Category: Energy Consumption

July 28, 2020

Coal burn in the power sector has fallen off a cliff. Demand peaked at 1.045 billion tons in 2007. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates consumption in 2020 will be 377 million tons, a drop of 64% in little […]

July 23, 2020

A round-up of recent news from the US, where Recurrent Energy moves closer to completing two Texas projects and major corporations call on Congress to pass measures to bolster green energy growth. Recurrent Energy secures funding for Texas solar projects […]

July 16, 2020

As the streak of mid-90s temperatures continues in North Carolina and South Carolina, Duke Energy is providing free tools and tips to help customers save energy – and money – as the region’s heat wave lingers during the COVID-19 pandemic. […]

July 16, 2020

Open Systems International, Inc. (OSI) has been awarded a contract by the city of St. George, Utah for a new SCADA and Distribution Management System (DMS). Based on OSI’s monarch operational technology (OT) platform, this new system will replace St. […]

June 26, 2020

Following last week’s release of the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2020, I began to review and analyze the data. Today I take a deeper dive into the numbers on petroleum. Oil accounts for a third of the world’s […]

June 25, 2020

Experts disagree about how fast the United States can replace coal and gas-fired power plants with zero-carbon electricity. Some say we can shift to 100 percent clean power by 2050 with little friction and minimal cost. Others say that’s unrealistically […]

June 19, 2020

The new BP Statistical Review of World Energy was published this week. It’s worth a look: a treasure trove of energy data, published annually since 1952. (Full disclosure: I led the production of the Review for a dozen years…) The […]

June 17, 2020

Covid-19 has roiled California, threatening 18% unemployment in 2020 and forcing policymakers to recharge the world’s fifth-largest economy, even as they face a $54 billion budget deficit stemming from the crisis. In response, Governor Newsom convened a Recovery Task Force, […]

May 29, 2020

The EIA states that this outcome mainly reflects the continued decline in the amount of coal used for electricity generation over the past decade as well as growth in renewable energy, mostly from wind and solar. Compared with 2018, coal […]

May 26, 2020

A fundamental problem facing subsidy-free solar and wind in renewables-heavy grids is emerging as coronavirus cuts energy demand in Europe. The fall in demand is driving up the proportion of clean energy on many grids and highlighting an issue flagged […]

May 18, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has had devastating global public health and economic effects, and as shelter-in-place orders reduce energy demand across the United States, the pandemic’s associated climate impacts are coming into view. Significant uncertainty around economic activity mean few emissions […]

May 6, 2020

California utility Pacific Gas & Electric may need to rely even more heavily on forced blackouts this year, to prevent its grid from starting more deadly wildfires like the ones that drove it into bankruptcy. PG&E’s wildfire mitigation work is […]

May 5, 2020

COVID-19 is transforming the global energy system in ways unthinkable just four months ago. This crisis is, without exaggeration, the biggest shock to the global energy system in at least seven decades, and the implications of that shock will be […]

March 30, 2020

A study published by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) shows peak demand and energy use decreased as much as 21% in some areas as a result of actions taken to reduce the spread of COVID-19. The report—COVID-19 Bulk System […]

March 23, 2020

There is little doubt that the world has entered a global economic recession as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Every recession lowers energy use, and this one may be a whopper. The 2008 financial crisis, and the Great Recession […]