News

This electric vehicles magazine piece describes how recent FERC energy storage rules impact the evolving EV market. Read the entire Charged article here. Excerpts below:

While neither AEE nor its allies are quoted, this is a notable opinion piece weighing in against market intervention to save uneconomic coal and nuclear plants. We encourage you to read the entire Wall Street Journal opinion here (subscription req.). Excerpts below:

Tim Puko reports: The Energy Department is proposing a new plan to bail out failing nuclear and coal-fired power plants by forcing grid operators to take the electricity they produce, a move that could upend competitive power markets and raise prices for consumers.The plan—a draft now under White House review—isn’t the first attempt by President Donald Trump’s administration to help coal and nuclear businesses. Its goal is to stop a wave of plant closings for two years while the Energy Department studies which plants nationwide are critical to ensuring reliable power in case of attack or natural disaster. Administration officials say grid reliability is a national security issue....Tim goes on to explain competitive market dynamics, prior Administration efforts to support coal and nuclear plants, and includes AEE's perspective:Mr. Trump’s efforts so far have been blocked by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commissionand fought by a broad coalition of opponents.The country’s largest grid operator is also skeptical. “Our analysis…has determined that there is no immediate threat to system reliability,” PJM Interconnection LLC, which runs the power markets in 13 states across the mid-Atlantic and Midwest, said in a statement. “There is no need for any such drastic action.”Opponents say these types of plans undermine the competition in power markets that has lowered prices and that they could raise consumer costs by billions of dollars in an attempt to fight a problem that may not materialize. Those groups, including consumer advocates, the oil-and-gas lobby and renewable power companies, said Friday the newest proposal creates the same concerns.“The Administration’s plan to federalize the electric power system is an exercise in crony capitalism taken solely for the benefit of a bankrupt power plant owner and its coal supplier,” said Malcolm Woolf, who oversees policy at Advanced Energy Economy, a trade group representing business consumers.See the entire Wall Street Journal story here (subscription required).

           

Illinois Commerce Commission Improves Rule for Utility Investment in Cloud-Based Technology

In his update on the one-year anniversary of President Trump announcing U.S. pull out from the Paris climate deal, Brad Plumer reports: ...many of America’s largest corporations said they would honor the agreement anyway, vowing to pursue cleaner energy and cut emissions on their own... Plumer goes on to highlight major corporate trends, including those of AEE members, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Walmart, and includes AEE's perspective: A year later, there’s one area where that pledge is highly visible: renewable energy. Dozens of Fortune 500 companies, from tech giants like Apple and Google to Walmart and General Motors, are voluntarily investing billions of dollars in new wind and solar projects to power their operations or offset their conventional energy use, becoming a major driver of renewable electricity growth in the United States.“You’re definitely not seeing corporations slow down their appetite for renewables under Trump — if anything, demand continues to grow,” said Malcolm Woolf, senior vice president for policy at Advanced Energy Economy, a clean energy business group. “And it means that many utilities increasingly have to evolve to satisfy this demand.”Read the entire New York Times story here. 

Kevin Stark reports: The Illinois Attorney General’s Office doesn’t like a proposal by state regulators to let utilities recover the cost of cloud computing services.

Robert Walton reports: as the Internet of Things merges with grid edge technology, experts say the power sector is both more vulnerable and more secure. Two evolutions are taking place around the power sector today, which could make it more difficult to defend from a growing cyber threat.

A Forbes contributor notes: The Trump administration may try to resuscitate the coal industry by using laws that, in effect, conclude that national security is at stake because the reliability of the electric grid is at risk. That is a hard case to make both to Congress and to the public, which is experiencing stable electricity prices and cleaner options.

Kathiann Kowalski summarized her interview with AEE's Ray Fakhoury and Ohio AEE's Ted Ford: