Advanced Energy Perspectives

Following a year complicated by the unique challenges and constraints of responding to a public health crisis, the Colorado Legislature lost no time this legislative session diving into an ambitious, jam-packed policy agenda. With over 30 bills on advanced energy and transportation across the finish line by the time the Legislature gaveled out on June 8, this session proved to be another banner year for Colorado’s advanced energy industry. Taking this latest boon of policy wins together with its 62,000-strong (and growing) advanced energy workforce, Colorado has flexed its position of strength and once again showed itself to be a leader to watch in the West.

Offshore wind, electric vehicle (EV) technology, and workforce equity have emerged among the hottest advanced energy trends in 2021, with EVs alone making up three of the Top 10 issues considered by state lawmakers this year. In our latest webinar, “Equity, EVs & Offshore Wind: Top State Legislative Issues of 2021 and What’s Driving Them,” these topics were discussed by AEE and industry experts.

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.

Today, the United States faces a period of economic anxiety brought about by widening inequality, globalization, and technological transformation, made all the more acute by a global pandemic. This anxiety has heightened political appeals to prioritize domestic industry, combat economic adversaries, and protect American jobs. The advanced energy industry is uniquely positioned to help address this anxiety by creating middle-class jobs throughout the United States in a sector that’s poised for sustained and accelerating growth as the global economy transitions to clean, reliable, affordable resources. But it will take policy leadership to make the United States the arsenal of advanced energy prosperity. Here’s how.

In September 2020, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) generated buzz across the advanced energy industry when it issued a long-awaited order (Order 2222) opening up wholesale energy markets to aggregated distributed energy resources (DERs). In a new report, AEE set out to illuminate the benefits Order 2222 can unlock by showing various use cases for aggregated DERs in wholesale markets. If grid operators, known as Regional Transmission Operators/Independent System Operators (RTOs/ISOs), create a level playing field, the Order could increase interest and investment in various DER aggregations, improve grid reliability, and lower consumer costs. But they’re just starting the process of developing the market rules to implement Order 2222, RTO by RTO.