The 50 States of Grid Modernization

The purpose of this report is to provide state lawmakers and regulators, electric utilities, the advanced energy industry, and other energy stakeholders with timely, accurate, and unbiased updates about how states are choosing to study, adopt, implement, amend, or discontinue policies associated with grid modernization. This report catalogues proposed and enacted legislative, regulatory, and rate design changes affecting grid modernization during the most recent quarter. The 50 States of Grid Modernization report series provides regular quarterly updates of grid modernization policy developments, keeping stakeholders informed and up to date.…

The Nuclear Power Dilemma (2018)

For decades, nuclear power has provided most of the nation’s carbon-free electricity. However, the owners have shut down many nuclear plants in the last five years or announced plans to close them well before their operating licenses expire, generating a discussion among policymakers and regulators about the impact of early retirements. The primary reasons for these early closures are the economic challenges brought on by cheap natural gas, diminished demand for electricity, falling costs for renewable energy, rising operating costs, and safety and performance problems.

The possibility that the nation will replace existing nuclear plants with natural gas and coal …

Issues on the Horizon at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

Congress created the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission (FERC) as an independent agency to
oversee the cross-state transmission of electricity, natural
gas, and oil. As innovations and changing consumer
preferences shape the energy industry, FERC must
grapple with a number of key issues:

• The Trump administration has advocated for
payments to coal and nuclear resources that are
struggling financially, arguing that resources with
“onsite fuel” increase grid resilience. Opponents cite
projected costs to customers and potential to crowd
out newer technologies that would improve grid
flexibility and resilience. FERC is deciding what, if
anything, it should do.
• FERC will …

POWER MARKETS FOR THE FUTURE

Wind and solar energy are leading sources of new electricity generation, driven by increasing
demand and rapidly declining costs. The shift in generation types will affect the whole electric
industry — generation, system operations, transmission and distribution.

This report focuses on the wholesale power markets and system operations aspects of the
electric industry, with particular focus on the Mid-Atlantic (“PJM”) and Midwest (“MISO”) regions.
Two-thirds of the electricity in America passes through centralized wholesale electric markets,
serving much of the nation’s economy and population. Those market rules and practices
are developed by stakeholders in those markets, overseen by federal energy …

MISSION POSSIBLE: REACHING NET-ZERO CARBON EMISSIONS FROM HARDER-TO-ABATE SECTORS BY MID-CENTURY

The Paris climate agreement committed the world
to limit global warming to well below 2°C and keep
it as close as possible to 1.5°C above preindustrial
levels. The latest IPCC report has warned the
world of the major negative impacts on humanity
and the planet of a rise in global temperatures of
1.5°C, and the even more dramatic consequences
of 2°C global warming. It therefore urges the world
to aim for 1.5°C and recommends achieving netzero
CO2 emissions globally by 2050.

The Energy Transitions Commission (ETC) – a
coalition of business, finance and civil society
leaders from across the spectrum …

Emissions Gap Report 2018

The goal of the Paris Agreement on climate change, as agreed at the Conference of the Parties in 2015, is to keep global temperature rise this century to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. It also calls for efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The annual UN Environment Emissions Gap Report presents an assessment of current national mitigation efforts and the ambitions countries have presented in their Nationally Determined Contributions, which form the foundation of the Paris Agreement.…

An Innovation Agenda for Deep Decarbonization: Bridging Gaps in the Federal Energy RD&D Portfolio

The world is not on track to achieve the deep reductions in carbon emissions necessary to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.1 While the United States saw a modest decline in emissions in the 10-year period from 2007 to 2017—primarily due to the substitution of natural gas and renewables for coal in power generation—this trend may be coming to an
end.2 The situation is even less encouraging at the global level, where carbon pollution has yet to peak, and emissions increased 2 percent last year.3 A substantial increase in and significant reorientation of federal energy research, development, and demonstration …

BEYOND THE FENCE LINE: Strengthening Military Capabilities Through Energy Resilience Partnerships

The Department of Defense (DoD) is increasingly reliant on electric power for critical national defense missions. Domestic
military installations are connected to the civilian electric grid, which is under threat from more frequent and extreme
weather events, aging and outdated infrastructure, and cyber and physical attacks from determined adversaries. In response,
DoD and the military services have issued strong energy resilience policies and developed dozens of energy resilience
and distributed energy projects.

In order to scale the deployment of energy resilience projects to secure critical missions, DoD will have to continue and expand partnerships with states, communities, regulators, utilities and …

Temporal variability largely explains top-down/bottom-up difference in methane emission estimates from a natural gas production region

This study spatially and temporally aligns top-down and bottom-up methane emission estimates for a natural gas production basin, using multiscale emission measurements and detailed activity data reporting. We show that episodic venting from manual liquid unloadings, which occur at a small fraction of natural gas well pads, drives a factor-of-two temporal variation in the basin-scale emission rate of a US dry shale gas play. The midafternoon peak emission rate aligns with the sampling time of all regional aircraft emission studies, which target well-mixed boundary layer conditions present in the afternoon. A mechanistic understanding of emission estimates derived from various methods …

Expanding PV Value: Lessons Learned from Utility-led Distributed Energy Resource Aggregation in the United States

Distributed residential photovoltaic (PV) capacity in the United States increased from about 0.4
GW in 2010 to 10.5 GW in 2017 (GTM Research and SEIA 2018). Distributed PV and other
emerging distributed energy resources (DERs) like battery storage and electric vehicles (EVs)
may provide demand response, voltage regulation, and other grid services. When many DERs are
aggregated and called upon to provide certain services simultaneously, they may provide the
distribution grid with ancillary and other services that enhance reliability. These initiatives are
often referred to as DER aggregation or virtual power plants. If nascent U.S. utility-led DER
aggregation projects prove …