Utility Dive published this commentary by AEE Director Caitlin Marquis and Electricity Consumers Resource Council President and CEO Devin Hartman on a consumer-focused approach to reliability and resilience in energy policy, based on the evolving characteristics of the power industry. See the entire Utility Dive article here. 

The past two years of federal energy policy debates have focused on two key related areas: reliability and resilience. For more years than that, public debate has centered on the potential challenges associated with the retirement of traditional grid resources like coal and nuclear plants. Throughout all of this, the consumer voice has largely been ignored, instead overruled by incumbent electricity generators and political interests.

Consumers are ostensibly the beneficiaries of increased reliability and resilience — and they are surely the ones paying for it. The time has come for large energy consumers in the United States to insist that electricity policy puts consumers first...

In addition to ignoring cost, the recent reliability and resilience debate has also ignored that the power sector has changed, bringing new opportunities for flexible, cost-effective, and often customer-driven services that enhance reliability and resilience without costly and onerous mandates. Advanced energy technologies — whether storage, combined heat and power, renewables or fuel cells — are fundamentally changing the economic characteristics of the electric power industry. Consumers of all shapes and sizes are recognizing the rapid drop in cost of new technologies and are taking greater control of their electricity use by investing in them...

See the entire Utility Dive article here.