“Perseverance: Be Energized. Be Bold. Be You!” As a longtime member and supporter of the Women’s Energy Network (WEN), three representatives from our Energy & Utilities practice attended the WEN 2019 National Conference. The theme of the conference focused on how women can use their perseverance, energy, boldness, and unique aspects to shape the future of an industry on the...
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In 2014, Governor Andrew Cuomo launched New York’s signature energy policy, Reforming the Energy Vision (REV). One of the goals of REV is to commit the state to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40%. While this goal is central to the policy’s purpose of creating a dynamic, clean energy economy, it is also not entirely aligned with the construction of new gas pipelines in the area.…
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In 2015, we took an in-depth look at how utilities, consumers, and regulators viewed distributed energy resources (DERs) and the impact they can be expected to have on the grid, and utility operations. We recently returned to the market with some additional research questions to compare results from the previous study effort and to gain new insights.…
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On April 6, 2019, the Global Positioning System (GPS) will undergo a Week Number rollover event; the week number indicator digit that GPS uses for tracking dates is reaching its maximum value and has to rollover back to 0, just like the odometer in a car. The first time that this happened was 1999.…
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Each year on March 22 the United Nations recognizes World Water Day, and each year we are reminded of the importance of water in our daily lives, its scarcity across the world, and the impact we can have on our most precious resource. World Water Day is centered on Goal 6 of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals which seeks to “ensure access to water and sanitation for all” by 2030. …
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Teaming Up with the Department of Energy and Argonne National Laboratory at the CyberForce Competition™ The US Department of Energy (DOE) hosted their CyberForce Competition™ in late 2018 within their network of National Laboratories across the United States. The competition was created with the goal of addressing the cybersecurity skill gap in the marketplace today.…
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Yesterday’s ratepayers are today’s power consumers – a reality that has plenty of utility execs reaching for the antacid. Ratepayers were mostly passive purchasers of electricity. Consumers have a long list of demands that includes energy efficiency, electric vehicle charging, renewable energy, and dynamic pricing. Some of them are even becoming mini-utilities themselves, mounting solar arrays...
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Key Learnings from the EUCI Conference: Optimizing the Interconnection Process for Renewables & Storage Over the summer, West Monroe co-sponsored EUCI’s Distributed Energy Resources (DER) Interconnection conference in Philadelphia. Multiple leaders of the DER interconnection process at major utilities, including PECO, Ameren, and BGE, presented their experiences managing a process with...
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Utility executives looking to recruit the smartest engineering graduates have lots to offer: Tens of billions of dollars of fresh investment pouring into grid modernization and sustainability projects, cutting-edge communications technology, and creating state of the art big data platforms and using machine learning to create insights to improve reliability and increase efficiencies.…
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Technology, and how we interact with it, is evolving every day. Someday, virtual overlays, like in Minority Report and Terminator, might not be science fiction. Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR), two relatively new interactive experiences, have had their rises and falls throughout time as new technology became widely available, but not enough to sustain user engagement in the...
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Over the years, the utility industry has developed an ingrained safety culture. When we think about these safety programs, we often think of the hard hat, the steel-toe boots, flame resistant clothing, keeping three points of contact as we climb the stairs, and dozens of other little things that can make big differences when it comes to safety.…
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While Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) technologies have languished over the past several decades, major technical advancements within the past few years have brought forth a resurgence of interest in these technologies. From the first AR/VR experiments in 1968, to the failure of the Nintendo Virtual Boy in the 1990s, to the explosive success of the Oculus Rift VR headset...
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