Dive Summary:

• Black & Veatch released its annual survey of 600 utilities and energy companies Wednesday. The 2013 Strategic Directions in the U.S. Electric Industry report revealed grid reliability investments will continue to be a top concern, in addition to the environment, energy efficiency, the smart grid and renewables.
• But the study shows surprising trends in these core areas. For example, 37% of utilities are meeting their renewable portfolio standards through rate increases of over 5%, which indicates a hidden cost of mandate-driven clean energy. In addition, energy storage came out as the biggest focus of technologies and processes to integrate renewable energy into the grid.
• Utilities are growing increasingly fretful about competition from distributed energy generation and the smart meter buzz is cooling off as utilities enter a new phase of making their smart devices do more than clock data.

From the article:
“But smart grid as a category only won 22.6 percent of the tally, getting less interest from respondents than even “curtailment in times of excess generation,” that is, letting extra wind power go to waste, which got 28.7 percent.”