Governors, state legislators, and regulators who are on the front lines of America’s energy affordability and reliability problems are in search of immediate solutions. What won’t work? Propping up old power plants, waiting in line for new gas turbines to become available, and hoping nascent technologies come to the rescue. None of these steps do anything to solve the immediate problems of supply shortfalls and rising energy prices. 

But there are solutions. A lot of them. 

Advanced Energy United’s new playbook is designed to show policymakers how they can leverage a whole suite of advanced energy technologies and policy solutions as they tackle the three major energy trends today: rising demand, rising reliability threats, and rising costs. 

Our playbook gives political leaders a guide for meeting these challenges head-on by harnessing the power of advanced energy with three big goals in mind: building more advanced energy infrastructure faster, deploying and maximizing grid-edge solutions, and directing state and utility investments towards advanced energy instead of wasteful, backwards-looking solutions. In other words, we need to build it, make it flexible, and make it affordable.

Over the next 18 months, Advanced Energy United will drive an offensive legislative and regulatory agenda that puts these solutions to work. Our advocacy teams are on the ground, in the statehouses and at the agencies and commissions, focused on building support on both sides of the aisle for greater speed around project approval and construction of critical energy infrastructure, faster connectivity for projects to the grid, and clearing the way for no nonsense technology upgrades that will contain costs and save ratepayer dollars. 

We’re also laser focused on harnessing consumer-led power and putting distributed and demand side solutions to work at scale. Whether its grid resiliency at homes, small businesses and schools, or hardening the system to sustain extreme weather events and keeping the lights on during peak hours, these tools have proven their value during public power shutoffs and in times of crisis. On an even greater scale, they can produce real, dispatchable power while also working to reduce demand on the overall system. 

From day one, Advanced Energy United was built as a states-focused, multi-technology business organization. Our approach is informed by the understanding that there is no single answer or "magic wand" for our energy challenges. Our energy system is complex and interconnected, and ensuring that peoples energy needs are met requires state policymakers to take advantage of all the different kinds of advanced energy technologies — from large-scale (i.e. solar, wind, storage, geothermal, and advanced transmission) to distributed (i.e. residential resources and VPPs, EV charging, electric efficiency and appliances) — working together to make the grid more efficient, reliable, and affordable.  

This approach is core to our DNA, and after nearly 15 years of helping state leaders from across the country and across the political spectrum achieve their energy goals, we’re proud to be able to provide this playbook as a resource and introduction to the policy and technology solutions available for decisionmakers right now. The speed of technology innovation can be dizzying, and states – the laboratories of democracy – continue to develop new ways to better solve their energy challenges. Decisionmakers would be wise to learn from what’s been done before, and lead where leadership is needed.