The Current
Blog
Academic Studies On Savings From Organized Regional Electricity Markets
October 2021
Independently operated electricity markets can reduce wholesale electricity costs by improving efficiency and cost-effectively managing variable renewable generation. Skeptics have questioned these benefits, asserting a lack of unbiased evidence. However, they have not addressed the academic studies showing that markets have produced savings, but that some utilities have offset the savings by folding other costs into their customers’ retail rates.
This highlights two separate questions: (1) whether utilities should participate in organized wholesale electricity markets, even acknowledging that the markets can be improved; and (2) how to structure utility incentives to ensure they cost-effectively serve customers. Conflating these questions may lead us to miss the benefits of such markets as well as the opportunity to focus on the real problems ... (read more here and at R Street).
A Greenhouse Gas 23,500x More Potent Than CO2 May Lurk In Infrastructure Needed For Clean Energy Transition—But There Are Alternatives and Regulatory Solutions
By Katie Waters, ReGrid Intern
June 2021
The federal government is projected to invest $100 billion in the next four years on power infrastructure. In building a leaner, cleaner electricity system, we must not only use more efficient technologies that result in lower energy loss, but also consider less harmful alternatives to the potent greenhouse gases commonly used in large-scale infrastructure today ... (read more).
FERC’s DER Framework: A Critical Puzzle Piece To a Reliable, Renewable Power System Through Customer Technologies
October 2020
Today’s technologies could empower electricity customers to cut harmful emissions and contribute to a reliable grid while reducing bills—with a few taps on a smartphone. Some barriers to this vision are being eliminated as the agency overseeing the U.S. electricity grid recently finalized a framework that will help modernize a regulatory system built around last century’s power plants. Meanwhile, recent outages in California from a perfect storm of extreme conditions highlight the importance of these reforms and needed complementary actions ... (read more).