Market Research

Chatgpt generated illustration showing how transmission buffering batteries store excess solar generation and release it later through the same transmission line.

Buffering Batteries: The Grid Enhancing Technology No One Calls A GET

Buffering batteries placed near transmission constraints are rarely listed among grid enhancing technologies. The usual list includes advanced conductors, dynamic line rating, and power flow control devices. All of those technologies increase the instantaneous capacity of transmission lines. Batteries do not do that. A battery cannot turn a 500 MW … [continued]

Chatgpt generated visualization showing how temperature, sunlight, and wind affect the thermal capacity of transmission lines.

Unlocking Existing Grid Capacity With Dynamic Line Rating

Dynamic line rating can produce large savings in some parts of the electricity system. In other cases it reveals that operators had been overestimating how much cooling transmission lines receive from the surrounding air. Both outcomes matter. Dynamic line rating replaces assumptions with measurements and forecasts about what transmission lines … [continued]

ChatGPT generated panoramic image of a Norwegian ferry labeled "H2" burning kroner as it sails across a fjord

Hydrogen vs Batteries on Norway’s Lofoten Route: An Engineering Reality Check

The recent investigative reporting by Swedish Television and Norway’s NRK into the fuel cell supplier PowerCell has opened a window into the Vestfjord Lofoten hydrogen ferry project that Norway has been building toward for years. The journalists focused on a specific claim about durability. Internal tests suggested that the fuel … [continued]

Chatgpt generated: Electric vehicle supplying power to a home in the evening using vehicle-to-home technology.

Demand Shifting in Hawaiʻi: The Other Half of the Energy Transition

The series examining Oʻahu’s energy transition has followed a consistent structure. It began by defining the island’s fully electrified energy system and stripping away energy uses that do not serve the civilian economy. Aviation fuel for flights leaving Hawaiʻi, maritime bunkering for ships crossing the Pacific, and military energy consumption … [continued]

ChatGPT generated infographic illustrating reconductoring, where utilities replace older transmission wires with advanced conductors so existing towers can carry significantly more electricity

Unlocking Hidden Capacity in the Grid With Advanced Conductors

Electricity demand is rising as transport, heating, and industry electrify, with additional growth coming from data centers and expanding industrial loads. The transmission network that moves electricity was built over many decades, but expanding it has become increasingly difficult. Building new transmission lines often takes ten to fifteen years once … [continued]

ChatGPT generated infographic illustrating how power flow control technologies rebalance electricity flows across parallel transmission lines, allowing more power to move between regions without building new transmission corridors

Steering Electricity: How Grid Control Devices Unlock Transmission Capacity

I’m preparing to speak to engineers at GE Vernova during Engineering Week at the request of Cornelis Plet, CTO of GE Vernova Grid Systems Integration. It is a useful moment to step back and look at a class of technologies that rarely make headlines but quietly shape how modern power … [continued]

Chatgpt generated: Conceptual seawater air conditioning plant on the Honolulu waterfront supplying district cooling to nearby buildings.

District Cooling From the Pacific: A Targeted Efficiency for Oʻahu

The starting point for evaluating seawater air conditioning on Oʻahu is the fully electrified energy system for the island that has been developed through the earlier Sankey analysis. In that framework the island’s civilian energy system excludes overseas aviation fuel, maritime bunkering for ships crossing the Pacific, and military energy … [continued]

Chatgpt generated image of a hydrogen refueling station illustrating the infrastructure built ahead of demand.

Germany’s Hydrogen Refueling Network Looks Impressive Until You Do The Math

Someone recently pointed me at a chart published by H2 Mobility that shows hydrogen dispensed per month across its German refueling network climbing steadily over time. The chart is visually persuasive. The blue area rises from near zero in 2017 to roughly 59 tons per month in early 2026. It … [continued]

Chatgpt generated: Onshore wind turbines along an Oʻahu ridgeline illustrating existing wind generation on the island.

Wind on Oʻahu: A Modest but Valuable Complement to Solar

Any serious discussion of renewable energy on Oʻahu should begin with a clear understanding of how much electricity the island actually needs once fossil fuel end uses are electrified. Earlier analysis constructed a fully electrified civilian energy Sankey for Oʻahu that removed overseas aviation fuel, international maritime bunkering, and military … [continued]