Making Sense of the DER Extravaganza

This week: consolidation and cooperation in the distributed energy market. Just as federal regulators in the U.S. are making batteries, solar systems, electric cars, generators and other similar resources more valuable in wholesale markets, we’re seeing a new wave of business activity. Wood Mackenzie predicts that U.S. distributed energy resource capacity will reach nearly 390 gigawatts by 2025. And a lot of companies are getting in on the action. Amazon is jumping deeper into the smart-home game. Generac, one of the top generator companies in the U.S., just made another acquisition to help it manage batteries and pumps and motors and possibly other clean energy resources. And Calibrant is a new company being formed by industrial multinational Siemens and MacQuarie Capital, part of the Australian financial services giant. Calibrant will offer businesses and industry and schools and hospitals no-money-down, on-site energy systems known as Energy-as-a-Service.    What do all these business moves mean f