New Competition for Energy Service Providers: Own-Operate Packaged CHP Deals
January 1, 2005
Very gradually, some owners of commercial buildings are starting to turn away from traditional energy service providers and toward companies that will develop, own, and operate a packaged combined heat and power (CHP) plant at their facility. These companies will sell CHP outputs—in the form of electricity, ...
Content type: Research, Service Report | Document ID: DE-26 | Author: Jon Slowe
Can We Connect? Distributed Generation's Courtship of Utilities in the New Century
December 1, 2004
As the trend toward small-scale power generation continues, policy pressures are pushing utilities and distributed generators closer together. Initiatives such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ interconnection standard are helping to thaw the ice. In some regions, regulators ...
Content type: Research, Service Report | Document ID: DE-25 | Author: David Van Holde
Utility Standby Generator Programs: Building Distributed Generation Businesses
November 1, 2004
Several utilities have launched DG initiatives in the past few years, using standby generators to provide customers with increased power reliability. Typically, these programs offer to install, own, and operate generators at customers’ sites, while customers pay a monthly fee in return. In some cases ...
Content type: Focus Report, Research | Document ID: DE-F-2 | Author: Gerald Cler
Clever Chilling: Packaged Combined Cooling and Power
August 1, 2004
Combined cooling, heating, and power (CCHP)—a technique that uses the exhaust heat from distributed generation (DG) prime movers to run a chiller—is a compelling idea with the potential to greatly advance DG markets worldwide. Part of CCHP’s attraction is its ability to meet coinciding peak cooling ...
Content type: Research, Service Report | Document ID: DE-24 | Author: Christine Brinker
Distributed Energy Global Market Trends: Japan, Western Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand
November 1, 2003
Distributed energy (DE) continues to solidify its place in energy markets worldwide. Understanding trends in different distributed energy markets will help companies foresee where DE may be headed in their own market and help them take an appropriate stance. In this report, we examine how DE markets ...
Content type: Research, Service Report | Document ID: DE-23 | Author: Jon Slowe, Christine Hurley, Yasushi Santo
Some Highlights From the 6th Annual E Source Distributed Energy Summit, July 7-8 Webcast
July 1, 2003
The 6th Annual E Source Distributed Energy Summit featured an array of speakers from many areas of the industry to cover distributed energy from a variety of perspectives. The speakers' general consensus on distributed energy (DE) was one of long-term optimism. There was agreement that ...
Content type: Research, Service Report | Document ID: DE-23 | Author: David Van Holde, Christine Hurley
Cleaner Diesels: Not Just Smoke and Mirrors
June 1, 2003
Diesel engines still dominate sales of distributed generation. In the past year, 85 percent of all engines sold between 1 and 10 megawatts were diesel-fueled. But due to tight air-quality restrictions, most can only run a few hours per year. We identify engine emissions solutions that are clean enough ...
Content type: Research, Service Report | Document ID: DE-22 | Author: Gerald Cler, David Van Holde
Biogas: A Growing Niche for Distributed Generation
May 1, 2003
Biogas is a cost-effective application for distributed generation with the likelihood of continued growth. We examine biogas from landfills, wastewater treatment plants, livestock operations, organic industrial wastes, separated municipal solid wastes, and gasification of biomass. For each source, we ...
Content type: Research, Service Report | Document ID: DE-21 | Author: Jon Slowe, Christine Hurley
Small Hydro Projects
November 1, 2002
The last century saw two substantial hydropower building booms in North America: before the 1930s and after World War II. Today, hydro projects are much less common, even though many parts of the U.S. and Canada still have prime hydropower resources, particularly for small, low-impact hydro. The decrease ...
Content type: Focus Report, Research | Document ID: DE-F-1 | Author: Amanda Sysko, Ken Wicker
Maintenance Options for Distributed Generation
October 1, 2002
For distributed generation to gain wide popularity, the equipment must provide high availability with relatively low operation and maintenance costs, and developers must be able to accurately predict those costs. Currently, there is a lack of accurate data available on maintenance costs associated with ...
Content type: Research, Service Report | Document ID: DE-20 | Author: Ken Wicker
Moving Beyond Pilot Projects: Utility Business Models for Distributed Energy
July 1, 2002
The market conditions for distributed generation have drastically changed in the past year, but distributed generation still has a role in helping utilities profitably meet customer needs. In this report we examine some of the most common and some of the most creative business models for regulated utilities ...
