Advanced Energy Perspectives

In Nevada, the need to significantly expand power generation, transmission capacity, and regional resource sharing is urgent as the state’s energy grid struggles to keep up with rapid economic and industrial growth. Northern Nevada’s energy grid, for example, could quadruple in size as the data-storage industry continues to grow and expand in the Reno-Sparks area and beyond. Strengthening and expanding transmission lines will be especially critical to ensure that the growing demand for energy can be met as new advanced energy resources come online.

In response to this need, nearly four years ago, Senate Bill 448 created a Regional Transmission Coordination Task Force to help shape Nevada’s energy future. The Task Force is responsible for studying issues and policies related to transmission development and regional electricity markets, both of which are key solutions to deal with load growth.  

On Monday, Advanced Energy United sent a letter to state energy offices in the West offering our perspective on a study commissioned by the Western Markets Exploratory Group (WMEG) that compares the benefits of several proposed Western day-ahead market scenarios. The study has been filed in multiple dockets in states across the West, but it offers an incomplete view of the benefits that can accrue to the West in a day-ahead market.

As policymakers, industry, and advocates lean into the challenge of decarbonizing the economy, hydrogen has for some become the New New Thing, an energy source that gives off no harmful emissions and is not dependent on the weather. As with many technologies that experience a surge in interest, there is both excitement and skepticism about hydrogen as a clean energy source, prompting AEE to ask: What is the appropriate role of hydrogen in an advanced energy economy? What should policymakers be considering when hydrogen is proposed as a solution for reaching a 100% clean energy future? We don’t have all the answers to these questions, but we do have a set of principles for approaching them.

Last month, President Biden and a bipartisan group of senators announced an agreement around the framework of an infrastructure deal. This comes after several rounds of bipartisan negotiations between the White House and the Senate – first with Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), the ranking member of the committee taking the lead on surface transportation reauthorization in the Senate, and then with a bipartisan coalition led by Senators Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Rob Portman (R-OH). While there is much to debate in what is – and isn’t – included in the package, what is clear, from a new AEE study, is that the way to get the biggest bang for the federal infrastructure buck is investing in advanced energy.

Since taking office on January 20, President Biden has begun to lay out his plan for addressing four intertwined crises facing the country: the public health crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, the associated economic crisis, climate change, and a legacy of racial injustice traced back to our country’s earliest roots. He has signed a series of executive orders aimed at addressing these crises, including rejoining the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and outlining a whole-of-government response to climate change with a focus on clean procurement, environmental justice, and support for communities dependent on fossil fuel industries. And he has outlined plans to push two legislative packages: the American Rescue Plan, focused on immediate COVID-19 response, and the Build Back Better Plan, focused on economic recovery. While details of the Build Back Better Plan are still forthcoming, at its core is a massive investment in infrastructure, prioritizing clean energy, domestic manufacturing, and union jobs. At AEE, we have some ideas about how to get the most economic bang out of federal bucks by investing in advanced energy.