The first week of May marked the close of Colorado Gov. Jared Polis’ first legislative session. During the 120-day session Colorado legislators passed more than 13 energy-related bills. These bills covered a wide range of pro-advanced energy topics, from exploring and enabling utility business model reform, to updating the state’s building codes for energy efficiency, to expanding tax-credits for electric vehicles (EV) and reducing barriers to EV charging infrastructure. Advanced energy legislation is sweeping the West – and Colorado is no exception.

This is one in a series of excerpts from the Advanced Energy Now 2019 Market Report, prepared for AEE by Navigant Research.

Consistently the most reliable growth segment of advanced energy globally and in the United States, Building Efficiency continued to grow in 2017 and 2018, spurred by technology innovation, government climate and greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction requirements, and a move toward business models that produce recurring revenues. Globally, revenue reached $298.5 billion in 2018 after growing 9% from 2017 to 2018 and 1% from 2016 to 2017. In the United States, Building Efficiency revenue grew to $83 billion, up 10% from 2017, following an increase of 9% the year before. Counting only products for which we have data for all years, U.S. Building Efficiency revenue more than doubled from 2011 to 2018, for Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 11%, while global revenue has more than tripled over the seven years, also for CAGR of 11%.

In the United States, the traditional utility business model has served us well for many years, but it is increasingly out of step with a new set of market conditions — aging infrastructure, advances in technology and flat-to-declining load growth driven by rising deployment of energy efficiency, demand response and other distributed energy resources. Traditional cost-of-service regulation favors utility capital investment in long-lived assets rather than rewarding utilities for their performance against desired policy objectives and it discourages utilities from taking advantage of the general shift in the economy to service-based solutions provided by third parties. A decade ago, the United Kingdom's Office of Gas and Electricity Markets, known as Ofgem, set out on a mission to develop a new regulatory framework that would reward utilities for innovation and for meeting the changing expectations of consumers and society. The culmination of that process was the development of a framework referred to as RIIO.

In odd-numbered years, the Texas Legislature meets for 140 days starting on the second Tuesday in January to consider the state’s regular business, with the main objective of passing a two-year budget. This year, as always, bills introduced with potential impact on the state’s energy system covered a wide range of topics, both positive and negative for advanced energy. This session, the Texas Advanced Energy Business Alliance (TAEBA) was directly engaged with or closely watching approximately 80 bills. When the Legislature gaveled out on Memorial Day, the outcomes for advanced energy were net positive, with tax incentives for large-scale renewable energy projects preserved and onerous fees on electric vehicles avoided. And while the Legislature didn’t pass a bill on ownership of battery storage, that issue goes back to the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) with some clear indications of legislative preference.  Here are the highlights from a very busy legislative session.

This is one in a series of excerpts from the Advanced Energy Now 2019 Market Report, prepared for AEE by Navigant Research.

Advanced energy revenue reached nearly $1.6 trillion worldwide in 2018, an increase of 4% over 2017, following growth of 7% the year before. Since Navigant Research started tracking for Advanced Energy Economy in 2011, global advanced energy revenue has risen at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 6%. Advanced energy revenue is now equal to the global tourism industry, greater than pharmaceutical spending worldwide, and double the global airline industry.