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Driven by a variety of factors, including the falling costs of solar technology, distributed generation is growing nationally by about 30 percent per year. Continued growth in customer generation resources and more consumer choice will challenge utilities and regulators as they work to design equitable rates. In a presentation before the Power Supply Task Force o...
Energy regulators engage in a complex balancing act of many, at times, competing objectives—crafting a plan to comply with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, strategically deploying grid resources, encouraging energy efficiency, addressing climate change, while also ensuring fairness, universal access, and social justice. In markets ...
As state officials begin to determine how their states will comply with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Power Plan (CPP), they should recognize that the new requirements represent an opportunity for innovative thinking.In a presentation at the National Summit on Smart Grid and Climate Change, David Littell emphasized that the CPP is not a...
New England’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) has produced enviable results. In the program’s first eight years, its member states achieved a 95 percent decrease in petroleum-based power generation and a 63 percent increase in non-hydro renewables. As the first cap-and-trade program in the United States to cover carbon emissions from power plants, R...
Although individual utility companies own the power plants and lines that generate and carry electricity to consumers, many have joined regional transmission operators (RTOs), which coordinate resources over a broader geographic area to secure greater system reliability and reduce costs. RTOs (also called independent system operators or ISOs) typically span many ...
The power sector is a major source of U.S. air emissions, particularly greenhouse gas emissions. Accordingly, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Power Plan (CPP) requires a 32 percent reduction of carbon emissions below 2005 levels by 2030 from today’s power fleet. With the spotlight on the CPP and the EPA’s final decision on new Nationa...
With the pending release of the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s final Clean Power Plan (CPP) rule, planning for compliance must begin in earnest. If viewed as an opportunity for positive change, the CPP can be a springboard for energy regulators to redefine their thinking on innovation, resource options, and future objectives. At a National Gove...
Energy efficiency, which provides numerous benefits to the utility system, participants, and society, is the lowest-cost resource. In the United States, non-end-use benefits alone can justify the entire cost of an energy efficiency program. In speaking to stakeholders in a potential energy efficiency resource standard (EERS) process in New Hampshire, David Littel...
