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RAP experts keep their finger on the pulse of the energy sector and provide timely analysis of topics impacting stakeholders TODAY.
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Utilities Can Get a “LEG” Up with Beneficial Electrification—But Regulators Also Have to be Ready
In a series of blog posts over the last several weeks, RAP has spotlighted the opportunities associated with beneficial electrification—the practice of electrifying appliances and machines that are currently powered by fossil fuels. Embracing beneficial electrification provides a significant opportunity… View Summary +
Beneficial Electrification: A Growth Opportunity
In the first blog post in this series, we observed that rapid power sector transformation presents challenges but also opportunities for utilities. As older, inflexible resources are retired, cleaner, more distributed resources are being deployed by companies and customers… View Summary +
Beneficial Electrification: A Key to Better Grid Management
As highlighted in our earlier post, Beneficial Electrification: Opportunity Knocks for Utilities, the power sector is rapidly transforming. Today’s older, inflexible resources are being retired, the grid is becoming more flexible, resources are getting cleaner and more distributed, and… View Summary +
States will Decide Future of U.S. Energy
With the coming change of administration in the U.S., speculation on the future of the Clean Power Plan (CPP) is running high. During the campaign, the president-elect made his views on climate change—it’s a hoax perpetrated by China—perfectly clear; and,… View Summary +
Beneficial Electrification: Opportunity Knocks for Utilities
It is increasingly apparent that power sector transformation isn’t happening in the future; it’s occurring now. Already, resources are cleaner and more distributed, previously docile customers are actively seeking opportunities to save, consume, and even produce energy in new ways,… View Summary +
Retooling Regulation: Is Integrating Energy and Environmental Regulation Legal?
Broad state authority under the Clean Air Act means regulatory reforms would likely be permitted This is the third of RAP’s four-part series on the merits of greater integration of energy and environmental planning and regulation. The first piece… View Summary +
Retooling Regulation: a Closer Look at Integrating Energy and Environmental Policy
Part one of this series described why it is increasingly necessary to integrate energy and environmental planning and introduced one way to do so, the E-Merge approach. Improvements in public health science, detection technologies, and modeling over the last… View Summary +
Is It Time to Retool Regulation for Clean Air, Clean Energy?
Looking at the electric power industry today brings to mind the well-known April 1970 dispatch from Apollo 13: “Houston, we have a problem.” Actually, we have several. Prominent among them is the growing permeation of environmental issues into energy… View Summary +
The Duck is Learning to Fly in California and Hawaii
I took a look at electricity data recently from California and Hawaii and I saw a duck that was learning to fly. Well, what I saw was that the so-called Duck Curve–the load shape some grid operators… View Summary +
Hot Showers and Cool Rides: Wind, Sun, and the Duck Curve
As we look out over the power sector transformation that is unmistakably upon us, there are those who warn of the sacrifices, the risks, and the costs that could come with more and more intermittent electricity generation—wind… View Summary +
