What will Energy Storage do to the Utility and Energy Marketer?
Is your Utility, that regulated monopoly that delivers your energy (natural gas, electricity, even water), ready to continue to evolve.
In many states, the local Utility has adjusted to allowing customer to choose their energy provider. In these state; the Utility continues to provide the distribution of the energy while the energy marketer provides the power to the Utility.
Consider if you install solar photovoltaic (PV) panels you are generating electric power (small scale power plant). Multiply a single PV decision by thousand then millions of people installing PV. The power generated by these PV system reduces the daytime energy needed to be distributed by the Utility (reducing their revenues). However what happens if you add a storage battery to each PV site?
The answer could upend the current Utility and energy marketing model. As the storage battery allows the user to decide when to use the power and when to charge the battery. The user could allow the Utility or energy marketer to manage this choice. The result; the user or customer has a lower bill.
PV with battery storage has been around a long time. However, current and forecasted advancements in the technology has made their adoption (due to cost advantages) more likely.
The future Utility, energy marketer and customer relationships will continue to unfold. Hopefully, the regulators allow the markets to find their equilibrium.
Realgy Energy Services is a registered Retail Energy Marketer in the states of Illinois, Michigan and Indiana. We offer Service Plans that will provide electric and natural gas at wholesale pricing direct to customers without any utility markup. Our Service Plans work with the local utility to provide seamless service and annual energy savings. Service Plans include Guaranteed SavingsTM, ManagedPriceTM, ManagedGreenTM Index, Fixed and PriceAssuranceTM.
Additional Information:
Peoples Gas Admit it withheld information; receives $3.5 Billion more but pays $18 Million fine.
If you have been downtown lately, you have noticed many roads ripped up with Peoples Gas trucks nearby.
This is part of what was a $4.5 Billion dollar pipeline replacement that has grown to $8.0 Billion.
Why is this relevant?
Peoples Gas was sold to Wisconsin based WEC group prior to the disclosure of this 100% cost overrun. DO you think Peoples was sold to WEC Group to continue a $4.5 Billion dollar project or a $8.0 Billion dollar project? The difference would generate about $350,000,000 (350 Million) each year in revenue for the next 25 years.
Again, Peoples Gas is a regulated monopoly. It has no competition to supply natural gas. So, it paid a fine of $18 million to receive $3.5 Billion more to spend.
Let’s see that’s less than 1% penalty.
Surely Peoples will learn their lesson not to withhold information from the regulators when they receive such a stiff penalty as that!
Realgy Energy Services is a registered Retail Energy Marketer in the states of Illinois, Michigan and Indiana. We offer Service Plans that will provide electric and natural gas at wholesale pricing direct to customers without any utility markup. Our Service Plans work with the local utility to provide seamless service and annual energy savings. Service Plans include Guaranteed SavingsTM, ManagedPriceTM, ManagedGreenTM Index, Fixed and PriceAssuranceTM.
Additional Information:
COMED wants to charge you for what you might use, not what you do use
Utilities are monopolies that regulators review to ensure they are spending more to provide the essential service and not collecting more than is needed to do so.
COMED, Chicago’s electric monopoly, wants more money and is proposing a new way to collect it from home owners.
Currently, you pay based on how much energy you use in any given bill period.
However, COMED wants you to pay that PLUS what’s called demand based pricing.
Demand based rates have been a component for industry for a long time. When industry start and stops large machines it can draw a lot of power all at once. This type of load can be hard for a utility to manage across many, many industries.
However, homeowners do not start large machines. We start TVs and AC units. Nothing that a large utility cannot handle. So why charge for demand? Because they want additional revenue because we are using less electricity as lighting and homes become more efficient.
Regulators should say No. Demand rates will reduce incentive to save money on energy usage for residential users.
Realgy Energy Services is a registered Retail Energy Marketer in the states of Illinois, Michigan and Indiana. We offer Service Plans that will provide electric and natural gas at wholesale pricing direct to customers without any utility markup. Our Service Plans work with the local utility to provide seamless service and annual energy savings. Service Plans include Guaranteed SavingsTM, ManagedPriceTM, ManagedGreenTM Index, Fixed and PriceAssuranceTM.
Additional Information:
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2016/05/17/bill-would-drastically-change-way-comed-charges-customers/
Tallest Wind Turbine in the US is in Iowa
It stands over 50 stories tall and has blades nearly as tall as a 30 story building.
MidAmerican Energy in Iowa has constructed this structure out of concrete. The top of the tower houses a single wind generator capable of supplying power to about 2,500 homes.
This is the type of power plant that is sustainable; it’s renewable, consumes no fossil fuels, emits no pollution.
This investment will be able to house wind turbines for the next 100 years.
Realgy Energy Services is a registered Retail Energy Marketer in the states of Illinois, Michigan and Indiana. We offer Service Plans that will provide electric and natural gas at wholesale pricing direct to customers without any utility markup. Our Service Plans work with the local utility to provide seamless service and annual energy savings. Service Plans include Guaranteed SavingsTM, ManagedPriceTM, ManagedGreenTM Index, Fixed and PriceAssuranceTM.
Additional Information:
http://www.kcci.com/news/video-of-tallest-landbased-wind-turbine-ever-going-up-in-iowa/39681738
Michigan law makers are again playing politics with energy policy
The Michigan senate passed a bill that does, amongst other things, puts greater restrictions on Customer Choice. This is a program that allows certified energy marketers to compete against the monopoly utility to offer customers direct wholesale pricing without any additional utility markup. So, why does the politicians want to restrict a program that makes a monopoly compete? Could it be the monopoly pays more to their re-election campaigns than their constituents that would benefit from the lower utility rates?
Let’s hope that reason prevails and Customer Choice survives to continue to benefit the rate payers in the state.
Realgy Energy Services is a registered Retail Energy Marketer in the states of Illinois, Michigan and Indiana. We offer Service Plans that will provide electric and natural gas at wholesale pricing direct to customers without any utility markup. Our Service Plans work with the local utility to provide seamless service and annual energy savings. Service Plans include Guaranteed SavingsTM, ManagedPriceTM, ManagedGreenTM Index, Fixed and PriceAssuranceTM.
Additional Information:
DOE EIA Weekly Gas Storage Report
Here is this weeks’ EIA natural gas storage report. Working gas in storage was 2,825 Bcf as of Friday, May 20, 2016, according to EIA estimates. This represents a net increase of 71 Bcf from the previous week. Stocks were 756 Bcf higher than last year at this time and 769 Bcf above the five-year average of 2,056 Bcf. At 2,825 Bcf, total working gas is above the five-year historical range.
Estimated Injection 68 Bcf
Vs
Actual Injection 71 Bcf
Analysts predict build below 5-year average
A lower-than-average injection is anticipated for the third consecutive week, further reducing the surplus to the five-year average. The US Energy Information Administration will estimate an injection of 68 Bcf to gas in storage for the reporting week that ended May 20 according to a consensus of analysts surveyed by Platts. The EIA plans to release its weekly storage report at 10:30 am EDT (1530 GMT) Thursday. The expected injection would be much less than the 106-Bcf injection reported at this time in 2015 and less than the five-year average of a 97-Bcf build, according to EIA data.
