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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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August 3, 2015
Hit the Ground Running on EPA’s Clean Power Plan: 12 Steps for Effective, Least-Cost Compliance
- John Shenot ,
- Ken Colburn
EPA is expected to finalize its Clean Power Plan (also known as its “111(d) rule”) today. Once published in the Federal Register, states may have only one year (or in some cases, two years) to develop initial… View Summary +
June 25, 2015
Reliability Standard: I Do Not Think it Means What you Think it Means
Much like the character Inigo Montoya who, in the movie The Princess Bride questions Vizzini’s relentless repetition of the word “inconceivable,” I find myself wondering whether many of those who insist over and over again that the EPA’s… View Summary +
June 1, 2015
The Clean Power Plan: Just Say, “No Regrets”
- John Shenot ,
- David Farnsworth
Much of the controversy associated with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed Clean Power Plan has to do with disputes about whether the agency has the authority to set greenhouse gas emissions limits for power plants based only on… View Summary +
May 29, 2015
A Reliability History Lesson
- Christopher James
A new discipline—environmental history—recently came to my attention while helping my Chinese colleagues develop plans to manage air quality. They wanted to know what Los Angeles did in the 1950s and 1960s to clean up its air and what London… View Summary +
May 22, 2015
Complying with the Clean Power Plan While Delivering Affordable, Reliable Power
- Ken Colburn ,
- John Shenot
Yesterday, the National Association of Clean Air Agencies (NACAA) released an important new resource: Implementing EPA’s Clean Power Plan: A Menu of Options (disclosure: RAP provided technical assistance and helped write the Menu). We believe the… View Summary +
April 18, 2015
Do Pay-for-Performance Capacity Markets Deliver the Grid Resiliency Outcomes We Need?
- Michael Hogan ,
- Michael O’Boyle ,
- Sonia Aggarwal
Competitive wholesale power markets are designed to sustain needed investment through market participants hedging risks in response to transparent pricing in the energy and ancillary services markets. But in practice, it’s been a challenge to realize market prices fully reflective… View Summary +
April 9, 2015
Tracking Renewable Energy for Compliance with the Clean Power Plan
Since the rule’s proposal in June 2014, Clean Power Plan compliance discussions have been weighing the potential benefits of regional versus single-state approaches, and balancing possible lower program costs and administrative burdens against state concerns over compromising sovereignty. More recently,… View Summary +
February 9, 2015
Energy Efficiency as an Air Quality Strategy: Connecting the Dots Using a Mobile Source Analogy
- Ken Colburn
Every year states invest more than $6 billion in energy efficiency programs, which also improve air quality. Yet, states rarely receive any credit for the resulting emissions reductions! The benefits don’t stop with air quality. Energy efficiency not only reduces… View Summary +
February 5, 2015
Tackling 111(d) Compliance Planning: It’s Not a SIP!
- Christopher James
States asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for flexibility in crafting plans to meet the requirements of the proposed Clean Power Plan (also known as 111(d), after the pertinent section of the Clean Air Act), and EPA listened. EPA’s… View Summary +
December 1, 2014
Minimum Bills: An Effective Alternative to High Customer Charges
- Jim Lazar
One wouldn’t necessarily expect the components of an electric bill to make headlines, but recent decisions in some states have caused controversy. The controversy involves the size of the monthly customer charge applied to residential consumers. Until recently, U.S. regulators… View Summary +