The RAPPORT, Europe edition, September 2023

电力系统规划：国际视野

随着双碳目标的持续推进，中国的能源和电力行业正面临新的发展形势。全球变暖带来的极端天气也给电力系统的安全运行带来巨大挑战。长期以来，中国的电力行业以五年规划为核心，为各种资源的投资（和淘汰）数量和类型提供高层指导。在能源转型和气候变化的双重挑战下，世界上的许多国家和地区都在进一步完善规划框架。本文从美国电力行业规划的实践出发，为中国改进电力规划和完善相关法律的制修订提出了一些建议，特别是完善电力系统在不同时间尺度上的展望与规划流程以及建立公开、透明的利益相关方参与体系。

在中国日益市场化的电力系统中，完善五年规划并辅以对电力行业滚动式、评估性的展望将有助于监测电力系统在不同时间尺度下满足可靠性的需求及脱碳进程，为中长期的电力综合资源规划和输电网络规划奠定基础。

本文是该系列报告之一，其余三篇报告分别为“支持高比例电气化，提高系统灵活性：相关法律政策概述及分析”，“法律支持可再生能源开启新篇章”以及“为电力现货市场的运行和监管建立法律基础以支持新型电力系统”

关于虚拟电厂发展的几条建议：纳入系统规划，完善市场参与

2021年以来，能源规划、碳达峰行动方案、新型储能指导意见等多份政策文件中都强调了虚拟电厂的发展，北京、内蒙古、浙江等多地也将虚拟电厂写入其“十四五”能源发展规划。在中国的双碳目标下，发展虚拟电厂对于促进清洁能源消纳，实现电力系统安全运行等方面，具备重要意义。

我们根据中国电力行业结构和电力市场的发展情况，对虚拟电厂这项智能电网技术在中国的发展提出一些不成熟的建议，具体包括1）把虚拟电厂纳入电力投资规划；2）把虚拟电厂纳入电网投资规划；3）确定虚拟电厂参与电力市场的模式和规则；4）确保虚拟电厂得到合理和公平的经济价值补偿。

容量补偿机制设计应如何“扬长避短”？

近年来，随着煤电倒挂现象以及电力现货市场的快速发展，容量补偿机制已成为热门话题。睿博能源智库之前已探讨过稀缺电价相关问题，而本文与E3共同撰写，旨在简要介绍美国容量补偿机制的设计原则，并结合中国国情，提出在中国电力市场实施容量补偿机制的建议。这些建议包括：

1）容量补偿机制不应是必须的，而应该根据当地电力资源稀缺情况决定是否实施；

2）容量补偿机制应该基于科学稳健的资源充足性评估过程，避免补偿不必要的资源，并且不应保证所有资源的成本回收；

3）容量补偿机制应该平等对待所有资源，包括需求侧资源；以及

4）容量补偿机制应该采取绩效问责制，对在系统紧张时无法提供电力的资源予以惩罚。

本文（精简版）首刊于《南方能源观察》（2023年3月23日）

Regret-ready: A briefing on United Kingdom proposals for the mandating of ‘hydrogen-ready’ gas boilers

The government of the United Kingdom is currently consulting on whether it should mandate that all new gas boilers sold from 2025 be ‘hydrogen-ready’ — that is, they can potentially be converted to run on pure hydrogen in case the gas network is ever converted. This policy change has been proffered as a ‘low-regrets’ policy change.   

The government is expected to take a decision on the use of hydrogen heating in 2026. Until such a decision is made, the mandating of ‘hydrogen-ready’ boilers seems to be a case of putting the cart before the horse. The vast majority of independent analysis suggests only a niche role for hydrogen in heating, with heat pumps and heat networks by far the most cost-effective technologies. Far from a ‘low-regrets’ option, the proposed mandate could create risks for heat decarbonisation and long-term disadvantages for consumers. There is a major risk of greenwashing leading to consumer confusion and delay, a risk that boiler prices increase and the potential for government to end up in a heat decarbonisation ‘blame-game.’ 

This brief details the risks of a ‘hydrogen-ready’ boiler mandate being made before the government’s decision on the use of hydrogen heating. The brief suggests that if hydrogen heating should be found favourable in 2026, only then should mandates around hydrogen boilers be considered and even then only in conjunction with a heatmapping process. Until such time, the proposed mandate of ‘hydrogen-ready’ boilers is also ‘regret-ready.’ 

Tapping the Mother Lode: Employing Price-Responsive Demand to Reduce the Investment Challenge

The rapid and parallel growth in both variable electricity production from wind and solar, and in large inherently flexible loads (such as electric vehicles and heat pumps) presents an opportunity to ensure that each transition is both reliable and affordable. In a future that will be increasingly capital-intensive, demand flexibility can significantly reduce the amount of infrastructure that must be financed. But much remains to be done to access that potential, most of which is beyond the reach of traditional approaches to demand response.

The primary focus must shift from strategies that require flexible demand to mimic centrally dispatched generation, to strategies that empower consumers to save money by linking their consumption more dynamically to daily fluctuations in variable supply. At a retail level, this includes adopting a series of innovations that widen consumers’ access to the untapped potential for flexible loads to reduce costs and lower electricity bills. At the wholesale level, it means attacking institutional practices that discriminate against flexible demand reliant on energy market pricing, and that artificially depress energy prices by pre-emptively committing consumers to pay for uneconomic investments through forward capacity mechanisms. Overall, it means progressively assessing and integrating responsive demand into forward resource planning and procurement processes.

