The Pubic Power Forward Summit, held Nov. 21-22, in Nashville, is hosted by the American Public Power Association. The summit provides the opportunity for industry partners, strategic thinkers subject matter experts to discover new industry trends, technologies, and service expectations. It’s an opportunity to share your thoughts on public power’s future.
Read more and register at:
https://www.publicpower.org/event/public-power-forward-summit
The American Public Power Association’s Demonstration of Energy & Efficiency Development (DEED) program funds research, pilot projects, and education to improve the operations and services of public power utilities.
The DEED Program offers four types of funding for students to pursue energy-related careers: lineworker and technical education scholarships, student internships, student research grants, and technical design projects.
Applicants must be students attending or planning to attend a vocational institution, lineworker school or two to four-year college/university within the U.S. and must not be graduating within 12 months of the application deadline.
To apply, answer a few short questions on a questionnaire, which opens on December 1, 2019, for the Spring 2020 cycle.
For more information and to apply, see Deed Funding for Students, and view a Scholarship Guide for Students, career videos highlighting jobs in public power, and the Association’s online job board of current openings.
Developments in clean fuels policy is moving forward in Washington State with the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency (PSCAA). This week’s clean air conference included discussion on regional health impacts and prospects for statewide policy in 2020.
PSCAA’s work will spur new clean infrastructure that increases access, affordability, and feasibility of cleaner transportation options like adding electric vehicle infrastructure, exploring electric vehicle car sharing programs, and clean diesel.
Read the full article at washingtonstatewire.com.
For more than 100 years, hydropower has translated energy from falling water into electricity at an efficiency rate that exceeds 90% on many projects. Hydro also provides more of the services necessary for reliability than any other resource, including operating reserves, frequency regulation and black start capability. It is a premier generating resource.
Hydropower represents 65% of electric generation here in Washington, but this issue is much bigger than the Pacific Northwest. As of last year, the U.S. had more than 100 gigawatts of hydropower capacity, including pumped storage. In its 2016 Hydropower Vision report, the Department of Energy found that this capacity has the potential to grow to nearly 150 GW by 2050. The report states that a combined $209 billion in savings from avoided global damages from greenhouse gas emissions is possible, including $185 billion in savings from continuing to operate the existing hydropower fleet through 2050.
Shoreline’s Director of Clean Energy Technology, Louise Petruzzella, traveled to Germany recently to take part in an international learning exchange sponsored by the National Science Foundation Center for Renewable Energy Advanced Technological Education (CREATE).
A committee of energy education experts nominated clean energy professionals from across the U.S. to take part in the exchange, with only ten participants selected. Petruzzella and her cohort spent 12 days examining lessons learned by their German counterparts in renewable energy and energy storage technology best practices.
The goal of the exchange was to advance the American renewable energy workforce and increase the technical competence of the U.S. in the energy storage sector. National Science Foundation Program Officers nominated Petruzzella to participate “based on her valuable contributions and expertise developing and implementing exemplary energy education efforts” at Shoreline.
In a series of articles about smart grid systems, a primer explains grid coordination involving the different systems that make up grid distribution and delivery:
Next-Gen Grid Architecture: A grid coordination primer
One of the pressing issues facing the power industry is the integration and coordination of distributed energy resources (DER) to provide electricity delivery.
The issue was not well-recognized until recently, although some forms of coordination have been around a long time such as commercial and industrial (C&I) demand response (DR) and bulk generation in deregulated industry segments.
Learn about industry structure at Electric Light & Power.
Did you know you can search for jobs by state on the American Public Power Association website?
Here are current job listings for Washington.
Try your search at: jobs.publicpower.org/jobs
At the annual HydroVision International conference, held July 23-25 in Portland OR, keynote speaker Janet Harron, COO of Bonneville Power, stressed the importance of telling the hydropower story. Harron said that hydropower is able to provide grid support to wind and solar, which are growing energy sources.
“We are looking at a world where hydropower has the winning combination, because it is 100 percent carbon free and dispatchable,” she said.
Harron also stressed the importance of workforce development and how the new generation of grid and hydro operators will bring new ideas to the technology.
Read more at Renewable Energy World.
Portland General Electric Co. launched its Smart Grid Test Bed, a project that will integrate smart grid technology and accelerate PGE’s vision for a clean energy future.
PGE’s test bed spans three distinct neighborhoods within its service area. Through the test bed, the company is preparing more than 20,000 customers to take advantage of special demand-response signals as well as incentives for using smart-home technologies, giving them greater control over their energy use and carbon footprint.
With this pilot, PGE is building the roadmap to a virtual power plant — one powered by customer devices and behaviors rather than traditional generation — that will help address climate change, empower communities in how they consume energy and create a more resilient power system, all while saving customers money.
The Foundation for Water and Energy Education (FWEE) held its second annual Hydropower and STEM Career Academy in Wenatchee in June. The academy, which is hosted by the Chelan County PUD, aims to teach high school students about the job opportunities and benefits of working in hydropower.
» Learn more about FWEE on our K-12 Resources page »
The week-long academy gives more than 20 students the opportunity to see hydro plants in action, talk to diverse employees – including divers, electrical engineers, civil engineers, fish biologists, and more – who work in the industry, and complete hands-on projects to better understand how hydro works. For example, all students build a generator and turbine to generate electricity to power a string of lights.
Read more at publicpower.org.