E&E News summarized a letter from former FERC members urging the organization to develop RTOs nationwide, citing a supportive tweet from AEE’s Jeff Dennis. Read snippets below and the full article here.   

Nine former members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission are urging it to help spur the development of organized power markets, which they say are needed nationwide to support clean energy.

Their push comes as the Biden administration is seeking to halve greenhouse gas emissions economy-wide by 2030 and establish a national clean electricity standard to decarbonize the power sector. Wholesale power markets are already playing a leading role in decarbonizing electricity resources, with more than 80% of renewable resources having been built in parts of the U.S. with organized markets, according to the former commissioners.

In addition to supporting clean energy, RTOs bring transparency, reliability and consumer cost benefits, Jeff Dennis, managing director of the clean energy trade group Advanced Energy Economy, said in a Twitter thread about the letter.

"Organized wholesale markets provide a platform to scale investment if we do them right, and their integrated operations over broad regions is essential to get to 100 percent clean," Dennis wrote.

Efforts are underway to create or expand RTOs in the West and the Southeast, but they are still in preliminary stages.

Read the full article here.