How to Make Distributed Energy Resources Work for Texas

Distributed energy resources (DERs) are any kind of resources located on the distribution system, rather than coming from generators. The term applies to a variety of technologies, including rooftop solar, energy efficiency, demand response (where electric customers receive incentives to curtail their power usage during peak demand periods), storage and electric vehicles.…

Enabling and Benefiting from Distributed Energy Resources in Texas

In the energy realm, Texas is a recognized leader in competition and in supporting customer choice. However, it currently has the opportunity to expand upon that success by extending these values into the distribution system. The growth of Distributed Energy Resources is changing the nature and role of the operation of the distribution system, which will require utilities and regulators to ensure that the system is properly prepared to utilize these new resources. New policies and processes, like distribution system planning and hosting capacity, can help customers and developers better understand where DER can provide the greatest benefit. They also …

Demand Charges: What Are They Good For?

Demand charges have existed since nearly the beginning of the electric industry. Although utilities often favor them, economists have continually questioned whether these rates — applied to an individual customer’s maximum short-term usage in a billing period — are an efficient form of pricing. This paper does a deep dive on demand charges and cost causation. Like many analysts from the past, the authors find that demand charges have made sense only as a proxy and are not a general solution for shared capacity costs. Furthermore, the changes occurring with a modern grid are undermining the conditions that made such …

Update to the Economic Impacts of the Texas Oil and Gas Pipeline Industry

This study is conducted by the Center for Energy Commerce at Texas Tech University and provides
estimates of the 2019 economic impact of the Texas oil and gas pipeline industry. The study also
provides insights into the long-lasting benefits of the pipeline industry over the next 40 years. The study is an update to the 2014 economic impact analysis prepared by Texas Tech University that provided estimates of the industry for the years 2013 and 2024.

The focus of this study is on the value creation and the economic sustainability that lies in the economic contributions of Texas pipelines. For …

Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Incentives: A Summary of Federal Programs November 3, 2020 Update

Energy is crucial to operating a modern industrial and services economy. Concerns about the
availability and cost of energy and about environmental impacts of fossil energy use have led to a
wide variety of federal incentives for renewable energy and energy efficiency. These incentives
aim to implement renewable energy and energy efficiency measures and to develop and
commercialize renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies.

Many of the existing energy efficiency and renewable energy programs have authorizations
tracing back to the 1970s. Many programs have been reauthorized and redesigned repeatedly to
meet changing economic factors. The programs apply broadly to sectors …

A Proactive Environmental Policy Agenda for Congress and the Administration

Americans want a clean and safe environment. This is a shared value regardless of ideology, however, addressing environmental challenges is often filled with disagreement. This Backgrounder details a proactive environmental policy agenda for both Congress and the Administration, with specific recommendations covering air, water, land and wildlife, and science and transparency. The recommendations are informed by many important principles, including a respect for private property rights and the primary role of states in environmental protection. They further recognize that economic freedom and innovation are critical to successful environmental outcomes. This agenda rejects policies that force Americans to choose between a …

Federal Best Practices: Core Principles of Sustainable Fleet Management

This report helps agency fleet managers understand and implement optimal petroleum reduction strategies for fleet locations by evaluating the most appropriate combination of the four core principles of sustainable fleet management: right-sizing the fleet to agency mission by implementing a vehicle allocation methodology study; minimizing vehicle miles traveled; increasing fleet fuel efficiency by replacing inefficient vehicles with more fuel-efficient vehicles, maintaining vehicles, driving more efficiently, and avoiding excessive idling; and optimizing cost-effective alternative fuel use, including maximizing utilization of existing alternative fuel infrastructure, installing alternative fuel infrastructure where practical (including electric vehicle charging stations), and aligning deployment of alternative fuel …

Development and application of a United States real-world vehicle emissions database

Remote sensing is an important tool for monitoring the real-world emissions of cars and trucks, and remote sensing data can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of emission control policies and identify emission defects and defeat devices. To complement its work on real-world emissions in Europe, TRUE has compiled remote sensing data from the states of Colorado and Virginia and the University of Denver to investigate the emissions of U.S. cars and trucks. The TRUE U.S. database includes nearly 60 million emissions records and is intended to support further research and the development of evidence-based emissions control policies in the …

Building Performance Standards: Lessons from Carbon Policy

This paper reviews the relevant design elements of carbon and environmental markets and explores how they could influence the design of BPS programs. Carbon and environmental markets have existed for more than three decades, giving policymakers experience with scope and target setting and the design of flexibility provisions. The paper also sketches out how the sector-specific BPS programs overlap and interact with existing cross-sectoral programs—state-level clean energy and renewable portfolio standards (RPS), the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), electricity markets, and transport electrification.…

Pursuing Multiple Goals in Transportation Policy: Lessons from an Integrated Model

The Transportation Climate Initiative (TCI)—a coalition of Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states and the District of Columbia—is currently negotiating a plan to promote clean transportation through a combination of carbon emissions cap, investment, and regulations. Although climate change is the main driver of this initiative, the jurisdictions involved also hope to address more immediate transportation concerns such as air quality, transportation access, and affordability. In this report, we exercise a modeling platform representing part of the TCI region to evaluate a set of transportation policy options, including carbon pricing and investments, for their performance along metrics relevant to these multiple transportation …