Content type: Research, Service Report | Document ID: DE-19 | Author: Christine Hurley
Liquid Electricity: Flow Batteries Expand Large-Scale Energy Storage Market
June 1, 2002
Flow batteries are being commercialized and are attracting interest from the power business. Excitement about this relatively new electricity storage technology derives from flow batteries’ attributes: they are relatively inexpensive for batteries, highly scalable, and can optimize for either power ...
Content type: Research, Service Report | Document ID: DE-18 | Author: Chris Lotspeich, Yasushi Santo
The Real Costs of Emerging Distributed Energy Technologies
June 1, 2002
By analyzing manufacturers’ and analysts’ cost predictions alongside real-world case studies, we estimate high- and low-scenario electricity production costs for fuel cells, Stirling engines, microturbines, and sub-10-kilowatt-electrical gas engines for 2007. For the most familiar technologies, we ...
Content type: Research, Service Report | Document ID: EUDE-5 | Author: Michael Brown, Jon Slowe
High-Temperature Fuel Cells for Stationary Power: A Long, Hot Road to the Promised Product
March 1, 2002
Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) and molten carbonate fuel cells (MCFCs) are two high- temperature technologies that will eventually be providing power for stationary applications. Though they aren’t quite ready for commercial release, developers have had promising results, and some manufacturers are ...
Content type: Service Report | Document ID: DE-17 | Author: Ken Wicker
What's In the Deal? Selling Distributed Energy in Competitive Markets
February 1, 2002
By offering finance packages coupled with innovative ways to mitigate technical, price, and investment risk, small-scale distributed energy developers are bringing forward successful projects that would have failed under more conventional deal structures. These developers are well placed to respond to, ...
Content type: Research, Service Report | Document ID: EUDE-4 | Author: Jon Slowe
Economic Evaluation Tools for Distributed Generation
December 1, 2001
Back-of-the-envelope cost calculations are insufficient for any more than a single, simple distributed generation project. E source has identified nearly a dozen software or Web-based tools that help evaluate the economics and perform feasibility studies for distributed generation. These tools range ...
Content type: Research, Service Report | Document ID: DE-16 | Author: Christine Hurley
The Heat Is On: What's Cookin' with Large DG
September 1, 2001
Media coverage of distributed generation tends to focus on small and glamorous technologies such as fuel cells and microturbines of less than 100 kilowatts. For now, however, most developers are installing larger and more prosaic reciprocating engines and combustion turbines. What are the characteristics ...
Content type: Research, Service Report | Document ID: DE-15 | Author: Joan Gregerson, David Van Holde
The Way Forward—Distributed Energy in Europe
September 1, 2001
Bernd Kohlstruck, managing director of Alstom-Ballard, told a European distributed energy (DE) business audience in mid-2001 that, "Alstom, ABB, Siemens and others all see the future as likely to be decentralized, with lots of technology options and the need for intelligent energy management and control ...
Content type: Research, Service Report | Document ID: EUDE-3 | Author: Stewart Boyle
Distributed Energy Market-Sizing Workshop
July 1, 2001
The E Source Distributed Energy Series sponsored a one-day workshop in Denver on April 10, 2001. Goals of the day were to create a forum for exchanging ideas and information among stakeholders in this business; to better understand the evolution of and early markets for distributed generation ...
Content type: Research | Document ID: DE-SR
Advances in Distributed Energy Control and Communication Systems
March 1, 2001
The successful deployment of distributed energy resources hinges on the robustness of new control and communication systems that can control hundreds or thousands of dispersed small resources, including generators, loads, and storage.
Content type: Research, Service Report | Document ID: DE-14 | Author: Joan Gregerson and Jay Mariyappan
Dynamic Market Opportunities and Barriers for Standby Generators
December 1, 2000
Distributed energy is increasingly being used by utilities and independent companies as a means to meet peak demand and to provide profit in energy, delivery, and ancillary service markets. This report provides an overview of the issues that are driving the use of distributed energy, such as price volatility ...
Content type: Research, Service Report | Document ID: DE-13 | Author: Joan Gregerson
Distributed Generation for Delivery System Capital Deferral: A Small Market with a Large Impact?
