-of-the-above energy" mix. Across America's Heartland, wind and other clean energies have been winning as the new power sources of choice. It's not just because they're less polluting, but because of their low cost, record of grid reliability, and proven ability to generate U.S. jobs as well as predictable, homegrown power. 

The Forgotten Renewable: Geothermal Energy Production Heats Up (NPR)  Three and a half hours east of Los Angeles lies the Salton Sea, a manmade oasis in the heart of the Mojave Desert. It was created in 1905, when a canal broke and the Colorado River flooded the desert for more than a year. The Sea became a tourist hotspot in the 1950's, perfect for swimming, boating, and kayaking. But now, people are coming here looking for something else. "We're standing on top of what is probably the most robust geothermal resource in the United States"

Battery technology will define the future of renewable energy (The Hill) It is an exciting time to be involved in energy innovation. There have been developments on multiple fronts at the consumer level with the introduction of new models of electric and hybrid-electric vehicles, and perhaps more importantly, at the utility level with massive commercial investments in renewable energy generation and storage technologies. The challenge is that a growing reliance on wind and solar energy can cause electrical grids to become unstable. 

Want More Accurate Building Occupancy and Energy Use Data? Networked LEDs Are Lighting the Way Forward (The Energy Collective)  There is a fast-approaching time when the way we assess energy efficiency today will seem, well… quaint. “Remember the days,” our future selves will reminisce with a chuckle, “before the per-occupant energy rating was developed for commercial spaces? We were really grasping at straws!” Real-time data is the key to unlocking that bold new future, and increasingly, networked lighting controls with high-density occupancy sensors promise to get us moving towards it.

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