Advanced Energy Perspectives

Advanced energy is big business, representing $200 billion in revenues in the U.S. alone—on par with the pharmaceutical industry – and growing. This week the news is all about the green, and we don’t mean eco-friendly. We’re talking greenbacks. We have stories of financing models for energy storage and big-bucks deals for AEE member companies. Plus, the energy challenges of growing a different kind of green—marijuana.

Energy storage is a game changer. Ultimately, it could free the electric power system from matching generation and consumption on a minute-by-minute basis, saving electricity until it’s needed. Policymakers, utilities, and customers are beginning to recognize its value. Doug Little, chair of the Arizona Corporation Commission, summed up the potential of behind-the-meter (BTM) storage this way: “Energy storage technology is really the 'secret sauce’ for the future of residential rooftop solar.” At AEE, we agree, but add that it could be the secret sauce for numerous other applications - on both sides of the meter. That makes energy storage a key  technology for modernizing the energy grid and leading to an advanced energy future.

Saving energy saves money for homeowners, government agencies, schools and businesses – we all know that. Energy efficiency is also an integral segment of the broad advanced energy industry we represent here at AEE, a key part of making the energy we use secure, clean, and affordable. But it doesn’t always get the attention it deserves. Today, we hope to change that.

Even as the D.C. Circuit Court weighs the future of EPA’s Clean Power Plan (CPP), states across the country are figuring out how to reduce carbon emissions in the electric power sector. Some states are also beginning to look at how they will administer the compliance plan that gets them to their CPP targets. For many state air regulators, who are used to tracking pollutants coming out of power plant smokestacks, the idea of incorporating “outside the fence line” measures into CPP compliance plans can seem challenging. In particular, concerns might arise when it comes to any aspect of the CPP that involves providing credits to owners and operators of clean energy resources for the emission reductions produced by their technologies, whether as part of the Clean Energy Incentive Program (CEIP), allowance allocations in mass-based programs, or emission reduction credits in rate-based plans.

Some regulators might be tempted to restrict their plans to onsite measures, such as power plant efficiency upgrades, which might seem more familiar and easier to handle administratively. But those retrofits are more costly and provide limited emissions reductions. In contrast, measures like energy efficiency and renewable energy development are cheaper for customers and more effective in reducing emissions, but they are unlike the pollution controls many of these agencies have overseen in the past.

Given fiscal pressures on state budgets and limited staffing, what’s a regulator to do? The answer: go outside the agency for help.

This week, EPA’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) went to court. A full panel of the 10 active judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit heard legal arguments from a coalition of 27 states, led by West Virginia, claiming that EPA has overstepped its legal authority, and from the Department of Justice, defending EPA’s rule. The hearing was the hottest ticket in town, complete with paid line standers, with excess onlookers steered into an overflow room, but we at AEE, as an intervenor in the case in support of EPA, had a front row seat. So… what does it all mean? Advanced Energy Perspectives is here to help you sort out the legal news and find out what matters.