September 1, 2000
Much of the recent interest in distributed energy was born out of utility efforts in the early 1990s to defer capital upgrades for their transmission and distribution systems. Though it sagged during the focus on restructuring in the electric power industry through the 1990s, interest in using local ...
Content type: Research, Service Report | Document ID: DE-12 | Author: Daniel Engel, Christine Hurley, Nicholas Lenssen
Distributed Energy: The Reality and the Hype
July 1, 2000
For the past decade, distributed generation technologies have been researched and developed in hopes of substantiating very optimistic estimates about their imminent, wide-scale adoption in nearly all end-user market segments. Along the way, many prognosticators lost sight of the current technical realities ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: ER-00-10 | Author: Adam Capage
Dual-Fuel Engines: Friend or Foe of Distributed Energy?
May 1, 2000
Converting the large stock of existing diesel-fired, standby generators to dual-fuel operation may shift the future evolution of distributed generation markets. This report provides a review of the technology options available and explains how this different approach could splinter the growing coalition ...
Content type: Research, Service Report | Document ID: DE-11 | Author: Gerald Cler
Residential Markets and Technologies for Distributed Energy in Western Europe
May 1, 2000
Despite substantial activity in industrial and commercial markets, distributed generation has yet to capture a real market in western Europe. The expectation of technology developers and energy service providers, however, is that a combination of trends—from technological improvements to liberalisation ...
Content type: Research, Service Report | Document ID: EUDE-1 | Author: Deborah Brown, John Parsons, Isobel Reo, Adrian Richardson
Strategic Market Assessment for Distributed Energy: Scenarios from a Venture Capitalist
March 1, 2000
Past efforts to scope out the size of distributed energy markets have failed to accurately portray just how much and how fast markets will develop. This report reviews past efforts to size the market, explains why such efforts failed, and employs a scenario approach to anticipate future market developments ...
Content type: Research, Service Report | Document ID: DE-10 | Author: Dominic Geraghty
Packaging Distributed Energy Solutions
December 1, 1999
Focusing on reciprocating engines, turbines, microturbines, and fuel cell prime-mover technologies, this report updates readers on packaging options for small-scale cogeneration, high-efficiency, and portable power generation options. The up-to-the-minute information will be useful for energy service ...
Content type: Research, Service Report | Document ID: DE-9 | Author: Gary Cler
Shifting the Balance of Power: Grid Interconnection of Distributed Generation
October 1, 1999
Are current interconnection rules, as utilities often state, simply meeting their needs for protecting the grid and ensuring the safety of linesmen? Or, as independent developers of distributed generation claim, are the rules anticompetitive measures designed to block the spread of on-site generation? ...
Content type: Research, Service Report | Document ID: DE-8 | Author: Brendan Kirby, Nicholas Lenssen
How Will Distributed Generation Be Deployed?
June 1, 1999
Utility interconnection rules, backup rates, and stranded-asset recovery regimes are often insurmountable obstacles to developing economically viable distributed energy projects. However, there are ways to avoid these problems. This report examines two approaches that might make it possible for energy ...
Content type: Research, Service Report | Document ID: DE-7 | Author: Nicholas Lenssen, Christine Hurley, Lindsay Audin
Residential Distributed Generation: Options and Prospects
March 1, 1999
Manufacturers of fuel cells, Stirling engines, photovoltaics, and other distributed generation technologies plan to release products for the residential market in the next few years. At present, there is a modest but growing residential market for emergency backup generators; developers hope to spur ...
Content type: Service Report | Document ID: DE-6/RES-2 | Author: Gerald Cler, Nicholas Lenssen, Claudia Manz
Perrier or Plain Water? Branding in the New Energy Marketplace
February 1, 1999
A brand is the union of the tangible attributes of a company, such as its products, services, and prices, with its intangible attributes, such as its corporate personality, character, values, and vision. As customers attempt to make choices among providers and products in a cluttered marketplace, ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: ER-99-1 | Author: Michael Rucker, Meg Matt, Erik von Weber, Bill LeBlanc
Distributed Generation: A Tool for Power Reliability and Quality
November 1, 1998
Putting distributed energy to work resolving power quality and reliability problems may be one way to establish an early market presence for emerging distributed generation technologies. Among potential users of this premium power are companies with sophisticated automated control systems and data storage ...
