Un estudio del sitio de comparación de precios cable.co.uk revela que Argentina, Colombia y Brasil son los países latinoamericanos con los precios más asequible para contratar internet de banda ancha fija. Según los datos recabados entre septiembre y noviembre de 2023, los países insulares de Antigua y Barbuda, San Cristóbal y Nieves, Barbados y Las Bahamas figuran entre los mercados de la región donde es más caro contratar un paquete de internet fijo.

Los hogares argentinos, por ejemplo, tienen que desembolsar unos 5,17 dólares estadounidenses por mes para contar con banda ancha fija. Al otro lado de la frontera, los chilenos pagan casi cuatro veces más, alrededor de 21,86 dólares mensuales, por el mismo servicio. En México, el precio promedio se sitúa en 32,35 dólares, mientras que en Colombia ronda los 20,47 dólares.

The difficulties of building new transmission facilities continue to impinge on the U.S. clean energy transition.

FERC issued a major rule in May that analysts expect will spur new transmission. But with the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 28 ruling overturning the Chevron doctrine, there’s also uncertainty about the rule’s future.

At the same time, there’s an increasing focus on how to bolster the performance of the nation’s existing transmission network via dynamic line ratings and other grid-enhancing technogies.

In addition, DOE and FERC have moved to update transmission permitting rules and grid operators around the country have been evaluating multi-billion dollar transmission plans.

The following stories capture notable developments in U.S. transmission from the first half of 2024.

Digital technologies are set to play a key role in the transition to more secure and sustainable energy systems, fostering greater connectivity, efficiency, reliability and emissions reductions. New digital tools – such as those that can help match power supply with demand; predict and detect faults in networks; or give greater control to consumers – will enable the faster integration of renewables, improve grid stability and unlock greater energy savings. However, the pace of digitalisation will depend heavily on the energy sector’s ability to build a workforce with the right skills.

The number of digital roles across the energy sector has picked up globally. Yet there is growing evidence that it remains broadly insufficient, inhibiting greater investment in digitalisation; in a survey of energy professionals conducted by EY, 89% identified skills gaps as the main challenge to accelerating the adoption of digital technologies.

With most jobs set to require digital skills in the coming years, energy utilities will increasingly be competing for a limited pool of qualified workers to bridge the sector’s skills gap. This will require stronger and more cohesive digital hiring strategies and training efforts. 

Hay una creciente preocupación por la demanda energética, el consumo de agua y la huella de carbono de la inteligencia artificial. No es catastrofismo de sofá, sino una realidad que ejerce cada vez más presión sobre la red eléctrica y que ha obligado a la Agencia Internacional de la Energía a convocar una cumbre mundial. Google propone una estrategia de cuatro frentes para atacar el problema.

Las cuatro «M». En una investigación publicada por el IEEE, Google identifica cuatro prácticas, que denomina «las 4M», con las que, afirma, las grandes compañías de IA pueden reducir entre 100 y 1.000 veces la huella de carbono de sus algoritmos de aprendizaje automático:

1. Modelo: usar arquitecturas de aprendizaje automático más eficientes para reducir la necesidad de cómputo entre 3 y 10 veces
2. Máquina: usar hardware especializado en inteligencia artificial para mejorar su eficiencia de 2 y 5 veces
3. Mecanización: preferir computación en la nube a computación local para reducir la demanda de energía entre 1,4 y 2 veces
4. Mapeo: optimizar la ubicación de los centros de datos según la energía limpia disponible para reducir las emisiones de 5 a 10 veces

El Ministerio de Bienes Nacionales de Chile adjudicó 6 proyectos en la concesión de terrenos fiscales para el desarrollo, construcción y operación de sistemas de almacenamiento, con destino a conectarse en subestaciones del Sistema Eléctrico Nacional. 

El gobierno seleccionó a las firmas Konavle, La Pastora Energía, FreePower Group y Jinko Power para llevar a cabo los proyectos que sumarán 11,6 GWh de capacidad de almacenamiento a lo largo de 6 macrozonas identificadas por el Coordinador Eléctrico Nacional (CEN). 

Los mismos resultaron ganadores entre las más de 110 propuestas y entre una oferta de 140,5 GWh que fue casi once veces superior a la capacidad máxima requerida de 13,2 GWh que determinó el gobierno dentro de la convocatoria del plan nacional para impulsar proyectos de sistemas de almacenamiento de energía en terrenos fiscales. 

Y cabe recordar que la ejecución del proyecto no podrá exceder del 30 de junio de 2027; aunque el concesionario podrá solicitar el término anticipado del contrato, sin sanción alguna, siempre y cuando acredite que participó de algún proceso licitatorio relacionado con sistemas de almacenamiento del Ministerio de Energía realizado entre 2024 y 2025, siempre que se trate del mismo proyecto descrito en este proceso de storage en terrenos fiscales.

Think Microgrid, a policy advocacy group for the microgrid industry, released an open letter to Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Jennifer Granholm today, calling attention to what it calls “the unfortunate impacts and missed opportunities” of the Zero Emissions Building (ZEB) definition released by the DOE June 6.

