White Papers

Powering Good for a Sustainable Energy Future

Before ‘COVID-19’ became part of our everyday vocabulary, global forces were shaping – and continue to shape - our planet. Climate change action and decarbonization are forces for good. And if any good stems from the pandemic, it will be as a result of a more urgent call for real action on decarbonization.

Learn how this clean energy transition will lead to a sustainable economic recovery in Hitachi ABB Power Grids’ debut semi-annual publication, Perspectives, a collection of insights, opinions and ideas from technology and business leaders. This edition explores the importance of a reliable, resilient and flexible grid and how adopting digitalization is vital for the recovery of our economy.

The Need and Opportunity to Enable Flexible Demand Response in the U.S.

Utilities have used demand response (DR) for decades to curb power use at times of peak demand. But evolving regulatory, technological and market drivers towards decarbonization are converging so that utilities are taking a fresh look at their demand response programs to provide a new level of grid flexibility.

While demand response programs have evolved in recent years from one-way load control programs, the emergence of the internet of things (IoT) and sophisticated software control platforms has created new opportunities to harness and aggregate DR resources in ways unavailable less than a decade ago.

In this minibrief, Centrica Business Solutions explores the shifting technological and policy factors impacting demand response in the United States. 

Leveraging the Cloud for a Resilient, Secure, and Customer-Centric Utility

As power systems across the U.S. decarbonize, utilities must prepare to integrate increasing penetrations of renewable energy onto the grid. With the rapid growth of distributed energy resources, utilities must also quickly scale their capacity to coordinate and monitor thousands of new behind-the-meter assets such as batteries, electric vehicles, and smart home devices.

Cloud-based digitalization can unlock the scale and flexibility utilities need to meet the challenges of the evolving grid. By migrating workloads to the cloud, utilities can leverage elastic computing resources and build IT/OT integrations to transform their models of power delivery and management.

Download this white paper to learn how a cloud-first approach empowers utilities to optimize distributed energy resources, improve security and resiliency, and design new customer-first energy offerings and engagement tools.

Short- and Long-Term Impacts of the Coronavirus on Renewable Energy

The renewable energy industry is no stranger to disruptions. Over the past decade, the wind, solar and storage industries have experienced explosive growth despite on-and-off trade wars, as well as policy changes and uncertainty at both the state and federal level. 

None of those changes, however, begin to rival the wide-ranging impacts of the global coronavirus pandemic.

In this paper, CohnReznick and CohnReznick Capital review:

• The current and long-term impacts of the coronavirus on the solar, wind, and energy storage markets

• Recent policy changes impacting the industry, and

• The tax equity implications for investors and developers. 

Repowering Large-Scale PV Systems Using DC Power Management

Repowering large-scale PV systems is a hot topic for system owners and O&M providers.  Learn how the industry is addressing problems and opportunities across the lifetime of PV power plants using DC power management to improve ROI. 

Download this free whitepaper to learn how Ampt String Optimizers perform DC power management to:

• Replace legacy inverters with lower-cost modern inverters without rewiring
• Correct voltage sag issues without replacing the PV modules or inverter
• Mix new and legacy PV modules during replacement without creating mismatch
• Increase DC loading without overloading the existing inverter or electrical BOS
• Recover energy lost from variable degradation and other sources of mismatch
• Enable lower cost options to add DC-coupled energy storage to existing systems

The Future of Energy After Covid-19: Three Scenarios

The coronavirus pandemic has hit the world economy harder than any event since World War 2, and will have a lasting impact on energy demand. As governments around the world have shuttered businesses and restricted freedom of movement for billions of people, consumption of oil, gas and power has fallen.

As a framework for thinking about the long-term effects of the pandemic, Wood Mackenzie presents three recovery scenarios and consider the implications for energy and natural resources.