Advanced Energy Perspectives

This week, all eyes are on the Silver State as a much-anticipated clean energy bill moves through the legislative process on a short timeline. Taking on electric vehicles, transmission, wholesale electricity markets, energy efficiency, energy storage, integrated resource planning, economic development tariffs, net metering, and more, State Senator Chris Brooks’s SB 448 “New Energy Economy Act” is poised to inject new economic life into Nevada by harnessing the clean energy transition. With the session scheduled to end May 31, time is short to get this landmark legislation over the finish line.

This legislative session, Colorado is on its way toward modernizing how electricity infrastructure is built and propelling the interstate conversation on grid regionalization. Passed by the Colorado Senate and approved by its first committee in the House, bipartisan Senate Bill 72  would put Colorado on the map for leading the West toward a regional electricity market that helps the Rocky Mountain State capitalize on its immense resources and give households and businesses from New Mexico to Washington State the affordable clean energy they want. All it will take is one last push in the Colorado House of Representatives.

Texas’ February winter weather emergency dominated energy news nationwide. Now it’s dominating proposals in the Texas legislature. Following historic electricity outages, it’s no surprise grid reliability issues have come to the forefront of lawmakers’ priority list, with proposed legislation focusing on everything from distributed energy resources to various commission reforms. We turned to AEE’s PowerSuite to parse out which bills at play in the Lone Star State are generating the most buzz and share the measures we’re keeping our eyes on.

For the past two years, states, advanced energy developers, and corporate buyers of clean energy have expressed interest in creating competitive wholesale electricity markets in the Southeast. They see these markets as potentially reducing consumer costs and facilitating the cost-effective achievement of state and corporate clean energy goals. As calls in the region to study the creation of competitive wholesale market mechanisms in the region steadily grew, surprising news leaked in July that several utilities in the Southeast, including Southern Co., Duke Energy, and the Tennessee Valley Authority, were talking about a new platform for power trading called the Southeast Energy Exchange Market (SEEM), culminating in a filing with FERC in February. The question now: is SEEM a step toward wholesale market competition and greater access to advanced energy in the region, or a preemptive strike by the region’s utilities to avoid true competition? 

Last week, the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) issued its final order in a proceeding to examine Duke Energy Indiana’s coal-fired unit commitment decisions during the Fall of 2019. While the IURC ultimately declined to order Duke to refund customers for the financial losses it knowingly incurred, the Commission rightly acknowledged that today’s changing energy landscape has complicated the way coal plants should operate. AEE had hoped that the IURC would go further to protect customers from the financial harm caused by Duke’s uneconomic operating practices, but the Commission did push Duke to move toward a better decision-making process for future commitment decisions. With those now under a bit more scrutiny, we look forward to working with Duke on the alternatives we proposed to help the utility give up its costly coal addiction in its 2021 Integrated Resource Plan.