This paper is one of a series of eight produced by ESIG’s Aligning Retail Pricing with Grid Needs Task Force, led by RAP’s Carl Linvill. The task force examined ways that retail pricing may be used more widely and more efficiently to allow flexible demand to respond to grid needs.

Discom Business Models Require Changes to Promote Distributed Energy Resources

In this third part of our distributed energy resources (DER) in India series, we look at changes to the current distribution company (discom) business models. These models can overcome the financial disincentives DERs often face. Instead, discoms can embrace and promote DERs to improve system efficiency, increase consumer savings, and address climate change goals.

This short paper discusses the reasons the current discom model should change and how regulators should listen to concerns many discoms have when it comes to the changes associated with promoting DERs.

The paper also discusses the steps regulators can take when it comes to transforming the current discom business model, including:

• Require discoms to evaluate non-wires alternatives to meet system needs where practical and cost effective
• Require discoms to create distribution system platforms
• Require discoms to modify tariff design to send unbundled granular price signals to facilitate DERs
• Require discoms to develop DER programs
• Develop a process to effectuate changes to the discom business model

Read Part 1: Empowering Retail Customers: Improve Efficiency, Lower Costs and Reduce Emissions

Read Part 2: Facilitating Distributed Energy Resources Requires Policy Actions 

Electricity market reform, beyond the gas crisis

In the past, power market reform happened to increase efficiency, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, or to improve reliability and security of supply. Today in Europe, the desire to further change the market stems from the ongoing energy crisis. As the European Union introduces a new round of electricity market reforms, RAP explores where new market regulation would usefully tackle the root causes of the ongoing energy crisis, meet consumer needs and help Europe move away from fossil fuels.

The current energy crisis is a gas crisis. It is a nightmarish scenario stemming from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the resulting supply disruption of cheap pipeline gas, converging with decommissioning of nuclear capacity and low hydro output. Hedging strategies by energy suppliers and consumers fell short and unprecedented wholesale market prices for fossil gas made consumer gas and electricity bills explode.

Strategies must therefore improve hedging in the market if Europe is to mitigate the energy crisis – and prepare for the next. To this end, RAP recommends replacing the role of fossil gas with renewables, demand-side flexibility and energy efficiency. More precisely, this requires:

• Recognising and promoting demand-side resources as a vital system resource.
• Building out more solar and wind, and doing so better and faster.
• Protecting basic consumer needs better than in the past.

For policymakers weighing whether to implement these actions, the authors explain the various considerations.

Power Outage Rapid Response Toolkit

Interruptions in electricity supply – ‘the lights going out’ – make for arresting headlines and capture public attention. Yet it is strikingly rare for any kind of electricity generation shortfall to trigger blackouts: major reliability events are nearly always the result of grid failure incidents such as wires frying or being damaged by trees.

Furthermore, none of the recent events that have occurred in markets with high shares of renewables have been caused by over-reliance on renewables to provide sufficient electricity supplies. In spite of this, the fossil energy industry has a track record of seizing on any opportunity to promote the narrative that more fossil generation is needed and that the growing shift to renewables is undermining and driving up the cost of secure supplies.

To dispel many of the myths surrounding the causes of recent significant power outages, the toolkit looks at four case studies: Texas 2021, California 2020, Great Britain 2019 and South Australia 2016.

These case studies prove it is important that advocates for a clean energy transition can set the record straight quickly, credibly and substantively. This package equips advocates with information and tools to respond quickly to the misinformation that spreads rapidly in the wake of power grid reliability events, and in particular:

• introduces the advocate to reliability events, and their causes and consequences; 
• provides a checklist for advocates to understand and analyse emerging reliability events (a separate, interactive checklist can be downloaded here: Power Grid Rapid Response Checklist);
• provides holding lines for advocates during the information vacuum that normally proceeds a reliability event;
• explains why large-scale reliability events are almost always caused by network failures and not renewable electricity generation.

Using Benefit-Cost Analysis to Improve Distribution System Investment Decisions: Issue Brief

Electric utility regulators are paying closer attention than ever before to individual distribution system investment decisions, in part because of the rapid growth in distributed energy resources and the need for new grid modernization investments.

To achieve the best outcomes for ratepayers and society, regulators need robust and comprehensive tools for evaluating utility investments. Benefit-cost analysis is, in many cases, a superior analytical tool to traditional least cost/best fit methods. It can recognize and maximize a wider range of benefits and consider a broader range of impacts. It also allows for a more detailed analysis.

This issue brief compares the two analytical approaches and describes the many opportunities to use benefit-cost analysis (BCA) in new and better ways.

Author John Shenot and contributors Elaine Prause and Jessica Shipley also explore five crucial questions that regulators must answer as they shape benefit-cost analysis policies for their jurisdictions:

• In what proceedings will we use BCA methods?
• Who will conduct BCAs?
• How will we engage stakeholders?
• Which cost-effectiveness test(s) will we use?
• How will we use BCA results to make decisions?

For those interested in a more thorough treatment of the topic, a companion reference report offers more detail as well as many examples from state regulatory proceedings.