Advanced Energy Perspectives

Since the start of this year’s legislative sessions, Advanced Energy Economy has been tracking energy legislation across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Congress through its online PowerSuite platform. PowerSuite provides policy tracking by policy professionals. In the process, we have identified several trends in how states are contemplating the future of their energy, transportation, and building sectors. The bills described in this post, which range from simply introduced to fully signed into law, by no means represent every bill in the country filed this year, but are rather indicative of the attention being devoted to each topic by lawmakers. What follows represents the top 10 state energy legislative issues of 2022.

A new trend is emerging as a growing number of governors and state legislatures are taking action to electrify their state-owned motor vehicles. By accelerating their own transition to clean transportation fleets, states are leading by example while saving taxpayer money, lowering maintenance requirements, reducing emissions, and contributing to energy independence.

Like anyone in construction, renewable energy developers are all too familiar with process hurdles and delays. But patience wears thin. In the vast PJM Interconnection region stretching from DC to Illinois, a huge pool of solar, wind, and battery storage projects are stuck in the grid operator’s Interconnection queue, often waiting years for technical and cost studies and final approvals needed to connect to the grid. This usually behind-the-scenes issue moved to center stage this month when PJM proposed a dramatic step: a two-year pause on formally accepting new interconnection applications so that the grid operator can focus on speeding up delayed projects and clearing some of the backlog. That pause will come with much needed improvements to PJM’s processes to speed up future interconnection requests. Those improvements won’t solve all the problems with PJM’s interconnection process, but they are a good start, and they can’t come soon enough.

An historic investment of $7.5 billion in federal funds for EV charging is on its way, headed for the states. This federal funding, from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) passed by Congress and signed into law in November, will make it easier for state and local policymakers across America to accelerate the electric transportation transition and meet emissions reductions goals they have set for themselves. It will also pave the way for further growth of the more than 15,000 EV-related businesses in the U.S., with tens of thousands of Americans relying on the electric transportation industry for their livelihood. The time is now for states to set themselves up to make the most of this opportunity.