Our Blog

Chester Energy and Policy started in 2017 as a blog before blossoming into a full consulting business. The goal of the blog originally was simple: answer interesting questions in the world of energy & sustainability that weren’t being answered elsewhere, tapping into energy data sets, expert interviews, and a unique lens.

Today, the blog section of Chester Energy and Policy seeks to continue that mission: answering interesting questions. If you have a question that you think is worth diving into for a blog post, reach out and let us know! .

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Read Most Recent Blog Posts

Matt Chester 5/10/22 Matt Chester 5/10/22

Benefits of the Battery Recycling Chain

Batteries have long been important to how people interact with energy in their daily lives: from their personal electronics to toys for their kids to their vehicles (electric or gasoline powered). Despite their importance and ubiquity, most people rarely stop to really consider what batteries are enabling on a fundamental level or why they are so transformative.

Matt Chester 5/8/22 Matt Chester 5/8/22

Blind Spots in the U.S. Power Grid: Plugging the Gaps Affordably and Efficiently

When considering the scale of power generated and the number of customers reliably electrified, no one can deny that the modern U.S. power grid is an engineering marvel. In fact, a commonly cited quote posits that “The American electric grid is the largest and most complicated machine ever built by man.”

Matt Chester 4/27/22 Matt Chester 4/27/22

Diving into the Advantageous Pairing of Solar Power and Bitcoin

As the prevalence of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies continues to expand, the market has identified areas where the sector’s energy use can be a boost to clean energy goals, not a burden to the grid. Specifically, utilizing Bitcoin mining as an energy buyer/user of last resort ensures that overgeneration of clean energy sources does not lead to negative market impacts for renewable energy projects, whereas otherwise solar power would need to be stored inefficiently, sold at uneconomic prices, or curtailed altogether.

Matt Chester 4/27/22 Matt Chester 4/27/22

Welcome Peter Asmus, New Expert in the Utility Management Community- [an Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Expert Interview]

The energy industry of today looks like but a shadow of what it was in decades past, with even some notable changes in just recent memory as well. As we prepare to take on the utility industry of tomorrow and what that evolved sector is going to look like, one of the best actions we can take is to slow down and make sure we learn about how we got from there to here, heed the lessons learned, and reflect on how this recent evolution will inform the coming changes of tomorrow.

Matt Chester 3/30/22 Matt Chester 3/30/22

Emerging Markets for Hydrogen as a Transportation Fuel

The push to move away from oil as the sole transportation fuel has largely seen a shift towards electric vehicles, but for many applications (e.g., shipping, aviation, and others) electricity is a non-ideal or even impractical solution. In the effort to find alternative ways to decarbonize these transportation needs, hydrogen fuel has emerged as a potential game changing energy source.

Matt Chester 3/24/22 Matt Chester 3/24/22

Catching Up with Energy Central Experts: Dave Bryant of CTC Global Corporation, Expert in the Grid Professionals Group [an Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Interview]

Dave Bryant has been a trusted member of the Energy Central Network of Experts in the Transmission Professionals Group for over two years, constantly sharing insights into the new technologies and upgrades that are allowing the modernization of the grid.