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.

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.

Today, 95% of school buses in the United States are powered by diesel, emitting more than 40 toxic chemicals from their exhausts each day. The 24 million children who ride these school buses are exposed to five to 15 times more air pollutants than those who do not. In order to eliminate these harmful emissions, mitigate their health impacts on school-aged children, and reduce the effect of school transportation on climate change, policymakers should take action to electrify school bus fleets. This transition would be especially beneficial in regions prone to electricity supply disruptions caused by natural disasters, because electric school buses can also provide emergency backup power in the event of a grid failure. The challenge now is how to get it done – fast.

On March 16, the New York Public Service Commission quietly adopted a significant advancement in rate design. It did so as a result of a long proceeding on standby and buyback rates, in which AEE argued that owners of distributed generation not eligible for net metering (such as standalone storage facilities and institutions with combined-heat-and-power systems) were being overcharged for the customer-specific components of those rates. While the PSC action seemingly addressed a technical matter, the impact is a big win for advanced energy in New York, as it will lead to new rates much more favorable for a range of distributed energy resources (DERs).

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.