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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Since the start of the 21st century, the U.S. energy system has seen tremendous changes.
Technological advances in energy production have driven changes in energy consumption, and
the United States has moved from being a growing net importer of most forms of energy to a
declining importer—and possibly a net exporter in the near future. The United States remains the
second largest consumer of energy in the world, behind China.
The U.S. oil and natural gas industry has gone through a “renaissance” of production.
Technological improvements in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling have unlocked
enormous oil and natural gas resources …
Liberalised electricity markets require timely adaptation to support higher shares of variable renewable (solar and wind) energy and distributed power generation. This study from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) presents the latest knowledge on the adaptation process for such markets, aiming to inform policy makers, regulators and system operators on the options available.
The report analyses challenges and solutions, and provides recommendations, on how to adapt electricity market design to high shares of variable renewable energy. It focuses on two aspects of liberalised power systems:
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wholesale market design;
distribution networks and distributed energy resources.
Among its findings, the report …
View Full ResourceThis report explores issues policymakers, especially state utility regulators, face in forming policy and regulation in this dynamic landscape of charging companies, aggregators, municipalities, utilities, and auto manufacturers, among others. Regulators are critical decision makers because of their ability to accelerate or slow EV deployment through policy decisions. They also have an important role to play to enable effective EV integration—both for accommodating new loads from EV charging onto the grid, and for ensuring reliability as new variable resources come online. In this report, we first describe the range of possible benefits that state utility regulators can enable from smart …
View Full ResourceThe electricity grid in the United States is organized around a network of large, centralized power plants and high voltage transmission lines that transport electricity, sometimes over large distances, before it is delivered to the customer through a local distribution grid. This network of centralized generation and high voltage transmission lines is called the “bulk power system.”
Costs relating to bulk power generation typically account for more than half of a customer’s electric bill.1 For this reason, the structure and functioning of wholesale electricity markets have major impacts on costs and economic value for consumers, as well as energy security …
View Full ResourceAccess to electricity is recognized as fundamental to development, and many efforts are under way across developing countries to scale up access, both in terms of providing basic supply and enabling people to move up through the energy tiers. However, it has become apparent that providing a connection to electricity, whether from a grid or off-grid source, does not automatically bring development benefits.
In this paper, we propose that for electricity services to reach those who need them and catalyze development, electrification initiatives should be built on a disaggregated understanding of consumer demand from the bottom-up, exploit the links between …
View Full ResourceGovernment policies, the deployment of smart grid technologies, and an increase in catastrophic weather events have focused attention on the reliability of electric power systems in the United States (U.S.) and around the world (Larsen et al. 2015, Larsen et al. 2016). Adverse weather, equipment failure, human error, vegetation management practices, wildlife, and other, occasionally unknown factors have been documented as causes of power interruptions (Hines et al. 2009; Larsen 2016a). The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) reports that adverse weather is the most common cause of power interruptions, and that the weather-related impacts to the power system have increased …
View Full ResourceThis report is the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission staff’s (FERC or Commission staff’s) eleventh annual report on demand response and advanced metering required by section 1252(e)(3) of Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct 2005). It is based on publicly-available information and discussions with market participants and industry experts. Based on the information reviewed, it appears that:
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Deployment of advanced meters continues to increase throughout the country, 1 and advanced meters are the predominant metering technology installed and operational throughout the United States. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), 2 58.5 million advanced meters were operational nationwide out of a
A look across today’s energy landscape reveals a period of exciting innovation. How people think about and use electricity is changing as quickly as the technology that generates and delivers it. Here in New York, the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) is at the heart of those changes: meeting consumers’ power needs, addressing public policy goals, and sustaining electricity’s fundamental contributions to economic vitality.
As the electric system changes, new challenges and opportunities are coming into view. The NYISO’s annual Power Trends report provides information and analysis on current and emerging trends that are working to transform the power …
As energy storage systems are added to the electricity grid at an accelerating pace, it is imperative that decision makers have a general understanding of the economic impacts. To this end, The Solar Foundation (TSF) produced this discussion paper on the current labor efficiencies experienced by the U.S. solar industry and how such measures may provide insight about solar related employment in the energy storage industry. While we consider the storage results to be preliminary, this discussion paper was developed using data collected through The Solar Foundation’s National Solar Jobs Census 2015, as well as information collected through interviews of …
View Full ResourceIn 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, …
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