Content type: Research, Service Report | Document ID: DE-5/PQ-2 | Author: Ira Krepchin
Dynamic Pricing and the Future of Distributed Generation
September 1, 1998
Although it is too early to say how dynamic pricing in a restructured U.S. energy marketplace will affect the economics of distributed generation, it appears that distributed generators may find their largest opportunity in displacing purchases of conventional network power, particularly as price volatility ...
Content type: Research, Service Report | Document ID: DE-4 | Author: David Armstrong, Laurence Kirsch, Cara Lee Mahany Braithwait
Selling Distributed Generation: What Buyers Want
June 1, 1998
Companies have invested billions of dollars developing microturbines, fuel cells, and Stirling engines to be used for distributed generation. But most commercial and light industrial energy users in North America have minimal interest in—and little knowledge about—these new technologies. Lessons ...
Content type: Research, Service Report | Document ID: DE-2 | Author: Nicholas Lenssen, Joel Davidow
A Foundation for Success: Building Construction Regulations and Distributed Generation
June 1, 1998
The commercialization of emerging technologies for distributed generation, such as fuel cells, microturbines, and Stirling engines, is just beginning, but the regulatory infrastructure needed to support the installation of these technologies in, on, or alongside buildings is not yet in place. Because ...
Content type: Research, Service Report | Document ID: DE-3 | Author: David Conover
Distributed Generation: Markets and Technologies in Transition
December 1, 1997
The development and commercialization of small power plants is quickly gathering momentum. Two microturbine manufacturers are accepting commercial orders, as is one fuel cell company. More than two dozen companies in the U.S. alone are poised to commercialize new small power plant technologies, including ...
Content type: Research, Service Report | Document ID: DE-1 | Author: Gerald Cler, Nicholas Lenssen
The Distributed Utility
June 1, 1997
The electric utility industry is becoming more decentralized as a result of competitive restructuring and the rapid evolution of technology in such fields as information, communication, controls, and small-scale power generation and storage. The centralized, hierarchical structure that has characterized ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: SIP IX | Author: Graham Hodge and Michael Shepard
Distributed Load Control How Smart Appliances Could Improve Transmission Grid Operations
March 1, 1997
"Smart" appliances with sophisticated controls can benefit energy users, but they also can significantly benefit transmission system operations. Rapid cycling of smart appliances could help wring more capacity from the power grid while maintaining its stability—a strategy called distributed ...
Content type: Core Report, Research | Document ID: SM-97-3 | Author: Nicholas Lenssen
Distributed Generation Good Things Are Coming in Small Packages
November 1, 1996
Tiny power plants now entering the marketplace will profoundly alter the nature of the electric power industry in the years ahead. Ranging from a few watts to several hundred kilowatts, these devices are being deployed at or near customer facilities and T&D bottlenecks. In conjunction with other distributed ...
Content type: Core Report, Research | Document ID: TU-96-12 | Author: Gerald Cler, Michael Shepard
The ONSI PC25 C Fuel Cell Power Plant
March 1, 1996
The quest for a distributed, modular, highly reliable, and efficient source of premium power with low environmental impact is focusing the attention of utilities and end users alike on fuel cell power plants. The ONSI PC25(TM) currently is the only commercially viable fuel cell power plant on the ...
Content type: Core Report, Research | Document ID: PP-96-2 | Author: Gerald Cler
Strategic Issues Paper VI Local Integrated Resource Planning: A New Tool for a Competitive Era
November 1, 1995
The competitive restructuring of the electric power industry is intensifying pressures for electric utilities to control costs through improved utilization of existing assets and by minimizing capital investment in new transmission and distribution capacity. Local integrated resource planning is a ...
Content type: Core Report | Document ID: SIP VI | Author: Nicholas Lenssen
Protecting Facilities from Power Outages: Flywheel Technology Enters the Competition in an Emerging Market
April 1, 1995
The marketplace for technologies to protect facilities from brief power outages has a new contender, as energy storage systems based on composite flywheels are preparing to enter the competition in late 1995 or early 1996. For energy users, adding a flywheel-based electromechanical battery (EMB) to ...
Content type: Core Report, Research | Document ID: TU-95-2 | Author: William Howe
