How these energy geeks are re-imagining an old school utility
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Welcome to the utility industry's future - or at least that's what Southern California Edison is hoping.
Here in a non-descript, 53,500-square-foot building, the $12 billion utility's research team is testing everything from charging electronic vehicles via cell phone to devices that smooth out the power created by rooftop solar panels.
Those are some of the roughly 60 projects in the works at Edison's Advanced Technology division. It has a small $19 million annual budget, but its influence far exceeds that.
The engineers from California's largest utility are hatching plans to insure its survival - and maybe even the survival of the nation's other big utilities, which are watching the project closely.
The lab was formed by Southern California Edison in 2009 after California passed a landmark law to lower its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels - and source one third of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020.
The result has been more electric vehicles here in the Golden State. And more solar and wind power, which has got the state's utilities, and those nationwide, scrambling to adapt. Unlike traditional electricity, power from solar and wind sources fluctuates depending on the weather, making it tricky to manage on the grid.
Also the cost of solar power has come down so much that more homeowners are producing their own power and paying less to their utility.
Simply put: long term, utilities will need new sources of revenue.
In 2013, California's three largest utilities sourced nearly 23 percent of their power from renewable sources, and Gov. Jerry Brown has called for a target of 50 percent by 2030. Twenty nine states have laws requiring more renewables, according to North Carolina State University's Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency.
With so much "distributed" energy on the grid now, mainly from solar panels, says Accenture, the utility industry could see revenues fall by between $18 billion and $48 billion a year by 2025. That's why some call it the utility "death spiral."
INDUSTRY MODEL
There's a reason why the lab's work is getting a lot of attention: It is producing results and they share the work with utility officials and researchers from as far away as China. For instance, Edison
Here in a non-descript, 53,500-square-foot building, the $12 billion utility's research team is testing everything from charging electronic vehicles via cell phone to devices that smooth out the power created by rooftop solar panels.
Those are some of the roughly 60 projects in the works at Edison's Advanced Technology division. It has a small $19 million annual budget, but its influence far exceeds that.
The engineers from California's largest utility are hatching plans to insure its survival - and maybe even the survival of the nation's other big utilities, which are watching the project closely.
The lab was formed by Southern California Edison in 2009 after California passed a landmark law to lower its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels - and source one third of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020.
The result has been more electric vehicles here in the Golden State. And more solar and wind power, which has got the state's utilities, and those nationwide, scrambling to adapt. Unlike traditional electricity, power from solar and wind sources fluctuates depending on the weather, making it tricky to manage on the grid.
Also the cost of solar power has come down so much that more homeowners are producing their own power and paying less to their utility.
Simply put: long term, utilities will need new sources of revenue.
In 2013, California's three largest utilities sourced nearly 23 percent of their power from renewable sources, and Gov. Jerry Brown has called for a target of 50 percent by 2030. Twenty nine states have laws requiring more renewables, according to North Carolina State University's Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency.
With so much "distributed" energy on the grid now, mainly from solar panels, says Accenture, the utility industry could see revenues fall by between $18 billion and $48 billion a year by 2025. That's why some call it the utility "death spiral."
INDUSTRY MODEL
There's a reason why the lab's work is getting a lot of attention: It is producing results and they share the work with utility officials and researchers from as far away as China. For instance, Edison
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