February 23, 2016 | By RGR Marketing Blog

The Department of Energy’s Three-Year Plan

Last year, a top DOE official announced that the department was gearing up to fund a large-scale push toward power grid modernization. The plan was driven largely by renewable energy’s exponential growth, and the growing pains that have accompanied it.

Now, it looks like the DOE is ready to put its plan into action. Just last month, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz revealed a new $220 million, three-year plan to modernize our nation’s utility grid. The initiative will leverage the expertise of 14 leading laboratories from around the country, which will collaborate with more than 100 solar companies, utilities, research groups, lawmakers, and regional power grid controllers.

The primary goals of this initiative are to enhance the security, reliability, and resiliency of U.S. grid infrastructure and to reduce carbon emissions.

Grid Integration

Another aim is to bring a greater level of integration to our national power grid. Currently, the grid is separated into several large sections, known as interconnections, in industry parlance.

These interconnections cover vast swaths of land, but very little energy is transferred between them. Integrating them would increase the usefulness of renewable energy sources that are subject to changing conditions, with solar and wind being prime examples.

Solar Will Be a Key Component

It’s clear that the DOE’s plan will have wide-reaching effects for energy stakeholders across the board, but what could it mean for your solar installation business?

Well, as the grid modernization initiative is aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it’s clear that solar will be a critical part of it. In addition, solar installation companies benefit from a more robust power grid, especially in areas like Hawaii, where solar installations were limited by the utility due to the stress they put on existing infrastructure.

The new initiatives should also speed the development and deployment of storage-equipped solar solutions that are integrated, scale-able, and cost effective. And because of the newly integrated grid, solar energy will become a more practical power source, with fewer worries about energy production at night and under cloud cover.

Once the DOE’s Grid Modernization plan is complete, the dream of a new America powered completely by renewables will start to look a lot more feasible. Will the road to that utopia be profitable for your solar business? As long as you have a steady flow of quality solar leads coming into your sales pipeline, it seems almost a foregone conclusion that it will be.

[Photo via: Lanl]

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