The OurEnergyLibrary aggregates and indexes publicly available fact sheets, journal articles, reports, studies, and other publications on U.S. energy topics. It is updated every week to include the most recent energy resources from academia, government, industry, non-profits, think tanks, and trade associations. Suggest a resource by emailing us at info@ourenergypolicy.org.
Resource Library
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The U.S. civil nuclear sector faces a number of challenges that threaten grid reliability and climate mitigation goals. Though current U.S. reactor designs improve confidence in the predictability of construction schedules and costs, the United States is unlikely to see a substantial expansion of its nuclear fleet in the near future. The biggest current obstacles are cheap shale gas and continued mandates and subsidies for other forms of generation, particularly renewables. State and federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, should treat nuclear power like any other non-emitting source. Furthermore, the federal government should refocus its nuclear research and development …
View Full ResourceThe U.S. commercial nuclear sector is in trouble. Absent significant policy changes, the near-term closure of a number of reactors appears increasingly inevitable. Much has been written about the impact of cheap shale gas on the economics of nuclear power, but poorly structured, deregulated markets and market distortions – mainly in the form of subsidies and mandates for other kinds of power generation – severely undermine the competitiveness of the existing U.S. nuclear fleet, particularly smaller reactor units. At the same time, foreign competitors, which are mostly state-run enterprises, are capturing a greater share of the export market for nuclear …
View Full ResourceUtilities that don’t prepare to integrate EVSEs into their distribution networks are likely to incur unplanned costs and grid reliability problems, as well as be perceived as a bottleneck to EV adoption. Consequently, utilities should proactively assess how they will manage the adoption and charging of EVs within their service territories. When evaluating different EV integration options, utilities will need to consider variables such as who owns the EVSE, who owns the meter used for EVSE billing, and how electricity rates can influence consumers’ EV charging behavior.…
View Full ResourceUpgrading the US electric grid is vital to a successful energy transition. Transmission expansion lowers electricity costs for consumers; speeds deployment of new generation resources; provides economic opportunities for communities; increases system reliability, particularly in the face of extreme weather events; and enables large-scale transfers of power from areas of the country with high renewable energy potential to customers. But experience over the past twenty years has shown that new transmission projects often face extensive delays, impeding or even denying these potential benefits to consumers and communities. In response, policymakers at the state and federal level are considering reforms to …
View Full ResourceElectricity demand is spiking due to data centers, a manufacturing boom, and electrification. This is good news – federal policies like the Inflation Reduction Act, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and CHIPS Act are working as intended to drive sustained economic growth through a clean energy economy. New Energy Innovation research finds we don’t need to fill the gap with more natural gas. Regulators and utilities can meet the need for more electricity, continue cleaning the grid, and maintain reliability by taking a holistic approach instead of just building more fossil generation or extending the life of fossil plants slated for retirement.…
View Full ResourceHydropower plays a key role in the United States energy generation mix, representing nearly a third of U.S. renewable energy generation today. Pumped storage hydropower (PSH) currently represents 96% of utility-scale energy storage capacity and 70% of grid storage capacity and supports grid stability and reliability across the country. Despite the potential of these technologies to support the U.S. clean energy transition, new public and private investment in hydropower projects of all sizes lags other renewable energy generation sources such as wind and solar). Between 2005 and 2022, the United States substantially increased its solar and wind generation capacity, adding …
View Full ResourceToday, interconnecting new generation to the grid is a years-long process that can involve costly upgrades to the transmission system. Surging levels of new clean generation and storage projects in development as well as rapidly rising demand for electricity have come up against an aging grid that is nearing maximum capacity. This bottleneck poses major problems for grid reliability, economic development, and climate policy.
More transmission is needed to accommodate this expansion of both generation and load, but in the near term, there are tools we can use to ensure we’re getting the most out of the grid we have. …
Currently, over one million megawatts of generator and storage projects are actively seeking to connect to the U.S. transmission grid. The various grid interconnection processes across the nation have been slow and received criticism from a wide range of stakeholders for being dysfunctional. The 2024 Advanced Energy United Generator Interconnection Scorecard evaluates the outcomes and processes of the generator interconnection process across the seven U.S. regional grid operators (the RTOs/ISOs), finding some bright spots and room for significant improvement.
Now that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has issued Order No. 2023 requiring RTOs/ISOs to implement reforms to the interconnection process, …
View Full ResourceThe distributed energy resource landscape is continuously expanding and broadening its reach. Technology that started as mainly niche rooftop solar installations has now expanded to include heat pump water heaters, intelligent thermostats, battery energy storage, intelligent vehicle charging, and other devices. Increasingly, utilities have opted to deploy a software solution that can interact with these grid-edge technologies called a distributed energy resource management system (DERMS).
Evaluating, selecting, and justifying DERMS remains challenging due to the high cost of the solution and complexities in integrations, cybersecurity, and implementation timelines. SEPA and a task force of 12 utilities used insights from 11 …
View Full ResourceThe challenges facing the Nation’s energy system have substantially shifted in the last one hundred years and will continue to evolve. Yet, today’s grid cannot adequately support 21st century challenges —including the integration of new clean energy sources and growing transportation and building electrification — while remaining resilient in the face of extreme weather exacerbated by climate change. The power grid is the backbone of the nation’s electricity system, and it must adapt to maintain reliability and resiliency.
The National Transmission Needs Study (Needs Study) is an assessment of existing data and current and near-term future transmission needs through 2040. …
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