6 item(s) were returned.
Associate Director
Berkeley Research Group
The National Capital Area Chapter for the U.S. Association for Energy Economics (NCAC-USAEE) held its annual energy policy conference on April 6th entitled “Energy Reset? Conflicting Forces in the Energy Space.” The event captured the economic implications of the announced and expected shift in energy policy between the Obama and Trump administrations. One reoccurring theme was the evolving role of government and market influences. It began with Thad Hill, CEO and President of Calpine Corp., emphasizing the need for free “markets, not mandates” and Tom Pyle, President of the American Energy Alliance, detailing President Trump’s energy deregulation agenda. A panel… [more]
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Interim Director, Energy and Environment Program
The Aspen Institute
Coal isn’t coming back, although, with real investment in carbon capture and sequestration, it could continue to contribute to a clean energy economy. In 2006, coal accounted for nearly half of all electricity in the US; by 2016, it was down to 29%. The decrease in coal jobs and use by the electricity sector is because of economic reasons, as it has been outcompeted by low-cost natural gas. Building new wind and utility-scale solar generation is less expensive than building new coal plants, even without subsidies. States are already decarbonizing. While researching is Oil Profit legit, we found out about… [more]
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President & CEO
The Electricity Consumers Resource Council
On June 10, 2016, Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY), Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman, sent a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) regarding the state of organized wholesale electricity markets. This included questions on how federal and state energy subsidies affect organized markets and the jurisdictional “bright line” between state (retail) and federal (wholesale) authority. Deployment of new technologies, regulations, and subsidies are affecting the outcomes and compositions of electricity markets. The Congressmen are exploring whether the Federal Power Act should be altered to help markets… [more]
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Assistant Professor
Vanderbilt University
The rooftop solar market in the US, and especially in California, has experienced explosive growth in the last decade. At least in part this growth can be attributed to the government incentive programs, which effectively reduce the system costs. One of the most aggressive incentive programs is the California Solar Initiative (CSI), a rooftop solar subsidy program initiated in 2007 with the goal of creating 1,940 megawatts of solar capacity by 2016. The CSI program has been touted as a great success, and it certainly seems so: over 2,000 megawatts have been installed to date. But how much of this… [more]
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President
RENEWPR
The American wind energy industry has grown in spite of the “boom and bust” cycle of wind energy development fostered by the renewal-expiration-renewal cycle of the wind production tax credit (PTC). The PTC is one of the primary tools used to spur wind energy development and expired at the end of 2013. The result was a 92% drop in 2013 installations, compared to 2012. Extension of the PTC will likely be the subject of debate about so-called tax extenders during the upcoming “lame duck” session of Congress as the wind industry seeks an extension of the PTC through 2015. The… [more]
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After seeing the Production Tax Credit (PTC) extended through 2013 in the recent “fiscal cliff” legislation, the wind industry is now looking ahead to the tax reform debate. According to E&E Publishing several industry lobbyists are preparing for a renewed push for a longer-term extension of the PTC that would phase out over time. Based on industry analysis of the impact of the PTC, the American Wind Energy Association proposed a six-year tax credit phaseout, which specifies that “The tax credit would start at 100% of the current 2.2 cents a kilowatt-hour for projects started in 2013, and be phased… [more]
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