Biden Administration Has Opportunity To Rebuild Puerto Rico’s Electrical Infrastructure

The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) has worked with partner organizations in Puerto Rico on electricity sector transformation since 2015. We have participated as expert witnesses in cases before the Puerto Rico Energy Bureau, testified before the Puerto Rico Senate and U.S. Congress, and written numerous reports related to the long-term energy planning, contracting practices, and debt restructuring of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA). We have worked with environmental, community, business and labor organizations in Puerto Rico.

Deep reform of Puerto Rico’s antiquated, expensive and fossil fuel-dependent electrical system has been needed since long before …

Enacting a Federal High-Penetration Renewable Energy Standard

The new white paper, Enacting a Federal High-Penetration Renewable Energy Standard: Building on Proposals to Date and Addressing Important Additional Considerations makes the case for a federal high-penetration RES that embraces the following key features:

Qualifying technologies should, at a minimum, include wind, solar, hydropower, ocean, tidal, hydrokinetic, and geothermal energy.
The required percentage of compliant electricity should be at least 50%, on a timeline consistent with climate commitments, recommendations from scientific experts, and other policy goals.
Alternative Compliance Payments (ACPs) and penalties should be sufficient to achieve RES objectives.
A federal high-penetration RES should build upon, and not preempt, …

Transforming the U.S. and EU Electric Power Sectors

Across Europe and the United States, the electric power sector is undergoing a fairly profound transformation driven by a changing fuel mix, higher penetration of renewable energy resources, changing consumer preferences and interface with the electric power system, and evolving business models. Policy and regulatory frameworks need to be updated to reflect these changes and facilitate future transformation. In both places this transformation is uneven, with some localities moving along faster than others, and complex, driven by a variety of factors. While the transformation is multidimensional, two conversations relating to the long-term vision for the sector are central to navigating …

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 …

35X25: A Vision for Energy Storage

The United States power sector is in the midst of profound transformation. Energy demands and the role of the consumer are shifting, bringing new stresses and strains to an aging grid. Energy sources are also in transition, as the economics of natural gas and electricity continue to disfavor coal, and renewables increasingly prove to be a least-cost option in markets. Recently, advancements in energy storage technologies are improving the economics of accommodating these changes, while improving reliability and resilience, and enhancing electric system performance.

These trends necessitate an electricity network that is flexible and adaptable to the rapidly changing needs …

Costs and Benefits of Saving Unprofitable Generators

In this paper, we use a detailed power sector model, E4ST, to project effects of preventing a set of unprofitable generators from retiring. We simulate the “Grid Resiliency Pricing Rule” proposed by the US Department of Energy in the fall of 2017, and several variations. In the proposed policy, eligible coal and nuclear generators would be guaranteed revenues sufficient to make them profitable. Our analysis is an examination of that potential policy and an illustrative case study for similar national, regional, or state policies in the United States or elsewhere. The results highlight the importance of estimating environmental net benefits, …

Comments Of The Advanced, Renewable And Storage Energy Industry Associations

ACORE and other “Advanced, Renewable and Storage Energy Industry Associations (including Advanced Energy Economy, American Wind Energy Association, Energy Storage Association, Geothermal Energy Association and Solar Energy Industries Association) comments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in response to the Department of Energy’s proposed rulemaking on grid resiliency pricing. In this joint filling, the group urges FERC not to adopt the rule and to instead engage in a more comprehensive effort to assess resilience and improve price formation.…

Interconnected: Canadian and U.S. Electricity

The U.S. and Canadian electric power grids are connected through 37 major transmission lines from New England to the Pacific Northwest. The interconnected North American power grid provides numerous benefits for Canada and the United States, including enhanced electric reliability, security, affordability and resilience as well as increased economic benefits. The two countries have worked together to improve service through markets, international regulatory bodies and various bilateral engagements. Increasing actions by provinces, states, cities and businesses are growing demand for clean energy. Due to the comparatively clean mix of Canadian electricity, increased exports could assist the United States as well …

Cybersecurity: Critical Infrastructure Authoritative Reports and Resources

Critical infrastructure is defined in the USA PATRIOT Act (P.L. 107-56, §1016(e)) as “systems and assets, physical or virtual, so vital to the United States that the incapacity or destruction of such systems and assets would have a debilitating impact on security, national economic security, national public health and safety, or any combination of those matters.”

Presidential Decision Directive 63, or PDD-63, identified activities whose critical infrastructures should be protected: information and communications; banking and finance; water supply; aviation, highways, mass transit, pipelines, rail, and waterborne commerce; emergency and law enforcement services; emergency, fire, and continuity of government services; public …

From Growth to Modernization: The Changing Capital Focus of the US Utility Sector

In Deloitte’s “math series,” published from 2012-2014, we analyzed the trends prompting US electric power companies to increase capital spending and examined the “dilemma” they could face as the costs to produce electricity rise, while demand remains fairly stagnant. Since then, as these trends have played out, spending has predictably climbed to unprecedented levels. US electric and gas utility capital expenditures soared from $69 billion in 2008, to an all-time high estimated for 2016—about $115 billion. Drivers behind the spending vary and include:

• The need to upgrade and reinforce electric and gas infrastructure due to age, increasingly severe weather, …