Demand Management, Energy Efficiency, Microgrids, Regulation, Solar, Wind  -  December 17, 2016

Weekend reads: Rick Perry's wind cred; a Brooklyn microgrid; solar industry woes & 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:

Climate Skeptic Perry Has Some Clean Energy Cred (Bloomberg): Rick Perry, Donald Trump's pick to lead the U.S. Energy Department, has deep oil industry ties and longstanding doubts about global warming. Yet clean-energy advocates see a potential ally. The former Texas governor, who in a 2010 book accused scientists of manipulating climate change data, oversaw a boom that made the oil-rich state the biggest producer of wind power as aging coal-fired plants were replaced. 

U.S. wind power enjoys a rebirth as solar's obstacles mount (Reuters): A year after Congress extended generous tax credits for renewable energy projects, the U.S. wind industry is thriving. Solar power companies, meanwhile, are hunkering down for a rough 2017. The tax credit renewal has boosted the long-term outlooks for both industries. But in the short term, the subsidies are far more attractive for wind power, which has spurred utilities to launch wind projects while they scale back or delay solar installations.

ConEd Brooklyn-Queens non-wire alternative project installs first microgrid (Utility Dive): Consolidated Edison's Brooklyn-Queens Neighborhood Program is installing its first microgrid aimed at deferring investment in the bulk power grid: a combined battery, fuel cell and solar PV facility at Brooklyn's Marcus Garvey apartments. The use of distributed resources to defer grid investments in the Brooklyn-Queens project helped spark New York's Reforming the Energy Vision initiative. 

Climate Scientists Hatch Plans to Deal with Trump's Climate Skeptics (Scientific American): Anxiety among Earth and climate scientists has been mounting for weeks. The election of Donald J. Trump as U.S. president, a candidate who called human-driven climate change a hoax, was followed by Trump naming more and more climate-change doubters to run the government’s environment and energy agencies. So this Wednesday a throng of about 2,000 researchers packed a hall at the American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) annual meeting here to hear from politicians and leading scientists about whether science is about to be thrown out the window. Along with, possibly, their jobs.

LEDs Cut New York's Christmas-Light Energy Needs by 35% (Greentech Media):  In December 1989, Clark Griswold’s impressive lighting display caused a peaking power plant to come on-line somewhere in Illinois. Fast-forward to 2016, however, and the Clark Griswolds of the world (or at least of New York state) have switched to LED string lights in droves. The technology revolution of this seasonal staple has resulted in a substantial drop in energy use.

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