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Over the past 15 years, a group of power sector professionals have followed — and fostered — developments in an era of enormous change for the sector. In December, the group met in Washington DC for the 54th and final… View Summary +

In the first blog post in this series, we outlined how our new manual, Electric Cost Allocation for a New Era, looks comprehensively at the process of dividing utility costs among customer classes — and proposes several ways it… View Summary +

Change is in the air. European leaders agreed in December that Europe would adopt a net-zero emissions target for 2050. The European Commission announced that it will put forward new legislation by March to enshrine climate neutrality in law. View Summary +

Setting electric utility rates has traditionally been a three-step process: first, determining the revenue requirement; second, determining how to equitably divide costs among classes of ratepayers; and third, designing the rates themselves. That second step, cost allocation, is a… View Summary +

简介 电力系统最基本的规则是发输用电必须同时完成。多年来，电网运营商一直在确定系统的负荷，并通过增加可用的发电机来满足需求、调整供电。 然而，现在供应侧出现了快速爬坡和高度灵活的联合循环燃气轮机发电等新技术，需求侧也出现了智能热水器和储能等新技术，另外，输电能力和系统运行也得到了改善。这些新技术共同创造了巨大的机会，使电力系统比以往更加灵活。… View Summary +

Changing the course of a sailboat requires coordinated action. The skipper announces the manoeuvre to the crew, turns the rudder and works with the crew to readjust the sails. To achieve the maximum cruising speed with the prevailing winds and… View Summary +

中国的风能和太阳能装机容量世界第一，且有望成为“世界可再生能源的超级大国”。然而，中国也遇到了弃风限电问题。虽然近年来可再生能源弃电量有显著下降，但在很多省份仍然存在问题，且将随着风能和太阳能发电装机量的增长而持续成为挑战。幸运的是，政府部门正在制定诸多应对的战略措施。成功的关键要看这些战略是否协调一致。 近来，刊登在“气候政策”上的… View Summary +

China has the most installed wind and solar capacity in the world and has potential to become “the world’s renewable energy superpower.” However, China’s power sector has also struggled with extensive curtailment of wind and solar generation. Although renewables… View Summary +

国际电力改革和气候变化季报回顾近期全球电力行业和气候变化政策和监管的最新进展，并摘选一些我们认为对中国特别相关的进展，以供参考。 1) 美国得克萨斯州：德州“ERCOT”批发电力现货市场价格飙升。8月13日和15日，实时节点边际电价达到每兆瓦时9,000美元(人民币640元/千瓦时)，并保持了几次15分钟的定价间隔。8月份，ERCOT现货价格平均约为180美元/MWh，但全年平均价格预计不会远高于30美元/MWh。推高电价的主要因素是高温期间的空调需求。但行业内也广泛认为，价格飙升可以被视作ERCOT正常运作的一部分。ERCOT与PJM和其他几个美国批发市场不同，它没有单独的容量支付(固定成本支付)。也就是说，ERCOT是一个“单一电量”市场，这意味着发电商必须通过竞争，从现货市场价格中收回电量成本和容量成本(“固定成本”)，这通常在很大程度上取决于一年中每千瓦时市场价格达到最高水平的几个小时。同时，ERCOT有一个强化的市场监测方案，以确保任何价格飙升都是市场公平和竞争的结果，而不是单个发电商(或一些串通的发电商)操纵市场的结果。… View Summary +

ERCOT (or the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas, the independent system operator of that state’s stand-alone wholesale market) has confounded the doomsayers once again. Despite dire predictions that ERCOT lacked sufficient generation capacity, it came through the peak summer season… View Summary +