Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Innovative Grid Deployment

Deploying the advanced grid solutions available today could cost effectively increase the capacity of the existing grid to support 20-100 GW of incremental peak demand when installed individually, while improving grid reliability, resilience, and affordability. The grid is becoming a bottleneck to greater economic development, decarbonization, and equity priorities. Customers are demanding more grid capacity as regional electricity demand grows substantially for the first time in decades to serve a rapid uptick in data center and manufacturing needs and broader end-use electrification.
At the same time, heightened threats and increased dependence on electricity increase the importance of reliability and resilience …

Reducing Pollution Without Sacrificing Reliability

The power sector is in the midst a profound transition. Myriad climate policies at nearly all levels of government, including the landmark 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), have incentivized the accelerated adoption of low-and zero-emission energy resources. These policies have sped along sectoral shifts already underway due to changing market conditions, plummeting renewables prices, and the replacement of aging coal-fired power plants with cheaper, more efficient resources. Meanwhile, the electric grid faces increasing vulnerability from climate change impacts that have become unavoidable, in addition to projected future increases in electricity demand. Both the structure and operation of our electric grid …

Mini Grid Solutions for Underserved Customers: New Insights from Nigeria and India

Traditionally, mini grids have been viewed as “off-grid” systems that are built and operated solely for communities without electricity. The reality, however, is that millions of people in Sub-Saharan Africa and India who are connected to the main grid suffer from poor grid reliability (“weak grid”), sometimes with a power supply of less than 4 to 8 hours daily and with frequent disputes over the accuracy of billing. As a backstop, these poorly served customers often find themselves forced to rely on small fossil fuel–powered generators that are noisy, polluting, and expensive to operate.

“Mini Grid Solutions for Underserved Customers: …

Meeting Clean Energy Goals Will Require the Grid of the Future

The transmission grid is the critical superhighway that connects energy supply and demand. But the grid was designed for the power plants of the past—not for the diverse range of resources and technologies of a clean energy future. Over 70 percent of the nation’s transmission infrastructure is more than 25 years old, and in many areas of the country constraints have already been an impediment to renewable power. To meet greenhouse gas reduction goals, it is needed to expand electric transmission systems by 60 percent by 2030 and possibly triple the capacity of these systems by 2050. The Inflation Reduction …

Maintaining A Reliable Grid Under EPA’s Proposed 111 Rules Restricting Power Plant Emissions

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed “111 rules” restricting greenhouse gas emissions have sparked debate about whether they will create consequences that threaten grid reliability. However, rather than raising new concerns, these objections principally raise issues already facing the power sector. The Inflation Reduction Act has made low-carbon resources including wind, solar, and storage the cheapest new resources in the U.S., but system planners worry we cannot add them fast enough to make up for fossil retirements. New Energy Innovation research details the potential impacts of the EPA rules, investigates their effects on the electricity system, and evaluates potential changes …

2023 State of Reliability Technical Assessment

This year’s State of Reliability (SOR) is comprised of two publications: the 2023 State of Reliability Overview, which is a high-level summary of the important findings, and this 2023 State of Reliability Technical Assessment, which provides NERC’s detailed comprehensive and annual technical review of BPS reliability for the 2022 operating (calendar) year.

The 2023 State of Reliability Overview replaces the executive summary normally found in NERC reports. This 2023 State of Reliability Technical Assessment provides detailed descriptions of key findings and key occurrences for 2022 along with in-depth analysis of risks and resilience, grid transformation, grid performance, and the status …

Rate Design for the Energy Transition: Getting the Most out of Flexible Loads on a Changing Grid

Decarbonization and clean energy policy goals are fundamentally changing grid planning and operations. The two dominant grid planning challenges and cost drivers are now resource adequacy, to provide reliability during net peak load hours, and time shifting of renewable electricity from periods of excess generation to periods when it can be beneficially consumed. Rate designs established under the old paradigm are no longer aligned with marginal grid costs and are an impediment to realizing environmental goals. Aligning customer responses to retail rates with grid needs now requires more complex multi-part dynamic rates. Predictable and reliable impacts of these dynamic rates …

Utility-Scale Energy Storage: Technologies and Challenges for an Evolving Grid

The U.S. electricity grid connects more than 11,000 power plants with around 158 million residential, commercial, and other consumers. Energy storage technologies have the potential to enable several improvements to the grid, such as reducing costs and improving reliability. They could also enable the growth of solar and wind energy generation.

GAO conducted a technology assessment on (1) technologies that could be used to capture energy for later use within the electricity grid, (2) challenges that could impact energy storage technologies and their use on the grid, and (3) policy options that could help address energy storage challenges.

To address …

The Economics of Electricity Reliability

The physics of an electrical grid requires that the supply injected into the grid is always in balance with the quantity consumed. If that balance is not maintained, cascading outages are likely to disrupt supply to all consumers on the grid. In the past, vertically integrated monopoly utilities have ensured that supply is adequate to meet demand and maintain grid stability, but with deregulation of generation, assuring adequate supply has become much more complex. The unique characteristics of electricity distribution means that there are immense potential externalities among market participants from supply shortfalls. In this paper, we discuss the institutions …

OurEnergyPolicy Event Summary – Reliability and Resilience within Competitive Markets

This event summary highlights key comments made by industry experts at an OEP webinar in March 2023. Featuring panelists from the Energy Choice Coalition, Edison Electric Institute, and C3 Solutions in a discussion on competition in energy markets and issues of cost, reliability and resiliency.…