Candlestick Park: An Iron Grid for the Gridiron?

December 22, 2011 Leave a comment

Check out this entry on AOL Energy as well!

With the exception of a few teams (Red Sox, Phillies and Cubs come to mind) most baseball fans are fairly mild mannered. In my house, we spend many summer nights falling asleep to the drone of the announcers’ voices as the seventh, eighth, ninth innings come and go. Football fans, on the other hand, seem to be more physically passionate. Maybe it’s the roughness of the sport. Or perhaps it’s the speed and action. Or the inherent excitement in each play. All I know is, if the lights were to go out for a few seconds in a baseball game, most fans would simply wave up the row for the beer guy. The millions of 49ers and Steelers fans in San Francisco and around their TV sets when two outages occurred during Monday night football reacted a little differently. Read more of this post

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Sunshine on my shoulder makes me happy: Energy Storage Getting Some Light

October 17, 2011 Leave a comment

Check out this blog at IDC Energy Insights as well!

A Sunshine Memo was issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Thursday, October 13, moments after I met with Commissioner Norris and Chairman Wellinghoff with the Electricity Storage Association Advocacy Council. This memo listed a multitude of possible final rulemakings, one of which will set a new course for the energy storage industry. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Frequency Regulation Compensation may sound esoteric and niche-y but this rule will provide the opening the energy storage industry needs to begin its “game changing” role on the grid that has been touted for years. It looks as if, after subsequent meetings with Commissioners Moeller and LaFleur (Commissioner Spitzer will be leaving the agency shortly), there will be unanimous support from all Commissioners on the final rule.

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Filed under Clean Tech, Energy Storage, Investors, Policy Insights, Regulatory Tagged with ,

In the Middle of the Debt Ceiling Negotiations: Can Energy Information for Consumers Help our Economy?

July 22, 2011 2 Comments

As I rode the metro into work the other day, I read a piece by George Packer in the New Yorker describing a family unable to make ends meet because they are underemployed, not qualifying for federal or state assistance yet unable to make a living wage with high skills required. Packer claimed that the 9.2 % unemployment rate is really something like 16.2% if one takes into consideration those who do not appear unemployed on paper but are certainly not making it financially. Washington, D.C., is a bit of a bubble in that regard; we have not seen as dramatically the economic toll that the rest of the country has suffered. As I thought about the millions of parents with college degrees who would go to part-time jobs that do not use their skills and then stay up online all night juggling bills and school supply costs, I stepped into a briefing in the cool, sparkling new Capitol Visitor’s Center. Read more of this post

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Horton Hears a Woman in Energy: We are here! We are here!

May 27, 2011 Leave a comment

Check out this blog at The Energy Collective as well!

The National Women’s Leadership Summit recently held its fourth summit in three years here in DC. I was once again astounded at how many women were in the room. As far as the eye could see were women—some young, some older, many nationalities and backgrounds—all connected to the energy industry.
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Five Lies Your Mother Never Told You About Smart Grid

May 18, 2011 1 Comment

Check out AOL Energy for part of this blog!

Lie #1: Smart grid is a project for the utilities and its success rests in their hands. Utilities really have just three public goals: operate a safe, reliable, cost-effective electric grid. Our grid does need modernizing; it is congested and overloaded in some places and we need more real time information about what electrons are going where so we can balance variable renewable sources like wind and solar with electric vehicles and other consumer loads. On the metering side, having remote access to real time information will allow faster response to outages and a more accurate ability to plan for energy sources. The Recovery Act did a lot to subsidize that initial cost – and we still have a long way to go. Read more of this post

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What can you get for a few billion dollars? A futile attempt to find results of smart grid stimulus funding.

May 9, 2011 1 Comment

I visited the federal government’s SmartGrid Web site today for the hundredth time to see if I could figure out what we’ve done with the $4.5 billion in stimulus funds the Department of Energy (DOE) has been giving out for the last two years. Nothing but a message saying results would be posted starting late 2011. Digging pretty deep into the Web site you can find some charts about which technologies have been installed to date, but nothing about what the stimulus was really supposed to do—create jobs. Read more of this post

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Innovation in the face of budget cuts

April 18, 2011 Leave a comment

“We will make the tough cuts necessary to achieve these savings, including in programs I care about, but I will not sacrifice the core investments we need to grow and create jobs. We’ll invest in…clean energy technology….We will invest in education and job training. We will do what we need to compete and we will win the future.”
Barack Obama, April 13, 2011, Georgetown University

The US government plays a critical role–protecting our citizens and property, overseeing our parks and a multitude of public services, providing medical care and education to millions of Americans–all of which need to be paid for every year in the federal budget. Those functions were in jeopardy on a weekly and at times daily basis as Congress and the Administration haggle over serious policy and funding issues in an effort to pass the fiscal 2011 budget. Read more of this post

Filed under Clean Tech, Investors, Policy Insights

FERC Order 745 and clean tech: really, this is not boring!

March 18, 2011 Leave a comment

When the words “FERC Order” are uttered, most people’s eyes either glaze over or worried frowns appear as they wonder if they need to understand the conversation. Let’s try to figure out what this order means for the clean tech world in words we can all understand. Read more of this post

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STATE OF THE SMART GRID:…

February 15, 2011 Leave a comment

I’ve been avoiding writing about the potential fate of smart grid in this new Congress because, honestly, I haven’t been able to get a good read on these new folks yet. The President’s State of the Union address did provide us with some markers about what might be possible in the smart grid world over the next 18 months or so. Let’s start with what he said:

●A Clean Energy Standard, which seems to be on a track to define everything as “clean” except energy efficiency (arguably the quickest, cheapest, cleanest resource of all), may help smart grid in some way—since just about any power production benefits from an intelligent grid–although not as significantly as a renewable portfolio standard would.

●Emphasis on “infrastructure” could certainly incentivize improvements to the electric grid and create much-needed jobs.

●STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) education programs, especially assisting girls, will help groom our smart grid employee of the future. More

Filed under Policy Insights, Smart Grid

Ode to a Mentor: A Love of Power

February 8, 2011 2 Comments

In this, my first entry for CleanGridView, the Quinn Gillespie energy and environment blog, I thought it appropriate to talk about an ending as a beginning.

When people hear me talk about the electricity grid they assume I have a degree in engineering. I actually majored in English with the aspiration of writing and illustrating children’s books. I came to DC to find that my skills could only get me $6 an hour serving subpoenas for Arent Fox. In college I had spent a summer working for the Company, what my grandfather called Vepco, later Virginia Power and now Dominion. Read more of this post

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