Advanced Energy Perspectives

As the deadline for comment on the EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan approaches, more and more states are seeking input from stakeholders. In drafting their comments, the state utility commissions and air regulator offices have taken different approaches: some are holding formal public hearings, some are accepting public comments, and some are conducting private or invitation-only stakeholder meetings. AEE is tracking the comment drafting process in our 23 partner states, plus Texas and Florida. We have already submitted comments with our partners in Arkansas, Ohio, and Virginia, and we submitted our own set of comments in Florida.

In Texas, stakeholders began holding invitation-only meetings attended by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), Texas Public Utilities Commission (PUC) and Texas utilities and power producers. Donna Nelson, Chair of the PUC, publicly questioned the future of Texas’ deregulated energy market. “There’s almost nothing in this rule that there could be any other outcome other than the junking of the competitive market,” she said. The CEO of Luminant, Texas’ biggest retail power generator, Mac MacFarland said that the proposed rule “not only overestimates the feasible efficiencies at existing power plants, but also the called-for steep increase in renewable energy sources. The plan disproportionately impacts Texas, and, in our opinion, it oversteps the law.”

This is the third in a series of blog posts on EPA’s forthcoming rules on greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) from existing power plants – known as 111(d) for the section of the Clean Air Act under which the rules are being developed. In this series we have been discussing how 111d offers us a unique opportunity to modernize the grid for the 21^st Century while meeting GHG reduction targets. We have already discussed how we can create a high-performing grid that is efficient, clean, affordable, reliable and resilient, by making investments in advanced energy technologies and services. In this post we argue that an important way to achieve these objectives is to create a customer-focused grid, which will require modernizing not just the physical grid, but the way utilities are regulated.

D.C. is buzzing about the newly announced EPA carbon emission rule. Bright and early Monday morning, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy announced the draft rule, which affects carbon emissions from existing power plants. Over the next 120 days, EPA will be accepting comments on the proposal, which will be finalized in June of next year. The draft rule sets an emission rate standard for each state to meet by 2030, and states must submit implementation plans to EPA. AEE has long seen the much-anticipated EPA rule as an opportunity for the country to modernize the electric power system and, with the inclusion of advanced energy technologies among the options for states to use for compliance, an opportunity for the advanced energy industry.

In the first blog post in this series, we talked about how EPA’s forthcoming rule on greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) from existing power plants – known as 111(d) for the section of the Clean Air Act under which the rules are being developed – presents a unique opportunity to modernize the power grid for the 21^st Century. We made the argument that we could create a high-performing grid that was efficient, clean, and affordable, and that advanced energy technologies could help make the use of both energy and capital more efficient. In this post, we look at some other important aspects of a high-performing grid, namely reliability, resiliency, and restoration – the “3Rs” of an electric power system we can count on. As with efficiency in energy and capital, we can achieve improved reliability, resiliency, and restoration by using many of the same technologies that can drive down GHG emissions.

Our electricity system has served us well as an engine of economic growth for many years, but it is increasingly out of step with the needs of a 21st Century economy and society, both of which rely more and more on electricity – and the services it enables – around the clock, every day. Changes are under way to modernize the electric power system, but the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) upcoming rulemaking on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for existing power plants presents a unique opportunity to accelerate the transition to a high-performing grid.

What defines a high-performing grid? It is one that is efficient, reliable, resilient, clean, affordable, and consumer focused. Can it be all of these things? Yes. The same advanced energy technologies that make the grid more efficient and resilient can also keep it affordable and make it more responsive to customers. In this series of blog posts, we will address all of these. But for now, let’s focus on three aspects that are closely related: efficient, clean and affordable.