Advanced Energy Perspectives

Imagine having an abundance of cheap, advanced energy resources at your fingertips, but instead proposing to build another natural gas plant. This is what Nevada utility NV Energy is proposing in its 2024 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP). 

Earlier this summer, thanks in large part to the leadership of Senator Dawn Euer and Representative Arthur Handy, Rhode Island took a significant stride towards meeting its clean energy goals by passing the 2024 Energy Storage Systems Act, which Governor Dan McKee signed into law on June 26th. In doing so, Rhode Island joined many of its neighbors in making energy storage a key part of its energy transition strategy. 

Making the transition to a 100% clean, fully electrified economy will help cut emissions, lower costs, and increase reliability—but it will require more critical minerals and rare earth elements (REE). As we make this transition, the United States will become more energy secure, but will face a new landscape of commodity exposure. Today, we rely too often on tenuous supply chains, some of which are effectively monopolized by geostrategic competitors, for those resources. Despite record electric vehicle sales in 2023 and solar + storage topping all new energy deployed across the U.S., the advanced energy industry contends with highly concentrated sources for critical minerals such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, and copper, that power their technologies. Supply chain transparency, coupled with onshoring and friendshoring critical minerals production, diversified sourcing, and recycling play important roles in fortifying supply chains and reducing risk.   

Two energy trends are at play today in nearly every state: the demand for more electricity in general is rising for the first time in two decades, and the demand for a greater share of new electric-generating resources to be from clean resources is at an all-time high. Even before landmark legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) unlocked unprecedented levels of incentives to build new wind, solar and battery storage projects, nearly all new generating capacity added to the U.S. power grid was from clean energy. Now, there is also increasing pressure to accelerate the building of new clean energy resources thanks to growing energy needs driven by increased domestic manufacturing, more transportation electrification, and data centers and artificial intelligence. Many of the companies building these new facilities want them to be powered by renewable energy. 

On June 4, Governor Wes Moore cemented his place among clean energy champions when he announced that he intends to double down on Maryland’s commitment to 100% clean energy by 2035. Moore’s Executive Order, carrying the full force of law, created a Governor’s Subcabinet on Climate and directed all state agencies to develop Climate Implementation Plans that align with the state’s Climate Pollution Reduction Plan, identify funding and funding gaps to fully implement their plans, and consider how to advance environmental justice and address disproportionate impacts of climate change on underserved and overburdened communities. The order impacts the power sector, the transportation sector, and critically: the building sector.