The National Definition of a Zero Emissions Building is the result of the DOE’s efforts to standardize the minimum criteria it says will enable residential and commercial buildings to achieve the administration’s goal of reducing building emissions by 65% by 2035 and 90% by 2050.

The definition requires that ZEBs not emit greenhouse gases directly from on-site energy sources. They must also be highly energy efficient and powered exclusively by clean energy.

However, Think Microgrid believes the definition prohibits microgrids and other distributed energy resilience technologies from serving as solutions to the DOE’s stated priorities around decarbonization, resilience and modernization of the electric grid.

“The definition prohibits any emissions from on-site resources, which on the surface seems reasonable for a ‘zero emissions building,’ but then creates an exemption for backup power and power from off-site resources,” said Cameron Brooks, executive director of Think Microgrid.

Something approaching a miracle has been taking place in California this spring. Beginning in early March, for some portion of almost every day, a combination of solar, wind, geothermal, and hydropower has been producing more than a hundred per cent of the state’s demand for electricity. Some afternoons, solar panels alone have produced more power than the state uses. And, at night, large utility-scale batteries that have been installed during the past few years are often the single largest source of supply to the grid—sending the excess power stored up during the afternoon back out to consumers across the state. It’s taken years of construction—and solid political leadership in Sacramento—to slowly build this wave, but all of a sudden it’s cresting into view. California has the fifth-largest economy in the world and, in the course of a few months, the state has proved that it’s possible to run a thriving modern economy on clean energy.

A good place to view this feat is from Mark Jacobson’s home—a light-filled two-story modernist house that he shares with his family at the end of a classic suburban cul-de-sac on the edge of the campus of Stanford University, where he is a professor of civil and environmental engineering. In part, that’s because the house is an energy-efficient showpiece; its solar panels produce more than enough energy to cover what he uses, though it is still tied to the grid. In the garage, there are two Teslas (including a 2009 Roadster with a license plate that reads “GHG Free”) and a pair of the company’s Powerwall batteries.

In vienna they call it Lebenskunst—the art of living well—and now that restaurants and museums in the Austrian capital have reopened, it is once again the perfect place to practise the art. A new survey of “liveability” by eiu, our sister company, agrees. For the third time in the past five years, Vienna has come top of the eiu’s ranking. The city offers plenty of opportunities for culture and entertainment, as well as good infrastructure and overall stability. Five other small European cities feature in the top ten, having also benefited from the easing of covid-19 restrictions. Yet since last year Paris and London, which usually perform less well in the ranking because of big-city problems like congestion and crime, have soared 23 and 27 places to 19th and 33rd respectively, as they start to treat covid as endemic rather than a pandemic. (See chart.)

Originally designed as a tool to help companies assign hardship allowances as part of expatriates’ relocation packages, the eiu’s index rates living conditions in 172 cities (up from 140 last year) based on more than 30 factors. These are grouped into five categories: stability, health care, culture and environment, education and infrastructure. This is the second year in which the index incorporates indicators related to covid; these assess how each city has coped with increased demand on health–care facilities and with closures or capacity limits for schools, restaurants and cultural venues.

Ever since the Industrial Revolution, we’ve consumed products in largely the same way. A company will extract or collect the resources to create a product, which consumers then buy, use, and ultimately throw away. This is known as a linear model of mass consumption.

We know now that this model of consumption has contributed to the changes in our climate that, if left unaddressed, threaten to make life much more difficult in coming decades. Every year, some $2.6 trillion worth of material in fast-moving consumer goods—80 percent of the material value—is thrown away and never recovered.

Circularity presents an alternative to the linear model. In a circular economy, resources can be used over and over again, often for the same or similar purposes.

Three major principles govern a circular economy:

1. Preserve and enhance natural capital (the world’s stock of natural assets) by controlling finite resources and balancing the flow of renewable resources.
2. Optimize resource yields by circulating products, components, and materials in use at the highest possible levels at all times.
3. Make the system more effective by eliminating unintended negative consequences, like air and water pollution.

The U.S. Department of Defense’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office’s Tradewinds Solutions Marketplace has decreed “Awardable” status to microgrid gen-set provider Enchanted Rock.

The status allows Enchanted Rock’s technologies to be included in the marketplace venue for Department of Defense (D0D) organizations considering on-site projects and solutions in the data, analytics, digital and artificial intelligence/machine learning categories. The company typically deploys generator-set for microgrids utilizing natural gas and renewable natural gas fuels.

Military microgrids are a growing sub-sector in the industry. In the past year, the U.S. Army, New York Air National Guard, Air Force, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Marines have approved, started work or completed microgrid and on-site renewable energy projects.

“Military and defense installations demand constant energy to maintain mission readiness, yet they rely on an aging, vulnerable utility grid that faces the ongoing risk of power outages caused by a range of mechanical, operational and human-related hazards,” Allan Schurr, chief commercial officer for Enchanted Rock, said in a statement.

“Protection against power outage risks requires a well-maintained, local generating source that starts quickly to provide utility-grade power for base operations for the duration of the outage,” Schurr pointed out.